SENIOR'S IRELAND.*

WE have had reason to complain lately of the flood of worthless

books on "the Irish difficulty " which has been poured out from every quarter since Mr. Gladstone made that question the question of the day. Happily, this " vacant chaff well meant for grain " is not the only product of recent political revivals. Public- gratitude is due to the executors of the late Mr. Senior for having given to the world the fruits of his long and patient inquiry into the condition of Ireland. For more than forty years Mr. Senior had studied the problem which yet puzzles our statesmen. He visited Ireland frequently, conversed with distinguished Irishmen of all classes, observed keenly and rapidly, and faithfully recorded

what he heard and saw. The mature results of these labours have now published. The first volume is, we think, a mistake.

It contains some essays reprinted from the Edinburgh Review. They are rather cold and colourless, like all the later contents of the eminently cautious organ of effete Whiggery. But the second volume of Mr. Senior's Ireland is of almost unique value. It con- sists of journals written during three visits to Ireland, in 1852, in 1858, and in 1862. In these are recorded not merely ordinary souvenirs de voyage, but conversations on political questions with Lord Rome, Lord Monteagle, Archbishop Whately, Mr. Stephen

Spring Rice, Mr. Stephen de Yore, Mr. Steuart Trench, and many others whose names are suppressed. No publication in our time has thrown more light on the actual conditions of Irish society, and the feelings and opinions of different classes in Ireland.

As early as 1852 Mr. Senior had grasped the main points of the question of tenure, and though as an orthodox economist of the

English school his judgment inclined to the side of the grenade culture and the system of capitalist farming, he did not fail to see that there were certain moral obstacles in the way of the legiti-

mate application of that system to Ireland. He has recorded the opinions of men of various parties and creeds, all pointing to the cardinal doctrine which Englishmen cannot, or will not, under- stand, that Anglo-Saxon institutions cannot easily be maintained without modification among a Celtic people. Take the opinion of Lord Masse, an eminent and accomplished leader of the Irish Tories. He advocated in 1852 an exceptional course of legislation for Ireland, though not precisely, it is needless to say, of the same sort as that advocated by Mr. Stuart Mill. And he imputed to the Liberals of that day precisely the doctrine which is now the corner-stone of the Conservative policy :—

" What,' I said, would you do, if you were Minister, and had a fair working majority, so as to he able to carry any measures not absolutely irreconcileable with the prejudices of the English people ?'—' Some English prejudices,' said Lord Rosso, must got rid of before I could do much. The worst of all prejudices is the opinion—still, I believe, cherished by many of the English Liberals—that Ireland can prosper under English institutions, without supplemental measures to render tho laws and institutions really equivalent to those of England ; that is to say, that one of the least civilized countries in Europe can be well governed by the same machinery as the most civilized, which is like giving the same education and the same degree of freedom to A boy of eight years old and to a boy of sixteen."

The most important difference, of course, between England and Ireland, which thus renders it impossible to regulate Irish society by the same rules as English society, is the absolute dependence of the Irish people upon the land. This is well pointed out in a few words by a friend with whom Mr. Senior (during his last visit) conversed about the Ulster tenant-right :—

"'This tenant's bad farming,' I said, must reduce the tenant-right on this farm ?'—' Not in the least,' ho answered ; tenant-right is not governed by reason. It depends on competition for land, and, as that is always great, a much larger tenant-right than the 51. per acre, which. I permit, might always be obtained. No one in England adequately estimates that competition, for in England it does not exist. We, in England, have a hundred means of making a livelihood, and the agri- cultural class is comparatively small. In Ireland, nine-tenths of th. population get their living out of the Boil. They cannot help it, for— except making and selling linens and poplins, and whisky and porter— what else can they do ? If they attempt to make anything that can be made in England, they are undersold. A son of one of my tenants bad a little money, and set up as a shoemaker in a neighbouring town. His shoes were made on the spot. His SUCCORS led a neighbour to open a shop for shoes imported from England. He undersold and ruined my friend. Hence, we have no permanent middle classes. The families which rise above the labouring class soon subside into it again.'"

