TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DEBATE ON MR. PARNELL'S BILL.
THE debate has not convinced us that the Government was wise in refusing all concession to Mr. Parnell. Mr. Gladstone, it is true, was for once in his life too Parliamentary,
and pressed the argument that the Government, in granting a Commission of Inquiry into rents, had conceded that reductions would be necessary, a great deal too far. The Government had conceded nothing of the kind. As Lord Hartington showed, they granted the inquiry because there is throughout Ireland a conflict of opinion as to the failure to pay rents, one party holding that they cannot be paid, and another party that they would be paid but for the intimidation of the National League. That conflict of itself justifies inquiry. It
is also true, as Lord Hartington argued, that it is most dangerous for the Legislature to interfere with existing rights of property, except under the plea of imperative necessity ; but then, an imperative necessity is just the plea put forward. Every Irishman on the popular side maintains, truly or falsely, that the rent simply cannot be paid. One object of the Bill was admitted to be just. No one attempted to defend the exclusion of the leaseholders from the Land Act ; and the point being conceded, Parliament might wisely have displayed even a precipitate haste to remedy an acknowledged injustice. There was no great urgency, but still, as no one was opposing, a little hurry to do right would have suggested to Irishmen that the reluctance of the House to assail judicial rents did not proceed from lack of sympathy with tenants, for, once convinced of a claim, the House of Commons would act as decidedly as if it had been an Irish representative body. Nor, as regards the main purpose of the Bill, is it possible to read Mr. Parnell's coldly moderate speech, and Mr. Morley's outspoken statements, without believing that judicial rents were settled without reference to the future of prices—how, indeed, could they be settled with reference to it ?—that prices have fallen heavily since the rents were settled ; and that if the Commissioners had foreseen the course of trade, they would have fixed a lower standard. Indeed, they have been fixing one lower by 9 per cent, since the fall set in. If that is the case—and we cannot conceive an answer to Mr. Morley's argument showing that the articles in which prices have fallen are just the articles on which Ireland depends—an abate- ment is necessary, if only to fulfil the promise of the Legis- lature to the tenantry, which was to secure them a fair rent. As to the principle on which the abatement should be made, Mr. Parnell is all wrong, and his suggestion may even be denounced as monstrous ; but that could have been omitted from the Bill, which would then have only called upon the Land Court to revise its assessment according to the principle of the Land Act, and to protect the tenant from eviction till it had done so. It is easy to say that the rule ordering the tenant to pay a half-rent into Court, was in effect a direction to the Court to reduce rent one-half ; but the Court was left quite free, and Mr. Morley distinctly offered to raise the pro- portion payable to three-fourths, and to charge the remaining fourth against the compensation payable to the tenant on disturbance. That was surely a compromise worth dis- cussion. We heartily agree with Lord Hartington that we ought not to secure social order at the price of injustice, and with Sir M. Hicks-Beach that the plea of possible disorder is not one which ought to induce Parliament to legislate in haste ; but then, do either of those propositions fully apply ? The con- tention as regards the first is that tenants are not seeking an unjust privilege, but a settlement acknowledged to be in accordance with the principle of the Land Act ; and, as regards the second, all recent precedent is against us. If Parliament is not to legislate for Ireland in an unusual way in order to avoid a social conflict, what did it pass the Land Act for ? Is there any other justification for that Act which would weigh for a moment with responsible statesmen against the cer- tain results of interfering with customary tenure ? As it seems to us, Sir M. Hicks-Beach and Mr. Morley could in a very few hours have arranged a Bill which would have been wholly consistent with the Land Act, have averted much trouble this winter, have justified every eviction for refusal to pay rent, and have convinced all Irish tenants that the British majority, while refusing Home-rule, have in no way prejudged the agrarian case against them. By assuming an attitude of blank resistance, the Government, of course, secured a victory ; but then, they also enabled Mr. Parnell to say that Liberal Englishmen admit his case, and that in
insisting on reduction Irishmen will only offend a party which announces itself on this matter of rent inexorable. The Government almost compelled themselves to resort to menace,.
and to threaten, as Sir M. Hicks-Beach did, that if the agrarian. struggle grew sharp, it would be necessary to call Parliament together and ask for new powers,—the exact course which, till the Government proposal is known, it is expedient to avoid.
