In fact when
they find their tenant-right eaten up by a vast increase of rent they
consider their faith powerless in the face of their landlord's works.
I do not think any one can pass through this country without noticing a
vast difference which is not a religious difference, between one
property as to management and another, between one part of the country
and another. In some parts the tenants build the houses, whatever sort
of houses they are able to build; they repair them as they are able, and
the landlords get the rent of them. If by any means they can improve
them, the landlord improves the rent to a higher figure.
I was over one property in the County Antrim, the property of a man who
combines landholding as a middleman, with trade in linen fabrics and
manufacturing or bleaching, or both. I cannot say that this gentleman is
excessively popular, but he is exceedingly prosperous. His private
residence, as far as taste goes, a taste that can be gratified
regardless of expense, is as perfectly beautiful within its limits as
the property of any lord of the soil which I have come across. Indeed,
the arrangements made at such cost, kept up to such perfection, spoke of
one who owed his income to trade and not to his land alone.
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