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LORi^ D UF Fl- RlNl
THE
TENURE OF LAND
IRELAND.
ABRIDGED FROM THE WORK
OF
THE RIGHT HON. LOliD DUFFEPJIN', K.P.,
ON THAT SUBJECT;
WITH ADDITIONS AND ALTERATIONS.
DUBLIN:
JOHN FALCONER, 53, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET,
PRINTER TO HEB MAJESTY'S STATIOKERTi OFFICE.
1870.
PREFACE.
?
The following pages contain the substance of Lord
Dufferin's work on '^ Irish Emigration and the Tenure
of Land in Ireland."
The opinions propounded in that volume seem so just
and sound — -supported as they are by a mass of evidence
~ taken under the authority of a Parliamentary Commission,
. by statements of able writers, eminent statisticians and
r political economists, and by the experience of practical
■ men connected with Irish land — the reasoning is so
;f cogent, and the spirit in which the subject is discussed is
so liberal and candid — while the positions of the author,
though assailed, have been so little displaced — that it
^ has been deemed desirable at this crisis, when the con-
[ sideration of the land tenure of Ireland by Parliament
is inevitably impending, to reproduce these opinions and
arguments in a size and at a price that will make them
accessible to the general public of the empire.
The text of Lord Dufferin has, for the most part, been
preserved, though not professedly as his. Such changes,
by way of addition, omission, or quahfication, have alone
been made, as were required by the lapse of time since
the publication of the work, by the condensation of
statements, and by the omission of the evidence to sustain
tbeso statements, wliii^li was given at great length in
notes. Wherever it couhl conveniently bo done, this
evidence is briefly incorporated with the text ; those who
desire fuller information on the point are referred to the
work itself
This task has not been undertaken without the per-
mission of Lord Dufferin, but he is in nowise answerable
for the manner in wliich his volume has been dealt
with.
THE
TENURE OF LAND IN IRELAND.
CHAPTER 1.
Irish emigration. — is it a calamity?
It is not too much to say that the subject of transcendent interest
at the present tune is that of the Land Tenure of Ireland.
Commissioners, under the authority of the State, and Commissioners
appointed by the leading organs of public opinion, have investigated
the relations between the owners and occupants of land in that
country. Statesmen have endeavoured to deal with these relations
in the legislature ; public men, from the highest to the lowest, have
discussed them in the press; and the Parliament to assemble in
1870 will have to deal with the subject without delay.
That much error, much prejudice, and not a little injustice,
have found their way into these discussions is not surprising, and
is, even to a great extent, consistent with honesty of purpose and a
desire to be truthful. In any country it is difficult to disentangle
the threads of popular sentiment, or to follow out the intricate
operation of economic laws. But in Ireland a hundred influences —
many of them compatible with the purest patriotism and the most
scrupulous integrity — have contrived to prejudice local opinion
and to mislead the national conscience. Added to this is the
natural habit of the mind to look at a subject mainly, if not
altogether, from a special point of view, and to deal with it
accordingly. But the true statesman must regard the subject
from every point, and must endeavour to protect, so far as is
possible, the interests and rights of all — not to promote the welfare
of one class by acting unjustly towards another. We may be sure
that any scheme is radically faulty which violates the great
fundamental principles of Liberty, Justice, and Government.
The advocates of the popular side of the question of Land
Tenure have brought numerous charges against landlords and
land-laws — some put forward by men supposed to speak with the
6
hirjlicflt Huthorltj — and in tcrrna not always <Tij^nificd or temperate.
It is propoHcJ to specify tlienc cliargcs, and examine them in the
following pages.
Stripped of all exaggerated plira.seology the accusations with
which the landlords arc assailed may be condensed into the
following scries of propositions : —
1. That the emigration from Ireland has been a curse to that
country.
2. That this emigration has been occasioned by the eviction of
the rural population by their landlords.
3. That acts of eviction in Ireland are to be attributed rather to
the cruelty and injui<ticc ol" the landlords than to any failure on the
part of those evicted to fulfil their legitimate obligations.
4. That the present discontent in Ireland has been chiefly
occasioned by the iniquity of the laws affecting the tenure of land.
5. That a change in those laws in a specified direction would
pacify discontent and create agricultural prosperity.
Arc these things true? That is the inquiry it is proposed to
prosecute.
First — Has the Irish exodus, as it has been termed, been a
calamity or the reverse ?
We have to consider this question from two points of view,
inasmuch as it has affected the condition of two classes of persons,
namel}'-, those who went away, and those who stayed at home.
There is one single fact which will probably be accepted as a
safe indication of the effects of emigration on the destinies of those
who took part in it. To their honour, within 17 years after their
departure they had sent back to Ireland upwards of £13,000,000
of money,* chiefly for the purpose of enabling their friends to follow
their example. Now, unless they had prospered, these savings
could not have been accumulated ; unless their new existence had
been full of promise they would not have tempted their brethren
to join them. But what if, instead of setting forth to reap the
golden harvests of the West, these forlorn multitudes had remained
pent up within their rainy valleys, would the existing population,
those that have clung to the old country in spite of everything —
would they be now the better or the worse ? Tavo obvious conse-
quences must have followed — Avages would have been lower, renta
higher than they are now, while a veiy large proportion of the
* See Report of the Grovemment Emigration Board, 1865.
peasantry -would be occupying farms half the size of those they are
at present cultivating. Now, low wages and high rents may be
advantageous in a certain sense to the manufacturer, to the land-
lord, and to the recruiting sergeant; but how do they affect the
masses — the tenant, the labourer, and the mechanic?
In the west of Ireland some 20 years ago the rate of agricultural
wages varied from half-a-crown to five shillings a week. Ever
since it has gradually advanced — in some places it has doubled —
in others it has more than doubled. In the North the farm
servant has become almost master of the market, and is certainly
better off than many of the small tenants; in the South, though
still not paid as he should be, his position is much improved, while,
all over the country, the navvy, the quarryman, and the drainer
are receiving from 10s. to 12s. a week.
Occasionally complaints are being made of a dearth of hands : it
is true this outcry generally means that at particular seasons of
pressure farmers can no longer turn into their fields at a moment's
notice the crowd of ill-paid cottiers that used to wait their pleasure
in enforced idleness during the slack seasons of the year. But any
temporary inconvenience of this kind will be more than counter-
balanced by the necessity which will be imposed on the landed
interest, whether proprietors or tenants, to guarantee to those they
wish to retain in their service comfortable lodging, fair remunera-
tion, and above all, permanent employment. It is this growing
difficulty of obtaining an unlimited amount of casual labour at low
rates during summer that is weaning the embarrassed tenant from
his yearning after land. Eventually those only will be able to
engage in farming with advantage who can either reduce their need
of the labourer to a minimum, or can afford to pay him good wages
aU the year round. Hitherto the agricultural class has been com-
posed too exclusively of occupiers, who though able to perform the
ordinary operations required on their farms during two-thirds of
the year, were dependent at seed time and harvest on a half-
employed labouring population, who were relegated to idleness and
penury, the moment the grain was sown or stored. A worse dis-
tribution of industry could not be imagined. What we want are
fewer indigent occupiers and more constant employment for the
labourer; for it is quite evident that an area cultivated by 10
farmers and 15 farm servants in constant work, would be better
managed than if it were subdivided amongst 15 farmers who gave
only occasional employment to 15 labourers.
8
To tlioHo who closely watch the transitional phases of our
national life, it is very evident that the forcf^'oinf^ and other cognate
agencies arc gradually emancipating the farming classes from the
tyranny of coujpctition. During the last few years many a
struggling tenant has been tempted by the rise of wages to hand
his farm over to his more competent neighbour, and himself to pass
from a life of precarious husbandry into the disciplined ranks of
labour, where his industry is both ])etter remunerated, and
em})loyed lo a better purpose than ever it was before: and in
proportion as the peasant becomes aware of the existence of a more
hopeful theatre for his industry, whether at home or abroad, than
that presented to him and his children l)y the miserable patch he
miserably cultivates, that morbid hunger for a bit of land which
has been the banc of Ireland will gradually subside; competition
will relax something of its suicidal energy ; and in the same way as
the Irish labourer has already risen from the condition of a serf to
an equality of comfort with his employer, will the tenant farmer,
relieved from the lateral i)res3ure of his superfluous associates, be
able to treat with his landloi'd on more independent terms.
But it may be objected by those who deplore emigration, that
had these vanished thousands remained among us, production would
have been stimulated, and the well-being of the whole community
projiortionately increased. Let us see how far this would be a
reasonable expectation.
Had no emigration taken place from Ireland, and had the popu-
lation continued to multiply at its normal rate, the additional
increase to our present numbei-s would by this time have amounted
to three millions of souls, and as there is no reason to suppose that
such a circumstance would have materially expanded the restricted
manufacturing operations of the country, the larger proportion- of
these three millions would have had to depend upon the land for
their support. Now, it appears from an official Kcport, drawn up
on the conjoint authority of Archbishop Whately, Archbishop
Murray, and Mr. More OTarrcll, that in 184G five persons were
employed in the cultivation of the soil of Ireland for every two
that cultivated the same quantity of land in Great Britain, while
the agricultural produce of Great Britain was four times the agri-
cultural produce of Ireland. As a matter of fhct, therefore, so far
as the past is concerned, the addition to the agricultural produce
of Ireland has not been proportionate to the excess of the agricul-
tural population.
9
It may, however, be pretended that so unsatisfactory a result is
to be accounted for by the unintelligent method in which this re-
dundancy of labour has been applied to the soil. But in the
Lothians of Scotland, and in certain parts of England, the art of
agriculture is neither unintelligently nor unsuccessfully practised,
and probably a given space is there made to produce as remunera-
tive a crop as the united efforts of man and nature are destined to
accomplish ; yet in those localities it has been found that about 18
men, with a small proportion of women, are sufficient to cultivate
in the most efficient manner 500 acres of arable land.
Were Ave to apply this proportion to the 15,832,892 acres of
land, under cattle and crops in Ireland, we shall see that some half
million of persons would be able to cultivate the entire area. But
by the census return of 1861 the number of adult males engaged in
agricultural pursuits in that country is considerably over a million.
Consequently, notwithstanding the emigration which has taken
place, the disproportion between the respective amounts of agricul-
tural labour, and the area cultivated in the two countries, which
was noted in 1846 by Archbishop Murray and his colleagues as
being in the ratio of 5 to 2, may still be taken as about 2 to 1. If
we compare the number of hands employed in the cultivation of
specified areas in those parts of England and Scotland where agri-
culture is best understood with the number on the occupied area of
Ireland, even supposing that the whole, instead of one-third, was
tillage land, it will probably be found that at the date of our last
census, some three hundred thousand persons were engaged in the
cultivation of the soil in excess of those whose exertions, if directed
with greater skill and energy, and accompanied by an adequate
expenditure of capital, would be sufficient to ensure us as high a
rate of production as is obtained in the sister country.*
* From a comparative table of tlie proportion of cultivators to the extent of land
under tillage and pasture in Belgium, Flanders, England, and Ireland, as well as in the
four provinces, and some of the counties of the latter kingdom, together with the
amount of produce obtained from corresponding areas in each locality, it appears that
the same amount of labour which is found sufficient in England to cultivate 11 ^ acres
in a highly efficient manner is employed in Ireland in the less perfect cultivation of 6
acres. In other words, whereas in Ireland it takes four men to raise 15 tons of grain
off 24 acres, in England only two are required to raise 16 tons ofif 23 acres.
It is urged, however, that it is unfair to argue that because great economy of labour
is practicable on thB large farms of England, a similar rule can be applied to the small
subdivisions of Ireland. If this were indeed the case, it would be an admission very
damaging to the advocates of the small farm system ; but though in some respects there
may be a saving of labour, over extensive areas, as compared with very diminished
10
Conscqurntly, even makinj^ allowance for the dccrcapc of the
airricultural yiopulation wliirh has since been going on, it is pro-
bahlr that there is still in Ireland a ronHidcrable Fcction of the
inhabitants with their wives and children dependent for their
support npon the land, whose misapplied industry is as unproductive
as if it Avcrc devoted to the t^^rindin^ of a treadmill or the lifting of
shot; but though contributing nothing to the jjroducing power of
the class with which they are incorporated, they have to be sup-
ported out of its ])rofits, of which they diminish by so much the
share to the remainder.
But it is urged that if only the Belgian system could be introduced
into Ireland, our present agricultural population would be anything
but in excess of the requirements of the country's husbandry.
Assuming, which is not the fact, that the Belgian system of
agriculture (the minute garden husbandry of East Flanders) not
only is possible, but applicable to the present circumstances of
Ireland, reference to statistical tables will show that, at all events, in
many parts of Ireland, if not in all, the proportion of the agricul-
tural population to the area it occupies is almost as dense as it is in
Belgium. If, therefore, the Belgian system is to be introduced,
and our tenant farmers are to take to growing tobacco, hops, onions,
colza, and carrots, on patches of three or four acres, in the expec-
tation of making a fortune, emigration cannot be accused of having
deprived them of the opportunity.
But in Belgium it is only by dint of the most unremitting
industry, and a traditional skill, which has been the growth of
centuries, by a vast expenditure of capital, and by the application
ones, the necessary difference ■will be found far loss than is supposed ; — ^\■ithin certain
limits, economy of labour, though not of buildings or of machinery, is as j)racticable on
reasonably small farms as on large. If a proof were wanting, we need only again refer
to the table, when we shall see that the tillage lands of Ulster and Leinst^r, the two
provinces from which the largest rate of produce per acre is obtained, are cultivated by
a fewer number of hands than are crowded into the husbandry of Munster and Con-
naught, and that in Down and Antrim, the two Irish counties in which agriculture is
supposed to be most advanced, and the average size of the farms smaller than else-
where, the proportion of cultivators to the acre is considerablj- less than it is in Cork
and Kerry. In fact, the density of the agricultural population over the several areas
referred to appears to be in an inverse ratio to the rate of their agricultural produce ;
and no matter how the calculation is conducted, or what districts are brought into
comparison, whether England with Ireland, Ulster with Connaugbt, or Down with
Cork, the same conclusion is evolved, viz. : that in those districts which are worse
cultivated, a far larger number of persons are engaged in agriculture than are necessary
to obtain the same results as are arrived at in those districts which are better culti-
vated.
11
of enormous quantities of manure, that the agricultural class, whose
rate of increase is slow, and whose redundant members a flourishing
manufacturing industry is ready to absorb, has been able, under
peculiar advantages of climate, situation, and markets, to maintain
an existence at all times considerably straitened, and daily becoming
more difficult under the pressure of increasing competition. In
Ireland these fostering conditions are as yet completely wanting,
and years may elapse before they are created. How can we be
justified then, in the expectation of so remote a contingency, in
tethering down to the soil by artificial means, an agricultural
population far in excess of the requirements and the system of
husbandry best adapted to the present circumstances of the country,
in the expectation of the ultimate introduction of a system of
" petite culture," which, even then, would hardly afford adequate
employment to our existing numbers.
But that the system is inapplicable to Ireland is admitted upon
evidence above all exception. In 1866 Lord DufFerin and five
other witnesses. Judge Longfield, Mr. Dillon, Mr. M'Carthy
Downing, Mr. Curling, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cloyne,
were examined before Mr. Maguire's Land Tenure Committee.
No one will pretend that the sympathies of those five gentlemen
were unduly enlisted on the landlord's side. Some of them were
members of the National Association, and their bias — so far as their
minds were susceptible of bias — was clearly in favour of the tenant.
All were asked the same question. What is the smallest area
which a tenant can cultivate with advantage, or over which you
would extend the protection of a lease? And none of them con-
sidered that a tenant could live comfortably upon or improve a
farm of less than from 15 to 20 acres.
Even the latter when pressed to name the minimum area on Avhich
a farmer could live, admits that " small farms, with any amount of
industry must be precarious," and that a tenant to be comfortable
ought to have " 20 acres or uptvards ;" If reason and not passion
is to guide us, it must be conceded that a greater amount of
intelligent energy than necessary is dissipated in the cultivation of
land. At all events, if the champions of the tenant's cause are
themselves found condemning small holdings and 15-acre leaseholds
as unprofitable and ^^ precarious,'' and if it is shown that the
extinction of farms in Ireland has been hitherto almost entirely
confined to that category, may not the landlords be absolved from
the charge of undue consolidation ?
12
Let us now examine the ap^iirnltiirul syatcni of IJclgiurn, to which
rcfi'ioncc is often made. Fortunately, in tiie work of M. De
Lavch'ye, we possese a text Itook on the Huhject, of European
cch'hrity.
Acconling to popular belief Belgium is cultivated by a peasant
proprietary twice a.s numerous in proportion to the area they occupy
as the agricultural population of Ireland, living in peculiarly easy
circumstances, and affording unmistakable evidence of the advan-
tages of la petite culture. The real facts arc these : — That, making
a i)roportionatc deduction for the population employed on the
pastiu'c lands of both countries, the total population dependent on
tillage in Ireland is prol)ai)ly almost as dense as that of Belgium.
That the greater portion of Belgium is cultivated, not by small
proprietors, but by tenants (and almost entirely so wherever la petite
culture is carried to excess). That the competition for land is
intense, and rack-rents universal. That from 1830 to 1846 rents
have risen 25 per cent., and between 1846 and 1860 40 per cent,
though the price of grain has only risen 5 per cent. Tiie leases are
rarely granted for a term exceeding nine years, and frequently for
only three or five years. That the average profits of the farmer are
scarcely more than three per cent., instead of from 7 to 10 percent.,
as in England. That the condition of the agricultural population
is worst where the subdivision of farms is greatest, and best where
the farms are largest. That the Belgian labourer is supposed to be
the most industrious and the worst paid of any labourer in Europe,
that the farmer is scarcely better off than the labourer; and that in
Flanders population is not merely at a stand-stili, but diminishing.
It may be objected that, however little advantages to the agri-
cultural classes themselves, la p)etite culture of Belgium turns out a
greater amount of gross produce than any other method of culti-
vation known in Europe. This is probably the case, if we omit
all reference to cost, and, under suitable circumstances, it is (at all
events, for the landlord) a most profitable system. But the pro-
vinces of Belgium whore la petite culture prevails are thickly studded,
with populous towns and innumerable villages, and the land around
them is devoted to an extensive system of market-gardening, only
practicable in such localities. The facilities for obtaining manure
are exceptional, and high manuring at a cost of from £10 to £18
to the acre, stolen crops,* together with the cultivation of plants
• That is, turnips, spurrey, flax, early potatoes, carrots, and some other plants.
