Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV. WHAT WILL DO GOOD IN IRELAND. Everybody who is interested in such subjects is inclined favourably towards any plan for promoting Peasant Proprietorship in Ireland. At first sight it seems that with tenants used to small farms, for which they have to pay rent, a plan that shall make them owners of their farms, and after some years free them from having to pay rent, must much promote their prosperity. It is certain too, that both in England, Scotland, and Ireland, the land is in too few hands, and any honest plan by which more men would become owners of land would be a gain to the country. But when the whole case is looked at in its details, it is by no means certain that any such plan can be made to work, except to a very limited extent, in Ireland. There is very much to be said for the view that, whilst realising to the full the good of Peasant Proprietorship, yet it is one of the goods of an earlier and simpler stage of civilisation than that which we have reached in the end of the nineteenth century, that small landholders belong to a time when men were content with a harder and humbler way of living than even labourers are now satisfied with; and that we cannot now produce artificially by any efforts of our own a large system of peasant proprietors, because the necessary conditions are absent. Now and then, and here and there, individuals may chance to have the qualities that will enable them to succeed as peasant proprietors; but on any large scale it is impossible. There is no people in all Northern Europe in whom the necessary conditions are so wanting as the Irish. authorities we have. He will find Belgium contrasted with Ireland in this respect, and the result established that small owners of land work harder and...