HC Deb 15 May 1860 vol 158 cc1325-46

Order for Second Reading read; Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

SIR JOHN WALSH

said, that pursuant to notice, he rose to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The Bill reminded him of a certain personage, who was said to be like— Three single gentlemen rolled into one; for it dealt with three separate subjects rolled into one. At that period of the Session, that was an exceedingly convenient mode for the Government to deal with business which seemed likely to overwhelm them. Nothing could be more easy than in that way to despatch a number of subjects which had no necessary or intimate relation to each other. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) had, in the Bill under consideration, embodied three distinct principles, three distinct sets of details, and three very complicated pieces of machinery, dealing with different interests and different persons. The first branch of the Bill had for its object to enable the limited owner of an estate to charge the inheritance with a terminable annuity, terminating at the expiration of twenty-five years, for the purpose of raising money, to be applied to the improvement of the land. To a principle of that sort, which was a wise and healthy one, he (Sir john Walsh) could have no objection; for under its operation, the settlement of an estate could no longer operate as a bar to its improvement; but when he came to look at the details of the measure, several strong objections presented themselves to his mind. He might also observe that as a difficulty arose from the conglomeration of Bills in the measure, as he objected to the details of some, but to the principles of others. Amongst the first of his objections to this special legislation was that it did not deal with the relation between landlord and tenant, properly so called, at all, but it dealt with the law of real property itself. Why, then, should it be confined to Ireland? There could be no reason why Ireland should be made the subject of exceptional legislation of this kind, regarding the relations between the limited owner and the owner of an inheritance. But he found that this legislation bad already been, to a great degree, applied to England. The Attorney General for England introduced a measure which passed in 1856, called the Leases and Sales of Settled Estates Act, and which provided for nearly all the cases that were, by the present Bill, the subject of special legislation; and this same Act of 1856 had been extended to Ireland, and was actually now in operation in both countries. It dealt safely, prudently, cautiously, and, as he was informed, effectually, with the relations existing between the limited owner and the owner of a subsequent estate of inheritance. If it were necessary to make any alterations or amendments in that Act, let them he made, but in the presence of such an Act, where was the necessity of this part of the Bill? Why not have the same law in this respect for both countries? But the right hon. Gentleman introduced this measure on the ground of the necessity, as he said, of special legislation for Ireland. He objected, also, to the machinery by which the measure was to be carried out. The relations of the limited owners and the owners of the inheritance were of a very delicate character, and required, when touched at all, to be administered by high and competent authorities. But the whole of the machinery of the Bill which dealt with these delicate relations was made to turn on the Chairman of Quarter Sessions in Ireland. He was to be the agent for carrying the Bill into effect. Members connected with England did not, perhaps, understand the exact position of a Chairman of Quarter Sessions in Ireland. He was a very different person from the Chairman of Quarter Sessions in England. In Ireland he was a stipendiary officer of the Government, and exercised not the very highest judicial functions. He did not wish to say a word in disparagement of the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions in Ireland. They were members of a liberal profession; they had many able men in their ranks; but every scale had two ends, and it so happened that the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief justice were at one end of the judicial scale in Ireland, and the Chairman of Quarter Sessions at the other. He was alarmed at the idea of giving such excessive powers as this Bill proposed over the whole landed property in Ireland to judicial functionaries, not holding the very highest position in that country; and they were to exercise their powers without appeal; so that they would, in fact, be irresponsible for their decisions. The principle of Sic volo, sic jubeo—stet proratione voluntas, would be their rule; and after their decisions were pronounced, it would be impossible to reverse them. In the second portion of the Bill, which dealt with the powers of limited owners, it was provided that the limited owner might grant leases for twenty-one years, and improvement leases for forty years. This was a power attended with great danger. So long as he kept steadily in view the ultimate interest of the owner of the inheritance, the matter was safe; and he (Sir john Walsh) would not, of course, depart from the principles of equity or justice. But the House ought to recollect that the Bill was dealing with the interests of those who were inadequately able to protect their own interests. No doubt the Bill made ample provision for notices which were to be served in various ways, according to circumstances. If the party concerned were a minor, the guardian or trustee was to be served. Every legal requirement was embodied in the Bill. But they all knew how difficult it was by those notices to guard the interests of persons who were absent, or perhaps not then in existence. They knew how careless and indifferent guardians or trustees were sometimes to the interests of minors. Perhaps the minor might be a young soldier fighting battles in China, or a midshipman engaged in the Pacific Ocean. How