SECOND READING. ADJOURNED DEBATE. [THIRD NIGHT.] (Hansard, 2 May 1881)

HC Deb 02 May 1881 vol 260 cc1570-618 1570

§ Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [25th April], "That the Bill be now read a second time."

§ LORD ELCHO,
in rising to move the following Amendment, of which he had given Notice:— That this House, while willing to consider any just measure, founded upon sound principles, that will benefit tenants of land in Ireland, is of opinion that the leading provisions of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill are in the main economically unsound, unjust, and impolitic; said, he would show his grateful sense of the kindness which had been extended to him on Thursday last by not detaining the House now at any length. Fortune, in the shape of the Parliamentary wheel, having brought his Amendment to the surface, he now stood between the Bill and the Amendment of his noble Friend the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners). He, however, must adhere to his own Amendment; but, in doing so, he hoped the House would give him the credit of believing that if he thought the Amendment of his noble Friend was more to the purpose than his own, he would willingly give place to his noble Friend. But when he looked at his noble Friend's Amendment, he felt that it did not express objection to the Bill in a clear and definite manner, that it was vague, uncertain, and wordy, and that it in no way affected the principle of the Bill. For what did his noble Friend's Amendment say? Leaving out the reference to the Ulster and other customs, it said that the measure "confuses, without settling on a just and permanent basis, the relations of landlord and tenant." Now, if the House was to vote upon that, and if the Bill was to pass into law and was to fail, as it would fail, and if the Prime Minister were to bring in, after three, four, or five years, another Bill, he would be able to point to that Resolution and say that the present measure 1571 had been accepted by the Conservative Party, because there was nothing in the Resolution against it. He objected to that, and therefore, without further preface, he begged to move the Amendment standing in his name upon the Paper.
Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House, while willing to consider any just measure, founded upon sound principles, that will benefit tenants of land in Ireland, is of opinion that the leading provisions of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill are in the main economically unsound, unjust, and impolitic,"—(Lord Elcho,) —instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, he did not intend to discuss, with a view to determine between either the Amendment just moved by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), or the Amendment which had been put on the Paper by his noble Friend (Lord John Manners); he proposed rather to confine his observations to the Bill itself. The Prime Minister, in introducing the Bill, spoke of the gravity of the occasion and the vast interests involved, and he (Mr. W. H. Smith) must say he never rose to address the House with a deeper sense of responsibility, or a greater consciousness of the grave and serious condition in which Ireland was now found. He believed there never was a period in which the condition of Ireland could be more accurately described as it had been in the language of an hon. Gentleman who had spoken of it as "desperate and critical." He believed there were parts of Ireland in which it would be impossible for a loyal man to protect his property and interests except by joining the Land League; that the only law which existed was correctly described by the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Forster) when he introduced the Coercion Bill as the law of the Land League; and that tenants and landlords, loyal subjects of Her Majesty, were alike unable to follow their ordinary avocations, or protect themselves from the bullet of the assassin, or outrages aimed at their life and property. The responsibility of the Government was, undoubtedly, very great; it was very heavy, and very serious. It was their duty to maintain 1572 law and order in Ireland, and it was the duty of that House to give them all the support possible in the efforts they might make to do so. He would, therefore, endeavour as far as he could to avoid making use of any language or reference which in the least degree might throw difficulties in the path, the grave and difficult path, before the Government, or increase in the slightest degree the amount of their serious responsibility. A great agitation had been going on in Ireland during the last year, an agitation in the opinion of many which had not been discouraged by Her Majesty's Government. There was an impression, he would not say entirely and fully warranted, that this agitation had not been completely put down or grappled with as it might have been, because it was supposed to tend favourably towards a stringent, drastic, and complete Land Bill. Now, he desired to do everything in his power to heal the serious troubles existing in Ireland and to pass any measure which, in his opinion, might benefit the people of that country; but the question was, Would this measure tend to benefit the people of Ireland, or to heal those sores and troubles which existed in Ireland, and which they all deplored, and to bring peace and contentment to that portion of the British Empire which had been long a cause of anxiety and humiliation to the Government of this country? He ventured to ask was the Bill based on sound principles? He was aware that a policy might change, and that there were times which necessitated changes of policy with Governments and statesmen. He made no accusation against right hon. Gentlemen opposite on that account; but there was a vast difference between a change of policy and a distinct change of principles. Principles which were really sound must remain sound, whatever the circumstances in which they were applied, and whether the condition of things in the country to which they were applied was different or not. Well, they had heard a great deal of the principles which had been asserted and maintained by right hon. Gentleman opposite up to a very recent period; but he would not weary the House by repeating their arguments, which appeared to him unanswerable, and facts which appeared to him irrefut- 1573 able. He would only ask them to consider what the evils were which they were endeavouring now to remedy. It was stated by the Prime Minister in his introductory speech that there was a "land hunger," meaning a "land scarcity," and it was stated the evils under which the people of Ireland laboured were an arbitrary raising of rent and cruel evictions; and, in moving the second reading of the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said the main objects were to secure land tenure, to increase the number of landed proprietors, and to relieve the overcrowded districts. But was the present a Bill that would prove a complete remedy for the evil which was called "land hunger" and the other evils complained of? It would certainly take from the owner the power of arbitrarily raising his rent. That he (Mr. W. H. Smith) never doubted. But he doubted very much whether it would increase very largely the number of proprietors, or whether there was any provision whatever in the Bill suited or likely to attain the object of relieving the overcrowded districts. There was one evil which had been reported by all the Commissions, and that was the great poverty and misery which prevailed in some parts of Ireland, and the absolute insufficiency of the means of living afforded to the people. He asked himself and the House whether this Bill did offer to the people of Ireland a remedy for that insufficiency? Did it promise any reasonable hope that a remedy would be provided for overcrowding in some parts of Ireland? Would it afford the means of living on small holdings, so that occupiers of three, four, or five acres should be able to cultivate the land and obtain a sufficient livelihood from it for their families? In the Bill he found no such provision. That he was not speaking rashly, that such was the view of the Commissioners, he would show by reading one or two extracts. It was abundantly clear that one of the greatest evils in the state of Ireland was the disposition of the people to live on plots of land that were altogether incapable of supporting a family. The Report of the Duke of Richmond's Commission said— With respect to the very small holders in the Western districts of Ireland, we are satisfied that on the slightest failure of their crops, 1574 they would be unable to exist on the produce of their farms, even if they paid no rent. It is proved by evidence that in some parts of Ireland agricultural depression arises from the population being larger than can be profitably employed on the cultivation of land. Lord Carlingford, also, had expressed much the same opinion of the effect of small holdings. The noble Lord went on to say that the probability was that the intermittent employment of persons who had small holdings in Ireland, and who crossed over to England during part of the year, would continue to decrease, that less and less reliance would have to be placed on such employment, and that consequently, unless the circumstances of the very small occupiers were much improved, they would find their means of support insufficient. He entirely concurred in that view. It seemed that the only comfort offered to these poor people was the probability that they might be tempted by a sum of money offered by some other tenant to go out into the world in order to find a different means of livelihood. He (Mr. W. H. Smith) was afraid that was a very unsatisfactory prospect. If some practical attempt had been made in the way of appointing a Commission, consisting of such men as Mr. Tuke and Mr. King-Harman, whose knowledge of the subject and sympathy with the people were undoubted, with power to endeavour to grapple with the difficulty in a manner conducive to the honour and prosperity of the country, and at the same time equitably considering the claims of the small tenants, he would have admitted that at least an effort had been made to deal with the problem. It was a great and crying evil, and one that it was unanimously conceded ought not to be any longer tolerated; but he found in the Bill no practical endeavour to reduce it. Some time ago evidence was given of the effect of the Land Act of 1870 on the poorer class of occupiers. That Act gave them a claim for compensation for disturbance, which had several times been referred to in the course of the debate as an improvement in their condition, and as giving them a distinct interest in the land they occupied. What was the result? Why, it had come to his notice that many of those small tenants