Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/195

Rh not have so small a holding as that, though, if the tenants were there, I would not remove them; but from my experience, a tenant paying £25. per annum is as good a tenant as a larger one." (Q. 2,564)—" That would be a man holding 40 or 50 acres."—" Yes."

Even the Catholic Bishop of Cloyne, when pressed to name the minimum area on which a farmer could live, admits that "small farms, with any amount of industry, must be precarious," and that a tenant to be comfortable ought to have "20 acres or upwards;" while Mr. Curling declares "that he would not be disposed to give a lease even to an industrious and punctual tenant, unless his farm were over 15 acres in extent." Now, what is the necessary deduction from this evidence produced by Mr. Maguire himself on behalf of the tenant? If reason and not passion is to guide us, it must be conceded that a greater amount of intelligent energy than necessary is dissipated in the cultivation of land. At all events, if the champions of the tenant's cause are themselves found condemning small holdings and 15-acre leaseholds as unprofitable and "precarious" and if it is shown that the extinction of farms in Ireland has been hitherto almost entirely confined to that category, may not the landlords be absolved from the charge of undue consolidation?