13
used in the adjacent manufactories, are the keystones of Belgian
agriculture. In a great number of instances where the plots of land
are very diminutive the farm is only auxiliary to its occupier's
trade, just as the little holdings in Antrim or Down are auxiliary to
the hand-loom weaving of Ulster. And, lastly, both in respect of
climate, in the forcing power of the sun (without which stolen crops
are very precarious), and in variety of plants for which a ready sale
can be obtained, Belgium has advantages in which parts of Great
Britain and nearly all Ireland are deficient. To expect, therefore,
that because holdings of three, four or five acres can be cultivated
with advantage around a cluster of large Belgian towns, and amid
the densest population in Europe, of which the agricultural class
forms less than one half, a similar system can be introduced into
Ireland, with its rainy, sunless climate, its sparse urban population,
its restricted markets, and its limited manufactures, seems as un-
reasonable as to argue that because it pays Mr. Early Pease, of
Brompton, to employ a press of hands and £50 of manure per acre
in raising asparagus for Covent-garden market, a similar expenditure
and a similar method of cultivation should be adopted in the valleys
of Wales and the straths of the Highlands.
The chief lesson which we may learn from Flemish husbandry is
this — that a very high rate of production is compatible with low
wages, rack-rents, and exceptionally short leases ; and that diminu-
tive tenancies, under certain favourable conditions, may be
profitable to the proprietor while they are disadvantageous to the
tenant.
But if, instead of the reduced numbers at present left in this
false position, the hundreds of thousands who have emigrated had
remained at home to breed and stagnate on the overburdened soil,
is it not evident that a state of things would now exist in Ireland
such as no man can think of without a shudder ? We do not wish,
however, to imply that the existing surplus of agricultural labour,
need necessarily follow their example. AVhen once the rate of
wages in a country has reached a point, Avhich ensures to the
labourer the necessaries and decencies of life, emigration ceases to
be of such paramount importance, and no man could contemplate
the expatriation of so many brave hearts, and strong right arms
Avith equanimity. The true remedy for the anomaly (as was well
stated in a pastoral of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel)
is to be found in the development of our commercial enterprize, of
our mineral resources, of our manufacturing industry. It is not
14
blood-lcttinf^ to rcliovo a plethora, hut stimulants to restore the
balance of a conf^cstcd circulation that are needed.
Still less would we advocate an attempt to divert, whether by
moral pressure or otherwise, any ])ortion of the land-occupying
class from their present avocations. J^crnons of practical experience
are aware that even in the most prosperous parts of Ireland the
cnlarujeuient of holdinj^s undesirably diminutive is continually
takinf^ place by a natural process, which need never involve the
violent displacement of a single individual, and at a rate which
rather exceeds than otherwise the accumulation of the necessary
capital in the hands of those to whose farms the surrendered scraps
of laud are annexed. Death, bankruptcy, failing health, and the
hundred casualties which diversity the current of human affairs,
annually place at the disposal of the landlord a number of vacated
tenancies more than sufficient to carry out any amount of judicious
consolidation. To hasten, therefore, the transition which the
agricultural system of Ireland is gradually undergoing, is neither
his interest nor his practice. It is true the slower the absorption
of the surplus agricultural labour of the country into other
pursuits the worse for the general body of cultivators; but each
year is improving their situation, and it is better the conviction of
what is for their true advantage should penetrate their intelligence
of its own accord than that their prejudices should be shocked by
any extraneous influences, however well intentioned.
But to imagine that even the most scrupulous observance of this
rule by every landlord in Ireland could ever have prevented, or can
now check the departure of a large proportion of the people is a
delusion. The increase of every nation must be limited by the
extent and capabilities of the area it occupies, and the amount of
capital it possesses.
This law is of universal application, though one race, from its
more sordid habits or lower civilization, may be more compressible
than another.
But, the appointed limits once reached, either the procreative
energies of the people Avill be artificially restricted, as has been the
case in France, or the surplus population will emigrate, as they
have done from Germany, from Ireland, and to a lesser degi'ee from
England.
Up to the year 1846 the soil of Ireland retained the capacity of
producing, to an almost unlimited extent, a certain root, containing
all the elements necessary for the support of human life. The
15
expansion of the population was proportionate to the facilities it
enjoyed for obtaining sustenance. Suddenly, by the visitation of
God, those facilities were withdraAvn ; the potato failed ; no other
product of the soil existed to take its place; corn crops neither
supplied the same amount of nutriment, nor could they be grown
in successive years on the same spot. The life-sustaining power of
the soil had become restricted ; as an inevitable consequence the
population of the island has become proportionately restricted;
and, exactly in the same way as the working classes of Manchester
would have been obliged to remove to other centres of industry
had the cotton famine continued, has the surplus population of Ire-
land been compelled to emigrate to a more fertile soil.
Though acting with diminished energy, the same causes may be
expected for some time to come to produce similar results. The
natural expansion of a prolific nation, still numbering upwards of
five millions and a half, must be considerable. Did this increase
maintain its normal rate, we might calculate on a net annual
addition of 60,000 souls to our population; but as a large
proportion of those who emigrate are men and women in their
first youth, we must presume it has been considerably checked ;
putting, however, the excess of births over deaths at a minimum
of 40,000 per annum, we shall confront a very formidable figure.
How are these successive waves of fresh arrivals to be accommo-
dated ?
Even those who most deplore emigration would not recommend
a resubdivision for their benefit of holdings whose size at this
moment is perhaps below the desirable average : the labour market
is only too amply supplied : agitation has succeeded in discouraging
the introduction of English capital and in crushing everywhere,
except in Ulster, our nascent manufacturing enterprise ; what other
alternative have you to offer, if you shut up their path across the
sea? During the last six years ending with 1868 the emigration
from Ireland has averaged a little over 90,000 a year ; nearly one
half of that emigration, therefore, has merely harmonized with the
mechanical law, which only permits the introduction of water at
one end of a pipe by the expulsion of a corresponding volume at
the other.
In all parts of the world similar processes are occurring, and it is
absurd to talk of Ireland as the only country from which an
extensive emigration has proceeded. From Germany alone, and
principally from the North and West of Germany, as many as
k;
25(),()()() pCTHon.s li:ivc (;ini;^ratcd in u sin^lo year; wliile between
1851 and IHOl, even from Great Britain, the emigration has
avor;iL![<'(l as hi;^li as 7 1,000 a year.
Still more unreasonable is it to describe the "ruling classes" as
standing alone in their opinion — an opinion most unjustly ascribed
to " their stupidity and selfishness " — that emigration has been no
calamity to Ireland.
To call emigration a calamity implies a confusion of ideas.
l^^miirration may be occasioned by a calamity: it may be
followed by (rKsastrous consequences: but it \s in itself a curative
process: and to confound it with the evils to which it affords
relief, Avould be as great a blunder as to mistake the distressing
accidents of suppui'atiun for symptoms of mortification. Plans for
the express purpose of stimulating emigration have been devised
and advocated from time to time by such uicn as Mr. Smith
O'Brien, Sir Thomas Wysc, Mr. Sharmaii Crawford, Sir George
C. Lewis, and Mr. Cobden; and it would be easy to show, by
numerous quotations, how common this conviction has been to
every school of politics and class of society.
To attribute. such a view to landlord " stupidity and selfishness"
is even more gratuitous. When did a tradesman ever complain of
the multitude of his customers, or a manufacturer of the easiness of
the labour-market? And what is the owner of an estate other
than a trader in land ? His tenants are his customers ; the more
strenuous their competition the higher his rents, and the denser
their number the more keenly will they compete ; emigration hag a
tendency to diminish rather than to increase his rental ; and if it
has not done so already it is because the number of those who seek
to obtain their living by the land are still out of proportion to the
area capable of maintaining them.
Again, the landlord is very often a large employer of labour.
" Within the last 15 years I myself,*' observes Lord DufFerin in
18G7, " have paid away upwards of £60,000 in wages alone.
During the last half of that period, in consequence of the rise in
wages, I have got much less for ray money than I did during the
first half, and my consequent loss, comparing one period with
another, would amount to several thousand pounds, and this has
been a direct consequence of emigration. But, though a dealer in
land, and a payer of wages, I am, above all things, an Irishman,
and as an Irishman / rejoice at any circumstance which tends to
strengthen the independence of the tenant farmer, or to add to the
comforts of the labourers existence.'^
17
But it is said that though as yet no inconvenient diminution of
the agricultural population has occurred, as is proved by the still
inadequate rate of wages in the rural districts, emigration is
acquiring a momentum which will carry it far beyond all reasonable
limits.* This is a contingency deserving serious attention ; but the
first precaution to be taken is to fix those classes most exposed to
the current, in a position of such comfort and stability as will
enable them to resist its influence. Such an object Avill be far
more surely promoted by whatever tends to abate the tyranny of
competition than by offering those who are now hustling one
another off the land any artificial inducements to continue the
scramble.
Others suggest that the great works of irrigation and reclamation
which still require to be executed in Ireland would more than
absorb all the redundant population. To this Ave reply, in the first
place, that during the very period which has witnessed the greatest
emigration, larger areas have been reclaimed than have ever been
before ;f that the productive powers of the soil have been increasing
in a ratio nearly corresponding to that at which the population has
diminished ; and that as we still have one adult cultivator to every
six acres of land under crops, it is not any want of hands which
hinders the island being converted into a garden from one end to
the other. In the next place, the very thing to be desired is to see
our surplus labour-power, now frittered away in the desultory
cultivation of fields Avhich ought to prodiice twice as much with
one-third fewer hands, intelligently applied to the development of
the country's resources. All that we contend for is, that while
you are collecting your capital, and organizing your plans, for the
* " But, these things being as they are — though a judiciously conducted emigration
is a most important resource for suddenly lightening the pressure of population by a
single effort — and though in such an extraordinary case as that of Ireland, under the
threefold operation of the potato failure, the poor law, and the general turning out of
tenantry throughout the country, spontaneous emigration may at a particular crisis
remove greater multitudes than it was ever proposed to remove at once by any
national scheme ; it still remains to be shown by experience whether a permanent
stream of emigration can be kept up, sufficient to take off, as in America, all that
portion of the annual iucrease (when proceeding at the greatest rapidity) which being
in excess of the progress made during the same short period in the arts of life, tends to
render living mone difiBcult for every averagely-situated individual in the community.
And unless this can be done, emigration cannot, even in an economical point of view,
dispense with the necessity of checks to population." — Mill's Polit. Economy, p. 246.
t Between 1844 and 1862 more than 2,000,000 acres of waste land have been re-
claimed.
B
18
introduction oftliaf inillcniuin of enterprise which haa already dis-
appointed the hopes of |)reviourt <^'cncriitionH, you have no rij^ht to
keep the men, whose <;ran(l-(!hil(h('n you may perhaps eventually
provide with employment, standing idle and starving in the market-
place.
Notwithstanding therefore all that has been said to the contrary,
we assert that not only has emigration been an infinite blessing to
Ireland, but that for some years to come a considerable portion of
the nation will continue to profit by its advantages. The surest
means to check that emigration which compels so many noble-
hearted Irishmen to leave the land of their birth, is to repress
the agitation which now scares capital from her shores, and pre-
vents the development of her industrial resources, and thus render
her capable of sustaining a population far larger than any she has
ever borne.
Expatriation is undoubtedly a great calamity, but cmigi-ation
does not necessarily imply expatriation. Hundreds of those who
go return, and if the greater number stay it is only because they
prefer to do so. Nor, when Providence spread out the virgin
prairies of the New World, or stored up the golden treasures of
Australia, can it have been intended that attachment to the natal
soil should become so predominant a passion as to deter man from
taking possession of the new territories prepared for his reception.
Far, then, from being in itself a calamity, emigration is an essential
element in the future progress of the United Kingdom, and our
fellow-countrymen who depart, even if absorbed by an alien com-
munity, often minister to our prosperity more effectually than
when they dwelt amongst us. The transformation of an indigent
and disafiected subject into a prosperous foreign customer is a
change not Avholly disadvantageous, and the industry which has
gone forth to till the prairies of the West cheapens the loaf to
millions in the old country.
One thing at all events is certain. In the progress of eveiy
civilized community the period must arrive when the natural
increase of poi)ulation overtakes the normal rate of production.
The true remedy may be to connnunicate additional fertility to the
soil ; but this is seldom an immediate possibility : as a consequence
the rate of increase of the population must be clicked; or its
standard of comfort must deteriorate ; or its accruing surplus must
remove. But the first necessitates an artificial and often an
unnatural social system, as is said to prevail in France; and the
19
next is an alternative which entails the physical degradation we
have seen supervene in Ireland. There remains therefore the
third — a course in perfect harmony with the laws of nature, and
one which has already established the religion, the language, and
the freedom of England, over one-fourth of the habitable globe.
To lament the exhibition of so much enterprise, vital energy, and
colonizing power, in the race to which Ave belong, seems more
perverse than to stigmatize as a curse the blessing originally pro-
nounced on those who Avere first bidden " to go forth and multiply
and replenish the earth."
CHAPTER II.
IRISH EMIGRATION — HAS IT BEEN CAUSED BY LANDLORDS?
Secondly, avc noAV propose to examine the specific charge du'ected
against the landed proprietors of Ireland, viz., that the legalized
injustice of their proceedings has been the principal and active
occasion of emigration.
Many eminent persons say that such is the case. " The land-
lords are the cause of the emigration," is the naked and unqualified
statement Avhicli has been put forward in Parliament. " More
than a million persons have fallen victims to their injustice," is a
common assertion, and various instances of Avholesale evictions are
referred to in illustration of the statement. Noav, Ave are ready to
admit that they Avho make such statements believe them, but
accusations involving a large class of our fellow-countrymen in so
hateful a responsibility cannot be lightly accepted. Let us, then,
examine their validity by such tests as can be conveniently adduced.
Indeed, if Ave believe so much, there is a great deal more we
must believe. We must believe that all those general incentives
to emigration already enumerated, and Avhicli have told Avith such
eiFect upon England, upon Scotland, and upon Germany, have had
no influence in Ireland, although the peculiar circumstances of
Ireland Avere so Avell calculated to intensify their operation. We
must believe that the emigration from Ireland has been entirely
confined to the rural population of the country, and confined not
only to the rural population, but to less than one-half of the rural
population, viz., the occupiers of land. We must behove that the
20
wages of labour have doubled in 15 years — not in consequence of
tlu! cmi^nitloM of the farm-servant as distinriuished from the tenant-
fanner, but from Hon»e otiier cause which has yet to be explained;
and, finally, we must believe that the individuals of that class to
whii'h alone it is allc<ied emigration lias been confined — viz., the
occupiers of land — have one and all vacated their mud cabins
and strips of blighted potato ground, not because they found they
could no longer feed their pig or gi'ow oats with advantage on an
acre of land — not because they heard that wages, were 4s. a day in
New York, and that farms could be got for nothing in the Western
States — not because their friends besought them to cross the
Atlantic, and sent millions of money to pay their passage — but
solely and entirely in consequence of their having been driven
from their homes by the wanton cruelty of their landlords and the
injustice of Parliament — a series of assumptions incompatible with
ascertained facts.
In conducting this inquiry we shall not discuss whether the
landlords of Ireland, as a class, are good men or bad men, kind or
cruel. They may be as selfish, as interested, and as unscrupulous
as any other men possessing the same amount of education and in-
telligence. But the supposed moral attributes of a particular
class, or trade, or profession, cannot come within the cognizance
of the politician. His only safe rule will be to take it for granted
that every class, and every individual in every class, will pursue
his own advantage with unflinching pertinacity ; and, having meted
out as justly as the clumsiness of human legislation may admit, the
boundaries which are to circumscribe the respective rights of each,
he must be Content to accept as economically legitimate whatever
does not overpass them. In all ages there have been unrelenting
creditors who have insisted on their pound of flesh, but would it
not be unreasonable on tliat account to stigmatize the recovery of
debt as injustice? Unhappily, legal obligations can seldom be
rendered co-extensive Avith moral responsibilities, and an attempt to
correct an exceptional hardship in one direction, too frequently
leads to the infliction of gi'eater injuries in another.
Still less shall we notice any particular accusations of cruelty or
injustice which may be alleged against individual proprietors. In
the first place, they are necessarily derived from e.r parti' statements,
and their merits cannot be readily investigated;* and. in the next,
* It is not often that an opportunity occurs of subjecting these charges to the test
of an impartial inquiry, but whenever an investigation is set on foot they hardly sustain
21
theii* assistance in guiding us to an opinion on questions involving
such an enormous range of observation must obviously be infini-
tesimal. Two of the very instances adduced during a debate in
Parliament, prove the truth of this observation. For the first is
the case of a landlord who turns his tenants out at midniffht in
winter, without previous notice, and the other tells us of a would-be
purchaser of an Irish estate who was only prevented from evicting
a number of cottiers by being himself hanged for murder before he
had concluded his bargain. Now, as by law every tenant must
receive at least eight or nine months' notice before he can be foi'ced
to surrender possession of his holding, the first case proves nothing
against the laws regulating the relation of landlord and tenant,
while in the second story the hero, not having been an Irish pro-
prietor at all, can scarcely be paraded as a type of the class. No
doubt many acts of harshness and cruelty have been perpetrated in
Ireland, more particularly during the time of the famine. But, it
is to be remembered that the famine year was an exceptional period ;
a sudden storm had broken out of a clear sky ; the ship lay a wreck
on her beam-ends. It was such a scene as reveals the mingled
baseness and heroism of human nature, and doubtless, in the ex-
tremity of peril which threatened the landlords, their wives, and
their children, many a man enforced his legal rights with distressing
severity. That this was not the general practice is clearly stated
by Judge Longfield in his evidence before Mr. Maguire's com-
strict scrutiny, a fact especially recorded La the summary of the evidence taken
before the Devon Commission.
" Many of the witnesses appeared to be impressed with the idea that the power of
ejectment is frequently used by landlords from caprice to strengthen their political
party, or to persecute their religious opponents ; and some cases were brought before
the commission as instances of that power having been so used. But upon investiga^
tion of these cases few of them appear to justify such impidations. In general either the
allegations were altogether unfounded, or mainly based upon hear^say — or it appeared
that the ejectment was brought in consequence of the tenant having incurred a heavy arrear
of rent, and being unwillhig, or unable, to discharge it. In many estates a small sum
of money was given to those who resigned their land ; and the extent to which the
increased holdings were brought was generally but small, barely sufficient for those
who remained."
