RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 13 July 1893)

LORD MUSKERRY
rose to call attention to the present unsatisfactory 1444 position of the Irish Land Laws; and to move to resolve— That it is necessary that the ownership of the land by the landlord, which has never been abrogated by legislation, should receive fuller recognition; and that, with this object, on the expiration of the judicial term of 15 years, the landlord shall have power, upon payment of such compensation for disturbance as may be deemed just by a competent tribunal, to resume possession of the holdings in respect of which judicial rents have been fixed, notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in previous, enactments. He said, the Motion was not in favour of the Irish landlords merely, but asking a very scant measure of the justice which every one of Her Majesty's subjects was entitled to. In all their Acts the Government had been actuated by a desire to impoverish and ruin the Loyalist landowners of Ireland at the instance of agitators whose demand for Home Rule was for the object of abolishing British rule in Ireland. When out of England the Nationalists sometimes spoke the truth. Speaking in Boston in 1881 Mr. Healy remarked that the landlords were the props of British rule in Ireland, and therefore must be driven out of the country. Again, in 1882, at New Orleans, the hon. Member had said that if they wished to get rid of British rule they must abolish the landlords, who were the support of that rule. In 1885 Mr. W. O'Brien had said that the system of landlordism in Ireland must be exterminated root and branch in order to put an end to English rule in that country. Members of the present Government had made very fair statements on the subject of what should be done on the Irish Land Question; but, unfortunately, they had not acted up to them. Mr. John Morley himself in 1886 said that while the then late Government had passed an Act to prevent the landlords from confiscating the property of their tenants, it might become necessary to pass an Act to prevent the tenants from confiscating the property of their landlords. Mr. Gladstone, speaking 23 years ago, had protested against a particular proposal in reference to the fixing of rents on the ground that it would virtually be expropriating the landlords to whom compensation would have to be paid for the rights of which they would be deprived. But, so far, no compensation had been offered them. Why was it that the Irish landlords were being treated so 1445 unjustly? That they did not deserve such treatment had been vouched for by Mr. Gladstone himself, who had borne favourable testimony to their behaviour towards their tenants. If this so-called policy of conciliation were to be carried out restrictions must be placed upon men leaving or sub-letting their land, or occupying more than they could cultivate with their own hands, and the village usurers or gombeen men must be prohibited from lending money to Irish farmers, otherwise the land would be taken from the present landowners merely for the purpose of setting up a new race of landlords, whose action with regard to their tenants would be far more tyrannical than that of the old landlords, and the last state of the Irish tenant would be worse than his first. There were two sorts of tenants in Ireland—the sober and industrious, who made money and' put it by, and the idle, who did not. The man who had made money would acquire land from his idle neighbour and become his landlord. As to how he would treat his tenant, anyone who knew how the Irish farmer dealt with his labourer holding a small plot of ground from him could easily prophecy. Then, had this legislation arisen from the ill-treatment of the tenants by the landlords? According to Mr. Gladstone, it had not; for he said in 1881 it would not be due to misconduct on the part of the landlords of Ireland, who, on the contrary, having stood their trial, had been declared by the Bessborough Commission to be entitled to the greatest credit for not exacting all they were entitled to. The Acts of 1870, 1871, 1876, 1881, 1882, and 1887 were all utterly against the interests of the landlords, in favour of the tenants, and, as most of the Nationalists believed, against the interests of England. Speaking on the Second Reading of the last measure, the Marquess of Salisbury said that his defence for assenting to a measure that he did not approve of was the necessity of a continuity of policy. One thing this legislation had done most thoroughly was to frighten capital from the country. Another point was that under the present land system of Ireland a tenant usually entered upon a farm without adequate capital to carry it on, and, consequently, he was always in debt. People in England were, as a rule, in 1446 complete ignorance of the difference between an English and an Irish acre; and, therefore, that a rent which would appear exorbitant over here would be comparatively low in Ireland—a guinea an acre really representing in comparison 12s. 4d. The injustice that recent legislation had done to those who had purchased estates in the Irish Encumbered Estates Court was enormous, seeing that those persons had obtained an indefeasible Parliamentary title to their property of which they had now been deprived of the ownership. Under the present law, the idle and careless Irish tenant farmer was rewarded for his idleness and bad cultivation of the land, for at the expiration of the 15 years he would get a reduction of his rent owing to the depreciation in the value of the land due to his neglect. He should like to know whether, in proposing legislation for Ireland, the Government had ever consulted men who knew Ireland and who would give an unbiased opinion—the County Court Judges and the members of the Judicial Bench? One of the Law Officers in Ireland under Mr. Gladstone's Administration, who was afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, had declined to vote for the transfer of the property in the soil from the landlord to the tenant, because he believed it would impede agriculture and tend to diminish all progress in Ireland. Lord Monkswell had said that the past legislation really meant fixity of tenure—that the landlord was to be deprived of his property. He would ask what was the use of giving the tenants large reductions in rent and breaking contracts in their favour if the effect of such a policy was, as he submitted it was, to lower prices and drive trade from the country? Mr. Gladstone appeared to have entertained sanguine views as to the beneficial effect of the legislation, for he said in 1881 that he, for one, should be bitterly disappointed with the operation of the Act if the property of the landlords in Ireland did not come to be worth more than 20 years' purchase on the basis of the judicial rent. He need not remind their Lordships how bitterly Mr. Gladstone must have been disappointed. It was, then, surely time for their Lordships to ask themselves whether they would go further on the same disastrous path, or whether they 1447 would adopt some such remedy as that which he had indicated in the Resolution he now begged to move.

