§ MR. P. SCROPEbegged to notice the report of Captain Kennedy, the inspector, respecting the Kilrush union; in which he said that within the last twelve months 15,000 persons had been driven from their houses by this horrid system of wholesale eviction, and that 1,200 more were in process of eviction; the result being the crowding together of several families into a single room, where death diminished their number in the course of a few weeks. Considering that the Government were in some degree responsible for the lives of the people, and seeing that the Eviction Act of last year had been almost wholly inoperative, he wished to be informed whether they would not feel it to be incumbent on them to introduce some measure to strengthen that law with a view to put an end to evictions which were a disgrace to this country in the eyes of Europe.
§ MR. J. O'CONNELLbegged to observe that his hon. Friend had understated the case, for not only had the 15,000 persons been evicted, but the 1,200 also. There was no future tense in the matter: it was already a fait accompli. He therefore hoped the House and the Government were prepared to take some step to save the people of Ireland from such unheard-of cruelties, and the nation from the stain of sanctioning them.
§ SIR G. GREYwas not surprised that the evictions which had taken place in the Kilrush union should have attracted the attention of the hon. Member for Stroud. When, however, the hon. Member said that the Act of last Session was inoperative, he should remember that it was not passed to prevent evictions in cases of breach of engagement or nonpayment of rent, but to check illegal evictions, and to 1287 mitigate the cruelty which had in that respect been practised previously to the passing of the Act. That Act provided that notice should be given of intended ejectments, and provided temporary shelter to evicted persons. If houses had been pulled down whilst the parties were in them, for such a violation of the law there was certainly a remedy provided. He could not see how the Government could prevent ejectments by legal process. He regretted what had taken place in Kilrush; but he believed that the only remedy was to be found in the lands passing into the hands of persons capable of giving employment to the people, of maintaining themselves, and paying rent for their lands. He would not say that the papers laid on the table of the House might not call for further interference, but the subject was one of great difficulty. He might state, however, that the Government were in possession of a return of all the evictions which had taken place; and if his hon. Friend chose to move for a return of the names of the proprietor, tenant, and family, in such cases, it should be produced.
§ SIR R. PEELI am quite aware of the difficulty of applying any legal remedy in these eases, but I think it is possible that the expressions of indignation on the part of the House of Commons may have some effect in checking the exercise of the power of legal ejectment. I must say, I do not think that the records of any country, civil or barbarous, present materials for such a picture as is set forth in the statement of Captain Kennedy. I presume that statement is correct, contained, as it is, in a public and official document, presented by the Executive Government by order of the Crown, for the consideration and guidance of Parliament in their proceedings, and emanating from a gentleman, an officer, I believe, in Her Majesty's service. That statement, therefore, I presume to be of unquestionable veracity. Captain Kennedy says, that in one union, at the time of the famine, and in one year, 15,000 persons had been driven from their homes; and he states that after the exercise of that power in one year, it would hardly be credited that within the last month there have been 1,200 additional cases. He then proceeds to give individual instances, and, in showing the consequences of these evictions, mentions three facts. And three such tragical instances I do not believe were ever presented 1288 either in point of fact, or as conjured up even in the imagination of any human being. He states that he personally saw this dreadful state of things. He went into a wretched house (I forget whether it had a roof or not), which had been taken possession of by a father, a mother, and two children. The father was lying dead; the woman was in a hopeless state of dysentery and about to die; and the two children were lying fast asleep on the corpse of their father. He next mentions the case of a woman suffering from dysentery, and states that the smell of dung in the wretched hovel she inhabited was so offensive, that it could scarcely he approached. The third case he mentions is that of a man employed in breaking stones. He saw that man suddenly seize on the remnant of a pair of shoes, and run across a heath. He followed the direction the man took, and saw a fire blazing. On making inquiry as to the cause of it, he was told that upon the man being driven from his home, he had occupied a still more wretched hovel of his own construction, and that it was his last place in which he had sought shelter that had been set fire to, in order to get rid of him. Such are the three facts which Captain Kennedy relates. I do not know whether the law can provide a remedy, but the mention of such facts may have some effect in checking these evictions, more especially if it is known that the recitals are heard with an expression of the deepest abhorrence by the House of Commons.
