condition, and without improvements, the figure generally increasing in an inverse ratio to the size of the farm and the poverty of the district, the largest tenant prices prevailing in Donegal,[1] and the most moderate in Down, while the payment is almost invariably made with money borrowed at a high rate of interest."[2] This interest is, of course,
- ↑ "The good-will or tenant-right of a farm is generally very high, often amounting to forty or fifty years purchase, land being the thing most coveted, as indeed, it has been the only means of subsistence, employment being uncertain, and as till of late no support being provided for the poor and helpless every penny was carefully put by with a view of purchasing land. This took all their little capital, and very often left them in debt to some money lender, who had made up the required sum at an enormous rate of interest; by this means nothing was left them for the purchase of the cattle and seed."—Digest, Devon Commission, p. 299.
Lord George Hill (Donegal).
- ↑ The following remarks on the unrestricted sale of what is called the good-will as distinguished from fair compensation for improvements is well worthy of attention.
"It is even questionable whether this growing practice of tenant-right, which would at the first view appear to be a valuable assumption on the part of the tenant, be so in reality; as it gives to him, without any exertion on his own part, an apparent property or security, by means of which he is enabled to incur future incumbrance in order to avoid present inconvenience—a practice which frequently terminates in the utter destitution of his family and in the sale of his farm, when the debts thus created at usurious interest amount to what its sale would produce."—Ibid. p. 5, 24.
"The effect on the purchaser of the tenant right to a farm is also highly injurious. He is generally a person who has managed to accumulate a small portion of funds, but not sufficient to pay off the whole amount of the purchase-