It is not surprising that in such a condition of things the peasantry should struggle desperately to retain a hold on the soil. But at the same time other motives combine to force the landlords into tightening their own grasp of the land and compelling the tenant's to relax theirs. At the date of the first visit to Ireland recorded in these volumes, Mr. Senior's brother, then Poor-Law Commis-

• Journals, Croarersations, and Essato Relating to Ireland. By Nassau W. Senior. 2 vols. London: Lougmans.

sioner, attributed the violence of this social war and the success of the landlords in it to the operation of the Poor Law :—

" The great instrument,' he continued, 'which is clearing Ireland is the Poor Law. It supplies both the motive and the means. The pauper no longer sends his wife and children to beg over the country while he is seeking work in England. He absconds, and throws them on the ates. The landlord finds that an overpeopled estate is a burden, not to society at large, but to himself individually. He reconciles himself to the apparent harshness of eviction by sending notice to the relieving officer, and, having taken the precaution pointed out to him by the law, -clears his estate, and holds the law responsible for the consequences. Ireland affords another of the instances in which legislation for the relief -of the poor has produced effects precisely opposite to those which it was intended to effect. The Poor Law was passed in order to keep the Irish paupers at home ; it has expatriated them by thousands. It was passed for the purpose of relieving England and Scotland at the expense of Ireland ; it will probably relieve Ireland at the expense of England and Scotland.'"

But there was something more than the Poor Law at the bottom -of the contest. There was the "earth hunger" of the Celtic pea- -sant, opposed directly to the resolve of the English or Anglo-Irish landlord to deal " commercially " with the land.

How great and of what character were and are the difficulties in the way of so dealing "on commercial principles" with land in Ireland may be judged from some of the evidence which Mr. Senior has pat on record. He questioned Mr. Trench, of Cardtown, —this was in 1852—as to the profits that might be got from the reclamation of land :—

" Much more than ten per cont.,' ho answered, 'might be made, for the first year's crop would even now pay a fourth of the expense of reclamation. Before the potato failed it would have paid nearly the whole.'—' Then why is it not done ? For the same reason,' he answered, that many other things, equally profitable, are not done— want of capital.'—' But why,' I said, does not English capital come in -and do it? At how many years' purchase can you buy land here ?'— ' The price is high,' he answered; not less than from twenty-two to twenty-three years' purchase, on a fair moderate rental.'—' And in such -a purchase,' I said, could a considerable portion of unreclaimed land be included? '—' Certainly.'—' Then why,' I said, does not some English -capitalist invest 20,000/. in the purchase of an estate including 3,000 or 4,000 acres of reclaimable waste, employ 30,000/. more of it in re- claiming that waste, and thus obtain for 50,000/. an estate producing 4,000/. a year—an estate which would be very cheap in England at 100,0001.? The thing,' he replied, 'certainly could be done. Why it is not done, there aro several reasons. In the first place, the possibility of doing it is little known. In the second place, the purchaser must -make a profession of it ; he could not well do it through his agents. In -the third place, he must understand his business ; he must know how to 'cultivate, and how to cultivate in this climate and soil. And, lastly

From another informant he gathered like warnings :—

"'When I was a lad,' he continued, 'I saw a good deal of a squireen, half farmer and half agent, who used to go out with me shooting and dishing. Ho was a man of strong sense and will, but hard character, -and, both as landlord and as agent, did things which seemed to me harsh, and oven oppressive. When he was dying he sent for me, and said :— " I have been long connected with your family, I have received much kindness from them, and before I die I wish to tell you the means by which I have passed a long life engaged in the management of property in a disturbed district, without having ever been attacked, or even threatened. It was by knowing what I could do, and what I could not -do, and that knowledge I will now give you. You may let your land at its utmost value—you may require your rents to be paid—you may re- fuse to make any deduction for bad seasons—you may refuse to give to your tenants any assistance—you may distrain the cattle and seize the -crops of those who do not pay—.you may even evict them. These things the people are accustomed to—these things they will boar. But there is -one thing you must not do. You must not be what is called an improv- ing landlord—you must not throw farms together—you must not add to your demesne ; in short, you must not diminish the number or the extent of the holdings in your estate; there must be as much land left for tenants, and for as many tenants as there is now."