was such a person to be guarded against fraud by the empty formality of legal notices? These improvement leases might be worked by a limited owner greatly to his own advantage, and to the injury of the owner of the inheritance, through the trickery and chicanery that this Bill would enable him to employ. A lease for forty-one years in Ireland was a very marketable commodity. There were plenty of people who would pay a large fine for such a lease; and numbers who would be glad to give a considerable sum of ready money to possess it. He might be told there were clauses in the Bill that prohibited any fine from being taken; but how were these stipulations to be enforced, when the person most interested in enforcing them was not present? Suppose a limited owner endeavoured, with this forty-one years' lease, to deal with a tenant who was willing to make an engagement by which he might possess himself of the farm, at a very low rent. They would look at the improvement clause and see what improvements were necessary. The clause said "these improvements, or any of them;" and there might be six or seven, would qualify the tenant to receive an improvement lease, and would justify the Chairman of Quarter Sessions in giving his sanction to the grant of a lease by the limited owner to the tenant. Suppose the improvement was held to be the removal of stones from the fields, and let the House imagine, for the sake of the argument, that there were some boulder stones among them. That was an improvement that would justify the Chairman of Quarter Sessions in sanctioning this forty-one years' lease at a low rent; and this arrangement would be facilitated by a sum of money which the limited owner might quietly receive. The House could at least imagine a reckless spendthrift or involved landlord who might have the power, through this Bill and its machinery, of defrauding the owner of the inheritance, the latter of whom might come some twenty years afterwards into the possession of a barren estate. He always entertained great objection to very long leases in Ireland. It was the fashion to object to the customary yearly tenure in that country. Forty years ago very long leases were as general as year by-year tenure in the present day. He believed that three-fourths of the distresses, the agricultural difficulties, and the evils which bad afflicted Ireland, but which were now passing away, were owing to that very system of long leases. To that practice might be attributed the subdivisions, the subletting, the divorce, and separation of the head landlords from his tenants. Regarding, then, these long leases as the curse of Ireland, he looked upon the proposal for their renewal contained in the Bill with jealousy and suspicion. If they looked to Scotland they would find none of these long leases in those parts of the country where the greatest agricultural improvements had been effected. The common tenure of laud in Scotland was a twenty-one years' lease, under which large tracts of country bad been reclaimed within a very recent period. But in the midst of the most flourishing agriculture the traveller saw now and then patches of six or eight acres not yet reclaimed. These were precisely the pieces of land that the tenant had not been able to get at, through some long existing lease or other obstacle to possession. By the present Bill the sole protection to the owner was the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and a most imperfect protection he was, as he could not be supposed to scrutinize all the improvements narrowly. Another defect in rendering the Quarter Sessions and the chairman the entire agency for carrying out this Bill was, that as the court was not one of the highest practice, the best legal practitioners did not usually resort to it. If the provisions of the Bill relative to leasing powers, which he had thus felt bound to condemn as the great blot of the measure, were passed at all, they would require considerable modifications. He now approached another portion of the Bill, which might properly be said to refer to tenant right. He did not know whether hon. Gentlemen near him would receive it as such, or whether it would fulfil their expectations, but he supposed it was the mode in which the Government proposed to deal with this much- vexed and difficult question. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) in opening this question to the House naturally began with the Devon Commission. It was the text-book of every one who was not practically acquainted with Ireland. He did not admit in an unqualified manner the authority of the Devon Commission, He did not wish to disparage the labours of the eminent men who were engaged in it; but that Commission was really an advertisement for grievances. The Commissioners went round the country to collect evidence, and those who were discontented made their complaints known, while those who were contented stayed at home and said nothing. The Devon Commission always seemed to him like a bad photograph, in which all the prominent features were enlarged and all the best parts were thrown into shade. It gave a very exaggerated likeness of Ireland, even in the depressed and calamitous state in which the country then was, when on the eve of a tremendous social convulsion. The Devon Commission described the state of things immediately previous to the famine. He believed that about sixteen years had elapsed, but above one hundred years had passed if they measured Ireland by what it was now and what it was then. The country was altogether changed. Great improvements had been effected, and the remedies which were then applicable were not so now. The Devon Commission gave a very long, and in many respects an exceedingly able, catalogue of remedial measures. The majority had already been adopted, and of the small remnant which the Report indicated was the question of tenant right. That question had been brought forward in many different shapes, and had been constantly rejected as contrary to sound sense, as contrary to the feelings of equity of the