Why should
we tolerate in Ireland the law of primogeniture? Why should we tolerate
the system of entails? Why should the object of the law be to accumulate
land in great masses in few hands, and to make it almost impossible for
persons of small means, and tenant-farmers, to become possessors of
land? If you go to other countries--for example, to Norway, to Denmark,
to Holland, to Belgium, to France, to Germany, to Italy, or to the
United States, you will find that in all these countries those laws of
which I complain have been abolished, and the land is just as free to
buy and sell, and hold and cultivate, as any other description of
property in the kingdom. No doubt your Landed Estates Court and your
Record of Titles Act were good measures, but they were good because they
were in the direction that I want to travel farther in.
But I would go farther than that; I would deal with the question of
absenteeism. I am not going to propose to tax absentees; but if my
advice were taken, we should have a Parliamentary Commission empowered
to buy up the large estates in Ireland belonging to the English
nobility, for the purpose of selling them on easy terms to the occupiers
of the farms and to the tenantry of Ireland.
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