Page:Peasant proprietary in Ireland; a rejoinder.djvu/19

 promptitude, the annual repayments of purchase money. Mr. Godley, the efficient and capable secretary of the Irish Church Commission, bore testimony to their conduct for probity, punctuality and industry. Mr. Tuke, whose well- known philanthropy never blinds his keen Yorkshire common sense, visited those struggling communities in the depth of their trouble, and yet was so favourably impressed with the air of comfort displayed, the spirit of exertion manifested, that he contributed to the Nineteenth Century for August, 1880, a very interesting article upon them, entitled—'Peasant Proprietors at Home.' From that I take the liberty of collecting the few pregnant passages that follow:—

To deal directly with some of Mr. Morice's arguments, it may be noted that, with regard to Count Jacini's report on the condition of the agricultural classes in Italy, of which Mr. Moricc makes such a strong point, that in any and about Florence there prevails a tenure almost peculiar to Italy, known as the 'métayer' system, and frequently, though incorrectly, represented as peasant proprietary. The principle is, that the labourer or peasant