Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/41

38 it should, in some shape, secure to the actual cultivator of the land the undivided fruition of the increased produce he may raise, or the increased value he may give to his farm, by his industry, or the expenditure of his capital.

This is confirmed by the same high authority to which I have just referred—the Digest of the Evidence taken by the Devon Commission. That evidence, it is declared, "shews that the master evil of Ireland, poverty, proceeds from the fact of the occupiers of land withholding the investment of labour and capital that lies within their reach on the farms they occupy, because they are not certain of being permitted to reap a reasonable remuneration from their exertions."

And how can it be otherwise? Who will [work for others, as he would for himself? Who] will drain, fence, build, or make any permanent [improvements on a farm from which he may be* turned out at the end of six months, or his rent raised to the extreme value he may himself create in his farm? The condition of all industry is the right to enjoy its fruits. The bees, it is true, those models of industry, are, like the Irish peasant, robbed ever year of the results of their labour, and yet continue to toil on. But the bees do not foresee this hard fate; while the quick-witted Irishman knows that what has happened before will very likely happen again, and taking warning by a neighbour's fate, only labours so far as just to live,