HL Deb 11 June 1880 vol 252 cc1737-49
LORD DUNSANY

, in rising to call attention to the revolutionary agitation against landed property in Ireland, originated and encouraged by Irish Members of Parliament, to the successful defiance of lawful authority in certain districts, and to the strength which agrarian lawlessness derives from speeches (probably misconstrued) of Ministers out of Office, and to ask Her Majesty's Government for such assurances as might give confidence to the loyal, and to discourage revolutionary hopes and designs, said, be believed the agitation of which he spoke originated with a Gentleman of Irish-American parentage, who probably remembered a passage in American history wherein the resistance offered to the collection of rents was successful. In any case, the invitation given by that Gentleman to the Irish people was to resist payment of rent. The House was doubtless aware that Mr. Parnell had in various parts of Ireland addressed large meetings, and recommended them not to pay their rent, at the same time denouncing landlords and what he called landlordism; and all this had certainly not been without its effect. The most remarkable feature of those meetings was not so much the words used by the speaker as the responses made by the people who heard him, and who were reported to have frequently made use of such cries as "Down with the landlords," "Shoot them," "Give them lead—plenty of lead." It might be thought that Mr. Parnell would have addressed some words of reproof to those who uttered such sentiments, or, at least, that he would have attempted something like dissuasion; but he (Lord Dunsany) was not aware that Mr. Parnell had done this on any occasion except one, when, according to a Cork newspaper, Mr. Parnell remarked—"Well, lead had sometimes been useful." He did not know whether the House would think it revolutionary for a Member of Parliament to tell the people to defy the law. Mr. Parnell was not a man who minced matters. He had spoken out freely in this country and Ireland, and even more freely in America, where, in a speech delivered at Pittsburg, alluding to the determination of the tenant farmers to own the land, he said— I believe in the right of the people to own the land, and, whether they gain it by purchase or by force of arms, it is the duty of every true Irishman to devote his whole energies to the solution of this great question. When we have given Ireland to the people of Ireland, we shall have laid a foundation from which to build up the Irish nation. The feudal tenure and the Irish landlords have been the corner-stone of England's misrule. Pull out that corner-stone, break it up, and destroy it, and you will undermine British government. When we have undermined the English Government, we shall have paved the way for Ireland to take her place among the nations. Let us not forget that this is the ultimate goal at which all Irishmen aim. None of us, whether in America or in Ireland, or wherever we may he, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which binds Ireland to England. This seemed to be rather a negation of the idea of Home Rule, under which it was generally supposed that the golden link of the Crown was to unite the two countries; but, according to Mr. Parnell, the last link was to be broken. [The noble Lord quoted another passage from a paper called The Irish World, which he said was to be regarded as a recognized organ of Irish discontent, and he also cited a pamphlet headed "Revolution the only Remedy for the Oppressed Classes of Ireland," as a specimen of the manner in which the Irish people were incited to revolutionary agitation against the laws.] The chief object of such publications appeared to be to inspire the Irish people with a hatred of England. As to Mr. Parnell himself, he believed that, unlike the majority of Irish agitators, he was perfectly sincere, and that his hatred to England was somewhat stimulated by a certain incident during the Fenian disturbances in Ireland. But when a man in his position advised the non-payment of rent, when he advised his hearers, and possibly his dupes, openly to resist the law, one naturally asked what resources did he rely upon? On the side of the law there were the whole powers of the State, which in England were deemed to be simply irresistible. When, therefore, a man counselled others to resist those powers, it was to be presumed that he must have thought of the consequences. The Blue Book lately-laid on their Lordships' Table gave a very disheartening picture of the present state of Ireland. The sum total of the crime for last year—he was speaking now of that agrarian crime, and of by far the smallest portion of it, which was actually brought under the cognizance of the police—was 977 outrages. Those crimes were committed before the accession of the present Government to Office. Officially the present Government had no connection with any of these outrages; but he could not help thinking that many of these outrages—that much of the revolutionary greed for land now in Ireland—were to be attributed to the encouragement which was given to agitation on the Land Question in former times, to the Act of 1870, and to the still more imprudent speech by which that measure was introduced. The catalogue of crime furnished the details of two and a-half outrages for every working day, three for every Sunday, and 17 left for other holidays in the year. It was the more deplorable when they considered that, 10 years after the passing of the Land Act, which was supposed to have settled the question between the landlord and tenant, the amount of crime was greater by 30 per cent. As to agrarian crime, he was sorry to say that the county of Galway took preeminence. During last year 220 agrarian outrages were committed in that county. Next to Galway, Mayo followed with 196 outrages. He was glad to say that in his county (Meath) a very cordial feeling existed between landlord and tenant, and there were very few disturbances, the number of outrages amounting only to 22. He wished to call attention to one case, where a labourer was shot for having fenced a farm from which a tenant had been evicted. There seemed to be an idea that landlords only were shot in the country; but the majority of the outrages mentioned in that