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this would neither injure London, nor benefit Liverpool.

11. If land in this country, which pays twenty millions of annual rent, should belong to the King of France instead of its present proprietors; and if his Gallic Majesty should constantly receive the rent in raw produce, and never send a shilling of it back to be expended on the land, the case would be precisely the same to the nation at large, as it is at present, when the land belongs to inhabitants of this country, who expend the rent in British merchandize and manufactures.

12. If fifty millions were annually taken from the profits of this country, and added to those of France as a free gift, it would neither injure the one country, nor benefit the other; it would neither make the one poorer, nor the other richer.

We could go farther, but we will pause at the round dozen. Gentle reader, what an amazing science is Political Economy!

The wretched dogmas that in reality lead to these conclusions, are not put forth as matters of opinion-as things that may possibly be erroneous. Oh, no! they are promulgated as though their truth were matter of decisive demonstration; all who dissent from them are stigmatized as ignorant, prejudiced bigots, and covered with ridicule. The Economists have stuck themselves upon their bubble, and, in consequence, they imagine that they have soared far above the world, and the infirmities of human nature, and they seem to think that they have invested themselves with the attributes of Heaven. The foul names and grins of such egotists, will not, we conceive, disturb any man's peace, whatever effect they have on his risibility.

It is not solely on account of Mr M'Culloch that we have bestowed so much attention on this doctrine. The fact is and we most earnestly beg our readers to keep it in mind-that upon this doctrine stands what is called our new and liberal system of Free

Trade. This system distinctly asserts as its basis, that to buy manufactures and corn of France, and other states which have adopted the prohibitory system against us, will benefit, and not injure, our own manufactures and agriculturists, although these may be able to supply us abundantly. This is exactly the doctrine of the Philosopher. It is exactly the same as asserting, that if our agriculturists buy nearly the whole of their manufactures of France with raw produce, it will benefit and not injure our own manufacturers; that if our manufacturers buy nearly the whole of their corn of France, it will benefit, and not injure our agriculturists; that if our landholders go to dwell constantly in France, their expenditure of their incomes in that country, will be precisely the same thing to England as their expenditure of them at home would be. We repeat, that in reality there is not the least difference between the doctrine of Mr M'Culloch, and the principles on which this new system avowedly rests. If the doctrine be true, the system stands upon a rock; if the doctrine be false, the system is built upon sand, it will fall, and the fall will be terrible. We hope we have said sufficient to convince our readers that the doctrine is perfectly untenable. We are ourselves as thoroughly convinced that it is wholly false, and that the system which has been raised upon it is one of error and destruction, as we are that light is not darkness-that flame is not ice-that vapour is not adamant. Time will produce that conviction in the nation which we cannot. Words may be disregarded, but ruin and misery will obtain attention and credence.

We must now say something on a difference touching absentee expenditure, the existence of which Mr M'Culloch practically denies altogether. If the Irish absentee landlord dwell in France, he injures Ireland to benefit France; and the benefits which he confers on the latter do not ope

* Many of the public prints, which uniformly puff the "new and liberal system of free trade" in the most fulsome manner, have pronounced Mr M'Culloch's doctrine to be gross and glaring falsehood. Some of them have abused it in the most outrageous way possible. There is something in this exquisitely ludicrous. Mr M'Culloch asserts that the man in the moon never wears a nightcap-It is a lię !— Mr Huskisson asserts the same in somewhat different words-It is an obvious truth. Bravo, most sagacious Editors!

rate to benefit the former. If he dwell in England, what Ireland loses in respect of his expenditure is gained by England. The benefits of his expenditure are still kept in the empire. Ireland has a free trade to England, and his expenditure in the latter increases this trade. If there were a perfectly free circulation of labour throughout Britain and Ireland, if Ireland were as far advanced in manufactures and commerce as Britain, and if it could supply its full proportion of the various articles sold in the English market-then the residence of the Irish landlord in London, with regard to expenditure, would only operate to Ireland, as the residence of the Yorkshire landlord, in London, operates to Yorkshire. The great mass of our landlords are, to a very great extent in respect of expenditure, absentees from their estates. They expend the greater part of their incomes in London, or other large places.

