I
do not think that those men wish for it. In fact, they have not in
reality a desire for it--even those that can afford it. I know farmers
who could afford to build or make their houses comfortable, and they
have no disposition to do it._"

Mr Collis, the superintendent of the Trinity College estates, says,
"When I spoke to them (the tenants) about improvements, they said as
much as that _they did not want any, if they would only let them remain
as they were_."

And Mr Walker, an extensive agent, says--"I have induced some of Mr
Stafford O'Brien's tenantry to engage in raising green crops, but, when
left to themselves, they have invariably gone back to their old system,
even although satisfied that it was remunerating while they followed it,
_but it gave them too much trouble_." Yet these are the people who are
said to want employment while they refuse to cultivate their own
farms--"are so loudly compassionated on account of the huts in which
they live"--and who consider it a hardship "to be compelled to have
better."

What an incomprehensible set of men are the Irish patriotic members! In
the extracts which we have given from Lord Devon's _Blue-Book_, we have
Mr Maher, one of the most respectable of them, _swearing an oath_ that
clauses in a lease, by means of which "_all the materials for building,
clearing, and fencing, are proposed to be given for nothing provided the
tenantry only used them, could not be carried into effect in Tipperary
because the dispositions of the people don't lead them to wish for the
comforts which buildings of this kind would give_." And we find the same
gentleman one of the party of declaimers against the tyranny of Irish
landlords, who state in the House of Commons that the peace of "Ireland
can only be secured by giving the tenant '_contingent compensation_,'
for improvements which, _he swears, they cannot be induced to make, even
where the materials are furnished for nothing, and where the labour is
immediately paid for_."

The same man, who supports O'Connell in his assertions that exorbitant
rents are the cause of Irish poverty, gave before the commissioners the
following opinion under the obligation of an oath--"54. If the occupiers
are not prosperous, do you attribute that more to the mismanagement of
their farms, rather than to the rate of rents?--Yes, indeed I do; to
their badly farming the land in many instances."

And it is undoubtedly true that it is not improvement in th