22 JANUARY 1870, Page 15

THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.—MR. BUXTON AND PROFESSOR BREWER.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")

SIR,—Your contributor " P." attempted to sum up the discussion between Dr. Brewer and myself, with respect to the ancient posi- tion of the Irish farmers ; but I think if he had recently read Sir John Davies's " Tracts," he would acknowledge that I was fully justified in my statement. The authority of Sir John Davies surely stands much higher than that of Spenser, inasmuch as Sir John was the Commissioner employed to carry out the Settlement of Ireland (not of Ulster only) under James I., and the informa- tion he gave to his superiors was therefore official, instead of being the casual observations of a settler. In fact, however, Davies's " Reports " show that, as I have already previously suggested, Spenser's description referred to the tenants under the lords to whom Queen Elizabeth had given grants.

My statement that anciently the Irish farmers were not tenants- at-will, but were in reality co-proprietors of the land with their chieftains, was altogether denied by Dr. Brewer, but I under- stand "P." to acknowledge that it would have been accurate had I confined it to Ulster. Now, it is curious that Sir John Davies's official report, dated 1613, from which Mr. Campbell quoted, and on which I mainly relied, expressly excludes Ulster, with respect to which a separate report is given, and refers only to "Leinster, Conaght, and Mounster." After observing that it was impos- sible to make a commonweal in Ireland without performing another service, which was the settling of all the estates and possessions as well of Irish as of English throughout the king- dom, the report proceeds, " For although that in the 12th year of Queen Elizabeth, a special law was made which did enable the Lord Deputy to take surrenders and regrant Estates unto the Mabry, yet were there but few of the Irish Lords that made offer to surrender during her raigne in passing of which Grauuts, there was no care taken of the inferior Septea of people, inhabiting and possessing these countries under them ; but they held their several! portions in course of Tanistry and Gavelkind, and yielded the same Irish duties or exactions as they did before." Consequently, as Sir John Davies points out, " the Lords of these regraunted estates" treated the farmers "as tenants-at-will, or rather tenants-in-villenage," and the latter, " by reason of the uncertainty of their Estates, did utterly neglect to build, or to plant, or to improve the land. And, therefore, although the Lord were become the King's tenant, his country has no whit reformed thereby, but remained in the former Barbarism and Desolation." It was partly

to correct this abuse of power on the part of the lords to whom the regrants- had been made, but partly also in order to get rid of the ancient system of co-proprietorship of the chief and the whole

tribe, and the lands belonging to it, "that the two speciall com- missions were sent out of England ;" and Sir John Davies says,

"In the execution of which commissions there bath ever bin had a special care, to settle and secure the Under-tenants ; to the end there might be a repose and establishment of every subjects Estate;

Lord and Tenant, Freeholder and Farmer, throughout the kingdom.

"Upon Surrenders, this course bath bin holds from the beginning ; when an Irish Lord doth offer to surrender his country, his surrender is not immediately accepted, but a Commission is first awarded to enquire of three special points : First, of the quantity and limits of the Land whereof he is reputed owner. Next, how much himselfe doth hold in demeasne, and how much is posttest by his Tenants and Followers. And thirdly, what Customes, Duties, and Services, ho doth yearly receive out of those Lauds. This Inquisition being made and returned, the lands which are found to be the Lord s proper possessions in demoasne, are drawn into a Particular ; and his Irish Duties ; as Cosherinys, Les- sings, Rents of Batter and Oatmeale, and the like ; are reasonably valued and reduced into certain Summes of Money, to be paid yearly in lieu thereof. This being done, the surrender is accepted ; and thereupon a grant passed, not of the whole country as was used in former times, but of ;hose Lands onely, which are found in the Lord's possession, and of those certaine summes of Money, us Rents issuing out of the rest. But the lands which are found to be possest by the Tenants, are left unto them, respectively, charged with these certain Rents ouely in lieu of all uncertain Irish exactions."

Could I venture to trespass more on your space, I could give many otherextracts, but Davies's " Tracts "show this clearly,—that the grants of Queen Elizabeth which put the cultivators of the soil in the position .of tenants-at-will were felt to have been unjust, as having deprived the people of their rights in the soil ; and that it was thought desirable to substitute for the co-pro- prietorship of the chief and the cultivators a division of the soil between them, and thus to bring about that the people " should now have Estates of inheritance which they and their children after them shall enjoy with security."

"And thus we see, how the greatest part of the possessions (as well of the Irish as of the English) in Leinster, Conaght, and Mounster, are settled and secured since his Majestie came to the Croune : whereby the hearts of the people are also settled, not only to live in peace, but raised and incouraged to halide, to plant, to give bettor education to their children, and to improve the commodities of their Landes ; whereby the yearly value thereof is already encreasod double of that it was within these few yeares, and is like daily to rise higher, till it amount to the price of our Lands in England."

It is strange that in his last letter to the Standard Dr. Brewer persists in doubting whether there was any settlement of Ireland until under James I., and ridicules my referring him for my authority to "a Mr. Campbell," although Mr. George Campbell's book on Irish land is acknowledged, on all hands, to be one of the most thorough and careful treatises that has been written on the subject. "P." says that it is scarcely fair of Dr. Brewer to say that I bad referred to my own book as an authority on Irish history. As Dr. Brewer had my letter before him when he wrote, he must have been perfectly aware that I had done nothing of the sort or kind. His charging me, therefore, with such a ridiculous piece of egotism was not " scarcely fair,"—it was scarcely honourable.—I am, Sir, &c.,