" There is no question that the condition of the property, as well as of the occupiers,
in most of these cases, required a change, as their previous state was for the most
part very miserable." — Digest Devon Commission, Summary, p. 830.
Aiid again : —
" There were frequent charges made against agents of oppressive conduct, which, in
general, when investigated, appeared merely to have consisted in compelling the pay-
ment of an arrear of rent, or preventing a ruinous subdivision of the farms." — Digest
Devon Commission, Summary, p. 1027.
22
mittco. In :iiis\vfr \<> :i (|ii('slloii as to whothor or not a bad
fcclinj; liail :iiiscii IVoin many |»n)j)rictor8 in (lifTcront parts of
Ireland lia\ini; taken .stc|)M, at the tunc of tlio famine, to con."oli-
(late tlicir farms, ho replies, " I do not think that had inueh to do
with it; the tenants were voluntarily givinf^ up their lands in great
([uantities then ;" and a little further on he states that " cases of
forcible eviction for the proposed consolidation were verij few."*
Now Judge Longfield's testimony on such a point (confirmed as it
is by numerous and unimpeachable witnesses) is conclusive. lie
was the Hrst and most important witness summoned before Mr.
Maguirc's committee. Ilis professional position, his experience,
the pccidiar nature of his duties, his well-known calmness and
impartiality, and above all his manifest sympathy with the cause of
the tenant, invest his evidence on matters of fact with an authority
that cannot be gainsaid. And it stands to reason that matters
should have fallen out as Judge Longfield has described. What
inducement had the poor people to stay? Their staff of life had
withered in their hands and could not be replaced. A plough
could hardl}'- have turned in their potato gardens; they had neither
seed, nor horses, nor even food, to carry them through the winter.
No diftcrcnce of tenure would have saved them. Had they owned
the fee, it would have been all the same. Their only chance of
life was to get away — some to the poor-house, others to America,
often with the aid of the landlord, one of whom alone spent
£13,000 for that purpose. As for the landlord, his position was
every whit as bad. It Avas not a question of rent, but of existence.
His lands lay around him a poisonous waste of vegetable decay,
while 25s. in the pound of poor-rate was daily eating up the fee-
simple of his estate. Self-interest, duty, common sense, all dictated
the same course, — the enlargement of boundaries, the redistribution
of farms, and the introduction of a scientific agriculture, at what-
ever cost of sentiment or of individual suffering. Yet with all the
difficulties arising out of this state of afiiiirs (so admirably described
in the summary prefixed to the Digest of the Evidence before the
Devon Conuuission), it is abundantly proved in evidence that, as a
ixcneral rule, the inevitable changes were effected in a humane and
liberal manner. Even so, the struggle too frequently proved
unsuccessful, and the subsequent obliteration of nearly an entire
third of the landlords of Ireland, while it associates them so con-
spicuously with the misfortunes of their tenants, may be accepted
* The same opinion was educed by the Devon Commission.
23
In atonement of whatever share they may have had In conniving at
those remoter causes which aggravated the general calamity.
A reference to the statistics which bear upon this question will
enforce the foregoing observations still more strikingly. If it is
true, as is asserted, that the emigration has been principally
confined to a class which cultivates the soil — the only class, in fact,
which can be directly affected by the tyranny and Injustice of the
landed proprietor — it must necessarily follow that the number of
emigrants must bear a tolerably close proportion to the number of
persons who are said to have been so ruthlessly dealt with. Now
the reductions of the holdings in Ireland between 1841 and the
present is, of course, the measure of the limits within which the
consolidation of farms has been effected and evictions have been
possible. Bat it so happens that the total number of holdings In
Ireland containing 15 acres and upwards has Increased enormously
since 1841. In fact there are now nearly twice as many small
farmers — using the term In what in England would be thought its
most modest acceptation — as there were before the famine. This
will, undoubtedly, be considered an exti'aordinary statement, but
It is, nevertheless, the fact, that holdings of between 15 and 30
acres have increased by 61,000, or 78 per cent., from 1841 to 1861,
and holdings above 30 acres by 109,000, or 224 per cent., during
the same period, while those between 5 and 15 acres have decreased
by less than half those amounts ; the emigration, so far as It has
extended to the occupying class at all, having been chiefly confined
to the poor people who attempted to get a living out of bits of
land ranging from half-an-acre to five or six acres, and whose
destiny, no custom, or law of tenant-right, however liberal, could
have materially affected.* No doubt, the diminution of the
holdings In this last category has been enormous, but even among
these, as compared with the area of land under tillage In Ireland,
the reduction has not been so startling as It might have first
appeared: the pi'oportlon amounting, in the case of tenements
under five acres, to one per annum on every area of 400 acres;
and In the case of holdings under 10 acres to one per annum on
every area of 1,600 acres.f Of course, the process has neither
* This is sufficiently established by the fact of something like 100,000 holdings of
this description having disappeared in Ulster alone.
t It is curious to contrast the view Mr. Mill seems to take of the extinction of
very small tenancies, with the language of those who hold up the landlords of
Ireland to obloquy for having promoted, within very moderate limits, and as a
24
boon HO f^nuliiiil nor po uniform as this calculation would ini[)ly, the
I»rincii>al rush having taken place; ininicdiately after the j)otato
failure, and from those districts most exposed to its effects ; the
devastation amonir the small tenements of Ulster being as
tromondous as in any other part of Ireland. Allowing, however,
for all subsidiary corrections, it is very evident that so far from
the landlords being responsible for the entire emigration, they
held no relation, good or bad, with [)erhaps three-fourths of those
who went, even though you counted as emigrants every man,
woman, and child that may have quitted — whether of their own
free will or on compulsion — the agricultural tenancies that have
been extinguished.
But it is well known that vast numbers of the cottier tenantry,
instead of emigrating, were converted into labourers, and either
found employment in the neighbourhood of their birthplace or
removed into adjoining towns, or came over to England, while
hundreds of others were placed in possession of some of the 160,000
farms which, as already stated, have been reconstructed since the
famine year; thereby reducing still further the number of the
land-occupying class who have taken part in emigration, and who
probably with their families have never amounted to one-fourth of
the entire number.
This moderate share taken by the tenantry in the emigration
from Ireland has decreased during the last ten or twelve years,
and it is probable that for the last twelve or thirteen years no more
than three or four per cent, of the total number of emigrants have
been holders of land.
Such a conclusion is, of course, quite contrary to the populiu-
belief, but it is, nevertheless, a fact within the cognizance of every
one who is acquainted with the subject. Judge Longfield states
it over and over again. He is asked if he knows that a great deal
of emigration from Ireland has been going on. " Yes," he replies,
" but I do not think that the emigration is much caused by the
landlord and tenant question." Again he is asked if good tenants
have not been driven away from the country by the supposed
general rule, by the most legitimate and humane means the very improvement he
desiderates.
"The principal change in the situation consists in the great diminntion, holding out
a hope of the entire extinction, of cottier tenure. The enormous decrease in the
number of small holdings, and increase in those of a meilium size, attested by the
statistical returns, sufficiently proves the general fact, and all testimonies show that
the tendency still continues." — AliU's Polit. Economy, p. il3, Vol. i.
25
insecurity of the tenure. He answers, " In some instances an
active man may have been prevented from investing his capital in
Ireland on that account, but I do not think that class form a large
proportion of the emigrants as yet," and a little further on he
calculates the emigrants who belong to the tenant-farmer class as
amounting to about four out of every 100 persons who quit Ireland,
the great bulk of the exodus being composed of small tradesmen,
artisans, and labourers.
Happily, the case admits of even closer proof. In the denun-
ciatory addresses with which all are so familiar, the tenant of Ulster
is justly indicated as occupying an exceptionally good position, and
many have declared they would be satisfied if the tenantry of the
south could obtain, under an Act of Parliament, one-tenth of the
security accorded by custom to the tenantry of Ulster. If, there-
fore, the oppression and legalized injustice which is supposed to
desolate the homesteads of the south, is absent from the north, it
Avould be natural to imagine that the extinction of tenancies in
Ulster Avould have been infinitesinial ; but as a matter of fact the
havoc amon2:st the small farmers of Ulster during the first few
years succeeding the potato failure was as portentous as in any
other province in Ireland, for whereas in Leinster only 44,514, in
Munster 85,929, in Connaught 78,958 holdings between one and
fifteen acres disappeared, in Ulster as many as 95,429 have been
obliterated. If we restrict the comparison to holdings between
one andyiue acres, Ulster's sinister pre-eminence over Leinster and
Munster is still maintained, nearly twice as many holdings of this
description having been extinguished in Ulster as in Munster, and
almost three times as many as in Leinster, the numbers being
in Leinster 27,007, in Munster 44,956, in Ulster 74,650, and
Connaught 81,786.
It has been urged that the foregoing figures prove nothing,
inasmuch as Ulster contains a farming population largely in excess
of that of Munster and Connaught, and nearly twice as numerous
as that of Leinster, and that we must ignore the fact of nearly
100,000 small holdings having disappeared in Ulster, on the gi-ound
that they formed a smaller per-centage on the total number of
farms in that Province than did those which have succumbed to a
similar fate in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, to the total
number of farms in their respective Provinces.
If this latter statement were correct, it would not be a valid
objection. Every one is aware that the agriculture of the North
20
has always hccii in a .sounder wtatc than that oi' the South and
West. But na it happons even the proportionate obliteration
between 1841 and IHfJH of the very small holding's in Ulster, viz.,
of those between one and five aeres, has been llj per cent, greater
than Avhat it Avas in Leinster, within 35 per cent, of what it was
ill Miiiistor, only 77 per cent, below -what it wa.s in Connaught,
ami almost identical with the general avernge for the kingdom.
It is true, if we ascend to the next cla.ss of farms, viz., those
between 5 and 15 acres, or if we take the farms of all ."izes which
have been extinguished in the four provinces between the samie
years, Ulster — as might have been expected — will show a more
favourable per-ccntage, the ])ro])ortionatc decrease being 10 o per
cent, in Ulster, against IGG per cent, in Leinster, 30'4 per cent, in
Munstcr, and 22*7 per cent, in Connaught; but when it is remem-
bered that the absolute number of extinguished farms rejiresented
by these per-centages is 381)92 in Ulster, as compared with 22,374
in Leinster, 35388 in Connaught, and 4981(J in Munster, it will
be admitted that even from this point of view the share borne by
the prosperous tenantry of Ulster in the general calamity sufficiently
shows Avith Avhat impartial severity every part of Ireland Avaa
visited, and hoAv unfair it is to attribute solely to the oppression of
the landlords of the South a disaster which Avrought an enormous,
though perhaps not an equal, amount of ruin, in those districts
Avhere their malign influence is acknowledged not to prevail.*
But the measure of the Irish landlord's responsibility is not
allowed to be limited by the decrease of agricultural holdings;
nay, though it appears from the census returns that during a
period of ten successive years, ending in 18()1, the number of
farms in Ireland actually increased, we are still told that because a
considerable portion of the population is leaving the country, its
departure cannot possibly be occasioned by any other cause than
the consolidating policy of the landlords. Let us then continue
the application of the test made use of in the preceding paragraph.
If emigration is only occasioned by landlord oppression, Ulster
ought to have enjoyed a comparative immunity from the general
depletion. But Avhat is the fact? Although immediately after
Holdings
in 1841.
Holdings
in 1S68.
Decrease
Decrease
per cent.
* Loinster,
. 134,780
112,406
22,374
16-6
Munster,
163,836
114,070
49,816
30-4
Ulster,
236,697
197,702
38,992
16-5
Contiaught,
155,842
120,454
3S,3S8
22-7
27
the famine the emigration from the South was, for obvious reasons,
in excess — though not very largely — of that from the North, the
first wave of emigration that ever left the shores of Ireland pro-
ceeded from the Protestants of Ulster,* and during the last
eighteen years Ulster's contribution to the general emigration has
been greater than that of either Connaught or Leinster, and in
the ratio of about seven to six as compared with the average of
the three other provinces.
But the greater density of the population of Ulster may be
again suggested in mitigation of this comparison. Such a con-
sideration hardly alters the result. The ratio of emigration from
Ulster to the population of that province has been greater than the
ratio of emigration to population from Leinster and Connaught,
though less than that from Munster in the proportion nearly of
1 to 2.t
Parliament and unjust landlords, we are told, are depopulating
the South: Avhat occult agencies are eflPecting a similar operation
in the North ?
There is yet another method at our disposal of testing the
justice of these accusations.
By a recent Statute, it has been enacted that no eviction shall
take place in Ireland without the intervention of the Sheriff, Avho
is bound to register every operation of the kind. This improve-
ment in the law did not occur until March, 1865. Consequently,
although we have Sheriffs' lists of evictions for some years back,
they are more or less imperfect until we come to the returns for
the year 1865, Avhich have been kept in accordance with the Act
of Parliament in all the counties of Ireland except four. Of the
evictions in these four counties we can arrive at a sufficiently
correct estimate by an independent process.
* See Arthur Young's "Tour in Ireland," and Sir G. C. Lewis on Irish
Jisturbances.
Per cent.
t Katio of Emigrants from Leinster 1851 to 1868 352,160
r= 24-9
To Population of Leinster in 1868 1,412,923
Ratio of Emigrants from Connaught 1851 to 1868 228,775
To Population of Connaught in 1868 903,679
Ratio of Emigrants from Ulster from 1851 to 1868 495,540
To Population of Ulster in 1863 1,905,815
Ratio of Emigrants from Munster 1851 to 1868 706,054
To Population of Munster in 1868 1,358,124
= 24-4
= 26-
= 51-9
2f<
Table showing the Sheriffs' Return of Evictions actually executed in
the year 1865.
Actual return of
Actual return of
Erlctlons
executed
Evietlona executed
l.y SJ
lerlfT*
by Sheriffs
In Count ies
1 In Counties
In
of CltlCH
In
of Cities
Counties
and Counties
of Towns
Coon ties
and Counties
of Towns
Ciirlow ....
11
Dublin ....
15
Dublin, City of -
42
Kildare ....
20
Kilkenny - . . -
56
Kilkenny, City of -
"3
Kinj^'fi County
25
...
Longford ....
55
Louth ....
♦23
Drogheda, Co. of the Town of
5
Meath ....
27
Queen's County
30
VVestmeath
15
...
Wexford ....
54
Wicklow ....
14
l.TSTV^TTTR ....
345
50
LiAll^O JL JliA ...
Clare . - . -
1!)
Cork ....
71
Cork, City of - - -
14
Limerick - . - -
*G6
Limerick, City of -
Kerry ....
25
Tipperary-f"
36
VVaterford
22
-•■
Waterford, City of
5
IVIrXKTKR - - - .
239
19
Antrim ....
11
Armagh - . . ..
92
Cavan ....
36
Donegal ....
100
Down ....
29
Fermanagh
25
Londonderry
36
Monaghan
25
Tyrone ....
*130
TTtiRTRR ....
484
\J UOl^Xk ...
Gal way ....
48
Leitrim ....
47
Mayo ....
72
...
Roscommon
•79
Sligo ....
20
Connaught . • - .
266
Ireland
1334 69
* In these instances the Sheriff's returns were imperfect, and the figures have been
supplied by assuming that the number of evictions executed equalled the entire notices
served on the Relieving Offictrs.
t This is given in the returns as the " County of Clonmel," and it is presumed that
Tipperary was meant.
29
By a previous Act of Parliament every landlord, before pro-
ceeding to evict a tenant, was compelled to give notice of his
intentions to the relieving officer of the Union, who kept a return
of all such notifications : these returns extend over the last seven
years, and have been presented to Parliament. Of course they do
not give us the exact number of actual evictions, because it
frequently happens, when the landlord has resorted to this pro-
cedure for the recovery of his rent, that the tenant pays up at the
last moment, and no eviction takes place, though the notice to the
Reheving Officer remains uncancelled. During the first three
years of the series great neglect occurred in making up the lists,
and even for the last year no information is supplied from a
considerable number of the electoral divisions. Luckily, hoAvever,
the returns of the relieving officers from the four counties, for
which the Sheriffs made no returns, happen to be perfect, and more
than supply the links necessary to complete the list of evictions
for the whole of Ireland during the past year, as will be seen on
reference to the opposite table. \Yith the exception of those for
Dublin, and a few other places, no distinction has been made
between the lurban and the agricultural evictions, though for the
purposes of the present argument such an analysis would have
been desirable. On the other hand the return of evictions during
a single year is not altogether a safe guide to an average over a
longer period. Let us then convert the figures with whicli we
are furnished for 1865, into a round number, and take the general
rate of rural evictions in Ireland at about 1,500 per annum, which
is probably considerably in excess of the truth. — {See Table.)
The total emigration from Ireland has averaged during the same
interval about 90,000 a year. If therefore this emigration has
been so swollen by evictions, the annual average of such evictions
ought to be proportionate to that emigration ; but the average of
evictions during the same period, as compared with the number of
emigrants, has been at the rate of about two to every 100. That
is to say, among every 100 persons who have left Ireland during
the last six years about ten persons, if we include the family of
each individual dealt with, have done so under the compulsion of a
landlord. In other words, and to display the case still more
explicitly in relation to the whole subject, during the only period
for which we have trustAvorthy statistics, evictions have been
effected (supposing the responsibility for them be distributed over
the entire landlord class, which is the theory insisted on) at the
'30
r;it(! of one, once in every five yeans, on each estate; or, to put the
case rr(!()i^ra|)lil(;ally, at the rate; of" one a year over every area of
1 (),()()() acrc-i of occii[)ic(l land. It is further to l)e remarked that
evictions Iiavo been fewest in Munster, the Province from whence
the hirijcst emii^ration has taken ])hic('.*
Not only, however, do we know the numhcr of evictions during
the last ten years, but we also know what proportion of these
evictions was necessitated by the non-payment of rent. It is true
the returns which 'Ave this information a^^ain confound the urban
with the rural districts, but it ms,y fairly be supposed that the
same j)roportions ])revailed in either category ; and if that be
taken for granted, it would a[)pear that of the total number of
evictions which the landlords have effected in Ireland two-thirds
were for non-payment of rent.
