IRISH LAND LAWS. The land tenure of Ireland is the product of two 1114111(4. system:, the Irish tribal and the English feudal. In the former. as described in the Brehm' laws., the land was ultimately the property of one of the four or five tribes into which the Irish popula tion was divided. .\ portion of this land was set aside for the chief or king of the tribe, but by far the greater part of it belonged to the differ ent clan, of which the tribes were composed. The clan lands were subdivided among the septs, which were the lowest social units. Land was set aside both for the chiefs of the clans and the chiefs of the septs. The greater part of the Sept land, however, was held by the free tribesmen. who owed both rents and military service to their immediate These tribes men held their land: by different kinds of free tenure. The Ceil had herds of eattle (the chief wealth of the country) of his own. while to the Saer and the Daer tenants cattle were lent by the chief. Besides these there were servile tenants (the Enidliir), who were not original members of the tribal community. These wero personally dependent on the chief, who had a right to quarter his retainers upon them or rackrent them at pleasure. It is impossible to determine the numerical proportion of the popu lation represented by these servile tenants, but it is probable that at. the time when the English system was superimposed upon Ireland the free element was predominant.
Under the Irish system, land was conceived to be held on a communal basis. On the death of the chief his land was distributed among his descendants by the tribesmen. and on the death of a tribesman the chief redistributed the land of the Sept. In contrast to this, under the English feudal system. the King was conceived to be the ultimate owner of the land, and the lords and other tenants derived their ownership from him. The English law in Ireland. however, prevailed only within the Pale, while the Irish law prevailed in by far the greater part of the country. The evils of the Irish land system arc to be ascribed to the dispossession of the native population and to the forced imposition of the English land law upon Ireland. The disposses sion began under Queen Nary, when the Irish were driven out of King's and Queen's counties and the English settlers established there. Under pretext. of the treason of two Ulster chiefs, James I. in 1607 established the famous Ulster plantation. Later in his reign other confisca tions, though not such extensive ones. were made. All Ireland was divided into shires and declared subject to English laws. This policy was con tinued during the succeeding reigns, hut no second great confiscation was attempted until the time of the Commonwealth. After his Irish victory Cromwell divided the hest lands of Leinster and Munster and a part of the lands in Ulster among 40.000 of the English soldiery. A small portion of this land was restored under Charles IL and James 1T., but more was con
fiscated by Parliament under William III.
The effect of these measures was to dispossess almost the entire Irish nobility and gentry. The penal laws enacted by the Irish Parliament after the defeat of James TT. carried this prin ciple still further by making it impossible for a Catholic to acquire land. The confiscation acted with equal severity upon the lower classes. The English law confounded all Irish tenantry with the Fuidhir class, reducing them thus to a servile status. The lands were increasingly held by absentee landlords. who endeavored to obtain the highest possible rents. The large number of middlemen who held land under the lords and acted as their agents made condition of the peasantry still worse. The need of reformation was seen by all classes. but was not fully realized by English statesmen until the report of Lord Devon's commission. which was appointed in 18-13 and sat for two years. This report. hacked by the famine of 1846. showed conclusively that the cause of the poverty and suffering in Ireland was not due. as was generally supposed in England. to the shiftlessness of the Irish people, nor yet to their religion. but to the disastrous relations that existed between landlord and tenant. It recommended that the tenant receive from the landlord compensation for the improve ment of his holding. Accordingly in 1847 Lord Busse]] proposed a measure providing for such compensation in cases of eviction, but it was rejected by Parliament. Ms second measure, the Encumbered Estates Act, however, was ac cepted. This act compelled the sale of estates upon which the rents were mortgaged, the idea being that a new set of solvent landlords would not need to rackrent the tenants. This act, however, was a failure. Estates to the value of f•5.000.000 were sold for 110.000.000, and the incoming landlords, regarding their possessions as purely financial investments, bad less con sideration for the customs which formerly safe gua•ded the tenantry than their predecessors. In 1550 the Tenant Might League, composed alike of Presbyterians and Catholics, was founded at Dublin. It contended for fair rents by actual valuation, excluding the improvements made by the tenantry. for continued possession of the holding by the tenant as long as valuation rents were paid, and for relief from arrears of rent due from the time of the famine. The League entered actively into political affairs, and in 1852 sent fifty members to Parliament pledged to adhere to no party that. did not support the principles of the League. Three of its leaders were won over by the Liberal Cabinet, and its strength was broken by the opposition of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the lloly See. ln consequence of renewed agrarian disturbances, the Palmerston Ministry brought forward the Land Acts of 1860.