A NUT FOR THE LANDLORD AND TENANT COMMISSION.
Every one knows the story of the man who, at the penalty of losing his head in the event of failure, promised the caliph of Bagdad that he would teach his ass to read in the space of ten years, trusting that, ere the time elapsed, either the caliph, or the ass, or he himself, would die, and the compact be at an end. Now, it occurs to me that the wise policy of this shrewd charlatan is the very essence of all parliamentary commissions. First, there is a grievance—then comes a debate—a very warm one occasionally, with plenty of invective and accusation on both sides—and then they agree to make a drawn game of it, and appoint “a Commission.”
Nothing can be more plausible in appearance than such a measure; nor could any man, short of Hume himself, object to so reasonable a proceeding as a patient and searching inquiry into the circumstances and bearings of any disputed question. The Commission goes to work: if a Tory one, consisting usually of some dumb country gentlemen, who like committee work;—if Whig, the suckling “barristers of six years' standing:” and at it they go. The newspapers announce that they are “sitting to examine witnesses”—a brief correspondence appears at intervals, to show that they have a secretary and a correspondent, a cloud then wraps the whole concern in its dark embrace, and not the most prying curiosity is ever able afterwards to detect any one feet concerning the commission or its labours, nor could you hear in any society the slightest allusion ever made to their whereabouts.
It is, in feet, the polite mode of interment applied to the question at issue—the Commissioners performing the solemn duties of undertakers, and not even the most reckless resurrectionist being found to disturb the remains. Before the report should issue, the Commissioners die off, or the question has taken a new form; new interests have changed all its bearings; a new ministry is in power, or some more interesting matter has occupied the place it should fill in public attention; and if the Report was even a volume of “Punch,” it might pass undetected.
Now and then, however, a Commission will issue for the real object of gleaning facts and conveying information; and then the duties are most uncomfortable, and but one course is open, which is, to protract the inquiry, like the man with the ass, and leave the result to time.
In a country like ours, conflicting interests and opposing currents are ever changing the landmarks of party; and the commissioners feel that with years something will happen to make their labours of little consequence, and that they have only to prolong the period, and all is safe.
At this moment, we have what is called a “Landlord and Tenant Commission” sitting, or sleeping, as it maybe. They have to investigate diverse, knotty, and puzzling points, about people who want too much for their land, and others who prefer paying nothing for it. They are to report, in some fashion, respecting the prospects of estated gentlemen burdened with rent-charges and mortgages, and who won't improve properties they can scarcely live on—and a peasantry, who must nominally pay an exaggerated rent, depending upon the chance of shooting the agent before the gale-day, and thus obtaining easier terms for the future.
They are to investigate the capabilities of waste lands, while cultivated lands lie waste beside them; they must find out why land-owners like money, and tenants hate paying it; and why a people hold life very cheap when they possess little means to sustain it.
Now these, take them how you will, are not so easy of solution as you may think. The landlord, for his own sake, would like a thriving, well-to-do, contented tenantry; the tenants, for their sakes, would like a fair-dealing, reasonable landlord, not over griping and grabbing, but satisfied with a suitable value for his property. They both have no common share of intelligence and acuteness—they have a soil unquestionably fruitful, a climate propitious, little taxation, good roads, abundant markets; and yet the one is half ruined in his house and the other wholly beggared in his hovel—each averring that the cause lies in the tithes, the tariff, the poor-rate, or popery, the agent or the agitation: in fact, it is something or other which one favours and the other opposes—some system or sect, some party or measure, which one advocates and the other denounces; and no matter though its influence should not, in the remotest way, enter into the main question, there is a grievance—that's something; and as Sir Lucius says, “it's a mighty pretty quarrel as it stands”—not the less, that certain partizans on either side assist in the mêlée, and the House of Commons or the Association Hall interfere with their influence.
If, then, the Commissioners can see their way here, they are smart fellows, and no small praise is due to them. There are difficulties enough to puzzle long heads; and I only hope they may be equal to the task. Meanwhile, depopulation goes on briskly—landlords are shot every week in Tipperary; and if the report be but delayed for some few months longer, a new element will appear in the question—for however there may remain some pretenders to perpetuity of tenure, the landlords will not be there to grant the leases. Let the Commissioners, then, keep a look-out a-head—much of the embarrassment of the inquiry will be obviated by only biding their time; and if they but delay their report till next November, there will be but one party to legislate for in the island.