IRISH EVICTIONS.
[To THE ZOTTOR OF THE "SPECTATOR") SIR,—Will you allow me to suggest a way of effectually dis- couraging Irish evictions ? A very large proportion of the tenants evicted are of the poorest class, whose condition is well known to readers of the Spectator from the descrip- tions of Mr. Take. Comparatively few tenants of this class have had a fair rent fixed under the Land Act. They have been -unable to pay the expense of the necessary application, or have been deterred from applying by threats that, if they apply, the arrears of rent which nearly all of them owe will be at once enforced against them. Amongst tenants of this class are found the extremest instances of rack-renting. I see that while the Government valuation of seven holdings on the Glenbeigh estate is £32 7e., the rents amount to £11 8s. The Government valuation of one holding, that of Patrick and Darby Connor, is
13s., while the rent is £8, more than doable the valuation.
If, as I have always followed the Spectator in believing, the
of the Land Act is a sound one, surely justice requires. that these miserable people should have the benefit of it. I would suggest, as no more than justice, that a landlord seeking to eject a tenant whose rent has not been fixed under the Land' Act, should be bound as a preliminary to get the fair rent fixed that, for the purpose of the ejectment, the arrears due from the tenant should be calculated at the rent so fixed; and that any purchaser of the tenant's interest should be entitled to come in at that rent. I think that most people with any knowledge of the subject would agree that in the most impoverished districts landlords would almost always prefer going on getting what. they could out of the actual occupiers without evictions, to- having fair rents fixed under the Land Act.
It is impossible to read the correspondence in the newspapers,. Conservative as well as Liberal, without perceiving that, rightly or wrongly, the recent terrible evictions are straining the faith of many Englishmen. The Saturday Review, indeed, pronounces the whole business at Glenbeigh to have been histrionic,— nothing but a theatrical performance, well planned and skilfully executed. Society may possibly take this exhilarating view. But of the British nation in a larger sense, has not experience plainly shown that, whether it be from natural justice and generosity,. or from a flabby sentimentality (and for the purpose of my argument it matters nothing which), it is apt to be shocked and alienated by any infliction of suffering on a great scale ? If these scandals happen in Ireland under Imperial rule, it is inevitable that Imperial rule should get the discredit of them. I submit, then, that it would be sound policy on the part of the Unionist majority to use all fair means to make such scandals of as rare occurrence as possible.—I am, Sir, &c., AN husumsx.
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