"In most parts of Ireland the agricultural practices of the small farmers are very defective. In some places they are quite primitive. Vast numbers of the occupiers are very poor, while wide areas of land are not yielding a fourth of the produce which could be obtained from them.”

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"The dwellings of a vast number of small farmers in Ireland are wretched. In this age of progress it is unsatisfactory to find that there are in Ireland very many small farmers with large families whose dwellings consist of one apartment, in which cattle and pigs are also housed.

66 There are four millions of acres of medium land now growing poor herbage, which often contains more weeds than grass, and which would pay far better in tillage. At present the gross return of these four million acres does not amount to twice the rent; if put under a proper system the yield would amount to five times the rent, and the wealth of the country would be increased to the extent of several millions.

"The state of the cultivated land of Ireland is also very defective, as is well known to all persons of experience. It is notorious that on the vast majority of farms the tillage is shallow and imperfect, and that the general management is extremely defective. Tillage is done in a slovenly fashion. The live stock of Ireland is not made as The want of drainage is a In Ireland at least six This work could be

profitable as it ought to be. crying defect in Irish agriculture. millions of acres are in need of drainage. effected at a cost of £5 an acre. The annual letting value of the year would be increased thereby by £3,000,000 a year. Many persons will ask, where is all the capital to execute this work to come from? I answer that the greater part of it is in the labour of the people. The working farmers of Ireland have a great deal of labour in their families which could be most usefully employed in draining their land.

"Every experienced agriculturalist who carefully considers this category of defects will agree that the smaller farmers of Ireland could, by adopting modes of management which are within their reach, double their income."

Of the district of Monaghan, Mr. Baldwin says:

"No person appears to take any interest in improving either the agricultural practices of the district, or the condition of the people. I passed tract after tract of land which is not yielding a fourth of the produce which ought to be extracted from it. The rents are low. In some cases neither landlord nor agent has been on the land for years. Yet a land agent on an extensive property, to whom application was made for a contribution to

the prize fund, wrote that he thought the money could be better expended."

The result, however, of the competition for the prizes among the farmers brought out many cases which showed that with industry and thrift the small farms of fifteen, or even ten acres were quite capable of producing results most satisfactory, and which in production and profit to their tenants are far beyond the average. In many parts of the country, Professor Baldwin states that he found the greatest objection even to compete for the prizes thus freely offered for good cultivation, arising from a prevalent feeling that the rents would be raised of those successful in the competition, and that the co-operation of the landowners was the result of a settled desire to use the system "as a cloak for raising rents." Everywhere we are met with the same difficulty and hesitation. The owner cannot supply the necessary capital, the tenant will not do so through fear of rents being raised; he will not even cultivate his land to the best of his ability through the same fear. There is, therefore, a vicious circle from which there seems to be no escape.

Comparing, then, this result with that of the Channel Islands, we find in Jersey and Guernsey production evoked to the furthest limit which the land is capable of; we find an universal spirit of industry and thrift; we find content in the highest degree; we find the rights of property never questioned. Is it not, then, a safe inference to draw from the comparison that, in the one case, this happy state of things is due to the stimulating influence of a distributed ownership of land; and that, in the other case, the low rate of production, the chronic discontent, the want of industry and thrift-above all, the fear of improvement lest the rent should be raised-are due to the very limited ownership of land, to the fact that for centuries the law and administration of Ireland have tended to discourage the existence of a numerous proprietary, and to accumulate land in the hands of the few?

The small landowners of the Channel Islands are scarcely of the class which we should call peasant proprietors; they are rather of the class of small yeomen. In proportion to the size of their farms, their land is of considerable value; they rank in status rather with the small farmers of this country than with the agricultural labourer. Their

cultivation involves often a great outlay of capital in plant and manure they are therefore capitalists; they are not above working in the fields themselves-they are therefore labourers; the land is their own-they are therefore landowners, and have the pride and sense of responsibility and status due to such a position. In fact, they combine together in one person the three functions of landowner, capitalist, and labourer. It is by reason of their combination that there can be no separation or opposition of interest between these functions. English law appears to be framed too much on the principle that these three functions are necessarily distinct, and that the best result must be where they are separated and brought to bear upon the land by three different persons or classes. The hypothesis is then put forward that the interests of these three classes are identical, that they pull together in the same boat, contribute to the same object, and that therefore there is the greatest inducement to all of them to do their best. The hypothesis, however, is founded on an imperfect view of human nature. In the process of working together, the three classes have separate interests, and find themselves in a certain sense in opposition. So long as human nature is what it is, and so long as self-interest prevails over the best ideal of an enlightened regard for the interests of others, so long will men work better for themselves than for others. The agricultural labourer working for wages by the week on another man's land will not work so effectively, or with so much intelligence, or with such a sense of satisfaction, as when working on his own land, and conscious that he must reap the full benefit of his labours. He requires strict supervision, but supervision must be paid for, and its cost must be taken into account; or else he must be paid for by piece-work, but there are many operations in farming which cannot be paid for by piece-work. In illustration of this point, I may mention that in one of the small Guernsey holdings I found the owner thinning his grapes. I asked him how he compared his work with that of hired labourers. His reply was that he I could do from twice to three times the amount of work which any hired man could, or rather would, do in the same time; and he believed it to be the same with most of the vine-growers. For similar reasons, deduced from the same imperfect condition of human nature, men will not as a rule

expend their capital so freely on the land of another as on their own.

From these considerations it appears not difficult to explain why it is that the combination of landowner, capitalist, and labourer in one person in the Channel Islands has produced so remarkable a result. It promotes the saving of capital, and therefore creates it; it promotes the efficiency of labour, and therefore multiplies its results ; and as the most certain mode of creating capital is by the storage of the results of labour, it increases capital in this direction also; it spreads through a large class the pride of ownership, the feelings of citizenship, and the sense of equality. Nor are its results confined to the class immediately interested in the land; they permeate through every class of society, and spread the habits of saving, thrift, and self-restraint.

COMMON LANDS.*

ORIGIN OF COMMONS.

THROUGHOUT England and Wales, and in many parts of Europe, there exist numerous districts which from the earliest times have remained open, unenclosed, and uncultivated, where the owners and occupiers of adjoining land have the right of turning out their cattle, and where the villagers exercise the privilege of cutting turf and gorse for fuel. These are not confined in England to mountains and purely rural districts, but are often in the neighbourhood of large towns. In the latter case they constitute oases, as it were, of nature, which now subserve a very different purpose than that which originated them; rights of common exist over them, but are of no value except so far as they help to keep open such places for the health, enjoyment, and recreation of the people living in the neighbourhood. Such Commons are in law, so far as the soil is concerned, the property of some lord of the manor, but the rights of adjoining owners create practically a joint or divided ownership, which has prevented from time immemorial their appropriation and enclosure.

In Ireland and Scotland there are very rare cases of common lands in the legal sense. The manorial system was not extended to these countries; but there are vast districts of mountain and bog, open and unenclosed, the private property of large landowners, whose farming and cottier tenants have the privilege incident to their tenancies, of turning out their cattle and cutting their peat upon them.

Much light has been thrown in late years on the origin and legal condition of the English Commons. Till lately the views of the feudal lawyers were generally accepted; it was held by them that these open and unenclosed lands * A part of this was published in the Contemporary Review, January, 1879.