Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/21

Rh Protestant emigration from Ireland, 85 — Emigration returns, 86 — Occupations of emigrants, 88, 89.

CHAPTER III.

The responsibilities of a former generation of landlords, 91—The position of an Irish landlord 80 years ago, 92—The nature and origin of rack-rents, 93—In former days most of the land let on lease as pasture, 94—The substitution of "la petite culture" for pasture, 95—The inability of the landlord to prevent subdivision of farms, 96—His relations with his fellow countrymen, 97—The middleman often, though not always, sublet against the will of the landlord, 98, 99—The landlord could not have foreseen the curse to the country the middleman would become, 100, 101—The introduction of a middleman occasioned sometimes by benevolent motives, 102, 103—He was intended to act as a link between the peasantry and their landlords, 104, 105—It was not his economical position but his individual defects which produced the evils complained of, 106, 107—The middleman not much worse than his neighbours, 108, 109—It is as fair to take the highest rent as to employ labour at the lowest rate of wages, 110, 111—The one course as fraught with evil consequences as the other, 112—The rise of the middleman, 113—The middleman in Ulster, 114—Competition and rack-rents in Ulster, 115—The Ulster tenant-right is the creature of competition, 116, 117—Prices given for the "good-will" in Down and Donegal, 118—These prices often represent no real value, 119—The disadvantage of the system to the incoming tenant, 120—The inconsistency of restricting the rent by Act of Parliament, and allowing the "good-will" to be put up to auction, 121—The devolution of tenancies of constant occurrence, 122—The fraud on the landlord and on the incoming tenant, 123—The landlords seldom take advantage of competition but the tenants always do, 124, 125—Competition is an irrepressible force, 126—Is equally prevalent in every part of Ireland, 127—Some agency must have checked the prosperity of Ireland, 128—The commercial jealousies of Great Britain, 129—Duties on Irish produce: cattle, wool, provisions,