The Newtown bee., 1878-09-19
E4ALL LANDOWNERS IN InI-
 LAND.

in approaching the question of peasant proprietorship in Ireland, VIC are met with this nll.inportant fact, that IL is at present country of peasant.farmors. Of 692, 6g0 tarm holdings, 4as, coo consist of between nnd 30 aores. There Is, therefore, no question between la grande and a petite culture However superior the former sys- ten may bo thought h does not exist in Ireland, md could not be imported, except by artificial and violent means, after q revolution. In l8i0, when the Incum. berrd Estates Court Was established, 1t wns expected that purchasers with capital would come in ana buy, would improve the land, md farm 1t atter the English fashion. Tho expectation WAS not realized. The purchasers proved harder landlords than the previous limited owners, but they spent no more money on the land-inleed, my attempt on their part to do so was mostly resented by the tenants-Rnd they failed entirely to introduce the English system of farming. The result of the pro- cess was to intensity the desire of the tenant to possess his holding, but to leave unchanged the system of small farming, which may be looked upon as an e5sential feature of the national character. It Ia singular to find face to face with this fac, one equally remarkable ns to the owner ship of the land. Although all farms (spenklng generally are small, nearly all properties are large. Although England is nation of large farms aud Ireland Of small ones, it is said thnt, comparing simi- lar districts in tho two countries for every one owner of land between 1 md 30 acres in Ireland, there are 10 in England. In deed, so rare is tiIe possession Of freehold interest nmong the peasantry that those who have purchased their holdings under the provisions of recent nets generally con tinue to speak of the payments of interest and installments of principal which they have to make as their rcnt, and of thon title deeds us their leases. Such a state of things Is not due to natural causes. In addition to many of the reasons which hsve also operated in England to limit the number of small owners, Irelaud has been subject to two agencies of a violent and ac- cidental character tending strongly ill thc same directon-the conhscntions of land at various periods of English conquest which substituted the English system of absolute ownership over vast districts for the Irish system, on which the land was held in common by Chiefs and their dr- pendent occupiers; and the pen l laws of the last century, which prohibited Roman Catholics from owning land ill fee, and therefore shut out the bulk of the popula, ton from the possibility of ownership. If the result is compared with any country in Europe where peasant farming prevails, the contrast is startling. Whereas in Ire iaud less thmn one -hundred-and tf- tieth part of the country is ill the owner- ship of persons possessing less than 50 lcres of agricultural land, in France two- thirds of the land is owned by persons owning less than 75 acres; and even in Prussia and Austria, where there is con siderable proportion of large properties, nearly one-half of the laboring class own small holdings Spectator.