Mill has done to make it known to insular minds, ought to need no allusion. Moreover the social distinctions between labourer and tenant farmer, and between the tenant farmer and the farmer of his own land, are natural distinctions, and political economy has always recognized the desire of men to rise in the social

scale as an incentive to industry, frugality, and enterprise. The Irish labourer's dream of becoming a tenant is a just and laudable ambition, capable of being turned to the most productive account; and so again is the dream of the tenant to possess land of his own. The existence of peasant proprietors, the facility and frequency of the purchase of small estates, are among the principal causes of the prodigies performed by the peasants of Flanders on almost the worst soil in the world-because constituting both objects of industry and thrift, and models of good farming.

"In Belgium," Lord Dufferin states, "leases for three, six, and nine years

ductive account, without permitting a poor man to possess a farm as proprietor. That upward movement which ought to be possible in all occupations, may be made possible in agriculture, even in the British isles, under a rational system of tenure, and with a judicious diversity in the sizes of farms. "I cannot,"-writes Dr. Mackenzie of Eileanach, after long and extensive experience of estates, and of Celtic tenants, who are supposed to possess in a peculiar degree a morbid hunger for land, — "imagine greater "folly than discouraging the planting "of a number of cotters on every estate, "from the class with, say a quarter of

an acre, who will supply the labour "needed by the large farmer, up to "the five-acre holder, whose strength is "needed to crop his own land and manage his own estate. Next should

come the two-horse farm, a fair object "of ambition to which the five-acre "cotter might expect to rise; after "that, farms of several pairs of horses, "or even steam-engines perhaps. An "estate or country thus planted, would "offer a reasonable variety of objects of "ambition to the intelligent labourer "who had to begin at the bottom of the "ladder; so that he might wish to "remain in Great Britain, instead of "emigrating, and leaving behind him "the mere refuse of his class as hewers "and drawers,' without a prospect of anything in life but hard labour (harder than in our jails) and the "workhouse when they are used up.”

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Instead of such an upward movement as Dr. Mackenzie describes, from the rank of the labourer to that of the small farmer, and again from the small to the large farm, the movement which Lord Dufferin commends to the peasant's acceptance is a downward one—“from the condition of an embarrassed tenant to that of an independent labourer." What kind of "independence" does the labourer really enjoy a choice of masters, from a shilling to one and sixpence a day, or even more, while he is active and strong, and the workhouse in his old age. The tenant of a farm,

1 Letter to the writer, March 11, 1867.

however small, with the security of a lease of sufficient duration, is surely much more independent. He is not subject to orders or to immediate dismissal, his time is at his own disposal, he works for himself when he is well, he need not work if he is ill, and he earns both wages and profit. It is indeed only to the "embarrassed" tenant that Lord Dufferin offers the position of labourer on another man's farm; but the general, cause of the tenant's embarrassment in Ireland (to which ought to be added the supineness of landlords in regard to instruction in agriculture) is that, virtually, he is a mere labourer on another man's farm, for which he is expected to furnish the capital without the security requisite either to borrow it or to expend it if he possesses it, or-what landlords cannot imagine-to make it by labour and thrift. "To refuse a lease to a solvent industrious tenant," Lord Dufferin justly pronounces, "is little "short of a crime. The prosperity of "agriculture depends on security of tenure, and the only proper tenure is a liberal lease." But if the prosperity of agriculture does depend on security of tenure, and if the only proper tenure is a liberal lease, how can the Irish tenant-at-will be expected to be solvent, or industrious to any good purpose? Must it not be also "little short of a crime" first to refuse him the conditions of solvency and of prosperous agriculture, and then to make his embarrassment and unprosperous farming a reason for turning him out of his farm? "Every variation of the conception of property in land," it has been very well said by Mr. Newman, "every limita"tion or extension of proprietary right, "develops a new type of human cha"racter. If the proprietor, the lessee,

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sort of tenants and traders would occupy them, on a tenure-at-will?

