s the passion for
legislation, that both systems are now about to be disinterred, to be
taken from the oblivion to which their own iniquities long since
consigned them, and to be set up in the preamble of an act of
Parliament, in order that Mr Sharman Crawfurd may have the opportunity
of again prostrating them by legislative enactments. We are certain
that, for the last ten years, no instance can be shown in which any
landlord set, or any tenant took, land on determinable leases, for the
purpose of subletting; or any single instance in which the landlords
practised, or permitted, the copartnership system on their estates; and
yet the public time is to be wasted, and the public attention to be
occupied, by the introduction of laws to restrain practices which are no
longer in operation. It is true, some of those leases where the
middleman held on very easy terms, and was able to pay the rent himself
during the great depression, are still in existence; but they are daily
dropping out: and it is the treatment of those properties, when they
come upon the owners' hands, that has latterly attracted so much
attention. From 1818, a total revolution in the management of land took
place in Ireland: the proprietors became in most instances the managers
of their own estates; and, as each year advanced, the necessity of
attending strictly to their duties became more manifest to them. From
1830 to 1843, more was done, and is still continuing to be done, in
improving or in endeavouring to improve, the condition of the people,
than was ever done before. The large owners of land employed Scotch
stewards to instruct their tenantry in the most improved system of
husbandry; and their neighbours profited by the example. Green-cropping
increased in a most astonishing degree; agricultural societies were
formed in almost every county; and the country was advancing steadily
and rapidly in the march of prosperity, when the baneful agitation again
started into existence. To disconnect the peasantry from the landlords,
who could not be induced to join in the senseless and mischievous cry
for Repeal, now became the object of the agitators: the most unjust
charges were made against the gentry; and even their exertions to
promote the growth of turnips, or to teach the people the proper mode of
cultivation, were turned into ridicule and treated with contempt, in the
public speeches of some of the Roman Catholic bishops. The floodgates of
abuse were thro