t regard as an improvement of the
country a system which establishes a despot on every estate, which
degrades the tenant into a day-labourer, which--land being limited and
scarce--substitutes the old, barbarous, pastoral system for tillage,
which banishes the poor and enslaves the rich. Lord Digby levelled
cottages, gardens, farms, manured the land, got an enormous crop,
which in one year paid all the expenses; and then laid out the land in
vast tracts of pasture, for which he gets from 30 s. to 40 s. an acre.
That is improvement for _him_, but not for the people, not for the
country, not for the state, not for the Queen. It may crush Ribbonism.
But for every Ribbonman crushed, a hundred Fenians spring up; and
disaffection becomes not a mere local plague, but an endemic. Mr.
Trench gives a significant hint to other landlords to follow the
example of Lord Digby, assuring them that it will '_pay_.'

A still more flagrant case of lease-breaking occurred some years ago
in the county of Galway. Dr. Hancock has put the facts of this case
before the Government in his recent report:--

'The plaintiff was the Rev. Dr. O'Fay, parish priest of Craughwell, in
the county of Galway, and the defendant the landlord on whose estate
the priest resided. About ten years ago the priest was induced to
take a farm that had been held by a former parish priest; the previous
proprietor, the father of the defendant, promising a lease for three
lives, or thirty-one years. After the priest entered into possession
the landlord ascertained that he could not fulfil his promise.

'As he did not possess such a power under the terms of the estate
settlement, he offered, instead, a lease for the priest's own
life, and 20 l. to aid in building a house. The priest continued
in possession of the farm, and paid the rent agreed on, thus, as he
alleged, accepting the arrangement proposed. He was on excellent terms
with the landlord, and expended 70 l. in permanent improvements, and
did not ask for the 20 l. which the landlord had promised. In 1854 the
landlord died, and his son, the defendant, succeeded to the property.
He gave notice to all his yearly tenants of an intention to raise
their rents. The priest claimed to have a promise of a lease, and the
agent of the property, during the landlord's absence abroad, admitted
this claim, and did not raise the rent. The landlord said he had no
notice of his father's promise; he, however, allowed the priest to
rem