The small farmer in Ireland has little or no capital, it is indeed urged, and good farming is hopeless without it. Yet this difficulty is more serious in Flanders, from the exigent nature of the soil, and M. de Laveleye describes how it is overcome: "The labourer gets a "corner of uncleared land at a low rent, "which his wife assists him to clear. "They reduce their consumption to the "barest necessaries, they economise all "they can; the husband goes to a "distance, often to France, to reap the "harvest, and thus to bring back some "fifty francs at the end of three "weeks of incredible toils. When they "have collected the materials for the cottage, husband and wife go to work, "and at length sleep under a roof of "their own. The next thing is to have

cattle, that foundation of all culti"vation. First they feed a goat and "some rabbits, and then a calf, on the "herbs that spring about. When at "last they possess a cow, the family is "safe; there is now milk, butter, and manure. Little by little a capital is "made; at the end of some years, the "labourer has become a farmer. "the population increases, new cottages

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As

spring up, the old ones are enlarged. "In half a century the whole district is "made a complete conquest to culti"vation, thanks to incessant labours "which the capitalist could not have "paid for at the average rate of wages "without incurring a loss. The petty "cultivator, who is assured of enjoying "for at least thirty years the fruits of his efforts, spares neither his time nor his "trouble. Working with more zeal and intelligence than he could exert for another, he gives value to a soil "which la grande culture would have no "interest in attempting to cultivate.' The Fleming, however, it may be supposed is an exceptional being. But almost exactly the same thing takes place in the Highlands of Scotland, where the Celtic cotter is given a chance-though a poor one-as Dr. Mackenzie describes 1 Économie Rur. des Flandres, 2d ed. p. 82,

runs home with his wages, and till they are done, tears up his land, gets some seed borrowed and sown, and off again to another job at daily wages, "of which less than our southern friends "would credit is spent upon food. Had

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landlords to put up smart cottages for "such land improvers, improvement "would soon come to an end in this "country. In my memory, all hereabout, "most of our large farms extending over "thousands and thousands of acres, on "which I have shot grouse and deer, "have been brought to their present "shape on the above plan. For gene"rally," to the shame of those whom it concerns, Dr. Mackenzie adds: "Soon "after a contiguous batch of such crofts 66 as I have described have been put "into crop, the improvers are all ejected, "without payment for what they have "done, unless from some thin-skinned, "laughed at, rara avis of a philan"thropist landlord, and one large farm "is made of them."1

If there are any readers who are doubtful of the disposition of cotters in 1 Letter to the writer, March 11, 1867.

tributes towards it an excellent suggestion. But he bids us expect little from such legislation, and certainly "no comprehensive remedy for the perennial discontent of Ireland, or to unprecedented emigration from her shores." His first and last lesson is that "no nation can be made industrious, provident, skilful,

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by Act of Parliament. It is to time, "to education, and above all to the "development of our manufacturing resources, that we must look for the reinvigoration of our economic consti"tution." It might, we do not hesitate to assert, be said with more justice, that every people is industrious, provident, and skilful just in proportion to the security given by its government, laws, and customs as powerful as laws, that he who sows shall also reap. What has time, to which Lord Dufferin looks, done hitherto for Ireland, but maintain a system which, in the words used by the Devon Commissioners, paralyzes all exertion, and places fatal impediments in the way of improvement? What practical lesson does education, again, teach the Irish peasant more plainly than this, that an intelligent man can always get on in America, and can seldom do so in Ireland? Lord Dufferin's readers will easily believe that so generous a mind "cannot contemplate "the expatriation of so many brave "hearts and strong right arms with equanimity." But when he adds, "The true remedy is to be found in the "development of our commercial enter"prise, of our mineral resources, of our "manufacturing industry," we are driven to ask, why not in the development of our agricultural industry, the prime industry of all, the healthiest, and the natural base of all other industries? According to the natural course of things, Adam Smith has striven to impress upon mankind, the greater part of every growing society is first directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufacture.2

"Of all cultivators," says Sismondi, the peasant proprietor is the one who "gives most encouragement to commerce 1 Irish Emigration and the Tenure of Land, pp. 271, 272.

