William Frederick Bailey

“ As the country advanced, landlords gradually ceased to give leases, and the great majority of small tenants held from year to year. To meet this state of things the Civil Bill Court Act of 1851 extended the ejectment for non-payment of rent to tenancies from year to year. Under the English statutes no similar power was given, and the English landlord was obliged, in the case of non-payment of rent, first to serve the tenant with a Notice to Quit, and then to proceed to evict him by the slow and costly process of an action in the Superior Courts. ”

“ In 1729 the Lord Lieutenant forwarded a report on the subject to the King, which states:—"One great reason given by the people themselves for leaving the Kingdom is the poverty to which that part of the country is reduced, occasioned in a great measure, they say, by raising of rents in many places above the real value of land, or what can be paid out of the produce of them, if any tolerable subsistence be allowed to the farmers using their utmost industry." ”

“ Down to the year 1816, the landlord who sought to evict a tenant holding under lease was obliged to proceed in one of the Superior Courts of law, a practice which caused much expense and delay When the European peace came in 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo, the fall in agricultural prices rendered it difficult if not impossible, for tenants to pay the high rents which had been fixed while war prices ruled. ”