had been enabled in the early years after the Land Act to obtain credit. It was supposed that they 1575 were richer, while, in fact, they were only spending money. They contracted debts, till after a time the power of obtaining credit ceased, and their small properties were swallowed up by the money-lenders. Then came the bad harvests of a few years ago, and then the famine and the misfortunes which it had been so difficult to alleviate. The end was that they were worse off than ever; and it appeared to him that, as far as those small tenants were concerned, if the Bill gave them a new interest in their holdings, the same thing would happen again that had followed the passing of the Act of 1870. They would obtain credit, and for a time would appear more prosperous; but sooner or later disastrous harvests would occur again, their credit would be exhausted, famine would overtake them, and it would again be the sad duty of England to endeavour to save the perishing people from, starvation. He trusted the House would allow him to speak of a circumstance that had come to his knowledge. It had been his duty while in Office to request an officer to distribute seed potatoes in the districts of the West Coast of Ireland. The officer reported that the failure of the crop was not at all remarkable, because the people reserved the smallest and blackest of their potatoes for seed, and from sheer necessity ate all that were eatable. By no possibility could the crop have been a good one. That, unhappily, was the story heard over and over again. Unless the country endeavoured to meet a real and serious difficulty, and unless some practical efforts were made by persons whose knowledge and position would forcibly recommend the course they proposed for adoption by the Government, the melancholy history of the last few years would repeat itself. Both the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland had told the House that the Land Laws of Ireland were generally more favourable to the tenants than the English Land Laws, and, indeed, than the Land Laws of any other country. Those were the statements of the two right hon. Gentlemen, and the owners of land were acquitted as having, in the main, discharged their duty by letting their land with consideration for their tenants, and with a full consciousness of the fact that possession of land differed from the 1576 possession of other property. There were, of course, exceptions to the rule; but the Bill was not intended to deal with the exceptions—to supply a remedy for an admitted exceptional evil—but it would subject all the landlords to new and onerous conditions. The hunger for land, of which so much had been said, was, no doubt, a great evil, and, by producing competition, brought about an undue increase of rent all over Ireland. He accepted without hesitation the principle that a landlord ought not to exact an excessive rent from a tenant, such a one as he was incapable of paying. But how did the Bill affect that question? First of all, it declared that rents should not be raised beyond a proper level, and then it proceeded to fix that level. It increased the scale of compensation for disturbance; and as to that he had little to say, as he freely admitted that a tenant capriciously evicted had a claim for consideration. But the Bill went much further, and carved out of the property of the owner a share or portion that was to be for ever the property of the occupying tenant who had paid nothing for it. It gave the tenant the right to sell that newly-acquired property for the best price he could get, reserving to the landlord only his illusory right of pre-emption. As for the value of that right of preemption, the 1st clause of the Bill provided that the landlord might purchase the tenancy for such sum as might be agreed upon, or, in the event of disagreement, for such sum as might be fixed by the Court; but in the 45th section the landlord was informed that if, during the first period of 15 years, he let a holding in which he had purchased the tenant's interest, a new interest was at once created of the same character, and of the same description in every respect, and imposing on him the same peculiar burdens. It came to this—that if, under the 1st clause, the landlord purchased the interest of the tenant, he was compelled by Clause 45, unless he farmed the land himself, to set up and admit another tenant's interest. It was, therefore, hardly conceivable that any landlord could, or would care to, exercise his right of pre-emption. And afterwards the new tenant would go to the Court and have a judicial rent fixed, as if he had paid for and purchased his interest in the land. The argument used in 1870 1577 by the Prime Minister against such a proceeding as that had already been referred to by another speaker, and he, therefore, would not read it again. It would be fresh in the memory of every one. It seemed to him strange and extraordinary that the only remedy for the scarcity of land was to take from the landlord the power of selection of his tenants and the power of dealing as he thought fit with his land; for it was shown by these Reports, and admitted by the right hon. Gentleman himself, that the majority of landlords in the greater part of Ireland exercised their rights with the gravest sense of responsibility to their tenants, that the rents were not high, and that the landlords used their power with an earnest desire to benefit their tenants. They were, however, no longer to be allowed to exercise that duty. If a hunger for land existed, was it to be met by an existing tenant offering his interest for sale to a man who wished to become a tenant, and by his obtaining, in the words of the clause, the best price he could get? He could understand the Bill if it were a measure to grant a property to a limited number of persons, irrespective altogether of other persons who in their turn might wish to be in possession of that property. But it was a Bill which, under any circumstances, must impose a large additional burden on the cost of cultivating the land of Ireland. There was to be under it a fair rent, and, added to that, a competitive value in the tenancy. This must go on increasing, if the land hunger remained, and if the desperate resolve of the people to cling to the land remained also. Could it be conceived that this was an answer to the demand for land and a cure for the scarcity of land without increasing the quantity of land by one single acre? Was this all that could be said to the hundreds of thousands of men who desired to become tenants in Ireland—"There is no good landlord who will give you a chance of a tenancy; but you may buy out another man by paying an enhanced price?" He thought this was a singular answer to the demand made, not for the existing tenants of Ireland, but for the people of Ireland to enter on the employment they loved most—namely, the occupation of land. Anyone who knew anything of Ireland would recognize in the Irish character an immense amount of family affection, 1578 and a desire to do the best they could for their children. What would happen under the provisions of this Bill? If a tenant of 12 or 15 acres died leaving three children, either all of them would try to live on the holding, or one of the sons would be charged with the duty of paying an almost impossible price to his brothers or sisters for the privilege of cultivating the whole of it. If hon. Members followed this, they would see in it the seeds of misfortune and a burden to the people of Ireland which had not yet been fully explained. He came now to that part of the Bill which professed to fix a fair rent. He maintained that no one who had any claim to credit or respectability desired to exact any more than a fair rent for any property of which he might be possessed; but there were a great many conditions which must be taken into account when a fair rent was being estimated. Only last year, he read a most interesting speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) on the question of ascertaining a fair rent by a Government officer. That difficulty remained, notwithstanding the fact that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen might have changed their view as to the policy to be pursued on this subject. He agreed that improvements made by the tenant ought to be and must be fully secured to him by law; but he would ask the House carefully to examine the conditions of a fair rent set forth in the 7th clause of the Bill. His right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had put certain questions on this subject to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law). Those questions had been evaded, and no satisfactory answer had been given to them, on the ground that they were questions for consideration in Committee. But the question of fair rent was one that entered into the principle of the Bill, and if the Opposition pointed out that the construction of the Bill was so bad with regard to that question that it absolutely required to be altered in order to make the Bill acceptable, surely it was only reasonable that they should give right hon. Gentlemen opposite an opportunity of saying what it was they really in- 1579 tended. His right hon. and learned Friend said the tenant's interest was carved out of the property of the landlord. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant replied—"I say that would be very unfair. We do not believe that our clause will bear such an interpretation." What he (Mr. W. H. Smith) and his right hon. and learned Friend asked was that Her Majesty's Government should say distinctly what it was that they did mean. What was not intended to be done had been actually done in regard to this matter, for the tenant, at that moment, possessed, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, an interest which Her Majesty's Government, in 1870, asserted they did not intend to give him. If that were the case, it was absolutely necessary that in questions of this kind the words of the Bill now before the House should be made clear and without dispute. A question had been raised as to the proper meaning of the 7th section of the Bill. He found that Section 7 said that a fair rent meant such a rent as "a solvent tenant would undertake to pay one year with another;" and that was interpreted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, who was not to be trapped into answering his (Mr. W. H. Smith's) right hon. and learned Friend's questions, to mean that a fair rent was a competition rent minus the income of the tenant's interest. Now, he (Mr. W. H. Smith) referred to the Bill to ascertain what the tenant's interest was. He found it said— That the Court, in fixing such rent, shall"—not may—"have regard to the tenant's interest in the holding, and the tenant's interest shall be estimated with reference to the following considerations; that is to say,

