LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

COMPENSATION FOR DISTURBANCE (IRELAND) BILL.

[TO TRH EDITOR OF TIIE SPECTATOR."]

SIR,-It appears to me that it was a very unfortunate circum- stance which prevented Mr. Forster from embodying the pro- visions of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill in a separate clause of the Irish Distress Bill, as he had originally intended. Had he been able to do so, the compensation for disturbance of a tenant, or more strictly speaking, the prevention of eject- meats, might have been discussed in its true light,—namely, as

an exceptional measure for relieving the distress still existing in Ireland ; but as it is, the appearance of a distinct Bill treating upon the subject of ejectment of tenants by their landlords, compels one to recognise in its provisions a chapter out of that vast volume of conflicting problems, the Land Question, which we were promised was to remain until next Session unopened. Entirely different arguments should be used to support this Bill as a land-law reform, from those used to support it as a relief measure. These two sources of argument have not, in my opinion, been sufficiently dis- tinguished one from the other, and Mr. Forster himself has drawn indiscriminately from both. Those who are eager to support the Bill in its double capacity may fairly put forward all the arguments they can, but those who urge its acceptance as a relief measure only should be careful to encroach as little as possible on the domain of the land question proper, especially as so doing may lead to inconsistencies. Briefly stated, the argument in support of this Bill as a land-law reform is that the Bill is the logical sequence of the Land Act of 1870.

That Act provides that a capriciously evicted tenant • shall receive compensation for disturbance. Now, if the words "com- pensation for disturbance" were to be taken in their literal sense, and if compensation in cases of capricious eviction was given solely in consideration of the inconvenience of the dis- turbance, of the inconvenience the tenant undergoes in" moving house," then, perhaps, the tenant evicted for non-payment of rent would have no claim to compensation, for the disturbance was brought about—I am still speaking of ordinary times—by his own remissness. But the case is otherwise. The tenant has improved his holding, and, therefore, obtained an interest in the land; this interest the Land Act of 1870 has clearly recognised, and it is for the loss of such vested interest, occa- sioned by the disturbance rather than for the disturbance itself, that compensation is given him by that Act. Why, then, since this principle is recognised, should not the tenant evicted for non-payment of rent have as much claim to com- pensation as the tenant capriciously evicted, seeing that his interest in the land is as great ?

To take an example :—A certain holding, under £10 rental is really worth, say, twenty-five years' purchase; the landlord probably would be able to obtain only eighteen years' purchase- for it in the market, for the remaining value of the land, amounting to seven years' purchase, belongs in theory to the tenant. Now, the landlord is prevented under the existing law from depriving the tenant of his share by means of a capricious eviction ; but suppose the tenant, after failing to pay rent during three years, is evicted, it

is evident that he should no more be deprived of his interest in the land than he was before ; but the landlord would,

of course, only pay him four years' rental, the remaining three having gone to pay the arrears of rent. Whether it was wise of Parliament, in 1870, to fix the tenant's interest in his land at a certain regular value, according to the rental of his hold- ing, seeing that in some cases that interest would be worth more than the legal amount and in others less, is a different

question altogether. But since the value of a tenant's interest in his land has thus been roughly estimated by statute, surely the balance of that sum, whatever it be, after rent due has been deducted, should be given to every evicted tenant, whether such eviction has been brought about by non-payment of rent by. the tenant, or merely by the caprice of the landlord, since it is for loss of interest vested in a farm occasioned by having to leave that farm and not only for disturbance that compensation is given But if this reasoning supports the principle of the Bill, surely the provisions of the Bill should take effect throughout the three provinces, and not in the scheduled Unions only ; for if it be regarded as an extension of the Land Act, it should be ap- plied to all districts to which that Act applied. Again, if the Bill be regarded as a land-law reform, it would certainly re- quire some further limitation ; for, resuming the example before given, suppose the original tenant is evicted, and receives com- pensation, the landlord has thereby bought up the tenant's interest in the laud; he now possesses the full value of the hold- ing—twenty-five years' purchase, instead of eighteen—and may fairly demand a somewhat higher rent from the new tenant. Now, this second tenant has no vested interest in the farm; if, therefore, he were evicted at the end of three years for non- payment of rent, it would be absurd to give him seven years' rental as compensation, for he can have no possible claim to so large an amount,—if, indeed, he has any claim to compensation at all. And though in the case of special agricultural distress, it might be desirable to prevent his eviction, it should be pre- vented absolutely, and not on the ground that compensation can in any way be due to him.