§ MR. J. REYNOLDSobserved, that it would be difficult to exaggerate the evils of the present system of ejectment in Ireland. By a return dated the 19th of February, 1849, of the number of ejectments in the Courts of Queen's Bench and Exchequer in Ireland, in the three years from Hilary Term 1846, to Hilary Term 1849, both inclusive, the following ejectments took place;—
| No. of Actions of Ejectments. | No. of Persons Evicted. | |
| 1846 | 4,671 | 19,864 |
| 1847 | 10,857 | 51,233 |
| 1848 | 16,385 | 68,456 |
| 1849 (the first quarter) | 4,707 | 19,771 |
§ So it appeared that during the three years there were 160,000 persons ejected for nonpayment of rent, or for overholding. In such a state of things how was it possible that the country could be peaceable or tranquil?
1289§ COLONEL DUNNE, as an Irish landlord, expressed his abhorrence of these ejectments, which were as injudicious as they were cruel. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would institute an inquiry as to the names of the gentlemen who authorised those ejectments.
§ MR. STAFFORDcould not but think there was one set of persons to whom the attention of the House had not been directed in reference to this subject. The county in which these scandalous occurrences took place was one where the famine had been very severe, and where the system of public works had been in the fullest operation. All the evils with which it pleased Heaven to visit Ireland, and which had been aggravated by the benevolent intentions but mischievous legislation of the House, had been there concentrated. It was one thing for a landlord with a competence, and another for a man who was engaged with his tenants in a struggle for life, to perpetrate such cruelty. There were districts in Ireland where there were landlords with whom it was not a question of the comforts, luxuries, or even decencies of life, but who were absolutely deprived of animal food, and depended for support solely on Indian corn. The law wisely compelled landlords to pay rates for tenants whose rents were under 4l. But landlords, whose property in consequence became liable to heavy rates on account of tenants who did not pay their rents, found themselves in a worse condition than if they had had no estates at all. He stated these circumstances, not in excuse, but in extenuation of their faults. At the instigation of the hon. Member for Stroud, the Government had introduced a measure which required that not less than forty eight hours' notice should be given before a tenant was removed; but the Act omitted to fix a maximum period of giving notice, so that those landlords who desired to effect wholesale evictions would give one week's, one month's, or it might be six months' notice; and the notices under those circumstances became a dead letter altogether. When, two years ago, he and his friends warned the House and the Government of what would come to pass, told them they were putting temptations in the way of the landlords stronger than human nature could bear, and urged them, by diminishing the area of taxation, to make it the interest of a landlord to improve his estates rather 1290 than eject his tenantry, they refused to listen, and discredited the predictions then made. And when 15,000 people had been put out of their holdings in that country, where electoral divisions were five times the size of English parishes, and where the contest between two landlords was too often which should quarter his tenantry on the other, that House must share the blame with the landlords, and remember that by their legislation they had exposed those men to temptations too strong for human nature to bear. Though a commission had been issued to deal with the question of the area of taxation, they must take care that they did not continue the evil they professed to remove. They would belie their expressions of sympathy for the unfortunate people in Ireland if they persevered in the course they had hitherto taken, and were only driven to reduce the area of taxation, when they reduced it practically, in vain, because too late and too reluctantly.
§ MR. E. B. ROCHEsaid, that the hon. Member for Northamptonshire had waxed very eloquent on the temptations to which he alleged that the legislation of that House had exposed the rich. When the hon. Member referred to the present horrible state of matters in Ireland, he rather stretched a point in attributing it to the want of a townland area of taxation. The House and the country were much obliged to the right hon. Baronet for the sympathy he had just expressed for the unfortunate people who had been evicted, but landlords must take proceedings to protect their families from destitution. He believed that much of the suffering under which Ireland now laboured, was owing to the poor-law, which had disheartened and driven out of the country those proprietors who would otherwise have found employment for the labouring poor. At present Ireland had a surplus population. There were four times the number of labouring poor in Ireland that there were in England. It was therefore necessary to have the colonisation principle resorted to, and the industrial resources called into action. Why not encourage railways? He rose principally to say, it was not by townland rating or a different system of poor-laws that the existing evils of Ireland were to be cured, but by the development of her industrial resources.
