THE IRISH PROBLEM.*
Ws heartily welcome this little book. First, we should be disposed to welcome it because of its authorship, even if it did not appear to us to contain much that was of value. We do not, however, mean that we know more on that matter than what is told us in the book,—namely, that the writer is a Canadian. He has, as we think, to some extent injured his little volume by a preface or introduction under the guise of a first chapter, which may frighten off impatient readers. That chapter is due to a modest fear, which we believe to be wholly groundless, lest a man who has something very original to say on the question of the hour should be accorded a less willing hearing because he is a Colonist, and stands apart from our party controversies. "A voice from the Colonies," he says, " seeks to be heard by the publics in whose hands the disposition of the great issue rests, —that is to say, by the Irish, the Scotch, and the English people. Does not justice seem to require that a hearing should be accorded ?" Apart altogether from " justice," a writer who can pen sentences often telling and vigorous, who has an alto- gether independent view of a question which must be dealt with, but that is now daily more and more tending to weary those who have heard the same arguments and the same mutual accusations repeated over and over again, till men resent charges of crime not because they are untrue, but because they are tired of them, is, we hope, sure of a hearing. The moment at which he offers his quota to the solution of our diffi- culties is a fortunate one. The Government is pledged to work out a scheme during the recess for assisting the purchase of their holdings by the Irish tenants. The difficulty is as to the machinery to be provided. It is precisely on that subject that our Canadian writes. What he has to say is not drawn from "the depths of his internal conscious- ness," but from actual Colonial and American experience. Destructive criticism is so much easier than constructive pro- posal, that we naturally find it much easier to accept as decisive some of the warnings he offers of dangers to be avoided, than all that he urges on the definite scheme he submits. Never- thelese, there is so much that is suggestive in his scheme, • TM Inch Problem. As Viewed by ■ citizen of the Empire. Londou: Hatohardn. 1887.
that while we certainly are not prepared to advocate its acceptance en bloc, we do believe that the men who will have to formulate the actual Bill, and those who will have to judge of its value hereafter, ought carefully to consider what he has to say.
He records a Canadian experience, which is certainly very much to the point, as to the danger of Mr. Gladstone's now defunct plan for making a local Government the agent through which Imperial money is employed to assist in solving the problem :— " The experiment included in its operation the wealthy, intelligent, and eminently respectable population of Upper Canada (now called Ontario). About thirty years ago, the Provincial Government con- ceived that it would be advantageous to lend the benefit of the Pro- vincial credit to the various municipalities, to assist them to borrow money for various local purposes, on terms which it would have been impossible for the municipalities to obtain on their individual credit. These moneys were advanced by the Government to the various municipalities as a loan to be repaid to the Government on terms defined by the Act of Parliament and agreed to by the municipalities. The money was duly spent by the rannicipalitiee. . . . . But when the time for payment to the Government arrived, all kinds of demurs arose. The debt was, in foot, repudiated by the municipalities for a long series of years. Party Governments shrank from the duty of enforcing payment at the price of alienating the support of the numerous constituencies affected. The ultimate result was that a composition was effected, by which the municipalities repaid a portion of the debt in full settlement of the whole."
It thus became, as he says, " a means of educating the people into public dishonesty."
Our own experience as to the loans to Corporations is not much more favourable. His deduction seems to us sound in its statement :—" I think, therefore, that financiers would lay down, as a primary axiom to be observed, that the State should avoid constituting the relation of creditor and debtor directly between any political body and those upon whose suffrages it is dependent." That appears to us to tell even more severely against the scheme which Mr. Chamberlain has sometimes seemed to favour, of advancing money whilst Ireland is directly governed by the Imperial Parliament, than against Mr. Glad- stone's proposal, with all its elaborate, though, as they seem to ns, illusory safeguards.
For his actual proposal, our author refers to practical ex- perience. Citing cases from the working of Land Companies in Canada, he proposes that there should be created a " Land Loan Guarantee Company," which should stand to the Imperial Government somewhat in the position in which the Companies of the Guaranteed Railways of India stand to the Indian Government. He would make the Company purely an agency, deriving its profit entirely from brokerage or commission on sales. He describes the modus operandi thus :- " Whenever the Company found a landlord desirous of selling at a price satisfactory to the Company (which we will assume to be twenty years' capitalisation of the real annual value, ascertained according to the judgment of the Company's valuators), and when the Company has also ascertained the willingness of a sufficient number of the tenants, or similar actual cultivators, to purchase at the earns figures, the Company would enter into the necessary con- tracts on both sides. Having provided, by an issue of its debentures, the amount of the purchase-money, it would pay the cash to the vendor in exchange for a conveyance, less a moderate brokerage or commission for effecting the sale."
