COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 23 June 1870)

§ LORD REDESDALE
gave Notice that, not being able to move an Amendment when in the Chair, he should on the Report, in the event of any equivalent Amendment not having been made in Committee, move an Amendment in the 3rd clause, in the sense of the Protest which had been signed by himself and other noble Lords.

THE EARL OF LUCAN
said, that having been a Member of the House for 30 years, he desired to offer some remarks on the most important Bill which had appeared during the time he had sat in either House. With regard to the second part of the Bill—those clauses which related to advances to be made by the Government to enable tenants to purchase the land of their landlords—he thought it was one of the great difficulties of Ireland that the land was in so few hands. Therefore, he thought the proposals of the Bill would act advantageously. But he could not approve the mode in which it was proposed to bring about the desired result. If it was the intention of the Government to advance money for the purchase of their holdings not merely to tenants paying £5 or £10, but to those paying from £2,000 to £5,000 per annum, it would be exceedingly advantageous to Ireland. Land was at present in too few hands, and it would be a great advantage to introduce landlords with property amounting to several hundreds or thousands a year. Nothing, however, would be more mischievous than a tenant-proprietary; nor could he conceive that landlords would be willing to sell to their tenants holdings of £20 or £30 per annum. If that was the object in view, it would assuredly prove a failure. As to the other parts of the Bill, it was dishonest, oppressive, revolutionary, and totally uncalled for. It was impossible to take from A and give to B without robbing the former; and though the noble and learned Lord (the Lord Chancellor) had tried to explain this away, he would certainly have used no such argument in his judicial capacity. With regard to awarding seven years' value as compensation to the tenant, this, in the West of Ireland, would be equal to half the fee simple. It was unfit for a civilized Government to have proposed such a measure. The Revue des Deux Mondes, than which no Continental publication expressed opinions of more value, had remarked that no reformer would dare to propose a scheme similar to this Bill on the Continent, for he would be accused of shaking the basis of society; and that to find a parallel to the measure one must go back to the French Revolution. But this Bill was not paralleled even by the confiscations of the French Revolution, 743 for nobody who submitted to the Government of the day was then subjected to a confiscation of his property. It was an oppressive proceeding to enact that a landlord should not contract in a particular way with his tenant. Moreover, the tenantry of Ireland had not sought, and, indeed, he doubted whether they approved the Bill. It was true so-called tenant-right meetings had been held; but their object, in nine cases out often, was the liberation of the Fenian prisoners, and the land question was one wholly got up by the Roman Catholic clergy, whose whole income depended on the existence of a small and numerous tenantry. As one who had supported every measure in favour of the Roman Catholic priests, from Emancipation downwards, he did not blame them for this, for it was a life and death matter to them, and that it was thought so had been proved that the Roman Catholic hierarchy at Rome had passed a resolution to the effect that the Bill would be useless unless it led to a subdivision of farms all over Ireland. The noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal admitted the other night that this was a very strong Bill, and that it would have been impossible last year to introduce such a measure, neither England nor Scotland being prepared for it, and that it was necessary to educate them for it. [The Earl of KIMBERLEY intimated dissent.] How had England and Scotland been educated? Why, these tenant-right meetings had kept Ireland in a state such as the oldest man could not recollect, and the West of Ireland had been in a condition of excitement such as he had never seen. For this the Government were chiefly responsible, for they ought not to have allowed the agitation to go on for several months, for they knew that these meetings were really held for the purpose of obtaining the release of the Fenian prisoners. He would do Mr. Gladstone the justice of believing that he had no intention of acceding to the demand for the liberation of the prisoners, and that had been at last openly announced. But had he spoken out in September, instead of in November or December, when sedition was boiling over, there would have been no agitation. But the "education" of England and Scotland required that there should be excitement and even rebellion in Ireland; but he held the Govern- 744 ment utterly unjustifiable in seeking to influence Great Britain at the cost of Ireland. It had been stated by a Member of the Government that they were prepared to legalize the Ulster custom, but not to make it universal. This, however, would certainly be the effect of the Bill. If a tenant wished to surrender his tenancy, and presented a claim for compensation, landlords with sufficient balances at their bankers might settle the claim; but this was not the case with himself, and, after seeing that the terms were not excessive, he should be obliged to tell the tenant to go and find a successor and arrange with him. After suggesting or tolerating an arrangement of this kind between the two men, he could not, as an honest man, ignore that arrangement. Thus tenant-right would be extended to parts of the country where it was at present unknown. The effect of the Bill would be that the landlords would lose all control over their estates, and would, therefore, become absentees—an evil which which was most loudly denounced by the very persons who were doing their best to promote it. Friendly relations between landlords and tenants would inevitably be disturbed by the Bill, and the influence of the landlords, the only class who were firmly attached to the Union with England, would be destroyed.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
believed he should be acting in unison with the feelings of the House by not following the noble and gallant Earl (the Earl of Lucan) over the spirited and energetic invective he had pronounced against the Bill and against the Government. The measure was very fully debated on the second reading—and he was bound to say—and it was acknowledged by his Colleagues—that it was debated, with that amount of exception which only proved the rule, in a singularly calm, earnest, and states-manlike manner by both sides of the House. This, he was most willing to admit, was very much owing to the initiative of the noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Richmond). The noble and gallant Earl was quite justified on the score of Order in making a speech on the Motion to go into Committee; but he was at a loss to understand why, deeming the measure a robbery, outrageous, and revolutionary, he could have sat silent during the three nights of debate on the second reading without 745 having delivered his opinions. Considering the small volume, as it were, of Amendments before them, he hoped their Lordships would at once go into Committee.