LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

LAND TENURE IN IRELAND.

[TO THE EDITOR DIT TEE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—The conditions of practical farming, and the facts as to the country and people concerned, cannot rightly be ignored in dis- cussing the above question. It may be that small holders of land, whether as owners or protected tenants (for that is what the pro- posal before the House of Commons last Wednesday was in sub- stance), are better in the abstract than large occupiers. But it is clear that if the requirements of practical farming in the present day, and the facts of the case—i.e., the present condition of the land and its needs—and the habits and means of the occupiers are not taken into account, the result can only be disappointment and failure.

1. As to practical farming. It is impossible anywhere to farm land better—to produce more than it does now—except by the outlay of capital. This outlay of capital may be the poor man's capital, his labour. But it is none the less a real outlay. He and his must be fed and supported till the return comes. And labour is only a part of the outlay of good farming. There must be money-capital to buy manure, which now forms so much of the outlay of the large farmer, by whom £5 per acre is commonly spent in bought manure on every acre of green-crop, and even up to £10 per acre on what is especially the poor man's crop,— potatoes.

The necessity for this outlay is especially strong when the land is an impoverished condition. With few exceptions, this is the universal state of the land in Ireland. It is exhausted to the utmost by over-cropping for centuries, with little manuring, and by the process of paring and burning, which is simply ruinous to upland. I speak from experience in farming such land, of fair natural quality, and without stint of capital, for thirty years past, in saying that only repeated heavy outlay in manure will bring it back to an average condition. Every good farmer knows, too, that land in average or good condition can only be made to yield more by a more intense outlay in manure. This is the beginning and end of the improved farming of the present day. It is the universal condition, and the small occupier can no more escape it than the large occupier. In proportion to the acreage he holds, the cost of manure to him must be even greater, because he is unable to buy on as good terms as the larger buyer, or adopt as advantageous a system as the larger occupier.

It is clear, therefore, that the conditions of practical farming are all against the Irish small occupier. It must be remembered, too, that he is not a spade-cultivator, unless in a small part of the work of his potatoes, and that all the advantages the large farmer has in improved implements and machinery, in powerful horses and better stock, are wanting to him.

2. Now as to the condition and needs of the land, and habits and means of the people. The land is in the condition that has been already described, needing a great outlay for manure. Besides, a very large extent of it is wet, and often so water-logged as to be of small annual value. There are very few farms more or leas of which do not need draining. This is in favour of the small holder. Machinery cannot be applied to draining ; it must be done by the spade and pick. Every rood drained can be made profitable forthwith, and there is no need for hurry. Thus the small holder can do draining with no greater outlay of his capital, labour, than the large holder, and he can do it with some indirect advantages. But the value of the capital outlay must be the same to both, near £7 per acre, and often as much more in digging out stones and levelling land that has not before been cultivated ; and when it comes to liming and manuring the reclaimed land, the small holder is nowhere, compared with his larger brother having sufficient money-capital. Lime, which-is indispensable, will cost £2 to £4, and manuring, £4 to £5 per acre, whilst the large farmer's powerful horses and strong ploughs also give him an advantage.

If any one will refer to the Blue-book Reports of H.M.'s Diplomatic Agents on the " Condition of the Industrial Classes," under the articles on Belgium, France, &c., 1870, Vol. I., p. 283, and Vol. IL, p. 14, he will see what are the habits needed for suc- cessful occupation of small farms, whether as owners or tenants,— great industry of the whole family, much skill in farming, and after all, the hardest living of any class in Europe above pauper- ism, caused by the competition of themselves, quite as severe for the purchase of land as for hiring it.

It is not too much to say that the Irish people are quite want- ing in every one of the habits there described. No one can travel through the country parts of Ireland without seeing the miserable state of the land. Its poverty of condition is unmis- takable. Wet land abounds, and splendid harvests of weeds, docks, and thistles, with couch unlimited. In fences, buildings, and all else, there is clear proof of the utmost careless neglect and absence of energy.