When the limits so laid down,—we do not say that they are just or reasonable, but they represent moral facts,—are transgressed, as well as in cases where such men as Mr. William Scully are able to distort the law into an instrument of hateful oppression, there is begotten agrarian crime. The character of this crime is not un- fairly described from the landlords' point of view in a conversation at Lord Rose's table in 1862 :— " There is nothing political or religions,' he added, in the Ribbon -code. It is simply agrarian. It recognizes the obligation on the part -of the tenant to pay rent, but no other obligation. It resents all inter- ference by the landlord in the use of the land. To throw farms together is an offence ; to prevent subletting is an offence ; to prevent the admission of lodgers is an offence. In fact, every act of ownership is an offence, and consequently all improvement ; and it treats all accomplices as principals. The man who takes a farm from which another man has been evicted, or who buys a cow which has been dig- trained, is held as guilty as the evictor or the distrainer.'—' Is every eviction,' I asked, 'an offence ?'—' Not necessarily,' he answered. An eviction for non-payment of rent may be pardoned, if the tenant has been notoriously able to pay, and has refused to do so.'—' That is the theory,' said Lord Bosse. They always say that a man ought to pay his rent, and to submit to eviction if he make default. But the practice scarcely follows the theory. It is generally prudent, on the part of the incoming tenant, to buy out his predecessor. in fact there is a constant endeavour to introduce tenant-right, a system which we always oppose, as it tends to make the tenant the real proprietor, and the landlurd the owner of a mere ground-rent.'—' Sometimes, too,' said L., though the society does not interfere, the dispossessed tenant executes his own vengeance.'" About the same time Mr. Senior discusses the same question with Mr. Stephen de Vere, a Catholic and a Liberal, but also a land- lord :— " What is called sympathy for crime,' De 'Vero continued, has been much misrepresented. The heart of the people is sound—there is no gen- eral agrarian conspiracy. lam no believer in a general Ribbon conspiracy. There is, indeed, a moral infection in crime. One begets another similar to itself, and the most atrocious are the most likely to be imitated. There is little sympathy for crime, but much sympathy for the criminal. The Catholic population, before whose eyes the fearful consequences of dying in sin are ever present, look upon a groat criminal as one suffering under a dreadful misfortune. They abhor the crime, but feel the strongest compassion for the perpetrator. They have little sympathy for "the law." This is not surprising. The law, for centuries, has perse- cuted and oppressed them. There is, now, little to complain of in the state of the law, and it is justly and humanely administered ; but the change is too recent to earn the instant gratitude of the people. I can- not too strongly reprobate the system of attempting to repress crime by police rewards. The difficulty of arresting a criminal is caused, not alone by the popular compassion for the offender, but by a lofty, though in some degree mistaken, sense of honour. The way to counteract this would be to teach the people that there is a loyalty due to society as well as to individuals, and that the Government, which claims their loyalty, is deserving of their love. The reward appeals to all the lowest and the most sordid feelings of man, and brands for ever, as a recipient of blood-money, even the honest man, who may have denounced the criminal from the purest motives. I need say nothing of the frightful consequences of perjured accusations and mistaken convictions. With the present feelings of the peasantry, it mast often be necessary to pro- vide for witnesses—they would not be safe at home. It is a most un- happy necessity, it throws a taint of suspicion over all their evidence. But it is not necessary to advertise rewards for informers, and, as I said before, the practice of doing so increases the odiousness of the adminis- tration of the criminal law. It is scarcely possible but that, from time to time, a conviction really is obtained through perjury, incited by the reward.'"