(a.) In the case of any holding subject to the Ulster tenant right custom or to any usage corresponding therewith—with reference to the said custom or usage;

(b.) In cases where there is no evidence of any such custom or usage—with reference to the scale of compensation for disturbance by this Act provided (except so far as any circumstances of the case shown in evidence may justify a variation therefrom), and to the right (if any) to compensation for improvements effected by the tenant or his predecessors in title."
That was absolutely mandatory to the Court, which must take notice of the interest that the tenant had acquired. What was that interest? The first words 1580 of the Bill said the tenant "may sell his tenancy for the best price that can be got for it." Well, he (Mr. W. H. Smith) contended that what the tenant thus sold was his interest, and that the sum paid by the tenant purchasing his interest at the best price would be the measure of the value of that interest, and that measure being ascertained by sale, perhaps three or four times during the course of the tenancy, and ascending each time, the Court must have regard to the price paid, under the powers given by this Bill, in open Court—that was, by the competition for the interest which the tenant had in his holding. With regard to the competition rent he had one word to say. It was to be a competition rent; but there was to be no competition, because the owner could not go with the land to the market and ask what they would give for the land. He could only say to somebody—"Will you come and buy my tenant out, and then take the land?" The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland spoke in a light way of the "lunatics" who gave large sums for tenant right in different parts of Ireland. According to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's view, there were a great many lunatics in Ireland; but they seemed to have a large amount of method in their madness. He held in his hand a Return that was published in The Times on the 28th of January, being a statement of sales of tenant right on the estate of the Duke of Abercorn, from which it appeared that between October, 1876, and October, 1880, 35 holdings, of the total rental of £1,093, were sold, and that the value of the tenant right which changed hands was no less than £26,143—an average of 25 years' purchase. In some cases the amount rose to 40 or 50 years' purchase; in others it fell to 11. If the clause remained as it stood in the Bill, the Court would be obliged to have regard to the amount paid in each of those cases. Then, the full value of the land, supposing it to be free of tenant right, leaving been ascertained, the interest of those payments would be deducted from that value, and what was called the fair rent would remain. If that was the proper interpretation of the Bill, and he believed no other interpretation could be put upon it, he was told on high authority that in 1581 that case a very large share indeed of the value of the land in fee would be at once taken from the owner. The tenant having purchased under the Bill would go to the Court and say—"Fix me a judicial rent for the next 15 years." The Court must do so; meanwhile, the same holding could be sold again and again during that period, the price constantly rising with the "earth hunger" to which the Prime Minister had referred, until the latest tenant might come to the Court and say, when the time for the revision of the rent had arrived—"I have been obliged to pay 25 per cent more for this holding than was paid 14 years ago, but the land is not worth a farthing more than it was then. Deduct that 25 per cent from the rent for the next 15 years." If he was not mistaken—and he had fortified his own opinion with that of eminent lawyers—that would be the effect of the Bill. Only a few days ago as much as 30 years' purchase was paid for tenant right on the estate of Lord Anglesey. With such a result as that encountering them on the threshold of this measure, he trusted he had justified his demands for a plainer answer to the question, What did the clause mean? As it stood, the clause was open only to one interpretation, as it seemed to him—namely, that it was intended to carve a large slice off the landlords' property for the benefit of the tenant. They had heard a great deal about the machinery by which the fair rent was to be fixed. For his own part, he objected entirely to the State undertaking the responsibility of fixing the rent of land all over Ireland—a task which none of the Commissions ever proposed to impose upon it. And how was that object to be arrived at? The Land Commission was to consist of three persons only, one of whom was to be a Judge of the Supreme Court in Ireland. Well, he should have thought that for the settlement of such important questions it would have been advisable to appoint more than one person of the rank and experience and independence of Judges. He attached the greatest importance to the impartiality which the Judges were able to exercise by reason of their being practically irremovable. For that reason, he did not at all object to the Court of First Instance, although County Court Judges were not, perhaps, the best judges of agricultural ques- 1582 tions. When he came to consider the constitution of the Court of Appeal, however, he was lost in amazement. There were to be any number of Assistant Commissioners, possessing all the powers of the Land Commission itself, and there was no provision that those persons should know anything either of land or agriculture. What class of persons they would be might be gathered from Clause 43, which stated that— No person being a member of or employed by the land commission shall by reason of such membership or employment acquire any right to compensation, superannuation, or other allowance on abolition of his office or otherwise. That meant, practically, that the only persons who would accept the position of Assistant Commissioners would be those who were failures in life, men without present occupation and with no future before them. What was worse still, they could be absolutely the servants of their chiefs. They would not express any independent opinion of their own. Anything they might do which was inconsistent with the views of their chiefs would render them liable to instant dismissal. He thought that the Bill, as had already been said, simply meant litigation. Instead of being a boon, it was an apple of discord thrown into every part of Ireland between landlord and tenant, and he could not but deplore the fact. What was to be done with regard to the labourer's wages, which necessarily entered into consideration in the fixing of fair rents? The Bill took away the chance of a man be-becoming a farmer unless he got into debt by placing himself in the hands of the money-lender, and if that were the case, they would shortly have to determine what fair wages were. The Chief Secretary for Ireland the other day said the Poor Law had a good deal to do with that subject. It used to be said that the old Poor Law enabled farmers to reduce wages; but he had never before heard that the new Poor Law regulated wages. His objection to the proposed legislation was that in itself it was bad, and that it could not be confined to one description of property, but must be extended on the slightest agitation, or the first occurence of real distress in England to a great many other descriptions, and must affect a great many other relations besides those existing between landlords and tenants 1583 and the owners and occupiers of land. He cordially welcomed any proposal having for its objects to increase the number of small proprietors. Nothing could, he believed, be more beneficial to the whole country than that that should be done; but then it should be done naturally and with some prospect of success. Now, if the present Bill passed, he could not help thinking that there would be in Ireland no other persons to purchase land but the small proprietors. No regular investor, recollecting the result of the investments made under the Landed Estates Court, would be tempted by such legislation to invest in land in Ireland. A great many, on the contrary, would be desirous of selling out, and it would be only small purchasers who, as he had said, would be desirous of buying. Further, with his experience at the Treasury, he must say he objected most strongly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being becoming, on the part of the State, the mortgagee of the land of Ireland. Nothing would, he thought, be more dangerous, or tend more effectually to defeat the object which they all had in view. What in the circumstances would be the position of a Chancellor of the Exchequer in a shaky Government? When he (Mr. W. H. Smith) was at the Treasury, he had to look into many Irish advances, and he was told by gentlemen from Ireland, when he said that the Treasury would require repayment of those advances, that he was taking a very mean view of the question. Advances were urged on the Treasury which he knew would not be repaid; and how had they been urged? By hon. Gentlemen who had votes in that House. Was it not clear, then, that after a period of bad seasons, when everyone would naturally sympathize with the occupiers of land in Ireland, the Irish Representatives would come to the Treasury and say that their friends were unable to pay the money which had been advanced to them, and that they must have time? Would it be possible in these circumstances to refuse the time thus asked? And would not a pressure be brought to bear upon the Government by the voting power of Ireland which they might find it impossible to resist, in the desire to get rid of a liability which by honest endeavours might ultimately be met? Grave injustice 1584 would, he believed, be done to the future of Ireland if the State were made the mortgagee of the land of that country. They were giving a premium to agitation, and encouraging a dislike to meet the ordinary obligations of commerce. But how, then, he might be asked, was the object which the Government had in view of increasing the number of small proprietors in Ireland to be attained? No one desired that more than himself; but it might, he thought, be secured by another and a far better process than that which was proposed in the Bill. Capital was at present abundant, and if it were distinctly understood that the security was good, it might be had at the rate of 3½ per cent, that being the same rate as the Treasury proposed to advance it. Now, that being so, what he should desire to see done was that advances should be made from an Irish fund, constituted under the provisions of the Bill. There was a large amount of remaining property derivable from the land at the disposal of the Church Commission, and he should be prepared to concur in a grant to assist in the formation of a guarantee fund. His recommendation would be that this part of the Bill should be reconstructed so as to establish a Commission, whose duty it would be to deal with the question of purchasing estates, and giving them the power to issue debentures representing the amount of money to be secured on the land, and that these should be guaranteed by the fund in question. Once such a fund was established, those by whom it was administered would not be exposed to the pressure which would be sure to be brought to bear on the Representative of the Treasury in that House in times of trouble and difficulty, and there would be a guarantee against any possible risk which might result from the failure of the tenant from time to time to meet his engagements. He further objected to the proposal of the Government, on the ground that it involved an Annual Act, instead of allowing any scheme which might be adopted a reasonable time to develop itself. As to the purchase of land by the tenant, he was disposed to ask why the tenant should buy under the operation of the Bill? That was a question which deserved, he thought, the serious consideration of the Government. If the Bill gave the tenant some- 1585 thing very substantial which he did not now possess, something very much more than he had in 1870, what would he naturally say to himself? Why, that he got what he had as the result of agitation; that if he bought now he must buy at the present value of land; but that if he went on agitating for another 10 years he would get something more. He would be aware that he could get a fair rent determined by the Court, subject to all the new conditions which the Bill would create, and that at the expiration of a few years he might get his rent reduced by one-third or one-half. He could, therefore, see no inducement, as matters stood, to the tenant to become a purchaser. Under the purchase clauses of the Bill, he might add, the Commission was to be authorized to buy any estate of which three-fourths of the tenants were willing to become the purchasers. If such a purchase should be effected, what would be the position of the new owner as to the remaining fourth part of the estate? The tenants who would be left would naturally be the least well-to-do, and the unfortunate landlord would have to get his rents as best he could. What price, if he wished to sell, would he get for that fourth part? It was clear that property sold in that way could not realize a reasonable price; the difficulties in the way of such a sale would be enormous. He would next say a few words about the advances to be made by the Treasury for the purpose of reclamation of waste lands. He had no objection to the Treasury's advancing funds to anybody willing to comply with the conditions of the Bill. But did it occur to anybody that a single individual could be found to advance money for the reclamation of land under the conditions of land ownership which were to be established by that Bill? What inducement was there to enter upon a large scheme for reclamation of land in Ireland when the real power, authority, and interest in the land were vanishing away from ownership? He admitted that the present condition of Ireland rendered some legislation on the subject absolutely necessary; but he objected to that measure, and could not give it his support, because he believed it would unsettle everything and settle nothing, and he had no reason to suppose it would satisfy anybody. He believed that that measure, 1586 which was held out as a boon, would not allay discontent, and would prove to be wholly ineffective. He wanted to know whether the Bill was a sham or a reality? Did it really mean to transfer property from one person to another, or was it wholly a delusive scheme? He did not believe that the Bill in its present shape would obtain the assent of the majority of the House. Extravagant expectations would be raised among large numbers of people who expected to be made prosperous by Act of Parliament. He had listened attentively to the eloquent speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), and there were some portions of that speech with which he could agree, and with no part more than that in which the hon. and learned Gentleman said that no artificial contrivances would avail for Ireland's good. He thought that the Bill would be found to be one of those artificial contrivances which would make prosperity, happiness, and contentment impossible in Ireland for the future. He agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman that much, almost all, must depend upon the people themselves, upon their energy, thrift, and self-denial. It was by the exercise of these qualities, not alone, but in the main, that they could hope to rise from the misery and degradation they had suffered for so many centuries to enjoy the full fruits of their labour. He did not think the people of Ireland ought to be encouraged to come to that House for legislation and money whenever they were in a strait; they should only expect from that House to be secured in the full return of all that their industry and labour produced, and they should be told that that was the best which it was in the power of the Legislature to bestow.