Blue Book were directed, not against the landlords, but against the tenants and labourers. There was another case. An armed party entered a house and forced the tenant to go on his knees and promise, a revolver being placed at his head, to accept £100 in lieu of land left to his wife by his father. That, he thought, was the Irish form of settling a Chancery suit. But they would see that in the case in question there was no connection with the landlords. It was merely a family matter. He had a particular reason in turning to the county of Cavan. It was the next county to Meath; but it was not in the Province of Leinster. It was in the Province of Ulster. There was a common impression that in Ulster all was tranquillity; but in Cavan there were 40 outrages. This meant 40 outrages under the Ulster Tenant Eight, as against 22 where the Ulster Tenant Eight did not exist. At the same time, he was bound to say that, if the outrages in Cavan had been 40,000 instead of 40, it would not have been more than one might expect from the advice given by the hon. Member representing the county. He did not wish to say much of that Gentleman, as from his own words their Lordships would be able to form an opinion. By a report in The Times of the 22nd of March, he found that the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), speaking on the borders of the counties of Cavan and Meath, and replying to the toast of "The Irish Parliament," was reported to have referred to what Hartmann had done in Russia, adding that if the Constitutional course which was being pursued in Parliament failed, he believed that Ireland would produce another Hartmann, and with better results. Speaking of a gentleman, an agent named O'Conor, whose views did not coincide with his own, Mr. Biggar had said he would tell his hearers what they would be justified in doing to this person. When he appeared in public he should be hooted from the surface of society. I do not say," continued Mr. Biggar, "you should offer any actual violence, because if you did you would be brought before a partial jury and would not get justice done you in a Court of Law. You would be brought before partizan magistrates, a partizan Judge, a packed jury, and would not get justice done. They would observe that, a man being by supposition guilty, none but a partial Judge and jury would convict him. The Irish people, then, according to Mr. Biggar, were not to commit actual outrage from motives of policy. In another speech delivered by Mr. Biggar to a number of Irishmen at Bermondsey on the subject of the future of the Irish race, he said that by the "Irish race" He meant to include all Irishmen of the Roman Catholic faith wherever they might he found. Protestants he did not consider Irishmen at all. They were merely Western Britons accidentally born in Ireland; and, from his own experience, he could say that they were the bitterest enemies to Ireland. He was glad Irishmen had clung to their faith, and went on to say that— By Mr. Gladstone's Land Act the tenant farmers of Ireland had considerably benefited. How was that Act obtained—how? Why, by fear. Mr. Gladstone himself had admitted that it was the Fenian rising which had impelled him to bring forward the measure. He (Mr. Biggar) would not say whether he himself was or was not a Fenian; but if anyone called him a Fenian, he would answer that he did not consider that a disgrace. Physical force was the only thing the British Government had the slightest care for. They cared nothing for reason, or justice, or the rights of the people; but it was possible, nay probable, that some day the democracy would break loose, and London warehouses and Lancashire manufactures would be destroyed, and the shipping of the Thames and Mersey would be set on fire. The Irish Party might be few in numbers; but when they remembered the result of the determined efforts of a mere handful of men in Manchestsr and Clerkenwell they could not doubt their ultimate success. These were the words of the hon. Member for Cavan, and their Lordships would not be surprised to hear that the result of these utterances had been most melancholy. It was a mistake to suppose that the landlords were the only obstacles to peace and order in Ireland. If the landlords ceased to exist by the process of shooting, or if they were bought out of the land, that would not improve the state of things. The very day the land got into the hands of the tenants there would be a new form of landlordism which would be obnoxious to the people. Another lesson that was to be learned from what had taken place was that Ulster Tenant Right was no remedy. Amongst the various dangers with which Irish landlords were threatened was the extension of tenant right to districts in which it did not exist at present. This extension, unless compensation were given to landlords, would be nothing more nor less than robbery. Where tenant right existed it implied a concurrent proprietary right in the land of the tenant with the landlord; to give it where it did not exist would be to take away from a landlord all that that concurrent right represented. The last inference to be drawn from the Returns was that the Act of 1870 had by no means removed the grievances of Ireland or rendered the country more orderly or peaceful. That being the case, it was certainly not unreasonable of him to ask from Her Majesty's Government some expression of opinion calculated to give confidence to the loyal inhabitants and some discouragement to the disloyal inhabitants. Some language had, no doubt, been used—perhaps unintentionally— by Members of the present Cabinet, which was calculated to excite hopes among the people of Ireland which could only be realized by revolutionary measures. He trusted, therefore, that Her Majesty's Ministers would declare that they had no intention of legislating for Ireland in a manner in which they would not legislate for England or Scotland. He did not deny that they had a right to modify the Land Laws of the whole of the United Kingdom if they saw fit; but there was such a thing as partial legislation, which implied an indefensible injustice. In conclusion, he begged to ask Her Majesty's Government for such assurances as might give confidence to the loyal and discourage revolutionary hopes and designs.

