For my part, I cannot understand the meaning of improving a country by disinheriting and banishing its inhabitants.  I do not understand men who say the population is too dense, and yet give to one family a tract of land large enough to support ten families, turning out the nine to make room for the one.  A great deal has been said about the evils of small farms.  But the most disturbed and impoverished parts of Ireland are those in which the farms are largest; while the two most prosperous and best ordered counties—­Armagh and Wexford—­are the counties in which small farms most abound.  I call a reluctant witness, Master Fitzgibbon, to testify that when the Irish tenant, be his holding ever so small, gets common justice and is not subjected to caprice, he gives no trouble.  That gentleman informs us that there are 650 estates of all magnitudes, from 100 l. to 20,000 l. a-year, under the control and management of the court of chancery; the total rents of these amount to 494,056 l. a-year payable by 28,581 tenants.  These estates are in all parts of Ireland, not only in all the provinces, but in all the counties, without exception; and, according to Master Fitzgibbon, they fairly represent the tenantry of the whole country.  He has 452 of the estates under his own jurisdiction, and the rents of these amount to 330,809 l., paid by 18,287 tenants.  He has now been ten years in the office, during which ’the rents have been paid without murmuring or complaints worth noticing.’  ’The pressure of legal remedies for these rents has been very little used; the number of evictions absolutely trifling; and of between 400 and 500 receivers, who collect these rents, not one has ever been assailed, or interfered with, or threatened in the discharge of his duty, as far as I have been able to discover; and I am the person to whom the receiver should apply for redress if anything of the kind occurred.  It is very well known that my ears are open to any just complaint from any tenant, and yet I am very seldom appealed to, considering the great number of tenants; and whenever a complaint is well-founded, it is promptly and effectually redressed, at scarcely any expense of costs.  I believe the other three Masters would make substantially a similar report to this in respect of the estates under their jurisdiction.’

Master Fitzgibbon proceeds to state that ’on one estate there are 2,500 tenants, paying 13,000 l.,—­being an average of 6 l. a-year.  This estate has been sold, and three of the lots fetched over 30 years’ purchase of the yearly profit rents.  The fourth lot is held by small cottiers, at rents which average only 2 l., and this lot fetched 23 years’ purchase.  This estate has been under a receiver for three years, and there has never been one complaint from a tenant.  What is stated of this estate may be said of every one of them in all the four provinces.’  He adds:  ’Clamour, agitation, or violence of any kind I have never had to deal with amongst the tenantry of any one of these estates since I came into office.’