§ EARL SPENCER
My Lords, the noble Lord has introduced a subject of very vast proportions, for he has, in fact, opened up the whole question of laud legislation in Ireland. I venture to think that it is extremely inconvenient to raise questions of this sort upon abstract Resolutions, and that the right way to meet any difficulties in matters of this kind is to propose a measure dealing with the question. When such measures come before Parliament then it is possible to discuss the proposals with advantage. If the Resolution which the noble Lord proposes were carried it would traverse one of the main principles of the land legislation of recent years. One of the principles of the Act of 1881 was that fixity of tenure within certain limits should be given to Irish tenants. A statutory term was fixed—namely, 15 years—and when that first period was passed the landlord and tenant in the last year of that period might agree to apply to the Court to fix a new rent for the next period; and if no motion on either side were made to the Court then the old statutory rent continued for another 15 years. The noble Lord's Resolution would traverse that very important principle in the Act of 1881, which has been more or less directly confirmed by the subsequent land legislation with regard to Ireland. I will not enter into a general discussion of the subject; but I will remind your Lordships that in several important matters exceptions are made, and that under two clauses of the Act power is given to the landlord under certain circumstances to re-obtain possession of the land which has been let for the statutory term, compensation to the tenant being 1448 fixed by the Court. The noble Lord asked whether the Government had consulted any of the Judges in reference to these matters? I would remind the noble Lord that—as your Lordships are fully aware—the Government in 1881 consulted many Irishmen on this subject, and got the best information they could before attempting legislation. Lord Bessborough's Commission was appointed, and it was principally on the Report of that Commission, which inquired most minutely into the whole subject of the effect of the previous legislation of 1870, and which called before it an enormous number of witnesses, that the Bill of 1881 was founded. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) subsequently appointed another Commission, known as the Cowper Commission; and on the Report of that Commission, also, legislation took place. The noble Lord has referred to prophecies that were made with regard to the number of years' purchase that would be obtained for land in Ireland, and has said that those prophecies were to a great extent falsified. I should like to ask whether there have not been other causes which have reduced the value of land in Ireland besides those which the noble Lord has suggested, and which have also been experienced in this country where the value of land has fallen very largely? As I think it would be highly inconvenient to raise a general discussion on this important subject upon an abstract Resolution, I have only to add that Her Majesty's Government cannot accede to the noble Lord's Motion.

§ LORD ASHBOURNE
said, his noble Friend (Lord Muskerry) had, in a very interesting speech, presented his views to the House on a very wide and most important series of topics. He could quite understand the feelings which the noble Lord entertained with reference to the land legislation in Ireland for the last 23 years. It had, no doubt, been very searching and drastic legislation; and with a great deal of it he himself did not agree, and had offered a most strenuous opposition to it. But it must be remembered that the legislation had been on the Statute Book for many years, and that rights had grown up and settlements had been made on the faith of it, and that, therefore, it would be a most enormous proposal that this legislation should be undone, reversed, and removed 1449 from the Statute Book. It was very likely that there were many who would be glad if substantial and large modifications were made in that legislation; but, as the noble Earl had pointed out, the only proposal before their Lordships was to pass an abstract Resolution. Being of opinion that it was hardly ever advisable to pass such a Resolution, if people were in a position to give effect to their convictions by introducing legislation, and making proposals to Parliament in the expectation of having them carried into law, when it was quite reasonable to present and enforce them with all the persistence possible, he thought it would be a wise course, under the circumstances, if the noble Lord were to be satisfied with having stated his views very clearly to the House, and were to withdraw his Resolution.

LORD MUSKERRY
said, that, acting on the suggestion of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Ashbourne), he would ask permission to withdraw the Resolution.