When, therefore, it is considered how many are the other
contingencies, — such as the infraction of covenants, intolerably
bad cultivation, subletting and illegal squatting, which not only
entitle but render it incumbent on a landlord, from time to time,
to free his estates of an undesirable tenant; and the extraordinary
number of tenants on each estate, which of course must multiply
the chances of collision, it is impossible not to come to the con-
clusion that the annual rate of evictions for other cause than that
of non-payment of rent, whether taken with reference to the
number of occui)iers, or to the extent of the area occupied, — in the
one case amounting to about O'l per cent, per annum, in the other
to about one eviction per annum to 30,000 acres, proves con-
clusively that the relations of the landlords of Ireland with their
* Returns have been received from the Clerks of the Peace of the several counties
in Ireland of the number of civil bill ejectment decrees on notices to quit obtained at
the several Quarter Sessions in the years ISGti, 18G7, 1S6S, and ISGO, from which it
appears that the average annual number in all Ireland during these years has been, as
nearly as possible, 1 in every 880 agricultur.il tenements ; and from the returns of the
sub-sheriffs it appears that only about 1 in every 2,000 — being less than one-half of
the decrees so obtained — have been executed. One remarkable feature, however, in
these returns is, that while in Ulster the proportion of ejectment decrees against
agricultural tenements is so high as 1 in 610, in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught
the proportion is only 1 in 1,-20, the relative proportion of those executed being
about the same in each of the four Provinces. Out of every 10 decrees executed, 7
were for non-payment of rent, and 3 on notices to quit, the average amount of rent
due when the process issued being about 2i years. These returns do not support the
allegation that agrarian disturbances are generally traceable to evictions or clearances
by l.indlords, the fact being that where evictions are more rare agrarian disturbances
are more frequent ; .ind in Ulster, the Province proverbially most free from such
disturbances, evictions have been twice as numerous as in any of the others. It is
evident, therefore, that these outrages must have some other origin than " the eviction
of the rural population by their landlords."
31
tenantry are by no means on that uncomfortable footing Avhich is
alleged, and that to describe Ireland as " a land of evictions " is
to adopt an expression calculated to convey a false impression.
But ir is now objected that though the list of evictions may not
witness so conclusively as might be desired to the tale of oppression,
that a record of evictions is, after all, but an incomplete indication
of what is going on, and that it is the fear of eviction which uproots
the people, before the landlords have occasion to put in motion the
machinery of the law. The difficulty of disproving so indefinite a
charge is obvious. The fact that more than a decade has passed
without diminishing by a single tenancy the number of farms in
Ireland, is not likely to make much impression on those who have
started this new theory. Still less would the inference that no
landlord can have an interest in dispossessing a good tenant who
pays his rent do so. Fortunately for the cause of truth, we have
positive evidence on this point. It is the practice of the Custom
House authorities in their register of the persons emliarking for
foreign countries carefully to note their previous occupations.
Now, it appears from these returns, which extend as far back as
the year 1854, that the total number of the farming class who have
quitted the United Kingdom during the 13 years preceding 1867,
amounted to 86,388 persons, that is to say, to about 4 per cent, of
the total emigration. Even supposing, therefore, that no English
or Scotch farmer were included in the category, the total number
of occupiers leaving the ports of Britain would only form eight per
cent, of the emigration from Ireland alone ; but the analysis by the
Emigration Commissioners of the nationality of the agriculturists
who emigrated during the years 1865 and 1866, shows that the
Irish element was very little in excess of the British, and that the
total number of Irish occupiers who sailed from any part of the
United Kingdom Avas exactly 2\ per cent, of the Irish emigration
during the same period.
In fact, turn the matter as you will — ^pply what test you please
— start from Avhatever point you choose — all the evidence converges
to the same conclusion, and establishes beyond a doubt that out of
every 100 persons Avho cross the Atlantic (a very large proportion
of Avhom consist of gentlemen, professional men, merchants, &c.),
not more than two or three are induced to do so by any difficulties
which may have arisen out of their relations Avith their landlords.*
* Total number of Farmers who have emigrated from the United Kingdom
in 1864 ......... 7,245
Total number whom the Commissioners have classed as Gentlemen, Profes-
sional Men, Merchants, &c. ....... 5,842
32
CIlAPTEll TIT.
ECONOMIC niSTOKV OF IRELAND.
Wk have sliown tlmt the "exterminating policy" of the Irish
hindlonls has resulted in the existence, at the census of 18G1, of a
<;rcater number of holdiny-.s of all sizes in Ireland than there were
in 1851, and of 1G(),000 more tenant farmers of fifteen acres and
upwards than there were twenty years ago, the smallest area
which, in tiie unanimous opinion of Judge Longfield, of Mr.
Dillon, of Mr. M'Cartiiy Downing, of the Catholic Bishop of
Cloyne, and of Mr. Curling, can be cultivated with advantage, or
over which those gentlemen would themselves be willing to extend
the protection of a lease. But it is said by some that the real
accusations against the landlord class in Ireland, so ruthlessly
gibbeted, is not exactly for their own acts, but as representatives of
those bygone generations to whose vicious mismanagement of their
estates the present misfortunes of tlie country are to be attriljuted.
That such is not the issue raised in the various manifestoes alluded
to will be at once apparent on referring to them ; but, as it may be
useful to ascertain what have been some of the historical sources of
Ireland's economic difficulties, let us endeavour to discriminate
between the share in them attributable to the former owners of the
soil and that which is due to other causes.
The writer who thus proposes to antedate our responsibilities
seems satisfied he has arrived at the fountain-head of Ireland's
calamities when he ]ioints his finger at tlie Irish ])roprietary of
former days ; nor does he dream of inquiring whether tlie landlord
of 70 or 80 years ago may not himself have been a creature
of circumstances, involved in the complexities of a system of which
he was as much the victim as his tenants. The po})ular conception
of the Irish country gentleman of former days is principally
derived from works of fiction and caricature, and is probably as
correct as is usual with information gathered from such sources.
In many respects it stands in favourable juxtaposition Avith the
picture drawn of his English contemporary by Macaulay, though
the noxious influences which emanated from the policy pursued by
England towards the Catholics of L-eland must have been as
denun'alizing to him as it was to every other member of the
dominant community. But it is alleged that the i^ractical results
33
of his dealing with his property have been over-population, rack-
rents, and an exodus of 2,000,000 souls. The question is, have
these phenomena followed in such direct sequence as is alleged, or
have other influences, independent of the landlord's agency, vitiated
a system Avhich otherwise would not have been unhealthy ? Now,
of the three evils he is supposed to have occasioned, the two last
are the direct consequences of the first. A rack-rent is the product
of competition, and both competition and emigration are the results
of over-population. The true measure, therefore, of the responsi-
bility of the Irish landlord is the share he has had in disturbing the
equilibrium which ought to have been maintained betAveen the
increase of population and the development of the country's
industrial resources.
As a matter of fact, it does not appear that the Irish landlords
of former days dealt harshly Avith Iheir tenantry. Even Mr. Butt
admits that during the whole of the 18th century there were
scarcely any evictions, and that long leases were almost universal ;
while Judge Longfield states that so late as 1835 there was very
little land in the southern and western counties not on lease, and
that " most of the leases were all in the tenants'' favour ^ Nor is it
alleged that the landlords themselves exacted exorbitant rents;
the principal complaint against them is that they leased their lands
to middlemen, and that sometimes they were separated from the
actual occupiers of the soil by a dozen derivative tenures. From
this fact it is evident that the rents they charged must have been
comparatively moderate. But long leases at moderate rates are hardly
a criminal arrangement. It is true the increasing pressure of a
teeming population, and the natural instinct which. Judge Long-
field tells us, is inherent in every Irish tenant — to turn himself
into a landlord if he gets the chance — resulted in a state of things
replete with mischief But for the development of this unexpected
phase in the Irish land system, the proprietor is by no means
responsible to the degi'ee which is supposed. Up to nearly the
close of the last century the great proportion of the country was
in pasture, and the population was less than half of what it
amounted to in 1841. The holdings were of considerable size,
and when a farm was let the landlord never dreamt of its being
converted into tillage, and no provisions against subdivision were
introduced. But as population multiplied the situation changed,
and the enormous rise in the price of grain and provisions on the
breaking out of the French war made it the interest of the tenant
c
34
to Piilxlividc Ills luiid as minutely as ho could. lie accordingly
introduced an Irirfii edition of what in known as " la petite cidturc."
It is true most of the latter leases contained clauses apainst sub-
lot tini,', hut an unox[)ectcd lej^al subtlety rendered thcni ])ractic^lly
inojx'iative, and when attenipts were made to stoj) an innovation,
which in no way benefited the landlord, most proprietors found,
after fjoin^ to preat expense, that thoy wore completely powcrlc.-j.
The practice consequently spread, and an oljnoxious class of middle-
men, as they were termed, re-let the greater proportion of the soil
of Ireland at rack-rents to their teeming countrymen, in small
holdings sometimes less than half an acre. But though the
majority of middlemen became constituted in this manner, there is
no doubt that sometimes they were placed in possession of land by
the owners, with tlie express intention that they should sublet, and
it is with this method of ])rocedure adopted by a few that the
entire class have been credited. Though, however, the experiment
turned out unsuccessfully, there was nothing at the time to warn
the proprietor against it, and it can be easily conceived that many
a landlord, speaking neither the same language, nor professing the
religion as his tenants, might consider it not only a very convenient
but a very popular alternative to give a long lease at a low rent to
some person less alien to the peasants in race and religion than
himself, upon the understanding that he might relet it in smaller
areas. If the event proved unfortunate, it was not because the
tenant was a middleman, but because he dealt Avith his comrades
and co-religionists more unmercifully than might have been
expected.*
AVhether even the middleman is deserving of all the abuse
which is heaped upon him may be a question. To drive a hard
bargain is a falling not confined to that class of persons ; and,
perhaps, the moral responsibility of accepting a competition rent is
pretty much the same as that of profiting by the market rnte of
wages. If the first is frequently exorbitant, the latter is often
inadequate, and inadequate wages are as fatal to efficiency as a rack
rent is to production; though each be the result of voluntary
adjustment, it is the same abject misery and absence of an alterna-
tive which rule the rate of both ; if the unhappy condition of the
* Besides the subletting,' by nii<idlemen for a profit ;the case ^v^th which we are now
dealing\ subletting, or subdivision, took place extensively by parents a.s a provision
for their children on marriage. Holdings of even one acre were sometimes thus sub-
divided. The reports of the Devon Commission teem with evidence to this effect.
35
Irish cottier tenant of former days may be referred to the one, the
physical and mental degradation of the labouring classes in the
Black Country, as revealed in the report of a late Commission, is
even a more startling illustration of the other.
In fact the middlemen of Ireland were rather the exponents than
the cause of the people's misery, and, though piled ten deep one
above the other, on a single tenancy, they no more occasioned rack-
rents than the degrees on a barometer occasion the atmospheric
pressure they record. Derivative tenancies, cottier allotments,
potato cultivation, low wages, emigration, have been the rude
alleviations — not the origin — of the country's destitution; just as
half-rations are the alternative for short provisions — or any wages
are preferable to starvation — a patch of ground, at a rack-rent, to
serfdom and 3d. a day — and a free farm in America to digging
another man's potato garden in Connemara. Similar phenomena
would have declared themselves under any system of land tenure,
and in any country where the population had expanded in a degree
disproportionate to its capacities for self-sustentation. If it were
otherwise, every perpetuity in Ireland Avould be a land of Goshen,*
and Ulster a paradise where rack-rents and evictions were unknown.
But it is an acknowledged fact, proved by evidence of proprietors
and farmers, that the loAV-let perpetuities of the South and West
only exaggerate the worst features of the worst estates, and in
Ulster, though under a more subtle guise, rack-rents and the
middleman are as rampant as they used to be in Connaught.
This last statement requires explanation. In Ulster it is the
custom for the incoming tenant to pay the outgoing tenant a sum
of money — nominally, for his improvements, really — for an inde-
terminate value called his " goodwill." If the worth of the
improvement corresponded with the amount of the payment, the
arrangement would be unobjectionable. But it seldom does. An
incoming tenant Avill give openly, or surreptitiously, £5, £10, or
£20 an acre for land let at a high rent, in a bad condition, and
'Without improvements, the figure generally increasing in an inverse
ratio to-the size of the farm and the poverty of the district, the
largest tenant prices prevailing in Donegal, and the most moderate
* " It does not appear either, as a general rule, from the evidence, that those
tenants who have the longest leases, and the most beneficial interest in their farms,
have brought the lands they hold to a more productive or improved state than others,
not possessing such advantages or security. It is even broadly asserted by many that
lands held under long leases, at a nominal rent, are in a worse state than those held
from year to year." — Digest Devon Commission, Summarj, p. 16.
30
in Down, wliilo the payment, h almost invarial)!)' made with money
borrowed at a lii;;li rate of interest. Tliis interest is, of eoursc, a
second or rack-rent paid to the lender of the purchase money (who
is frequently fjiven the use of a portif)n of the land an a security for
his intci-est and the repayment of the loan), and the recipient who
walks off with it is neither more nor le.-s than a bastard middleman,
Avho takes a fine in lieu of an annual payment for a non-existing
value. As a con-^equcnce, the new tenant commences his enter]»ri.-c
burdened with debt and destitute of capital, and with a mortgagee
in possession of part of the land. Hence low farming, inadequate
profits, uneducated children, and, too frequently, the ruin and
emigration of the Ulster tenant, in spite of indulgent landlords and
a secure tenure.
It is amusing to observe that the same persons who are anxious
to mitigate the effects of competition by imposing on the owner of
the land a rent fixed by Act of Parliament, always contend that
the person in Avhose favour this beneficial interest is to be created
should have the right to dispose of it to the highest bidder: that is
to say, though I am to be precluded from receiving the market
value of my land, — my tenant is to be allowed to do so, by
extracting a fine from whoever may be induced to make the most
extravagant offer for his good-will. It is hardly perhaps to be
expected that the advocates of such measures should condescend
to show how far their proposals are compatible with justice, and
the narrowest interpretations of the rights of property, but at
least they ought to prove them conducive to the agincultural
prosperity of the country, and consonant with public policy. But
as the result of such an arrangement would be to fill the majority
of the farms in Ireland, in the course of a few years, with tenants
paying a double rent, i.e., the Parliamentary rent to their landlords,
and the interest on the fine squeezed out of them by the lucky
individual to whom ParUament had attributed a share in the
original owner's proprietary rights, it is difliicult to see what could
be the advantage of the change. It may indeed be urged that the
vice in the system would only blaze into life on a change of
tenancy: — hut changes of tenancy are continually taking place: —
not only by the surrender of fiirms, but on the death of every
occupant. His sons succeed: — they all consider tliey have an
equal claim to the holding: — if permitted they subdivide it; — if
not the eldest has to pay the others their share of the father's
beneficial interest ; and the competition price is their standard of
37
valuation. Consequently the permanent tenant finds himself in
the same position as if he had bought the farm from a stranger : —
that is to say, destitute of capital and probably in debt: — while
the brothers walk off with a sum of money which, if the rent is as
fair as the theory of the arrangement pre-supposes, can represent
no real value, and to which therefore they have much less right
than the landlord, whom it has been the intention of Parliament
to debar from such exactions. Now, it is not pretended that the
imposition of rack-rents is at all a general practice with proprietors.
The high value of the goodwill on many estates is the index of the
landlord's moderation, and his virtues are put up to auction in the
same lot with his land. The rents of Ireland are comparatively
low, and fines, which is the worst form of rent, are rarely, if ever,
taken: to transfer therefore tlie power of exaction created by
competition from the landlord, against whose interest it is to
enforce it, and to hand it over to the tenant, who would never
fail to do so, would hardly be a change for the better; yet so little
is this question understood that you will hear the same person who
would vehemently denounce a landlord for insisting on a rack-rent,
detail Avith complacency the enormous sums of money Avhich this
or that person has obtained for his tenant-right, from some ill-
advised successor to his farm, whom he has skinned by the process,
and left stranded for life on the barren acres.* Yet it is in the
prosperity of this latter individual — on whose solvency the proper
cultivation of the land will depend, rather than in that of the
outgoing tenant — that both the landlord and the community is
interested.
From the foregoing considerations it is apparent that competition
is an irrepressible force if that if stifled in one du-ection, it will
* " It is, in the great majority of cases, not a reimbursement for outlay incurred, or
improvements effected on the land, but a mere life insurance or pmrchase of immunity
from outrage. Hence, the practice is more accurately and significantly termed,
' selling the good-will.'
"And it is not uncommon for a tenant without a lease to sell the hare 'privilege of
occupancy or possession of his farm without any visible sign of improvement having been
made by him, at from ten to sixteen, up to tiventy and even forty years' purchase of the
rent." — Dig. Dev. Coin.
+ The following conclusions are given in the Summary of the Evidence before the
Devon Commission: —
" That small holdings, in consequence of the greater competition, command a higher
price than large.
" That the tenant-right confuses the rights of landlord and tenant, and is an undue
interference with the interest of the proprietor.
38
burst out in anoflier; thai a Byritcni of conrijxjlHory routs would
only Icjul to its niuuif'estution, in a more (objectionable form ; and
that, aa a matter of policy, it is better that those alone should have
the opportunity of taking advantage of it, who are tiie least likely
to abuse their power.
Wherever you go the same deleterious influence signalizes its
presence by analogous, if not by identical efFect.s. In the South
and West the poison has infiltrated the system itself, breeding
monstrous excrescences in the shape of the middleman and the
rack-rented cottier. In the North it has manifested its presence by
a parasitical growth of inflated tenant-right prices, as effectually
fatal to the healthy expansion of our agricultural industry. The
original cause of the disease is everywhere the same. The dispro-
portion of the opportunities of employment to population has
resulted in universal pressure and universal competition — competi-
tion in the labour market, already modified by emigration ; compe-
tition in the land market — only to be relieved by the application to
more profitable occupations of so much of the productive energies
of the nation as may be in excess of the requirements of a perfect
agriculture.
But, it may be objected that even though emigration, rack-rents
— and their natural result — low farming, are equally rife under
every description of tenure, and cannot thercfoi'e wholly be set
down to the pernicious influence of the o^vners of landed property,
yet, some human agency must be accountable for the perennial
"That the amount paid for the purchase of tenant-right injures the inconiiDg
tenant, by diminishing his capital.
" That debts are contracted upon the security of the tenant-right
" That the children of farmers are provided for by charges upon the tenant-right.
" That the incojning tenant is frequently compelled to borrow funds for the purchase
of the tenant-right at usurious interest.
" That the existence of the tenant-right renders more difiBcult reclamation of waste
lands by capitalists.
"That in most parts of Ireland the practice exists of selling the possession of farms
held even from year to year.
