§ MR. T. E. ELLIS (Merionethshire)said, he should endeavour to be moderate and circumspect and well within the mark in any statement and in any considerations he might urge upon the House. Anyone making a Motion with regard to Wales, and especially with regard to agriculture in Wales, was immediately met by the deplorable want of Parliamentary information on the subject. When he looked at the Diplomatic and Consular Reports on the state of trade and agriculture of the small countries of Europe, and even those of the South American Republics, he felt envious that those countries should have so great a share of attention on the part of the House, while a country not far distant should have so very little attention paid to her in respect of her social condition and agriculture. In 1793 1879 an important Royal Commission was appointed; to inquire into the depressed state of agriculture, with regard to which he had to make some general remarks. In the first place, not a single Welshman, or anyone connected with Wales, was appointed upon the Commission, and, as a natural corollary, very few Welshmen were examined before the Commission. For all the counties of South Wales, the only one examined was an extensive land agent; while, for North Wales, the only person examined was Lord Penrhyn, who was much respected, but who was a large landowner, who lived as much apart from the ordinary tenants of Wales as the Olympian gods. The Commission, in their wisdom, appointed a gentleman who for many years had been a Poor Law Inspector to be Assistant Commissioner for Wales; he knew no Welsh; he was an absolute stranger to the Welsh farmers, and instead of examining them and collecting information from them, be sent a number of very carefully prepared inquiries to Poor Law clerks. That was a natural expedient for him to obtain information, but one would have imagined that this gentleman would have taken more care, and have gone, not to the Poor Law clerks, but to the farmers themselves. Now, his Report was practically the sum total of the Parliamentary information upon the state of agriculture in Wales which they possessed. In his Motion he referred at the outset to the special circumstances of Wales, and he saw on the Paper of that morning that the hon. and gallant Member for West Denbigh (Colonel Cornwallis West) had put down an Amendment which practically challenged the first part of his Motion. The hon. and gallant Member asked the House to deny that there were any special circumstances existing in land tenure in Wales. He (Mr. T. E. Ellis) wished to appeal, first of all, to the Report of the Assistant Commissioner with regard to the difference between English and Welsh agriculture. Mr. Doyle, the gentleman to whom he referred, was Assistant Commissioner not only for the 12 Welsh counties but for eight English counties, and he reported that the eight English and the 12 Welsh counties comprised in his district exhibited greater variety and more marked contrast in the distribution of land, as well as in re- 1794 spect of inhabitants and the character of agriculture, the condition as well as the habits of the rural population, than would be found within the same limits in any other portion of the United Kingdom. So much for his statement. He now came to the special circumstances over and above this distribution of land as between England and Wales. The first circumstance arose from the special charm and delight of the land of Wales itself; for instance, the Welsh tenant had an attachment to the soil which he cultivated, and to the religious and social community in which he lived, which could not, he ventured to say, be found in any part of England. Lord Penrhyn, although he did not know much about the small hillside tenants of Wales, was examined before the Commission, and being asked if there was in Wales what was called hereditary tenantry, he replied that there was a great feeling about that, they liked to succeed their fathers and grandfathers on their farms. If any further testimony were necessary, he might quote the statement made last year by a large Conservative landowner of Cardiganshire, who said that "landlords in Wales were able to secure a higher rent, because Welshmen loved the soil on which they were brought up, and because the tenants were not true to one another; if there was a farm about to become vacant there were a dozen people applying for it—they would not give the sitting tenant a chance of making terms with the landlord. "Their contention was that the land system, as it existed in Wales at present, enabled the mean and self-seeking to profit at the expense of the industrious and bravely struggling tenant. But not merely did this land-hunger affect the tenantry, it affected purchase. Gentlemen who had made fortunes in large English cities desired to find not merely land and luxuries of ownership, but they wanted to get rest, scenery, and a magistracy and county status. Now, there was no place where they could get those things so easily as in Wales. A Nonconformist might be the leader in his neighbourhood for 50 years; he might be respected and beloved by the community, but he had very little, if any, chance of a magistracy during the whole of his life; but suppose some stranger—some Churchman, or a gentleman of particular political opinions—went to 1795 Wales and bought a small estate, he had not to wait many years before he was put on the Magisterial Bench to dispense justice to Welsh speaking people. Those gentlemen bid against the tenant, who himself was so attached to the soil that he was ready to offer what often appeared a foolish price for his holding, first of all in order that he might keep his home, and further, that he might secure the fruits of his improvements and industry. Now, those gentlemen came over with fortunes, they bought land over the head of the cultivator at a fancy price, and then they turned round and applied commercial principles, saying they had paid a certain amount for the land, and must get so much per cent for the outlay. Anyone who knew Wales even superficially must be aware that this statement was well within the mark. Mr. Doyle, in his official Report, stated that in Montgomeryshire demands had been made to raise the rents to pay a fair percentage upon the purchase money. This competition for land was a circumstance special to Wales, was specially adverse to the interest of the tiller of the soil, and placed him at the mercy of the landlord. But this was aggravated by another circumstance, the chasm or social gulf which existed between the landlords and the occupying tenants. He would not dwell upon that point, but merely refer to three great questions which divided the bulk of the landlords of Wales from the bulk of the occupiers. Wherever one went in Wales—except on the borders of Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, and parts of Brecknockshire—it would be found that the cultivator and his family were Welsh speaking, and that his religious services and social communications were carried on in the Welsh language. On the other hand, with the rarest exceptions, the landlord was ignorant of the language of his tenants. That would naturally create a certain amount of estrangement and a chasm between the landlord and the tenant; but it was further aggravated by the fact that at a critical period in their religious and national history the end of the last century, most of the Welsh people built up a religious system of their own, and were separated entirely and completely from the landowners of Wales, who remained attached to the Anglican ecclesiastical system. The division, however, did not stop there; 1796 for in the course of the present century not merely had there been a religious divorce, but as complete a political divorce between the landlords and the cultivators. He was glad to see present many of his Colleagues from Wales who were large landowners; but he thought if each one of them were to give an impartial experience of Welsh landlords at election times he would say that 19 out of 20, if not 99 out of 100 were bitterly hostile to the popular cause. It was not without significance that every County Member for Wales, with the exception of the hon. Member for Radnorshire (Mr. Walsh), sat on that side of the House, and they were there not alone, because they were pledged on some burning, question in regard to Wales, but also because there had lately been a gradual but sure and inevitable revolt against the land system of Wales as at present administered. What, then, had been the results of this difference between the landlords and tenants in Wales? He thought there had been two results—first, a want of sympathy between the landlord and tenant, and, secondly, a deplorable want of information and knowledge on the part of the landlord as to the conditions and circumstances of the cultivator of the soil. Not only was there a want of sympathy, but in too many cases the landowner employed his position and his monopoly of the land in order to punish the cultivator on account of his creed. He (Mr. T. E. Ellis) did not want to refer at great length to that point, but if any one in that House conversed with the ordinary tenants of Wales with regard to their past electioneering experiences, he would find that the three General Elections of the years 1859, 1865, and 1868 were not merely well known, but that the memory of the evictions which took place after those elections had burnt itself indelibly into the hearts and consciences of the people, and many a day would have to pass over Wales before the memories of those evictions passed away. It might be said that the passing of the Ballot Act of 1870 had alleviated that condition of things. He did not suppose that there were any people within the four countries that were more thankful for that great Act than the Welsh people, because it had enabled them to exercise their right of suffrage 1797 with something like liberty. But even at the present day this want of sympathy between the landlord and tenant worked very disastrously to the social welfare of Wales; for in many parts there was among a certain number of the landowners a set purpose to make it difficult and impossible for Nonconformists or Liberals to obtain farms. This led to the creation of a class of sycophants and spies, the most abominable that infested God's earth, who were ready to watch for the political and religious action of a Nonconformist and Liberal tenant, and not only that, but to oust him from his place and get his farm, because they were ready to take up the political and religious view of the landlords. This feeling was strong in Wales, but he thought that the landlords were beginning to find out that the Churchman and persons of politicial opinions were not always able to pay the rent to the very day. Even during that week there had been a somewhat ludicrous illustration of the tension between the landlords and tenants in Wales. In one of the newspapers published in Wales the following circular appeared that week. How far it had obtained the sanction of any landowner, and how far it would be repudiated by landowners, he did not know, but it was interesting as mirroring the circumstances of the time. The circular was addressed to the clergy, landowners, and tenants, and was to the effect that the Church and all landed property was so seriously attacked, and the spirit of socialism was so rapidly spreading in Wales, that it was becoming necessary for the clergy and the wealthy to know who were their true friends, and to act accordingly; that landowners in particular should be on their guard as to the persons to whom they might let their land, and should ascertain whether candidates for their farms were the friends of order and justice, or of anarchy and confiscation. The circular went on to say that, at the urgent request of certain persons of influence, a Conservative registry had been opened as a medium of communication between the Landowners wanting tenants and tenants wanting farms, and that with the view of carrying out the scheme, Incumbents were requested to inform the writer of any farms vacant or about to become vacant in their parishes, and so on. He 1798 quoted this in order that it might serve as a salutary warning to the class of informers he had referred to. He regretted also to have to refer to the fact that during the last few weeks and months in which there had been considerable, if not fierce, agitation in Wales, tenants had been receiving notices to quit because they had taken a certain line with regard to the tithe question. It seemed to him that the very essence of the land system in England was that there should be a thoroughly good understanding and strong sympathy between the landlord and the tenant. The hon. Member for the Bodmin Division of Cornwall (Mr. Courtney) had written a paper lately in one of the monthly reviews upon the subject of occupation of land, in which he referred to the extreme value of the leasehold system existing in Scotland at the present time; but he said that when leases did not prevail there was not unfrequently in the South of England a person who might be called a sort of providential landlord, animated with much the same taste, having the same feelings, and looking forward to the same objects as the persons who farmed under him. It was perfectly clear that such a community did not exist in Wales as the hon. Gentleman said existed in the South of England and in Scotland. But not merely did the state of things in Wales affect the sympathy which ought to be between landlord and tenant, but it led to the want of information on the part of the landlord as to the actual condition and circumstances of his tenants. Many landowners in Wales regarded the payment of rent as the only test of the prosperity of their tenants. Lord Penrhyn was asked before the Commission whether anything like indebtedness had crept in amongst the tenants; and his Lordship replied that he did not know, that they had all paid their rents, and that he had never heard of any complaint of the kind. As if the august and secluded occupant of Penrhyn Castle could hear the complaints of Welsh-speaking tenants on the remote hillsides. But what were the replies which Mr. Doyle obtained from the Poor Law clerks in Carnarvonshire, where Lord Penrhyn was the largest landlord? In reply to the question whether rents were regularly paid, the clerk of one Union re- 1799 plied that they were paid, but that many of the tenants borrowed from bankers and friends to pay the rent, and that no abatement or reduction had been made. The reply came from Anglesea that the tenants had paid the rents, but had been considerably assisted by bankers and corn merchants. Another reply was that it was believed that the tenants had paid, although several had borrowed money to pay their rents. One answer from Breconshire was that the tenants were heavily in arrear, that abatements were sometimes made, but not to the extent to which they had been made in other parts of the country. The report from another Union was that rents had been paid regularly, but that bills of sale had been on the increase. Now, those reports were made in 1881, at the time when Mr. Doyle reported that the depression in England was most serious, but that it was not so serious in Wales. It was the last four or five years that had been absolutely ruinous to the farmers in Wales; and if that were true at the date referred to, how much more true was