The British Jugernath: Free trade! Fair trade!! Reciprocity!!! Retaliation!!!!

by Guilford L. Molesworth

FOOTNOTES:

[86] Lord Beaconsfield, with great foresight, vainly warned us of the dangerous state of Ireland.

[87] Nineteenth Century, September, 1880.

[88] An admirer of Mr. Gladstone naively writes in the Westminster Review: “During the six years of Tory repression and Tory refusal of remedial measures, they were as mild as doves and comparatively silent in Parliament, because they knew that the Tories would strike with despotic severity and with exceptional laws; but from the moment the magnanimous and friendly Gladstone came into power ... they excited the excitable Irish people to such a degree against this friendly Government, that there were perpetrated a long run of cruel and brutal outrages, &c.” (Westminster Review, October, 1883.)

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[CHAPTER XXIV.]
BLUNDER AND PLUNDER.

I have already shown the utter failure of the prophecies of your Free Trade Prophets, now let me show the failure of the prophecies of your Right Hon’ble Friends with regard to the Land Act of 1881, and ask if such lamentable want of discrimination is fitting in one pretending to be an administrator.

PROPHECY.	FULFILMENT.
Mr. Gladstone, in 1880, scouted the warning that there would be no bidders for land, after the Land Act had been passed, and he fixed the value of land at twenty-seven years’ purchase.	Judge Flannagan, 1883:— “The rents are so well secured that the property ought to bring thirty years’ purchase.” The owner:— “Three years ago I could have sold the property for £1,775.” Judge Flannagan:— “You must submit to the inevitable. Is there no advance on eleven years’ purchase? This is the first estate I have had to sell on which the rents have been fixed by the Land Commission. I hoped to get twenty-five or thirty years’ purchase.” The land was sold for £875; according to Judge Flannagan’s valuation it was worth £2,386.
Mr. Forster:— “My firm belief is, that no damage can be proved. On the other hand, if the landlord were compensated, you would compensate him for conferring upon him a benefit.”	In 1840, the rents of Mr. Usborn’s estate in Kerry amounted to £2,376 punctually paid. The nearest railway station was then 150 miles distant. There is now a railway station on the property, the landlord has spent money on its improvement, and the the “fair” (?) rent now fixed by the Land Commission is £1,893.
Lord Selborne, 1880:— “I deny that it will diminish, in any degree whatever, the rights of the landlord, or the value of the interest he possesses. I should never agree to such a proposal.” Hansard, cclxiv. 252.	Irish newspapers teem with similar instances. Judge Ormsby, 1883. The Judge then asked if there was any advance on £2,200. Offers were given until £2,450 was reached. Mr. O’Meara, on behalf of the estate, objected to the sale. In Chancery proceedings connected with the estate it was mentioned that £4,500 had been offered for this lot, and refused.
Lord Carlingford, 1880:— “I maintain that the provisions of the Bill will cause the landlord no money-loss whatever.”	Judge Ormsby:— “No one could foresee what would subsequently occur to depreciate the value of the property. I cannot adjourn for a third time.”
Mr. Gladstone, 1880:— “I certainly would be very slow to deny that when confiscation could be proved compensation ought to follow.”	Mr. Fitzgerald, of Dublin, states, that the Judges have adjourned sales from time to time rather than consent to a wanton sacrifice of property, and there are “600 estates in the Court waiting for sale, and for these hardly a bidder.”

Again I ask your verdict of guilty or not guilty? Are your Right Hon’ble Rulers either incompetent or dishonest, to have made such prophesies? It was not for want of warning that they have blundered so hopelessly. The whole country rang with warnings[89] that the measure was one of confiscation. Even Mr. Parnell predicted it, telling his hearers that there would be no buyers, and the tenants would have “an opportunity of purchasing their holdings under the Bright Clause.”

The whole measure is one which commenced by breach of faith and ended in confiscation.[90]

Mr. James Lowther, M.P., has been blamed for saying, that “loyal subjects have been deliberately plundered by the Land Act.”

Let us see how the political economist defines “plunder:”

“When a portion of wealth passes out of the hands of him who has acquired it without his consent and without compensation, whether by force or artifice, to him who has not created it, I say that property is violated, that plunder is perpetrated.... If the law itself performs the action it ought to repress, I say that plunder is still perpetrated, and even in a social point of view, under aggravated circumstances.”[91]

Now tell me, my Friend, how do the instances I have given above differ from legalized Plunder as defined by Bastiat?

When Judge Flannagan says, “you must submit to the inevitable,” he says, in fact, “you must submit to be legally plundered.”

When Judge Ormsby says “no one could foresee what would occur,” he says in fact, “no one could foresee that the law would become an instrument of plunder.”

No one could foresee it? Why, every one with common sense could foresee it—every one but those wilfully blind. An admirer of Mr. Gladstone naively writes in the Westminster Review respecting the Land Act:—

“The people of the United States would not have tolerated such an interference with the laws of contract as it involved. No member of Congress could be found who would propose anything so indefensible from the American point of view.”[92]

And he might have added indefensible from every point of view.

Froude, the historian, says:

“It was England which introduced landowning and landlords into Ireland as an expedient for ruling it. If we choose now to remove the landlords or divide their property with their tenants, we must do it from our own resources; we have no right to make the landlords pay for the vagaries of our own idolatries.”[93]