THE IRISH LAND QUESTION..
(TO THE EDITOR Or TaB "SPECTATOIL.1 Sra,—Mr, Foxton's case, described iu your number for September 20th, illustrates well the Irish land question, which so many Englishmen profess to be unable to understand. It is simply this : that whereas in Ireland., almost universally, farm buildings and permanent improvements are all made and maintained by the:tenant, yet on account of such improvements, embodied in and inseparable from the land, the rent of farms has con-
tinually been raised on those who have made these improve- ments, just as it was proposed to do in Mr. Foxton's case.
Thom's "Directory," an acknowledged authority, has for years thus described our land-tenure :—" Landlords neither erect nor repair the farmsteads, and seldom expend money on permanent improvements, the maintaining and improving of the farm being thrown wholly on the tenant." Mr. Caird corroborates this ; he says, in " The Landed Interest," " till a very recent period, the tenant made all the improvements, such as they were ; ho reclaimed the waste, built his own poor habitation." Since the recent period of 1869, landlords have generally ceased to do what they did before, and by limiting and refusing to recognise the tenant-right interest—tacitly admitted before—they have discouraged the tenant from improving. There are many in dispensable improvements which must be made by the tenant, if the owner will not make them, and vast tracts of moor and bog have been, within the memory of man, converted into fertile and profitable ground, wholly at the tenant's expense ; while rents have been continually rising, without any corre- sponding outlay by the landowners, who have grown rich at the expense of the occupiers. But though much has been done by the occupiers, it has often been badly done, and is but little in comparison to what might still be done. It is no wonder that, every inducement to thrift and industry being absent—except the good understanding which proved so futile to protect Mr. Foxton—Irish land should so often be badly cultivated, and the people wretchedly housed, badly fed, and badly clothed. With numbers, the greatest inducement to save has been that they might get away•to some country whore they could reap the fruits of their own labour.
If the Irish were contented under the present system, they would be undeserving of sympathy, and it would be useless to redress their grievances. I look on • the present agitation, ac- companied as it is by the universal demand for the establishment by fair means of a peasant proprietary, as a hopeful and encouraging sign. The party that resisted Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill now profess to see in it complete satisfaction for all reasonable demands ; yet, although a groat step in princi- ple, it has practically failed to prevent the gradual appropriation of the tenants' expenditure by an increase of rent.
How can a nation of tenants-at-will be independent, patriotic, thrifty, and industrious P and ought they to be contented P The moral evils of our land system are greater than the material ones out of which they arise. But for the wholesome custom of tenant-right, which has tempered our system, matters would have been far worse than they are. Let me describe, as an illustration of the tenants' improvements and the insufficient protection afforded to them, a small property with which I am intimately acquainted. It consists of 220 acres, and is occupied by 18 tenants, paying on an average £15 each. On one farm, rent £45, the buildings erected by the tenant cost over £1,000. There is an acre of orchard, and nearly half an acre additional has just been planted with young trees. On the adjoining farm, four acres are under apple and damson trees ; two other occupiers have, during the last year, each planted an acre with apple-trees. Some acres of moor have been reclaimed, and all the buildings on the property have been made and kept in repair by the tenants. In case of disturbance by ejectment or demand of increased rent, the amount of com- pensation which a tenant might obtain is.abeolutely uncertain, for it would without doubt be contended on the owner's part that the buildings I have mentioned were unsuitable to a small farm, and it is probably an undecided question whether orchards are " suitable " or not at law, as they must be, to entitle a tenant to compensation. At auy rate, the amount of compensation to be obtained would only be settled after an expensive, uncertain, and vexatious law-suit. Rather than engage in this, it is pro- bable that the tenant would agree to an increase of rent, which it would be possible to exact solely on account of the tenant's expenditure. It must be admitted that every attempt to recon- cile the divergent interests of landlord and tenant by providing means for them to go to law with each other has failed. Even that section of . the Irish Land Act which petmits a tenant to register his improvements, has not been availed of. A yearly tenant never takes advantage of this provision, because to do so would be an offence to his landlord.
It is idle to preach, as is done continually to the Irish farmers by their landlord and agent advisers, that the remedy for their sufferings is to be more thrifty and indUstrious, to farm more highly, to embark more capital in their business, as long as every inducement to such practices is absent. At present every pound of capital the farmer puts into his business, every sup- plemental industry he engages in, all outlay to make himself and family more comfortable, contribute to place him more and more in the power of the landowner, if the latter wishes to raise his rents, as he very naturally and frequently does. The tendency in fixing rents is always against the tenant, and must be so ; and until some method is devised of securing absolutely to the tenant the benefit of his improvements and expenditure, it is useless to expect him to be as thrifty, industrious, and im- proving as farmers are in other countries where it is possible for any man who has money to buy land in fee-simple, and live- independently and without fear of disturbance.—I am, Sir, Svc., AN IRISH LAND REFORMER.
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