LORD MONTEAGLE

said, he would not detain their Lordships long; but he wished to call attention to some figures which he thought were instructive on this matter. The character of the offences was an important point to be considered; and he found when he looked into it, of the very large number of offences returned as "agrarian," more than half of them were simply cases of intimidation. The proportion was tolerably equal in the several counties of Ireland, and he was sure their Lordships would admit that intimidation was hardly to be dignified by the name of "agrarian crime." He did not wish to minimize the evil of this system of intimidation, nor did he wish to dogmatize; but it must be admitted that a threat was far less serious than the commission of a crime. Therefore, when he read the figures he had in his hand, he thought they would have some effect on the mind of their Lordships. In Leinster, the number of cases of agrarian crime from 1st March, 1878, to 31st December, 1879, was 209; but of these, 145, considerably more than half, were cases of intimidation. In Munster the figures were 191 and 101, in Ulster 158 and 80, and in Connaught 573 and 351. The number of murderous crimes were as follows:—In Leinster 12, in Munster 21, in Ulster 13, and in Connaught 22. He had quoted these figures because he believed from the remarks he had heard made by individuals in conversation, and also in the newspapers, that many people were under the impression that all the cases returned as "agrarian" were murders, or crimes of a very serious nature. It was important to consider the circumstances under which the increase in crime had taken place in Ireland. The last great increase in crime was at a time of great prosperity—in 1870—when the cases of crime in the four Provinces reached the number of 1,329. The increase was greatest in the unfortunate Province of Connaught, which was a Province not at all blessed by nature, and one, therefore, for which great allowances should be made. Prom investigations lately made by Dr. Hancock, it was found that a very large number of peasants went from Ireland to England every year for the harvest. Nearly a half went from Connaught, and nearly a quarter of the whole number from Mayo. In 1841 there were 10,000 from Mayo. The figures had been increased owing to improved railway communication, and in 1878 20,000 went from Mayo instead of 10,000. In the following year there were 5,000 less from Mayo, and 7,000 less from the whole of Connaught. It was estimated that these men brought £14 10s. a-head to their homes in Ireland, and when in England they were frugal and industrious. Owing to the bad state of agriculture in England it had been estimated that in the Province of Connaught no less than £250,000 had been lost under this head. These figures, he thought, were extremely significant. He did not wish to minimize the effect of the danger the Government had to cope with, or excuse the agitators who were responsible for all, and more than all, the existing dangers; but he did wish to do what he could to absolve his unfortunate countrymen, especially his poorer countrymen, from the charges brought against them.