British people, and as contrary to those principles of policy and justice which had always led them to the conclusion that the relations between landlord and tenant were better left to the free agency of landlords and tenants themselves. All attempts to interfere with the natural free action of men were false and faulty in principle. He was sure that the right hon. Gentleman, who was so distinguished a disciple of the principles of free trade, would acknowledge that he was correct, and that a departure from those principles could only be justified upon very strong and exceptional grounds, But he said that if those ex- ceptional grounds ever existed in Ireland they did not exist now, and that the state of things was such that there was no difficulty whatever in landlord and tenant dealing with each each other as landlord and tenant did in England. Many of the evils which formerly existed arose from subletting, and he believed that sublet-tings were gradually disappearing. Except where some old lease subsisted the relations between the landlord and the occupying tenant were now direct, and it was the general desire of landlords in Ireland to establish that rule. Hon. Gentlemen who represented Irish constituencies were exceedingly anxious to persuade the House that the people were not happy and not progressing, and that all ideas of improvement were illusory. An hon. and learned Gentleman, who had a Bill upon this subject, took the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to task for having spoken of the increase of horned cattle as a test of prosperity, and quoted statistics to show that the cereal acreage had diminished. [Mr. HENNESSY: Hear, hear!] He had great respect for the hon. and learned Gentleman, as a young Member of great promise; and distinguished talents; but as far as he could see, the bent of the Gentleman's genius was not bucolic. In dealing with facts and statistics he did not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman exactly understood whore they would lead him. The number of acres under wheat cultivation was not a test of progress. A better test was the number of quarters per acre which the land produced. There might be too much cultivation. Bad farmers sometimes grew too many corn crops and impoverished the land. Although it was quite possible that the number of acres under corn cultivation might be less in Ireland now than ten or twelve years ago, he was quite certain that the agricultural improvement in that country had been most marked and most decisive. These horned cattle, which were the bugbears of the hon. Gentleman's imagination, really were great fertilizers. If they wished to have good corn crops, it was necessary to have stock on the land, and therefore the increase of horned cattle was rather a proof of the increased fertility of the soil. It might be that crops of turnips and clover had taken the place of corn crops, but there was no doubt of the fact that the improvement in the agriculture of Ireland was wonderful. It was now the agriculture of the farmer instead of the cottier, with his wretched cultivation of a few potatoes, a patch of oats, and, perhaps, a little wheat, extracted from the soil by the stimulus of lime, until the stimulus failed and the land would produce nothing. The whole of Ireland was now advancing in cultivation and in comfort, and it was impossible to visit the Irish peasantry in their own homes without seeing that they were better dressed and fed than they used to be. They were no longer those miserable objects who used to haunt the roadsides to pain and disgust the passer-by. Well, then, he thought Parliament ought to leave well alone. They ought not to interfere between landlord and tenant, and attempt by this peddling legislation to alter a process which had worked so beneficially. He admitted that for a Tenant Right Bill there never was one more mild and moderate than that of the right hon. Gentleman. His objection to the earlier portion of the measure was not so much to principle as to details; to the latter portion he was opposed on principle rather than on points of detail. There was a danger in admitting the necessity of dealing with the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland otherwise than in England. If such an admission were made, there would be plenty of people to push it further than those who proposed it ever intended. Even the fact that the Bill was almost of a permissive character, and gave the landlord a veto upon projected improvements, inspired him with alarm, because hon. Gentlemen would say "You admit the principle, and yet you shrink from carrying it out. We thank you for the principle, but we spurn your provisions. By passing this Bill you will give us a ground of vantage, and will show to Ireland that you are endeavouring, by a worthless concession, to satisfy an agitation which you will thereby only feed and excite." No doubt, hon. Gentleman who favoured the tenant right movement would use this argument. The Bill would not satisfy them, and this concession would give them a stronger ground for carrying out those ultimate objects which were so subversive of the real prosperity of Ireland. Of late years the whole tendency of events, even the misfortune and calamities which Ireland had undergone, had tended to remove the differences which existed between the two countries and to bring them into closer connection. A wise legislation would encourage and assist these processes, and endeavour to unite the two countries still more closely by similar interests and simi- lar laws; but the Bill aimed at the very reverse of all this. If it passed there would he a broad distinction between the mode in which Irish and English tenants were dealt with. He, therefore, objected to the measure as uncalled for and mischievous, as likely to promote agitation, instead of appeasing it, and he should feel it his duty to move that it be read a second time that day six months.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now" and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question.'

