30 JANUARY 1909, Page 30

THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.

[TO TEN Eurrnn or Tun "SPICOTAT071.1 SIR,—Mr. Stephen Gwynn's letter in your issue of the 16th inst. is characteristic of the lucid explanations of Irish problems given by the more educated members of the Nationalist Party for the benefit of English reader's or hearers. The modicum of truth contained in this letter is apt to carry conviction, and it is for this reason that some further examination of Mr. Gwynn's "explanation" may be desirable.

The antithesis of tillage and cattle is preferable to that which Mr. Birrell borrowed from the cattle-drivers of the County Longford ; but the "ideal conditions" on the grass farms under which "you need human assistance only to sell and buy" cattle do not suggest the fact that these farms are the sole market for the yearling cattle of the small farmers of the West and Midlands. Yearling cattle do not spring into being even on the Plains of Boyle. In ones and twos they are brought to the fairs by the "small" men, who cannot afford to keep them till they are fit for the Scotch and English dealers, who " finish " the cattle for the butcher. The small farmer cannot spare from his annual income the 20 for his yearling; even if he could afford to keep cattle through the winter, he could not—for want of a sufficient area of land—do well by them; and a small seller can seldom get the price obtained for large quantities. Mr. Gwynn's picture of the grass-landowners' "neighbours who want to utilise their power of labour" will surely be pleasing to those who know the .province of Connacht; but the story of a land- hungry man whose neighbour's "arrangements" were not " satisfactory " may be found in tile history of the Kings of Israel.

The statement that "the owner of untenanted land wants to get a price which will give him the value of the tenant's interest which the State has taken from other landlords" is at least misleading. The words presuppose that the untenanted land is let, and on the "eleven months" system. Allowing that a tenant may have some equitable " interest " in tillage land which, in theory at least, he is improving by his culture, the interest which a yearly tenant should have in land on which he possesses merely the right of grazing cattle, and from which he must take everything possible, while returning nothing, is not easy for any one but a Nationalist politician to calculate. The eleven months system is a natural outcome of the Land Act which gives the tenant for twelve months of any land, grass or arable, the freedom to sell his interest in it (which becomes at once of mole value than that of the owner), the right to have a fair rent fixed on it by ignorant Land Commissioners, and a fixity of tenure irrespective of the harm or good which the land is receiving at his hands. Mr. Gwynn omits to speak of the accommodation lands to which local leaders of the United Irish League, who hold eleven months land, are wont to remove their cattle before the occasions of cattle-drives, and their own fiery speeches denouncing the iniquity of the whole system. In the interests of the com- munity, doubtless, the landowner should prefer an irremovable ne'er-do-weel and 15s. a year per acre, to a tenant of his own choice and 50s. a year assured; but it is not given to every man to be a patriot.

If Mr. Gwynn really believes that the cattle-driving agita- tion was "the course adopted in answer to the old claim which landlords made, to rent a tenant on his improvements and to evict him at will," be may well be advised to study the financial statements of the United Irish League (which pays the Nationalist Members of Parliament largely from its Irish subscriptions). When the country is quiet it is to no one's interest to subscribe; when agitation and lawlessness succeed Bubscriptions pour in, and those who would not are openly compelled by intimidation and boycott to join "the League." Retaliations in resentment of occasional claims made in the days of one's fathers can hardly appear a cogent motive for

violent actions in the present. The admission that "in a good many cases the small holder in his turn may try to become a grazier" is happily made; "experience can be cited" to prove this conclusively, and the teachers whom Mr. Gwynn proposes to remedy this evil—the local authori- ties—should first be their own physicians. In Ireland the local authorities now consist almost exclusively of small farmers or shopkeepers., In this matter self-education can hardly be expected of the small farmers, and the shopkeepers in the grazing districts who do not own some cattle on grazing farms would indeed be bard to find. Large grass farms are an essential feature of the cattle trade as carried on in Ireland. Mr. Gwynn has suggested no modifications in the system, but a virtual eradication. It must, however, be remembered that it is not one class only in Ireland—such as the graziers—but all classes in those districts, from the landlord to the small cobbler in the town, who have an "interest" in cattle.—I am, Sir, &c.,

ALTERA PARS.