"That the price of tenant-right frequently amounts to £10, £12, £20, or £25 per
acre, and that sometimes as much as forty years' purchase of the rent is paid for it
" That many proprietors have attempted to regulate and restrict its price.
"That such restrictions are frequently evaded.
" That the tenant is able to obtain a high rate of purchase for his good-will where
he has effected no improvements, or has even deteriorated his farm.
" Tliat even if the price of tenant-right be at all atiected by the improvementa made
on a farm (a fact doubted by some witnesses), it is not so influenced in proportion to
the value of the improvements." — Dig. Devon Com. p. 290.
39
desolation of a lovely and fertile island, watered by the fairest
streams, caressed by a clement atmosphere, held in the embraces of
a sea whose affluence fills the noblest harbours of the world, and
inhabited by a race — valiant, generous, tender — gifted beyond
measure with the power of physical endurance, and graced Avith
the liveliest intelligence.
The discovery of this enigma and its solution may possibly give
answer to the famous question originally put to the Kilkenny
Parliament, and lately repeated with considerable point by Mr.
Bright — " How is it that the King is none the richer for Ireland?"
Of course, any perfect retrospect of the economic career of
Ireland would necessarily involve a review of her political and
religious history, but so large a treatment of the subject would
not be adapted to the present cursory discussion. Let us briefly
point out what those influences have been Avhich have as effectually
stunted the development of our material prosperity as penal laws
and religious intolerance have vitiated our social atmosphere — the
commercial jealousies of Great Britain.
It has beeii rather the custom of late to represent the landed
interests of Great Britain as the sole inventors and patentees of
protection. The experience of Ireland does not confirm this
theory. During the course of the last 250 years Ave have
successively tasted the tender mercies of every interest in turn —
whether landed, trading, or commercial — and have little reason to
pronounce one less selfish than another. From Queen Elizabeth's
reign until within a few years of the Union the various commercial
confraternities of Great Britain never for a moment relaxed their
relentless grip on the trades of Ireland. One by one, each of our
nascent industries was either strangled in its birth, or handed over,
gagged and bound, to the jealous custody of the rival interest in
England, until at last every fountain of wealth was hermetically
sealed, and even the traditions of commercial enterprise have
perished through desuetude.
The owners of England's pastures opened the campaign. As
early as the commencement of the 16th century the beeves of
Roscommon, Tipperary, and Queen's County undersold the produce
of the English grass counties in their own market. By an Act
of the 20th of Elizabeth Irish cattle Avere declared a " nuisance,"
and their importation Avas prohibited. Forbidden to send our beasts
alive across the Channel, we killed them at home, and began to
supply the sister country Avith cured provisions. A second Act of
40
Parliiunont iuiposod prohiljitory duties on Ftiltod meatfl. The
liiilcH of the animals Hf ill reinaincfl, but the wunc influence soon put
a stop to the importation of leather. Our cattle trade abolished,
we tried slice}) farmin^j. The sheep breeders of Enj^land imme-
diately took alarm, and Irish wool was declared contraband by
a Parliament of Charles II. Headed in this direction we tried to
work up the raw material at home, but this created the f^eatest
outcry of all. Every maker of fustian, flannel, and broadcloth in
the country rose up in arms, and by an Act of William III. the
woollen industry of Ireland was extinguished, and 20,000 manu-
facturers left the island. Tiie easiness of the Irish labour market
and the cheapness of provisions still giving us an advantage, even
though we had to import our materials, we next made a da-sh at the
silk 1)usiness ; but the silk manufacturer proved as pitiless as the
woolstaplcrs. The cotton manufacturer, the sugar refiner, the soap
and candle maker (who especially dreaded the abundance of our
kelp), and any other trade or interest that thought it worth it's
while to petition Avas received by Parliament with the same partial
cordiality, until the most searching scrutiny failed to detect a
single vent through which it was possible for the hated industry of
Ireland to respire. But, although excluded from the markets of
Britain, a hundred harbours gave her access to the universal sea.
Alas ! a rival commerce on her own element was still less welcome
to England, and as early as the reign of Charles II. the Levant,
the j)ort3 of Europe, and the oceans beyond the Cape were
forbidden to the flag of Ireland. The colonial trade alone was in
any manner open — if that could be called an open trade which for
a long time precluded all exports whatever, and excluded from
direct importation to Ireland such important articles as sugar,
cotton, and tobacco. What has been the consequence of such a
system, pursued with relentless pertinacity for 250 years, whereby,
in the words of Mr. Cobden, " England, by discouraging the
commerce of Ireland — thus striking at the very root of civilization
— made herself responsible for much of the barbarisms that aftlicts
it ? " This : that, deban-ed from every other trade and industry,
the entire nation flung itself back upon " the land'' with as fatal an
impulse as when a river whose current is suddenly impeded rolls
back and drowns the valley it once fertilized.
For a long time, however, the limits of their own island proved
sufficient for the three or four millions which then inhabited it.
The cheai)ness of provisions in Ireland used to be the bugbear of
41
the English manufacturer. But each successive century found
the nation more straitened within its borders. At last a choice had
to be made between the sacrifice of domestic happiness or of
physical comfort ; the natural liveliness of their affections, combined
with a buoyant temperament, led the people to accept the latter
alternative. The mildness of the climate, the cheapness of the fuel,
and above all, the suitableness of the potato to what is technically
called ^^ la petite culture," contributed to turn the scale, and early
marriages continued to remain a characteristic of the Irish
peasantry. Even had the landlords interfered, their remonstrances
would have been In vain, and, the downward impulse once commu-
nicated, acquired a continually accelerated momentum, for the
simple reason that each succeeding generation was accustomed
from infancy to a lower standard of comfort than that which had
satisfied their fathers. Extraneous circumstances, such as the
rise of prices during the French wars, stimulated the popular
tendency to self expansion, until, by a logical sequence of events, the
spectacle was presented of a nation doubling its population every
fifty years, yet entirely dependent for Its support upon an agricul-
tural area which had been found barely sufficient for its needs when
it was a third less numerous ; under such conditions, high rents, Ioav
wages, and all the other indications of destitution would be as
inevitable as famine prices in a beleaguered city.
But we may be told this frantic cUngIng of the Irish to the land
is natural to their genius, and not a result of commercial restrictions.
History supplies the perfect refutation of such a theory : Though
the hostile tariff of England comprehended almost every article
produced In Ireland, one single exception was permitted. From
the reign of William III. the linen trade of L'eland has been free ;
as a consequence, at this day Irish linens are exported in enormous
quantities to every quarter of the globe, and their annual value
nearly equals half the rental of the island.
Many attempts were made by the ri\al interest in England to
deprive us of this boon, and In 1785 a petition — signed by 117,000
persons — was presented by Manchester, praying for the prohibition
of Irish linens, but justice and reason for once prevailed, and the
one surviving industry of Ireland was spared. How has It repaid
the clemency of the British Parliament ? By dowering the croAvn
of England with as fair a cluster of flourishing towns and loyal
centres of industry as are to be found In any portion of the Empire.
Would you see what Ireland might have been — go to Derry, to
42
Ik'lfiiHt, to TyiHl)iirn, and by tlu; cxcojitional proHpnrity wliich has
been (lcvel()i)C<l, not only within ii hundred town.s and villaf^es, but
for miles and miles around them, you may measure the extent of
the injury we have sustained. Would you ascertain how the
numerical strength oC a nation may be multiplied, while the status
of each individual that comprises it is improved, — go to Belfast,
where (within a single generation) the pojudation has quadrupled,
and the wages of labour have more than doubled.
How powerfully the development of manufactures in the North
of Ireland has contributed to the relief of the agricultural cla.sses of
Ulster, by giving the tenant-farmer an opportunity of apprenticing
some of his sons to business instead of sub-dividing among them his
diminutive holding, by enabling the cottier tenant to supplement
his agricultural earnings with hand-loom weaving, and by a general
alleviation of the pressure upon the land, need not be described.
These and many other considerations force on us the conviction —
that had Ireland only been allowed to develop the other innumer-
able resources at her command, as she has developed the single
industry in which she was permitted to embark, the equilibrium
between the land and the population dependent upon the land
would never have been disturbed, nor would the relations between
landlord and tenant have become a subject of anxiety.
In dealing with the economic interests of a great country, it is
on the essential forces which are producing specific results, rather
than on the capricious accidents of the situation, that we must fix
our attention.
If, on consideration, it should be found that the responsibilities
of the landed proprietors for the ills of Ireland have been grossly-
exaggerated, if the instances of harshness and mismanagement laid
to the charge of individual landlords by men of the highest honour,
though we may deplore their existence, are so manifestly exceptional
as to have produced an inappreciable effect on the current of events
we are considering, let us have sufficient faith in the generosity
of their accusers to believe that they will rejoice rather than regret
to discover that so numerous and important a section of their fellow-
countrymen neither arc nor have been unworthy of their esteem ;
the rather that our conclusions on such a point cannot materially
affect any pending controversy between the landlords and their
tenantry. If an alteration is to be made in the tenure of land in
Ireland, that cdteration must be founded on abstract principles of
justice> and the requirements of present policy. It would be as
43
great an outrage to visit with penal legislation the recent piu'chascr
of a property in the Incumbered Estates' Court because fifty years
ago the grandfather of the former proprietor created 40s. freeholders
(a tenure of Avhich Mr. Butt speaks almost with approval) and took
the best rent, as it would be to load the woollen manufacturers of
Lancashire with the responsibility of Ireland's misfortunes because
the particular industry in which they are interested owes more than
any other its present prosperity to the cruel policy towards Ireland
inagurated by their predecessors.
CHAPTER IV.
EVICTION ARE LANDLORDS OR TENANTS ANSWERABLE ?
We now come to the third point in our inquiry — viz., whether it is
fair to refer the evictions in Ireland to the injustice of the landlords
rather than to the neglect of their legitimate obligations on the part
of the tenants. What has been already said almost answers this
question, while the fact that over two-thirds of the registered eject-
ments are for non-payment of rent speaks for itself. But as it is the
fashion to talk of the act of eviction as if it were a crime, we shall
analyse the nature of the operation.
First, let us define the respective rights of landlord and tenant.
A landlord is an owner of land which he has either bought himself,
or inherited from those who have bought it. In either case, the
land he possesses represents a specific amount of capital, accumu-
lated either by his own industry or by that of his forefathers, for
which he is content to receive interest at a rate sometimes less than,
seldom exceeding, 4 per cent. Considerable prominence has been
given of late to the fact that in the time of Elizabeth, Cromwell,
and William, extensive confiscations of property took place in
Ireland, and it has been more than hinted that such a circumstance
might justify the repetition of an analogous process. But, however
strongly this argument may appeal to the conscience of the small
minority who are able to trace their present proprietorship to an
historical source, it will hardly commend itself to those whose pos-
sessions represents the mercantile industry of some distant ancestor,
improved by centuries of hereditary thrift, or the proceeds of their
own exertions invested in land on the faith of a Parliamentary title.
44
"Wliotlior vajTiic HUfrpfcstlons, — which (as far as they mean anything)
AViMihl inii)ly tiic uj)n)()rnif^ of the whole of" the jtojmlation of" Ulnter,
and th<! transf'ercnee of nearly all the, landed [)roperty of" Ireland,
from those wliose legal title to it is indisputable to a thousand com-
petitors whose claims would rest on distinctions of race and religion,
— arc calculated to attract capital to the country or promote a
feeling of security, it is needless to inqnire. Such barren specula-
tions cannot alter the fact that at ])rescnt the owner of landed pro-
perty in Ireland holds it in exactly the same sense, and under the
same conditions, as the owner of i)roperty in England. He can
sell his interest in it, he can let it, he can cultivate it himself, as he
may please, so long as he does not infringe existing contracts or the
laws of his country.
A tenant, on the other hand, is a person who does not possess
land, but who hires the use of it. He embarks his capital in
another man's field, much in the same way as a trader embarks his
merchandise in another man's ship. Experience teaches him that
by expending a certain amount of labour and capital in the cultiva-
tion of the soil he is able Avithin a limited period to get back from
it not only the original capital he had expended, but also a profit-
able rate of interest upon that capital. What rate that interest
may reach Avill depend on his own skill and discretion, just as the
trader's profits will depend on the j udgment with which he sorts
his cargo or selects his port. In either case, the amount of hire
paid for the use of the ship or for the use of the land will be
determined by competition, and will affect the balance of gain or
loss on both transactions.* If ships are few and land is scarce,
freight and rent will rise, and the rise of each will in a great
measure be regulated by the disproportion of ships to goods and of
farmers to farms. But the rate of freight or the amount of rent
are not the only circumstances which wnll aflbct the profits of either
speculator. In the case of the trader, all will depend on his goods
being landed at the port he intended, whilst the most promising
expectations of the agriculturist may be ruined unless he retain
possession of the land he occupies for a definite period. A clear
understanding, therefore, ought to exist in both cases between the
parties interested, as to the course of the ship and the duration of
* The illustration in the text must be accepted ^\-ith the important qualification that
the supply of land is fixed and limited, while that of ships can be indefinitely in-
creased. Still, the analogies presented by the two cases are too striking to be
omitted.
45
the tenancy. The shipowner may want to send his vessel to one
port and the trader his goods to another, just as the proprietor of
an estate may wish to let his land for one term and the tenant to
hire it for another. The definitive arrangement will depend upon
the respective necessities of the contracting parties and the balance
of competition. On the previous supposition that ships are few
and land scarce, the advantage of the bargain will remain with the
owner of the ship and the possessor of the field — the one consent-
ing to call at the desired port, unforseen contingencies permitting,
the other agreeing to let his land on such conditions as may be
most suital)le to his ulterior views. Both arrangements may be
thought by the impartial observer unfavourable to the tAvo interests
affected by it — the one to commerce, the other to agriculture — but
inasmuch as each was a voluntary contract between persons who
must be supposed capable of managing their own affairs, any
legislative interference to amend the bargain might occasion greater
mischief than it seeks to remedy. For instance, a law requiring
the ship to call at certain ports, or the landlord to let his land for
what he might consider a longer term than Avas desirable, would
be a grievance to both shipowner and landowner; they would
probably protect themselves either by refusing to carry the goods
and to let the field, or by raising the rate of the freight and rent.
This result would suit neither merchant nor farmer. Parliament
might again intervene, and not only lay down the plan of the
voyage and the duration of the tenure, but might impose a specified
scale of freights and rents, and declare the shipowner incapable of
freighting his own ship, and the landlord of tilling his own land.
But so violent an interference with the rights of property Avould
be unjust, impracticable, and obviously productive of greater evils
than those it was intended to remedy.
If the foregoing illustration be apposite, it follows that the
tenant's interest in the farm he hires is like the trader's interest in
the ship he charters, is limited in duration. The voyage concluded,
the lease expired, both ship and field revert to their respective
owners.
It is hardly reasonable to deny the analogy on the ground that
the ship is a manufactured article, but the earth is the gift of God.
The land I have bought is probably itself as much a manufactured
article as the ship: and the iron or wood of Avhich the ship is
built is as much the gift of God as the land : the laboiu' or enter-
prise by which the land has been rendered valuable is as clearly
4G
rcprosontcd by the money I gave for it, as tlic industry and
ingenuity exercised on its construetlon i.s represented by the price
the owner has paid for the ship. It is true the country of which
niy estate is j)art belongs to the nation, and consequently my
property in that estate is over-ridden by tlie imperial rights of the
commonwealth. But this fact cannot invest the individual who
may happen to hire my land, when once his tenancy is terminated
either />>/ lapse of time or by the violation of his contract, with any
peculiar rights in excess of those which may be inherent in the
community at large.
Of course, in the case of land, tlie desirable duration of a
tenant's occupancy may vary with circumstances, from one year to
a hundred ; it might equally suit him to take, and me to let, a
corner of my park for a single crop, or a bit of pasture for a few
months' grazing, or a tract of heather under a reclamation lease of
sixty years. But if the principle of the arrangement is to be
defined it may be stated as an axiom that, unless otherwise pro-
vided for by special agreement, a tenant's equitable claim to the
occupation of his farm extends to such a period as shall enable
him, by ordinary diligence and skill, to put back into his pocket
the capital he has ex])ended on its improvement, together with a
fair amount of interest upon that capital;* for it is evident, first,
that were the profits of agricultural enterprise to be artificially
hoisted to a rate of interest beyond the amount appropriate to such
investments, the consequent stimulus to competition would innne-
diately reduce them to their normal level; and, secondly, that to
* It is sometimes objected that land having been made valuable by the exertions of
the former generations of tenants, the additional fertility thus created ought to
devolve like an apostolic succession on the actual occupants. But if the persons
referred to conducted theii- business properly, the}' have been already remunerated by
their annual surplus of profit. The increased value permanently acquired by the
land through tlieir exertions, was a subsidiary accident which they neither intended,
nor could prevent. It was in expectation of suck a result the land was let to them. In
pursuit of tlieir own interests they happened to disengage the latent virtues of the
soil, which were the property of the former owner, and which, after they had been
developed, the subsequent purchaser of the estate acquired
For a tenant, therefore, to claim a share in the increased value of the land in
addition to his fair protits, would be as unreasonable as for the labourer to claim a
share in the tenant's profits in addition to his own wages, on the plea that those
profits resulted from the increased fertility communicated to the lanJ by his manual
toil. The argument is as cogent in the one case as the other. Moreover, as a matter
of fact, though the labour of former tenants may frequently have improved the land,
the operations of the actual tenant have as often deteriorated it : and virgin soil that
was worth a great deal before a spade had touched it, may become completely
exhausted by bad cultivation.
47
endow the present chance occupiers of farms with an indefeasible
tenure Avould be tantamount to the imposition of a disability on
the rest of the non-occupying population to hold land. The
tenant's claim to occupation being necessarily, then, of a terminable
cliaracter, he has no right to complain if his landlord finds it
advisable, on the expiration of his term, to confer on another
advantages similar to those he has hitherto enjoyed. Many con-
siderations indispose both parties to change their relationship.
Ancient associations, habits of friendly intercourse, the fellowsliip
which unites old .customers, may preserve the bond for generations ;
but when once it becomes the imperative interest of either to cancel
it, the endeavour of any third party, such as the State, to force
the maintenance of a connexion, which in its very nature is one of
voluntary obligation, will tend to precipitate the rupture.
It is admitted by the witnesses on the other side that an indus-
trious tenant is seldom, if ever, turned off- an estate in Ireland;
but it is a mistake to imagine that non-payment of rent is the only
circumstance which can justify evictions. Any one acquainted
with the management of land is aAvare that an idle or unskilful
farmer, even though he pay his rent, may do his landlord's property
more harm than an industrious tenant, who is occasionally in arrear.
