MR. GLADSTONE AND THE IRISH FARMERS.

The long-expected bill for the settlement of the land question in Ireland was introduced into the British Parliament a short time ago by Mr. Gladstone in an explanatory speech of rare perspicuity and methodical statement. So fascinating, indeed, is the premier's eloquence, so candid his confessions of the injustice of English law as at present existing in Ireland, and of the baleful consequences which have flowed from its operations in the agricultural interests of the people of the sister island, that for the time we forget how far short are the measures he now proposes, in the form of an act of parliament, of the necessities of the case before him, and to which all his logic, rhetoric, and pathos form but the graceful prelude. Turning from the speech and carefully looking over the sixty-eight clauses of the proposed act, we are forcibly struck by the inadequacy of the proposed remedy for the terrible and manifold evils which have so long afflicted the tillers of Irish soil; and if, as Mr. Gladstone asserts, his object is not only to do justice to this long-oppressed people, but to silence for ever the clamors and pacify at once the almost chronic discontent of the country, it requires very little acumen to foresee that his scheme, even if not modified for the worse in its passage through either house, will be a failure, particularly as regards the latter results.

The head of the British cabinet, with all that ability and knowledge of public affairs which justly entitle him to be ranked foremost among living English statesmen, seems to have failed alike to comprehend the magnitude of the abuses he would correct and to appreciate the wishes and expectations of the great majority of the Irish people. Whether through that obliquity of mental vision which has always characterized English public men when attempting to deal with Irish grievances, or from a dread of failure if he attempted to inaugurate a more radical change in the present relations between landlord and tenant—and from a remark in his late speech, the latter cause would seem to be the most probable—he has been led into a course of policy which, while gaining him no allies in the opposition ranks, will undoubtedly lessen his influence with a large portion of the liberal party in both kingdoms. "By fixity of tenure," says Dr. Taylor, "is now clearly understood, in Ireland, that the right of the tenant to his land is to continue as long as the rent is paid, and that the rent is to be adjusted at fixed periods, according to the average price of produce;" a statement fully indorsed by the Irish press and reiterated by the people at their recent numerous public meetings. But the present bill contemplates no such thing, either in expression or by implication; and lest it might so be understood, the premier in his speech devoted much of his time to demonstrate the fallacy and danger of such doctrines.

"As I understand it," he says, "the thing itself amounts to this—that every occupier, as long as he pays the rent that he is now paying, or a rent to be fixed by a public tribunal of valuation, is to be assured, for himself and his heirs, an occupation of the land that he holds without limit of time, subject only to this condition, that with a variation in the value of produce—somewhat in the nature of the commutation of title act—the rent may vary somewhat slightly and at somewhat distant periods. The effect of that is that the landlord would become a pensioner and rent-charger upon his own estate. The legislature has a perfect right to reduce him to that condition, giving him proper compensation for any loss he may sustain in money; the state has a perfect right to deal with his social status, and to reduce him to that condition, if it thinks fit. But then it is bound not to think fit unless it can be shown that this is for the public good. Now, is it for the public good that the landlords of Ireland, in a body, should be reduced by an act of parliament to the condition, practically, of fund-holders, entitled to apply on a certain day from year to year for a certain sum of money, but entitled to nothing more? Are you prepared to denude them of their interest in the land? Are you prepared to absolve them from their duties with regard to the land? I for one confess that I am not; nor is that the sentiment of my colleagues."