But whatever Ireland may lose from the landlord's expending his income in England, it forms but a very contemptible part of the whole loss which flows from his absenteesim. Excessive rents and subdivision form, so far as the landlord is concerned, the great curse of Ireland, and these do not necessarily flow from his expending his rents in London. The whole of our English landlords might dwell constantly on their estates, and still, if they should exact the utmost farthing of rent possible from their tenants, our peasantry would be as poor and miserable as the Irish peasantry, and our land would be as much subdivided as that of Ireland. Exorbitant rents, if they be general, must produce subdivision; and both, whether landlords be residents or absentees, must plunge the cultivators into want and misery.

If the Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, or Westmoreland landlord dwell almost constantly, and spend the whole of his income in London, his tenants are still in respectable and comfortable circumstances. They pay moderate rents —such rents as leave them fair profits upon their capital. The landlord seizes not the lion's share of the produce of the land—he gives them their due portion. In the distressed parts of Ireland everything is taken from the tenants but the most bare subsistence. The English farmer can save money he can reserve his farm VOL. XIX.

for one son, and put the others into respectable trades. The Irish farmer cannot save-he cannot put his sons into trades; when he dies his property must be divided, and, so far as regards his children, his land must be divided likewise. The English farmers and their labourers, in reality, retain and expend upon the estate a large portion of that rent, which in Ireland is extorted from the Irish ones, and sent out of the country..

While it is manifest that exorbitant rents, and their offspring, subdivision, are, so far as concerns the landlords, the great evils of Ireland, it is, in our judgment, equally manifest that these evils flow from absenteeism. If a nobleman or gentleman of large fortune-who prides himself upon his rank and ancestry-who is fond of show and splendour-who has never known the want of money-who has his fortune in money already madewho has been taught to look upon the parsimonious ideas of traders with scorn-and who has been constantly habituated to generosity and profusion-if such an individual personally direct the management of his estate, it is not possible, in the nature of things, that he should be a bad landlord. Pride, pomp-every feeling of his nature, will compel him to let reasonably cheap farms, and to let his farms, and even his cottages, to none but men of good character and conduct. His larger tenants will be enabled to save, and to occupy more land; he will keep himself constantly enabled to let his land in farms of any size to good tenants. On the other hand, if a low-bred, mercenary man of small property, have the sole management of an estate as a per centage-agent, or middleman; if he take this management for the sake of pecuniary profit; and if his profit be regulated by the amount of rent which he can extort from the cultivators, it is not possible, in the nature of things, that he can be a good landlord. Every thing will conspire to compel him to sponge from the occupiers the utmost farthing of rent, without regard to anything else. While the owner only lets the land to enjoy a fortune-to obtain the interest of capital, this man lets it to make a fortune-to accumulate a capital. He will dissipate the capital of the larger occupiers, compel them, if they provide for their child

I

ren, to contract the size of their farms, subdivide the estate, and people it with inhabitants of bad character. Exceptions there are in both cases we speak generally. The truth of this we conceive to be decisively established by the condition of the agricultural population of Britain and

Ireland.

While we hold it to be manifest, that exorbitant rents and sub-division flow from absenteeism, we hold it to be equally manifest, that the constant residence of the landlord in Ireland is not requisite as a remedy. If he will only dwell on his estate a very few months in the year, and either let it himself, or suffer it to be let by a salaried agent, under his personal direction and control, this is proved by the state of Britain to be all that is necessary. We say now, as we have said before, that we do not wish to see the Irish landlords dwell constantly on their estates. It is essential for the good of Ireland, that they should be in Parliament, that they should dwell much in London, and that they should mix largely with the British ones. The whole that we wish the Irish landlords to do is, that they will act like those of England.

Mr M'Culloch, however, denies that absenteeism produces evils of any kind; he asserts that the return of the absentees would only benefit Ireland in the most trifling degree, if at all. He speaks against sub-letting, but he does not conceive the return of the landlords necessary for its extinction. It has been again and again declared by government, that a sufficient number of men of proper respectability could not be found to form the Magistracy, yet the residence of the landlord would yield no benefit! It is said that some of the Magistrates are deficient in knowledge and principle, yet their being combined with, and placed under the influence of men of high rank-members of Parliament men spending a part of every year in the first society in the metropolis, would neither improve them, nor benefit Ireland! It would have no tendency to civilize and better the condition of Ireland, were rich and polished families to be scattered about throughout its whole village population, to furnish example, to establish schools, to supply the poor with food and clothing in times of necessi

ty, to watch over morals and conduct, and to stimulate improvements in husbandry, housewifery, &c. by instruction and reward. Out upon such political economy!