§ MR. H. HERBERTremarked, that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, had affirmed that the question which was 1291 now before the House had never been fairly met. He feared that if it had not been fairly met, the circumstance was more owing to the hon. Gentleman's absence from the House, than from any other cause. If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place as often as others, both on his own side of the House, and on that which was opposed to it, he (Mr. Herbert) believed that he would have found no reasonable cause of complaint of inattention to Irish interests. He was ashamed to say, whenever Irish questions were before the House, Irish Members were among the last to take a practical interest in them.
MR. GEATTANsaid, the simple question was this, that by the legislation of that House they had ruined Ireland. This was an answer to the right hon. Baronet's speech. The bad laws of England had made the Irish people bad. One class of the Irish people at this moment looked just as if they had come out of their graves, the other just as if they were going into them. He hoped hon. Gentlemen would consent to throw over the 4l. clause, and to abolish the Gregory clause. The Incumbered Estates Bill was intended as a remedial measure, but it would effect no good. Landlords with 3,000l, 4,00l, or 5,000l a year, were without the means of raising one shilling of rent. What did Government mean to do with the island? He was quite at a loss to understand. What was the use of sending agricultural lecturers into Ireland, where a man could only got 20s. a barrel for his flour, and nothing for his cattle? It was idle to think that the Bill before the House would afford relief. It was said the landlords ought to give the people employment. How could they do that when they could get no rents? He would not trouble the House further: the case was hopeless. He was not hostile to British connexion, but he was hostile to British legislation. The Duke of Buckingham had ruined the county of Longford. The Irish poor came over to this country to look for work, and they went back to Ireland in rags. When asked what success they had, they replied, they had gone to Birmingham and Manchester to get work, but had been sent back to Ireland by the authorities there. This was the charity of the hon. Member for Manchester: that was the Bright humanity. They took away the absentee rents, and that was the cause of much of the distress and want that abounded. It was all nonsense; the people could not live 1292 on the rate in aid. He told the House over and over again, when the Irish poor-law was passing, that it would be the ruin of Ireland. Mr. O'Connell said, if they passed that Bill, they might go all round Ireland, and write upon every house in it the words "poorhouse." That had actually been verified. It was Irish poverty that was supporting Irish population. The House passed the law, and then they followed it up by driving away all the honourable and high-spirited men from the country; and now they had nothing left but famine and fever. He would tell his hon. Friends there was a danger coming they did not contemplate. It was idle to talk about the landlords of Ireland not having done their duty. The English landlords had not done their duty to the Irish people. Let them strike at the root of the evil, and employ their 40,000 soldiers to drive back the absentee landlords. They would not much longer recruit their Army with Irishmen. Government ought to be on their knees at the bar of that House to answer for their misdeeds towards Ireland. There was nothing now but famine and fever in Ireland. He had run away from the country, being unable to bear the exhibition of misery and poverty which he witnessed. He had ordered his dinner to be given to the poor instead of eating it himself. Mr. O'Brien was wrong; he began too soon. Had he waited, there would have been a real insurrection, which would have exploded and shaken the very curtains of Her Majesty's bed in the dead of night. Their houses had been turned into hospitals; and in the south of Ireland there were landlords who not only had not a shilling, but who were restricted with the ladies of their families to 21b. of meat in the week. Other nations were crying out against this country for what was occurring in Ireland, and allusion had been made to the subject in the Assembly of France. Men were quitting Ireland for America with sentiments of hostility towards the British Government. A man who held land of him at 25s. an acre said to him, as his landlord, "Let me go to the land of liberty. Let me no more see the titheman and the taxman." He prayed to the God of mercy that he might be pleased to instil into the mind of this Legislature some plan by which his country might be saved from ruin, and Great Britain itself from ultimate danger.
