MR. BRIGHT'S LAND SCHEME.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIE,—Your correspondent Mr. Murphy is alarmed by a rumour that the Government are about to propose what he terms " some modification of what is known as Mr. Bright's scheme." But the scheme which he proceeds to describe, and I think very justly to protest against, is not Mr. Bright's scheme at all ; and the only persons to whom it is "known as his" are those ill-informed or unscrupulous opponents of Mr. Bright with whom Mr. Murphy has as little sympathy as you or I. And the views of Mr. Glad- stone, Mr. Fortescue, and the other members of the Cabinet are already so well known from their speeches in Parliament, at least, as to what they will lwt propose, that it is quite certain that no such scheme as Mr. Murphy fears is in preparation.
What Mr. Bright did propose was, that Parliament should grant a sum of two or three millions (I have not the figures before me), to enable the Government to buy up to that amount the estates of any landlords 'who wished to sell them, and that the estates so
purchased should be re-sold in lots to the tenants, if they .
chose to buy them, and they being allowed to pay London: StYrnhan ti.nd Co. r °ern J•
the money by instalments, in the way in which like pay- ments of capital are made every day both in England and Ireland, under analogous circumstances. Mr. Bright explained, in a speech in the House, of Commons in 1868, that "his object was to create in Ireland some few score thousands of a steady class between the landowners and the landless, a class which would be thoroughly loyal, and would be the zealous enemy of Fenian- ism." And he then went on to point out that he did not look forward to Mr. Mill's scheme ever being required as a remedy for the state of Ireland. To create " a few score thousand " peasant- proprietors, would be merely to introduce one new element of land-tenure on a moderate and limited scale, among a number of other elements ; and surely if this can be done, no one can doubt that we should thereby introduce a most conservative and orderly element of society, which is greatly needed. And, if the plan were found to work well, and that more landlords desired to sell and more tenants to buy, it would be difficult to show that things should not be allowed to take their natural course. Whether there would be practical difficulties which should forbid the Government to undertake to work such a scheme, I know not ; but if not, there seems to me no reason why it should not be made an appendage to the Government plan. But that a scheme avowedly limited and partial in its operation can be the plan itself, is impossible. No one who thinks of the Church Bill can
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