MR. MAGUIRE

Sir, the House has listened to the hon. Baronet with that attention which his ability always commands; still I cannot help saying that I have never heard a stranger speech or a more unaccountable Motion than that which he has delivered and proposed. What the real object of his notice of Motion is, I really do not know, unless it be that he wished to have an opportunity of stating his views and opinions at considerable length, not only for the advantage of this House, but of the country at large. Sir, it is my duty to refute some of the statements and assumptions of the hon. Baronet; and I shall also endeavour to show the House that it would act wisely, not only in adopting the principle of the Bill now before it, but in making it better and more useful for the classes for whose advantage it is intended, and thus laying the broad foundation of the future prosperity of Ireland, and cementing between the two nations those bonds of amity and union, without which England is not and cannot be really strong or powerful. It is also my duty to show that Ireland is not so happy and prosperous as the hon. Baronet described her to be, and that the state of things in that country is not so balmy and delightful as it was his object to make us believe it to be, from the picture which he has so glowingly painted. The objections of the hon. Baronet to the first part of the Bill, indeed to two parts of the Bill, refer entirely to their details, and not to their principle. But there was an objection as to the structure of the Bill, and the variety of subjects which it embraces. Now, I cannot see the force of the objection that the Bill is divided into three parts, and that it deals with different interests; for, after all, no matter in what manner they are described, all these different branches are of the same question, and refer to the same subject,— they are all intimately identified with the one ostensible object of the Bill, the improvement of the soil and agriculture of Ireland. So that I cannot agree with the hon. Baronet in condemning the Government for having treated the interests of different classes—limited owners, inheritors, and tenants at lease and at will—in the same measure. Besides, were they treated of in distinct Bills, one Bill only might be passed, and that the least important, while the more important measure might be sacrificed to the discussions on the other. In as far as the hon. Baronet's objections mainly apply to the machinery and details of the Bill, I would avail myself of the stereotyped answer given on such occasions, which answer is in this case founded in justice, and ask the hon. Baronet to support the second reading, and then in Committee seek to improve the details, and make perfect the machinery—in which task, no doubt, he would be supported by a majority of the House. The hon. Baronet strongly objects to referring matters of such grave moment as those connected with property and laud to the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, or Assistant Barristers, as we are in the habit of calling them in Ireland. But here again is a more question of detail; and it the hon. Baronet will only attend when the Bill is in Committee, he may propose, that an appeal should be given to the Judge of Assize in cases where serious controversy should arise, or he may endeavour to limit the value of the interests to be entrusted to the Jurisdiction of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions. However, I can assure the hon. Baronet that those officials, whom he seems rather to think lightly of, are generally not only men of great eminence in the legal profession, but that many of them are large owners of property, and that all of them are more or less imbued with strong landlord sympathies, and respect for what are termed the rights of property. At the same time they are just and upright men, and, though their sympathies, interests and feelings are not identified with the tenant class, I firmly believe they would hold the scales of justice evenly, no matter whether those who appealed to their tribunal were clad in broadcloth or in frieze. The hon. Baronet gives us his idea of the real cause of the misery of Ireland — the misery which, he asserts, is entirely of the past, but which, according to him, has no existence whatever in the present day. Before he does so, however, he cleverly seeks to damage and discredit the authority of the Report of the Devon Commission. But is there any man pretending to the character of a statesman who is not prepared to rely on the authority of that Commission and its Report? No matter what Government happened to be in power since the publication of that grave document, they have successively relied upon it as their chief justification for dealing with the question of the tenure of land in Ireland. The hon. Baronet is entirely wrong in saying that the Commission was a mere advertisement for grievances, and that it reflected only one phase of society in Ireland. On the contrary, eminent landowners, agents of extensive estates, men in high position and entirely impartial, came before that Commission and gave their evidence; and not merely tenant farmers who had wrongs and grievances to expose, and who would perhaps naturally give exaggerated pictures, the result perhaps of their individual miseries and oppressions. Having done his best to discredit the authority of the Report of the Devon Commissioners, the hon. Baronet then places all the evils of Ireland to the credit of long leases. No doubt such leases as created the system of middlemen were a great evil, and had acted injuriously on the country; but that system has been utterly swept away; and what we now seek for, are not leases under which tenants may divide and subdivide the land, but improvement leases, for the encouragement and protection of intelligent and industrious tenants, and for the better cultivation of the soil. The Devon Commission did not lay the misery of Ireland to the score of long leases; and in order to show the hon. Baronet and the House the real cause of the evil which existed, and which I assert still exists, I will quote a passage or two from the digest of their Report. The chief reason assigned is that farmers would not invest their capital in the improvement of the soil, because, from the want of legal security, they were not certain of reaping a remunerative profit from their investment. Here, Sir, in the following passage is a cause very different from that assigned by the hon. Baronet:— It has been shown that the master evil, poverty, proceeds from the fact of occupiers of land withholding the investment of labour and capital from the ample and profitable field for it that lies within their reach on the farms they occupy; that this hesitation is attributable to a reasonable disinclination to invest capital or labour on the property of others, without a security that adequate remuneration shall be derived from the investment; that no such security at present exists in regard to the vast masses of cases, including tenancies from year to year and leases with short unexpired terms; that the characteristic tillage of the country is most barbarous and unprofitable, &c, &c. After describing the evils resulting from this fatal system, the writer thus continues:— No effort is made by the farmer—1st. Because he is not certain of being permitted to reap a remunerative benefit from his exertions; 2nd. Because, if a tenant-at-will, he may be immediately removed from the improved lands after having invested his labour or capital without receiving any compensation for what he has done, or his rent may be immediately raised to the full value of the