§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE
said, that no one on his side of the House could take exception to the general tone and temper with which the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had approached the subject before the House. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken with a sense of responsibility, under the serious condition of things now existing in Ireland, very different from that in which the subject had been treated by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). The right. hon. Gentleman ap- 1587 peared to admit the necessity of wide legislation on the subject, though he did not approve the Bill before the House. There was one expression, however, which he thought the right hon. Gentleman would on reflection regret, and that was that the Government had not altogether discouraged the agitation of last year in the expectation that a stringent and drastic measure would in that way be made more feasible. He would not express an opinion on that kind of language. The Government were quite prepared to deal with an unlawful agitation in a proper manner; and the agitation of last year had been unfavourable to their plans for the amelioration of Ireland. The Bill was in no sense due to agitation. It was due to the rightful demands of the Irish people, which were expressed in a constitutional form at the last General Election. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire was quite right in saying that the Irish Land Question was not raised in the English and Scotch elections. But it was raised before the Irish electors throughout the length and breadth of the country. There was not a Member returned, with, perhaps, the exception of the two right hon. and learned Members for the University of Dublin, who was not pledged to deal with the question in a broad and extensive manner. If he recollected rightly there was not a landowner all over Ireland, except in Ulster, who succeeded in being returned to Parliament; and even in Ulster the few landlords who were returned pledged themselves to go, at least, as far as this Bill, which he would be surprised if they did not support now. They had, then, the voice of Ireland in favour of a reform of the Land Laws, and it would be impossible that the Government could refuse a demand made in so constitutional a manner. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman was not prepared to join the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire in uncompromising opposition to the measure. He gathered from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that he was in favour of legislating upon important points of the Land Question—for instance, upon the subject of multiplying the owners of land. The right hon. Gentleman approved of that portion of the Bill, but was in favour of funds being provided from some Irish source. He was glad to hear the right 1588 hon. Gentleman declare in favour of the principle of establishing a Commission for the purpose of purchasing land for distribution among the tenants. That showed a considerable advance in the views of the right hon. Gentleman, because he had in his recollection a speech of the right hon. Gentleman, delivered, if he remembered rightly, so late as in the early part of last year to his constituents, in which he denounced the whole scheme which went by the name of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as impracticable, inexpedient, and absurd. The right hon. Gentleman even went so far as to say that he would be no party to such sham legislation. He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had reason to remember that speech, because in the previous Session he had carried a Resolution in favour of extending ownerships in Ireland, in which the late Government had concurred. He had himself suggested the application of the Irish Church Fund for the purpose; but, unfortunately, events had since happened which had caused the fund in great measure to disappear, and he did not see in what way any such fund could be brought into existence. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman suggested funds from any other source than that provided in the Bill, he was sure the Government would entertain it; but a measure of the importance of this should not be postponed from any expectation of that kind. Again, the right hon. Gentleman indicated that he was in favour of another very important principle in this Bill—namely, the principle of arbitration of rents by a Government tribunal. At least, that was his inference from the right hon. Gentleman's words when he said that the law should lay down the principle that rents should not be raised to a point at which the tenants could not pay. How was that point to be fixed by law except by such a tribunal? If that was so, the right hon. Gentleman had expressed approval of what he regarded as the cardinal feature of the Bill. Before dealing with some of the objections raised to it by the right hon. Gentleman, he wished briefly to recall to the House why it was that the Act of 1870 had failed to prove a settlement. That Act was a bold and important one in many respects. He thought it was in some 1589 respects even more important than the Bill now before them, because it acknowledged for the first time the legal interest of tenants in their holdings. It sought to protect and give security to tenants in their holdings, and therefore to give practically fixity of tenure, and to prevent the raising of rent so as to destroy their interest, by putting the landlord under the compulsion or fine of paying on eviction the full value of the tenant's interest, measured in Ulster by the Ulster tenant right, and in other parts of Ireland by the value of his improvements, and by a payment which was to represent the value of the goodwill. It also proposed, under the Bright Clauses, to create a peasant proprietary. Its objects, therefore, were the same—neither more nor less than those of the present Bill—though it sought to attain them by a different method. Why, then, did it fail to carry out their expectations? He would not admit it had wholly failed. It had, in fact, stopped almost completely capricious ejectments, or any ejectments other than those for non-payment of rent, and it had secured to hundreds of tenants leaving their holdings compensation they would not otherwise have been entitled to. It had not, however, succeeded in preventing the raising of rents to a point which appropriated the tenant's interest. If time permitted, he could show that this failure was partly due to the mischievous Amendments which were made to the Bill, chiefly in another House, and every one of which limited its operation and tended to prevent a settlement. He only alluded to them as a warning to the opposite side against treating this Bill in the same way. It was also partly due to Departmental incapacity and re-action, which smothered and destroyed the "Bright Clauses," and prevented their having effect. It was still more due, however, to the failure of Parliament to understand two features or conditions of human nature in Ireland, which appeared to differ, in degree at least, from those of other people. The one was the intense love of the Irish tenants for their holdings, their willingness to submit to any exaction in the shape of increased rent rather than give up their holdings and face a lawsuit for the recovery of the compensation intended by the Act; and the other was the perversity and almost criminal wilfulness with 1590 which certain landowners in Ireland set themselves to work to undermine the policy of the Act, the ingenuity with which they discovered that by trading on the unwillingness of tenants to give up their holdings, they could screw up their rents so as to rack-rent their tenants and appropriate the tenants' interest which it was the intention of the Act of 1870 to secure to them. Sometimes this was done by wholesale re-valuation of their estates; more often by what was called the silent process—namely, by taking the tenants in detail and raising their rents by 25 per cent, or by the nibbling process of successive raisings by small amounts each, so small as to make it a matter for doubt to the tenant whether he would give up his holding and claim the value of his interest. In Ulster it was accompanied also by the creation and invention of arbitrary office rules reducing the tenant right, or putting the tenant to great legal expenses in proving his right. These acts were undoubtedly the acts of a minority of landlords; but they were sufficiently numerous to create a widespread feeling of injustice, insecurity, and alarm through large classes of tenants who felt that they might be dealt with in a similar manner. The House might think he spoke too strongly on this point; but conclusive proof of what he said was to be found in the evidence of the two Royal Commissions. He supposed very few Members had read the evidence contained in the three gigantic volumes of the two Royal Commissions. He could not pretend to have done so himself; but he had read one part of the evidence which he commended to other Members—namely, the evidence of landowners and land agents themselves. The land agents of Ireland contained among their numbers some of the ablest men in Ireland—many, men of wide views—and from their contact with the peasantry they knew much more about them than did the landlords, and it seemed to him that their evidence was very interesting. What they said of their fellow-landowners and fellow-land agents, he thought, might fairly be considered as reliable evidence, coming as it did from men interested in making the best and not the worst of the existing state of things. After reading their evidence, he thought everyone would admit that we might neglect every word of complaint made by the 700 wit- 1591 nesses of the tenant farmer class before the Bessborough Commission, and still have a sufficient weight of evidence to justify all the complaints of the Irish people, and to show the necessity for this Bill. There were land agents of the highest position from every part of Ireland, and Judges and landowners who spoke of practices of landowners and land agents in the direction he had alluded to, which fully accounted for the complaints, fears, and alarms of the tenantry. Let him give, as an illustration, one short passage from the evidence of Mr. Murphy, the agent for properties extending over 50,000 acres in Donegal and Down; a gentleman also who acted as valuator for numerous railway companies in the North of Ireland, and who was recommended specially to the Commission by the Committee of Landlords, as one who could give reliable evidence. Mr. Murphy said— I think if the Act of 1870 had been loyally received, it would be working well now. But it was not. Some landlords thought that their rights were invaded and they set to work to counteract it. It is possible that landlords by raising rents may eat up and do away with tenant right. It is a very unfortunate thing that it should be so. The consequence is that the tenants have a feeling of insecurity that their tenant right may be absorbed in that way, and in consequence they do not make improvements. There are instances where estates have been most generously managed and where the tenants lived as happily as possible, but when another landlord came into possession another king arose who knew not Joseph.' That has been the root and evil of land jobbing. Mr. Johnston, another agent for 50,000 acres of land in Leitrim and Longford, said— I think the Land Act failed in protecting tenants against a rise of rents. I knew one case in particular where an estate was overvalued and many of the tenants asked me what they were to do—they could not pay the rents and live; still what were they to do? If they broke up their homes and bought land claims they would have nowhere to go—they could do nothing but emigrate. Hence they elected to pay the increased rent, and did pay it for a few years. Now they have failed, and have not paid either last year or this, and at present are in a state of rebellion. Going further South, he found Mr. Keane, agent for 100,000 acres in Clare, who said— I have known many cases where tenants laid out money in improvements, and the result was that their rents were advanced. Mr. Vernon, agent for properties worth 1592 £90,000 a-year, in all parts of Ireland, spoke of the feeling of insecurity caused by the office rules in the North making the sale of tenant right subject to the condition of a rise of rent, and of the paralyzing effect of such an unjust rule. Mr. Leahy, the agent for very large properties in the South of Ireland, said— There is no question that on certain estates, on a great number of them purchased by the parties I have mentioned, it is absolutely necessary that there should be some Court of arbitration. The landlord, if he is willing and wishes to do so, can in a great measure nullify the tenant right interest by raising the rent unduly. I consider that is a practice that should be positively put down and that calls for legislation. Mr. Andrew Kerr, agent for Lord Dartrey and Colonel Clement, says— I have known some estates where the landlords have been in the habit of raising the rents. It has had the effect of checking improvements and ruining the tenants and of injuring the landlords in the long run. Mr. Jackson, agent to Lord Arran, in Donegal, said— I know the feeling in the minds of the tenantry is that of great insecurity. I believe that improvements would go on 40 or 50 per cent more than they do if they were sure that rents would not be raised for their improvements. Mr. Brush, agent to Lord Belmore, Mr. Watson, agent in Antrim, and a host of others he could quote, gave evidence to the same effect. It was confirmed by many others of independent position; by such men as Sir Francis Brady and Mr. Ampthill, County Court Judges, and by Judge Flanagan, of the Landed Estates Court. The latter said— The mischief arises from the fear that an increase of rent may happen any day and may follow upon an increased appearance of prosperity upon his holding. Nothing can be more fatal to the industry and prosperity of the smaller tenant than such a sense of insecurity. Professor Baldwin and Mr. Robertson, who were specially selected by the late Government to report on the condition of agriculture in Ireland, spoke to the same effect. They reported numerous cases of nibbling at rents, and of increments of 25 per cent; and they said that the common complaint of the tenants was fully justified, and that they had verified them by reference to the receipts and to the office books of land agents. He believed that every one of the land agents he had quoted were recommended to the Commission as men who tho- 1593 roughly understood the question, and whose evidence would be most valuable. Then came the question of remedy, and he was surprised to find what general unanimity there was among the Irish witnesses; not one of them had advocated the extreme measures propounded by the Land League—namely, the expropriation of landlords.

§ MR. PARNELL
was understood to deny that that principle was propounded by the Land League.

§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE
said, he was glad to hear that denial. At the same time he was surprised, because it did not tally with his recollection, nor with the information given to the public by members of the Land League. However, it indicated a return to common sense on the part of the hon. Member and his Colleagues. The hon. Member denied that was ever the proposition of the Land League; but he had in his hand a paper called Modern Thought, which contained an article by a member of the Land League and an hon. Member of this House—the Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond). In the course of this article the hon. Member says— The settlement of the question which the Land League proposes is thoroughly sound in principle, is likely to prove final in practice, and is a settlement made with the best results in other countries. It advocates compulsory expropriation. Such a proposal was certainly sound in principle. This description, he submitted, tallied with all he had seen of the earlier doings of the Land League. He was aware that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had more recently abandoned these extreme proposals, and now only advocated the expropriation of bad landlords. How he was to select the bad from the good he did not know; but he was very much struck by observing that change in the attitude of the hon. Member, and he thought his abandonment of the wider programme showed a return to a sense of what was right and moral.

§ MR. PARNELL
asked the right hon. Gentleman if he could quote a passage in which he ever advocated the compulsory expropriation of all landlords?

