The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1881-03-04
THE COLUMBIAN, VOL. XIV, NO. 8
COLUMBIA DEMOCRAT, VOL. XIV, NO. 90


ton. For the same reson the outgoing
tenant further than receiving payment
for the crop in the iground. Selling the
good will of farm is unknown. Such
is the practice of land tenure in Scotland,
where if not absolutely perfect, it is as
nearly so as in any part of the world.
The system evidently imposes heavy oh
legations on the landlord; but these are
accepted as a matter of course. Where
an owner cannot overtake these obliga-
tions, he must either borrow money or
sell out. So clearly are the mutual duties
of landlord and tenant defined, that usu-
ally no disputes arise. We maintain
that it would not be easy to improve on
these primary arrangements.
AS rule, so far as we can gather,the
simple and eflicacious process of land
tenure now described is reversed in Ire
land. The outlay for dwelling houses,
fences and other improvements is thrown
on the tenant who has precarous occu-
pancy, and may be evicted without
compensation, on falling to pay his rent.
An Irish correspondent writing in the
Times, October 5, and who gives his
name and address, explicitly says of Irish
tenant farmers: "All the buildings, fen
ces, farm roads, surface improvements,
and the drainage connected with the
Irish landed property, are the invest
ments of the tenants. Even where the
landlord borrows money for drainage
| ,,,rposo, f,on, tba Road &C NEo,I., .ha
tenant is made to repay in the shape OF
increased rent, and is therefore the per
son who has made the expenditure in the
end" In this statement there are per
haps exaggerations: but, undeniably
there is very common practice in Ire
| land of throwing the cost of dwelling
houses and some other essential charges
on the tenant. 1t can scarcely be other
wise; for where landlords have hundreds
if not thousands of small tenants, they
could not provide them all with houses
and are from sheer necessity obliged tc
let them construct dwellings for them
selves. We are prepared to learn that
these outlays of the tenants are consid
cred in the adjustment of rent: but the
practice is wholly inconsistent with LAND
tenure, and is seemingly the fertile source
of disputes and entanglements.
Admitting that the statements on the
subject are substantially true, we are en-
titled to say, that here, staring us IN the
face, is the cause of all the uproar il
lreland-an enormous mass of smal
tenants occupying the soil. The land
lords, it may be said, did not create thu
tenants. In the desperate struggle fo
existence, the tenants came to the land
lords and bid one against the other fo
their respective holdings That may ac
count for the manner in which the smal
tenure system began; but it Insufficient,
justiiies its continuance from generation
to generation, when, by the multiplica
ton of families, the system goes beyon,
all bounds of deccncy and endurance
Land exists, not to suit the mere fancy
the Incidence or the avarice of owners
nor as field whereupoh pauper tenant
may multiply till the end of time but fo
the general good of the community
Landowners, no matter where they ar
located, are, in the eye of Nature an
man, invested with solumn trust, nc
to be trifed with. Irish landlords, i
their absenteaism, carelessness or extra,
.. agance, have failed to recognize the oil
legations incumbent on their position
In the light of English and Scottish pr'
cedure, they have not done their dut,
We do not deny that there are good an
humane landlords in Ireland, who ha,
enlarged their farms to proper dime
siOns, and spent considerable sums c
permanent improvements. But it is II,
to those we alude We are speaking
! the hosts of landlords with swarms
! small tenants, whose condition is an Il
omalay, an anachronism, national sea
dal; and we ask with some reason, wi
the empire at large is to be continual
tortured with reports of misery and di
, order, arising out of the laundering ma
> agement of this class of Irish estates!
Z was lately stated in newspaper, that
! certain nobleman in Ireland had tho
! : sand tenant farmers with rents not abo
| ten pounds each. Still later an Iri
landlord publicly makes the avowal:
receive rents in Kerry from four the
,, sand one hundred and sixty tenant,
Such confession! How can count
be peaceful or prosperous while the Ian
, agricultural or pastoral, are cut up in
, patches of few acres, distributed amo
peasant occupants at rents five, ten,
, to be very liberal, say twenty pounds
{ head!
i O.