it at the present time? How did this want of knowledge on the part of landowners affect the tenants? In the first place, the landlords would not realize to what a serious pass the tenants had come; they had been deceived by the great competition for small hill-side farms, which were very numerous in Wales; and, whilst the competition for them had been intensified, the standard of rental of good land was made to apply to the land on the rugged hillside. He thought that had it not been for two facts the crash would have come three or four years ago. This had been averted, first, because the holdings in Wales were very small, so that when a large number of tenants had become bankrupt and were sold up, a number of labourers who had saved money were able for a time to take their places, many of them soon collapsing. The second cause which had averted the crash was that Welsh tenants were proverbially thrifty and industrious. Mr. Doyle said that the Welsh farmer, to whatever class he might belong, was more thrifty than an English farmer in a corresponding position, and that the farmer in Wales fared worse than the English labourer in receipt of average wage. From the figures published by the 1800 Inland Revenue Commissioners a few years ago, a very instructive comparison was to be made with regard to the rise of rents between the years 1842 and 1879. He found from that Report that rents in England rose during that period 23.5 per cent as against 34.6 in Wales; and yet the reduction and abatement of rent in Wales was incomparably lower than it had been in England, although the fall in prices in Wales had been quite as serious and quite as ruinous as it had been in England. Cattle had fallen in the last four years from 33 to 50 per cent, sheep 33 per cent, horses 30 to 50 per cent, butter 36 per cent, corn 30 per cent, and wool 60 per cent; yet up to last year the average reduction in rents in Wales had not amounted to more than 10 per cent. Some landowners had made excellent reductions, however; from 15 per cent to 25 per cent in some cases. One, if not more of his hon. Colleagues, four or five years ago, who had realized the position of the tenants, had given up steadily 25 per cent on each rent day. There were many landowners in Wales, however, who had only given small abatements of 5 or 10 per cent, and there were others who had made no abatement at all. Even in the present year, with a ruinous fall in prices, the average reduction did not amount to 15 per cent. What had been the effect of this upon the welfare of the people generally? Of course, the first effect had been upon the farmers. He thought he might count by scores farmers belonging to the most industrious and thrifty of their class to be found in England or Wales who had become bankrupt and been sold up. At the present time, without doubt, the majority of the tenantry were involved in debt. They went surety for each other at the banks, and the result was that whenever one farmer got within the grasp of his creditors, he generally took with him six or seven others. Not only was that the case, but the farmers' stock was depreciated, and labourers found little work, rural parts were depopulated, and land had been steadily deteriorating, so that the local burdens of the highway, school, and poor rates were becoming heavier to bear. In order that he might be certain of the ground on which he was going, he would read a short quotation from The Land Agents' Record, which said that 1801 there was no concealing the fact that the tenant farmers had been very hard hit, and were using the capital of other parties to meet their payments; that, whilst the supply of manure was ample, the cultivation of the land was going down; that fields were left long beyond their time, and, notwithstanding that there was a general decrease of value each year, the tenants clung to their farms owing to the very great loss they would sustain by selling out, and from their inability to turn their hands to any other trade. It seemed to him that this state of things called for the immediate attention of Her Majesty's Government. In good times the majority of the Welsh cultivators lived in fear of increased rents, and in times of falling prices they were subjected to rents which were excessive. Moreover, the yearly tenure was in Wales doubly insecure, because the tenant depended upon the caprice of a landlord who very often hated and detested his religious and political principles. He thought he might say, in reference to the majority of estates in Wales, that the agreements had been so drawn up as to be restrictive and vexatious. Coming from a peasant home himself, and having opportunities to go in and out among the peasantry, he could not but express his keen sense of the anxiety and pain and agony with which hundreds and thousands of honest and thrifty peasants exercised their civil and religious rights of citizenship, and worked from morn till night to keep their homes together, and to feed, clothe, and educate their children. He might be asked what remedy he proposed? It seemed to him that it was not his duty to propose a remedy, but simply to state to the House, as honestly and truthfully as he could, the condition of things in Wales. He had, in the latter part of his Motion, referred to what was most specially and urgently needed in Wales. On that point he would quote, for the second time, an authority very much respected in that House, and by the extreme school of political economists and advocates of freedom of contract. He referred to the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bodmin Division of Cornwall, whose views, expressed in a significant article, admirably represented the needs of the tenants in Wales. The hon. Gentleman said, that what 1802 they were in search after appeared to be the institution of some kind of intermediate authority which should be able to regulate and supervise the relations between the occupying tenants on the one hand, and the person or community entitled to rental on the other, and who should be able to supervise, modify, or control their relations one with the other, so as to secure the idea of constant and best occupation. On one of the Standing Committees, of which he had the honour to be a Member, some 70 members of the House were discussing a Bill which provided for intervention, to a great extent, between the traders of this country and the powerful railway monopolists; and, in listening to the discussions day by day, he had often asked himself the question, that, if it were necessary that the powerful and almost omnipotent traders of England should have an intermediate authority between them and the Railway Companies, how much more necessary was it for the Welsh tenant to have an intermediate authority between him and the landlord. In some cases, where public authorities were the owners of land, this difficulty had been met. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests had some years ago considered the condition of their tenants, and given reductions of 25 per cent, and even more. Again, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had recognized the condition of agriculture, and they had given not merely a reduction of 25 per cent to the tenants, but also very great facilities for purchase. That was what they were asking for on behalf of the Welsh tenantry. They asked for facility of purchase of farms in Wales, and that, when farms were in the market, there should be some right of pre-emption to cultivating tenants who had spent their lives and industry upon their holdings. They might be told that there were no special conditions in the legal tenure of land in Wales, but law depended on the spirit and temper and circumstances of its administration. They were confronted with the fact that the tenants in Wales were suffering severely; ruin and the blighted prospects of their children were staring them in the face, and he and his hon. Colleagues were only doing their elementary duty as their Representatives in stating their case before the House. They were pledged up to the hilt to do 1803 so, and no Member of the House was more deeply pledged to them than the hon. and gallant Member for West Denbigh (Colonel Cornwallis West). They did not speak for English farmers, who could bring their grievances before the House of Commons, but only for the tenants of Wales whose petition was, that the House, and especially Her Majesty's Government, should not meet their grievances with mere legal quibbles or with jeers, as was sometimes the case, or with cold refusals, but should give a serious and sympathetic attention to their grievances; and should devise an immediate, timely, and effectual remedy.
§ MR. A. H. DYKE ACLAND (York, W.R., Rotherham)said, he rose to second the Motion of the hon. Member for Merionethshire. He desired to state what he had observed when living in a purely agricultural district in Wales during the last 10 years, and to compare that with his experience as bursar of an Oxford college in the management of property scattered through the North Midlands and South of England. He should only refer to that part of the Welsh problem which he knew, and it was for others to say how far what he stated was fairly applicable to Wales as a whole. He wished to state, in the first place, that in his opinion the land question was very different in Wales to what it was in England; and, in the second place, that the social conditions of the people intensified and increased the difficulty. Taking the case of England, he said with reference to the past 10 years, which had been years of serious difficulty, if they left out altogether questions of seasons, prices, and difficulties between farmers and labourers, and if they restricted themselves solely to the question between landlord and tenant, and especially to the question of reduction of rent, they found that the cases in which the landlord and tenant had come most successfully through the struggle occurred when the landlord and the agent had had the most intimate acquaintance with the circumstances of the tenants. On the other hand, the greatest disasters which had ensued were largely due to the almost culpable ignorance which had led to refusals to grant reductions of rent where they were absolutely essential, which ignorance had led to the ruin of the tenant and sometimes to the ruin of 1804 the landlord also. Two principal results had followed in England from this state of things. First of all, in many parts of England the farmers had learned a spirit of independence which they had not before, and in many cases they had the whip hand of the situation. They had also learned to move from one part of the country to another in a way which before was unknown; many West-country farmers had recently travelled to the Midlands and North-country farmers had come to the South. In the second place, where the landlords had dealt fairly with the tenants, they found much of that good feeling on which the whole of the English land system was based. It had been thus with the system in England, where the landlord knew, or ought to know, his tenants well; he met them in the same field, in church, on the Board of Guardians, and in the county town on market day, and in many other respects he made himself the personal friend of his tenants. This had led to an improvement in the good understanding which resulted from the fact that the tenant knew that he and his landlord had borne their burden together. But in Wales neither had there been an increase of independence on the part of the tenants, nor had there been much additional desire to move from place to place, or any improved understanding between the landlord and the tenant. With regard to his experience in Wales, some English Members would say that the Welsh system was the same as the English, because the landlords made the improvements and erected farm buildings in Wales as they did in England, and because the Agricultural Holdings Act applied to Wales as well as to England. He ventured to say that a more shallow statement could not well be made on the subject. There had been, fortunately, good landlords in Wales who had dealt quite as well with their tenants as the best landlords in England, but the question was, had this been the rule? He would make one or two quotations bearing on this subject. His authority was the correspondent of The Times, who he thought ought to satisfy the hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Kenyon) because he certainly wrote, as far as he could, from the same point of view. There was nothing more remarkable than the contrast between the spirit and tone of those letters and 1805 the spirit and tone in which Wales was referred to in the leading articles of many English newspapers, which said, that practically Wales was the same as Yorkshire, and if it were not, that it ought to be. The Times correspondent, who did not write as a supporter of the tenants, said nine months ago—
The danger of the situation could not be easily exaggerated. Men will not, or dare not, pay their tithe, and the agitation will soon extend, if it had not done so already, to the payment of rent.What lay at the root of the difficulty was the competition for farms and the land-hunger to which his hon. Friend the Member for Merionethshire had alluded. "The competition is intensely keen throughout Wales," said The Times correspondent; and he asked how this land-hunger was to be dealt with? A farmer had written to him saying that it was a matter of common experience to have a host of candidates for a vacant tenancy, for which they knew that the rent was too high but which they were willing to take hoping for better times. He was now going to quote a land-agent of as wide experience as any in Great Britain. This gentleman said that his experience was, that Welsh farmers would put up with a very great deal from their landlords rather than be turned out of their holdings; that they were very anxious to acquire a freehold; and that they would borrow the purchase money and burden themselves with the payment of interest exceeding, substantially, the amount of a fair rent; and that it was sometimes as easy to get 40 years' purchase for a farm in Wales as it was to get 30 years' purchase in England. It was well known also that sometimes when a farm was vacant many tenants would offer premiums to agents, and tell them that if they would only let them have the farms it would be worth their while. Another effect of the land-hunger was, that it had lead to a most remarkable punctual payment of rent. This land-agent said the tenants were very reasonable and extremely honest, and that he had never held a rent day without having every penny paid that was due. Could they wonder then, if, under this state of competition and fear of one another, the tenants who paid their rents so punctually had done so by spending the savings 1806 which they had earned in other days? The Times correspondent said, that the Welsh tenants were paying their rents with their savings of by-gone years, and he added that the shadow of the mortgagee was over the land; and further that he sincerely doubted whether the tenants could go on in their present position unless their rent was alleviated. As far as he (Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland) had seen, the tenants of Wales were the most thrifty people that could be found in the whole country. This was borne testimony to by The Times correspondent, who