§ MR. SHAW LEFEVRE
said, he had not the passage by him, but he would promise to produce it. In the meantime he could but refer to the article he had quoted, which was written by one of the 1594 protegès of the hon. Gentleman, and one whom the hon. Gentleman had introduced to this House as a prominent member of the Land League, and that article put the same construction on the opinions of the Land League as that which he had ventured to give himself. He repeated, that scarcely a single witness of many hundreds had advocated the original scheme of the Land League of expropriating all landlords. It would be very easy to show how detrimental to the interests of Ireland that would be. Nor would it be possible to expropriate the bad ones. What tribunal would be strong enough to select the bad from the good, and to gibbet the bad as unworthy of existence? The almost universal testimony of those who admitted that wrong was being done was in the direction of giving greater security to the tenant's interest and preventing its confiscation by the landowner by the intervention of a Government tribunal on the subject of rent. He had been greatly surprised at the extent to which all the wisest and best of the great land agents of Ireland committed themselves to that opinion. He found from the evidence that no fewer than 24 of the largest land agents in Ireland, managing properties from 10,000 to 100,000 acres, and in the aggregate of more than 1,000,000 acres, had expressed the strongest opinions in this direction. In addition to those he had already named, Mr. O'Brien, agent to Lord Inchiquin, Mr. L'Estrange, agent to Colonel Cooper, Mr. Lepper, agent to Lord Donegal, and numerous others, were of this opinion; they were supported by landowners such as Colonel King-Harman, who owned 70,000 acres, and who was secretary to the Committee of Landowners, and by Lord Ventry, who owned 100,000 acres in the South. Of other witnesses of the same class, a very large proportion said that such legislation was unnecessary, because they always themselves recognized their tenants' interest, and did practically give fixity of tenure and fair rents appraised with reference to the tenants' interest; and most of them, though not quite all, permitted the sale of tenants' interest. The same witnesses pointed to the happy results which followed upon properties where these principles were acted upon, where practically tenants knew that by the long practice of the estate their rents would be fairly assessed, with full re- 1595 gard to the tenants' interest, and only raised at long intervals when the general rise in value of property justified it. They had practical fixity of tenure, and were allowed freely to sell their holdings to the highest bidder. The evidence was conclusive that on such estates the tenants were prosperous and content, improvements were effected, the cultivation was of the best, and there was a general feeling of security; while, on the other hand, the landlords' rents were perfectly secure, and ranged in the long run as high, if not higher, than on those properties where there was no security and where they were screwed up. Nothing could be more certain than that security of tenure under the conditions of Irish cultivation was as beneficial in the long run to the landlords as to the tenants. It was this system which the Bill proposed to extend from the best managed properties in Ireland to all properties. As regarded the best landlords, it did no more than put them under legal compulsion to do that which they always had done freely and willingly; and as regarded the worst landlords, it compelled them to do what experience showed was the true remedy for bad cultivation, insecurity, and discontent. Now, the cardinal point and principle of this part of the Bill was the tribunal for the determination of rent. It was this principle of fair rent and of an appeal from the landlord to a Court, which all parties who had looked into the matter were now agreed upon—the majority as well the minority of the Duke of Richmond's Commission, the whole of the other Commission, the Duke of Argyll, the majority of landlords and land agents in Ireland, the majority of hon. Members opposite. The concurrence in the necessity for this was almost universal. Why was it so? Was it not from the fact that all these people now recognized and admitted that the tenants had an interest or property in their holdings which ought to be fully protected? It had been said that that principle was in contravention of freedom of contract. If the tenants had no interest in their holdings, if they were in a position to contract freely with the owners of the land, the principle of freedom of contract might apply. But that was not so. The tenants had an interest in their holdings which in Ulster generally was equal to that of the 1596 landlords, and elsewhere in Ireland equal to one-third of the competition value of the holding; it was impossible for them to disentangle their interest from the holding so as to be in a position to contract freely with their landlords, and the result was conditions in which freedom of contract could not and did not exist. Let him illustrate that by an example. Suppose a holding let at £20 a-year, the tenant or his predecessors had effected all the improvements, had built the house, had reclaimed the land from the waste, had removed the boulders, and had from time immemorial exercised all the rights of ownership over it. The tenant right was probably worth £200. The fiat of the landlord went forth to raise the rent 25 per cent. This reduced the value of the tenant right by more than one-half by appropriating therefrom property to that amount. The tenant might leave the farm and might claim the full value of his tenant right; but to do so he must give up everything that was dear to him—his home, the place of his birth, his friends and neighbours; he must go into the wide world, and he had to recover the value of his interest by means of a lawsuit against his landlord, whom he would find represented by the ablest lawyers. He might be too old to begin life again in some other profession. What freedom of contract was there between him and his landlord, whom he could approach only through a Dublin agent? If the tenant should resist and combine with his fellow-tenants and neighbours in opposing the increase of rent, then again it might be asked where was the freedom of contract in the landlord? He contended that the conditions for freedom of contract did not exist. Those who contended for it must begin by denying the tenant's interest, and must be prepared to see it appropriated by the landlord. It was not a question so much of political economy. It was a question of justice and equity. The interest existed, and under the present conditions it was not safe, but was liable to be appropriated by a person to whom it did not belong. It was necessary, therefore, to give it protection, and the only way of doing this was by allowing an appeal to the law. He believed it was as much the interest of the landlord as of the tenant that this appeal should be to the 1597 tribunals of the country rather than to Rory on the Hills or to the self-constituted tribunal of the Land League. When we had once grasped the idea of a Government tribunal for rents, the other principles of this part of the measure necessarily, logically, and inevitably followed. The appeal to a tribunal as to rent necessarily implied a continued occupation. Could it be permitted to a landowner to turn the tenant out immediately after the decision? So also as to free sale; when we had recognised the tenant's interest, when we had given him a tenure, whether for 15 or 30 years, or in perpetuity, how could we resist the tenant's claim to be allowed to realize the value of it? Even if we should do so in law we should be defeated in practice. The incoming and outgoing tenant would come to terms behind the back of the landowner, as they did now in numerous cases, and we should have renewed agitation until full recognition of the interest was conceded. Here political economy was certainly in favour of the claim for free sale; for the free sale and disposition of an interest once recognized and protected at law was an almost elementary proposition of political economy. It was said that they were creating a dual ownership in the soil. He denied that they were creating such a system. They were recognizing and giving full protection to an interest which existed, and not creating it. It was not rightly described as an ownership in the soil; it was a right of occupation of the soil as distinguished from the ownership. The ownership of the soil was qualified, and out of it was carved the right of occupation, and the two togther exhausted the whole value of the soil and its produce. He would not weary the House by any historical vindication of this claim of the Irish tenant. There seemed to be an economic justification and cause for it. Where the system of cultivation of a country was that of small occupiers it was wholly impossible for the landlord to effect the improvements, to build the houses and the homesteads, or to reclaim the land and to maintain the general equipments of the farm. To attempt to do so in the English system would be ruin to the landlord, and would involve him in expenditure of more than the value of the fee. These improvements must be effected by the tenant; and where that was the case there must 1598 grow up a proprietary interest of the tenant, which would claim and must receive the recognition and protection of the law. It had been repeatedly said in this debate that the Irish tenant was more protected by law than the tenant of any other part of the world; but there was no other part of Europe where such a vast and universal system of small tenancy existed; and where the system of cultivation was in small holdings, it was always accompanied, supported, and fortified by the fact that a vast proportion of them had the security of ownership. It had been said that such a dual ownership as would be virtually created by the Bill would be a source of confusion, and that experience had shown that where it existed on the Continent it had led to an agitation to get rid of the landowner. That was perfectly true of that kind of dual ownership which came down from feudal times, and where the tenant was burdened with servile obligations to the landowner; but there were throughout Europe a vast number of tenures of a different character, not dissimilar to that which would exist under that Bill—namely, of hereditary leases, with fixed rents, or rents subject to periodical revision. Such tenures were common in Holland, in many parts of Germany, and France, and in North Portugal. They were highly appreciated. They were considered scarcely inferior to freeholds, as they gave security to small occupiers and led to good cultivation. He might quote from a recent and very interesting description of Portugal by Mr. Crawford, our Consul at Oporto. After giving an account of these hereditary leaseholders in the North of that country, he said— This system has created in the Northern provinces a population of hardy, independent, contented yeomen. There are no great territorial possessions, no accumulation of agricultural wealth in one man's hands; but there is, again, no pauperism. If we cross into some of the Southern provinces, we find the reverse of this feature of prosperity and content—great estates ill-farmed, rich absentee landlords, and crowds of ill-looking, poverty-stricken, and woe-begone tenants and day labourers. Another objection raised by the right hon. Member and others was mainly directed to the principle of free sale. It was put forward in the interest of tenants of the future. It was said that while they forbade the rack-renting of 1599 landlords, they would permit the rack-renting of tenants by themselves; that the incoming tenant would sell his interest to the highest bidder, and that the incomer would come in heavily mortgaged, and be unable to cultivate the farm to the best advantage. The argument was specious and plausible, and had something to recommend it from a theoretical point of view; but, fortunately, it was not confirmed by experience. Experience showed that on those estates where free sale was most fully granted, where the largest prices were given for tenant right, no such evils resulted. The estate invariably gained by the sale of tenant right in the exchange of a bad tenant for a good one. In the case of Lord Downshire's property, the tenant right was fully admitted; there was no limit to the price of tenant right, and the long practice of the family had given rise to the greatest confidence that rents would never be raised so as to interfere with tenant right. Tenant right there amounted often to £40 per Irish acre, or £25 per English acre—more than the value of the fee. There, at least, they would be likely to see cases of the evil result of over-burdened and mortgaged tenants; but it was not so. The agent for the property said that the rents were rather higher than on properties out of Ulster; the tenants were in a comfortable condition, the land was better cultivated than elsewhere, and there was general content. There was similar evidence from many other properties. In all cases it was admitted that whenever a sale took place a good tenant took the place of a bad one, and the landlord was paid arrears of rent. The supposed evils were purely imaginary. The reason was that full security for improvements attracted capital, and did not repel it. If a tenant on coming into possession had to borrow a part of his capital, he soon saved money by his industry and repaid it. Landlord and tenant were both benefited by the security and by the consequent improvements, and in the long run rents were higher on those estates than elsewhere. He recollected the late Major Dalton, the agent to Lord Headfort's properties in Meath and Cavan, told the Committee of three years ago that on adjoining properties of the same kind tenant right was allowed on the one and averaged 1600 £15 per acre, and was not allowed on the other; that where allowed the rents were higher, and the tenants were more prosperous and content than where it was not allowed. It was certain, then, that to attempt to prevent free sale or tenant right, or to limit the amount of tenant right, was unwise and not in the interest of either landlord or tenant. In fact, security of tenure and free sale had almost the same effect upon production, and industry, and content as a full ownership. Ownership was the highest form of security known to the law; but continuous occupancy, under the Ulster right, with fair rents and free sale, was closely approaching to it, and gave full security to the tenant. He would now say a very few words upon the second part of the Bill, that facilitating occupying ownership. That part carried out in its integrity, with one very slight exception, the Report of his Committee of three years ago, and he need hardly say that it was gratifying to him to observe what general concurrence there was both as to the subject and method of these clauses. He believed that if worked in the spirit of the Act they would prove the most important part of it, and give that stability and support to property which everyone now admitted was so much needed. There was no other country in Europe in the least degree approaching Ireland in the distribution of its property. In every other country it had long ago been recognized that every consideration, economical, political, or social, pointed to the expediency of a wide distribution of landed property, and to fixing the peasantry upon the soil as far as possible. He had on several occasions brought that subject before the House, and would not now repeat what he had said. He would add, however, that every foreign statesman, jurist, or economist, who had over visited or written upon Ireland had pointed to the condition of its land ownership and the absence of proprietary interest of the occupiers of its land as the chief causes of its bad economic condition and its chronic agitation and discontent. Count Cavour, De Tocqueville, De Beaumont, Sismondi, Von Raumer, Kohl, and many others, had written in that sense. The ablest treatise on the condition of Ireland in the present century was that by De Beaumont, the friend of De Tocqueville, who visited it in 1839 1601 and again in 1862. He might quote one short passage from it. He said— So long as the Irish are only tenants, you will see them always miserable and indolent. With what energy do you suppose the poor tenant would be endowed who knows that if he improves his farm his rent will be proportionately increased? And, again— If in Franco the acquisition of the soil has been so great an improvement for the people, of what benefit will it be for the Irish people? It is to be hoped that the day when there will be in Ireland small proprietors the greater part of her miseries will cease. The rich, ceasing to have the monopoly of land, will no longer be subject to the curse of the poor, and the Small owner who protects with his body his field and his cabin will have nothing to fear from attacks of which in Ireland the soil is the object. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), while agreeing in principle to that part of the Bill, had intimated that there might be danger to the State in the Government becoming the mortgagee of so many small properties. There was a danger which he had himself feared; and in the proposal which he had made to the Committee two years ago he had suggested that, if possible, funds for that purpose should be derived from an Irish source. The experience of the purchases under the Church Act had shown that there was not any very great danger in that direction. In circumstances of very great difficulty, the tenants had paid their instalments, and they had passed through a period of distress with greater ease than he should have expected. They must expect that if they had a similar period of distress 10 years hence there would be some difficulty; but they must also recollect that the security of the State was every year increasing. Let it not be supposed that peasant proprietary was the panacea of all the ills of Ireland. He had never put it forward in that way. It was no cure for bad seasons. Small owners, he had no doubt, would suffer greatly in times of depression and famine, though he believed they would emerge sooner from them and would bear them more patiently. It would be no cure for the evils of over-crowding in some of the remote parts of Mayo and Donegal, and he thought the other parts of the measure more suitable for such people at present; but he could not exclude them from the benefit of 1602 the trial. The case of the migratory labourers was a peculiar one, and seemed to him to require special treatment; but he would not now detain the House upon them. The case of other Irish labourers was important. He was glad to see the great interest taken in this subject by hon. Gentlemen opposite; it was somewhat unexpected. He hoped at some future time their case might be dealt with; but at present the Bill was already heavily weighted. They might recollect also that the labourers were closely allied to the small tenant farmers. In many parts of Ireland there was no class of labourers as distinct from the tenants, and the labourers were the sons of the tenants. Whatever they did to improve the condition of the tenants, to give security, to induce improvements, would re-act on the labourers. The passage from the one class to the other was continuous, and the prospect of being able to buy land or to buy a tenancy would be the best and surest promoter of thrift and industry among the labouring people. There were many other questions which had been touched on in the course of this discussion, such as the transfer of land, the Law of Entail, and others; but, however important, they were beyond the scope of the Bill. This Bill was already sufficiently freighted; and if it came into harbour with its present cargo, without any loss from jettison or otherwise, it would be, he believed, fraught with great benefit to Ireland. For his own part, he had not lost his faith in the future of Ireland, or in the generous qualities of its people, or in their respect for right and justice, if all were equally protected. There was much indeed to deplore in the weary cycles of agitations and discontent, and especially in the events of the last two years; but it had seemed to him that these most unfortunate events had their origin in intense suffering caused by agricultural loss, aggravated by a sense of injustice and wrong. If by this Bill they were able to remove that sense of injustice and wrong, it was his belief that under the auspices of better seasons they might look forward at no distant date to the return of prosperity, content, and order in that part of the United Kingdom.