These things go to show that the Bill must not be considered as a piece of land legislation, it should therefore not be sup- ported, as it has been, by "land" arguments. But are there not sufficient arguments to support it as a temporary relief measure, framed to meet an unusual and extraordinary state of things, which the enormous falling-off in the produce of the soil (more than sixty per cent, in the potato crop, for example) certainly amounts to ? The Government maintain that the Bill, if passed, will not discourage the payment of rent, but only pre- vent a cruel punishment for its non-payment ; this may be so ; but in any case, if it can be shown that the duty of paying rents in full, in such times as these, becomes really an open question, a temporary law which, without taking away the power to recover rents, forbids that extreme measures should be resorted to for this purpose, is surely justifiable. Let us ex- amine the question further.

If all rents wo.e paid, the present agricultural disaster would fall almost entirely on farmers, and not on the others who are interested in the land—the landlords. No doubt the reduction of his income is a very unpleasant thing for the landlord, but it is quite as unpleasant for the tenant to have his necessary supply of food reduced, and to be turned out of his house into tie bargain. Equity should now come to relieve the debtor who has been placed in an unfortunate position through no fault of his own, for equity has been accustomed to take into accouut extenuating circumstances as to the fulfilment of any agreement. If the mortgagor, for instance, does not repay the loan on the day fixed, equity prevents the mortgagee from using his legal right at once to enter on the land; it gives the mortgagor time. And so the Irish tenants, under these special circumstances, should have more time to pay,—that is, they should not be ejected ; to say nothing as to whether the land- lords themselves should not bear a part of the loss, or, in other words, remit a portion of the rents.

In answer to the objection that the Act would be a simple robbery of the landlords, it may be urged that the landlord (according to political economy) is only entitled to rent when Ins land yields more than the ordinary return of labour and capital expended upon it ; and, therefore, if no such surplus has this year been returned, the landlord cannot be entitled to rent, which is supposed to represent that surplus. Indeed, if under these circumstances rent is paid, it means that the landlord is taking to himself a portion of the proceeds of the labour and capital (i.e., of the wages and profits) of the farmer, who is, therefore, rather robbed by the payment of rent than the landlord is by its non-payment. Of course this would

only apply to the worst districts of Ireland, and it is 'neglect- ing the principle of averages, the principle of taking the good years with the liad, the tenant being content with the latter since he has benefited by the former ; but still if the fact is taken into account that on many lands this year the pay- ment of rent is not demanded, and is even not possible accord- ing to economic laws, the prevention of ejectment for non- payment of rent will not appeer so barefaced a robbery. Further, if it be urged that it is contrary to the teachings of political economy thus to bolster up a system, by preventing by legislation the natural decay of that system by starvation eject- ments and the like, the answer must be, "True, but no political economist says that the laws of that science are always to prevail against the demands of national interests, humanity, and ex- pediency. Thus, political economists are willing to admit that the authorities were wrong in allowing the export of rice from India during the famine of 1874, for though to have prevented the export would have been an interference with free-trade, and would, therefore, have been condemned by political economy, it would have been sanctioned by humanity and national interests. So, even if prevention of ejectments be condemned by political economy, as an interference by legislation with economic causes, humanity sanctions it. One of the laws of political economy is that the increase of population is checked when it needs checking, by starvation and illness arising from want of food ; therefore, those who are so anxious to obey the laws of political economy should not have kept people, who were doomed to die, alive by means of charitable funds ; and still less should the Legislature have interfered, with its Seed Potatoes Act and Relief Acts. But having already broken the laws of political economy with these Acts, it is hardly fair to condemn the breach of them again by the Act in question. It is quite possible that such a thinning of the population as without any measures of relief, would have occurred, might have been, in the long-run, a benefit to Ireland, by establishing a more satisfactory proportion between her cultivated area and her population ; but we have reached too late a stage in civilisation to contemplate a scheme for the amelioration of a country by allowing the num- ber of its inhabitants to be reduced by starvation, or, speaking more generally, to allow economical laws to work freely, quite regardless of the laws of humanity.

It must also be remembered that many think that the wretched condition of the Trial peasantry has been to a large extent brought about by past legislation, and by past action on the part of the English Government ; and in so far as this may be so, there is nothing inconsistent in present legislation doing something to remedy the evils which past legislation has brought about. But this is again touching upon the land question, and it is not necessary to do so to find arguments in

favour of this Bill. I therefore trust that many who are un-

able to see with the Government upon the wider question of Irish Land-law reform, will nevertheless give their support to this Bill, which, judging by its object merely, should have re- mained, as was originally intended, a clause in the larger measure for the relief of Irish distress.—I am, Sir, &c., H. H.

[Our correspondent appears to assume, in the early part of this letter, that the Land Act of 1870 grants a compensation of

seven years' rental for disturbance to tenants of holdings under 210 annual value. It grants them a maximum compensation to that amount, at the discretion of the Court, but not neces- sarily nearly so much.—En. Spectator.]