the proprietors live on their property, does much to make the
countryside attractive to the poorer classes and to check migration.

There is no more erroneous idea than to suppose, as do some people, that
there was a large body of resident landed proprietors in Ireland until
the land war drove them to seek safety across the Channel. As a matter
of fact, long before this had begun there existed an absentee
aristocracy dependent on middlemen or agents--"the vermin of the
country," Arthur Young called them--who constituted a mere mechanical
medium for the collection of rent, and as such were the worst exponents
of the amenities which, in happier circumstances, are supposed to
subsist between owners and occupiers of agrarian land. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century the increase of population in the island and
the high prices resulting from the war led to a very great sub-division
of holdings, while the exercise of the franchise by the forty shillings
freeholder until the year 1829 provided an additional inducement to the
landlord to multiply the number of tenants on his land, since by doing
so he increased the number of votes under his control, and, _pari
passu_, his political influence.

After the famine, when it was found that one-third of the Irish
landlords were bankrupt, the Encumbered Estates Court Act was passed to
cope with the situation which had arisen of a country full of numerous
landlords saddled with land which, owing to mortgages, debts, and
incumbrances, was inalienable. Under the Act the Court was empowered, on
the petition of any person sufficiently interested, to sell the
encumbered estate and give an indefeasible title, so that persons who
before had a claim on the estate should now have a claim only on the
purchase-money. It was a piece of strong legislation in its disregard of
vested rights and in the manner in which it set aside express contracts