THE ATTITUDE OF IRISH LANDLORDS.
fr HE landlords of Ireland are not, we fear, wise folk. They .1_ do not recognise the desperate character of their position, or see the only point in the lines now drawn around them which offers a fair prospect of escape. They are face to face with agrarian revolt. The great body of their tenantry have risen against them, as they have done previously in many countries of Europe, and insist sometimes by votes, frequently by refusals to pay, and occasionally by murder, that they and not the landlords rightfully own the soil. They draw little distinction, or occasionally none, between good and bad land- lords—the story of tenants in default refusing to buy their land or pay their rent because their landlord was a credit to the country-side is, we believe, trim—but they insist that rent shall be reduced in perpetuity to the vanishing-point. That is their object, expressed by Mr. Dillon on Monday, in his speech at Limerick, with irritating but audacious frankness ; and at the cost of infinite injury to their country, which is utterly demoralised by the revolt against contracts, they may yet succeed. All political power in Ireland is in peasant hands ; English opinion is in great part ignorant ; the great Liberal Party, moved by various causes, one of which is a temporary loss of moral fibre, has deserted the landlords ; the economic situation is against them ; and they are, in addition to all these disadvantages, in danger of the summary confiscation which, it is admitted in every agrarian speech, would follow the con- ceseion of Home-rule. Statesmen of all parties agree that to save Ireland from the hopeless ruin which the present agitation might produce, it is indispensable to change the tenure, to buy out the landlords, and to create a class of proprietors so numerous that respect for property shall again be supported by overwhelming physical force. With six hundred thousand owners in Ireland, the man who preaches robbery of owners, now the most popular of speakers at every meeting, will be hooted from the platform, and placed under that social ban which in Ireland is the rather more cruel equivalent of hanging. Under these circumstances, the utmost the landlords of Ire- land can hope for is a fair value for their lands, and their main effort should be to secure this,—first, by insisting in presence of the English electors upon their moral right to it ; and secondly, by assisting the Government in the terribly difficult task of finding for them a compensation which shall not overbear the rather thin patience of the British tax- payer. In pursuit of the first object, they should instruct not the Irish but the English elector, should make their legal position clear to him, and should show that the million of houses now owned by British workmen are held by precisely the same tenure as Irish estates. The British workman under- stands ownership well enough, though he is confused about " fair rent " for fields unproductive of cash ; and one popular lecture on the facts, repeated in ten thousand parishes, would do more for the landlords than any number of unread and melancholy orations about the injustice and animus of the mob. Next, the landlords should address themselves to the pressing work in hand,—the provision of the fund for paying them. The difficulty of the Government is this. To buy up Ireland, they must find £150,000,000 without involving the British taxpayer in too serious a risk. It would be perfectly possible to provide this if the Irish peasant could be trusted, for he can pay and would willingly pay £4,000,000 a year, and that is all the interest required. Unfortunately, just now he cannot be trusted, because his leaders, who want Home-rule and not his comfort, know that their lever, as Mr. Dillon almost admitted in terms on Monday, is the hatred of rent, and would, therefore, keep on urging them not to pay. The Government is, therefore, in serious if unacknowledged perplexity. Now, can the landlords relieve them from it ? They know the country ; they understand the people ; they are still the legal owners. Can they suggest any plan by which Irish peasants, invested with their farms in freehold, can be induced or compelled to pay punctually a quit-rent equal to one-third, or, say, eight-twentieths, of the judicial rent I If they can, they will get fair terms ; if they cannot, they will be left, in the end, to urge a fight which a majority among them, outside Ulster at all events, clearly regard as hopeless. Their one chance is fair purchase, their one course to make this purchase possible ; and what are they doing towards it I Just nothing, if we may judge from the proceedings of their Convention on September 15th, as reported in a friendly journal, the Dublin Evening Mail. The Conven-
tion, the landlords say, represents them fully ; but it did nothing of the slightest practical value. At least, we cannot see the use, with deadly enemies like Mr. Dillon all around, with tenants flushed with greed, and with their only protector, English opinion, rendered flabby by doubts, of passing a long resolution that Irish landlords are very good people. Suppose they are, and deductions would have to be made from that statement, and what then 9 If they are good, they are entitled to their own ; and if they are bad, they are entitled to their own ; and whether they are bad or good, they will only get their own if it is possible to give it them. What is the sense of telling Mr. Parnell that there are good Irish landlords ? He will only say, with a sardonic smile, that he knows that, for he is one of them, and that, consequently, he is dis- interested in demanding that they shall only have prairie value. Or what is the sense of such an assertion, if intended to influence this country, when made by the very class about whom there is doubt! The whole of that resolution, and all the speeches about it, are so much wasted breath, as Lord Monck seems to have told the Convention in a letter ; and the second resolution is little better. It amounts to this,— that Irish landlords ought to have " compensation," which is undeniable ; but how much, and for what I The land- lords apparently cannot make up their minds, or at least do not make up their minds, to answer either question. They are afraid to say what they think would be a just equivalent in Consols or Irish Debentures for their rental, and they cling to the idea that they may get, besides the value of their lands, compensation for the statutory reductions of rent. Do they really expect Parliament to vote that its laws have been unjust, or that it will give them or anybody compensation for just reductions? The speakers said com- pensation was voted to the elaveholders, and that is true ; but the compensation was in consequence of a complete and final confiscation, not in consequence of a statute fixing and reducing the price of slaves. There is nothing to be obtained without clearness, and a full recognition that the moral right of the owner is the only argument he has left, and nothing to be hoped from economic illusions like those defended by Dr. Erck. That gentleman, who was much applauded, denounced purchase, arguing that if landlords were bought out, 97 per cent. of Irishmen would have less than £300 a year, and "all those who now lived by ministering to any higher wants should leave the country. Law business would soon be transferred elsewhere, for a Supreme Court of Justice, with its attendant counsel and officials, would no longer be required here. The poor-house chaplains, the dispensary doctors, and a few country attorneys would suffice for the wants of a nation-of very small farmers, whilst half the present number of County-Court Judges would dispose of their criminal and civil cases. The old gentry, or educated classes even now left, are composed of officials and professionals, together with a few resident landlords. If these officials should be removed, because their services would no longer be required, there would be no longer any inducement to landlords to remain on their native soil." If Dr. Erck will inquire, he will find that there are very happy Swiss Cantons where 97 per cent. of those con- nected with the soil have less than the limit he fixes ; while his second assertion, if it were true, would be a positive argument for expropriation. Does he think a nation pays its officials to make an aristocracy, or does he believe that the absence of litigation which he expects is injurious to a people ? As a matter of fact, experience shows that a popula- tion of peasants asks for many officials, and can pay for them ; but if it did not, Dr. Erck's would be no effective argument. The landlords ought to be paid a fair price, because they hold the lands by rightful, that is, by legal tenure, and because con- fiscation would therefore be against morals, and a blow to the security of all property. That claim is, in the judgment of all honest Englishmen, amply sufficient, and, indeed, irrefragable, and to bolster it up with absurd or disputed arguments about the social or economic value of rent-receivers is not wise. The help we want and the Government wants from the Irish land- owners, is a reasonable suggestion as to a rightful method of painlessly extinguishing thein. If they do not mean to be extinguished, and still see a method of fighting, let them show the world what it is.
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