§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY
said, although he believed the Bill to be imperfect in many important points, he would confine himself mainly to the principles 1603 of the Bill which were contested, reserving questions of detail for Committee. He felt bound, however, to remark that the Bill did not give any substantial benefit to tenants who were under eviction for arrears of rent. It gave them some benefit; but it did not sufficiently recognize the case of those who had been suffering from rack-rents, which they had been unable to pay in consequence of distress arising from a succession of bad seasons; and yet he understood that one of the reasons for passing the Bill was the existence of rack-rents. The Government, therefore, could not escape from the necessity of applying strong remedies in this direction. Again, the class of leaseholders deserved as much consideration as the yearly tenants, many of them having been obliged to take a 30 years' lease under threat of eviction, the object of the landlord being to cause the tenant, by virtue of his being a lease-holder, to forfeit the advantages conferred upon the tenants by the Act of 1870. He would now answer some of the objections raised to the Bill on the Opposition side of the House—objections which had been candidly raised, and deserved a candid reply. The first part of the Bill regulating contracts was challenged, on the ground that the State had no right to interfere with the owner in imposing rent; but the Irish landlord had not been in the past the absolute owner of his land in respect to rent. Owing, probably, to the violent manner in which land had been transferred in the past, the people claimed the right of, at least, cultivating the land which had belonged to the tribe at a moderate rent, leaving the tenant a property. Irish landlords had formerly admitted and recognized this custom. They had not used competition, the owner's ordinary standard, as a test of rent. The right to this property, and the injustice of exacting a rack-rent which would destroy it, was shown by the Report of the Bessborough Commission. A tendency had of late years sprung up to violate the custom and destroy the tenant's property by rack-rents. This tendency had been introduced by means of middlemen and subletting, and also through undue competition; and it was very likely that the men who had taken farms over the tenants' heads now turned round and said they would pay no wore, than Griffith's valuation. The Landed Estates Court, too, 1604 had bought in purchasers who violated the old custom of the country, and charged rack-rents. The effect of the Bill would be to restore the custom, and only to prevent the usurpation of a claim on the part of the bad landlord inconsistent with it. They were told that the effect of this measure on the good landlord, who had been faithful to the traditions of his country, and had not rack-rented his tenants, but had left them their property in the soil—that the effect on those landlords would be nil. If they had not rack-rented the Court would not recognize a claim for the reduction of rent; but if they had, if they had destroyed the traditional interest of the tenants in the land, they would be liable to have their rents brought within reasonable limits. It appeared to him that that was a very fallacious statement of the effects of the Bill. It appeared to him that the landlord would always have the power of initiating proceedings in the Court by resisting the tenant's demand for the reduction of rent, because, if a tenant wished to continue in possession after a demand of increased rent, he would be compelled to go into court, and that was equivalent to a right to initiate proceedings in the Land Court. The right of free sale was absolutely essential to a property in the tenant, because without it, if a tenant found himself unable to carry on his business, the landlord, by refusing the right to sell, could annihilate the property. The interpretation which assumed that in measuring the rent the amount to which the tenant would be entitled to compensation should be deducted from a computation of the landlord's interest, seemed to him not borne out by the language of the Bill. It seemed to him that the object of the Bill was to preserve and take into account the property which the tenant had over and above the landlord's interest. The clause was, however, ambiguous, and as unsatisfactory with its present wording to the tenant as to the landlord, and would require explanation and amendment. Free sale properly guarded was absolutely necessary to the tenant; without it a tenant would feel himself always in a state of insecurity, and would be deterred from putting in the land his capital, labour, and skill. A great deal had been said about the increased prospect of litigation under 1605 this Bill; but if a wise and fair tribunal were established, he contended that litigation between landlord and tenant would be diminished rather than increased. With this view, he recommended the introduction into the Court of technical skill and local knowledge. With regard to the establishment of a peasant proprietary, he thought it was necessary, not only for the prosperity of farmers, but for the tranquillity of the country, that everything should be done that in reason could be done to develop a peasant proprietary. The principle of the Bill might well be enlarged without any danger to the taxpayer. The Treasury should receive a larger power of advance to be exercised in each case on its merits, and the time for repayment might also be safely extended. But if universal peasant proprietary were created, the land being divided into many small holdings, absolute free trade in land would be the result. Land would be accumulated in the hands of small capitalists who would develop into landlords, and he feared a class of tenants it would be impossible to protect would spring up, as much at the mercy of small and griping landlords as the Belgian tenants, whose condition was so bad. It would be futile to try and prevent letting. History taught that all attempt to interfere with the ordinary operations dictated by the love of profit were futile. The natural growth of an occupying proprietary would avoid these dangers. Men would learn from the experience of others how far a position of ownership suited them. They would see the benefits and dangers and undoubted responsibilities of proprietorship. They would learn what he supposed was the result of the competition caused by ownership, that proprietorship required more capital, more industry, and, above all, more agricultural skill than tenancy. Meantime tenants would be protected by the first part of the Bill; and while proprietors remained only as a portion of the community of agriculture, it would be easier to impose conditions on their contracts of letting than if there were a universal peasant proprietary immediately created. The emigration clauses could not but be viewed unfavourably by Irish Members, who went to the root of things, and saw that emigration arose from a bad system of Land Laws. But he believed these clauses were, in addi- 1606 tion, unnecessary for any measure, whether of proprietary or tenant right. Giving a right of free sale would, for the present, strengthen the tendency to sell, to consolidate, and to emigrate. These were views which he had arrived at concerning this Bill. He was glad that it stepped in between landlord and tenant, because unless the rent was regulated they would be driven into a general expropriation of the landlords' property. The details of the Bill would require large amendments. Its principles were sound and wise. He hoped they would be adhered to, and fully developed by the House. If they were rejected, he trembled to think what would happen—not only as regarded the landlords' property, but the general peace of the country; but if they were accepted and became the law of the land he believed they would lay the foundation of true prosperity. That prosperity might not grow up in a single night like the gourd of the Prophet; but it would strike deep root, and be steady, permanent, and universal.