The EARL of DUNRAVEN

thought it would have been desirable if Her Majesty's Government could have given the House some outline of what they intended to do; but, considering the short time they had been in power, he did not think it was fair to expect them to give any distinct idea on the subject. He had no doubt the Common Law in Ireland was quite sufficient for the efficient protection of property if only the Executive, the police of the country, had sufficient power to carry it out, and could depend upon the co-operation of the people. Unfortunately, however, the people did not give the police the assistance which they ought to render. This was a state of mind much to be lamented, but one that no law on earth could remedy. The Government were, no doubt, right in not renewing the Peace Preservation Act, seeing that it was perfectly useless, inadequate for the purpose, and unable to deal at all with the state of things existing in Ireland. It was all very well in its way, and would be useful in dealing with occasional isolated cases of agrarian outrage. But matters were much more serious than that in Ireland. A strong, well-organized, and revolutionary attempt had been made in Ireland to upset the whole social fabric in that country, and the Peace Preservation Act was quite powerless to copewith that attempt. He did not see much use in quartering extra bodies of police in disturbed districts and charging the cost on those districts. The most disturbed localities were the poorest. The fine could only be paid by the well-to-do inhabitants, who were peaceable, law-abiding men; or if the poorer people, the authors of outrages paid it, they would have the absurdity of men breaking the law, and paying the fine for doing so out of funds distributed by the Mansion House Committee and from other charitable sources. The noble Lord (Lord Dunsany) had referred to several speeches delivered outside of Parliament. He must observe that a remarkable speech had been made by the present Prime Minister in Mid-Lothian, in which, speaking of the Disestablishment Question in Scotland, he mentioned the case of the Irish Church. In 1865, he said the Disestablishment of that Church was not within the range of practical politics; but he said a gaol was broken open in the centre of the Metropolis, and at Manchester a policeman was murdered in the execution of his duty. At once, added the right hon. Gentleman, the whole country became alive to the case of Ireland, and the question as to the Disestablishment of the Church was brought within the range of practical politics. He did not for a moment say that the Prime Minister meant to convey that outrage was necessary to compel the Government to give attention to alleged Irish grievances; but it was possible that many people on reading that passage would entertain some such idea. He (the Earl of Dunraven) was not going to ask Her Majesty's Government to give any programme of what they proposed to do in regard to Ireland; but there were some questions relating to Ireland about which there had been some controversy as to whether they did come within the range of practical politics. One was the question of Home Rule. Some persons said an inquiry might be made into the desirability of Home Rule, while others urged that it never could be made. It would be well if the Government would give some idea whether they considered that Home Rule came within the range of practical politics or not, and whether any outrage could possibly bring it into that category. An answer on that point might tend to quiet the minds of the people, and promote the peace and prosperity of Ireland.

EARL SPENCER

said, he did not intend to follow the noble Lord opposite (Lord Dunsany) into all the matters he had referred to; indeed, he and his noble Friends near him had laboured under the disadvantage of not being able to hear all the noble Lord had said. It would, however, be his duty to make a few observations on the question which the noble Lord had put to the Government. The noble Lord had called attention to what he said was revolutionary action against the landlords of Ireland on the part of certain Irish Members of Parliament. He (Earl Spencer) did not for a moment wish to diminish or take away from the importance which he thought had been very rightly attached to that movement in Ireland. Her Majesty's Government were in no way responsible for anything which had been said or done during the so-called anti-rent agitation. It was conducted by Irish Members of Parliament and others, and the whole responsibility—and it was a very serious one—-for what they did must rest on their heads, and on their heads alone. That agitation, he thought, had had a most pernicious effect in Ireland. That he did not for a moment deny. It had had an effect more or less in every part of Ireland; but they might take consolation from the fact that the agitation had not spread over the whole of Ireland. The noble Lord, however, and Members "elsewhere," and the Press, who took the same view as the noble Lord opposite, spoke as if the agitation had covered the whole of Ireland. Now, he thought it would be exceedingly satisfactory to find that although an attempt had been made to extend this agitation to the whole of Ireland, that attempt might be said to have signally failed except in a few counties. Those counties where it best succeeded were those in which the state of the agricultural population was in the worst possible condition. Those counties were Mayo, Roscommon, parts of Sligo, Galway, Donegal, and Kerry; and when he had said that, he thought he had named all the counties where the rent agitation had taken, if he might use the word, anything like root. There had been other counties in which it had been tried; but he thought he might venture to appeal to their Lordships' recollection when he said that where it had been attempted in other counties the agitators had not succeeded. As to this agitation, he thought it might have an exceedingly bad effect not only upon the people themselves, who in Ireland were so easily led by any doctrine connected with the land, but also he thought it had a prejudicial effect upon the Irish landlords themselves. That agitation tried to compel all the tenants, regardless of what their rents were, to require their landlords to abate their rents 30 or 40 per cent. Did not that mean to discourage the landlords who had been at times very considerate to their tenants, against doing what they had done? The tenants were to be induced to demand reductions of rent from those considerate landlords. For his part, he felt bound to protest against the doctrine, which he had heard from time to time, that the landlords in Ireland, as a class, were harsh to their tenants. He did not for a moment think that that allegation could be proved. There were landlords in Ireland as considerate as any landlords to be found in England or Scotland were. In every country, of course, and in Ireland especially, there were landlords not of that class, and they had, no doubt, brought upon that country many of the evils which they all deplored; but he felt bound to say that the landlords of Ireland were not the exceedingly harsh men they had been so often described. With respect to the extent of the disturbances which had been referred to, he did not wish their Lordships to suppose that Her Majesty's Government considered the state of Ireland to be satisfactory. He was afraid that in some parts of the country there existed a very formidable conspiracy against law and order. The Government were fully aware of that fact, and he did not wish in any degree to diminish the importance of what had been said on the subject. The range of the disturbances, however, was extremely limited. The noble Lord had referred to a number of agrarian crimes committed in Ireland during the year 1879, amounting to 937. But where were those crimes committed? He found that 544, or more than half of them, were committed in one Province of Ireland— namely, in Connaught, in the counties of Mayo, Sligo, Galway, Leitrim, and Roscommon. He would now turn to another piece of evidence on this subject — the charges delivered by the Judges to the Grand Juries at the Spring Assizes. He had gone through those charges as far as he could, and had analyzed the result of these charges, and he found that in Ireland there were seven counties where the state of the country was bad. He did not mince what the Judges said; but he found that there were 19 instances where they said the state of the country was exceedingly good, and only seven where the state of the country was at all doubtful. He could read, but he would not do so, extracts from the charges of those Judges in counties, where in former days there had been a great amount of crime, to show that in those counties during the past year there had not been an amount of crime to create serious alarm. One of these counties was that of Meath, which the noble Lord (Lord Dunsany) said was his own county, and to his tenants there he paid a just tribute. In Westmeath, Chief Justice Morris said there were very few cases. This, he thought, was sufficient to show that in a great part of Ireland this agitation had not succeeded in any way, and outrages had not followed it. With regard to outrages, he would like just to make one observation. The noble Lord (Lord Mont-eagle), whom the House was always glad to hear, because from his position in Ireland he was able to afford much useful information, had said that there were cases of threatening. No doubt, there was some extent of truth in the remarks of the noble Lord; but he would not go the length the noble Lord did in saying that threats and intimidation were not serious crimes.