improvement thus effected by such labour or capital; 3rd. Because, if a tenant with a lease, the unexpired period of his term may be insufficient to remunerate him, and at its termination he may either be removed, without receiving the balance of his investment, or his rent may be raised so as to deprive him of the power to repay himself from the lands. These extracts show most clearly that the reason why the tenant did not expend his labour and capital on the land—in other words, in improving his dwelling and his out-offices, and in developing the capabilities of the soil—was, that he did not know when he might be removed, or his rent raised to the full value of his own improvements. The Government have been blamed by the hon. Baronet for having by this Bill attempted to establish one system of laws for Ireland and another for England; but neither this Government nor any other Government is answerable to the charge of having proposed or created a difference in the legislation of the two countries. It is the different practice which prevails in both countries which has made the difference; and legislation only seeks to deal with the state of things which it finds to exist. The fact is, Irish landlords are very different, as a class, from English landlords. The latter, as a rule, do everything for the tenant; the former, with a comparatively few exceptions, do nothing for him. In Ireland, the tenant builds, drains, fences, reclaims bog; and it is his hardy labour that climbs the mountain side, and changes sterility into bloom and beauty. No doubt, there are improving landlords in Ireland, men who delight in seeing their tenantry respectable and comfortable, and who, having means at their disposal, accumulated perhaps during their minority, build houses for their tenantry, and assist them to make permanent and beneficial improvements on and in the soil. It is also true that some Irish landlords, who have resided in England for some time, have imitated the example of their English friends on their estates at home. But these cases, however numerous they may be, are after all mere exceptions to the general rule, which is, as I have said, that in Ireland it is the tenant who does everything, and not the landlord. This being so, nothing could be more monstrous or absurd than any attempt to apply the same principles to both countries. The hon. Baronet has drawn a bright and glowing picture of the present state of Ireland. I wish I could believe that the picture was a faithful one; but I regret, as an Irishman, to be compelled to express my doubts of its accuracy. And I hope that Irish Members, for the sake of a momentary object, will not be led to represent their country otherwise than it really is. Can any Irishman in this House assert that his country is so prosperous that no cause for regret is left? Is there no misery, no poverty, no oppression, no discontent? Was it last year, or was it the year before, that an hon. Member, now a Member of the Government, moved for an inquiry into the state of Donegal? That inquiry took place, and disclosed such an abominable state of things, existing in an extensive district, as one could hardly imagine to exist except in a state of society almost savage. One witness in the landlord interest—a plump, rosy, well-fed doctor— actually came forward to prove that seaweed and bad potatoes were the most nutritious food for the people—that seaweed was an admirable article of diet for the independent and sturdy yeomanry of Donegal ! In many parts of the country there is still great misery among the people, though I cannot deny that, taking the state of Ireland generally, considerable progress has been made within recent years. There does not exist that grim and terrible poverty of the famine period, when thousands and hundreds of thousands of the people literally rotted away from hunger; but what I do assert is this—that, with all the evidences of a better state of things, there is no comparison between the condition of Ireland and the condition of England. The hon. Baronet is in the habit of visiting the south coast of Ireland once a year, seeing his agent, drawing his rents, and off again: but if he would leave his yacht in Cork Harbour or Valencia Harbour this summer, and make a tour through the south—through Cork and Kerry—I venture to say he will have a different talc to tell when he next rises to address the House on this Question. Where in Ireland are the comfortable homesteads, the substantial out-offices, the advanced tillage and scientific treatment of the soil, which meet the eye everywhere in this country? In Ireland, the English traveller beholds bad cultivation, rude implements of husbandry, and houses in which, it may be said of too many of them, an Englishman would scarcely wish to put a dog. Not to say anything of the millions of acres of waste land, there are to be seen large portions of the soil, within the limits and boundaries of farms, almost in a state of nature, and left to remain in that condition, to the injury of the tenant, the landlord, the community, the country, and the empire at: large. Now, these things, which make an Irishman ashamed, do not proceed so much from the poverty of the people, as from their disinclination to invest their capital in substantial and permanent improvements,; because of the small security which they, have of ever being able to obtain a return I from them in case of eviction. Of course, there are many instances where tenants have built for themselves, or their landlords have built for them, commodious dwellings and sufficient out-offices; but, as a rule, the state of things which I describe too generally exists to this day. There are in Ireland as noble specimens of the landlord class as any country can boast of; but there are, unfortunately, unscrupulous, tyrannical, political, and foolish landlords as well; and the greater part of this class require the constant prick, not of conscience, but of a strict law, to keep them right. Legislation is not required for the good — they are good without it; it is for those who are inclined to act unfairly or foolishly, that, for the interests of the country, legislation is necessary. For instance, a tenant may improve; but if an election come, and he is moved by a strong sense of right to vote against his landlord, what security has he that he will be allowed the benefits of his improvements? — what security has he that he may not be summarily evicted from his farm? How is it that so few Irish Members have raised their voices in favour of reform? Because they know that, to the great mass of farmers, those who hold from year to year, and who are, therefore, entirely dependent on the will of their landlord, the franchise, so far from being an advantage, is a positive curse. It is a no- torious fact, that if a candidate at an Irish election have the landlords with him, he is pretty sure of his return; but, if he happen to have them against him, the most desperate efforts must be made to counteract their enormous power. Tenants from year to year, on whom the burden of the cultivation and improvement of the land rests almost entirely, are afraid to improve; for they know they may be turned out at a moment's notice. In his speech the Secretary for Ireland stated that evictions had fallen off last year to 2,500. Surely that number was more than sufficient. It is no proof of prosperity and happiness that so many families were compelled to abandon their only means of livelihood. I object to the material portion of the present Bill, because it does not provide that sufficient protection for the industrious tenant, which the circumstances of the country imperatively demand. I