Lest it might be supposed that this was the opinion of a single judge, we find in the Court of Appeal equally strong views stated:—­It was thrown out that it was a case for amicable settlement, but the respondent’s counsel assured the Court that his client ’had resolved to spend his fortune, if necessary, in resisting the claim of the Rev. Dr. O’Fay.’  Lord Justice Blackburne pronounced this to be a very irrational determination, although he had to decide that the claim could not be sustained in law or equity.

Lord Chancellor Napier, in concluding his judgment, said:—­

’I think I am not overstepping my duty in suggesting to the respondent, that, under all the circumstances of this case, he will best maintain the character and honour of a British officer, satisfy the exigencies of justice, and uphold the rights of property, by making such an arrangement with Dr. O’Fay, as to the possession of this farm, as may leave him the full benefit of an expenditure made in good faith, and with the reasonable expectation of having the full benefit of it sufficiently secured by an undisturbed possession.’

It is a favourite theory with the new school of agents and improving landlords, that long leases cause bad cultivation; in other words, that industry prospers best where there is no security that you can reap what you have sown, except the honour of a man whose interest it is to appropriate the fruits of your labours, which he can legally do.  Now, in every class and profession, there are failures,—­persons that are good for nothing, indolent, improvident, and thriftless.  If such a man has a long lease at a low rent, he may be overwhelmed in debt, and leave his land in very bad condition.  Others may imitate their aristocratic superiors in their contempt for labour and their habits of expenditure, and so get into a state of hopeless poverty on a good estate.  If there are cases where industrious sober men are the worse for having an old lease, it should be remembered that the most insecure of all tenures is a lease dependent on a single bad life, which may drop at any hour.  But there are other causes of the facts urged against long tenures, for which the legislature is responsible, not the unimproving tenant.  Dr. Hancock explains this point very satisfactorily:—­

’Instances of bad cultivation and neglect of improvements, where long leases exist, are sometimes brought forward to show the inutility of tenure as a security for capital, and the strange economic theory is propounded that a precarious interest is more favourable to the investment of capital than a secure one.  As well might the state of landed property in Ireland before the Incumbered Estates Court was established be adduced as an argument against property in land.  The remedy, however, which the legislature applied to incumbered estates of large proprietors was not to destroy property in land, but simply to secure its prompt, cheap, and effectual transfer to solvent hands.