Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/50

47 compensation, would be either a notice to quit, or a demand for an increased rent as the price of a permission to improve.

Mr. J. Moran, farmer and valuator of county Wicklow (a county whose landlords are by no means the worst in Ireland), says:—"If the landlords have the option of only improving as they please, they will not do it at all. They will be like the dog in the manger, they will not do it, nor let their tenants do it." (p. 189, Digest).

If this be considered too sweeping as a general assertion, still it must be admitted to be true iii very many cases, and in those above all where impr7vement is most required, having been most neglected hitherto, the estates of absentees, of minors, of embarrassed and needy proprietors. It seems to me that the interests and rights of the landowners would be sufficiently protected by such a law as is recommended by several witnesses from: the county of Wexford, one of the best managed counties in Ireland—by Captain Simon Newport, among others, a land agent and magistrate, who vouches for the assent and concurrence of Lord Carew in the suggestion, namely, "That the landlord be required to reimburse an outgoing tenant for all his bona fide improvements, whether buildings, drainage, fencing, reclamation of land, or other of a more or less permanent character. In case of non- agreement between the parties, the amount of compensation to be finally determined by a court of