[To THY EDITOR OF THY "SrEerma..") Six, — Will you allow me,
as an Irish landlord, to express my entire agreement with your criticisms on the proceedings of the late Convention in Dublin P
The establishment of a peasant-proprietary by a large measure of land-purchase is the only possible solution of the difficulties of our present position. But have you not exaggerated the amount of money required ? Would it not suffice for all purposes to buy out the resident agricultural tenancies ? Why should demesnes or grass-farms, or even the larger agricultural holdings (say, of over £100 a year) be dealt with ?
There exist, unfortunately, no returns showing the acreage and valuation of each of these classes of tenancies. But, on working out the case of my own estate, I find that little more than half the total rental is paid by the class of tenants whom it would be necessary to convert into owners. If this proportion holds good throughout the whole country, the sum required would be nearer to 280,000,000 than 2150,000,000, the sum mentioned in your article.
I will not enter on the question of the security to be offered for this advance further than to say that the principle of Mr. Gladstone's Bill of 1886, which made an Irish body responsible for the instalments of the purchase-money, was much safer for the British taxpayer than the existing law, under which the State is brought into direct relation with each individual peasant owner, however small his holding.
If the plan I suggest were adopted, the Irish landlords would be enabled to pay off their mortgages, but would not be obliged to leave their old homes ; and so a class which, with all its political faults, is of great value to the social system, would still [We never dreamt of touching demesne farms or land occupied by landlords, but can see no sense in excepting large farms. Mr. Redington is a competent witness, but we gave our figure on the authority of one of the first statists in the world.—En. Spectator.]
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