MR. W. H. SMFIll ON IRELAND.
MR. W. H. SMITH can hardly have intended his remarks on Ireland, addressed to the "London and Westminster Working-men's Constitutional Association" on Monday, to be reported. A keen sense of the requirements of inductive and deductive logic would, no doubt, be fatal to the true Conser- vative temperament. On the subject of Ireland especially, we are accustomed to see the Conservative leaders showing abso- lute indifference to the ordinary rules of reasoning. But though they make no scruple of ignoring such logical rules as require people to abstain from begging the question to be argued, and from arguing in a circle, or from contradicting themselves in different speeches, yet it is not usual for them to put for- ward absolutely, contradictory propositions in the same speech. Yet this is what Mr. W. H. Smith must be convicted of doing, in the utterance to which we have referred. After a passing reference to the way in which Ireland has been made the shuttlecock of parties, especially one party, he goes on to say that the "one" thing it needs now "is rest, peace, and security for life and pro- perty, and he would go further, and say, absolute relief from legislation." He frankly acknowledges that the country is now fairly quiet, though he, of course, imputes the improve- ment entirely to the Crimes Act. He still disapproves of the Land Act, and still thinks it will produce more harm than good ; but he does not advocate its repeal. "It would be contrary to everything that is just and fair, to take away now what has been given them [the people of Ireland] by the law." This is all very fair, very sensible, and very statesmanlike. It is fairly open to him also to com- plain that the language used by Mr. Healy at the Limerick election, in saying that the Irish nation "ought never to be satisfied so long as a single penny of rent was paid for a sod of land in the whole of Ireland," and that the " milk-and-water " business was no good, tends to incite to outrage, though it is to be observed that the language used was not a bit stronger than that used by the Land Nationalisa- tion agitators in England, and not half as strong as that used by the Orange agitators in -Ulster. Still, in expressing a demand for "rest," he may be pardoned for expressing his opinion rather forcibly that such speeches do not tend in that direction.
After all this, we naturally expect that this fair-minded and eminent leader of the Opposition is going to bury the hatchet which Mr. James Lowther is always brandishing, and will use that fiery orator's speeches to light the pipe of peace, instead of to light the fire of party strife over Irish questions. In this view, all Liberals would have gladly accepted his state- ment that he really had nothing Communistic in view, by his proposals as to the purchase clauses of the Act, and his implied assurance that those proposals were not made as "a means of getting into power by" any "party." But when he has thus established and enforced the major proposition that relief from legislation is the one thing needful in Ireland, it is somewhat astounding to find that, after all, Mr. W. H. Smith is prepared, "when the proper occasion arises in Parliament, to state his views" as to the amendment of the purchase clauses, and that there "are strong arguments in favour of a reconsideration of that part of the land question." In other words, Mr. W. H. Smith is prepared, as soon as Par- liament meets, for fresh legislation on that very question which above all others has rendered rest the one thing needful. This is to blow hot and cold not merely with the same mouth, bat at the very same breath. What would be thought of the surgeon who came to his patient and said, "My dear sir, you have undergone a very painful operation ; I am not at all sure the treatment was the right one, but I will not try to undo what has been done ; what you need above all things is rest, absolute relief from work and movement. Do not listen to any one who recommends you to adopt strong measures. Only I should like to see your limb reset, and very much stronger splints put on it, and you had better take every opportunity of exercise"? Yet this is exactly what Mr. W. H. Smith, that experienced and distinguished State surgeon, does. Surely it would require too great faith in any patient to trust himself in the hands of that surgeon again. This is the speech put into logical form :- Belief from legislation is necessary for Ireland ; Mr. Healy and his party ask for legislation ; therefore, Mr. Healy and his party must be suppressed. But Mr. Smith and his party also ask for legislation ; therefore, Mr. Smith and his party are to be entrusted with the government, and particularly with the suppression of Mr. Healy. Such is the reasoning which is thought good enough for his working-men con- stituents, by the Member for the city once represented by John Stuart Mill.
Bat the reasons which dictate the minor premiss of this conclusion are only less fallacious than the syllogism itself. Though the "proper time" has not yet come for an exposition of the scheme by which the purchase clauses are to be given greater purchasing power, the time has come for stating why it is necessary. And this is why. Because "the Land Act in its effect absolutely stops all improvement on the part of the landlord," and " there is no single person in Ireland whose interest it is to spend money upon the land." Now, even granting, for the sake of argument, the truth of the first allegation, nothing can be less true than the second. The Land Act, we had fondly imagined, had given every tenant in Ireland who was not already a leaseholder a lease of his land for fifteen years, with practically a perpetual right of renewal, and subject to no conditions but payment of what, in a great majority of cases, is a reduced rent, and may in all be assumed to be a fair rent. Mr. W. H. Smith was a member of a Cabinet which thought that sufficient in- ducement for the investment of capital in land was given if a tenant was entitled to a year's notice to quit, with a power of claiming compensation for improvements on an arbitrary and narrowly-limited sliding-scale. How is it, then, that a fifteen years' lease, on terms under which the tenant is absolutely secure of getting the value of any improvements he may make, has been no inducement to invest his capital in improve- meats? But it may be argued that he has no capital to invest. If so, how will the payment of a lump-sum down,— for presumably Mr. Smith does not intend to extend the purchase clauses by converting them into confisca- tion clauses, or to make the tenant a present of the land at the expense of the British taxpayer—how will the payment of even a fifth or a tenth of the fee-simple value of his holding increase the tenant's capital ? If the whole sum were found for him, he would have to repay it in increased rent, and where then would be his margin for borrowing additional capital for improvements? But, in fact, the chief capital re- quired is that which has usually been the only capital found for improvements in Ireland,—the labour of the tenant. It may be that if he were absolute owner, the tenant would have still greater inducements to labour than he now has. But the wand of the enchanter has been waved over Ireland, and the "magic of the property" which, according to Mr. Smith's own showing, has been conferred upon the tenant must needs work its usual effect. It may not all at once convert sand into gold, but it is enough to turn a piece of bog into a potato-ground. If the admittedly inadequate security enjoyed by the Ulster tenant before the Land Act was enough to induce him to invest his capital in improvements, a fifteen years' lease perpetually renewable must be adequate inducement for any one. It is much to be feared that the real inducement for the continuous enthusiasm of Mr. W. H. Smith in favour of a gigantic pur- chase scheme is not so much a desire for the improvement of the position of the Irish tenant, as a desire for the improve- ment of the position of the English Conservative Leaders.
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