TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE IRISH CRISIS.
THERE is no doubt but that the debate of Wednesday points to what the Arctic explorers call a "lead" of clear water, amidst the almost hopeless pack-ice of the Irish ques- tion. But so far as we see, the " lead " of clear water is only a lead, and must not be mistaken for anything like a certain way into the open sea. The difficulties of the situation are immense, and though we do not for a moment wish to make light of the vastly better spirit shown on Wednesday by the Land Leaguers in Parliament, or of the hope that the Conservatives and Liberals may come to some common under- standing in relation to Mr. W. H. Smith's motion on the ex- tension of the Bright Clauses, the public must not jump to the conclusion that any substantial solution is as yet within our grasp.
Even the question of arrears of rent itself, which was the one to which the Prime Minister chiefly referred in the debate of Wednesday, is beset with difficulties far more serious than any which the British Exchequer, however liberally disposed, could adequately surmount. Mr. Gladstone seemed to indicate on Wednesday that if the question of arrears were to be settled compulsorily on the demand of either landlord or tenant, it would be right that it should also be settled by the State's gift of one year's arrears, rather than by a loan; but that if, on the other hand, it were to be settled, not compulsorily, but by agreement between landlord and tenant, then that a loan, rather than a gift, would be the right mode of settling the mat- ter. The reason for that obviously is that if the State makes a considerable pecuniary sacrifice for the settlement of this question, it ought to take care that the question is settled, and not leave the landlord power to refuse the settlement altogether ; whereas, if it only offers inducements, which it does not compel the landlord to accept, that is not a result important enough to warrant it in sacrificing so much public money out-and-out. We quite understand this. And yet we doubt whether the State would gain as much by making the gift out-and-out, as it would by insisting on repay- ment from the tenant,—repayment without interest, if you like,—of anything which it compelled the landlord to accept in settlement of all his arrear-claims. Mr. Gladstone assumed that the question of the tenant's ability to pay his arrears -with- out a grant could be investigated by the Irish County Courts. And this is really a most essential element in the matter, for nothing could be more disastrous for Ireland than that dishonest tenant-farmers, with plenty of money in their pockets, should go about boasting that they had got the State to pay a year's arrears for them, by swearing what was not true ; and that their more honest neighbours—who had not ventured on this perjury—had only lost their money for their pains. Such a result would do more harm in demoralising the Irish farmer than any new departure as regards material prosperity could countervail ; and unless there were a real and searching test of inability to pay arrears, we should deprecate beyond measure the course of putting money into dishonest men's pockets, and making the honest men deplore wistfully that they had been so misled as to think that honesty was the best policy. There is, however, very grave reason to doubt whether the County Courts or Civil Bill Courts could adequately investigate the ability of the small farmer to pay. There would be no one whose interest it was to prove that ability. The landlord would be interested to prove the tenant's ability to pay, if more than one year's arrears were in question. But if only one year's arrears were in question, and the State under- took to pay that, it would be no one's interest to hunt up the evidence that the tenant could pay that, if he chose ; nor could the County Court Judge possibly turn himself into an effectual Devil's advocate against the poorer tenants. We greatly fear, therefore, that the effect of an offer by the State to pay a year's arrears out-and- out, on condition that the landlord cancelled all other arrears, would result in a most demoralising triumph for the dishonest tenants, and in the humiliation of the honest. We should, on the whole, rather prefer to see the principle of com- pulsion combined with the method of a loan, at least so far as the capital is concerned. The interest might be sacrificed, if it were thought desirable. But there should at least be no danger that the dishonest tenant might go about boasting that he had been more cunning than his neighbours, and had so much heavier a balance at the bank to the good, in consequence. And yet we would much rather see the really poor tenant relieved of the load of debt, for a new start. The difficulty, however, is to distinguish between the cases of real misery and the cases of dishonest assertion. And we see no machinery in existence, or likely to be easily created, that would be effective for discriminating between the two-cases.
Then, again, there is the great difficulty as to oppressive leases. There is no doubt at all that the Act of last year did not provide with any sort of sufficiency for the very numerous cases of tenants in Ireland who had ac- cepted their leases as much under compulsion as any tenant from year to year had accepted the rent imposed upon him. Mr. Gladstone almost admitted that a case had. been made out in this respect, though he gave no hope of reopening the question of leases this year. This is a point that we trust he will reconsider. It would be quite possible, we believe, in dealing with the purchase-clauses, to afford a very effective relief to the leaseholders, and for this reason. In the case of all encumbered estates, the leases are, of course, much the easier to sell, since the tenancies from year to year are unsaleable until the judicial rent shall have been fixed. This being so, if easy terms were made for the purchase of leases from owners, we might expect that a great number of the leaseholders who are suffering most severely from the inade- quacy of the lease clauses of the Land Act, would avail them- selves of these terms, and become the owners of the land which they now rent.
One word as to the apparent lull in hostilities. There can be no doubt that it is hopeful, so far as it goes. For some reason or other,—though it is at present impossible to get at the true reason,—the Irish Irreconcilables appear to be dis- posed to make terms,—so far as we can see, not very un- reasonable terms,—with the Government ; while the Tories are certainly frightened and as eager as possible to en- dorse any solution of the urgent difficulties of the case, to which the Irish landlords would consent. Here, appar- ently, are the elements of a solution, though, till we know something more of the significance in the change of the Land Leaguers' attitude, we can hardly say that the situation is really hopeful. There is great moral danger, as we have already shown, to the people of Ireland, in this extreme alacrity to get over the political difficulty at any cost. And there is always very great danger, when the attitude of the two great parties in the State is that of the bidders at a Dutch auction, each striving to underbid the other in their claims on the integrity of the Irish people. Fortunately, we have a Minister in office who will never avail himself of the too great disposition of some Members of his party to bid against Lord Salisbury, in such a competition of moral destructiveness as this. We have faith in Mr. Gladstone. Whatever solution he adopts, we are sure that it will not be one that buys off Irish foes, at the cost of all that is most honourable in the character either of the Irish landlord, or of the Irish peasant.
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