LORD MONTEAGLE

I said the threat to commit a crime was not so serious as the crime itself.

EARL SPENCER

said, he was afraid it indicated a bad state of things when threatening letters were sent out; it showed that there was agitation going on which was pernicious and which could not be disregarded. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Dunsany) had referred to various matters, such as the question of the effect of the extending of the Ulster Tenant Eight over Ireland, and he also asked Her Majesty's Government whether they would declare that they did not agree with those who told the tenants that they were to get the landlords property? He felt almost ashamed to have to answer such a question. The noble Lord, he was sure, could never believe that anyone sitting on the Ministerial Bench would advocate the handing over the land to the tenants.

LORD DUNSANY

Of course, I did not suppose that the Government would go that length; but 5 per cent of the land was transferred to the tenants by the Land Act, and it has been said by Mr. Bright that far more drastic measures would be necessary.

EARL SPENCER

said, of course, the operation of the Land Act was a wide subject which could notnow be discussed. All these matters called for that mature consideration which he was sure the Government would give to them. His noble Friend (the Earl of Dunraven) had asked whether Government would make a declaration of their policy with regard to Home Rule? He (Earl Spencer) was not there that night to make a declaration of that sort, and he did not think it would have been brought up; but as his noble Friend had quoted a speech of the Prime Minister's, he would venture to quote another passage of a speech of his right Hon. Friend which would form a sufficient answer to the question. After the Prime Minister had made one of his speeches in Scotland as to the difficulties there were of Parliament conducting all its Business, he said he should be very glad to see some measure for relieving the block of Business that was in Parliament, and he added these words— There is one limit, and one only, to the extension of local government. It is this— Nothing can be done by any wise statesman or any right-minded Briton to weaken or compromise the authority of the Imperial Parliament. The Imperial Parliament must be supreme in these Kingdoms, and nothing that creates a doubt on that policy can be tolerated by patriotic Britons. He (Earl Spencer) felt no doubt that the Prime Minister would now adhere to the views he then stated; and he (Earl Spencer) could in no better way answer the Question of the noble Lord than by putting forward that view. He would not weary their Lordships with any further remarks. He would only say, in answer to the last part of the noble Lord's Question, that he would assure him and all those connected with Ireland that Her Majesty's Government would watch with the utmost vigilance all that passed in that country. They would not in any way strain the law, but they would put that law into execution with a firm hand; and they thoroughly believed if they were supported, as they hoped they would be, by all the loyal people in that country, that they would, even though those special measures were not re-enacted which were enforced under the Peace Preservation Act, be able to maintain order thoroughly in that country. He hoped that, without using those special powers for giving strength to the arm of the law, they would be able to administer that law with as much success as it could be administered in that country.