LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
LORD MONTEAGLE ON IRELAND.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
SI11,—As you have been good enough to mention my name in connection with Mr. Tuke's pamphlet, perhaps you will allow me to thank you for your interesting article on the subject, and to call attention to some conclusions which he has not himself very distinctly drawn from the facts he recounts, but which a careful study of his narrative has convinced me cannot but follow from them.
I was a steady supporter of Mr. Forster's Bill from the first, and was not, as you seem to suppose (I daresay from some ambiguity in my letter to the Times, which was written under double pressure from domestic anxiety and want of time), con- verted by Mr. Tnke. My position throughout was that it was impossible for almost any individual to form an opinion as to the necessity for State interference; that the responsibility of that decision must rest entirely on the Government (as in the case of the Peace Preservation Acts) ; but that if Government, in the exercise of their responsibility, came to Parliament and asked for special legislation, individuals of any party should be very slow to reject the measure, unless they were satisfied that it would in practice be mischievous. This apprehension I was con- vinced by most anxious consideration, and after much discussion with others, was not well grounded. But as I knew that many people, and especially many members of the Upper House, questioned the necessity, which I had accepted as a work- ing hypothesis, I hastened to call attention to Mr. Tuke's evidence directly it came into my hands, as it appeared to me to prove the necessity which I had only assumed, and that in a much more conclusive way than any statistics could do. I believe if this simple statement of facts had appeared a month earlier, the necessity for action would have been more generally admitted, and the Bill would have been considered more dispassionately by many Members of both Houses. And though I cannot disguise from myself that much of the criti- cism of opponents would have remained as bitter as ever, they could not have escaped from the obligation of proposing an alternative (which was not seriously attempted), if the necessity of the case had been commonly acknowledged.
The danger which Mr. Tuke's narrative discloses is not the probable effect of eviction per se, but of evictions, or attempts at evictions, following upon rack-renting, the rack-rents, as you so justly point out, resting, in many cases, entirely on the tenant's improvements. This it is which rankles in the mind of the Connaught peasant as an injustice, and who can greatly blame him if, when law conflicts with equity and justice, he does not respect and support the law ? If the House of Lords had realised the bare facts educed by Mr. Tuke, I venture to think that both the debate and the division- list would have had a very different complexion ; and though I do not at all maintain that the Government were bound to demonstrate the necessity, and quote chapter and verse, names and details, which might have seriously aggravated the local mischief they sought to allay, it is certainly unfortunate that the part of the case which ought to have been above criti- cism was open to doubt, if not to scepticism. I believe I was the only independent supporter of the measure in the House of Lords who belonged to a scheduled district. But my property not being distressed, though in a scheduled district, I had no experience to enable me to judge as to the necessity for legislation. Mr. Tuke's pamphlet, though written (as you wisely remind your readers) with no such object in view, convinced me on the one point on which my mind was open.
The principle of the Bill is really not so much the abrogation of existing contracts, the objection to which, in Lord Cairns' able hands, carried more votes, I believe, than any other argu- ment, but the clothing of the Judge with an equitable jurisdic- tion in cases where under the existing law equity has little or no place. And if the tribunal had been such as to inspire respect and confidence on both sides, I cannot believe that the introduction of equity into a competent Court of law could have been seriously objected to on principle. Nor in practice can I bring myself to think that any Member of either House of Parliament would deny that when a landlord has in time of prosperity raised the rent to the full value, including the value of the tenant's improvement, it is equitable that in a time of exceptional adversity the contract should be liable to revision by a sufficient tribunal. The tribunal proposed by the Bill does not, I fear, inspire confidence altogether on either side. But I can see no reason why an ambu- latory Court should not have been appointed for the occa- sion, part of whose business it should have been either to visit the lands in question personally, or to appoint an officer to do so. Had the necessity been generally admitted, and the Court given general satisfaction, I think the House of Lords might have hesitated before rejecting the Bill.
But the question at this point inevitably suggests itself to both the opponents and supporters of the Land Act of 1870, "Why has that Act not prevented this state of things arising P" And this brings me to the more hidden conclusions which seem to underlie Mr. Tuke's statement, and which are of more prac- tical interest than barren discussions of the rejected Bill.
Both opponents and supporters of the Land Act will agree that it has not accomplished all that was expected by its promoters in giving security to the two parties concerned. "See the result of your legislation !" exclaim the opponents. And perhaps their triumph is not quite unmixed with surprise, for some of the Conservative leaders have lately maintained that security was increasing, and that "well" (that is, the working of the Land Act, I suppose), sh mld be let alone. I do not re- member that the increase of security has been authoritatively traced to any one definite provision of the Act, but I have no doubl, in my own mind that it was chiefly due to the check placed on capricious evictions. And the cessation of this increase, I am equally confident, is due to the failure of the Act to secure his improvements to the tenant. This is the first conclusion of importance which underlies Mr. Tuke's narrative, for the mere existence of rack-rents proves it. The Courts are open, but the tenants either mis- trust them, or are too poor or too ignorant to resort to them. For it must be remembered that except with the consent of the tenant, no landlord can raise rent without subjecting himself to a claim for disturbance or improvements, or both. There can be no doubt that rack-renting exists more in Connaught than in any of the three other Provinces, and it is therefore a remarkable confirmation of the insufficient security afforded by the Land Act to small tenants that, whereas the total number of cases under the Laud Act for 1878 is 8.3 per 1,000 farms for all Ireland, 141 ditto for all Ulster, and 6.6 ditto for all Munster, it is 45 ditto for Connaught, and 3.8 ditto for Leinster. The high number in Ulster is, of course, duo to tenant-right, and it may be open to question whether this is altogether a satisfactory sign, when contrasted with the low figure in Leinster, which may be fairly attributed to the good relations there subsisting between landlord and tenant, which render resort to the Court less necessary. But not even Mr. Chaplin himself could suppose that the low figure in Connaught is a healthy sign, especially when it is observed that in Mayo, where poverty, ignorance, distress, and agitation are greatest, the number is only 3.6 per 1,000 farms, lower than the average of Leinster; and when this figure, again, is contrasted with Donegal, where, with very similar poverty and ignorance, but a happy immunity from agitation, the resort to the Courts of Law is 54, which is higher than the average of Connaught.
