. Ireland yesterday and today . everything to the middle-man or to his own personal agent. The tenant was groundbetween the agent and the soil. There was no> escape. Suppose he paid the increase ordered, nothing more norless than a penalty for his industry. The next year his landyielded a crop. Again the agent came, estimated the valueof the yield and raised the rent again. So the grinding wenton, from year to year, the uttermost farthing being wrung*from the farmer, until the inevitable time came when hecould not pay. Having spent himself on the land, living onthe verge of starvation in or
. Ireland yesterday and today . everything to the middle-man or to his own personal agent. The tenant was groundbetween the agent and the soil. There was no> escape. Suppose he paid the increase ordered, nothing more norless than a penalty for his industry. The next year his landyielded a crop. Again the agent came, estimated the valueof the yield and raised the rent again. So the grinding wenton, from year to year, the uttermost farthing being wrung*from the farmer, until the inevitable time came when hecould not pay. Having spent himself on the land, living onthe verge of starvation in order to meet the steadily increas-ing demands of the landlord, knowing that the harder heworked the more he must pay, he found himself at last atthe end of his resources. He could not pay the increasedrent. Again there was no choice. By simple, cheap andeffective process of law the tenant and his family wereevicted, thrown out on the roadside to die or to start theweary struggle afresh in some new patch of bog or IRISH LANDLORDISM 19 And what became of the product of his labor? Surelyhe could dispose of his interest in the land, the drains he haddug, the fences and houses and barns he had built? Not tothe extent of one farthing. By the very process of evictionall improvements passed into the possession of the starving family on the roadside were even poorer thanbefore they started. They might go where they would. Allthe landlords agent had to do was to take a new new tenant could afford to pay the high rent demanded,for he found a farm and buildings ready to support hisfamily. He took possession, and remained until the wrench-ing of the thumbscrews each year brought him, too, to thelimit of his ability to pay, and then he, too. was thrown out. Such, in brief, was the system of land tenure in Irelandfor generations. Nor is this the worst. The tenant was sub-ject to eviction not only for non-payment of rent, but abso-lutely at the whim or c
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