§ MR. THOROLD ROGERS
said, that the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) had stated in his Amendment that the Bill, as far as its leading provisions were concerned, was economically unsound. He was afraid he must lie under the censure of that Amendment, because a dozen years ago he expressed his conviction in a Paper he then read, and had since republished, that the granting of fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale was essential to the pacification of Ireland. He felt certain, from an examination of the condition of Ireland, that nothing short of these three concessions would satisfy the legitimate demands of the Irish people, and bring Ireland into a state in which it would cease to be a reproach to the Administration of the United Kingdom. It appeared to him that the view he took a dozen years ago had been singularly justified by the events which had since happened. Certainly great concessions had been made to Ireland since 1869; but they had not touched what was at the bottom of Irish disaffection and of the Irish difficulty—the proper recognition of the right of the tenant to what his own industry had created, and of his place on the soil of the country to which he belonged. He listened the other day with great interest to the speech of the noble Lord 1607 the Member for Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington), who bore his testimony to what the wisdom and justice of a particular family could do in a part of Ireland. The noble Lord told them that on the estate in question rents were punctually paid, and that peace and contentment were general; but that happy state of things might be wrecked if the possessor of the estate determined to make use of the power which his own vices and the law of the land gave him over his tenants. They ought to provide by the operation of the law that persons should not be brought within the range of a system by which the permanent peace and the rights of the people might depend on the will of an individual. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire told the House that the Bill in its main provisions was economically unsound. He wanted to know what was meant by economically unsound. Eminent statesmen often used words in a special sense; and the noble Lord had not strengthened his case by quotations from any writers on political economy, such as Mr. John Stuart Mill, so that he was at a loss to know precisely what was intended. The noble Lord had, indeed, read extracts from the speeches of Judge Longfield; but he did not care much for Judge Longfield's speculations on the Irish Question, knowing that, as a rule, lawyers had but little acquaintance with either history or law. The Report of Mr. Bonamy Price was nothing more than pure assertion. He quite forgot the enormous difficulties in which the people of Ireland were placed, and those which the Government and Parliament had to deal with in order that complete justice might be done. Turning to the actual facts of the case, he contended that the insecurity of the Irish tenant farmer was the cause of most of his difficulties. A man could not be expected to sow without a certainty of being allowed to reap his crop. And, as things were, the position of the Irish occupier was aggravated by the exorbitant raising of rents and by the loss of the value of his improvements. That was the state of things that prevailed in very many parts of Ireland. It was often alleged that the Bill would seriously diminish and injure the property of the landlords; but that he was altogether disposed to deny. Similar fears had been entertained on other occasions, and 1608 particularly at the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws, when the country gentlemen complained that the agricultural interests were ruined, while, in point of fact, the agriculturists had suffered only from the consummate and idiotic folly of the landlords, who were now going about like sturdy beggars asking Parliament to relieve them. However, the present Bill, so far from injuring the landlords of Ireland, would infinitely enhance the value of their property. He ventured to predict that if the proposed changes were effected in Ireland, that disposition to save, which was characteristic of the Irish people, would drive them before long into those branches of manufacturing industry which in former days were destroyed in Ireland by the cupidity and greed of the manufacturers and landowners of this country. A good deal had been said about confiscation; but what did confiscation mean? When the Chancellor of the Exchequer called upon him to pay a tax, that was confiscation. Confiscation was the taxing part of a private man's substance for the National Exchequer. But there was another kind of confiscation, far worse than anything which could be done by any law proposed in that House—namely, the right which the stronger had to appropriate the property of the weaker. That had been done pretty freely in Ireland. He contended that the principle of the Bill was equitable, its essence was arbitration, and its purpose was a final settlement of the question. Much had been said about interference with that three-legged horse freedom of contract; but if they allowed persons to do just as they pleased in their relations with their fellow-subjects, the result would be universal swindling in the whole of society. They had interfered with freedom of contract in various ways, and in proof of this he need only refer to the laws relating to the employment of women and children in factories and the truck system. The noble Lord had told them that the production of this Bill was a yielding to violence and agitation; but it should be remembered that no great reform had been effected in this country without an agitation preceding it. Thus agitation preceded Catholic Emancipation, the reform of the representation, and the repeal of the Corn Laws. There was not a single European community 1609 which had not got rid of its feudal institutions. In 1846 there were as many outrages in Denmark as in Ireland; but a wise statesman arose, who made the Danish peasant proprietor of the soil he cultivated, and Denmark had ever since been a prosperous country. It was a measure of simple justice which the Government now proposed to extend to Ireland. It would be a great thing if they could by any means bring about a state of things in which they could dispense with every policeman and soldier who were now employed to maintain unjust and iniquitous laws; for the cost of all the machinery adopted nominally to maintain peace in Ireland, but really to collect rents, was pretty nearly as much as the value of the whole rents together. It was contemplated that under this Bill those who by their own labour had developed a value in the soil which they occupied should have the satisfaction of feeling that they possessed a property in that soil. The Bill had been described as Communistic. Communism was the sacrifice of the property of the few to the interests of the many; but a greater evil had long existed in Ireland—the sacrifice of the property of the many to the interests of the few—and it was that which the Bill was designed to remedy Ireland ever since the Union had laboured under great social and political disadvantages. At the present time, for instance, she possessed nothing like an intermediate system of education. There were several points in the Bill to which he should object in Committee; but, as far as the principle was concerned, it seemed to him the Government had brought forth a measure which dealt with the relations of landlord and tenant in a manner thoroughly sound. The measure was an attempt to reverse the history of the past of Ireland. It was an attempt to make a new, and he believed a final, treaty of peace between England and Ireland, under which all lawful rights would be respected, all legitimate property secured, and all sound and economic principles vindicated. He did not pretend to say that when this measure of justice was done to the Irish people, and when the sound principles the Bill contained had begun to produce their fruit, all agitation in Ireland would cease. It was too much to expect that after centuries of discontent a nation would at once ac- 1610 quiesce in a settlement; but just as after a volcano had broken forth and rendered the surrounding country like a smoking furnace, for a time there would still be a fire glowing in the cracks, but when years had passed by the place which was the scene of desolation and misery would become a fruitful garden, so he believed it would be in Ireland. And he had no doubt that if he lived long enough to witness the results of the measure he would feel that the best days of his life, and the day on which he looked back with the greatest satisfaction, was that on which he strove in his place in the English Parliament to heal the discontent of centuries, and to do right to the country which had suffered wrong for centuries.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
said, he did not know whether the House looked upon the speech which had just been delivered with as much satisfaction as the author anticipated for himself when looking back to it some years hence. The hon. Member had been Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, and was the author of one or two extremely meritorious books on political economy; and he had therefore expected, when he saw him get up, to hear from him some sound and economic argument in defence of this Bill. Instead of this the hon. Member had treated them to a most extraordinary mixture of historical illustrations, which illustrated nothing, to miscellaneous invective, directed against everybody in general, to almost truculent criticism of every political economist but himself, with the one exception of Mr. Mill, whom he treated with a calm and contemptuous superiority. [Mr. THOROLD ROGERS: I never quoted anybody.] He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) did not accuse the hon. Member of quoting anybody; what he said was that he treated theta to truculent criticism. As he listened to the speech he wondered what the Prime Minister would think of two statements in it. The first was that the Bill included provisions for fair rents, free sale, and fixity of tenure; and the next was as to the right hon. Gentleman's gradual conversion on the subject of Irish land. The right hon. Gentleman had, over and over again, stated that the Bill was not based on the three F's as alleged by his supporters; and as to the conversion, he (Mr. A. J. 1611 Balfour) admitted its existence; but he must altogether deny that it had been gradual, since less than two years ago several Members of the Ministry declared themselves directly opposed to principles which they now embraced. Hon. Members who so triumphantly prophesied the success of this measure appeared altogether to forget that the Liberal Party had made several attempts to settle the Land Question permanently, and that every attempt had been hailed with the same approving chorus. In 1860 there was one final settlement of this question; in 1870 there was another; and now a third final settlement was proposed. Three final settlements in 21 years. He had no doubt if the present Bill passed into law it would be the parent of many future final settlements, introduced with the same hopes and ending with the same disappointments. This was not all. The Liberal Party had boxed the political compass on this question. For the Bill of 1860 was founded on free contract; the Bill of 1881 on Socialistic principles; while the Bill of 1870 was a transition between the two. But even this did not show the full incompetence of the Party opposite to deal with this problem; for it now appeared that by the Bill of 1870, without in the least intending it, they had conferred on the tenants property which properly belonged to the landlord, and they now thought it necessary to legalize deliberately this accidental confiscation, and to enforce those rights by means of the present Bill. With regard to peasant proprietors, although he doubted the economic advantages of the system, he believed it would be politically advantageous on the broad principle that if legislation was to be carried on under mob dictation, it was well in the interests of justice to have a mob on both sides. He did not propose to detain the House further on this question; but he wished to say one word on the subject of free sale. The whole object of the Bill, they had been told, was to counteract the land hunger which existed in Ireland. He wished to ask, when the tenant was allowed to sell his holding for full value, would his successor be rack-rented or not in effect? It was clear that if the operation of competition was allowed to drive up the tenant's interest to its full limit of value, the incoming tenant, between the claims of 1612 the money-lender and those of the landlord, would pay precisely the same rent as if competition had throughout been allowed full play, except that the money would not go into the right pockets. The only possible way in which this result could be avoided was by diminishing, through the operation of the Land Court, the rent paid by the new tenant in consequence of, and having regard to, the excessive price paid for the tenant right. But if that were the alternative adopted by the Government, the Bill was one of undisguised spoliation. Free sale, in short, must end either in rack-renting or in robbery. Then there came the question of fair rents. Even in England it was difficult to settle a fair rent by arbitration. But there was this great difference—that whereas in England there was a fair standard ascertained by competition, in Ireland, after the passing of the Bill, there would be no standard. But that was not all. What the Bill was really attempting was to fix the standard of living for Irish labourers. A large proportion of the farmers were really in the position of labourers. To fix their rents was really equivalent to fixing the amount of wages they were to receive. In parts of Ireland the tenants had no capital, and any law regulating the rents they paid was really a law regulating wages. The Bill was therefore Socialistic in its character. Socialistic schemes were always directed to redressing by Government interference the evils, or supposed evils, in regard to the distribution of wealth which flowed from unrestricted competition. From that point of view the Bill was clearly a step in the direction of Socialism. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had remarked that they did interfere between the employer of labour and the artizan, because they had a Poor Law; but he could hardly have been serious in maintaining that there was any analogy between the operation of the Poor Law and the operation of the proposed Land Court. Almost all the arguments of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) were based on the supposition that it was impossible to give the tenant the value of his improvements unless they passed this Bill; but that proposition he altogether denied. Nobody wanted the tenant to lose his improvements; there were provisions in the Bill altogether distinct from those 1613 he had been criticizing which would secure the improvements he had made; and there was no necessity for them to choose between swallowing the whole Bill brought in by the Government and allowing the tenant to be deprived of that which his labour had produced. He did not believe they were bound to find a complete remedy for the state of Ireland. They would not think the more highly of a physician because he professed to cure all diseases; and a politician was not a great statesman because he conceived that by one Bill he could provide a remedy for ills so deep seated and of such long standing as those of Ireland. They were not to be cured by months of well-meaning administrative weakness, followed by a Coercion Act of unexampled severity, followed again by wild legislation of this kind. It was only slow improvement that could be permanent. He was not prepared with any other legislation; but he could not on that account give his adhesion to this. It was to be condemned, not only because it taught the lesson too often taught before that agitation would produce legislation, but also because it must fail in its intended object. It could not relieve the tenant from the rack-renting which was produced by competition; it introduced principles which no other Government had been bold enough to adopt, and which, he feared, might be applied to other countries than Ireland, and to other industries than agriculture; and for these reasons, if the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) persisted in his Amendment, he should support him; if not, he should vote for the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners).