said that thrift such as was almost unknown existed among them; and those persons who had observed the people of Brittany would be able to picture to themselves the species of economy practised in Wales. If the farmers were thus hard pressed, what was the condition of the labourers? They had in the district that he knew no cottages built for them by the landlords, as was the case in England. As a rule, their labourers were hired for six months or a year; they sometimes lived with the farmers, and they were frequently lodged over outhouses or barns; but they put up with their hard lives because they knew that their masters were living hard lives as well. This remarkable fact also results, that while the master is making no money the labourer is saving some of his wages, and is actually making money which may be brought into competition with the farmer, because the idea of the labourer was to get a small farm even if he had to pay a rent which he could not afford. There were no doubt in Wales some generous landlords who had made liberal reductions of rents. But, speaking of the average landlord, there was a difference between England and Wales. Anyone who had been present at a rent audit in England knew very well that the agent who accompanied the landlord regarded the farmer who came before them with respect, feeling that the landlord, if he was wise, would keep him. The agent knew that if the landlord lost the tenant he would not get such a good one again—that he might get a man of straw, or, perhaps, be unable to get anyone at all. The tenant might say, "I must have additional farm buildings built," or might ask for a reduction of rent, and the landlord would hesitate in refusal. But in Wales the farmer knew that if 1807 he made a reduction of rent a condition of keeping his tenancy, there were 10 or 20 men ready and willing to take his place. That, in his (Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland's) experience, was the actual condition of facts, although he knew many landlords in Wales who, as well as reducing rents, had constructed new buildings of an excellent character for their tenants, spending a great deal of money in this way. The real, vital difference—amongst many others—between the two cases was this—the Welsh tenants felt the want of a change; they were conscious of the absence of that good understanding between themselves and their landlords which protected the English tenants. Welsh agricultural districts were represented in the House of Commons, and hon. Members were under pledges to those of their constituents interested in agriculture, to endeavour to obtain some change, but the agitators—if they choose to call them so—on the subject of farmers' grievances in England had never very largely succeeded. The English farmer said—"On the whole I am satisfied with the good understanding I have on my farm;" and, therefore, there was not the same demand for change in England that there was in Wales. The state of things which existed in the Principality produced a bad effect on the relations of the classes to one another, a bad effect on the land, and a bad effect on its productiveness. And now he had a few words to say on the second point. He maintained that the social conditions, as he had observed them in Wales, intensified the difficulty. Take first the question of language, to which the hon. Gentleman who had moved the Motion had alluded. The Times correspondent said that—Seven-tenths of the Welsh people habitually use Welsh in their ordinary conversation.And he said what he (Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland) could bear out from his own experience. He father remarked—The attempt to Anglicize Wales has failed, and always will fail. I suppose that the language will die and is dying. These are the words of nine Englishmen out of ten, but I have never yet heard them from the lips of any man who had a genuine acquaintance with the people. In short, the attempt to Anglicize Wales has only resulted in adding additional difficulties to, and investing with dangerous complications, the problems connected with the 1808 Established Church and with property and land.The Times correspondent said he differed from Lord Selborne on this subject, and held that the dividing line between Wales and England and the different characteristics of Welshmen and Englishmen were remarkably conspicuous. He (Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland) had no hesitation in saying that there were more columns in the Welsh language turned out of Welsh printing presses to-day than had ever been turned out before in the history of the country. What was the bearing of this upon the Land Question? Well, a Welshman had put this matter to him very forcibly only a little time ago. He had said—"Put yourself in the position of being a tenant under a French landlord; you would, I suppose, know as much about the French language as we know about the English language; and if you had to go to the landlord to explain in detail the difficulties of your position, and to appeal for a slight reduction of rent, would you not feel some trembling, and feel that the landlord and his agent had the best of you in the matter of language. That," he said, "is the way we feel in this matter when we have to go before the English landlord." The Welsh did all they could to keep up Welsh traditions and their Welsh language, as was evidenced by the interest they took in their National Eisteddfods, and the honours they bestowed upon those who distinguished themselves in native literature. They were keener about education than we were; their chapels were admirable instances of their sentiments in this direction, many of them being centres of educational life. He did not desire to introduce unnecessary controversial matter, but he must say a word about the religious aspect of the question. As a rule, the landlords and land agents were of one religious persuasion, whilst the great bulk of the farmers were of another, and, certainly, that did not lessen the difficulty. Take the parish in which he lived. There were, he should suppose, 120 farmers in that parish, and be would venture to say that out of that 120 there were not six who attended the parish church, and not three who attended it regularly, and the whole education for 16–17ths of the children was under the exclusive management of the clergymen of the Es- 1809 tablished Church. He had sometimes wondered what in an English country parish would be thought of the state of things in which, in a village of Episcopalians, a benevolent Baptist of means had built large schools for the education of the children some time ago, and a Baptist minister had sole charge of the education of the children, 16–17ths of whom were Church children. Unfortunately, there had sometimes been conditions which had added to these difficulties of language and religion. There had been cases in which the farmer had been told that he must go once to church on a Sunday if he wished to hold a certain farm; and farmers had told him that they had been strictly enjoined when they took a farm that they must take no part in politics whatever, and that they had loyally obeyed; but he would ask the House at what a cost must they have obeyed? There, again—even in politics—things were different in Wales to what they were in England. In England the politics of landlords and tenants were pretty much the same, and even if they differed there was a genial sort of way of looking at these things, the farmer recognizing as a sort of principle that the vote and the lease should go together. The old Tory farmer in Yorkshire was like many another farmer in the country, when he said—"Ise blue, but I votes yaller; Ise blue to the back-bone, but I votes wi' my landlord." It was a sort of traditional sentiment with the man to vote with his landlord. This was not the way the Welsh tenantry acted. They would attend the landlord's meeting, when the landlord himself or one of his friends was standing for Parliament; they would come and sit on the platform and look very sheepish. They would sit there like fowls roosting, and they would come away looking very foolish; but the feeling of the people was with them, because it was known that possibly something serious might happen to them if they did not attend these meetings. Then would be heard the cry of "Screw! Screw!" which was a common cry of the Welsh villagers when Tory meetings wore being held, and it had a very significant meaning indeed. All this was very serious. He did not know if blame attached to landlords or agents in the matter; but it was unfortunate that both in religion and politics the landlords and the 1810 tenants should be on different sides. And what was the result of all this? Why, in the words of The Times correspondent, the man of business became the intermediary between the landlord and his tenant, and the relations between the man who owned the land and the man who cultivated it became purely commercial; and it was difficult to travel through the country with eyes and ears open without observing that the landlords and agents were cordially disliked. He attached no blame to the landlords for not being able to speak Welsh, nor to the agents for being, as some of them were, Scotchmen, Irishmen, and Englishmen; or, again, for being, as some of them were, captains and colonels. All he said was that there was in Wales an absence of those elements for the solution of the question such as were, fortunately, possessed in England at the present time. Well, what was the remedy? He thought that in all these matters, as in everything else, publicity was a good thing. That in itself went some way towards providing a remedy. If the Government were wise, it would look on the question in a sympathetic spirit; and, considering how little was done for Wales when a Royal Commission sat a few years ago, the Government might fairly institute an impartial inquiry into the whole of the question. But, beyond that, he confessed he thought that some security would be needed for the tenant if he was to be placed in a fairly independent position. For his own part, he should infinitely prefer to see opportunities for purchase provided to any other method of solving this difficulty. But in any case, in order that a purchase system might be provided, it was obvious that rents must be modified. Something would be done if it were settled how many years' purchase should be given for holdings. But, above all, let the Government do something. Do not let them raise a cry against "Agitators." Of course, if hon. Gentlemen liked, they could get up and Quote translations from some of the vernacular papers in Wales, which would, no doubt, make the House laugh, and perhaps tend to make people think that the whole of this case was artificial and a sham. Let them do so if they liked. The vernacular Press of Wales was, no doubt, sometimes wild in its phrases, and fond of quoting Scripture, and it very often exaggerated; but even. 1811 if hon. Members could quote passages illustrating these weaknesses, it would not solve the question. Even if they talked about "professional agitators" and the rest of it, they would not have solved the question to-night. They could not get agitators, and an agitation—a strong agitation, as he supposed they would call it—such as was commencing in Wales, unless there was something to account for it and some solid grievance at the bottom of it. The Welsh were a very patient and a very law-abiding people, and they would not get anything to make them excited or excitable unless there was some genuine reason for it. Well, he felt that he had only stated his case in a very fragmentary way, and he knew that any Englishman who meddled in this question ran the risk of being called an adventurer, who knew nothing about the question. But, he had tried to show, at any rate, that he knew more about it than those who only made a short visit to Welsh watering places or made an occasional visit to Snowdon; and he would venture to challenge even the hon. and gallant Member who was going to move the Amendment to say anything but that—though not in relation to his own estate or those of the best landlords—the circumstances which had been related to-night, as applying to the condition of the Welsh tenantry, were not too sadly true in many parts of Wales. Nothing had been said either by his hon. Friend who had moved the Motion or by himself about that much-abused term "Nationality" or Home Rule leading to disintegration. All that talk was utterly without foundation, so far as the Welsh were concerned. He would tell them how to make a Welsh Question if they wanted to make one. Refuse to Wales all idea that the Welsh had any special peculiarity or special circumstances as a race, and tell them that they were like other large districts in England, with no claim to special treatment; tell them, so far as Church matters went—as he was afraid the present Government would be obliged to tell them—that their complaints could not be listened to at all, and there would soon be a Welsh Question. Some leading English authorities on matters of this kind had been too wise to take up such a position. The late Mr. Matthew Arnold knew better 1812 than this; and Parliament would do well if it took his advice so far as Church Disestablishment was concerned. The Welsh people were infinitely in advance of us in regard to education, and were asking for some comprehensive scheme of secondary education, and nothing could be more reasonable than to give them an Educational Council of their own to settle these matters their own way. But tell them that their natural aspirations in the matter of education were not to be acceded to, and then tell them that on this Land Question they had no grievance, and then, without difficulty, they would make a Welsh Question. On the other hand, meet them half-way, and he knew no people more easy to satisfy. The Welsh were timid, but tenacious; and, though slow to move, they were excitable when they considered they had just cause for excitement, It had been said that they were prone to take advantage of the stranger; but that was largely due to the circumstances in which they had grown up, and to the suspicious attitude in which they were placed. But this he was sure of, that there was no more kind-hearted people on the face of the earth. There were two things seriously dangerous in any country like Wales. Ono was that it should be strongly felt that there was a great social inequality in the country; a feeling not as people would say of mere envy, but a perfectly reasonable and candid desire to count for something in the community in which they lived; and the other was the feeling that the distribution of property and the conditions of tenure of property were unfair and unreasonable, and pressed hardly upon the common people. Well, he feared that, to some extent, both these conditions were present in Wales. If the Government wished to avoid the evil results that might follow, let them, in a spirit of kindly sympathy, make a certain amount of reasonable inquiry, to see whether those who had stated the case that night had spoken falsely or truly. That would be going a long way. If the Government wished to avoid lawlessness—which was totally unnecessary, and need never come about—and further distress, he could only say let them make a full inquiry as to whether, in part at least, some remedy for the present distress could not be found.
