But as the result of such an arrangement would be to fill the majority of the farms in Ireland,
in the course of a few years, with tenants paying a double rent, i.e. the Parliamentary rent to their landlords, and the interest on the fine squeezed out of them by the lucky individual to whom Parliament had attributed a share in the original owner's proprietory rights, it is difficult to see what could be the advantage of the change. It may indeed be urged that the vice in the system would only blaze into life on a change of tenancy:—but changes of tenancy are continually taking place:—not only by the surrender of farms, but on the death of every occupant. His sons succeed:—they all consider they have an equal claim to the holding:—if permitted they subdivide it;[1]—if not
- ↑ "Or, if the parents' improvidence do not reach to this extent, it gives them an erroneous feeling that at their death a fund will exist, without any previous accumulation of their own, from which their children can be all provided for. Accordingly, the death of a father generally leaves the son who succeeds to the farm encumbered to an irretrievable extent by charges for the provision of other members of the family; and this frequently upon a holding in a most unproductive or half-cultivated condition. He is obliged to sell off his stock, and is utterly unable to make those exertions which his position requires, and perhaps even incapable of fulfilling the arrangements required by his father's will. A minute subdivision of the small farm is then made amongst the members of the family, thereby laying the foundation for perhaps five or six pauper families on an extent of surface barely sufficient for the comfortable maintenance of one family."Dig. Dev. Com. Summary p. 4.
