Note 19 — ENGLAND.

The "absentee" landlord was an evil to Ireland on which much has been written. It was difficult to keep the country in order when the landed proprietors took so little interest in their possessions as to do nothing but exact rents from their tenants and spend the money so obtained in England. Two, and even three, hundred years before Swift's day "absenteeism" had been the cause of much of the rebellion in Ireland which harassed the English monarchs, who endeavoured to put a stop to the evil by confiscating the estates of such landlords. Acts were passed by Richard II. and Henry VIII. to this effect; but in later times, the statutes were ignored and not enforced, and the Irish landlord, in endeavours to obtain for himself social recognition and standing in England which, because of his Irish origin, were denied him, remained in England indulging himself in lavish expenditure and display. The consequences of this were the impoverishment of his estates and their eventual management by rack-renters. These rack-renters, whose only interest lay in squeezing money out of the impoverished tenants, became the bane of the agricultural holder.

Unfortunately, the spirit of "absenteeism" extended itself to the holders of offices in Ireland, and even the lord-lieutenant rarely took up his residence in Dublin for any time longer than necessitated by the immediate demands of his installation and speech-making, although he drew his emoluments from the Irish revenues. In the "List of Absentees" instances are given where men appointed to Irish offices would land on Saturday night, receive the sacrament on Sunday, take the oath in court on Monday morning, and be on their way back to England by Monday afternoon.

It has been calculated that out of a total rental of £1,800,000, as much as 33-1/3 per cent. was sent out of the country. [T. S.]