§
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "having regard to the special circumstances of Wales, and the prevailing agricultural depression, and their effect upon the welfare of the Welsh people, this House is of opinion that Her Majesty's Government should pay immediate attention to the subject, and take steps to provide a measure of relief which shall secure fairer conditions of tenure and a re-adjustment of rent, more equitably corresponding to the fall in prices, and make such other provisions as will enable the cultivators of the soil to meet the trying circumstances in which they are placed,"—(Mr. Thomas Ellis,)
—instead thereof.
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ COLONEL CORNWALLIS WEST (Denbigh, W.)said, he had given Notice of the following Amendment—
That this House, whilst fully sympathizing with the distressed circumstances of the agricultural population of England and Wales, is of opinion that no special circumstances exist in the tenure of land in Wales justifying exceptional legislation for that portion of the United Kingdom.He believed he was unable to move this Amendment, owing to the Forms of the House; therefore, he would simply make it the text of the few observations with which he should trouble the House. The four points that had been dealt with by the hon. Member who had made the Motion (Mr. T. E. Ellis) were, first, as the hon. Member had stated, the serious condition of the agricultural tenancy in Wales; secondly, the special circumstances of Wales; thirdly, a fairer condition of tenure; and, fourthly, a readjustment of rent. Now, it was not his (Colonel Cornwallis West's) intention to trouble the House with very long remarks; but he thought he might be allowed to allude to a few of the points which had been touched on so ably by the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Motion. The hon. Member had begun by describing to the House what he considered the special circumstances which divided, upon this question, Wales from this country. He had told them that one cause of the great difference which existed between the tenantry in Wales and England consisted in the attachment the tenantry in Wales had for their holdings; and also in the fact that so many of them had been hereditary tenants. Well, he thought that very 1814 fact argued in favour of the landlords of Wales. The tenants delighted in remaining on their farms, and if that state of things existed, as he asserted it did, it proved that the tenants were not under that grinding system that many people asked them to believe they were under. This, the hon. Member said, showed a great hunger for land. He (Colonel Cornwallis West) confessed he came from a part of the country where that hunger did not exist. He did not know where it did exist. It might exist in parts of Wales; but, so far as his experience of the Principality went, it certainly was not apparent. The landlords were very thankful to get tenants to take the farms, and he could tell the House that, so far as the county he represented was concerned, there was happily not a single vacant farm in it. This statement applied to the land in Denbighshire. It might be true that it showed that the people were desirous of acquiring farms, but at the same time it proved that the people had the means to take the farms—had the money to take them. It seemed to him to be a hardship to turn round on the men who wished to take farms, and had the money to do so, and who agreed to pay a moderate price for them, and say that they were not to take them because other people could only farm them at a much greater reduction. In the course of his speech the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Motion had stated that to be a rule which, so far as his (Colonel Cornwallis West's) experience went, he denied most emphatically—namely, that Nonconformists were objected to by the landlords. He should like any hon. Member to give him the name, privately, of any great landlord in the Principality who had refused a tenant a farm because the man was a Nonconformist. The hon Member had gone on to state that not only were tenants refused farms, but that people were not appointed magistrates because they were Nonconformists. That might occur in some parts of the Principality; but all he could say was, that he had the honour to make such appointments, and that he had never in deciding upon them for a moment considered whether a man was a Nonconformist or a Churchman. And now he would for a few moments address himself to the point as to the serious position of the tenantry of the Principality. He could assure the House 1815 that the tenantry of Wales at this moment were in a better position than the tenantry of England. He possessed a landed estate in the South of England, and lately he had been obliged to let land there at 10s. per acre; and he appealed to hon. Members who sat around him whether there were any parts of the Principality where land could be said to be worth no more than 10s. an acre? Whilst land in England in some places let for as low as 10s. an acre, in the Principality, so far as he was aware, it never let for less than 15s., and grass land would fetch £1 per acre and upwards. Now, was the tenure of land in Wales so different to that in England as to make it desirable that special legislation should be applied to the Principality? So far as his experience went, the agreements between landlords and tenants were the same in the Principality as in England. There were some exceptions, perhaps, so far as the custom of a county affected them, but they were in the nature of exceptions, and he maintained that it would be impossible to find on any large property in North Wales a single agreement between landlord and tenant which differed in any material point from ordinary English agreements. If that were the case, what was the ground for proposing—as he believed it was proposed—that a similar land measure to that in force in Ireland should be passed for Wales? It was absurd to suppose that the principle of the three "F's" could by any possibility be applied to Wales. He challenged any hon. Member to give the name of a single landowner in Wales who did not do the whole of the permanent improvements and repairs on his property. Under these circumstances it seemed to him absurd to ask for a Land Bill for Wales on the same principles as the Land Act given to Ireland, where the conditions were totally distinct. It had been said that there had been no general reduction in the rents in Wales. Of course, that was a very difficult question to decide off hand one way or the other. He could only say, from what he had heard and what he had done, that he believed the reductions of rent in Wales had been very large, ranging from 10 to 30 per cent. Of course, he could not say that every owner of landed property, great and small, had granted such reductions; but he did say that the majority of them had granted 1816 fair reductions of from 10 to 20 or 30 per cent. He believed that if a Royal Commission were appointed on the subject, which he hoped might be the case, it would be clearly shown that the facts were as he had stated. As far as the landlords of the Principality were concerned, they would hail the appointment of a Royal Commission with the greatest pleasure. Thousands of pounds had been spent on the estate of every large landowner in Wales, and he was in a position to say that at the present moment there were hundreds of farms let at a price which did not pay 3 per cent interest on the capital invested by the landlords in farm-houses, drainage, and other improvements. He himself could guarantee that this was the case in his own part of the Principality, and he had no reason to suppose that a similar state of things did not exist in other parts of Wales. He believed one of the principal sources of the present state of things to be that, unfortunately, many tenant farmers had taken farms without having sufficient capital. Only a few days ago he was reading a most excellent pamphlet, written by Mr. Daniel Owen, of Cardiff, who was distinguished as an authority, and who thoroughly understood agricultural questions. Mr. Owen said—Farms are often taken by men with only £3 or £4 an acre, and sometimes even with less. With such men it is a struggle from the first; if a bad harvest comes, the struggle becomes more severe. Still they may manage to keep afloat in the face of one bad harvest, or, perhaps, of two bad harvests; but when it comes to four disastrous seasons, the current is too strong and they are obliged to give way. I cannot too strongly deprecate the evil occasioned by men embarking in farming with inadequate capital. And yet this is constantly done. If a man has, say, £2,000, he should not, as is too often the case, aspire after a farm of 300 or 400 acres.He believed that to a great extent what was going on now was the result of men wishing to have large farms, and not having sufficient means to carry them on. There was one point which had been under consideration—namely, as to whether the tenants in Wales did the permanent improvements or not. He had seen this stated to be the case in the Press. Of course, it was a very important question. If the tenants did carry out any permanent improvements, which was very doubtful indeed, he considered that the present Agricultural 1817 Holdings Act did not go far enough. What be should like to see, instead of a Motion of this kind, would be the introduction of a Bill dealing with Agriculture both in England and Wales. What he deprecated was to see the subject dealt with piecemeal in relation to one portion of the United Kingdom only. He wanted to see the whole of the country dealt with as one. He did not see why, on a question of this kind, in reference to which the condition of things, as they knew perfectly well, was more or less alike in the two countries, a special Act of Parliament should be required for Wales. The adoption of certain changes in the Agricultural Holdings Act would, he considered, be of much more practical use than the passing of a Motion of this kind. He thought that provision should be made in the Compensation Clauses of the Agricultural Holdings Act for acts of husbandry, due allowance being made for turnip land, fallows, manure, stubbles and seeds, and laying and trimming hedges. Tillages should be definitely explained in the Act, and a valuation scale should also be inserted. If a man, for instance, grazed a field with stock, instead of cutting it for hay, it would, of course, make a considerable difference to him. Compensation might also be given for corn consumed during the last year of the tenancy, and which had been grown upon the farm, due notice being given to the landlord that the tenant wished to consume his own home-grown corn. Such changes, if made, ought to apply to the whole of the Kingdom, and not merely to the Principality. He had been very much surprised at the picture which was drawn by the hon. Member who had last spoken of the condition of Wales, and of the want of sympathy between landlord and tenant which was said to exist there. He had lived in the Principality for his whole life almost, and had never heard of the terrible state of things which the hon. Member had described. He believed his tenants and himself were on the best of terms, and that the same was the case with the landlords and tenants round him with very few exceptions. When the hon. Gentleman said that the whole of the landlords of Wales were out of sympathy with their tenants, his reply was that it was simply not the case.
§ MR. A. H. DYKE ACLANDsaid, he had not said a word about the whole of the landlords. He had stated again and again that many landlords were treating their tenants as well as the best English landlords.