Indeed, the condition of Connaught, physical, ethnological, agricultural, social, economic, and political, is so different from the rest of Ireland, that the difficulties of the problem there appear to me to differ not only in degree, but in kind. These difficulties have never been fairly faced, and until it is recog- nised that different remedies may be needed there, I despair of any real solution. As an instance of the error of treating Con- naught on the same footing as the other Provinces, I may men- tion the relief-of-distress measures pf the late Government, which were admirably calculated to mitigate and arrest partial distress, but which broke down altogether in Mayo and the west of Galway and Donegal, as Mr. Tuke shows, and under which the landlords of Mayo and Donegal applied for loans amounting to 6s. 11d. and 5s. 91d. respectively per head of population of scheduled districts ; while those of Limerick and Cork, where distress was certainly not widespread, and hardly anywhere acute, obtained 12s. 90. and 10s. Hid. respectively. Another distinctive feature of the Connaught problem which stands out clearly in Mr. Tuke's picture, though, with his usual impartiality and caution, he does not emphasise the facts, is the large number of peasantry who depend partly on harvest wages in England or Scotland for their support. Of the 126,500 holdings in Connaught, 70,775 hold under 15 acres, and of these latter, at the lowest computation, half the occupiers are migratory labourers, who by the unanimous testimony of their employers in the mother (I will not say stepmother) island, are remarkable for their in- dustry, quietness, honesty, and thrift. The thrift no one can question, for it is estimated that they take home with them to Connaught in good years an average of £13 a man. It is most remarkable that the largest portion of these birds of passage come from the county Mayo, and the good character borne by the class on the other side of the Channel may well suggest reflec- tions to those who can find no names hard enough for the vices and crimes imputed to the struggling peasants of the West.
One more "conclusion," and I will end this somewhat lengthy letter. Perhaps the most serious apprehension aroused in my mind by Mr. Tuke's pamphlet is at the process he de- scribes as now going on to create new holdings by what are called "new cuts,"—that is, cutting up the mountain land over which the tenants have had, for generations a right of stray for their cattle, and establishing new tenants upon them. The existing tenants may or may not suffer a perceptible lose by this system, according to the proportion which tho common land that is cut up bears to that which remain, to them and
in some cases which he instances, the action of the landlord has been unaccompanied by any damage to the old tenants, and prompted by benevolent intentions towards the new comers. But the tendency accords only too well with the impression entertained by many thoughtful men that the small tenancies are, under ordinary circumstances, remunera- tive to the landlord, and the undoubted fact that some of the most miserable of these populations eke out their existence on land which, from the nature of the soil or the larger proportion of rock, or both causes together, could hardly be cultivated.in any other way, at any rate so as to produce the present rents. And in this connection the figures quoted by Mr. Tuke of the number of farms in Ulster and Connaught are not without significance, as showing that whereas in Ulster the number of holdings has steadily decreased since 1841, the number in Con- naught, which fell from 155,842 in 1841 to 122,897 in 1851, rose in the next decade to 138,262; and though in 1871 they fell to 129,586, and in 1877 to 126,310, they were, in 1878, 126,517, being considerably over the number of 27 years before. In every other Province the change has been an almost continued decrease.
I have not attempted to do more than indicate some of the difficulties which must occur to any Irishman who loves his country, and whom a careful perusal of Mr. Tuke's pamphlet must set thinking. It is, perhaps, rash in an individual to attempt even thus much, when a Parliamentary inquiry into the matter is just about to commence, which all hope may prove exhaustive. It would certainly be rash at present to attempt more. But knowing the wide circulation of your journal among the thoughtful classes in England, and believing that much will be gained if only the problem is looked fairly in the face, I have ventured to trouble you with these remarks, in the hope of interesting some of your readers in Mr. Tuke's pamphlet, and in the problem to be solved.
First, that the Land Act of 1870 does not adequately secure his improvements to the small tenant, and that rack-rents are too often the result; secondly, that the Connaught question is in a great measure a labour question (and consequently also a Poor. lawquestion) ; thirdly, that there is reason to fear that the system of small farms and cottier tenants pays the landlords hotter on poor land than consolidation, as long as the popula- tion can eke out their livelihood by harvest wages, or other aids extraneous to the land,—these are propositions which seem clearly involved in Mr. Tuke's statement, though not all equally well demonstrated. With your permission, I Will on a future occasion advert to the bearing of these three propositions on the great question of State emigration.—I am, Sir, ex., Mount Trenchard, Foynes, August 17th. MONTEAGLE.
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