admit that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) is anxious to serve Ireland; still I cannot help regretting that the Attorney General had not more to do with the Bill—for he knows the wants of the country, and what would really promote its prosperity; and he cannot be satisfied with the measure as it now stands, or believe that it meets the necessity of the case. The great foundation of the social fabric in Ireland is the farming interest, represented by the occupiers of the land; and, if their condition be benefited, if their farms be improved, the estates on which they live must be improved, and the position of the owner must be improved; and while the happiness and prosperity of Ireland is secured, England is enriched, and the empire is strengthened. At first, according to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, if a tenant-at-will applied to his landlord for leave to improve, and if the landlord refused, that refusal terminated the tenancy. That most absurd and fatal proposition does not appear on the face of the present Bill; but the Bill now provides that if the landlord refuse to allow the tenant to improve, he must not do so. I ask the Government, is that the way to improve the condition of Ireland?—is that the manner in which the energy and industry of the occupiers are to be stimulated and encouraged? On the contrary. Ought not the object of legislation be to give every man who is willing to improve his holding, by the sweat of his brow and the outlay of his capital, the fullest opportunity for the exercise of his energy and industry; and in the event of his tenancy terminating, ought not the tenant have a claim for full and fair compensation—provided that his improvements were: suitable to the holding, and calculated to; raise its letting value? If a man build a; good house on his farm, or erect suitable offices, or reclaim bog or waste land, he injures no human being thereby; but he benefits himself and the estate, he improves the condition of the landlord, and he gives an impetus to various branches of industry in the village near him. To render the Bill really suitable to the emergency, the veto of the landlord should not he a bar to improvement. If the landlord will improve, let it be so; but if he will not or cannot himself make the required improvement, do not allow him to prevent the tenant from doing so. Bid him stand out of the way, and not he a barrier to progress and prosperity. Then, as to the nature of the compensation given where improvements are made with the sanction of the landlord, it is utterly inadequate. For instance, after twenty-five years' occupation of a house which the tenant has built, he is not entitled to any allowance whatever. Would any Gentleman present build a house on such terms? Would he consider that the occupation of it for twenty-five years was quite sufficient return for his outlay? Surely not. Hear what the Devon Commissioners say on this subject;— If the full value of the land be paid by a tenant, where new buildings are required, and that no deduction or allowance be made to supply the means for erecting such buildings out of the proceeds from such lands, or out of the proprietor's funds, it appears reasonable to adopt the suggestion of a large class of witnesses, who recommend that the tenant who builds at his own cost should be repaid, on removal from his farm, the value of such buildings in their then existing state, limiting, however, the class and cost of buildings and the consequent claim of the tenant with strict reference to the size and description of the farm or holding; and this latter restriction in Ireland would require much caution and forethought. The broad principle here is, that the farmer must be supplied with all those essential matters which his enterprise absolutely requires, and that this must be furnished out of the proceeds of the land. The hon. Baronet was perfectly correct in his anticipation when he predicted that my hon. Friends would desire more than the Bill proposes to give. It is our duty to demand all that we can or ought obtain for those we represent; and we, therefore, vote for the Second Reading, in order to afford ourselves an opportunity of endeavouring to make the Bill better in Committee. We are accused of wishing to deny, or rather not enjoy, the tide of prosperity to the soil. The population of Ireland are which, according to the hon. Baronet, is now flooding our country. Why, Sir we would be the first to rejoice at the prosperity of our country, and the happiness of our people; but we are here to speak, and not to disguise, the truth. I ask the House, I ask the Government, if Ireland is so happy and contented as she is staled to be, why has the Government refused to entrust the people of that country with arms at this moment? I ask, why are they not called on to arm, as the people of this country? The truth must be told—because it is well known that a large class of the people are discontented, and not happy and prosperous as represented. But, Sir, it is not too late to effect a change; wise and generous legislation, given with kindly and noble words uttered by Parliament, would work a magical effect on a sensitive, a warm-hearted, and a grateful population. I demand an earnest and an honest legislation for Ireland, not merely in the interest of Ireland, but for the peace and happiness of the empire at large. God knows I look with the gloomiest apprehension to what I believe is looming in the future; and it is for the welfare of all the interests that this House holds most dear, as well as for those which I represent, that I implore the Government to improve and pass the present Bill, and to give other remedial and conciliatory measures to the people of Ireland, I ask this House, is it a sign of prosperity that the Irish race are leaving the land of their birth, and that the stream of emigration is deepening and widening in its current and in its volume? The bone and sinew of the land are being wafted across the Atlantic to add to the population and strengthen the power of America. That would be a fearful day for England if America, losing sight of her cotton interest, came into collision with her—with the strong Irish element against her; for every Irishman who leaves these shores carries with him an abiding sense of wrong, that rankles into hatred in his breast against England and English institutions. This may seem exaggerated language; but I have seen letters written by those who have been driven to the United States, either by the pressure of adversity, by the action of oppression, or by a love of adventure; and they breathed a feeling of hate and vengeance which no language could exaggerate. I desire to give our people a stake in their country — something that they could defend, something to bind them to the soil. The population of Ireland are now as a ship riding at single anchor, awaiting the first favourable wind to unfurl its sails, and seek a distant shore. I want to retain what we still have left to us after famine, death, and emigration; and while I believe that nothing would tend so much on the one hand to give a further impulse to that which needs no additional impulse, I believe, on the other, that a liberal Bill would have a tendency to check what I hold to be a ruinous draining of the strength of a nation. I honestly desire that you will now try and make the people of Ireland—those whom we can still call our own—prosperous, independent, and happy, the friends of peace, law, and order; and, Sir, the statesman who will effect this, by wise and liberal legislation, will prove himself the greatest benefactor that country has ever possessed.

