CORRESPONDENCE.

THE WORKING OF THE LAND ACT.

[ram A CORRESPONDENT.'

THERE were in 1879, 576,000 agricultural holdings in Ireland. The number is now probably five or six thousand less. Of these, some 50,000 are holdings of less than an acre. It is estimated that the number of agricultural tenants, properly so called, may be taken to be about 466,000. To fix the proportion of these to whom the provisions of the Land Act really apply by way of benefit and remedy must be at present very much a matter of guess-work. But let us, at all events, guess. In the first place, holdings valued at £50 a year, but let wholly or mainly for the purpose of pasture, are exempted from the operation of the Act; and nearly two-thirds of the available acreage of Ireland are laid down in pasture. Leaseholders, with certain not very large exceptions, are also exempted, and it is stated by the writer of an able article in the last number of the Dublin Review that " tenants holding leases are supposed to amount to about 150,000." This is probably an over-estimate ; but the immense majority of the pastoral tenants to whom the preceding exemption applies are leaseholders as well, and are

therefore doubly excluded from the operation of the Act. Making allowance for other minor exemptions, my conclusion is, that there are, at the outside, not more than 300,000 Irish tenants to whom this measure of relief was intended by Parliament to apply, and whom it will, in Mr. Grattan's phrase, " bring nearer to the sun."

Of this number, it may, I think, be fairly said that about one- fourth have at present invoked the protection of the Land Commission, by applying to have a judicial rent and tenure fixed. Considering the formidably organised opposition to the Act, and the brief period that has elapsed since its offices and Courts were opened, this is, I submit, no mean result. Here are the exact figures. On the 31st December there had been, in all, 62,331 originating notices received ; 59,634 addressed to the Land Commission itself, 1,697 through the County Courts. During the month of December, notices were coming in at the rate of 400 a day ; and their tendency was to expand, rather than diminish in number. And we are now in the third week of January.

A cursory analysis of the figures will not be without interest. Ulster, as might be expected from the sensible character of its people, and the sturdy care with which they have guarded their tenant-right, was the first to take advantage of the Act. Nearly half the applications received before the end of the year- 29,392—had come from the Northern Province. The highest number in any Ulster county, 5,692, came from Tyrone ; and the fact is not without its significance, remembering the con- temptuous defeat which the farmers of that county inflicted on Mr. Parnell's nominee, when their popular Member, Mr. Litton, was appointed a Land Commissioner. In the other Ulster counties, the numbers were :—Armagh, 4,936 ; Down, 4,227; Antrim, 2,876 ; Donegal, 2,774 ; Fermanagh, 2,728 ; Derry, 2,660; Cavan, 1,853 ; Monaghan. 1,644. It is worthy of remark that in Ulster, with the single exception of Cavan, almost all the originating notices are addressed to the Commission itself. In Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, and Derry, not a single notice appears to have been received through the County Court. In Antrim there were 6, in Monaghan 8, in Tyrone 2, in Donegal 2 ; but in Cavan, 525.

There are, or rather were in 1879, 202,841 holdings in Ulster ; whereas in Connaught, the province I proceed to ex- amine, there were not more than five-eighths of that number— viz., 125,731—and Connaught is the province which, next after Ulster, has signified, by the large number of originating notices served, its adhesion to the Act. In Connaught, there had been 16,246 notices served before December 31st, and in that province the increase in number was then proceeding most rapidly. Comparing the proportion of notices served to the number of holdings in each province, Connaught is accordingly somewhat ahead of Ulster in its acceptance of the Act. The discrepancy between the figures in the Connaught counties is, however, more marked than in Ulster. Nearly one-half of the Connaught notices, 7,292, come from the county of Mayo, until quite lately the most impoverished, most subdivided, and most turbulent of the western counties ; whereas, from the neighbouring county of Roscommon, which within the last few weeks has been the scene of several atrocious outrages, there are only 1,056 notices. The number in Galway is 4,575 ; in Sligo, 2,077 ; in Leitrim, 1,326. Of those notices, 740 came through the County Court in Mayo ; in Sligo, 19 ; in Galway, 11 ; in Leitrim, 121; and in Roscommon, 192.

The statistics of Munster and Leinster yield nearly the same figures. The estimated population of Munster in 1880 was 1,361,175, and of Leinster, 1,312,879. The number of holdings in Munster was 123,663, and iu Leinster, 123,805. In Munster there had been served at the end of the year 11,057 notices, more than two-thirds of the number served in Connaught ; while in Leinster there were only 4,556. The figures of tho Munster counties are Cork, 3,186 ; Kerry, '2,925; Clare, 1,777 ; Tipperary, 1,275 ; Limerick, 949 ; Waterford, 893. Here, again, is to be observed the remarkable discrepancy between county and county, in respect to the Civil Bill Courts. From Water- ford, 52 notices came forward through the Court ; from Cork, 8; from Kerry, 2 ; from Limerick, Clare, Tipperary, not one. For the apparent comparative failure of the Act in Leinster, there are several causes. One is, no doubt, the more thorough organisation of the Land League. Another may be the greater number of leaseholders and pastoral tenants, the richest grazing districts in Ireland being the counties that surround Dublin. But making all these deductions, Mr. Parnell may well console himself in Kilmainham, when he reflects on the way the Leinster tenants are defrauding themselves of their legal rights, and wasting their property to please him. From his own county, Wick-low, only 173 notices have come; from Dublin only 144; Carlow, 205 ; Kildare, 293 ; Wexford, 371; Meath, 391; Westmeath, 477 ; Louth, 403 ; King's County, 457 ; Queen's County, 479 ; Longford, 553 ; Kilkenny, 607. In Leinster, the intervention of the Civil Bill Courts is still less sought than in the other provinces. In Dublin and Wexford one notice reached the Commission through the Court; in Wicklow, 7; in the other Leinster counties none.