It will of course be answered that the tenure is the cause of this,—want of security that the occupier will reap the fruit of more exertion. But clearly this is not the cause. Besides the Land Act, which is quite effective here, very many tenants hold by lease, often for much longer terms than are known in England or Scotland. Leases are commonly for three lives, or 31 years ; whole estates are so let, and often for three lives and 31 years after. Still longer terms are not uncommon. Adjoining a large reclamation of mine, a whole townland is let for 2,000 years. The landlord, living at a distance, thought he would ensure his rent by giving a long term. So he offered leases of 1,000 years. The tenants said that was not long enough. To which he answered that it did not make much odds to him, so he granted 2,000 years. Much of the land sorely needs draining, and would pay excellently for it. But there it has lain for thirty years untouched, whilst my land has been reclaimed. On the other side of me, a rich tenant has a lease for 100 years, with a splendid tract of wet land, sloping to the south, with ample fall. It, too, lies untouched. I give these cases because I know them ; there are plenty more. Yet it is certain that draining pays in from two to seven years, and the shortest lease is sufficient to repay an occupier for it. A small occupier who applies his own labour in draining is sure to gain by it. Numbers of landlords are only too glad to give any reasonable security to tenants who will drain. Yet the amount of draining done by tenants is in substance nil,—a scrap of a quarter or half an acre—sometimes an acre—here and there, in very few places. In thirty-five years I have drained several times over more wet land than all the tenants within twenty miles round about. It can be proved, if necessary, that an over- whehning proportion of the permanent improvements done in Ireland have been done by landlords, and not by tenants. The two-and-a-half millions lent by Government for drainage have been spent by landlords, and they have laid out very much larger sums privately besides. For instance, I took a loan of £1,000 from Government, and have spent in thirty years £25,000 in land-improvement, a steady outlay of near £800 per annum or over on four thousand acres. It is also landlords who are responsible for the one-and-a-half millions spent by the Board of Works for arterial drainage. It is the fact, which could be proved, if Mr. Clive's motion in the House of Commons for inquiry into the subject was agreed to, that Irish tenants, with rare exceptions, have not the knowledge, or skill, or energy to carry out draining on any such scale as is needed. Even when their land has been drained for them, they are not able to carry out the after-processes of cultivating such land which are necessary. Again and again I have had to take up such land from the tenants (which I had drained, on terms that the tenant should pay the in- terest on the outlay), because they were unable to carry out the after-processes.

The fact is that the statements of the greater part of tenant- right advocates in Ireland are simply untrue. Landlords, no doubt, have not done nearly as much as they ought to have done. But they have done very much more than the tenants. A great deal is due to the Scotch bailiffs so many landlords employ on their home farms, and to the example thus given. The vast armies of docks and thistles through the country are the clearest proof of the true nature of the case. The pulling of these, at least, in- volves no outlay of capital, to be repaid in after years, and per- haps appropriated by the landlord. The brief labour of wives

and children, who are otherwise idle, would do the work. The rowing crop would repay the cost threefold, yet there they flourish and seed and reproduce themselves for ever and ever.

There are about fifteen millions of available acres in Ireland let to tenants. All the deposits in all the banks and savings- banks by all classes amount to about thirty-two millions sterling. It is believed less than half of this belongs to tenants. Their capital, therefore, in cash is probably under £1 per acre. The capital that needs to be laid out by some one in bringing land in Ireland into fair order cannot be less than £10 per acre, equal to 150 millions of money on 15 millions of acres. I have laid out £6 per acre on landlord's improvements, and much more remains to be done. The tenant's capital of £1 per acre, with all added to it that any one may think he has, is not nearly enough to manure it, to say nothing of stocking it better. Money laid out on permanent improvements is well spent if it returns five per cent. in perpetuity. Money laid out in manuring will pay nearly always 10 or 20 per cent., often 30 or 50 per cent. Yet it is said it would be an advantage to Ireland to enact a law that in future no one practically can become an occupier of land without paying £3, £5, £10, and sometimes more per acre for it to the previous -occupier, and shall besides do all permanent improvements 'himself, in addition to the cost of manuring and cultivating.

The truth is such a law would in the end be ruinous to the country and to the occupiers, though present tenants, who got into occupation without paying anything but the rent, would gain 'hugely if allowed thus to sell the reversion to their successors. And the landlords would lose just what the present tenants would thus gain.

All the capital of both landlords and tenants for generations is needed to do what land in Ireland requires to have done to it. Nothing can be gained for the country by schemes for dis- couraging the richest of the two classes concerned from laying out -their capital on the land.

If the object proposed is to begin the education of a class now -wholly wanting in all the qualities and having none of the means found necessary for the occupation of small farms elsewhere in Europe, into the better habits of such occupiers, that is intelligible. Let it be understood that it is an experiment, and a very doubtful -one. But do not let it be misrepresented as satisfying a reasonable desire, which may be for the good of the country, and may fairly be granted, and is likely to succeed.—I am, Sir, &c.,

W. BENCE JONES.