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 their condition, or their comforts, which the Irish tenantry desire, if those are to be acquired at the cost of labour and exertion; what they wish for are low rents, which they can easily discharge, without restricting their pleasures or their amusements; _and the fact is, that from the exertions lately made by the landlords to better the condition of their estates, arises all the outcry_ which has been _raised against them_. Had the old system been persevered in, it would have been much more agreeable to the people. In their operations the proprietors were necessarily compelled to dispossess some, because the ground they had to dispose of could not possibly, if even given rent-free, support the numbers of inhabitants upon it; but this distressing task has been performed in almost all cases with the most extraordinary kindness; and we venture to assert, that in the whole of the evidence laid before Lord Devon's committee, _five_ well substantiated instances cannot be adduced in the rural districts, in which rent-paying and well-conducted tenantry were evicted; and _not one_ in which any tenant has been removed without receiving some compensation--while what is pompously denounced as consolidation of farms, amounts to having increased the holdings of the occupants, in many cases, from a rood to two acres, "and in others to the enormous extent of eight." But was not this change unavoidable? Could the old system have been longer persevered in? Let us see the opinion of the late Dr Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Carlow, a man of extraordinary talents, and perfect knowledge of the situation of Ireland. Speaking of the necessity of preventing subdivision, and of increasing the holdings to such a size as would afford employment and adequate support to the occupiers, Dr Doyle says--"Had the evil gone much further, the misery would of necessity have increased. It was, indeed, essentially necessary to the good of the country that the system should be corrected, and every wise man applauds those measures which were taken for the correction of it."