In politics, as in nature, beneficent powers work quietly, while
destructive agencies sweep across the world with noise and tumult. The
fruit tree grows in silence; the tempest which uproots it shakes the
earth to its centre. The gradual evolution of society in the
development of art, the softening of manners, the equalization of
justice, the respect for law, the purity of morals, which are its
results and correlatives, comes about as silently as the growth of the
tree; but the wars which desolate nations, and the revolutions which
destroy in a few months the work of many centuries, are as tumultuous
as the tempest and as boisterous as the storm.
In Ireland at the present moment this rule holds good with surprising
accuracy. Where the tranquilizing effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act
attracts but little attention outside its own immediate sphere, the
Plan of Campaign has everywhere been accompanied with murder,
boycotting, outrage, and the loud cries of those who, playing at
bowls, have to put up with rubbers. Where men who have retained their
sense of manly honesty and commercial justice, buy their lands in
peace, without asking the world to witness the transaction--those
tenants who, having for years refused to pay a reduced rent or any
portion of arrears, are at last evicted from the land they do not care
to hold as honest men should, make the political welkin ring with
their complaints, and call on the nation at large to avenge their
wrongs. And the analogy holds good all through. The Irish tenant
yearns to possess the land he farms. Lord Ashbourne's Act enables him
to do this by the benign way of peace, fairness, and self-respect. The
Plan of Campaign, on the other hand, teaches him the destructive
methods of dishonesty and violence. The one is a legal, quiet, and
equitable arrangement, without personal bitterness, without hysterical
shrieking, without wrong-doing to any one. The other is an offence
against the common interests of society, and a breach of the law
accompanied by crimes against humanity. The one is silent and
beneficent; the other noisy, uprooting, and malevolent. But as the
powers of growth and development are, in the long run, superior to
those of destruction--else all would have gone by the board ages
ago--the good done by Lord Ashbourne's Act will be a living force in
the national history when the evil wrought by the Plan of Campaign is
dead and done with.
By Lord Ashbourne's Act the Irish tenant can buy his farm at (an
average of) seventeen years' purchase. He borrows the purchase money
from the Government, paying it back on easy terms, so that in
forty-nine years he becomes the absolute owner of the property--paying
meantime in interest and gradual diminution of the principal, less
than the present rent. The landlord has about £68 for every £100 he
used to have in rent. This Act is quietly revolutionizing Ireland,
redeeming it from agrarian anarchy, and saving the farmer from himself
and his friends. Thousands and thousands of acres are being constantly
sold in all parts of the country, and good prices are freely given for
farms whereof the turbulent and discontented tenants professed
themselves unable to pay the most moderate rents. Large holdings and
small alike are bought as gladly as they are sold. Those who buy know
the capabilities of the land when worked with a will; those who sell
prefer a reduced certainty to the greater nominal value, which might
vanish altogether under the fiat of the Campaigners and the visits of
Captain Moonlight.
The Irish loyal papers, which no English Home Ruler ever sees--facts
being so inimical to sentiment--these Irish papers are full of details
respecting these sales. On one estate thirty-seven farmers buy their
holdings at prices varying from £18 to £520, the average being £80. On
another, six farms bring £5,603, one fetching £2,250. In the west,
small farmers are buying where they can. In Sligo the MacDermott,
Q.C., has sold farms to forty-two of his tenants for £3,096, the
prices varying from £32 to £70 and £130; and the O'Connor Don has sold
farms in the same county to fifteen tenants for £1,934. The number of
acres purchased under this Act for the three years ending August,
1888, are a trifle over 293,556.
The Government valuation is £171,774,000. The net rent is £190,181
12s. 9d. The purchase-money is £3,350,933. The average number of
years' purchase is 17.6.
Perhaps the most important of all these sales are those on the Egmont
estate in the very heart of one of the gravely-disturbed districts.
The rent-roll of this estate was £16,000 a year; and it was estimated
that successive landlords had laid out about £250,000 in
improvements--which was just the sum expected to be realized by the
sales. All this land has passed into the hands of farmers who, from
agitators and No Renters have now become proprietors on their own
account, with a direct interest in maintaining law and order, and in
opposing violence and disorder all round. Other important sales have
been effected. A hundred and fifty tenants on the Drapers' estate in
county Derry have bought their farms from the London Company at a
total of £57,980. These, with others (197 in all), reached a sum total
of purchase-money of £63,305, as set forth in the _Dublin Gazette_, of
November 5th, 1889.
Lord Spencer, whose political _volte face_ is one of the wonders of
the hour, does not hesitate to say that this Act has not been a
success. Can he give counter figures to those quoted above? And Mr.