MR. GEORGE

said, that if anything could have induced him to oppose the second reading of this Bill it would be the speech just delivered by the hon. Member for Dungarvan. He thought the time had gone by when the House of Commons was to be treated to a tirade of abuse against the landlords of Ireland. The hon. Member had given play to the fancies of his brain, and gloated over the imaginary wrongs of his country. The hon. Member had painted miseries which had no existence, He possessed as much experience as the hon. Member; he was continually travelling in Ireland—north, south, east, and west — and lie must conscientiously say that the statements of the honourable Member were exaggerated, if not entirely unfounded. He begged to remind the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland of his solemn declaration that it was not the intention of the Government to affect the rights of the landlords of Ireland, or to lend themselves to the subversion of the rights of property. He regretted to hear the right hon. Gentleman state that one rule was to be observed in Ireland, and another rule in England—and that that which was done by usage and good feeling in England must be done by law in Ireland. To speak of the Devon Commission as a criterion of the state of Ireland at the present day was a great solecism. That Commission was issued in 1845, and the witnesses who were examined before it were such only as had grievances to dilate upon and expose. The state of Ireland in 1845 and in 1860 was as different as the state of the desert and the most blooming garden. At that time there were misery and woe in the country. It was on the very eve of that fearful famine which began in 1846, and continued for years afterwards. What was the fact now? How changed was the country from what it was? That very morning a Statistical Return had been delivered to hon. Members, in which he found some facts that bore upon the question before them. He found that, in 1849, four years after the date of the Devon Commission, the number of paupers in Ireland, including the outdoor recipients of relief, amounted to 620,747, whilst at that moment they were only 44,929. But it was not alone in the physical aspect of the people that there had been improvements. Their moral status had infinitely changed; and in the next column of the same Return he found that, whilst in 1849 the convictions in Ireland were 21,202, in 1859 they were but 2,735; that in 1849 the acquittals were 20,767, and in 1859, 3,109. He thought, then, he was justified in saying that both in a moral and physical aspect the situation of the Irish people since the date of the Devon Commission had greatly improved, and that the Report of the Commissioners was no guide to the present condition of Ireland. It was notorious, unhappily, that in the same period the population had seriously decreased; that owing to the famine and its attendant evils, and the emigration which succeeded, it had been reduced from 8.000,000 to 6,000,000, though, perhaps, 5,000,000 was nearer the correct amount. There was another circumstance that was worthy of notice. By the operation of what had been the Encumbered Estates Court, and which was now known as the Landed Estates Court, no less than £25,000,000 of property had changed hands in that country, and he believed that considerably more than £20,000,000 of property had, by investment of Irish capital, been transferred to the hands of the Irish people. In many instances farmers had become proprietors, and the difference in the aspect of the country concurrent with that change was remarked by every traveller. Allusion had been made to the decrease in cereal crops; and he thought that might be accounted for to a certain extent by the enormous diminution in the population, which had led, of course, to a scarcity of and an enhanced value for labour—a circumstance that had induced many farmers who used formerly to indulge a little too much in tillage crops to resort to grazing, in which they had been further encouraged by the high price which butter had realized in the market. At the time of the Devon Commission too the number of small holdings in Ireland was 691,000; but that amount had fallen off in 1851, when the last census was taken, to 113,222. These facts he had mentioned in order to show the House that the Devon Commission was no criterion to go by, because the state of the country then and now was totally different. The whole system of labour in Ireland — the agriculture, the habits, and manners of the people, had become more and more assimilated to those of England; and so far from endeavouring to draw a line, that there might be one usage in England and a strict and obligatory law in the sister country, he believed that the anxious desire of every Government ought to be to increase as rapidly and as completely as possible that assimilation of the two countries which consisted in an identity of interests, rights and privileges, burdens and obligations. That that principle was not thoroughly recognized was, however, proved by the fact that there were upon the Paper that evening five Bills which had exclusive reference to Ireland. With regard to the Bill now before the House he could not concur in the definition of a limited owner, as contained in it; nor did he think that the provisions as to leasing powers were so good or so clear as those of a leasing powers Bill which had already passed the House of Lords. He strongly objected to the large powers which were by this Bill to be transferred to the judges of local Courts in Ireland. The extent of the facilities which a tenant for life would enjoy of burdening the inheritance as against his successor was also a point to which he was opposed. In the name of "improvements" by the limited owner and his tenants a sum might be raised which would diminish the value of an estate of £1,000 a year by £400 per annum. Having repeatedly expressed himself in favour of a settlement of the landlord and tenant question he should vote for the second reading of the Bill, without however pledging himself to those details of which he disapproved.

