TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE IRISH BILL. IAE. GLADSTONE has, we believe, solved the problem. Aided, as we are told, at every turn by the wide local knowledge and cool decision of Mr. Chichester Fortescue, whose successful toil in this matter has hardly yet been acknowledged by the public, he has introduced a Land Bill for Ireland broad enough and deep enough to content the tenantry, yet containing nothing which the landlords can denounce as confiscation. He has avoided "fixity" of tenure as a phrase, and given a " security " which, except in one im- portant respect, the social influence reserved to the landlord, is almost its equivalent. So calm and impartial was his speech, so great is his tenderness for landlord rights, so thorough is his conviction that if it be possible it is better to maintain commissioned officers in the army of agriculture, that we should not be surprised if the first feeling in Ireland was one of disappointment ; but that will pass. The Bill is a strong Bill, as strong a Bill as any Government not convinced of the necessity of social revolution could be expected to in- troduce, yet it will not alarm the body of English landlords, or enable them to declare that a system of society still popular in Britain has been torn up by the roots. More especially in Ulster the Bill does everything the tenantry have asked ; it enforces by law the right or custom which they have defended with the rifle ; gives them full and complete Tenant-Right, the whole claim for defending which we have been so often denounced as Revolutionists. Their right to perpetuity of tenure, unless bought out by repayment of the sum with which they bought themselves in, and of the value of their improvements, is absolutely acknowledged, and is to be enforced by a swift and easy process, a right of appeal to a Court of cheap and summary jurisdiction, which will secure them their money. This is all the Ulster men have asked, and although it is not absolute fixity of tenure, it will be fixity in practice, for although the landlord can evict, it can never pay him to do it, unless the tenant absolutely refuses to pay a fair increase of rent, for an unfair increase cannot be levied, insomuch as the incoming tenant would see that a good-will so burdened was almost profitless. Remembering the high prices current in Ulster for rights of entry, remembering also the traditional dislike of bidding against a tenant, and remembering the influence of settled tradition, we cannot but believe that in that province, at least, the Bill secures in practice absolute fixity, subject to two drawbacks, both of them perfectly just, the necessity of submitting to an increase of rent in proportion to the increase of prosperity, and the necessity of not irritating the landlord till he will submit to a heavy pecuniary loss to get the tenant out of his way. The second drawback may be a good thing or a bad thing in itself—that will depend on the personal characters of the two parties—but with the inevitable ballot it will be of no political importance, and it will greatly facilitate the passage of the Bill. The landlords are quite as anxious for their social position as for their rents, and quite experienced enough to know that social security will almost inevitably raise the latter.
So far the framers of the Bill had a comparatively easy task before them, and have only displayed an unusual breadth and firmness of purpose in accomplishing it. The real difficulty lay in dealing with the other three Provinces, where custom is so uncertain and so various, and in dealing with them the Premier and his chief coadjutor have displayed at once their courage and their moderation. The class which was at once the most numerous, the most disaffected, and the least free was that of the farmers occupying a holding of less than 50 acres, the real "peasantry" of Ireland. There are some 300,000 of these men, one-fourth of the adult males of Ireland, and it is from them and their sons that the armies of sedition are mainly recruited. Their condition was, in fact, most wretched. They were liable to eviction "on the title," that is, to eviction without reason from lands for which they had done everything ; they were entitled to no compensation, and when evicted they had no refuge except the workhouse, no alternative except work for a slowly-sinking wage of a shilling a day. Such a position is not freedom as Englishmen understand freedom, and for them therefore the Legislature intervenes with decision. It assesses the " good-will " of the poorest holders, those under £10 a year, at seven years' rental, that is, it inflicts a fine of £70 for eviction, subject to diminution on proof by the landlord of pecuniary injury or other set-off ; and then secures to them the value of all improvements made since 1850 which in the judgment of a disinterested Court increase the value of the land. Such tenants must, of course, pay their rent, and pay it, moreover, more punctually than at present, for if they do not, they lose all the benefit of the Act, which cannot be quoted, except as to improvements, in bar of eviction fc r non-payment, sub-letting, or neglect. The tenant must also pay any reasonable increase of rent, for if he does not his eviction will not be a disturbance caused by the owner, but a disturbance caused by himself, a resigna- tion in fact, but—and this is perhaps the most important clause in the whole Act — rent must not be raised merely to get him out, for if it is, if the landlord demands what, the circumstances of the district being considered, is. clearly an excessive or capricious rent, the Court will hold the " disturbance " to be the landlord's act, and will award the tenant his full compensation. This is not fixity of tenure indeed as against the landlord, to whorl) it will be the tenant's interest