Michael Davitt does not approve of the sales in general and of those
on the Egmont estates in especial, "He hates the Ashbourne Act worse
than he hates the idea of an endowed Roman Catholic University, which
is saying a great deal. He hates it because it renders impossible his
visionary scheme of land nationalization, but more because it wrests
from his hands the weapons of Separatist rebellion. And what he openly
says, all the more cautious members of his party think. Every
purchaser under the Ashbourne Act is a soldier lost to the cause of
sedition. More than one of the ringleaders have indeed said this
formerly, but of late they have grown more reticent. The Parnellite,
it has been said, is essentially an Opportunist. Mr. Davitt is hardly
a Parnellite, but the real Parnellite items have discovered that their
seats in Parliament and their future hopes would be endangered, if
they openly fell foul of the Act under which so many Irish tenants are
becoming freeholders. They do not bless the Act, but they leave it
alone."
There is another misstatement that had better be frankly met. The
objectors to the Land Courts say that the applicants are so many and
the process is so slow, it is almost useless and worse than
heartbreaking to apply for relief. One thing, however, must be
remembered--during the interim of application and hearing, a tenant
cannot be disturbed in his holding, and if he refuses to pay his rent
the landlord cannot evict him. The following correspondence is
instructive:--
"Braintree, Nov. 14.
"Sir,--Will you be good enough to inform me whether the statement I
give below is correct? It was made by an Irish lecturer (going
about with magic-lantern views) for the purpose of showing how
unjustly the Irish tenants are treated. The lecturer was Mr. J.
O'Brady, and he was delivering the lecture at Braintree on
Saturday, November 9:--'There are now 90,000 cases awaiting the
decision of the Land Courts to fix a "fair rent" on their holdings,
and as only 15,000 cases can be heard in one year, do you wonder at
the tenants refusing to pay their present rent?'
"Your faithful servant,
"G. THORPE BARTRAM."
"The Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P."
"Irish Office, Great Queen Street, Nov. 22.
"Dear Sir,--I have made special inquiry into the subject of your
letter of the 14th inst., and find that on the 31st of the last
month the number of outstanding applications to have fair rents
fixed was 44,295, and that the number of cases disposed of in the
months of July and August (the latest month for which the figures
are made up) was 5,380. You will see, therefore, that the arrear is
less than one-half of the amount stated by the Separatist lecturer
to whom you refer, and the rate of progression in disposing of it
is considerably higher than that alleged by him. It may reasonably
be hoped also (though the statistics are not yet available) that
this rate has since been increased, as several additional
Sub-Commissioners have been appointed to hear the cases. I would
observe also that under the provisions of the Land Act, passed by
the present Government in 1887, the tenant gets the benefit of the
judicial rent from the date of his application, an advantage which
he did not possess under Mr. Gladstone's Act. Such unavoidable
delay as may occur, therefore, does not, under the existing law,
involve the serious injury to the tenant implied by the lecturer. I
enclose a printed paper, which will give you further information on
this subject. In conclusion, I would point out that the suggestion
that the agrarian trouble in Ireland arises from the difficulty
experienced by the tenants in getting judicial rents fixed is not
warranted by the facts. Take as illustrations the cases of two
estates which have lately been prominently before the
public--namely, the Ponsonby and the Olphert. In the former case
the landlord is anxious, I believe, to get the tenants to go into
Court, and offers to give retrospective effect to the decisions,
though not bound by law to do so, but under the influence of the
agitators the tenants refuse to go into Court. In the latter
instance judicial rents have long since been fixed in the great
majority of cases.
"Yours faithfully,
"ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR."
Together with this easy mode of purchase by which the quiet and
industrious are profiting, rents are reduced all over the country,
though still the Home Rulers reiterate the old charge of
"rack-renting," as if such a thing were the rule. These unscrupulous
misstatements, indeed, make half the difficulties of the Irish
question; for lies stick fast, where disclaimers, proofs, facts, and
figures, pass by like dry leaves on the wind. But for all the fact of
past extortion the present reductions are not always a proof of
over-renting. What Mr. Buxton says has common sense on the face of
it:--
"Very serious reductions of rents are being made all through Ireland
by the Land Sub-Commissioners, who are supposed to be in some extent
guided by the appearance of the farms. Now it should be remembered
that at the interview that took place in London on July 3rd, between
Mr. Smith-Barry and some of his tenants, in reference to that
gentleman's support of the evictions on the Ponsonby estate, one of
the arguments for forgiveness of arrears was that when eviction was
threatened 'the tenants gave up their industry,' and 'how could they
get the rents out of the land when they were absolutely idle?' To
admit such a plea for granting a reduction of rent is most dangerous.
