Glances at Europe / In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851.

by Horace Greeley

ENCUMBERED ESTATES.

The act authorizing and requiring the sale of irredeemably Encumbered Estates in Ireland is one of the best which a British Parliament has passed in many years. Under its operation, a large portion of the soil is rapidly passing from the nominal ownership of bankrupts wholly unable and unqualified to improve it into those of new proprietors who, it may fairly be hoped, will generally be able to improve it, giving employment to more labor and increasing the annual product. The benefits of this change, however, can be but slowly realized, and are for the present hardly perceptible.