Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/220

Rh Both arrangements may be thought by the impartial observer unfavourable to the two interests affected by it—the one to commerce, the other to agriculture—but inasmuch as each was a voluntary contract between persons who must be supposed capable of managing their own affairs, any legislative interference to amend the bargain might occasion greater mischief. For instance, a law requiring the ship to call at certain ports, or the landlord to let his land for what he might consider a longer term than was desirable, would be a grievance to both shipowner and landowner; they would probably protect themselves either by refusing to carry the goods and to let the field, or by raising the rate of their freight and rent. This result would suit neither merchant nor farmer. Parliament might again intervene, and not only lay down the plan of the voyage and the duration of the tenure, but might impose a specified scale of freights and rents, and declare the shipowner incapable of freighting his own ship, and the landlord of tilling his own land. But so violent an interference with the rights of property would be unjust, impracticable, and obviously productive of greater evils than those it was intended to remedy.

If the foregoing illustration be apposite, it follows that the tenant's interest in the farm he hires is quite as limited in its character as the traders interest in the ship he charters. The