Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/222

Rh be defined it may be stated as an axiom that, unless otherwise provided for by special agreement, a tenant's equitable claim to the occupation of his farm extends to such a period as shall enable him to put back into his pocket the capital he has expended on its improvement, together with a fair amount of interest upon that capital ; * for it is evident, first, that were the profits of agricultural enterprise to be artificially hoisted to a rate of


 * It is sometimes objected that land having been made valuable by the exertions of the former generations of tenants, the additional fertility thus created ought to devolve like an apostolic succession on the actual occupants. But if the persons referred to conducted their business properly, they have been already remunerated by their annual surplus of profit. The increased value permanently acquired by the land through their exertions, was a subsidiary accident which they neither intended, nor could prevent. It was in expectation of such a result the land was let to them. In pursuit of their own interests they happened to disengage the latent virtues of the soil, which were the property of the former owner, and which, after they had been developed, the subsequent purchaser of the estate acquired.

For a tenant, therefore, to claim a share in the increased value of the land in addition to his fair profits, would be as unreasonable as for the labourer to claim a share in the tenant's profits in addition to his own wages, on the plea that those profits resulted from the increased fertility communicated to the land by his manual toil. The argument is as cogent in the one case as in the other. Moreover, as a matter of fact, though the labour of former tenants may frequently have improved the land, the operations of the actual tenant have as often deteriorated it : and virgin soil that was worth a great deal before a spade had touched it, may become completely exhausted by bad cultivation.