The 7'intes' Commissioner in Ireland has summed up the results
of his observations in a scheme which that journal evidently believes will be found to resemble the Government one. He advises that Courts should be established in every county, which should call up all tenants-at-will, hear all landholders, ascertain the just rights of the tenant from custom or otherwise, and then award him a formal lease equivalent to those rights. Such leases would very often be of verylong duration. Then he would give com- pensation for improvements, and abolish the presumption of law which makes the improvements the landlords'. Then he would have a new valuation of Ireland to guide the Courts as to "fair rent,"—how can there be such a thing if ownership is absolute ?- and finally, he would accept Mr. Bright's scheme, let the State buy estates and sell them to the farmers by instalments. That is a sound plan enough, granted one condition, that Irishmen wish for leases ; but this is just the point upon which evidence is most contradictory, Mr. Campbell affirming, for example, that a lease seems to a peasant only "a long notice to quit."
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