TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE IRISH LAND PITRCHASE BILL.
'ATE most heartily congratulate Mr. George Wyndham V V- on the Bill for Irish land purchase which he pre- sented to the House of Commons on Wednesday night. It is true that it is not possible to pronounce a complete and final opinion on the measure till all its details have been mastered and criticised, but the main principles which underlie the Bill are clear enough, and unless we are greatly mistaken they have been well and truly laid. The Bill may be said to rest upon the recognition of three fundamental axioms of public policy in regard to Ireland. The first of these is that it is to the interest of the whole United Kingdom to put an end to the dual ownership of land in Ireland, and to introduce a system of peasant ownership. The second is that it is to the public interest to utilise the credit of the State to bring about this result. The third is that in order to facilitate the operation of a purchase scheme it is allowable to make a free grant of public money. These axioms accepted—and we believe that they will be accepted by all who give an earnest attention to the Irish problem—it only remains to 'apply them in practice. Mr. Wyndham has attempted this task, and, in our opinion, with success. That is, granted the principles just laid down are sound, he has devised an enact- ment which will give them appropriate form and substance. His method of carrying them into action is, shortly, as follows. In order to facilitate purchase, the State, when landlord and tenant can agree, will lend the latter the money required to buy out the landlord. But it is necessary that the State should never be in a position which will make it expect from the tenant a larger annual sum in purchase instalments than can be made out of the land. Accordingly the State, to protect itself, insists that the annual purchase instalments must show a reduction of about 20 per cent. below the second-term rents ; or, if a second-term rent has not in fact been fixed, below a rent equivalent to a second- term rent. That secures the land being able to pro- &ice the instalment money. If a second-term rent can be paid out of the land, as the Land Commissioners have 'decided it can be, a rent which is between 10 and 30 per cent: lower must a, fortiori be producible out of the land. This requirement secures the State from the possibility of being suddenly confronted.with the fact that the land will not produce the rent. Again, the State does not want to be receiving instalment rents from Irish tenants in per- petuity. It would rather see them actual proprietors. Therefore it is arranged that the instalments shall only run for sixty-eight and a half years. After that the Capital of the purchase money, as well as the interest, will have been repaid. But here arises another difficulty that must be met. If the Irish farmer becomes an out-and-out proprietor, he might sell to a speculator, and estates might gradually be put together again on which there would be annual tenants. Accordingly one-eighth of the anniml sum paid to the State is to be a permanent rent- charge arising from the farm,—a charge in the nature of a ground-rent. The permanence of this rent makes the in- stalments a little lower, and will also enable the State to keep a hold oxi the land, and prevent the main purpose of purchase being defeated. So much for the side of the State and the tenant in the matter of purchase. Now for the landlord's side. The landlord in effect says:' If the State deems it necessary to make the instalments less than second-term rents by something between 10 and 30 per cent., the, State, provided it is obliged to calculate with mathematical precision, will clearly only be able to give me a sum which when invested will yield an income so small that all temptation to sell not only goes; but I must struggle against purchase with all my might.' The State is bound to admit the cogency of this plea. But it cannot abandon its principle of keeping the instalments low in order to make its collection of them absolutely secure. The State says to the landlord under Mr. Wyndham's scheme:—'In order to meet your difficulty, and vet not to endanger our purcha.se scheme, we will set aside £12,000,000, out of which• sum grants shall be made in order to facilitate purchase. These grants are to be from 5 to 15 per cent. on the purchase "price, according to . the size of the estate. , The small estates, that is, will get the higher percentage and the big estates -the lower.' This meets the landlord's objection to selling at a price calculated on a rent reduced some 20 per Cent.: below the seconcLtenn rent. The next point of view to be considered is that of the British taxpayer. His objection: under the schethe is threefold. First, he says : How am I to be compeniated for the £12,000,000 extra which the landlords will get ? ' Mr. Wyndham's answer is, in effect,—' In a very large measure by the reduction in the cost of Irish adminittration caused by an-improvement in the social condition of Ireland owing to the settlement of the land question.' And this is not merely hypothetical. Already the Irish Government have arranged to out down their expenditure by £250,000 a year in perpetuity. - - But the - charge on ..212,000,000 is only £390,000 a year, and only a very small amount of this will become operative in the first few years, and in no case will it all be wanted for fifteen years. Therefore the £12,000,000 will probably involve no extra burden at all, and in any case it will not prove a great one. But the British tax. payer, even if answered here, may go on to point out that with Consols falling it is possible that Mr. Wyndham's calcula- tions are erroneous, and that there will be a loss under the head of raising the loan. Here Mr. Wyndham's answer is,—' In the first place, we shall in the first three years Only raise £5,000,000 a year, which is a sum not large enough to depress the Consols market; and next, even if our funding operations cost more than is expected, we have in hand a sum of £185,000 a year which is owed to Ireland by the United Kingdom as a set-off to the money voted exclusively for English education. This sum can be used to make up any deficiency due to possible borrowings in an unfavourable market.' But even this is not the end of the security offered to the British taxpayer. There always remains the large sum paid out every year by the Imperial Exchequer for Irish local purposes. If any loss were incurred in the matter of Irish land purchase, these payments could be docked or suspended to make good the deficiency. It seems to us, then, that Mr. Wyndham sue- oessfully.meets in his Bill the chief objections that can be raised against it. No doubt the measure is not perfect, and no doubt . there are some risks, but its imperfections are, we believe, not essential, and can be remedied, while the risks are well worth running in view of the objects to be attained.
The exact manner in which the estates will be bought under the Purchase Bill was not made clear in Mr. Wynd- ham's. speech. He told us, certainly, that in the vast majority of cases purchase would be by whole estates ; that landlords and their tenants would make comprehensive arrangements between themselves which would then come up for sanction: Apparently, too, the Estates Commissioners will—=as they certainly should—have certain compulsory powers of purchase. But when the Bill is printed these points will doubtless be cleared up, and we shall therefore withhold any further criticism till then. On two points, however, we desire to speak at once. The first of these concerns the disposal of the sporting rights, the second the acquisition by the State of manoeuvre rights—subject to compensation for' actual damage—over all land which is purchased through the use of Government credit. It seems to us that the sporting rights, in lakes and rivers as. well as over the land, should vest in the Estates Commissioners, and should either be let by them direct, or else given to the• local authorities in aid of local taxation. We want to see Ireland become one of the playgrounds of the United Kingdom, and to get the full . benefit, social and economic, of her mountains, wastes, and waters. We do not wish to dogmatise as to how Ireland can best reap the benefits of her capacity for sport, but we do desire that the matter should be care- fully considered and in a far-seeing spirit. On the question of manoeuvre rights there can surely not be two opinions. It will be nothing short of disgraceful if Parliament does not take advantage of the present opportunity to secure without cost or difficulty the right of the nation's soldiers to manoeuvre over all instalment land,—i.e., all land secured to the 'tenant as a freehold by the help of State credit. We are a " feckless " people, no doubt, or rather we as a rule enjoy " feckless " Administrations, but to miss such chance of ultimately securing without charge great manoeuvre areas in Ireland should be beyond. even our Departments of State.
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