§ COLONEL CORNWALLIS WESTsaid, he was very glad that he had obtained such a disclaimer from the hon. Member. He was certainly under the impression that the hon. Gentleman had said what he had stated. He would appeal to hon. Members from Wales who had any stake in that country as landowners not to be led to give a vote on the Motion from Party motives or a desire for popularity, but to tell the House whether or not it was true that the tenure of land in Wales was so different from what it was in England, and so hard, in its general effect, as to call for any special legislation. There were many in that House who could give the House such information. The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. W. Davies) would, he believed, be able to explain what was the case in that county, and two or three other landlords who were men of position in their counties could state that the fearful picture which had been drawn of the relations between landlords and tenants was entirely imaginary. He believed there were some seven or eight hon. Members who were connected by ties of property with the Principality. The remaining Welsh Members were not, as the House knew, connected by such ties. There were some who hailed from the exchange and some who hailed from the Law Courts. He thought that the seven or eight Members who had property in Wales should support him in his contention that the landlords of Wales were not the tyrants they were made out to be by those who spoke on political platforms. He challenged such hon. Members to make out a case for the application of the principles of the Irish Land Act to Wales. If they could show any estate where the tenant had built his house and farmstead, drained or reclaimed land, bought the tenant-right, or fulfilled any other of the conditions of the Irish land problem, they would no doubt make out a case. He said none of these circumstances existed in Wales at the present time, or, if they did, it was in some portion of the Principality with which he was not acquainted. He felt confident that any 1819 proposal which would have the effect of withdrawing the capital now so profusely and so wisely found by the landlord on every large estate, and in most of the small ones too, would result in the ruin of all classes connected with agriculture; and in the severance of those ties of mutual regard and reciprocal good feeling which had characterized the relations of the landlord and tenant in Wales for many years past, and which, he believed, would otherwise be maintained in the future.
§ MR. OSBORNE MORGAN (Denbighshire, E.)said, his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Denbigh (Colonel Cornwallis West) claimed to represent a constituency which was, perhaps, more interested than any portion of Wales in the Motion before the House, but he did not think his hon. and gallant Friend could point to a dozen men in his own constituency, except, of course, landlords like himself, who would endorse the sentiments to which he had just given utterance. Indeed, he thought that his hon. and gallant Friend himself was a very recent convert to the views he had expressed. Little more than a year and a-half ago, on the 28th of October, 1886, a public meeting or conference was called at Denbigh for the purpose of discussing the basis of a Land Bill for Wales, afterwards embodied in the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for the Eifion Division of Carnarvonshire (Mr. Bryn Roberts), and which Bill was lately before the House. He (Mr. Osborne Morgan) was not present, but he was told there was a discussion lasting for something like four hours on the subject. In the evening a public meeting was held, and Colonel Cornwallis West proposed the following resolution:—
That, in the opinion of this meeting, the present depressed state of agriculture deserves the earnest attention of the Legislature, and it is desirable that a measure should be prepared and submitted to Parliament next Session, with the view of alleviating the distress now so generally felt among the agricultural and labouring population of the country.This was followed by a Motion approving of the Bill to which he had already alluded. Under these circumstances, his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Cornwallis West) could not quite claim a monopoly of consistency in this matter. He (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had taken great pains to arrive at the truth. Some 12 months ago he sent round to a number 1820 of his constituents questions as to the present position of agriculture in North Wales. He received a number of answers, which he had handed to his hon. and gallant Friend for the purposes of his speech. As his hon. and gallant Friend had forgotten to return them, he (Mr. Osborne Morgan) could not quote from them, but he could tell the House that they showed the depreciation of farming stock during the last 10 years in Wales to have been enormous. Not only had there been a great depreciation in stock, but there had been a still greater depreciation in the price of wool, which, in a country where by far the greater number of the farmers were sheep farmers, was a very serious matter. The hon. Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis) had stated this depreciation at something like 60 per cont. He himself should have put it at something like 50 per cent. At any rate, the fall had been very heavy. Side by side with the great depreciation in the value of farming produce, there had been an increase in the rates, especially the sanitary rates. The wages of agricultural labourers had been nearly stationary. He should have thought this rather a matter for congratulation, but unfortunately the cause from which it had arisen was that a large portion of the agricultural population had migrated to the already over-populated industrial centres of England. With regard to rents, as far as he could gather, there had been reductions, but, as a rule, they had been spasmodic and temporary, and certainly inadequate. In some cases, no doubt, they had amounted to 20 percent, but the average had been from 10 to 15 per cent. The tithe rent-charge, which he could only describe as a sort of running sore, eating into the very heart of the political and religious life of the people, had not been reduced at all. If matters had stood there, he would have agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Denbigh (Colonel Cornwallis West), that it was difficult to establish adistinction between England and Wales, because, if Wales had suffered much, England had suffered much also. He made his hon. and gallant Friend a present of that admission. He thought it quite possible that the great wheat-growing districts of England, such as those of Lincolnshire and Essex, were suffering quite as 1821 much as Wales. His hon. and gallant Friend said he was obliged to let English land at 10s. an acre. He (Mr. Osborne Morgan) was in a worse position than that, because he had an English farm which he could not let at all. But his hon. Friends who had respectively moved and seconded the Motion, had referred to two things which materially distinguished the case of Wales from that of England, and which, he thought, called for the special interference of Parliament. One of these was that extraordinary land-hunger which seemed to be common to all Celtic nations. His hon. and gallant Friend had said that there was not a single farm vacant on his estate. That was extremely probable. But why was that? It was because the farmer had nothing else to do but agricultural work, and nowhere else to turn to. In North Wales, at least, they had no large towns to draw off the surplus agricultural population. Indeed, the Welsh farmer who was deprived of his holding was the most helpless being in the whole world. He could not go to England on account of his ignorance of the English language, and he could not engage in any other industrial employment. He was forced back upon the land. In addition to this, he was strongly attached to the soil. These facts completely disposed of the argument which his hon. and gallant Friend based upon the circumstance, that there was no farm to let upon his estate. There was another material difference between the Welsh and English agriculturists. Between the Welsh landlord and tenant there was a "great gulf fixed." Englishmen did not understand this. They passed through Wales and visited watering places like Llandudno and Rhyl, but they obtained no knowledge whatever of the condition of the people. The barriers that separated landlord and tenant in Wales were almost insurmountable. There were barriers of language, barriers of race, religious barriers, political barriers. The Welsh landlords and tenants lived and moved in entirely different worlds. They spoke different tongues; they attended different places of worship; there was no common ground on which they could meet. Could there be a greater barrier than that which separated them in regard to language alone? Had any of them tried to drive a bar- 1822 gain in a language—such as German or Italian—of which they had but an imperfect knowledge? That was the normal condition of the Welsh tenant farmer. People talked of freedom of contract, but it was impossible to have absolute freedom of contract where one of the parties did not understand the language in which the contract was written. The matter was exceedingly well put in a pamphlet written by Mr. R. A. Jones, who pointed out that the prevalence of the Welsh language in itself rendered it impossible for the two classes to be in sympathy one with the other. The result of these differences in language, religion, and politics was practically to place the Welsh landlords and tenants at arm's length. He said advisedly that the condition of Wales in this respect was far more like that of Ireland than that of England. His hon. and gallant Friend had challenged any man to say whether improvements were made by the tenants in Wales. In some cases they were, but it was perhaps difficult to lay down any general rule. He, however, relied not so much upon that point as upon the fact of the existence of the class-wall, as he might call it, between landlord and tenant. This was practically equivalent, in its effects, to absenteeism. As a rule, it was very difficult to convince Englishmen that a Welshman was anything more than a peculiar kind of Englishman, who preferred an Eisteddfod to a horse-race and spoke a language which no one could understand. It was refreshing, therefore, to find an Englishman like the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland), who, if he had lived for 50 years in Wales, could have more accurately stated the condition of the country than he had done in his speech. His hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Cornwallis West) had suggested that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. W. Davies) should tell the House something about the condition of his county. The hon. Member for Pembroke, however, could scarcely be said to represent Wales at all. Parts of Pembroke was generally known as "Little England beyond Wales," and was an English colony. It did seem to be a little hard that because one, or possibly two, of the counties in Wales were satisfied with the present condition of things, the other 10 counties should be 1823 denied the justice they asked for. Of course, the House would be told that since the Union, in the time of Henry VIII., Wales was politically an integral part of England. That was the old argument which one always heard on these occasions, and it was one more worthy of a lawyer than of a statesman. The House of Commons had already knocked a good many holes in the Statute of Henry VIII., and they hoped to knock a good many more. Two or three Statutes had been passed which applied only to Wales, and when the House of Commons, by allowing it to be read a second time, put its seal, as it were, on the Welsh Intermediate Education Bill, it practically recognized the fact that Wales was entitled to distinctive treatment at the hands of Parliament. But, be that as it might, they could no more turn Welshmen into Englishmen than they could turn Englishmen into Welshmen. Say what they liked, the Welsh people were a distinct nationality. If their laws were the same, their customs, their habits of life, their language were different, and if the laws of a people did not correspond to their requirements, the sooner they were altered the better.
§ MR. KENYON (, &c.) Denbighsaid, he must congratulate the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis) upon the exceedingly courteous and tolerant way in which he had introduced this subject to the House. He felt that the tone of the speech of the hon. Gentleman had been such that it rendered it somewhat difficult for anyone who differed from him in many points to make his views sufficiently heard. Though he agreed up to a certain point with the last words which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan) with regard to the question of national sentiment, he felt the remarks the right hon. Gentleman made with regard to the want of sympathy between landlord and tenant, as resulting from the necessity of two languages in Wales, were, he would not say overstrained, but exaggerated and altogether beside the question at issue. The right hon. Gentleman had lived in Wales for a great number of years, but had he ever found a landlord in Wales who was not in sympathy with his tenants for the simple reason that he 1824 was not able to speak to them in their own language? He (Mr. Kenyon) had lived in Wales all his life, and had been connected all his life with the land.
§ MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, he did not attribute any blame to the landlords. It was their misfortune, not their fault.