to be extremely civil, particu- larly in the matter of following his advice about improvements, but it is fixity as against a landlord's caprice, or tyranny, or spitefulness. A man must be very capricious, or spiteful, or given to coercing electors to evict little tenants in batches,— pay a fine equal to his whole rent for two Parliaments, and affront that opinion in favour of the law which is certain to grow up under this Bill. As a matter of fact, the small holders will, we conceive, be very much let alone while they pay all reasonable demands, and the master-grievance of Ireland, the serf-like dependence of the cultivator on the lord, a depend- ence so utter that the lord could sentence the cultivator to the workhouse for an impertinence, and take from him a cottage he had himself put up, will be finally brought to an end. The position of the larger holder meanwhile is nearly as good, for while he is a little more free than the cottier, and there- fore a little less protected by law, still he may claim a considerable sum, subject always to the landlord's equities. In the case of an occupier paying between £10 and £50 the maximum will be five years' rent, between £50 and £100 three years' rent, and over £100 two years' rent, in addition to the value of improvements, quite enough to act as a strong restraint upon caprice. This, in fact, is the essential principle of the Bill, its very life, that eviction without just cause, such as non-payment, subletting, or injury to the farm, is an act not to be attempted without grave pecuniary consequences, not to be carried out at all with- out the intervention of a Court of law, public inquiry, and public registration of the landlord's motive. If the Courts do their duty—and the assistant-barristers are experienced judges —those restrictions must be sufficient to diffuse a profound sense of security against caprice.
But the landlords all this while ? They gain immensely under the Bill, from the certain rise of rents, and they lose literally nothing except a power which they ought never to have possessed, the power of taking tenants' improvements without compensation and of evicting with- out a reason. Their social position is not affected. Their goodwill will remain of the utmost value to all around them ; they can still take the lead in improvements, and they can still at any moment constitute themselves landlords after the English pattern. It is arranged that outside Ulster they can exempt themselves com- pletely from the operation of the Bill by doing what sensible English landlords now do, by granting leases for thirty-one years on conditions defined in the Bill, conditions which the landlord-interest in the House is sure to make very reasonable for them ; and by consenting to pay at their expiration for permanent buildings, for reclamation of land and for tillages, and manures, the latter proviso being intended to prevent the exhaustion of the soil towards the expiration of the lease. Under that lease, and subject to those conditions, the landlord at the end of the term may, if he pleases, evict without damage to his own interests. As a matter of fact he will probably have no reason whatever to do so. The old tenant will pay as much as a new one, payment for improvements will be a bore, and the reasons against letting the land " at will" will be as strong as they were before, or rather stronger, for new relations of amity will have grown up. The moment the lease is ended, says Mr. Gladstone, "good-will rises like a plant from the ground." Still the landlord will have full power to revise his rents, and even to change his tenant should he desire to do so, will, in fact, enjoy, with one exception, all the powers, and therefore all the consideration, enjoyed by his English confrere. The exception is, that in Eng- land the landlord dictates the conditions of the lease, and in Ireland they will be dictated by the State. It is round this point that the Parliamentary conflict will, we imagine, rage, but great as the innovation may appear, the point is one which it will be impossible for Government to surrender. If they do, the Bill will be worthless, for the tenants will be required to accept leases like Lord Leitrim's. In England, where the tenant is free, the terms of the contract may wisely be left to the contracting parties,—though even here we may have to interfere as to ground-game,—but in Ireland, where a silent civil war has been raging for centuries, where the landlord, however good, is regarded as an alien, and the tenant, however solvent, as a man of a lower civilization, it is necessary that the State should step in as the grand Arbiter, and at least for one generation replace individual will on both sides by written Law. The landlord cannot complain if the tenant abides by the only possible covenant ; the tenant cannot threaten the landlord, if he refuses terms he is prohibited by law from conceding. At first, of course, there will be some discontent, the landlord objecting to compulsory contracts, the tenant disliking what he is apt to call "a long notice to quit;" but by degrees both parties will settle down to their mutual relations, and for one generation at least there may be peace in Ireland, a breathing- time in which prosperity may increase till the disorderly are regarded as enemies of mankind. We have said nothing, intentionally, of the other provision of the Bill, the power taken to lend money to tenants to buy estates their landlords wish to sell. We do not believe in it much, and it requires a separate discussion. The true boon granted by the Bill is tenant-right, the clear recognition by Parliament that an Irish tenant has a valuable right in the soil,—the restoration, in fact, of that property of the people which, from the days of Elizabeth, we have been trying in vain to take away.
Previous page