§ MR. P. J. SMYTH
said, he had listened with pleasure to the temperate speech of the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), and all the more so because it was such a marked contrast to other speeches made from the same side of the House, except that of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy). It was an unfortunate circumstance that a purely social question, the relation of landlord and tenant, upon the satisfactory settlement of which the very existence of a nation depended, should assume in that House, at that early stage, a Party character. A 1614 Party triumph on such a question could be achieved only at the sacrifice of a nation's life. Ireland, without distinction of Party, appealed to the House for peace, and the most thorough partizanship might well shrink from the responsibility of making her wasted fields the theatre of Party conflict. It was scarcely justifiable in the circumstances of Ireland to meet a Bill of this character, framed, as it obviously was, in a spirit of justice and conciliation, with obstructive criticism, unless such criticism were accompanied by proposals better calculated to accomplish the object which all Parties in the House should have in view—the peace and prosperity of Ireland. Where were these proposals? Where were these grand schemes for the development of the resources of Ireland? Elcho answered, where? He looked on this Bill as a great measure of justice; he believed it to be entitled to the support of every hon. Member on either side of the House claiming to be a friend of Ireland. It stood alone, the first great Government measure ever submitted to this House which breathed throughout the spirit, not merely of abstract justice, but of Irish right. The Catholic Emancipation Act was marred by the abolition of the 40s. freeholders, and by the penal clauses against the religious orders. The Encumbered Estates Act took no note of Irish sentiments, traditions, and habits, and failed, in consequence, to realize the wise purpose of its authors. The Land Act of 1870, framed with the best intentions, put English contract in place of Irish custom, and hence the necessity for new legislation; but here was a Bill which, excepting particular details, a Grattan or a Flood might have presented to an Irish Parliament. ["Oh!"] He was speaking on the second reading, and he spoke not of details but of principles, and especially of the recognition of the unquestionable fact that the Irish tenant had co-property in the soil, and that he held it by tradition, by immemorial usage, and by force of sentiment as ineradicable as it was natural and laudable. Tenant right existed in every country in Europe formerly embraced by the feudal system; if it was to be found now only in certain counties in Ulster, the fact was to be accounted for by the wars and confiscations of the past. Ulster was the last part of Ireland brought under British dominion, and was, therefore, 1615 the last to alter tribal customs for feudal tenure. Another reason for its existence in Ulster was given by a witness in the Devon Commission—"Because," he said, "the people of that Province were Protestants, and had arms in their hands." The truth of the matter, as far as the Ulster Custom was concerned, was that it was a national and not a local custom, and this was the secret of the desperate tenacity with which the Irish tenant clung to his holding, and to which, even in exile, he dreamed of his return. Who that had seen the Irish exile as he had—by some river of the Great West on a festal day of his native land, pause in his task at noon and in fancy listen to the chimes of the Sabbath bells of home—who that had seen him, as he had, look up at midnight into the wondrous sky of the Southern hemisphere guessing which one of those bright orbs was then shedding its beams through his cabin door just by the wild wood, could fail to realize how vain the attempt to oppose to a rooted belief and a pious sentiment the cold precepts of a ducal philosophy? On one occasion an Irishman in the wilds of Australia showed him a sod of turf which he had carried with him from Ireland. In the spirit of a utilitarian, he asked why he had carried the turf with him from the other side of the world? He said that he meant it to be put into his coffin if he died away from his native land. There was more philosophy and feeling in that saying than in the essays of those Gentlemen who would fain have them believe that what was not contract was confiscation. They had heard a great deal about the rights of property, and he would yield to no one in his respect for the rights of property. They were based upon reason and common sense; but the rights of property and the rights of landlords, so far from standing on the same footing, wore too often directly opposed to each other. The rights of property promote production; the rights of landlords too often impede it. The very reasons that should induce them to respect the one would lead them to limit and regulate the other. When representatives of the landed interests, both here and elsewhere, spoke of the rights of property in connection with this Bill, he wondered did they forget the several Acts of Parliament that had been passed since 1800 in favour of the landlord and against the 1616 tenant, in support of the landlords' right and to the injury of the tenants. In his view, if all those Acts had been repealed 12 years ago, and the ancient Common Law of England, in regard to the tenure of land, restored, the tenants would have been vastly benefited, and the rights of property would have been safer than they now were. The "three F's" were one and indivisible. Accepting one, they necessarily accepted the three; accepting free sale, they accepted permanence of tenure and fair rent, without which there could be no interest and no sale. On some of the best managed estates in Ireland that principle had long been acted upon; and if it was universal the rights of property would not have been injured, and landlord, person, and property would have been much more respected than they now were. As a class, with a few noble exceptions, the Irish landlords, since the year 1800, had not deserved well of their country, and the result had been a miserable warfare protracted through generations; it had been class against class, rich against poor, and both against the law. The machinery proposed by the Bill had been harshly and prematurely criticized, and he must express his opinion that it was fully adequate to give effect to all the principles involved in the Bill. The moral effect upon both landlords and tenants of the existence of a strong Land Court would be such that, after a little time, the intervention of the Court would not, except in rare instances, be sought. Landlord and tenant would learn to settle their differences amicably, and the principle of contract, for the first time free and unfettered, would assume its rightful sway. The portion of the Bill relating to a peasant proprietary met with universal approval. Believing that, under proper conditions, Ireland could support double her present population, he was no advocate for emigration. He thought reclamation ought to have a fair trial before emigration was resorted to. He admitted that there were omissions from the Bill—particularly in regard to absentees, and corporate bodies, and the labourers—but these could be remedied in Committee. He would not further detain the House, because he felt that this Bill should not only pass, but that it should pass speedily; while its defeat would be an irreparable disaster. Every day's delay in its passing 1617 would detract from its value. A great political architect had traced for them the lines and laid deep for them the foundations of a glorious temple of national concord and union. It was for them, with willing hands, to raise its massive walls high into the air, and to surmount the whole with a mighty dome, beneath whose shadow Irishmen of all classes might rest, oblivious of the past sorrows and hopeful of the future splendour of their common country.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Lord John Manners).

§ MR. PARNELL
I am sorry to have to introduce a discordant note into the proceedings of this evening; but the fault is not mine. I have just learned that the Government have arrested my hon. Friend (Mr. Dillon), the Colleague of the hon. Member who has last addressed the House (Mr. P. J. Smyth); and I cannot help thinking that it presents a very strange irony that while one hon. Member for Tipperary is extolling Her Majesty's Government, the other Member for Tipperary is an inmate of a prison cell. I regret that Her Majesty's Government should have interfered with the Constitutional rights of my hon. Friend when he was on his way to this House. [Cries of "Oh!"]

§ MR. SPEAKER
I have to point out to the hon. Member that the question before the House is the second reading of the Irish Land Bill; and on the Motion for the adjournment of the debate no observations can be made by the hon. Member which are not relevant to that Bill.

§ MR. PARNELL
I propose, Sir, with your permission, to move that the House do now adjourn.

§ MR. SPEAKER
It is not competent for the hon. Member to make that Motion at the present time. The Question before the House is the adjournment of the debate, and it is necessary that the House should settle that question. Until it is disposed of the Motion of the hon. Member cannot be made.

§ MR. PARNELL
Of course, I have to apologize to you since you rule me out of Order, and say that I am not entitled to move the adjournment of the House. But I understand that there are precedents for the course I proposed to take, and that I should be in Order 1618 in moving the adjournment of the House, even on the Motion for the adjournment of the debate.

§ MR. SPEAKER
In any case, the hon. Member could not make any remarks except such as might be relevant to the Bill before the House.

§ MR. CALLAN
I rise to Order. May I ask if the hon. Member would be in Order in making the remarks he proposes to make when the Motion is made, on the next Question, that you do leave the Chair?

§ MR. SPEAKER
Any observations made by the hon. Member, even then, must be relevant to the Question before the House. But I am bound to say this—that if the hon. Member wishes to make any observations on any other subject, I think he would be in Order in making them when the Motion is made at the termination of the Business before the House for the adjournment of the House.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 263; Noes 34: Majority 229.—(Div. List, No. 190.)
Debate adjourned till Thursday.