§ MR. KENYONsaid, he did not accuse the right hon. Gentleman of doing so. He was about to say that he had lived all his life in Wales, and that he had been connected, perhaps, more closely with land in Wales than the right hon. Gentleman. For 20 years he had been an agent of a large property in Wales. In that capacity he had been brought in contact with the tenant farmers and cottagers in Wales, and now he was a trustee and managing owner of a very large estate in North Wales. Never in his experience had there been any difference of opinion between him and those with whom he had had to deal very largely, on the score of language. There was perfect sympathy as between landlord and tenant, and he had no hesitation in saying, speaking from an experience both as tenant and as a manager of estates—and as a tenant he had no doubt he had, perhaps, as much experience as the Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis), for he had farmed 350 acres for a considerable number of years at a considerable loss, and he was now farming his own land at a larger loss still—he had no hesitation in saying that the question of language or the question of land tenure in general in Wales had had no different effect upon him as a tenant or as a land agent than they would have had if he had lived in Shropshire over the Border. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. E. Ellis) based his Motion upon the statement that there were exceptional circumstances in Wales which required exceptional legislation. Now, what were the exceptional circumstances in Wales to which the hon. Gentleman referred? In the first place, the hon. Gentleman contended that there had been a great fall in prices. Surely there had been no greater fall in prices in Wales than there had been in any county over the Border; on the contrary, the prices in Wales had been less affected by the general depression of agriculture than the prices in the Border counties had been affected, and for this reason, 1825 that the great trade which was done by Welsh farmers, was done in mutton and in wool. No doubt the fluctuations in the price of wool were at one time very considerable; but wool at the present time was one of the very few things which had risen in price. Meat, too, had risen in price. Therefore, at the present moment, the two staple articles upon which Welsh farmers depended were actually on the rise, and not on the fall as the hon. Gentleman would lead the House to understand. Cheese was very largely produced in Wales, but, possibly, not to the same extent in the counties which the hon. Member (Mr. T. E. Ellis) was particularly acquainted as in the counties with which he (Mr. Kenyon) was specially concerned. Now, the value of cheese had actually risen during the last two years very considerably, and at the present moment was sold at a higher price in the market than it had been sold at for the last three years. If they took, therefore, the question of price, he thought the average fall in prices in Wales was certainly not greater, but if anything rather less than in the Border counties in England. Then the hon. Gentleman argued that the average reduction in rent had not been commensurate with the fall in prices. He (Mr. Kenyon) happened to know a little about the subject, and he asserted, without hesitation, that the average reductions in rent in the counties in Wales were certainly larger than the average reductions in the Border counties in England. The average reductions in rent in the Welsh counties with which he was acquainted varied from 15 to 30 per cent. In some cases they had amounted to 50 per cent, and many cases within his knowledge there had been permanent reductions in rent amounting to 30 per cent. He thought that if they came to investigate the question carefully it would be found that the reductions of rent in Wales, if not far in excess, were, at any rate, quite as large as the average reductions made in England. If there were no exceptional circumstances with regard to prices and reductions of rent, were there exceptional circumstances with regard to rates or agreements? He did not know what the average rates all through England were; but he knew that in Wales they were extremely reasonable. The average rating of Welsh parishes 1826 was 2s. 3d. in the pound, while the rating in many English counties amounted to 3s. 6d., 4s. 6d., and 5s. 6d. in the pound. The Welsh rates, except in some of the mining parishes, where there had been a great deal of pauperism, and where, perhaps, there had been large expenditure on school boards, would be found to be no higher than the rates in the rest of the United Kingdom. Now, they were told that the landlords in Wales bore some resemblance to their Irish brethren, of whom he wished to say nothing evil. They were told that the Welsh tenants made improvements, and that the landlords were such horrible creatures that they sucked up all the improved value after the improvements were made. Now, as he had said, he had had much experience as regarded land in Wales, but he did not hesitate to say that there was never made an observation which was so absolutely and entirely contrary to the facts as that statement. He was well acquainted with a large estate in Wales where, for many years, 50 and 75 per cent of the rental of the property was spent in making permanent improvements upon the property, and that after that time, and ever since, 25 per cent of the rental had been spent upon the property. Upon a very large estate adjoining the one he had just spoken of, they spent for some years the whole rent upon the property, and within his knowledge as a land agent there was not a single case in which a tenant had ever erected any building, or had ever made a permanent improvement upon the property with the single exception of drainage. Some tenants had cut the drains, but the landlords had provided the pipes. To compare the Welsh landlords with the landlords of Ireland was, therefore, unreasonable. He thought he might fairly say that the landlords had done their duty in expending money upon their property, and that they were entitled to be treated with justice and respect. There was one other point to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Denbighshire alluded. In Wales, for some reason or another, a great deal of land had changed hands during the last 30 or 40 years. There had been cases of a certain amount of hardship to the tenants in consequence of this change of proprietorship. Where there was an old established estate, the probability 1827 was that the landlord had no desire to get rid of his tenant, and the tenant had no desire to leave his landlord. But there came a change; owing to some reason or other the land changed hands. Land in North Wales, particularly, had recently changed hands. The new landlord, coming in, perhaps from Ireland or Liverpool, might have paid a good price for the land. It had happened that the farms had been re-valued, tenants had been asked to accept the new valuation, and on their refusal to do so had been turned out. That unquestionably was a hardship which the tenants suffered. It was a hardship which, as had been fairly pointed out, was not altogether covered by the Agricultural Holdings Act. Some additional clause might very properly be put in the Act to cover the position of the sitting tenant—say of a man who had occupied the farm for a certain number of years. There was one other matter to which he must draw the attention of the House, and that was the Crown rents. There was a quantity of land in Wales which was subject to certain claims on the part of the Crown. Some years ago the Crown came down upon a little village in Wales, and claimed from the tenants 19 years' arrears of Crown rents. For 19 years the Crown rents had never been asked for; but then the Crown came down upon the people, because they knew the thing was getting far too old. It was very hard upon the owners that they should be asked to pay these rents, of which some of them had never even heard a syllable. The same thing had happened in parts of Merionethshire. He thought the House was entitled to hear from the Government what steps the Crown intended to take in the future with regard to its rents. He did think that, in the interest of the Welsh farmer—and no man had-more sympathy for the Welsh farmer then he had—they ought to do all they could to ameliorate his condition. The Government would certainly do Wales a good turn if it granted a remission of such rents and royalties which existed at this moment. The landlords of Wales had been told that they were out of sympathy with the tenants. He did not believe it. He did not believe that any of the late riots had anything to do with the relations between landlord and tenant. He believed that landlord and tenant were, as they ever 1828 had been, one; that they always would pull together if they were not divorced by a foolish and one-sided policy on the part of the Government of the day—Liberal or Tory, as the case might be—and if, on the other hand, they were not led astray by—could he say—agitators? He would not use the term in reference to any friend of his on the opposite Benches, but simply in reference to certain ambitions Gentlemen who, perhaps, had some reason in putting them-selves prominently forward. He maintained that if neither of the two elements he had mentioned prevailed—if the Welsh were treated with reason by the Government, if their just claims to legislation were regarded, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite would refrain from agitation, from stirring up strife in the country, his firm impression was that the traditional loyalty and good sense of the Welsh people would re-assert itself, and that Wales would still remain what it had ever been, the most law-abiding portion of Her Majesty's Dominions.
§ MR. STUART RENDEL (Montgomeryshire)said, he did not rise at this late hour (11.20) to interpose at any length in the debate; indeed, he thought that the Welsh Members with whom he acted had very little occasion to elaborate their case. Even the speech to which the House had just listened proved conclusively the justice of the case of the hon. Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis). The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kenyon) began by the admission, which was greatly in their favour, that so far from the hon. Member for Merionethshire having opened the discussion in the spirit of an agitator, he had opened it in the spirit of a young and promising Welsh statesman. The Welsh Members certainly owed the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. E. Ellis) a debt of gratitude for the exhaustive statement he had made on their behalf. The unity of the Welsh Representatives on this question was considerable, and the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Denbighshire (Colonel Cornwallis West) had not given them much alarm or anxiety. That the hon. and gallant Gentleman should move an Amendment at all was a surprise to most of them. He had always looked upon his hon. and gallant Friend as a more advanced land reformer than him- 1829 self; he had always supposed the hon. and gallant Member committed to a view of land reform from which he (Mr. Stuart Rendel), with his poor judgment, shrank. But the hon. and gallant Gentleman had given them great hope and satisfaction, for he had pledged himself to the desirability of the appointment of a Royal Commission to consider the question of agriculture in Wales. They knew that the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not want to give to his Welsh tenants what it was impossible for him to confer upon his English tenants. With that species of opposition they might be well content. His hon. and gallant Friend made some statements, however, upon which he desired to comment for a moment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, and referred with legitimate pride, to the fact that on many large estates in Wales no case arose which would justify an application to the House for its attention. He (Mr. Stuart Rendel) and his hon. Colleagues admitted it; they always would admit it. They believed that the hon. and gallant Gentleman's case was a case in point. But their complaint was not against the large landlords at all. Their grievance rather arose from the fact that Wales was peculiarly a country of small landlords, and, unfortunately, of indebted landowners. It was the case of these which was in question. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had also gently insinuated that if the question rested with the landowning Representatives of agricultural constituencies in Wales, no difficulty would arise. The case which the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself adduced was one which sufficiently answered that argument. The hon. and gallant Member pointed to the fact that there were only seven landowning Representatives of agricultural constituencies in Wales, though there were at least 20 of such constituencies. The mere circumstance that Wales returned from agricultural constituencies men other than landowners in such an overwhelming degree, the very fact that it rejected its natural leaders, the very men who had the best opportunities for gaining the confidence of the public in such constituencies, was surely a very solid argument, showing that there was something wrong in the relations between the landlords and the tenants in Wales. The hon. and gallant Gentleman seemed 1830 to be under a strange impression. He stated with great courtesy, if he stated it definitely at all, that persons other than landowners were not altogether competent to discuss this question. But it did not present itself to them as an agricultural technical question. Many of them could not pretend to be competent judges on agricultural matters, but to them this was an industrial problem, and he thought that so far from landowners wishing to have an exclusive audience in the House and the country on matters in which they were supreme, it surely was desirable that they should refer such matters, or be willing to refer such matters, not only to disinterested persons, but to those who had an outside experience of the other industries of the country. He thought it was possible to show that some of the errors which had arisen in the agricultural system of Wales were due to the want of elementary knowledge on general industrial questions which the landlords unfortunately displayed. His hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Cornwallis West) cited a case. He (Mr. Stuart Rendel) would take that case, not because it was a strong one, but because it came from the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said the fact was that the mischief was largely due to the circumstance that so many tenants took farms for which they had not capital enough. Surely a landlord ought not to let his farms to tenants without sufficient capital. Why was a landlord induced to do this? Simply because he regarded it to his interest to have as large a competition for his farms as possible. If a landlord would only see that the competition was narrowed to men he knew to be competent to take the, farms it was quite certain he would get rid of the very difficulties to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Cornwallis West) had attributed so much of the present state of things. There was another and a larger question relating to rent on which a more grievous error was frequently made by landlords. Welsh landlords were too much in the habit of considering that a fair rent was that which a farm would bring. The House knew that that unfortunately was an idea which was a great deal too commonly held as to what was a fair rent. A fair rent was certainly, as his 1831 hon. and gallant Friend would agree, not what a farm would bring, but what the land could fairly earn and pay. The contention of the Supporters of the Motion was that for a long period back the tenants of Wales—than whom there were no tenants in the world more thrifty, industrious, and frugal, had been required to pay the price of existence and starvation rents. The result of this had been a more general depletion, a more widely extended condition of agricultural distress, a greater depopulation of whole districts, than perhaps could be instanced in the kingdom anywhere out of the Highlands of Scotland. Now, the idea was entertained in some quarters that the effect of making this Motion would be mischievous rather than beneficial, because it might, to a certain extent, shake confidence in capital, and might disincline investors to come to Wales. But it had been admitted, and admitted by the hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Kenyon)—he believed it was also admitted by the hon. Member for West Denbighshire (Colonel Cornwallis West)—that if there were hardships and injustice in Wales, it was constantly occasioned by investors in land in Wales. Strangers came to Wales, put their money in land as a mere investment, and often acted in the harshest of manners. If hon. Gentlemen opposite were not aware of such cases, he and his hon. Friends could furnish them with plenty of them. No doubt confidence in capital was a very important thing for any industry; but what was wanted in Wales was not to give confidence to capital, but to give confidence to industry. How could there be any confidence in the agricultural industry under a system of yearly tenancy, and of competitive rent exaggerated to the highest point by the necessities of the people? That the competition for rent was exaggerated to the highest point in Wales, the House of Commons could easily satisfy itself upon if it would only take the trouble to inquire. Enough had been said about severance between the people and the landowning class—enough, for this evening, at any rate, but it was as well the House should consider, for a moment, what was the position of a Welsh speaking farmer ousted from his holding. A Welsh speaking farmer had absolutely no 1832 other resource open to him in Wales; he could not go out of Wales; he was simply turned out on the road side. If the landlords chose to remit the study of the question of fair rent to agents, if they would not look into the question of rental for themselves, the result inevitably must be that the country must become over rented as it was now. Upon the question of rental it was as well to point out that in Wales the rise of rent had been altogether exceptional. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had said, Wales was a pastoral country, and depended largely on wool and mutton. The opening up of railways in Wales brought the sheep-farming industry very rapidly to the front. Undoubtedly it gave a great stimulus to that industry, because it secured to farmers a sale for their mutton as well as for their wool, and this led to a very large rise in rents. It could be shown, to the satisfaction of the House, that the rise in rents of some hill farms in Wales was nearer 100 per cent than 35 or 40 per cent. He could adduce a multitude of cases where the rise had been far greater than 35 or 40 per cent, but he admitted that they would be isolated cases. All these facts, however, a Royal Commission would soon discover. There was unquestionably in Wales a state of things which required the serious attention of Parliament. If Parliament would not attend to this matter when they had before them clear evidence upon which to go, there was only one course for the people to adopt. If there was no other method of securing an adjustment of rent, and a better system of tenure than that of combination on the part of the tenants, that combination must be and would be sooner or later brought about. He and his hon. Friends liked agitation so little that they did not at all desire to see this combination stimulated, and it was for that reason mainly that they took the earliest opportunity of appealing to the House to seriously consider the case of Wales, and not to invite Wales to become in agricultural revolution a half-way house between Ireland and England.
§ MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON (Shropshire, Oswestry)said, that hon. Members had talked of the land-hunger in Wales and of the extraordinary competi- 1833 tion for land which prevailed there. But did hon. Gentlemen speak from experience or were they only echoing an old Irish cry? Mr. Doyle, in his excellent Report to the Royal Commission of 1882, said, that restricted competition for farms in Wales compelled owners in many cases to accept undesirable tenants—men without skill, enter-prize, or capital. How, then, could hon. Members speak of land-hunger when persons who had inquired into the subject spoke of the want of competition? Mr. Doyle had shown that the almost exclusive use of the Welsh language gave Welshmen, especially in remote parts, almost an exclusive monopoly of land-holding, and that they entertained a great jealousy of strangers. But the right hon. Member for East Denbigh-shire (Mr. Osborn Morgan) complained that some of the landlords did not know Welsh; he must remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman himself could only communicate with his Welsh constituents through an interpreter. There were two sorts of farmers in Wales—farmers of land and farmers of the platform. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment was one of the farmers of the platform; he had never had anything to do with land; his occupation was of a very different character. The leaders of this Welsh agitation were persons connected with the Press. They had heard a good deal about politics and religion in this debate. A farmer did not make his farm pay by politics, nor yet by religion, but by a knowledge of agriculture. The landowners, who were the real friends of the farmers, had reason to complain that they got no assistance from politicians in anything they did to help the farmers. He did not wish to minimize the misfortunes of Wales, but the reason of their existence was a very simple one. They were due to bad seasons, high rates, foreign competition, and professional agitators. According to the Land Agents' Record, which had been frequently referred to, people were afraid to invest money in land. What was necessary was to restore confidence to all classes of the people, and that could never be done so long as some hon. Members encouraged violence and class hatred. The payment of rent was not the cause of the Welsh farmers' mis- 1834 fortunes. There were in Wales a large number of freeholders, some 50,000, and they were a great deal worse off than the tenants. The hon. Member for Merionethshire made a whole string of statements without producing any evidence to support them. He would, however, give a few figures in support of his case. In 1862 the profits of the farmers, as appeared from the returns under Schedule B of the Income Tax, in the 28th Report of the Inland Revenue, were £2,659,000; in 1876 £3,183,000; and in 1883–4 £3,244,000; so that in the course of those years there was a continuous increase. Again, from the local taxation returns 1884–5, it appeared that the rateable value of property had increased in every county but one, and the last Return of agricultural statistics for 1886–7 showed that the number of acres under corn and under green grass had increased, that the number of horses, sheep, and pigs had increased, and that the land under cultivation had increased. In fact, everything had increased but cattle, which had decreased to a small extent. This was an organized and factitious agitation. A year ago there was a great meeting held at Rhyl to inaugurate a Land League for Wales, and placards were issued headed "Farmers, awake!" and calling on farmers to attend. They, however, did not, and one Radical newspaper the next day had to lament that "Farmers were conspicuous by their absence," while another charged Welsh farmers with "cowardice and servility." The fact was that there was only a minority in each constituency in favour of this agitation, but this minority had to be satisfied, and so as to satisfy them hon. Members opposite were bound to make a hubbub in the House. But in so doing they did not represent the majority of the Welsh people. There was a split among the agitators themselves. In Denbighshire a counter association to the National Radical Federation had been started, in which the hon. Member for Merionethshire took a leading part.
§ MR. T. E. ELLISsaid, he was not even a member of the counter association.
§ MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, at any rate, there was a counter association, and serious differences of opinion 1835 existed even amongst the Radical Members themselves on this subject.
MR. BOWENROWLANDS (Cardiganshire)said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down seemed to possess more wrong information on this subject than he could have believed possible; and between this inaccurate information and the tortuous windings of his speech had effectually concealed from the House the course of what he (Mr. Rowlands) supposed was intended for argument. He was sorry that the hon. Member had spoken of a factitious agitation and described the Welsh Members as agitators. He could not see the logic of the argument that their action was dictated by a desire to please their constituents, and that, nevertheless, they did not really represent their constituents in this matter. The hon. Member had made assertions without proving them. He had, it was true, quoted from the Report of Mr. Doyle; but, as had already been shown, the inquiry upon which that Report was founded was conducted by a person who knew nothing about Wales, and who obtained information from Poor Law clerks who were not competent to give it. The difficulties of the situation in Wales could not be settled by mere temporary reductions of rent. In order to inspire the tenants with that confidence which was essential for the successful practice of agriculture, rents must be permanently reduced or the land must be revalued and security of tenure with freedom of sale assured to the cultivators of the soil.
§ THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES) (Cambridge University)This has been an interesting debate to those who take any particular interest in the Principality of Wales; but I think it has been shorn of what might have been its most interesting feature, and reduced rather to the position of "Hamlet" with the principal figure in that play omitted. We are all aware that on the Front Bench opposite generally sits that eminent Member of this House best qualified to advise his own followers on the question of land tenure in Wales, and I think we must all regret that the "Squire of Hawarden" has not thought fit to give his followers that advice he might have given on this interesting subject. But in his absence we must do 1836 the best we can. I hope the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis), who brought on this Motion in a speech which, I think, was both moderate and circumspect, will understand that on this side of the House, and certainly with Her Majesty's Government, there is at least as full sympathy with all the trials and difficulties that have arisen out of the depression in agriculture as he or any of his Friends can claim to show. I should be sorry it should be supposed that, in opposing this Motion, the Government are acting with any want of sympathy with a class so entirely deserving of it as the farmers of Wales are, no less than those of England. The hon. Member's speech was both moderate and circumspect, extremely moderate in comparison with utterances of advocates of agricultural changes outside this House; and he was extremely circumspect in his instances, for he did not refer to any particular case in the course of his argument, with the exception of one annonymous landlord in Cardiganshire. But the House should not be left altogether ignorant of the sort of language used in connection with this subject by orators who speak with more freedom and less responsibility than Members when addressing this House. I dare say hon. Members on both sides may have seen a letter which appeared in The Times of the 18th of the present month, and signed by Mr. Gee, President of the Land League of Wales, or one of the Land Leagues of Wales, for I gather there are more than one. In this letter the writer defines the attitude of himself and his friends in language which deserves the attention of the House of Commons. Mr. Gee referred to an occasion when he was reported to have spoken about "rotten landlords," and as he was anxious to disclaim this soft impeachment, he wrote to The Times to say that he did not speak of "rotten landlords," but of "rotten land laws." That is a very easy mistake for a reporter to make; but as Mr. Gee goes on to point out that he addressed his audience in the Welsh tongue, it does not seem quite so easy to understand how the reporter fell into the error; and when he further goes on to clinch his argument, or, as I should say, judiciously forgets to clinch his argument, by any reference to the fact 1837 that some persons among his audience cried out "Shoot them!" he wisely disregards the consideration that persons who desire to shoot usually select something more tangible to shoot at than laws. However, Mr. Gee goes on to say what was the language he used, and these are the words he employs. He said—
The changes advocated by the Welsh Land League will of necessity cause great disturbance among landlords and their families, but that no social revolution of the kind, however grave and unpleasant it might be, is sufficient reason why these reforms should not be effected.He also stated, he says—That these changes should be effected by Constitutional means, but should these means fail, the responsibility will rest on our opponents if a revolution of another kind should take place, as it was impossible the country could continue subject to these oppressive laws for many years longer.Well, I give this language, not only because it is well that Parliament should be made aware of the sort of propaganda going on in Wales, but to do credit to the very different tone of the hon. Member for Merionethshire, who, in introducing his Motion to-night, "roared as gently as any sucking dove." Mr. Gee goes on to say what is included in his programme. He wants a Land Court established, with a sliding scale of rents, fixity of tenure, compensation for improvements, State aid to tenants for the purchase of holdings by loans spread over 50 years, the abolition of primogeniture and entail, the enfranchisement of leaseholders, the transfer of royalties to the Crown—that has not been, I think, a very popular thing in Wales—the abolition of the Game Laws, the revaluation of tithe rent charges, free rivers, paid Members of Parliament—and, of course what seems to be most important of all, the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church. This is a large programme, and I will not now attempt to discuss the various items in it; but I mention them to show that when the hon. Member comes with an extremely innocent-looking Motion inviting the attention of the Government to legislation to meet the agricultural depression in Wales, a great many people who act with him, and whose spokesman in the House he is presumed to be, attach a great deal more meaning to the Motion 1838 than he has given in his colourless speech in introducing it. The hon. Gentleman went, first of all, to the Commission of 1879, and referred to the Report of Mr. Doyle. Now, I do not wish, at this hour, to detain the House by following the hon. Member on the various objections he took to that Report—and, indeed, we have been told by the hon. and learned Member for Cardiganshire (Mr. Bowen Rowlands), that the Report is only worthy of consideration when it expresses his view, not when it expresses the view of anybody else—but the hon. Member mentioned in connection with the Report that the late Lord Penrhyn—who we may accept as one of the best landlords that ever filled that position in Wales or any other country—the hon. Member himself did full credit to his memory—that the late Lord Penrhyn used the phrase "hereditary tenantry." What is the meaning of a phrase of this sort? It was taken up by the hon. Gentleman, who made a great deal of it. Does it point to bad relations between landlord and tenant? Does the fact that tenants occupied holdings on which their fathers were born and which their forefathers have occupied for centuries, does that point to the existence of so much, bad blood, the absence of sympathy and want of cordial relations between landlord and tenant, with which, according to hon. Members, land tenure in Wales is cursed? I should say that, as regards