The Philosopher says nothing against per centage agents and middlemen, but his favourite mode of managing an estate is this-The landlord shall dwell constantly abroad, and the estate shall be under the exclusive authority of a hired agent. This agent will generally be taken from the lower of the middling classes, he will be a man of small fortune, but more likely of none at all, and he will have a salary of perhaps from one to three, or five hundred per annum. Now, looking at the points which we have enumerated above, touching the magistracy, civilization, schools, &c. will any man living say that an agent like this will be more valuable-will not be infinitely less valuable-upon an estate, than a nobleman or gentleman of large fortune? Our larger English landlords generally keep such an agent notwithstanding their residence. On these points, such an agent would be worthless; he would be merely a hired servant, without a master to overlook him, and like other hired servants, he would do as little as possible for his wages.

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Looking merely at the letting of a large estate, it is a trust infinitely too great for such an agent, and he will be pretty sure to abuse it in one way or another. The resident landlord is under powerful internal and external restraints in the exercise of his authority over the tenants, but from such checks the agent is almost wholly free. His master never sees him; he is a man of the world, and cares but little for public opinion, and he has the tenants at his mercy. His income is small, and he wishes to increase it: he is exposed to every temptation to abuse his trust, at the cost of the tenants. We scarcely ever knew the hired agent of an English absentee landlord, that is, of a landlord who dwelt constantly in a foreign country, who did his duty properly. What Mr M'Culloch says in favour of the Scottish agents may be true; but, from what we have seen of English ones, and of human nature, we are confident, that, if all the estates of a nation were placed under the exclusive control of hired agents, the greater

part of these agents would abuse their trust in the most scandalous and pernicious manner. If we are mistaken, the world is under a gross delusion, in fancying that servants need to be looked after by masters, and that Ministers of State, and others who hold great trusts, ought to be surrounded with restraints, and vigilantly watched. The Philosopher admits, that in Scotland the land of absentee landlords is let at a higher rent than that of resident ones. He makes this a matter of choice on the part of the tenant, because "no tenant likes to live under that system of surveillance and overlooking which is generally exercised by a landlord;" and because when a landlord goes abroad, "his affairs are managed by his factor, or agent, who is generally a very intelligent person, and much more conversant with country affairs than the landlords are; so that the tenants prefer dealing with him to dealing with the landlord."

We who now hold the pen were born in, and belong to, England; we never saw Scotland, and we do not pretend to know how these things are managed among our Scottish fellowsubjects. We see quite sufficient in the conduct of certain Scotch writers in the metropolis to deter us from dilating on local matters of which we have no knowledge. These people write day after day, touching our English peasantry and country gentlemen, and every line proves that they know no more of either than the Hottentot. Every one who is at all acquainted with our country population must know, that the diatribes which they put forth against our "unpaid magistracy," form the most nauseous compound of stoneblind ignorance, and groundless slander, that ever appeared in print. That is odd philosophy which bottoms itself upon direct falsehoods. That is odd liberality” which occupies itself with blasting the reputation of the most generous, upright, and honourable men in the community.

Although we cannot contradict Mr M'Culloch from our personal knowledge of Scotland, we still can supply a contradiction which will satisfy our readers. An Address has recently been eirculated by the Inverness-shire Farming Society, which does honour to those from whom it has emanated, and which, on the part of the tenantry of

Scotland, distinctly denies the assertions of Mr M'Culloch.

We are, however, no strangers to the landlords and tenants of England; and, certainly, what Mr M'Culloch says would be very erroneous if applied to our English tenants. We will divide our landlords into two classes—the small and the great ones. A landlord who has only one farm, or two, and whose whole income arises from his land, looks after his tenant principally to get as much rent as he can. The great landlord looks after his tenant chiefly on the score of management and conduct. In the one case, the tenant has to fear from "surveillance and overlooking" an advance of rent, and in the other, reproof, or a discharge. Is it likely that he will give an advance of rent at once rather than live in fear of it, or prefer a bad farm to a good one, merely because an improbable evil may befall him? If he leave the landlord, and take the farm of an agent, what then? He exchanges the "surveillance and overlooking" of the landlord for those of the agent ; and in almost all cases, the "surveillance and overlooking" of the agent are infinitely more busy, tormenting, and injurious, than those of the landlord. The latter perhaps leaves him for great part of the year, but the agent is always near him.