Few things are more liable to deterioration than land, and the
value of a field may be as completely annihilated — or, in the
graphic language of a gentleman before the Land Commission,
" the life and soul dragged out of the land " — for a certain number
of years, as that of a house off which you take the roof! One of
the landlord's most important duties is that of insuring the
consummate cultivation of his estate, and to hold him up to
obloquy because he makes a point of weeding his property of men
whose want of energy, or skill, or capital, renders them incapable
of doing their duty by their farms, and replacing them by more
suitable tenants is hardly reasonable. Were he not to do so, he
might, with more reason, be censured for neglecting his duty to
himself and to the State.
Again, the failure of the potatoes, the repeal of the Corn Laws,
and the application of steam and machinery to husbandry, have
converted a primitive art into a complicated science. If the Irish
agriculturist is to hold his own with the foreign producer, it can
only be by high farming, a large expenditure of capital, and great
economy of labour — conditions of industry almost incompatible
with the maintenance of unreasonably small fai*ms. There has
48
conflcqucntly arisen a dosirc on the part of l)otli landlcjnl and
occii[)ior to Increase cxistiiig lioldiiign, and wlien hucIi a I'eelinf^
prevails in the minds of the two parties chiefly interested, the
tendency will not be arrested by legislation.
" Fifteen years' experience in the management of property in Ireland,"
observes Lord Dufferin, and the experience of many others will bear
him out, " has convinced me that the farmer of 20 acres at a fair rent
makes a larger profit, educates his children better, accumulatfis more
capital, and is more contented than the holder of eight or nine acres at
the same rent, and that, at least, up to 30 or 40 aca-es, the advantage
continues in an ascending ratio. Many advocates of the small farm
system would carry it higher, and almost every tenant on my estate is
probably of their opinion. I am by no means disposed to consider the
English system of large farms applicable to Ireland ; on the contrary, I
believe we shall eventually settle down to an average size of farm, as
exceptionally suitable as in the gauge of our railways ; but if a landlord
wishes to furnish his estate with farm buildings of his own erection, and
to better the position of his industrious tenants, by rendering the size
of their farms proportionate to their capital and energies, no law should
impede his action, even though the operation involve the occasional
conversion of a struggling tenant into a well-paid labourer or prosperous
emigrant. Far from considering the latter alternative a hardship, I have
invariably counselled emigration to any healthy single young man among
my tenants in whom I was specially interested, and whose embarrass-
ments at home compromised his future. In doing so 1 recommended the
course I myself should have adopted imder similar circumstances, and in
no instance has the step been regretted. At this moment several of the
most prosperous farmers on my estate are men who went out in their
youth to Australia and to America, and have returned in the prime of
life with an ample supply of capital, to renew with myself on a still more
permanent basis the connexion which had subsisted for many generations
between our respective ancestors."
It may be justly urged, that the moral character of an act of evic-
tion will greatly depend on the complete termination of the tenant's
legitimate interest in his farm ; but the argument presupposes this
essential condition ; and when it is remembered that according to
Judge LongfiekVs dictum " no improvement on a small fnnn will
pay ; that there is no small portion of the land of Ireland in the
hands of tenants to whom a promise of compensation for bond Jide
improvements would be useless: they have neither skill, capital,
nor energy to undertake such tasks," and that the deterioration of
the land, if justly estimated, would be found to outweigh, in most
49
cases of eviction, the counter-claim of the tenant for compensation,
it is improbable that many instances have occurred in Avhich this
condition has not been fulfilled. Therefore, Avhile we freely admit
that a heavy obligation rests upon the landlord to exercise such
extreme rights Avith great moderation, and Avith a charity far in
excess of his legal responsibilities, in the face of the forefoino-
considerations, it may Avell be doubted that it Avould be either just
or Avise to curtail them.
In fact, the transition which is affecting the agricultural Avorld
of Ireland resembles the revolution Avhich overturned the manufac-
turing system of England on the introduction of the poAver-loom.
In each case an improvement of method thrcAv a large proportion of
the population of either country out of their accustomed groove,
and great suffering and discontent ensued ; but, for Parliament or
public opinion to compel the agricultural interest of Ireland to
maintain an unprofitable or exploded system of husbandry, for the
purpose of preventing emigration, Avould be as unreasonable as an
edict to preclude the mill-OAvner of Manchester from adopting such
mechanical improvements as economize manual labour, or from
working half-time durina; a cotton famine.
That a moral duty rests on the promoters of every industry,
whether commercial or agricultural, to mitigate the distress incident
to those periods of transition Avhich periodically disturb all branches
of employment, cannot be too strongly insisted upon ; but there can
be no such essential difference in the relations betAveen a landlord and
his tenants, and an employer of wages and his Avorkmen, on the
e^vjnration of their respective contracts, as should render such obliga-
tions more imperative on the one than on the other. Indeed, if a
distinction were to be drawn, it Avould tell rather in the landlord's
favour, inasmuch as the wealth accruing to him from the exertions
of his tenants chiefly represents a Ioav rate of interest on capital
already accumulated Avithout their co-operation; Avhereas, in the
case of the manufacturer, a great portion of his capital, and of its
rapidly increasing profits, has been created by the toil of those
AA'hom he finds it convenient to dismiss at a Aveek's notice.
But, whatever the nature of the moral duties of landlord or
master, under such circumstances, it is clear they cannot become
the subject of legal enactment; and if any proof were needed of
the ripeness of the working classes for a large extension of the
franchise, it might be found in the economical sagacity and keen
moral sense which have enabled them to distinguish the limits
50
witliiii wliich Piirliainont can be justly required to ar})itrate in
Bucli mattors between tbemHclves and tboir cmployerfl.
Let us now turn to tlie two eoncliidlnj^ jjoints in our inquiry,
viz.— 1st, the extent to whicli the present discontent is to be attri-
buted to laws affecting the tenure of land ; and 2nd, tlie degree to
which any cliangc in those laws would modify that discontent.
The existence of a certain amount of disaffection in the minds of a
large section of the Irish race cannot be denied; but, in the first
place, in defining its extent, we have the statements of the Catholic
Prelates of Ireland, who have authoritatively j)ronounced it to be
confined to the least respectable portion of the community, and, in
the next, we must entirely dissociate it from the more subtle
feeling of uneasiness which is said to pervade tlie minds of the
tenant farmers of the south and west. What there is reason to
dispute, is that the hostility manifested towards the Government
of England l)y the Irish in America, in the great manufacturing
towns of England and of Scotland, and by the non-occupying
population of Ireland itself, has been occasioned by laws affecting
the tenure of land, or is likely to be modified by any change in
them.
Fixity of tenure wovdd not have materially impeded the exodus
after the potato famine, nor have affected the action of the land-
lords, in so far as they may have contributed to it ; for even that
fimtastic desideratum — as advocated by Mr. Butt — presupposes
o-ood husbandry and the payment of rent; two conditions of
which the great majority of the small occupiers who either left of
their own accord or were evicted during these last five-and-twenty
years were from the circumstances of the case incapable ; so, even
admittin"" that much of the ill-feeling of which Feniunism is the
exponent is to be traced to the resentment of those who emigrated,
it is clear that so long as the landlord is to be left with any control
or proprietorship at all over his land, neither his conduct nor their
opinion of it would have been materially modified. The same
observation holds good even in a greater degree with respect to
any law which might have regulated compensation, as the improve-
ments on a cottier tenancy would have seldom been of an
appreciable amount.* As a matter of fiict, we believe that few of
* "Now the best friends of the Irish tenant must allow that there are fewer of the
small land-holders who (in the sense that any tenant-right bill could recognize) have
hitherto been improving tenants than there are of the reverse. Any legislation,
therefore, that merely gave the tenant a property in his bona fide improvements coald
51
the actual occupiers of land are tainted with Fenianism. Scarcely
any farmers have been implicated in that conspiracy, though,
perhaps, some of their relatives (in other words, persons with a
much more modified interest in land than themselves) may have
been entrapped. The tenant of a piece of land, even under the
alleged disadvantageous condition of his existence, has much more
to lose than to gain by the overthrow of the existing order of
things. The adult male population of Ireland is about 1,900,000.
Of these about 500,000 are the occupants of farms. In the event of
a revolution the non-agricultural majority could alone hope to benefit
by it. As political disturbances ai^e unfavourable to the develop-
ment of manufactures and the importation of capital, the
population of Ireland would become more dependent upon the
land than they are at jn-esent. It is true the landlord's rent would
be at the disposal of the community ; but, as it is but a fourth of
the produce, its confiscation would only make room for about
100,000 new occupiers, without improving the condition of the
present ones. But there will remain above a million of more or
less necessitous persons to be accommodated, among whom, there-
fore, large sections of the present holdings would have to be
divided, and filibustering patriots from America* might prove as
exacting as Cromwell's troopers. But, though the farming classes
of Ireland regard Fenianism with hostility and terror, it cannot be
denied that in many districts they are restless and dissatisfied with
their own position. The degree of this discontent is dependent
upon different circumstances. Nowhere in Great Britain does
there exist a more orderly or contented body of men than the
tenantry of Ulster; and I believe that, so far from regarding
what are called " the tenant-right agitators" with favour, they
rather shrink from the risk of reducing the gracious customs Avhich
are now voluntarily maintained between them and their landlords
into the definite and inelastic phraseology of the most liberal
Tenants' Compensation Bill which could be devised.
be a boon at the present moment only to the minority of the tenant class. The larger
number of the cottiers and small farmers, not having made any improvements, would
be unaffected by the protecting law, and would be as liable as ever to unrecompensed
eviction." — Home and Foreign Eevieiv, April, 1864, p. 353.
* A tenant in the South of Ireland lately received a letter from America, warning
him at his peril to break up some pasture, as the writer intended on his arrival to
api^ropriate the farm, of which it formed a part, himself. Were the American-Irish
invasion ever to take place, the traditional claim which might be set up by the Sons of
a former generation of emigrants to portions of existing holdings might prove very
embarrassing to their present occupants.
52
In the south and west matters are very difFcrent; but even there
groat diversity of sentiment exists; the aspirations of the peasantry
bciii!^' apt to take a h)cal eolourinj,', varying with the influences
which have been brouglit to bear ui)on them— differing on different
estates and in different counties, in some districts their utmost
pretensions l)eing most reasonable, while in others they are such as
no legislation could satisfy; nor, unhappily, does it always fc^llow
that those tenants arc the most contented who arc treated with the
greatest indulgence. But, though embodied in a hundred different
modes of expression, the disquietude of the Irish occupier may be
referred to three distinct conditions of thought : — First, a fear of
any change in his position acting on a mind possessed with a
blind, unreasoning hankering after a bit of land ; the traditional
failing of a people to whom for centuries land has been the only
means of support, and which leaves them the moment they arc
surrounded by other associations. Secondly, a vague jealousy
springing from his incapacity to understand the laws which
ren-ulate investments of capital in civilized countries, which makes
the tenant grudge any expenditure on his fiirm that will be of
ulterior benefit to his landlord, though it might in the meantime
repay himself, capital and interest, twenty-fold. And thirdly, the
lc"-itiniate anxiety of a thoughtful man, whose prospects are kept
in perpetual hazard by his landlord's unwillingness or inability to
grant an appropriate lease Of these three separate causes of
discord between the landlords and their tenants the two first are
by far the most prolific of ill-feeling, and at the same time the
most difficult to remove, and are aggravated not a little by selfish
and unprincipled agitators.
The third cause — and, at the same time, the least prevailing —
arises more frequently from the inability than from the unwilling-
ness of the landlord. There are few proprietors Avho do not feel —
and this feeling is increasing — that it is their interest to make a
solvent, industrious, and intelligent tenant secure in his tenure,
and contented Avlth his position.* The readiness with which leases
are granted to Scotch and English farmers, who are willing (if
permitted by the people) to invest their capital on Irish soil, is a
strong proof of this.
* Sir John Gray admits this in his speech at Manchester, October 18th, 1869.
"The majority of landlords in Ireland," he says, "act in accordance with this
principle (the right of occupancy at a full and fair rent), beoanse they feel it to be
beneficial to themselves and just to their tenants."
53
CHAPTER V.
PKOPOSED REMEDIES IN THE LAND TENURE CONSIDERED.
Those various plans which have been proposed for the settlement
of what is called " the Irish Land Question" may be grouped under
four distinct methods of procedure. Let us consider in turn.
First in order comes the scheme (advocated by Mr. Bright), of
enabling the peasantry of Ireland to buy up, with money advanced
by Government, the estates of British noblemen happening to be
owners of property in both countries, at a price 10 per cent, in
excess of their value. Now, it would ill become Irish landlords to
allude to such a proposal in any terms but those of respect and
gratitude, as a genuine proof of the author's goodAvill toAvards
them. Nor do we dissent from Mr. Bright in regretting that so
much of the land in Ireland should be possessed by those whose
permanent home is never likely to be in that country, although the
selection of names by which his well-meant suggestion was dis-
figured happened to be unfortunate. Had he contented himself
with expressing a hope that it might be found convenient to some
of the gentlemen circumstanced as he described, to allow their
Irish property to descend (where family settlements Avould permit)
in the line of their second sons — a suggestion already made by INIr.
O'Connell — many would have cordially agreed with him, especially
as the fact of estates having been in the course of sale at the rate of
£1,000,000 a year in the Landed Estates' Court renders his offer
of a premium unnecessary.
With regard to the eventual result of Mr. Bright's scheme ou
the happiness of the people, we may well entertain grave doubts.
In the first place, the practical difficulties in the way of its execu-
tion would be enormous: — unless land is let much lower than Mr.
Bright would probably care to admit, there are not many tenants
who could afford to pay, in addition to their usual obligations, 5 or
6 per cent., for a number of years, on Avhatever sum the fee-simple
of their holdings might be worth; and, in the next — until the
operation was completed, Government would find itself charged
with the responsibilities of a land agency of a most onerous charac-
ter, over property scattered in innumerable small subdivisions up
and down the country. Occasions would arise when the increased
rent would cease to be forthcoming, and, as trustees for the tax-
payer, the State would have to proceed against the defaulting
54
tonnnt with inflcxihlo ri<^()ur to resiimo possession of his holdlnf^ —
[)rol);ihly much (Ictciioratcd by necessitous husbandry — and either
to confiscate the paid-up portion of the purchase money, which
■wouhl be considered a ;^ross Injustice by the person evicted, or to
return it to him, wliicli would be an equally sensible loss to the
Exchequer. But, supposinjT the creation of these small proprie-
torships hiippily effected, is it so certain that the f,'cncral condition
of the country would be improved? What guarantee have we
against these several infinitesimal estates acquiring the character
of the already existing perpetuities?* It is the fashion to argue
that the relation of landlord and tenant, as it exists in England,
cannot be comprehended by the genius of the Irish people. But
it is the only relation the Irish peasant docs (at least so long as he
remains in Ireland) thoroughly appreciate. The labourer's dream
is to become a tenant ; the tenant's greatest ambition is to enjoy
the dignity of a landlord. What he cannot be made to realize is,
that an independent labourer is a more respectable personage than
a struggling farmer, and a prosperous husbandman than a rack-
renting squireen. It is true, were ]Mr. Bright's scheme to be put
in operation, it would be perfectly justifiable for the State, while in
promoting these purchases with public money, to impose stringent
conditions against subletting ; but such precautions would be found
practically inoperative, or only to be enforced by a code of primo-
geniture, entail, and limited ownership, such as would keenly shock
the advocates of the change, and would run counter to one of the
most inveterate and favourite habits of Irish tenants — that of
providing for children and their descendants by subdivision of their
farms, a fact upon which we have already observed, and which is
established by a host of witnesses before the Devon Commission,
of diflferent classes of politics, including Mr. OConnell. Supposing,
however, the system worked no worse in Ireland than in France,
the state of agriculture in France, with so many advantages of
climate and with such variety of resource, is not a re-assuring
precedcnt.f
* Mr. Mill, with his usual sng.acity, has detected the difficulties which might arise
out of the indiscriminate conversion of the present tenantry into peasant-proprietors.
" A large proportion, also, of the present holdings are probably still too small to
try the proprietary system under the greatest advantages ; nor are the tenants always
the persons one would desire to select as the first occupants of peasant-properties." —
Mill's Polit. £co)i., p. 411.
+ Making every allowance for the improvement which has undoubtedly taken
place of late yeai-s in French farming, it is still a considerable way behind England
65
" At this moment," says Lord Dufferin, in 1867, " I believe there are
several hundred thousand small freeholders in that country too indigent
to contribute their penny or half -penny a year to the taxation of the
country. An excessive proportion of arable land lies fallow ; the gross
produce per acre is much less than it is in Belgium and England; a
large number of their Liliputian estates are grievously encumbered ; of
some the original purchase money has not been paid ; while Mr. Michelet
has declared the position of the small French proprietor to be so intoler-
able, that the only hope of salvation for the agricultural interest of
France lies in the repudiation of all mortgages."
If, then, competition, generated by a very minute subdivision of
landed property, has produced these results in France, where the
rural population scarcely increases, and Avliere there exists a large
manufacturing industry to absorb the surplus labour of the agricul-
tural districts, its effect in Ireland might be yet more disastrous.
Therefore, though heartily sympathizing Avith Mr. Bright in his
desire to see a substantial yeoman class established in Ireland, and
admitting that to many individual cases the objections indicated
Avould not apply, Ave fear the comprehensive scheme by Avhich he
proposes to attain that object, is not sufficiently promising to
justify us in running the risk it would entail.
We now come to a series of proposals of a very different com-
plexion, proposals Avhich involve the transfer of a large amount of
proprietary rights from the landlord to the tenant. We do not
deny the right of the State in cases of emergency to deal in a
very peremptory manner Avith private property of all kinds, and
especially Avith landed property ; but, in assuming this right, it
must be made clear that its exercise will be of indisputable benefit
to the community at large, and the individual to Avhose prejudice
it is enforced must be compensated at the public expense to the
and Belgium, and whatever progress is being made is rather in spite than in conse-
quence of the extreme comminution of the soil Even Mr. Mill admits the tendency
to subdivision in France has been too great, though the cultivation of the vine is so
peculiarly adapted to " la petite culture." Native authors visit it with more serious
reprobation.
" I know that ten years' produce per acre in France, as a whole (though not in its
most improved districts), averages much less than in England." — Mill's Polit. Econ.,
p. 189.
