The evidence as to Jersey and Alderney is of a similar character. Mr. Thornton, speaking of the Channel Islands says:—
'Thus it appears that in the two principal islands the agricultural population is, in one twice, and in the other three times as dense as in Britain, there being in the latter country only one cultivator to every 22 acres, while in Jersey there is one to 11 acres and in Guernsey one to 7 acres. Yet the agriculture of these islands maintains besides cultivators, non-agricultural populations respectively four and five times as dense as that of Britain. The difference does not arise from any superiority of soil or climate possessed by the Channel Islands, for the former is naturally rather poor and the latter is not better than in the southern counties of England. It is owing to the assiduous care of the farmer and the abundant use of manures. In Jersey the average size of the farms is sixteen acres. Thirty shillings an acre would be thought in England a very fair rent for middling land, but in the Channel Islands it is only very inferior land that would not let for at least £4 an acre.'
The Church Act to a small extent encouraged the experiment of peasant ownership in Ireland, and the results of the trial are far from discouraging, although after the arrangement and basis of purchase were decided upon agricultural depression set in so heavily, and prices for all kinds of produce fell so considerably, that unless the land were very low-rented it would be difficult to make its cultivation pay. The tenants under the incentive of security purchased their homesteads at a fancy price, even as things were then, but the subsequent fall in values has made their terms simply extravagant. Yet they have borne up under the crushing weight of such a liability unrelieved by an Arrears Act or those customary annual concessions in rent which even the most exacting and hardfisted landlord was compelled to allow. In the West Mr. Pim tried a similar experiment on a small scale with equally satisfactory results. At Newport near Westport he allowed his tenants to purchase their holdings at about twenty years purchase of their rent. Depression came, yet the peasant owners bore manfully up against the pitiless storm, managing not only to live but to pay up with creditable, if surprising, regularity and