Assuming that the Government guarantee would reduce the borrowing rate at which money could be obtained to 3 per cent., whereas the profit from the land is at the rate of 5 per cent. on the actual selling value, the difference would, he calculates, leave a margin of security of 40 per cent. The Company having pur- chased from the landlords, would resell to the tenants on terms of 3 per cent. interest on unpaid instalments of the purchase- money, and the repayment by instalments of the purchase- money, the tenants having full possession, subject to condition of ultimate forfeiture if the interest should be in arrear beyond a reasonable period for redemption. He asserts that the experience of the Canadian Land Companies shows that it answers to a Company to allow payments of principal and in- terest to stand over for lengthened periods, as long as they are satisfied that the tenant is a man likely by his industry and labour to come round and be able to pay his purchase-money and interest. The real risk of loss to the Company would be dependent, be thinks, on the management of the Company. The advantage would be the cutting out of political intrigue and the red-tape of officialdom. The fact that the Company would have no interest in assessing value unfairly, either
towards landlord or tenant, would tend gradually to give them an authoritative position in affixing values. Tenants would be in the same position as if their rents had been cat down 40 per cent.
We can, of course, give only a sketch of his scheme ; but we think we have said enough to show that this part of the book is worthy of some study. There are difficulties in the way of it that he hardly realises, such as the opposition of the Gombeen men, the local money-lenders who now hold the poorer tenants in an iron grip, and are the real masters of the situation. The tangled web of intrigue and falsehood that makes all investment of capital so dangerous and difficult in Ireland, is perhaps even a more serious one, and the wide divergence between this scheme and the hopes of the farmers is the most serious of all.
The scheme we have described occupies the second chapter. The third contains a proposal for a conference of representatives of the most important Irish classes,—landlords, tenants, the labouring classes, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, carriers. His hope is, that if a friendly deliberative meeting could take place, light might be thrown on the subject that we have not yet had, and are never likely to get out of party Parliamentary discussion. His notion is, that his Purchase-Company scheme might be advocated as a result of such deliberation. He recognises that there would be difficulties for a Govern- ment in initiating such a scheme without the support of a powerful expression of opinion outside the Houses. We do not quite like the rather pretentious title he has given to this chapter,—"Industrial Parliaments." We fear it may mislead some of his readers as to his objects. The most startling feature of this part of the book is the outspoken expression of disgust against the present condition of Parlia- mentary government, whether in America, in the Colonies, or at home. Naturally, we are not prepared to accept what he says on the subject. But as a symptom of what a thoughtful and intelligent Colonist believes to be the prevailing feeling among the commercial classes throughout the Colonies, this is in many ways the chapter most worthy of considera- tion. Moreover, there are unpleasant sentences which bluntly pat facts which it is hard to dispute. That for the sake of free institutions throughout the world, it is vitally necessary that the House of Commons should be restored to efficiency, is a proposi- tion which few of us can deny. We select almost at random a few of his phrases, which will convey some idea of the vigour of his attack: —"For all the purposes of a deliberative body, Parliament may be said to be an acknowledged failure." "Fifty years ago, the credit of Parliamentary institutions stood high." " To-day, they are everywhere fallen into something more like contempt.' "Abroad, their progress has received a definite check." "It is in the end for a business purpose that Parliaments exist." " Parliaments altogether lack those qualifications." " Such is Parliamentary representation. It is but the swinging of a pendulum : at one time practically exclusive landlord repre- sentation, and practically exclusive tenant representation at another time." He declares that so great has the nuisance of legislative tinkering become, even in the view of the people, in parts of America, that " in some States the Legislature has actually been prohibited from meeting oftener than biennially. The land swarms with provincial Lyearguses till everywhere the reflective part of the community is sighing for some means of putting a check upon those mischievous activities." "Poli- tical Parliaments do not sin through ignorance only. Insincerity in dealing with public questions,—handling them not according to their merits, but with a view to the votes they may bring or lose this is demagogism,—this is the master political evil of the day ;"—with much more of the kind, which at least does not err upon the side of being mealy-mouthed in point of expression.
The last chapter of the four contains some very interesting statements as to the effect on American public opinion of our most recent relations with Ireland. They form a wholesome corrective of much that has been put forth elsewhere as to the unanimity of American sentiment against our efforts to main- tain the Union. Much that he says as to the importance of the question to the whole Empire is also worthy of study, from the freshness with which it is brought before us. Even when we do not altogether agree with him, we should heartily wish that what he has to say should be read. We can cordially recom- mend the little book to the attention of our readers.
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