would, in the free circulation of property, speedily accumulate; and
the moment any possessor arrived at a certain pitch of fortune, he
would probably choose to reside in the better country--near the
Parliament, or the Court.

This absence of great proprietors in Ireland necessarily brings with
it, or if not necessarily, has actually brought with it, the
employment of the middlemen, which forms one other standing and
regular Irish grievance. We are well aware of all that can be said
in defence of middlemen; that they stand between the little farmer
and the great proprietor as the shopkeeper does between the
manufacturer and consumer; and, in fact, by their intervention, save
time, and therefore expense. This may be true enough in the
abstract; but the particular nature of land must be attended to.
The object of the man who makes cloth is to sell his cloth at the
present market, for as high a price as he can obtain. If that price
is too high, it soon falls; but no injury is done to his machinery
by the superior price he has enjoyed for a season--he is just as
able to produce cloth with it, as if the profits he enjoyed had
always been equally moderate; he has no fear, therefore, of the
middleman, or of any species of moral machinery which may help to
obtain for him the greatest present prices. The same would be the
feeling of any one who let out a steam-engine, or any other machine,
for the purposes of manufacture; he would naturally take the highest
price he could get; for he might either let his machine for a price
proportionate to the work it did, or the repairs, estimable with the
greatest precision, might be thrown upon the tenant; in short, he
could hardly ask any rent too high for his machine which a
responsible person would give; dilapidation would be so visible, and
so calculable in such instances, that any secondary lease, or