There is, indeed, one argument of high policy against Mr. Parnell's Bill which is entitled to the deepest respect. The Bill makes of the profit of the staple industry of Ireland a subject of debate. We can conceive no worse condition for a country than one in which the livelihood of its citizens depends upon Parlia- mentary conflict, and one party is understood to favour con- cessions which another party resists. Such a condition of affairs must make of politics an auction, in which success belongs to the highest bidder, and the electors are, in fact, paid for their verdict and support. That is the consecration of bribery in its most demoralising form, when the whole population is bribed, and in the multitudinousness of the sinners, forgets to be ashamed. We have not arrived at that condition yet, because all the electors of the Kingdom are not affected by a fall in Irish rents ; but as regards Ireland we are near it, and the consequences must be infinitely bad. If rents are to be settled by Act, any pretext will do for discussing them ; he will be the greatest patriot who cuts them down the most, and the statesman who supports the cutting will be the voters' favourite. Mr. Parnell will be the farmers' idol for his BM, and Mr. Gladstone their favourite for pleading that it should be discussed. Nothing can be worse ; but then, how is that to be avoided ? Rents in Ireland are Parliamentary rents. If Parliament is to settle what is a fair rent, Parliament must discuss rents and fairness too ; and if Parliament discusses rents, the pressure from voters who desire them to be low must be severe, and may be irresistible. The protection against that evil is the practice of regarding profit as outside the action of Parliament ; but that practice as regards Irish land has been given up. It is argued that the arrangement under the Land Act should be regarded as final, and then the evil will dis- appear; but how is that finality to be secured ? The arrangement may be utterly unfair, and then both parties must reconsider it ; or it may be detested, and then one or the other party will reconsider it if it can. The way out does not lie in talking of an impossible finality, but in addressing ourselves seriously to the matter, and devising a plan which from its own nature must necessarily be final, because under it rent will practically cease to exist, the cultivators becoming either mortgaged freeholders, or copyholders at a fixed quit-rent. That is the solution for the Irish agrarian difficulty, and there is no other ; and those who deny or question it are only strengthening the argument for Home-rule. They are making the peasantry, who other- wise would be divided, all friendly to that plan, because, what- ever else it did, it would place them beyond the danger of eviction for ever. There is no consistency in promising that Parliament shall legislate as if it were Irish, and then refusing to discuss the subject which, if Ireland had Home-rule, would absorb all others.
This is the rock upon which we have a dread of the Unionists splitting. They, or rather some of them, have a hope that the mere enforcement of the law, to be strengthened if necessary, will of itself restore social order; and it will not. Such enforcement is not only necessary, but it is a duty which it is criminal to neglect ; but when the law is enforced, there will remain the agrarian question, which is the root alike of social disorder, of the demand for Home-rule, and of the power which the Parnellites now wield within the walls of Parliament. The agrarian question in Ireland means the security of the cultivator ; and until he is secure, however heavily burdened, there will be no more quiet in Ireland than there would be in an Indian province without the same condition. The first work of the Unionists is to deal with this difficulty ; and till they have done so, they will never secure what ought to be, and in the end must be, the first object of their ambition,—solid Irish assistance in resisting the demand for Home-rule. They were right enough, as the Government had determined to wait, in supporting them by their votes or their abstinence from the House ; but it is on condition that they are prepared to do something more to settle land-tenure than wait quietly till 1899. They may see from Mr. Parnell's action how he regards such policy, how he relies on tenure as his weapon, and how he dreads any final settlement of what, be it imaginative or be it real, is the master grievance of Ireland.
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