"Undue subdivision, and excessive smallness of holdings, are undoubtedly a preva-
lent evil in some countries of peasant proprietors, and particularly in parts of
Germany and France."
"The Governments of Bavaria and Nassau have thought it necessary to impose a
legal limit to subdivision, and the Prussian Government unsuccessfully proposed the
same measure to the Estates of its Rhenish Provinces."— i>i^. Dev. Com., p. 381.
50
full niiiuiiiit of tli(; injury lie sustains.* The safety of a nation
may depend iij)()ii the security of an arf^enal, and that of the arsenal
on th(! conversion of a hovcd into a redoubt; yet the engineer in
command dare no more remove a brick from the obnoxious premises
without the sanction of an Act of Parliament, and an elaborate
valuation, than he dare blow up St. Paul'.s.
But considerations such as these, the authors of the various
schemes "for dealing vigorously with the Irish landlords" deem
beneath their notice.
The most notable plan is one lately promulgated by Mr. Butt, a
gentleman of eminence in his profession. As hi.s plan i.s typical of
a large series of others, it may be well to examine it. It is em-
bodied in the form of a projected Act of Parliament, which declares
that after the said Act every tenant who chooses to claim its pro-
tection shall be entitled to a lease of (53 years at a rent one-third
below the full or competition value. Thus, by a single stroke of
the pen, the whole of the landed property of Ireland is to be with-
drawn from the control and enjoyment of those who have either
purchased or inherited it, and is to remain for two entire genera-
tions at the disposal of the 540,000 persons who may happen at the
time of the passing of the Act to be in the occupation of its several
sub-divisions. This, too, without reference to their individual
qualifications, and in the teeth of the condemnation passed by the
tenants' best friends on even a 21 years' lease, if granted for a
holding of less than 15 acres, within which category more than
one-third of the farms of Ireland still remain.
* Even Mr. Mill, though inspired with no very indulgent feelings towards the land-
lords of Ireland, admits this principle.
"The claim of the landowners to the land is altogether subordinate to the general
policy of the State. The principle of property gives them no right to the land, bot
only a right to compensation for whatever portion of their interest in the land it may
be the policy of the State to deprive them of. To that, their claim is indefeasible. It
is due to landowners, and to owners of any property whatever, recognized as such by
the State, that they should not be dispossessed of it without receiving its pecuniary value,
or an annual income equal to what they derived from it. This is due on the general
principles on which property rests. If the land was bought with the produce of the
labour and abstinence of themselves or their ancestors, compensation is due to them
on that ground ; even if otherwise, it is still due on the ground of prescription.
When (he property is of a kind to which j^fcuUar affections attach thansclies, the com-
pensation ought to exceed a bare 2^ccuniari/ equivalent. The legislature, which if it
pleased might convert the whole body of landlords into fundholders or pensioners,
might, (I fortiori, commute the average receipts of Irish landlords into a fixed rent
charge, and raise the tenants into proprietors ; supposing always thnt the full market
value of the land was tender^ d to the landlords, in case they preferred that to accepting
the conditions proposed." — Mill, Polit. Econ., p. 2S9.
57
Let us now look more narrowly into the operation of this plan.
Every Irishman will probably judge of it as it affects himself.
Let us hear Lord Dufferin upon this view of the subject, the
rather as his case is that of many others whose properties lie in the
neighbourhood of towns on the lines of railways on the sea coast
and in other rising localities : —
" I possess," he says,* " a strip of some three or four hundred acres,
bordering the Lough of Belfast, peculiarly suitable for villas. I have
been offered from £15 to £20 an acre for a portion of this land (most
of which I have inherited from an ancestor who made his fortune as a
merchant, and part of which I have recently purchased with the proceeds
of the sale of some English property). A railway along the shore still
further increases its attractions, and at a particular point there is a sandy
bay which — as the site of a bathing village — may eventually become a
favourite resort for the inhabitants of Belfast. For various reasons I
have hitherto defei-red leasing any of the land, and it is at present in the
occupation of agricultural tenants, all of whom have been for many
years in the enjoyment of beneficial leases, which have either expired or
will shortly do so. We will suppose that ]Mi\ Butt's Bill passes; the
accidental occupants of this property become tenants for another
additional term of 63 years ; I am unexpectedly precluded from applying
my land to its most remunerative use ; and a project which would have
diffused the wealth of a rich community over a large agricultural area
is indefinitely postponed — unless, indeed, I choose to buy back my own
property, at a price, probably, not much lower than the original value of
the fee simple, from tenants Avho have neither legal nor equitable claims
against me.f Moreover it is to be remembered that the circumstances I
have detailed are not exceptional, but prevail more or less in the vicinity
of every large town ; that there is no district which may not, at one time
or another, be affected by analogous influences, and that it is its very
susceptibility of a rise in price that contributes an important element to
the value of landed property, and reconciles the purchaser to the low
rate of interest proximately derived from it."
But let us regard Mr. Butt's proposal from another point of
view. Probably, if asked for a justification of his measures, he
would allege the right of the tenant to the enjoyment of his
" improvements." Let us concede this right. But how about the
* Irish Emigration, 2nd Ed., p. 229.
" t This instance is rendered the more striking by the fact that I am paying £9 an
acre per annum, i.e., its marl<et price, as building ground, for part of the land for
which my agricultural tenants are only paying me 30s. By Mr. Butt's Bill both
arrangements would be made equally permanent.
58
iniprovoincnts whicli have not been made by the tenant, or which
have been boiinlit up by the landlord, f)r which thou;jjh effected by
the tenant have been executed under express contracts, and in
consideration of reduced rents or long leases no uncommon case,
especially on unreclaimed lands? ]5y what canon of justice does
he expropriate these ? Surely, if a tenant have an equitable claim
for compensation, or to extension of occupancy in lieu of compen-
sation, for money he imprudently risked on the prospective chance
of his landlord's liberality, the landlord himself has a right to be
continued in possession of that to -which his equitable claim is as
good, and his legal right so much better I
But it will be said, " the improvements on farms in Ireland are
invariablv made by the tenants." In a great number of instances
this is the case. But the reverse is far more frequent than is
generally supposed. Judge Longfield has stated that almost all
the larger drainage Avorks, and a considerable proportion even of
the minor improvements, have been executed by the proprietors.
We know from official returns that Avithin eighteen years more
than £1,800,000 of borrowed money has been sunk by them in
draining and building alone. This sum is no test, however, of
what they have expended besides out of their incomes. The
Devon Commission reported that on twenty-two estates (many of
them the largest in the country), the buildings had been erected
at the sole expense of the landlord. But this statement does not
imply that there were not other properties on which the same rule
prevailed. Only a certain number of estates were brought under
their notice. In many cases not noticed great exertions have
been made by the landlords, and on numerous estates in various
parts of the country sums varying from £30,000 to £-40,000 have
been expended on fiirm-steadings and cottages during the last fifty
years.
" I myself," continues Lord Dufferin, *' have spent £10,000 in buying
up the improvements of my tenants, besides what 1 have sunk in executing
new ones. Many of my neighbours are doing the same, and every
year our efforts in this direction are likely to extend, unless, indeed,
Mr. Butt's ingenious device for proving the superior discretion of keeping
our money in our pockets should suddenly put a stop to the process."
Having glanced at the probable wrong to the landlord, let us
estimate the degree to which the tenant would be benefited.
Leases are undoubtedly favourable to agriculture, and an advan-
59
tage to the tenant. But as to the terms of tenure, there is a
great diversity of opinion. Judge Longfield condemns long
leases ; nor was the state of Ireland 40 years ago a very
satisfactory proof of their efficiency. In Belgium three, five, and
nine years are the accepted terms; in Scotland, 13 and 19; in
England, 21. By what statistical canon does Mr. Butt arbi-
trarily extend them to 63! We have already seen the fervent
advocates of the leasing system deprecate the extension of leases
to such small areas as 15 acres ; others of even greater experience,
and no less friendly to the tenant, have raised the minimum to 30,
40, 50 acres. Even Mr. Bright takes a man paying £50 of rent
as his typical yeoman. In the face of these opinions why should
any one seek to stereotype a condition of affairs confessedly
detrimental to the interests of agriculture ? One of the greatest
benefits to Ireland has resulted from the legal machinery invented
to transfer the estates of incumbered proprietors to the hands of
persons with sufficient capital to improve them. Surely the same
policy ought to be pursued in facilitating the transference of
farms from the impoverished agriculturist to the man of energy
and capital? Yet Mr. Butt, like the malevolent fairy in the tale
of the " Sleeping Beauty," would curse with the doom of rigid
immobility for the greater portion of a century, without the
prospect of that magic " after-glow" of renewed life and vigour
which completes the story.
Again, though this is his intention, the means he adopts would
lead to another result. With a fatal ingenuity he contrives to
make it the imperative interest of the landlords to get rid of their
tenants, and at the same time furnishes them with ample facilities
for the process. He plucks the lion's beard with one hand, and
whets his fangs and talons with the other. If the landlord is
precluded by law from letting his land except on disadvantageous
terms, he will naturally prefer to keep it in his own hands. Bad
husbandry and non-payment of rent, and neglect of improvements,
constitute, even according to Mr. Butt, just occasions of eviction,
which he proposes to be absolute, and without redemption. By
the inflexible application of these principles there is no property in
Ireland which would not be cleared of a large proportion of its
occupants in ten years, and the immediate effect of his beneficent
efforts would be universal discontent and an enoi-mous stimulus to
emigration, counterbalanced perhaps by a rapid improvement in
cultivation and a brevet promotion for some hundreds of thousands
no
of ajijriculturiil labourcrfl at the expense of a corresponding number
(if fciiniit farmers.
AVilli regard to tlio minor ])rinciplc involved in Mr. Butt's
plan of fixing the rent of land hy a Government officer, we need
not trouble our readers. A moment's reflection will show how
impossible it would be for any one but those immediately inter-
ested to arrive at a correct estimate of what particular areas could
afford to pay. At this moment there arc three standards of land
valuation in Ireland, — there is the competition, or tenant's rent,
which is generally in excess of Avhat his limited skill and capital
would enable him to pay ; there is the agent's rent, which
is regulated by what his experience tells him the tenant is
able to pay Avithout embarrassment; and there is the theo-
retical rent, Avhich the land ought to pay if properly culti-
vated.* This latter rent would probably far exceed even the
competition rent, yet no other one could be equitably adopted
in any compulsory valuation. Judge Longfield has effectually
illustrated the impracticability and injustice of any such system,
based, as it is, upon a principle in direct antagonism to the
conditions which usually regulate the relations betwixt man and
man.
Before, however, dismissing from our attention these barren
schemes for fixity of tenure, compulsory leases of greater or less
* Supposing that land which, if properly cultivated, would bear a rent of 408. per
acre, and for which the tenants themselves would offer 30s. at an auction (which, for
the sake of argument, we will admit their want of skill and capital would render them
incompetent to pay),- — were valued by the Government oflBcers at 20s., what would be
the effect ? Why that at the first devolution of the tenancy, the outgoing tenant or
his representative would exact from the in-comer a fine exactly equivalent to so many
years' purchase of the difference between the restricted rent of 20s. an acre, and the
competition rent of 30s.: the effect of the transaction being that the new tenant would
be charged with a double rent for all time to come, and that the landlord would have
been defrauded of what, so far as it represents any value at all, is a portion of the fee
simple of his estate. It is useless to object that the vigilance of the l.-indlord could
prevent so nefarious a transaction. The landlord in the first place is almost powerless
to restrain these surreptitious arrangements, as any one who knows the north of
Ireland is aware, and in the next place, he would have no particular interest in doing
so. The sagacious legislation we are considering will have reduced the landlord to the
position of a mere mortgagee, on what was once his property. Nothing that he can
do, will either enhance or diminish its value. All person:d relations between his
tenantry and himself would be at an end, and his functions as a proprietor would be
confined to issuing instruction to his solicitor to evict the moment his rent was a
shilling in arrear. Whether the result would diminish or encourage landlords to live on
their estates, we leave to the consideration of those who may be inclined to pursue
the investiiration further.
61
duration, and arbitrary rents, we would ask their authors and
advocates whether it is altogether wise to persist in conjuring up
before the imagination of ill-educated and impulsive men delusive
expectations which can never be realized, and which, if realized,
would only Avork their ruin. It is an easy task to persuade even
the best-balanced minds that what appears to be for their intex*est is
right; but to blunt the moral pei'ceptions of ignorant men, to put
evil for good, and good for evil, to sow dissension between those
who should be friends, and to inaugurate a hopeless agitation in a
country Avhose only chance of happiness is in peace and quiet —
seems too sinister a mission to be excused by the perverted benevo-
lence which inspires it.*
We now come to a very different group of propositions — propo-
sitions advocated by persons of gravity and authority, having for
their object, not the confiscation of property, nor the curtaihnent
of indefeasible rights; but the restoration to a more healthy
condition of those relations between the owner and the occupier of
land, which peculiar circumstances have invested with an abnormal
character. If we cannot accept them as a resolution of our
difficulties, it is not that we deny the existence of the evils they
are intended to remedy, or that we fail to sympathize with the
motives which have led to their suggestion.
The object proposed is the establishment of a conviction in the
mind of every tenant in Ireland that if he invests his capital in the
proper cultivation of his farm, either his occupation shall be
sufficiently prolonged to enable him to reap the full reward of his
industry, or, if abruptly terminated Avithout his fault by his
landlord, he shall receive a corresponding recompense in money.
The claim embodied in the foregoing formula is obviously founded
on the principles of natural justice. When a landlord hands over
his field to the husbandman, even if there be no written agreement,
a tacit understanding is implied that the man who sows shall reap ;
a contrary supposition would be adverse to public policy. Conse-
quently, a law of emblements prevails in every civilized country.
But, as the ulterior considerations of the bargain are susceptible of
*It may not be uninstructive to subjoin the late Mr. O'Connell's opinion of fixity
of tenure.
"A more absurd and unjust plan he never heard of ; it did not do anything for the
labourer of the country, it transferred the fee-simple from the present proprietor to tlie
present occupier of large farms ; it was in fact creating a smaller monopoly than the
former one, but equally mischievous in its nature."
02
every variety of arran/rcmcnt, (liey liave been left by the common
consent of nianUiiid to be regulated l)y contract, in wliatevcr
manner may suit the convenience of tlic parties interested. It is
urged, however, that in Ireland the dependence of the population
upon airricidtnre is so complete that coni[)(!titi()n has destroyed the
tenant's freedom of action. He ha3 been driven into a bargain so
inequitable as would justify the state in substituting for the
conditions he himself is eager to accept such an extension of
the principle out of Avhich has originated the law of emblements as
shall secure to him the fruits of his investments — whether in the
larger operations of husbandry, or in the erection of the farm
buildings they require. But it is to be observed that this plea of
the helpless position of the tenant, whatever force it might have
had, is no longer valid, inasmuch as the alternative of adequate
wages is now open to him ; that the reckless acquisition of land,
to which often he cannot do justice, is the result of a passion to be
discouraged rather than stimulated ; and that the same considera-
tions which would justify the vState in regulating the incidental
conditions of occupancy, would also entitle it to fix the remunera-
tion of labour; it is dou!)tful, therefore, Avhether any circumstances
would render it advisable for Government to depart from the rule
which experience has taught us to be best in the long run — viz., to
leave the rights of contract between individuals as free as possible.
This conclusion acquires greater force, when we consider how
objectionable are the means which even the most sagacious minds
have suggested for the application of a contrary principle — such,
for instance, as the extension to the tenant of a legal right, first, to
make what he may call an " improvement " against the express
wish of his landlord, and then to claim compensation for it. Now
the very essence of the law of emblements is, that the operation for
which compensation is claimed should be of indisputable advantage
to the landlord's property. Ploughing, seeding, and manuring
fulfil these conditions. But the best method of conducting the
more complex operations of husbandry, not even excluding draining,
and certainly including the erection of fiu'm-buildings, is often a
matter of dispute between high authorities ; and a tenant may
embark in an expenditure which, though not exactly disadvan-
tageous to his farm, may be very detrimental to the estate of which
his farm is part. Judge Longfield himself tells us that " no
improvement on a small farm will pay," and gives good reasons
for his opinion, consequently such improvements, if they are made
63
at all, should be made at the tenant's own risk, and not at the risk
of the person who objects to them. It is urged that tlie quality of
the intended improvement might be decided by some impartial
tribunal; but should the owner of a property be convinced that a
particular operation Avould damage rather than benefit his estate —
would interfere with his own schemes of improvement, would load,
for instance, with useless agricultural erections, lands he contem-
plated devoting to building purposes^it would be unjust to allow
an assistant barrister (even though instructed by a comitatus of
experts) to override his decision. This would be felt so keenly —
that, should a tenant be found commencing an "improvement"
against which his landlord had protested, he would invariably receive
notice to quit. We fear, therefore, we must reject this principle, as
both unjust and impracticable. .
We now come to the proposal made by the Government — a
proposal dictated by an anxious desire to make as large a concession
as possible to the equitable claims of the tenant, and which — with
a moderation that did them honour — was accepted, we believe, by
the most distinguished of the Liberal members for Ireland, as a
settlement of the question. The essence of the arrangement was,
to leave the right of contract perfectly free; but to substitute,
Avhere no contract existed, a presumption that, within certain limits,
any improvement made by the tenant was his property. That such
a declaration on the part of the law is no interference with the right
of property, cannot be disputed, and it is in some such compromise,
if in any, a solution of the Irish land question is to be found.
The wisdom of Parliament would, probably, have simplified the
details of the measure. It may fairly be urged that the safeguards
introduced for the protection of the landlord, only confused the
principle of the bill. Instead of limiting the tenant's claim for
compensation, on account of an uncovenanted improvement, to a
maximum of £5 per acre, it would be better to leave him entirely
unrestricted in his expenditure. Instead of declaring his ownership
in that improvement to be annihilated at the expiration of an
arbitrary period, the law should presume it to endure as long as the
beneficial effects of its operation lasted. Instead of attempting to
regulate the relations of the two parties by the ambiguous provi-
sions of a fictitious lease, it would be simpler to reverse to a certain
extent the existing presumption of law, that Avhatever is afifixed to
the soil belongs to the landlord, and to declare instead, that any
bond fide improvement, executed by a tenant, outside of a written
G4
contract, is the property of the tenant, for which, on surrendering
possession of his farm, whether of his own accord or under coin[)ul-
sion, he shall be entitled to receive coniijeusiition from his lan<ll<jrd
to the amount of the ad<litional value annually accruing from it, to
be assessed by arbitration, or recovered in a court of law. It may
be objected that such a method of ])roccdure involves an inequitable
principle of compensation, and prejudices the interests of the land-
lord. That may be admitted. But it has been already stated that
a tenant's equitable claim to compensation should be regulated by
the original cost of the improvement, and the rate of interest due
to such investments,* but in declaring a presumption in the absence
of a contract, the law docs not pretend to lay down a canon of
equity, and the change would be only unfair to the landlord to the
same degree and in the same sense as the converse is now unfair to
to the tenant.
