an Independent Parliament, and obtained the repeal of Poyning's Act. Legislative freedom, however, brought no benefit to the radical evils of the land system, though commerce and manufacture relieved from restraint grew and increased prodigiously.

The fact that the peasantry were deeply imbued, and with reason, with the idea that the influence of the laws was exerted solely in favour of the landlords, operated largely to defeat even beneficent legislation. Long leases were frequently granted after the Acts of Settlement, but these passing exclusively into the hands of middlemen and never direct to the tenants, only aggravated the evils of their position. The law of distress also was by itself enough to fix for ever in their minds the idea that the landlord was an unjust taskmaster, and the law his complaisant helpmeet. The remedy of distress was indeed recognized by the Brehon Law to the fullest degree, in fact it may be considered to have been the universal mode of procedure for the recovery of any claim; and the Senchus Mor with its provisions for notice to the defendant, for the 'stay,' and for a near equivalent to replevin, shows a highly elaborate system. In two ways, however, it completely differed from the English law of distress, (1) the remedy was entirely extrajudicial, and (2) it was applicable (resembling in this the Teutonic distress) to all cases and not merely to certain specified classes of claims'. The feudal law of distress undoubtedly developed into a powerful weapon for the landlord. When there was a difference between him and the tenant, he was able as feudal superior to seize the tenant's goods; the Common Law rule that the goods so seized could not be sold was supplemented by a statute giving this power, and a further Act enabled him to seize growing crops. The tenant's rights con

1 The late Sir Henry Maine pointed out that this last fact opened a wide field for probable injustice on the part of the English settlers to the native Irish, for the statutes which made an unlawful distress a capital felony would punish the native in many cases for using the only method for recovery of a claim with which he was acquainted.

Early Hist. of Inst., lecture x.; see also quotation from Edmund Spenser there given.

2 One of the recommendations of the Devon Commissioners was that this statute should be repealed and the costs of a distress strictly limited. The original theory of the feudal distress regarded it as a means of

sisted merely in a resort to the dangerous action of replevin which entailed his giving a bond with two responsible sureties, to double the value of the goods distrained, as security that he would prosecute the suit with effect and without delay. It was the gradual amendment of the law in favour of the tenant, by imposing the observance of many legal technicalities (with an accompanying penalty as to a trespasser ab initio) on the distrainor, which led to a later stage of the Irish land history when, on account of the legal difficulties involved, the process of distress was adopted as a last resource by the landlord'.

In the past century the most patent evils of the land system had been the frequent changes of tenancy in the small holdings and the not unfrequent blotting out of large numbers of such holdings, which prevented the peasant from attaining any security of tenure by the growth of customary rights. A new phase of the land question was now entered upon, insecurity of tenure still marked the small Irish holdings but instead of a tendency to unduly restrict their number they were created with a most disastrous prodigality. The immense cultivation of the potato, Raleigh's 'fatal gift,' brought the most terrible attendant evils. Easy of cultivation, and requiring but small plots of land for its production in large quantities, it fostered an increase of population entirely out of proportion to the land to which it looked for its exclusive support. The famine of 1739 brought no lesson to the improvident peasantry, and the commercial developments of 1782 to 1800 did not aid the case of the small agricultural holders.

The desire of the landlords for political influence' led them to increase the number of the small holdings to such an extent that, considered with regard to its effect on the agricultural

compelling the performance of the feudal services, and did not contemplate such a case as the recovery of rent, therefore the goods of the tenant might by the Statute of Marlbridge be merely retained as a pledge and not sold. Richey, Irish Land Laws, p. 40.

1 Ib. p. 40.

2 Before the Reform Act many of the counties were absolutely subservient to the landlord interest. Inst. of English Government, Homersham Cox, p. 108. Lord Farnborough's Constitutional History, Vol. 1. p. 298.

system, the Acts of 1771, 1778 and 1782 which enabled Catholics to hold land, and the Act of 1793 which granted them the 40s. franchise, must be looked upon as evils despite their manifest equity of principle. The small holdings created for the purpose of securing a weighty tenant vote were let at rents exceeding their true worth, owing to the increase in the value of land caused by war prices, and the small freeholder was at once, upon prices regaining their normal level, involved in difficulties; whilst the landlord on his part, despite the provisions of the Eviction Act 18161 and the Subletting Act 18262, was burdened by bankrupt tenants. The following table will illustrate the rapid growth of the small freeholds, caused by the desire for political influence felt by the landlords, and the avid eagerness of the Irish peasantry for small holdings.

After the abolition in 1829* of the 40s. freehold suffrage, the tenancies mostly took the form of tenancies from year to year; for the rise in the value of land, which had been caused by the outbreak of the French war and the depreciation of the currency, had been followed by a subsequent depression, and the landlords had realized the fact that under a lease by which a certain rent was reserved they reaped no benefit from an increase in the value of land, while a fall invariably involved them in the losses of the tenant. For the same reason they sought to

1 56 Geo. III. c. 88.

2 7 Geo. IV. c. 29.

3 Taken from the statistical article

on Ireland in Encyc. Brit. by Mr T. F. Henderson.

4 10 Geo. IV. c. 8.

consolidate their interest, and large clearances were the result of a desire to substitute large farms for small holdings. This is alluded to as a necessary evil in the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1830'. Leases were, however, still sometimes granted from political motives until the uncertainty of the tenant vote and the extension of the suffrage in 1850 by 13 & 14 Vict. c. 69 to the occupiers of land of the annual rating of £12 extinguished this cause for their creation.

1 After 1838, on account of the burden of the poor laws many small

holdings were abolished and large farms substituted.

CHAPTER VII.

IRELAND FROM 1800 TO 1850.

IRISH legislative independence failed to produce those golden results which were hoped for from it, and the brief period of its existence calls for little notice. Cases of individual patriotism stand out against a background of general corruption, and the wit and eloquence of Ireland glitter with that seductive charm which they unfortunately associate with no commensurate result. The advantages gained by the increased commerce and manufacturing successes of the nation were more than counterbalanced by the immense increase of population which rose from 2,845,932 in 1785 to 5,356,594 in 1803. The failure of Ireland to govern herself was due to many causes. Noticeably, the unwise policy of the leaders of the people who encouraged the anti-English feeling, and the wild surge of disappointed passions in a people who had expected a millennium and were tortured perpetually with new hopes of increased freedom, which vanished as soon as seen. Secret societies were formed, and that worst side of the Celtic character, which would attain its end whatever the means used may be, became prominent. The lawless example of France, and the real misery of the agricultural population, bore fruit. In 1798 rebellion broke out, in the form of a murderous revolt organized and set on foot by the United Irishmen.' Union with England was now unavoidable; taught again the lesson that concession to Ireland was merely regarded as weakness, England took the reins into her own hands.

By whatever means the Union was carried (and the means employed were far from meritorious) it was undoubtedly at