I do not profess to do more than touch on the controversy

respecting the reductions of rent made by the various Sub- Commissions. The subject has been ably handled by other writers, especially by Lord Monck, and it is sub judice. The appeals now being heard by the Commission, and to be heard

hereafter very soon by the High Court of Justice, will settle definitely the law and practice respecting Fair-rent ; and the work of the Commission, both as to fixing rent and sanctioning agreements, will be immensely facilitated thereby. But I think it will be found, when all the statistics have been collected, that in the judicial rents hitherto fixed—their number is about 970—the general abatement all round has not exceeded 241 per cent. It need not be said that this is less than the abatement made by a very large number of English landlords to their tenants in consequence of the hardness of the times. There is not a day that we do not read of abatements by English landlords of 30 per cent., and more. But the Irish Sub-Commissions in fixing judicial rents are bound to take into account the tenant's property in the im- provements of his farm, which improvements are, as a rule, the landlord's property in England. Regarding Mr. Giffen's figures as to the losses of the farming classes in late years, and seeing what the English landlords are voluntarily doing, I confess I am astonished at the moderation of the Sub-Commis- sions. It is a curious and a very interesting and promising

fact that decisions in Court and agreements out of Court appear now to proceed purl, pctssu. The number of agreements out of Court at the present date recorded with the sanction of the

Commission is 970, the same number as that of judicial rents fixed ; but the number of agreements seems now to tend greatly to increase. There were 650 judicial rents fixed on December 31st, and 450 agreements recorded. The number of each has since risen to 970.

The majority of the Irish landlords have hitherto been acting with as little sense as the Leinster tenants, who aim at pleasing Mr. Parnell by spoiling their faces in the ancient fashion. In- stead of availing themselves of the Arrears clauses, the fixed- tenancy clauses (not to speak of the Bright Clauses), under which, by agreement with their tenants, money enough might be had from the Treasury to clear off their present embarrassments,

they prefer to pursue the ignus fatuus of compensation, or do not deign to think of such mean shifts as the Mansion House Fund. In reality, they are suffering no more than the members of their own class in England and Scotland, to whom they look for support in Parliament in their appeal for compensation ; and who, they hope, will tax themselves smartly for the sake of sympathy. If they would only look forward, their prospect is rather better than that of their British brethren. The new rental of Ireland settled by

law will be fixed within the next two years ; and it is much more likely to be paid up in full for the next fifteen, than the un- settled rental of England or Scotland. The Irish tenant-at- will has become a man of property, and his property is, at all events, a security for that. It is sad to look back, but surely the Irish landlords have had the most definite and solemn warn- ing that could be given to men of what must come to pass, if they would not voluntarily amend their relations with their tenants. And they would not. That warning was addressed to them by the Royal Commission of which Lord Devon was Chairman, now nearly forty years ago. The words, which I copy from the official digest of that memorable inquiry, may be read not without remorse by other than landlords now-a-days :—

" Landowners do not appear to be aware of the peril which threatens their property, and which mast increase every day that they defer to establish the rights of their tenants on a definite and equitable basis. They do not perceive that the present tenant-right of Ulster is an embryo copyhold, which must decline in value to the proprietor in proportion as the practice becomes confirmed, because the sum required by the outgoing tenant must regulate absolutely the balance of gross produce which will be left to meet the payment of rent. They do not perceive that the disorganised state of 'Tipperary, and the agrarian combination throughout Ireland, are but a methodised war to obtain bhe Ulster tenant-right, or that an established practice not only may,. but mnst, erect itself finally into law; and any one who will take the pains to analyse this growing practice, will soon perceive how inevitable that consequence must be in the present case, unless the practice itself be superseded by a substitute that shall put the whole question on a. sound, equitable, and invigorating basis."

But, unfortunately for themselves and for their country, the Irish landlords, as a body, only thought of rent, and of rent as Byron apostrophised it, in lines that seem to prefigure the

common practice of purchasers under the Encumbered Estates Act :—

" And will they not repay the treasures lent

No ! down with everything, and up with rent. Then good, ill, health, wealth, joy and discontent, Aim, being, and religion,—rent, rent, rent !"

Hitherto, accordingly, the only clauses of the Land Act that may be said to have come into operation are those that relate to rent. There has been no application under the Fixed- Tenancy clauses, the most valuable part of the Act in regard to• a permanent settlement of the country. There have been only 30 applications under the Arrears clauses. Grants have been approved in 14 cases for advances to tenants for purchase of their farms, and in six cases for sale by limited arrears to their• tenants ; while two estates are in course of purchase by the

Commission for resale in parcels to tenants. Such is the report of progress at present. It might be better and brighter. It might have been very much worse. Such as they are, however,:

these are the results of not quite three months' work of the Commission. Six months' hence, at the same rate of progress,.

the pacification of Ireland ought to be far advanced.