But then the tenant likes to deal with the agent because he is more conversant with country affairs than the landlord. Answer us these questions, ye town and city shopkeepers? From which can you obtain the best bargain in buying your goods-the rich novice, or the keen man who thoroughly understands his business? Do you prefer buying of the latter at higher prices merely on account of his better knowledge of trade? A farmer has to choose between two farms of equal value: the rent of the one is five shillings per week more than that of the other; and yet, according to Mr M'Culloch, he prefers the dear one, because he has to take it, not of a rich gentleman, who is not very knowing in agricultural matters, and who cares but little for money, but of a shrewd, crafty, experienced man of business! This certainly cannot need any refutation.

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ing" of the agent much more than those of the landlord. The latter never enters their houses, he is not very skilful in judging of their crops, and he acts impartially towards all. The agent visits among them, and he hears much private history and slander which ought never to reach him. He is puffed up with his own importance, and expects the utmost deference to be paid him. He is more or less under the guidance of his own paltry personal interests. He favours one tenant be cause he is wealthy, or gives him the best dinner, or sends him the most presents, or treats him with the most reverence: he is hostile to another tenant because he is poor, or because his mind has been poisoned against him by slander, or because he is not sufficiently humble. He can always calculate pretty accurately what the tenants make of their farms. The landlord is jealous of his honour, public opinion has great influence over him, and he has a pride in a highly cultivated estate and respectable tenants: but the case is wholly different with the agent; he merely acts for hire, and if he do the most odious things, he can throw the blame upon his principal. A tenant must be exposed to the "surveillance and overlooking" of either the landlord or the agent; and we believe that those of the latter will generally be the most active and injurious.

Reasoning, however, is idle, when the question has been decided by experience. In England, the best farms are those which are let by, or under the direction of, the landlord: the worst are those which are exclusively under the management of an agent. This refers, of course, to middling and large estates, and not to the land of small proprietors. The case is the same in Scotland according to Mr M'Culloch's own showing. In England, our farmers are anxious to leave the dear farms of absentees for cheap ones under resident landlords; we cannot but think that the case is the same with the Scottish ones.

Let us now apply the Philosopher's doctrines to Ireland. In England the absentee landlord commonly pays his agent by a regular salary, and gives him instructions to exact no more than moderate rents, so that the tenant is still to a certain degree under the protection of the landlord. But in Ireland it appears, that where an agent

is employed, he is almost always paid by a per centage. The landlord gives up the letting of his estate entirely to him. He in effect says-" Lay on what rent you please,-if you bring me none, I will pay you nothing-I will allow you so much for every hundred pounds that you may bring me." Now, to the tenants, this agent is in reality as much the landlord, as he would be should the fee simple of the estate belong to him. He has them perfectly at his mercy; he is a resident landlord; he has them constantly under his eye; and he is incessantly stimulated by personal interest to rack from them the utmost farthing.

If the estate of the absentee be not in the hands of an agent like this, it is generally in those of middlemen. These middlemen are in reality the only landlords that the mass of the tenants know or have; they are constantly among the tenants; and the only interest that they have in the land, is to extort the highest rents possible.

Courteous readers-whether ye be English farmers or Scottish oneswhether ye be inhabitants of the country, who are familiar with the sight of green fields-or natives of London, who have never ventured out of the smoke of that famous city-we leave to you the decision of these questions. Does the Irish cultivator escape "surveillance and overlooking," because the owner of his land is an absentee ? Is he not under the most odious and pernicious "surveillance and overlooking" that could be imagined?

The "surveillance and overlooking" of our greater English landlords extend principally to conduct. These landlords know that they could obtain much higher rents, but they do not wish it; they pry but little into the pecuniary affairs of their tenants. What a tenant has to fear from them is chiefly displeasure for suffering his fences, &c. to get out of order; for managing his land in a slovenly, unprofitable manner; or for being extravagant, drunken, or immoral. The "surveillance and overlooking" of the only landlord that the tenant in reality has in Ireland, are eternally upon this tenant, chiefly for the purpose of keeping his rent at the highest point: his management and conduct are minor matters. Now, how does the difference operate to the tenants and to society in the mass?

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