The good feeling which is apt to grow up between a resident landlord and his tenantry has material as well as moral results, which are generally beneficial. The absentee is less likely to take account of circumstances (e.g. tenant's improvements), which render rackrenting unjust. He is less likely to make allowance for calamities which render punctual payment difficult. " Miseries of which he can see nothing, and probably hear as little of, can make no impression," A. YOUNG. He is glad to get rid of responsibility by dealing with a " middleman," or intermediate tenant—an additional wheel in the machinery of exaction, calculated to grind relentlessly those placed underneath it. Without the softening influence of personal communication between the owner and the cultivator of the soil, the " cash nexus " is liable to be strained beyond the limit of human patience, and to burst violently. There can be little doubt but that absenteeism has been one potent cause of the misery and disturbances in Ireland. The same cause has produced like effects in cases widely different in other respects. The cruellest oppressors of the French peasantry before the Revolution were the fermiers, who purchased for an annual sum the right to collect the dues of absentee seigneurs. The violence of the GRANGER Railway legislation in the western states of America is attributed to the fact that the shareholders damnified were absentee proprietors (Seligman, Journal of Political Science, 1888).
There are also the moral advantages due to the influence and example of a cultivated upper class. The extent of this benefit will vary according to the character of the proprietors and the people. In some cases it may be, as Adam SMITH says, that "the inhabitants of a large village, after having made considerable progress in manufactures, have become idle in consequence of a great lord having taken up his residence in their neighbourhood." The opposite view, presented by Miss EDGEWORTH in her Absentee, may be true in other states of civilisation. Perhaps the safest generalisation is that made by Senior that " in general the presence of men of large fortune is morally detrimental, and that of men of moderate fortune morally beneficial, to their immediate neighbourhood."