Not less significant is the evidence of popular anecdote as to the ideas of the people on the morality of puedial vengeance

'Beckham, the murderer of Fitzgerald, came to the edge of the scaffold to receive the applause of the crowd. "Boys," he said, "I am Beckham of Tipperary !' Neither he nor they thought that he had committed a crime. An acquaintance of mine, a judge (for he was a coroner) had a nephew who was convicted of horsestealinrr. "He was a thorough scoundrel," said the coroner ; "and if it had been for any decent crime—for sending a threatening notice, or for robbing arms, or even shooting an agent—I should have been gl id to be rid of him ; but horse- stealing is a disgrace to the family." ' " The Church question occupies almost as large a space in Mr. Senior's journals as that of the land. With Archbishop Whatel,y, Mr. Stephen de Vere, and others, Mr. Senior, during each of his visits, discussed fully the position of the Establishment and the merits of the competing policies of complete disendowment and equal endowment. Dr. Whately and Mr. Senior were strenuous advocates of the latter. Mr. de Vere, speaking for his coreligionists, argued for the former ; but it is worth while to mark from the despondent tone of his criticisms how little notion men had, even in 1862, that in half-a-dozen years the Liberal party would be united under Mr. Gladstone in the resolve to overthrow the monopoly of the Irish Establishment. We quote a part of Mr. de Yore's argument :— " The clergy,' he said, of the different religions in Ireland, ought to stand in the same relation to the State. There ought to be religious equality ; and as the present state of feeling among the English consti- tuencies, and the natural repugnance on the part of the Catholic clergy to accept endowment from the State, make it impossible to endow the Catholic Church, the only resource seems to be to apply to public purposes the endowment of the Protestant Church, and to trust to the voluntary principle for the support of the clergy of each denomination.'

I believe,' I answered, that the English constituencies would resent the spoliation of the Protestant Church more than they would the endowment of the Catholics. But the decisive objection to that plan is, that it would spread over all Ireland a mischief now confined to a por- tion (though the largest portion) of the people, namely, a clergy dependent on their flock.'—' I do not shut my eyes,' he replied, to the serious evils arising from the voluntary principle. A. clergy maintained on the voluntary principle, is exposed to the temptation of preaching doctrines palatable to the prejudices, and even to the passions, of their congregations. They are tempted to take a strong part in local politics, for the purpose of maintaining their local influence. They are induced to wield their ecclesiastical authority to enforce the payment of contri- butions. All these evils, and many others, I see clearly ; but I have to make a choice between difficulties, and I see no way ef escaping from the existing anomaly and injustice, save through the voluntary principle. I have no desire to appropriate to the clergy of my own Church one farthing which now belongs to the Protestant Church. I would not accept it U offered. It is a misfortune to have a clergy

dependent on its flock. It is a greater misfortune to have a clergy dependent on the State. Such a connection is demoralizing to the Church, and the Church hangs like a millstone round the neck of the State. A clergy connected with the State, whether by endowment or by salary, is dependent on the State. It has political interests and political feelings, and, being an organized body, has great political influence—au influence which may be exercised ill.'"

Whatever may be thought of this reasoning, it cannot be disputed that nine out of ten Irish Catholics accept it as conclusive, and this fact alone, as well as the jealous Protestant temper of Eng- land, overthrow Mr. Senior's position. "Taking into account," says Mr. de Vere, "the state of parties in England and the state of feeling in Ireland, I see no possibility of establishing religious equality in Ireland, except on the basis of the voluntary principle ; and the time when that would be politically possible has not yet arrived."

We might quote pages upon pages from these journals bristling with facts unknown or neglected, but space fails. We have quoted enough, however, to show the peculiar value of this admirable book, and we have nothing further to say except that every one who pretends to understand "the Irish question " in all its bear- ings must not only read, but thoroughly master, the conversations which Mr. Senior has recorded. It is not the least merit of the book that in a great measure it merely states evideuce, and leaves the reader's judgment free.