MR. POLLARD-URQUHART

said, he would support the Bill as likely to give considerable satisfaction in Ireland. He firmly believed that this Bill would be the means of effecting a great deal of improvement in the relations of landlord and te- nant. In answer to the objection that this Bill would give a tenant for life great opportunities of burdening the estate, he could say that a similar provision was in operation in Scotland, which had been attended with no ill results. Considering the great increase of emigration that was going on in Ireland, and the progress of agriculture in that country, he thought they were particularly bound to consider and settle this question at the present moment.

MR. DAWSON

said, he also should give his support to this Bill. He had not heard the speech of the Secretary for Ireland in introducing the measure, but he was surprised on reading it to find the name of Mr. Sharman Crawford, who had brought the question forward in 1835, when he sat for an English constituency, omitted from the list of those who had assisted in the legislation upon this subject. In the Bill before the House he recognized a fair and just measure, and one that contained within itself the elements out of which a satisfactory settlement of this question might be effected, The circumstances of Ireland were such that the capital as well as the industry of the tenant was required for the proper cultivation of the land, and tenants were therefore entitled to fair compensation for the improvements they had made whenever their tenure was altered or terminated. He rejoiced that it was proposed to extend the powers of landlords to grant leases, and he should hail the disenthralment of the soil from various feudal restrictions by which it was still bound. The press of Ireland had declared that the Bill would become a dead letter, and certainly the measure did not create any enthusiasm in the northern counties of that country; but he trusted that the present offer to set at rest this long-vexed question would not be rejected, and that, stripped of all illusory enactments, this Bill would soon be enrolled in our statute book.

THE O'DONOGHUE

then moved the adjournment of the debate.

MR. VINCENT SCULLY

appealed to the hon. Baronet (Sir J Walsh) to withdraw his Amendment, and allow the Bill to be read the second time. In Committee they would see whether they could not make a good Bill out of it. The provisions respecting tenant's improvement formed the only part of the measure that he cared a farthing about. The rest was all "bosh." The machinery of the Bill required remodelling.

MR. WHITESIDE

said, the hon. Member for Cork had adduced the best argument for agreeing to the adjournment. That hon. Gentleman had alleged that two-thirds of this measure were, as he had classically phrased it, "bosh," and the remaining third impracticable. For himself he desired to see the question settled; but having served a long apprenticeship to it he was convinced that this Bill never would settle it. Dealing as the measure did with the real property of the country, it ought not to be passed without the fullest consideration. The hon. Member for Cork, in his oratorical excitement the other evening, said he would prefer a bad law for both countries to a good law for Ireland and a different one for England. Now, he took exactly the opposite view, and wished to have a good law for Ireland, which was at the same time not very dissimilar from the law in England.

MR. CARDWELL

said, he had no wish to stand in the way of an adjournment if such were the wish of the House. He had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside) when he had the opportunity, would state all the objections he could urge against the Bill; and, on the other hand, he believed he should be able to show sufficient reasons why it should be sent to the other House with every prospect of successful enactment this Session.

Debate adjourned till Thursday.