Page:The Irish land acts; a short sketch of their history and development.djvu/23

15 the landlord for recovering possession of the land, and rendered efficient the law of ejectment for non-payment of rent and on notice to quit. Thus a default in payment of one year's rent entitled a landlord to evict the tenant and get possession of the land, with all the tenant's improvements on it, even where such improvements many times exceeded in value the amount due. So also, by serving a notice to quit, the landlord could get rid of the tenant without cause, and take possession of the holding and all the tenant's improvements, no matter how valuable these might be, without having to pay any compensation for them. The governing principle of the Act was that whatever attached to the freehold became part of the freehold. "The object and the intended effect of this Act," says Mr. Finlason ("Land Tenure"), "was to substitute, in the relation of landlord and tenant, for the just and equitable principles of common law or custom the hard commercial principle of contract, and to render any right of the tenant, either as to duration of tenancy or compensation, dependent on express or implied contract."

The Land Act of 1881 is naturally regarded in Ireland as the sheet-anchor of the peasant—as the Magna Charta of his rights. On the other hand, it has been looked on by many landowners as an unjustifiable invasion of their rights, and it has often been blamed for results which it recorded rather than caused. To justify that Act we must understand the preceding conditions that governed the tenure of land in Ireland.

During the ten years after the passing of "Deasy's Act" the position of the Irish tenant reached its nadir. He had no right of any kind, except such as were given him by the contract under which he held. All the improvements which rendered the land capable of being worked were made by him. He had built the houses, erected the fences, made the roads, drained and manured the land, reclaimed it from bog or mountain—generally at a cost out of all proportion to the return—and yet, as we have seen, he could be turned out, without compensation, at the will of the owner, either by the service of a notice to quit or by ejectment for non-payment of one year's rent. That the tenants of Ireland made the improvements was universally admitted. The Devon Commission (presided over by a leading Irish landlord), in the year 1844, reported:—"It is well-known that in England and Scotland before a landlord offers a farm for letting, he finds it necessary to provide a suitable farm-house, with necessary farm buildings for the proper management of the farm. He puts the gates and fences in good order, and he also takes upon himself a great part of the burden of keeping the buildings in repair during the term; and the rent is fixed with reference to this state of things. In Ireland the case is wholly different. It is admitted on all hands that, according to the general practice in Ireland, the landlord builds neither dwelling-house nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., into good order, before he lets his land to the tenant. The