Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/14

11 exertions of the landlords, whether absentee or resident, even under the stimulus of the threatened poor-rate, any adequate action in bringing to bear this shamefully wasted labour upon the wasted land in its proximity.

The landlords generally cannot be expected to possess the energy, if they even possessed the power, or could obtain the means, for effecting this to anything like the extent or with the promptitude that is required. In some cases, no doubt, the effort will be made; and by help of the Drainage and the Landed Property Improvement Acts, something will be accomplished. But in the great majority of cases, the same inertness, from whatever source arising, that has hitherto prevented their bringing into productive use the improveable portions of their estates, will continue still to operate, and the state of things described above in the division of Monaminey, and which is a fair sample of numerous other districts in the west and south of Ireland, will continue unabated.

Even of those landlords who are roused, by the pressure of the times and the impending poor-rate, to action, the majority look for salvation to other means—to the eviction of their numerous tenantry, the clearing of their estates from the seemingly superfluous population by emigration or ejectment. Such landlords are utterly incredulous when they are told that the population on their estates is not really redundant, and that by a re-arrangement of