Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/272

Rh letting his land except on disadvantageous terms, he will naturally prefer to keep it in his own hands. Bad husbandry and non-payment of rent constitute, even according to Mr. Butt, just occasions of eviction. By the inflexible application of these principles there is no property in Ireland which would not be cleared of a large proportion of its occupants in ten years, and the immediate effect of his beneficent efforts would be universal discontent and an enormous stimulus to emigration, counterbalanced perhaps by a rapid improvement in cultivation and a brevet promotion for some hundreds of thousands of agricultural labourers at the expense of a corresponding number of tenant farmers.

With regard to the minor principle involved in Mr. Butt's plan of fixing the rent of land by a Government officer, I need not trouble my readers. A moment's reflection will show how impossible it would be for any one but those immediately