the little hill farmers who hang on to their holdings with the most narrow means, with the greatest difficulty scraping together the means for their frugal existence, who cling to their position in times of the greatest difficulty for landlord and tenant, this long hereditary tenure of farms is as good testimony as we can possibly have of the friendly and cordial relations that from time immemorial have existed between landlord and tenant. Then a curious point came out in the speeches of the hon. Member and others who followed him. I always like to see a man's true nature appear through the artificial layer circumstances impose upon it. I believe the hon. Member believes himself to be a staunch Free Trader, yet he actually told us that one of his suggestions for improving the condition of Welsh farmers was that Englishmen should be prevented from competing for 1839 the purchase of land in the Principality! [Mr. T. E. ELLIS: Not at all.] Yes. Did he not say that tenants should have pre-emption? What is that but preventing the other side coming in? If you say that two parties may compete, but on the condition that one of them shall secure occupation, you rather neutralize the value of the competition on the other side. I do not think that anyone would care to engage in a competition if he knew that his opponent would be certain to get the lot when the auctioneer knocked it down. We have been told that it is a great hardship that a premium is put upon the purchase of an estate when it comes to the hammer because wealthy Englishmen bid. The hon. Member is a friend to the people of Wales; but he is actually prepared to exclude from residence in Wales, or from the rights of proprietorship and occupation there, the very men who fertilize its barren soil by bringing in English capital and English custom. Well, I never heard from any Gentleman who professed to be a popular Representative a more extraordinary panacea for the ills of his country than this proposal. We were told in one breath that tenants were so anxious to purchase that they were prepared to give fancy prices for property; but then the next moment we were told that the tenants were all, without exception, insolvent. We were told that these men, who were prepared to give for the land more than it was worth, were actually in a position of such universal bankruptcy that they were unable to meet their most ordinary engagements. I leave these arguments to meet each other. I do not see that he can maintain them both, and the hon. Member is welcome to the use of either to the exclusion of the other. We have been told, too, this is not simply an agricultural question, and, in fact, there has been very little said on the agricultural aspect of it. The hon. and gallant Member for West Denbighshire (Colonel Cornwallis West), it is true, did endeavour to treat it as an agricultural question; but although there have been casual allusions to it in the speeches of hon. Members, we have been constantly treated to the old story of the necessary separation of landlord and tenant by language, religion, and politics. Well, of course, I 1840 do not deny that it is matter of regret that landlords and tenants in Wales so little speak in the same language, and I make the admission frankly that landlords would do better if they did speak the Welsh language. I think it is extremely desirable that in an age when a greater sense of the responsibility of property is growing up that landlords should be in a position to talk to their tenants in the vernacular. More and more I think this will be done. So, also, as regards religion, it is unfortunate that landlords and tenants should be separated in attending places of worship. But I have always thought that in this there is much that is creditable to both parties. It is creditable to the independence of the tenants who, we are told, on the authority of Radical papers, are reduced to a condition so servile that they have not the courage of their opinions, that they never shrink from following that form of religion which is consonant with their conscientious convictions. Although, as a rule, landlord and tenants go to different places of worship, each deserves equal credit for going to the place which he believes is on the whole best suited to his own form of faith. And then as regards politics. The Welsh are, we know, a very impetuous race, and they take the keenest interest in the events of the day. They are extremely intelligent and quick to follow the political movements of the time. Nothing, then, is more likely than that differences of political opinion should arise. But admitting all these facts, what possible connection have they with agricultural tenure? What in the world is there to connect this question with acquiescence with the Thirty-Nine Articles, the expediency of Free Trade, or even with differences which prevail on the Irish policy; or what is there about the bilingual difficulty which should lead this House to make a new and separate agrarian law in regard to one integral part of the Kingdom? The conditions under which land is held are conditions that have grown out of old custom over a long time, and they are equal in Wales and England. There is a great deal of human nature in the Welshman, and he is not so unlike the Englishman as he is said to be, and I think you will find that there is no practical reason why, if 1841 you make a change in the relations of landlord and tenant in Wales, it should not equally apply to the relations between landlord and tenant in England. I believe the House would do very poor service to Wales if it made Wales the second subject of an experiment such as had been made in Ireland, if it were to extinguish what I believe to be the natural, friendly, and reasonable relations between landlord and tenant in Wales by attempting to legislate on lines which have already proved so disastrous in the Sister Island. We were told that until a few years ago rent was held to be as sacred by the tenant as by the landlord in Wales; and I will go further and say I think rent is at the present time as sacred in the eyes of the tenant as of the landlord. I think, in the enormous majority of cases in Wales, the Welsh tenant is quite prepared to pay his rent as far as be can. I think he is extremely honest in his relations with his landlord; and, on the other hand, I think there is an equal disposition to fairness on the part of the landlord, who has been ready and willing to make such abatements as appeared necessary in view of the depressed state of agriculture at the time. I cannot quite accept the speech of the hon. Member for the Rotherham Division of the West Riding of York (Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland), who is also, I believe, Bursar of Balliol College, and who, I think, speaks of the relations between landlord and tenant from the point of view of a College Bursar—the most unfortunate phase of the relations that exist in any part of the Principality between landlord and tenant. The hon. Member, who has lived for some time in Wales, gave us with the greatest care the result of his own experience, and he drew a very painful picture of what he believed to be the relations between landlord and tenant. I am quite ready to admit that in the case of Corporations, necessarily an absentee proprietorship, it is impossible to cultivate those cordial and friendly relations that spring up between man and man in the position of landlord and tenant, and it is extremely probable that the Bursar of the College found there was not that spontaneous cordiality that meets any gentleman who acquires property there. I do not myself speak as a landlord in Wales; 1842 but I live in Wales, and have lived there not quite so long, perhaps, as my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Osborne Morgan), but very nearly. I know something of the Welsh people from the point of view even of a landlord on a small scale, and I can only say that I never found the slightest difficulty in dealing with my tenants on account of difference in language, politics, or religion. If I may do so without being open to a charge of egotism, I would relate an incident from my personal experience that will illustrate in some degree what are the relations between landlord and tenant, even when the landlord is what some hon. Members call an alien. A few years ago I had a tenant on a small farm, a widow, and she came to me in great trouble and was very anxious that I should put in a distress for the rent. I said—"Surely this is one of the most extraordinary requests ever made. I do not believe the rent is due." "Oh, yes; it is," she said—"it was due last week, and I have come to ask you to put in a distress." Then, when I came to inquire the reason, she told me that the village usurer—he happened also to be a popular Nonconformist preacher—had a bill against them. Years before they had borrowed £20 from him, and, though he had been paid twice over, yet still he made a claim for more than the original sum; "and he is sure," said she, "to put in an execution if you do not protect your tenant." Well, I did what I could. I went to the usurer, and, after listening to some bad language, got him not to press his claim. I only mention this to show the sort of relation that exists in my part of Wales, when a tenant of the poorest, feeblest class comes to the landlord as his natural protector and friend in any difficulty that may threaten him. I do not wish to detain the House further. I only wished to show that there is no want of sympathy on the part of the Government, and those who sit on this side, with the difficulties that are allowed to have arisen from agricultural depression; but we believe, at the same time, that nothing could be more fatal to the true interest of Wales, and especially of Welsh agriculturists, than for us to yield to an agitation got up by two or three incendiary newspapers, however mildly the case may be presented to the House.
§ MR. BRYN ROBERTS (Carnarvonshire,) Eifionsaid, he would only make a very few observations on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Raikes). The right hon. Gentleman admitted to the full the differences of race, language, politics, and religion that existed in the relations between landlord and tenant; but he asked what possible connection could there be between these matters and agriculture? The right hon. Gentleman could not have paid much attention to the speeches delivered, because that connection was shown in the clearest manner possible. The English land system was such that it could not be applied with success unless there was an entire community of feeling between landlord and tenant on these subjects; because the power given to the landlord was so omnipotent that it could be used, and was used, to the injury of the tenant where these antagonisms prevailed. This was the strong ground for land tenure reform in Wales rather than in England. The right hon. Gentleman said he never found any difficulty; but though he actually lived in Wales he was only just within the Welsh Border, where not a word of Welsh was spoken, and where the people were, practically speaking, English, though Welsh by descent, and geographically inhabitants of Wales. Such also was the case with the hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Kenyon), who lived on the Border, where Welsh views, habits, and language did not exist.
§ MR. KENYONsaid, he begged to be allowed to correct the hon. Member. He had spoken not of his own locality, but also of the constituency he represented in the very heart of North Wales.
§ MR. BRYN ROBERTSsaid, he only spoke of where the hon. Gentleman resided. He only wished to say, from what he knew of the Welsh farmers, that they would be satisfied with a Bill of a very moderate character—a Bill that he was certain no reasonable landlord could take exception to. They did not want even complete fixity of tenure, but only reasonable protection against capricious evictions. They would require also fair rents, and this no landlord would object to. No landlord would confess he desired other than a fair rents. 1844 A Bill conceding these two points would give complete satisfaction. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the language of orators out-of-doors; and if strong language was used by a few people, was it not a strong argument for doing something to meet the views of the Representatives of the people in the House, before agitation increased and the violent language of the few was generally adopted?
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 146; Noes 128: Majority 18.—(Div. List, No. 182.)
§ Main Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."