Tenants have but to neglect their land, get into arrears of rent, and
claim large reductions because their farms do not pay. An ignorant, or
slovenly, or idle farmer, under such circumstances, is likely to have
a lower rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners than his more industrious
neighbour, and thus a great injustice may be done to both the good
farmer and the landlord, the--perhaps cunningly--idle farmer receiving
a premium for neglecting his farm. A comparison of the judicial rents
with the former rents and the Poor Law valuation is truly startling,
and must lead one to imagine that the system by which so much valuable
property is dealt with is most unjust."
Thus, the famous reductions in County Clare, where the abatements
granted averaged over 30 per cent., and in some cases exceeded 50 per
cent., were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, but
also may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference.
Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believe
in the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes from
idleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others to
relieve--these others having to suffer for sins not their own--how
about that as a righteous obligation? Must I and my children go
foodless because my tenants will neither till the land they hold from
me, so as to make it yield their own livelihood and that profit over
which is my inheritance, nor suffer others to do what they will not?
If we are prepared to endorse the famous saying: "La propriété c'est
le vol," well and good. Meanwhile to spend all our sympathy on men who
reduce themselves and others to poverty by idleness and unthrift,
seems rather a bad investment of emotion. The old-fashioned saying
about workers and eaters had a different ring; and once on a time
birds who could sing, and would not, were somehow made.
Co-incident with these conditions of no rent at all--reduction of rent
all round--and the free purchase of land by those who yesterday
professed pauperism, is the startling fact that the increase in Bank
deposits for the half-year of 1889 was £89,000--in Post Office Savings
Bank deposits £244,000--in Trustee Savings Banks, £16,000.
Mr. Mitchell Henry, writing to the _Times_, says:--"If any one will
tell the exact truth as to Irish matters at this moment, he must
confess that landlords are utterly powerless to coerce their tenants;
that the pockets of the tenants themselves are full of money formerly
paid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely;
that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the
banks--savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks--are
richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of
whisky--that sure barometer of Irish prosperity--is increasing beyond
all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that,
with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed
than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation
and long to be let alone; but they are a people of extraordinary
clannishness, and take an intellectual delight in intrigue, especially
where the Saxon is concerned. British simplicity is wonderful, and the
very people who have put on this cupboard love for Mr. Gladstone and
his lieutenants, whom they formerly abused beyond all decent license
of abuse, laugh at them as soon as their backs are turned."
These savings do not come from the landlords, so many of whom are
hopelessly ruined by the combined action of our own legislature and
the Plan of Campaign. Of this ruin Colonel Lloyd has given a very
graphic account. Alluding to Mr. Balfour's answer in the House on the
21st of June, to the question put by Mr. Macartney on Colonel Lloyd's
letter to the _Times_ (10th of June), the Colonel repeats his
assertions, or rather his accusations against the Court. These
are:--"First, that the percentage of reductions now being given is the
very highest yet made, notwithstanding that prices of agricultural
produce and cattle have considerably increased; secondly, that the
Sub-Commissioners have no fixed rule to guide them save one--viz.,
that existing rents, be they high or low, must be cut down, although
they may not have been altered for half a century; thirdly that it was
reported the Commissioners had instructions to give all-round
reductions of 33 per cent.; fourthly, that in the Land Court the most
skilled evidence of value is disregarded, as also the Poor Law
valuation; fifthly, that the Sub-Commissioners assign no reasons for
their decisions; and, sixthly, that the machinery of the Court is
faulty and unfair in the following instances:--_(a)_ If a landlord
appeals and fails, he must pay costs, but if he appeals and succeeds
he will not get costs; _(b)_ tenants' costs are taxed by the Court
behind the landlord's back; _(c)_ their rules are constantly changing
without any proper notice to the public; and _(d)_ appeals are
accumulating with no prospect of their being disposed of in any
reasonable time."
Colonel Lloyd disposes of Mr. Balfour's denials to these statements,
but at too great length to copy. It may be taken for granted here that
they are disposed of, and that he proves up to the hilt his case of
crying injustice to the landlords--as indeed every fair-minded person
who looks honestly into the question, must acknowledge. As one slight
corroboration of what he says he adduces the following instances:--
"The following judicial rents were fixed by the
Assistant-Commissioners in the West of Ireland:--
Poor Law Judicial
Tenants' Names. Old Rent. Valuation. Rent
£ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d.
Tom Regan 9 9 10 12 0 0 5 15 0
J. Manlon 9 2 6 11 10 0 5 15 0
C. Kelly 9 12 10 11 5 0 6 0 0
J. Kenny 4 11 4 6 5 0 2 15 0
£32 16 6 £41 0 0 £20 5 0
"The landlord appealed, and the appeals were heard a few days ago by
the Chief Commissioners in Roscommon. Two skilled valuers were
employed, who valued within a few shillings of the Government
valuation, and in the face of this evidence the decisions of the
Assistant-Commissioners were confirmed. These are not by any means
isolated instances. In fact they are the rule in the Land Court."