He wisely resolved to receive his rents himself, and to avoid the intervention of any agent or driver (’a person who drives and impounds cattle for rent or arrears’).  ’In every case where the tenant had improved the land, or even where he had been industrious, though unsuccessful, his claim to preference over every new proposer, his tenanfs right, as it is called, was admitted.  But the mere plea of “I have lived under your Honour, or your Honour’s father or grandfather” or “I have been on your Honour’s estate so many years” he disregarded.  Farms, originally sufficient for the comfortable maintenance of a man, his wife, and family, had in many cases been subdivided from generation to generation, the father giving a bit of the land to each son to settle him.  It was an absolute impossibility that the land should ever be improved if let in these miserable lots.  Nor was it necessary that each son should hold land, or advantageous that each should live on his “little potato garden” without further exertion of mind or body.

’There was a continual struggle between landlord and tenant upon the question of long and short leases. . . .  The offer of immediate high rent, or of fines to be paid down directly, tempted the landlord’s extravagance, or supplied his present necessities, at the expense of his future interests. . . .  Many have let for ninety-nine years; and others, according to a form common in ’Ireland, for three lives, renewable for ever, paying a small fine on the insertion of a new life at the failure of each.  These leases, in course of years, have been found extremely disadvantageous to the landlord, the property having risen so much in value that the original rent was absurdly disproportioned.

‘The longest term my father ever gave,’ says his daughter Maria, ’was thirty-one years, with one or sometimes two lives.  He usually gave one life, reserving to himself the option of adding another —­the son, perhaps, of the tenant—­if he saw that the tenant deserved it by his conduct.  This sort of power to encourage and reward in the hands of a landlord is advantageous in Ireland.  It acts as a motive for exertion; it keeps up the connection and dependence which there ought to be between the different ranks, without creating any servile habits, or leaving the improving tenant insecure as to the fair reward of his industry.

’Edgeworth’s plan was to take not that which, abstractedly viewed, is the best possible course, but that which is the best the circumstances will altogether allow.

’When the oppressive duty-work in Ireland was no longer claimed, and no longer inserted in Irish leases, there arose a difficulty to gentlemen in getting labourers at certain times of the year, when all are anxious to work for themselves; for instance, at the seasons for cutting turf, setting potatoes, and getting home the harvest.