MR. MATTHEWS'S SPEECH.
THE speech which Mr. Matthews, the Home Secretary, made on Tuesday at Birmingham, has almost escaped public attention, and, indeed, in many quarters has not been even reported at any length. It was, no doubt, for the most part a dull speech, quite extraordinarily dull for a man of Mr. Matthews's gifts, both of intelligence and oratory. It is simply a bore to be asked to listen to details of useful little Billa to be proposed and carried by-and-by, when everybody knows that until Irish questions are settled, nothing at once useful and important will be so much as dismissed. The public refuses to be interested in a Merchandise Marks Bill, even though it might save whole branches of our trade, while the time of Parliament is consumed by endless speeches, as devoid of eloquence as of thought, intended to arrest the progress of legislation. Still, Mr. Matthews's speech was, on points, im- portant. His condemnation of the "Plan of Campaign" was explicit and firm to a degree which suggests that the Govern- ment intend special action against that "Plan ;" his reference to possible compromises with Home-rule was noteworthy, as showing that the Government propose none ; and his allusion to the impossibility of combined action even on the social question in Ireland, was, though disappointing, of much interest and moment. It was, however, when he touched upon the agrarian difficulty that the Home Secretary's utterance became most important. He proposed a distinct plan for transferring the soil of Ireland from the landlords to the tenants, anti it is possible that he sketched in the rough the scheme which has found most favour with the Cabinet. It is, indeed, asserted that the scheme was only his own, and, of course, it is obvious that if the Cabinet has not accepted it, it may be rejeoted or modified out of knowledge in &tants. It does not appear, however, from the report in the Birmingham Post, which professea to be verbatim, and which, we suspect, from internal evidence, was
corrected by the orator himself, that Mr. Matthews made any reservations, and this was what he said :—
"Enforcement of the law is necessary. We all know the present Government deeply feel that there is an agrarian question in Ireland
which perhaps never will be solved, unless we can succeed in trans- ferring the ownership of the land from the hands in which it is now to the hands of those who are actually tilling the soil. That snob a thing is possible I suppose no man who has studied politics can doubt. Why, it has been done in almost every country in Eastern Europe. They have done it in Prussia, in Austria, in Bavaria ; they have done
it even in Russia. I do not know that it would be right for me
to sketch out even in Birmingham—where people, I find, are in the habit of keeping secret plans of that kind—I do not know that it would be right for me to allude to any plan possible in this country ; but foreign nations have found it perfectly possible to pay the land- lord with paper debentures representing the value of his land. These debentures bear interest, which has of coarse to be paid by the occupier who is going to become the owner, and what the occupier pays as interest not only represents the remuneration for the use of the capital, but a sinking fund by which that capital is gradually and in the couree of years paid off. Those debentures to my knowledge in such a country as Bavaria pass from band to hand, and are a favourite means for the investment of the savings of the working classes. The whole operation works with perfect smoothness, and without any difficulty or obstacle. It is perfectly true that the
operation would not succeed if you had not the guarantee of the State for the ultimate payment both of the interest and of the principal of the debentures. Without State guarantee and State management, I confess I don't see how any each scheme can be worked ; but I believe that you can perform this operation of the tranafer of the ownership of the land in Ireland from the present owners to the tenants by the use of British credit, without its costing a single penny to the British taxpayer."
That scheme has, at the first glance, many merits. In the first place, it is just to the landlord, or even more than just, for he gets in debentures the present value of his land, which, considering the circumstances, is as much as he can expect. If prices fall, he will have had too much, and if prices rise, too little ; but in every private sale, the owner, if he sells under pecuniary compulsion, must run that risk. Then the scheme operates as to its main feature at once, the tenant on the issue of the debentures becoming without delay a mort,- gaged landlord. The debentures issued, say, on Avoca, Mr. Parnell's place, are, in fact, transferable mortgages, easily sold because of the guarantee. And, finally, if the mortgage interest is regularly paid, the British taxpayer would not in the end be called upon for any money out of his own pocket. Roughly speaking, two-thirds of the judicial rent of Ireland would pay 3 per cent. on .£150,000,000, and leave more than £2,000,000 a year to form a sinking fund for the repayment of the advance.
That is an attractive scheme ; but then, will it work? Will it even be discussed, much more adopted ? We are so con- vinced that the agrarian question lies at the root of all troubles in Ireland, and that continued peace is impossible until it is solved, that we will ridicule no plan of settlement honestly brought forward ; but is it conceivable that Mr. Matthews should believe in this one? It works well, he says, in Bavaria, and we have no doubt he is right, for it is in principle Stein's scheme, which emancipated the Prussian peasantry ; but then, would it work in Ireland ? We cannot see the least hope of it. Until the debentures were paid off, the people would still be paying the equivalent of rent, and rent which they would think heavy ; and if they refused to pay it, where would be the remedy? Only in wholesale evictions ordered and carried out by the State, which would first have to use troops to collect a debt, and then to maintain at its own expense its insolvent debtors. Of course, if the new "rent," or mortgage interest, or debenture interest, were so low as to be little felt—say, merely for illus- tration, an average half-crown an acre—it would be paid, for that amount could be levied without evictions, and guaranteed by a tax on transfers such as exists in France. But a rent regarded as still high would in bad years not be paid, least of all to protect a State which Irishmen believe to be at once boundlessly rich and exceedingly oppressive. They would declare themselves, as they do now, "extirpated by Saxon laws," and would devise some plan of veiled rebellion backed by the " removal " of unpopular agents of the State. The collection of the money would be exceedingly difficult, even if Ireland were a Crown Colony, and with one hundred representatives of the tenant class seated in Parliament, it would be practically impossible, the single object of that great group being to unseat any Government which did not collect "leniently," and make up deficits—which year by year would look small—by advances from the British Treasury. In truth, the whole risk would fall upon the British taxpayer, who would receive for it no return, not even a cessation of annoyance, for the Home-rulers would still hold out the abolition of rent as their bribe to the electors, and still use obstruction to extort a redaction of Irish payments. This is the precise position which the British elector refuses to accept, and we see no reason to believe that he will change his determination. Unlike many of our friends, we think that he would, on certain conditions, vote a large grant-in-aid for Ireland,—a lump sum, to be considered lost, like a sum ex- pended in war; but he will run no indefinite risk whatever. He refused that to Mr. Gladstone, and he will not concede it to anybody else. The basis of the plan is that England shall trust Ireland with a hundred and fifty millions ; and while Ireland announces in every vote that she hates England, England will not do it. We write it with regret, for the plan is a large one and a benevolent one, and goes straight to the root of the Irish difficulty; but it is useless to close one's eyes to facts. There is no reason whatever why Irish tenants should pay the State any more than the landlords, and the British people will therefore refuse the landlordship of Ireland. They might have made the attempt once ; but the history of the last ten years, and especially the "Plan of Campaign," has killed their confidence for a generation. The problem can, we believe, be solved ; but it must be by means which will not leave a con- stant source of friction between the two countries, which will not leave "the rent" still to be paid for generations, and which will not leave with the British taxpayer a sense of bitter wrong.
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