§ MR. LAWLESShoped this discussion would not fail in bearing the best of fruits. 1293 It appeared to be thought that evictions dated their origin at the same period as the Irish poor-law; but he must say, that as far hack as he could carry his memory, he recollected hearing occasionally of their occurrence, and that was long before the passing of the poor-law. His principal object in rising was to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland a question with respect to two circulars, issued in the course of last year by the Irish Poor Law Commissioners to the hoards of guardians throughout Ireland. The first circular explained the interpretation of the clause of the Act with respect to the allowance of relief to tenants giving up all their land with the exception of one quarter of an acre with a house upon it; and the second circular related to the construction of the clause with reference to administering relief to destitute families retaining their holdings. He now wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it had been necessary to alter these instructions to the hoards of guardians?
§ SIR W. SOMERVILLEunderstood the hon. Gentleman's question to he, whether or not the Commissioners had had reason to change the instructions given in these circulars. He had only to reply, that the circulars had been issued after consulting the most eminent counsel—the Attorney General of Ireland and others; and he had never heard that there had been any ground for considering them to he inconsistent with the law.
§ MR. SLANEYthought hon. Gentlemen who ascribed the calamities of Ireland to the legislation of that House, ought to hear in mind that a great proportion of them were owing to a dispensation of Providence. A country where the land was so minutely divided and subdivided as was the case in Ireland, could not be expected to pass through the transition to a hotter state of culture under larger holdings without much individual suffering; and when the failure of the potato crop was superadded, he thought he had said enough to account for the present evils of Ireland. He wished to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland. At the present moment, notwithstanding the many previous advances and subscriptions made for the relief of Irish distress, he still believed that many persons in England would be willing to make a further effort to assist Ireland in her present extreme distress, if it were only known that there was in existence some regularly authorised body, 1294 constituted of trustworthy and discreet individuals, into whose hands the subscriptions might he paid. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman if any such body already existed?
§ MR. SCULLYwould undertake to answer that question for the right hon. Gentleman. A very excellent committee was at present sitting in Dublin, called the General Relief Committee of Ireland, of which the Marquess of Kildare was the president, and he was sure these gentlemen would be very glad to receive the subscriptions of the charitably disposed in every quarter. Turning to the subject more immediately before the House, he believed that the middlemen in Ireland had caused much of the evil of ejectments, and regretted that that class had had so much to do with estates in Ireland. If the hoards of guardians had neglected their duty towards the unfortunate, still the Government was not on that account absolved from the obligation not to suffer the evicted families to perish. On the property of Lord Stanley in Ireland, there were eighty-nine families; and the middleman had allowed the arrears to accumulate to such an extent that it was found the people could not help themselves. The noble Lord had the people sent to Limerick, that they might be conveyed to America; and having seen that they were comfortably provided for, sent them 1l. per head to support them until they could find employment on landing. That was an example which it would be well for other proprietors to imitate. With regard to the evictions, the present law could not prevent the people from perishing on the roads; but let them first narrow the area of taxation, not for a townland rating, but to a moderate area, and then fix the chargeability of the tenants on the landlords, and if evictions were afterwards persevered in, it would be at the proprietor's own risk. That would be calculated to remedy the evil, for it was on the large areas that the evictions had taken place, the landlord evicting being able to shift the burden from his own shoulders. As to the allegation that the persons evicted belonged to the class of rogues and vagabonds, he could only say that his own experience went to show the contrary, and he considered that these unfortunate people had been grossly libelled.
MR. DRUMMONDconsidered, that if anybody had acted wrongly in this matter, the law must take its course; that 1295 was the proper remedy in these cases, and he did not see why particular cases ought to be brought before that House at all, when men's minds were excited. Private character ought not to be attacked in the way it had been.
§ Subject dropped.