7 MAY 1870, Page 12

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

hope you will open your columns to a warning on a subject which is of vital importance to Ireland, and yet appears to be almost overlooked by English politicians? I am not opposing the Land Bill. On the contrary, I think its fault is that it does too little for the tenants. But there is one point on which all who know Ireland at all are agreed that there ought to be no concession whatever to popular demands. Sub-letting ought to receive no encouragement. If the landlord permits it, of course the law cannot prohibit it ; but if, as is usually the case, the landlord does not permit it, the law ought to give every possible force to his prohibition.

This sound principle was observed in the Bill as introduced ; but last week, on the motion of Sir John Gray (of all men), the Government consented to allow of sub-letting in conacre, and some of their party had the assurance to tell the English Members that conacre is not sub-letting at all. Conacre is sub-letting in small portions, for one year, and without any right on the part of the sub-tenant at the end of the year. It was such practices as this that brought Ireland into the state in which the famine found it ; and if you allow them to be renewed now under legislative sanction, in a dozen years more you will have another land question on your hands, the parties to which will be the present farmers and the new conacre sub- tenants,—that is to say, smaller and more oppressive landlords, and smaller, poorer, and more ignorant tenants, than those whose quarrel you are now trying to adjust.—I am, Sir, &c.,

JosEru JOHN MURPHY.