Page:The Irish land acts; a short sketch of their history and development.djvu/20

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The relation of landlord and tenant in Ireland, down to the year 1860, was based on tenure, not on contract. The old feudal tenures imported from England were modified and altered during the last two or three centuries by the existing Irish customs. The result was that a period of much doubt and confusion arose, and an extraordinary collection of enactments dealing with land was placed on the Irish Statute Book. In the reign of George III. upwards of sixty of these Acts were passed for Ireland, while six sufficed for England. The following reigns were equally productive in agrarian legislation, and the condition of the occupiers became more and more unsettled, and unsatisfactory, and " wild doctrines," to quote the words of the eminent authors of a standard work on Irish Land Tenure, published in 1851, were agitated, including " extravagant demands for fixity of tenure and compulsory valuation of rents."

The relation of landlord and tenant, based on tenure that prevailed down to the year 1860, gave no security of occupation to the tenant, and did not protect his improvements; but the cost of ejectment and the legal difficulties of proof that accompanied it, exercised a powerful restraining influence in preventing capricious eviction.

Nevertheless, complaints against Irish rents are not confined to recent years or to the last century. A continuous stream of emigration of Protestant dissenters from Ulster went on during the early part of the 18th century, and the Irish Government of the day was much concerned at losing so many of their most loyal citizens. In 1729 the Lord Lieutenant forwarded a report on the subject to the King, which states:—"One great reason given by the people themselves for leaving the Kingdom is the poverty to which that part of the country is reduced, occasioned in a great measure, they say, by raising of rents in many places above the real value of land, or what can be paid out of the produce of them, if any tolerable subsistence be allowed to the farmers using their utmost industry." Complaint was also made of the uncertain tenures, the short leases, and "the usual method of late when lands are out of lease," which was "to invite and encourage all persons to make proposals, and set them to the highest bidder without regard to the tenants in possession."

Position of Tenants under the Common Law as regards Eviction—in the case of Leaseholds.

During the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries, while many Irish tenants held under leases or written contracts, the great majority were tenants from year to year.