Under the existing statute, if a yearly occupier of a farm
expends £500 in the erection of a house, the law presumes the
building to belong to the owner of the soil, and he might claim
possession the day after it was l)uilt. For the law to declare its
value to be the property of the tenant as long as that value
endures would be even a less extravagant presumption. It was
never contemplated, however, that a naked presumption of this
kind should regulate the ultimate arrangement; but as, in the
absence of any specific agreement on the subject, it was necessary
to attribute the property to some one, it was naturally assigned to
the person with whose estate it had become irrevocably incor-
porated, in the expectation that the original presumption created
by the laAv would be expressly confirmed, modified, or reversed by
a subsequent agreement framed in accordance with the interests of
the contracting parties. Unhappily, in Ireland this expectation
has been frustrated. Those very persons to Avhom the unmitigated
application of this legal presumption would be most injurious,
have been often too careless — sometimes too confiding — too
dependent — to adopt the countervailing precautious which, in
other countries, the prudence of mankind has rendered universal.
As a consequence, the untempered presumption of the law acts
occasionally in Ireland with a severity it was never intended
should attach to it. Let us then change that presumption, and
impose upon those who are in a better position to do so, the
* Judge Longfield is very explicit on this point. See his Evidence, and that of
Mr. Curling to the same efi'ect before the Devon Commission.
I
65
obligation of protecting themselves from whatever consequences its
nnqualified application would entail; since the tenants will not
insist upon defining their rights by specific agreements, let us make
it the interest of the landlords to do so, and as it is the practice in
many parts of Ireland for the tenant to execute a considerable
proportion of the improvement, let us bring the presumption of the
law more into harmony with such practice. By this means a
constant statutory bias Avould be bi'ought to bear in favour of the
tenant ; he would obtain immunity from the consequences of his
own carelessness, and he would invariably profit by the carelessness
of his landlord ; while, at the same time, the latter would have it
in his power to correct the partiahty of the law by the provisions
of an equitable contract.
But if this much is conceded to the peculiar position to which
subdivision, competition, and an inordinate desire to possess land
has reduced the Irish tenant, it would be advisable, both in the
interest of the tenant himself and of the landlord, to accompany
the foregoing alteration of the law by some subsidiary provision
for the registration of every improvement on Avhich it is intended
to found a claim for compensation. The necessity for such a
precaution is self-evident. Without it no Court Avould possess
trustworthy data for estimating the nature and cost of an alleged
improvement made ten or fifteen years before the inquiry into its
title to compensation was instituted. Were such matters to be
left to oral evidence, and to the recollection of the individuals
interested, a satisfactory settlement could never be attained. A
single exemplification will sufl&ce. Perhaps there is no improve-
ment more common, more deserving of compensation, or requiring a
longer term of occupancy to repay itself, than that which consists in
quarrying, and in removing or burying the rocks Avhich crop up in
a shallow and stony soil ; yet the very perfection of the operation
destroys all internal evidence of what has been done. The
tenant's claim will therefore have to rest on testimony. But long
before any question of compensation comes to be raised, the author
of the improvement may have died, or he may have handed over
his interest in his farm to another man. The estate itself may
have been sold, and a new agent and a new landlord have come
upon the scene. Yet though all the parties privy to the original
arrangement have disappeared, the claim itself would be as rife
as ever. How is the matter to be adjudicated in the absence of
competent witnesses or trustworthy data? And it is to be
on
roincml)oro(l that tlio difficulty of adjii.atirif; bond fide claims of this
{loscriplion, is the true measure of the facilities which would be
afforded for establishing unsubstantial and fraudulent pretensions
on venal evidence.
Again, if tenants are to be entitled to get back from their
landlord whatever they may choose to lay out on their farms, it is
essential that the latter should have the means of acquainting
himself with the bill which is being run up against him on various
parts of his estate. No one would allow the most trustworthy
steward to embark in an unlimited expenditure on his home-farm
without looking occasionally at his Ijooks; still less would it be
advisable to allow a numerous tenantry to incur, on behalf of
their landlord, an unknown amount of responsibilities which,
however insignificant in each instance, would, in the aggregate,
amount to an enormous sum. In some parts of Ireland as many
as 4,000 or 5,000 tenants are located on a single property ; and it
must be recollected that frequently they have become thus
numerous, not through the landloi-d's neglect, but by the evasion
of express covenants against sub-letting. Supposing each tenant
to spend £10 a year in some alleged improvement, — the straight-
ening of a fence, the repair of a gable end, the erection of a
pig-stye — at the end of five years the owner of such a property
might find himself confronted by a claim to compensation
amounting to £200,000. With this contingency in prospect,
but without any means of ascertaining the rate at which the
burden was accumulating, the landowner would be in a position
of such insecurity as would compel him either to reduce his
tenantry to more manageable proportions, or else to emasculate
their claims by imposing a specific agreement on each tenant to
execute seriatim every agricultural operation of Avhich his fai-m
was susceptible. It is argued that the very fact of Avarning the
landlord of what was taking place on his estate would tend to
discountenance the tenant's improvements. Such an objection
can hardly be seriously urged. Under any circumstances an
improvement hatched like a conspiracy, and exploded like a mine
would probably lead to the improver being hoisted with his own
petard,
Lastly, it is the interest of the tenantry, even more than that of
their landlords, that the investment of capital in imin-ovements
should be effected with care and economy, and. kept at a minimum,
as the burden of compensation invariably falls on the incoming
67
tenant. This point was very distinctly noted in the report of
Mr. Pusej's Parliamentary Committee; and it is evident that, if
a landlord is to pay a certain sum to an outgoing tenant for his
improvements, he Avill recoup himself, either by clapping an
equivalent percentage on the rent of the new tenant, or by
accepting a fine equivalent in amount to the sum he has paid
away. To stimulate an unnecessary expenditure on any estate,
whether in the shape of superfluous farm buildings or other
so-called improvements, is only to embarrass the community
located upon it with a burden as irredeemable as a national debt.
Yet no surer way to encourage such extravagance can be devised
than to allow one set of men to disburse without restraint or
inquiry sums of money which they expect another set of men
Avill have to repay. The possibility of the claim being eventually
disallowed would be too remote a contingency to influence their
conduct, while the chance of the award being in excess of their
expenditure Avould still further neutralize their prudence.
Stripped, however, of the complicated provisions Avhich confused
and indeed altered the original principle it professed to enunciate,
the Bill of the Government certainly contained the germ of what
might prove both a politic and legitimate measure. As to any
further or more intimate interference by the legislature be-
tween landlord and tenant we cannot be sanguine. Some
persons Avould prefer to create by Act of Parliament a model
lease, and then to render the position of any landlord Avho might
decline to adopt it so untenable as to impose on him, if not a legal
obligation, at all events an imperative necessity to bring the
tenures on his estate into conformity with its provisions. Now,
however strong an advocate for leases one may be, even though he
considers that to refuse a lease to a solvent industrious tenant is
little short of a crime, and that the prosperity of agriculture
depends on security of tenure, and the only proper tenure is a
liberal lease. Yet one cannot conceive, Ave think, a measure more
fraught Avith disaster to agriculture, more productive of dis-
content, more certain to inflict suffering on a large proportion of
the present tenant farmers of the countiy, than that the Irish
landlords should be driven by any such legislation as this into an
indiscriminate issue of leases for a term of years.
None but persons acquainted Avith the management of Irish
property can ha\e an adequate idea of the variety of instances
in Avhich it may become inexpedient to grant a lease. Very
08
frequently, piirticuliirly in the North of Ireland, the tenantry
unfortunately [)ref'cr an indefinite understandinf^ to a i*pccific
contract. It is douhtfid wiiether, even in the South, leaHCs for
anythinrr hut an unrcasonahle period would he considered aa a
boon, and they have often been declined on account of the exjicnse.
Yet to force a lease on an unwillint; tenant is only a degree less
objectionable than to evict him for refusini>; to take one. In many
instances, the only reason for which a lease is desired, is to obtain a
document on which money can be raised, or an extravagant charge
for younger children effected. If, therefore, some of the landed
proprietors of Ireland evince a disinclination to grant leases, it is,
in many instances, because bitter experience has taught them that
previous leases have generally proved to be, as Judge Longfield
has observed, " all in the tenant's favour" — that a certain propor-
tion of their actual tenants are incapable of fulfilling the obligations
of a contract — that security of tenure, — in other words, immunity
from all sense of responsibility, — instead of stimulating the
industry of the occupier, too often acts as a premium on idleness,
and that the difficulties of preventing the subdivision and sub-
letting of leased lands, are almost insurmountable. The case of
a solvent and improving tenant being refused a lease, is, we
suspect, much rarer than is supposed.
The consequences of forcing leases by Act of Parliament are
sufficiently obvious. Hitherto, one of the chief accusations brought
against the Irish proprietor has been his indifference to the diameter
and the solvency of his tenant, and in order to correct tliis indifference
it is proposed to abolish the priority of his claim on the rent, and
to reduce him to tlie ranks of an ordinary creditor. If, therefore,
under these circumstances he is precluded from letting his land,
except under a thirty one years' lease, an inexorable necessity will
be imposed upon him to exclude from such a permanent arrange-
ment those of his existing tenants Avho are in debt, or who are
likely to fall into embarrassment during the obUgatory term. Lord
Duflferin justly observes: —
"Perhaps the tenantry of no estate in Ireland is more prosperous
than my own ; yet my agent hiforras me that, unhappily, more than a
third of the farmers upon my jiroperty are inider heavy pecuniary
obHgations through the country, in addition to those incurred towards
myself. At pi-esent their creditors are aware that to drive them from
their farms by the application of any premature pre.«sure would only
reduce to a minimum their own chances of receiving payment. Aly own
69
inclination is to give them every opportunity to extricate themselves
from their difficulties ; and though the position of affairs is not satisfac-
tory, nor can the ultimate destiny of many of these persons be doubtful,
a reasonable amount of forbearance on my part may save some, and
greatly mitigate the hardship of their situation to the rest.
" If, however, I found myself suddenly called upon by Parliament to
lease away my estates for a whole generation, matters Avould be brought
to a crisis, and in self-defence I should be forced (very much against my
will) to exclude from the intended benefits of the arrangement every
single individual circumstanced as I have described. No landlord could
be expected to grant a lease to a bankrupt, or to enter into a contract
with a person incapable of fulfilling its obligations.
" But, in addition to those of my tenants who are actually in debt,
there are a certain number who are so destitute of capital — so unskilful
— occupiers of such small and inconvenient patches — so near the verge
of ruin — as to be very unfit recipients of a lease. However willing I
might be to continue them in their present holdings until an opportunity
shall occur of establishing them as labourers, or of enabling their sons to
emigrate, or of converting the old people into pensioners, a very different
arrangement would be necessary if Parliament held a pistol to my head,
and left me no choice but to give them 31 years' leases, or resume
possession of my land. Now if these undesirable contingencies might
arise on a prosperous estate in Ulster, it is scarcely necessary to indicate
what would be the consequences of such anomalous interference by
Parliament in the south and west of Ireland."
Take the case of the falling in of an old 61 years' lease, on
which, in spite of all covenants to the contrary, a vast congeries of
cottier tenants have been collecting for generations. Perhaps the
size of the holdings may not average four acres a piece : a great
deal of it may be held in rundale : all of it is sure to be in the
worst possible condition ; yet the only chance of introducing a
better system — of inducing the people to agglomerate their patches
— of making arrangements for the squaring up of fields, and the
re-distribution of the area into a shape more suitable to existing
circumstances — is that the landlord shoidd have some power of
controlling the ignorant prejudices of those for whose well-being
he has become suddenly responsible. Under any circumstances the
task Avill require patience — above all — time; five, ten, fifteen
years, perhaps a lifetime will be necessary if the operation is to be
performed with due regard to the feelings of the people concerned.
But if the landlord be peremptorily required to re-lease his land
for another generation, any such benevolent construction will be
70
impossible, and tlic only alternative l(;ft to him will be to re-
stereotype the existing' chaos, or to convert his estate into a tabula-
rasa.
In fact, the more the matter is considered the greater are the
difficulties which present themselves. Unless great care is taken
•we shall injure rather than improve the position of our clients.
As long as a numerous population is cursed with a morbid craving
to possess land, so long will the owner of land be able to drive hard
bargains in spite of Queen, Lords, and Commons, and any
excei)tional legislation we may devise will be more apt effectually
to embarrass the judicious management of the liberal landowner
than it will control the injustice of the oppressor, while the
ultimate result of our well meant endeavours may be to transfer the
management of a great portion of every estate in Ireland from the
hands of the land agent into those of the solicitor.
There is one further suggestion which might go far to diminish
discontent and stimulate production amongst the agricultural class.
In considering the question of tenants' improvements it is probable
that a satisfactory settlement for the past is even a greater desideratum
than the most favourable arrangement for the future. The legal
attainment of this object has been given up by every one as imprac-
ticable ; yet if the people of England are really disposed to be as liberal
as Mr. Bright's proposal implies, there is no reason why the same
principle which has been introduced by Parliament to facilitate the
future improvement of Ireland might not be jxdopted to obliterate
all misunderstanding as to the past. No later than the Session of
1866 a million of money was voted to enable the owners of property
in Ireland to erect farm buildings, and labourers' cottages, to drain
and to reclaim. If a similar loan were granted on the same terms,
or if the present loan were made accessible to those landlords who
might be willing to buy up the existing improvements of their
tenants, no doubt advantage would be taken of the opportu-
nity. Precautions could be adopted by the Board of Works to
ascertain that the improvements to be j)urchased were sufficient
secui'ity for the sum borrowed. Though the landlord would be
responsible for the debt, the interest on it would be repaid, either
in Avhole or in part by the tenant. The tenant would be benefited
by receiving a lump sum, which, if judiciously invested in his farm,
would return him a profit of 3, 4, or 5 per cent, in excess of the
yearly instalment for the di:rcharge of the interest. It might be
even advisable for the Board of Works to make these loans condi-
tional on the occupier's receiving a lease.
71
By this simple expedient it would become the landlord's interest,
not only to recognize the minimum claims of his tenant (which in
many instances would become almost inappreciable beneath the
strict scrutiny of a Court of Equity), but to deal with them in a
liberal spirit ; wliile both landlord and tenant would have an induce-
ment to refer all matters in dispute between them to the arbitrament
of a Board, in whose decision it would be the policy of each to
acquiesce. A better understanding would be introduced between
the two classes; even evictions would lose their most obnoxious
characteristic; and, above all, a large sum of money now locked up
in homesteads and farm buildings would be immediately transmuted
into capital applicable to the cultivation of the soil.
It is impossible to lay too great stress on this last advantage.
When people talk of le petite culture, and the reduplicated employ-
ment afforded by spade husbandry, they quite forget that, except
in very favoured soils, low farming reduces land to a caput mortuum.
All the labour in the world will not fertilize a sandbank ; but con-
vey to it the scourings of a great city, and a minimum of labour will
turn it into a garden. Let capital ovei-flow her soil, — an analogous
transformation will take place in Ireland, — and though her superfi-
cial area remain the same, the stimulus to her powers of production
would be equivalent to an accession of territory sufficient to support
thousands in affiuence, where at present hundreds find a difficulty
in extracting a bare subsistence. Lord DufFerin says : —
"But it may be asked. Is this, then, all you have to propose?
Have you no comprehensive remedy to prescribe for the perennial
discontent of Ireland? Can no styptic be discovered for the
unprecedented emigration from her shores? 1 answer that such
inquiries lie beyond the scope of this hasty dissertation. I have
never presvimed to discuss the state of Ireland at large : but many
persons having expressed an opinion that Irish disaffection, and the
emigration from Ireland, were occasioned by the conduct of the
landlords towards their tenants, and the iniquity of the laAvs affect-
ing the tenure of land, I have ventured to examine the groimds on
which those opinions are founded. The result has tended to show
not only that no alteration of tenure would have an appreciable
effect upon either, but that even the amendments I have indicated,
however desirable in themselves, could have no very immediate
effect on the evils we deplore. These evils are too deeply seated,
too intimately interwoven Avith the past, to be cured by any
empirical peddling in the land-laws of the country. To expect ' a
72
tenant's compensation bill' to r|uell Fcnianlsm, or to prevent those
who cannot j:;ct a living at home from crossing tlie Athmtic, would
be as reasonable as to try to stifle a conflagration on the first floor
by stuffing a blanket down the kitchen chimney, or to staunch the
hccmorrhagc from an artery by sli|)ping the key of tlie hou.se-door
down your back. No nation can be made industrious, provident,
and skilful, by Act of Parliamont. It is to time, to education,
and, above all, to the development of our industrial resources, that
we must look for the reinvigoration of our economical constitution.
" I have now finished my ungracious task. To many I shall have
appeared to take the part of the rich against the poor, of the strong
against the weak, but to those who are practically acquainted with
the subject it Avill be apparent that I have been arguing in the real
interests of the latter, even more than in those of the former. If I
am anxious to prevent the introduction of a vicious principle into
the land-laws of Ireland, it is because I am convinced that the evil
consequences of such mistaken legislation will fall again, as it has
done before, on the tenant, rather than on the landlord. If I run
counter to the instincts of that great Liberal party to whom Ireland
owes so much, and from which it has still so much to expect, it is
because I know its confidence has been abused. My only object
has been to establish truth and to advocate justice. The doctrine
that Ireland is to be saved by the sacrifice of the rights of property
is a violation of both, — and its application would only aggravate
om* existing; diflficulties."
DUBLIN : JOHN PALCONKB, PKINTKB, 53, UPPKB SACKVILLE STEEKT.
\
UNIVERSITY OF CAI.IIORNIA. LOS ANGELES
THE UNIVFRSJTY Hmo\KY
M Qn^^odB? Il OtiE on thf last date utamiWl hclo\
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MAY 04 1987
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UCLA-Young Research Library
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