2 Wealth of Nations, book iii. chap. i.

"and manufactures, because he is the "richest." To the same purpose Mr. Mill observes that "in every country "without exception in which peasant "properties prevail, the towns, from "the larger surplus which remains after feeding the agricultural classes, are "increasing both in population and in "the well-being of their inhabitants." The present landowners of Ireland may therefore assure themselves that the conviction will at length force itself upon the public, that for the prosperity, not of agriculture alone, but of all the other industries of which the island is capable, either tenancies at will must. cease to exist, or peasant properties must at any cost be created. M. de Tocqueville's reflection has already been quoted, that it is a sign of the imminent subversion of aristocratic institutions when the relation between landlord and tenant has become one of the briefest duration; but he adds the significant remark that if democratic tendencies shorten the duration of tenures, democratic institutions "tend powerfully to increase the "number of properties, and to diminish "the number of tenant farmers." The land system of Ireland is one without the advantages either of feudalism or of democracy. "As long as a numerous

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population," says Lord Dufferin, "is "cursed with a morbid craving to pos"sess land, so long will the owner be "able to drive hard bargains." The conclusion which these "hard bargains" are likely to force before long on the public mind is, that the morbid craving for land with which the people of Ireland have been cursed, is that which moralists in every age have denounced, and against which the prophet cried, Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the earth! The landlords of England may likewise rest.

assured that their own interests are involved in the Irish land question in a different manner from what they suppose. They are afraid of a precedent of interference with established territorial institutions; they have more to fear their self-condemnation.

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE WORLD AS IT IS.

Bur Lorimer did not answer very patiently. The grim smile of scorn faded from his lip, only to give place to a gloomy frown; and as he drew nearer to his writing-table, preparatory to answering that ill-judged missive, he struck his clenched hand on the unconscious paper before covering it with the rapid scrawl which disturbed Lord Clochnaben's late breakfast a day or two afterwards.

"MY DEAR RICHARD,-That you write, as you say, by my mother's dictationand report, by her desire, the comments she has thought fit to make on my attempt at arguing on the moral culpability of her conduct to her cousin, Lady Charlotte's daughter-secures you a reply which, under other circumstances, I should probably refuse to make to such a letter as you have ventured to send me. "I need scarcely say, for the information either of yourself or my mother, that it is not I who set a value on such visits as I counselled my mother to pay, --or who consider Lady Ross's welfare dependent on the notice of persons of her own sex, probably infinitely her inferiors in many of the qualities which should most be desired in woman.

"When I see the sort of women who mingle freely, and receive liberal welcome, in what is called 'the first society in the land'-when I reflect on the

lives which to my knowledge some of them have led, and which would, in my opinion, render them utterly unfit to be Lady Ross's companions, instead of its being a favour that they should visit her; when I consider the sort of haphazard that governs even court invita

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tions; the gossip, the prejudice, the cant, the untruth, the want of all justice, the disbelief in all virtue, the disregard of all things right, and the indifference to all things wrong (so long as they are not found out) which exist in a certain set who neverthless presume to judge and condemn their betters; when I hear them declare that they would not for worlds' visit Lady So-and-So, and in the same breath entreat a friend to procure them an invitation to the house of another more lucky acquaintance, who nevertheless passes her time less with the cardinal virtues than the seven deadly sins;-I could almost laugh at poor Lady Charlotte's anxiety as to how her daughter is received! As a clever old friend once said to me, 'It would be a farce-if it were not a tragedy '—to see the fate of the pure and noble swayed (as far at least as worldly cir cumstances go), by the impure and ignoble; to see the better sort of women eagerly listening to them and believing them, instead of attempting to sift truth from falsehood on their own judgment.

"It is true that ours is a 'fast' day, and England, boastful as she always is about everything, has ceased to boast continually of her superior virtue as she used to do; (wincing a little, probably, at the retort which foreign nations might make on the subject.) She is content to admit that chance and certain commercial considerations run through that, as through every other channel of interest belonging to her. The ups and downs, and apparent inequalities of justice, do not trouble her, nor the agree

able certainty

That the rugged path of sinners Is greatly smoothed by giving dinners.' "It is a hollow world, full of echoes; some call, and others listen, and then,