Here then is the issue at once raised, and as Mr. Gladstone's views will receive the sanction of Parliament, we apprehend that the proposed act, no matter how impartially executed, will fail to satisfy the popular wants in Ireland. It cannot be denied that the great underlying principle of the tenant-right agitation is the conviction among the masses of the farmers and peasants of that country that the soil whereon they expend their labor, that others may reap the profits, was and is rightfully their own; that it was forcibly and treacherously wrested from their ancestors by a foreign and hostile faction, whose descendants now claim to possess it, and who wring from them the fruits of their toil, justly belonging to the cultivators and their families. They do not, however, desire a reconfiscation of this property; but they do demand a guarantee from the laws, under which they are content to live, that as long as they pay a fair rent they shall not be disturbed in their holdings. The question of leases for a term of years and compensation for improvements, though very important in itself, is merely secondary to fixity of tenure. That once guaranteed, in the Irish and not in Mr. Gladstone's sense, the impetus which would be given to the farming industry of the country would be so great that time and economy only would be required to establish a large class of small land owners in fee, thus virtually undoing the spoliations of former days, and dividing up the large estates now devoted principally to pleasure or pasturage, and held by a few persons who neither reside in, know, or care for the nation from which they draw such exorbitant rents. The entire land of Ireland consists of nearly sixteen million acres of arable land, and five millions more susceptible of cultivation, owned absolutely by less than six thousand persons, thus giving to each proprietary an average of thirty-five hundred acres, independent of mountain, bog, and riparian lands, all more or less useful for the sustenance of human life. Then the majority of those owners, including the representatives of the very large estates almost without exception, are absentees who in the aggregate draw from the soil an annual revenue estimated at forty millions of dollars; not a tithe of it is ever returned to the country in any manner, except in the form of receipts. We find that the tenants from whom this large foreign tribute is exacted number over six hundred thousand heads of families, representing at least three and a half million of souls, only one in thirty of whom holds a lease of any sort, the remainder being entirely dependent politically and socially on the will of the landlord, or his agents and bailiffs. This anomalous state of affairs in a country supposed to be at least comparatively free is heightened by the fact that the views and aims of the landlord class and those of the tenantry, which ought to coincide on all matters affecting the national good, are decidedly the reverse of each other. As a whole, the religion, politics, and traditions of the owners of the soil have always placed them in opposition to their tenants and dependents; so firmly, indeed, that even the demands of patriotism and the allurements of pecuniary gain, powerful for most men, have failed to swerve the Irish landlord from his blind and bigoted purpose of repressing the laudable enterprise, and of ignoring the commonest rights, of the people from whom he derives his wealth and position. In countries like Belgium, Scotland, or Switzerland, where manufactures are encouraged and capital is abundant, this slavish relationship between landlord and tenant would be a secondary grievance; but in Ireland, which is essentially an agricultural country, the enormity of the evil cannot well be over-estimated. "About two thirds of the population of England," said the late W. Smith O'Brien, "are dependent on manufactures and commerce, directly or indirectly. In this country (Ireland) about nine tenths of the population are dependent on agriculture, directly or indirectly." "An ancient vassal," said Van Raumer, a distinguished German traveller, who some years ago visited Ireland, "is a lord compared with the present tenant at will, to whom the law affords no defence;" and a recent decision in chancery declares that "if a tenant holding from year to year makes permanent improvements in the lands which he holds, this raises no equity as against the landlord, though he may have looked on and not have given any warning to the tenant."

But we have a more recent authority on the condition of the Irish farmers of to-day in the person of the special commissioner of the London Times, who certainly cannot be accused of over-partiality in describing the condition of that much oppressed class. Writing from Mullingar under date September 14th, 1869, he says, "By far the largest portion of the country is still occupied by small farmers, who legally are merely tenants at will, though they have added much to the value of the soil by building, draining, fencing, and tillage, and though they have purchased their interests in numerous instances, and it is probable they will long maintain their ground, though the area they hold is being diminished. The existing law is not a rule of right to this body of men in their actual position; it exposes what in truth is their property, the benefits they have added to the land, to be confiscated by a summary process; it sets at naught the equitable right acquired by a transfer for value with the assent of the landlord." From Cork, after a month's further investigation, he again writes, "As for the landed system of the country as a whole, it is, in its broadest outlines, essentially the same as that which I have so often described, except that its vices are very prominent. Speaking generally, the same religious differences divide the owner and the occupier of the soil; the absenteeism is too prevalent; there is the same wide-spread insecurity of tenure; the law in the same way upholds the power of the landlord, and disregards the just claims of the tenant; there is the same creation of vast rights of property in the form of improvements, by the peasantry, unprotected by the least legal sanction, and liable, nay, exposed to confiscation; vague usage similarly is the only safeguard against frequent and intolerable injustice." Conceding to Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues the greatest honesty of intention in the introduction of the present bill, and aware of the powerful and not over-scrupulous opposition which any remedial measure advocated by them must encounter from the tory and landed classes, yet in view of such patent abuses as stated, as well as from the assurances of Mr. Bright and others—supposed to be in the confidence of the ministry, we had a right to expect a measure more general, emphatic, and sweeping in its reforms. Still, as the bill will be passed substantially as presented, with perhaps the addition of a few unimportant amendments likely to be offered by the Irish members, it is important to examine in detail its main features as far as they relate to what is defined in the preamble as "security of tenure."

The first subdivision of the bill provides for the loaning of public moneys to landlords and tenants on the following conditions: Where the landlord is willing to sell and the tenant to purchase a particular farm, then in his actual occupancy, at a price agreed upon between the parties, the government will advance the tenant the necessary funds; and when the landlord is only willing to part with his estate in bulk, the actual occupiers of four fifths, and any person or persons not occupiers joined with them, may become purchasers of the whole, and a similar advance will be made. In other words, the government takes the place of the selling landlord, pays him indirectly the price agreed upon, and reimburses itself by annual instalments from the tenant, now become the owner, until the entire purchase money is paid off. This seems favorable enough for the enterprising tenant, and to any other than Irish landlords would offer strong inducements to dispose of a portion, at least, of their unwieldy and often heavily encumbered estates, and would promote the multiplication of moderate sized and better cultivated farms; but as we are aware of the hostility of that unpatriotic class to every thing tending to the elevation of their tenantry to a position of comparative equality, we have little hope of the efficacy of this provision. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone seems also of this opinion; for in his late speech in allusion to the subject, he says, "I myself have not been one of those who have been disposed to take the most sanguine view of the extent to which a provision of that kind would operate." Purchasers of reclaimed land not occupied are to have the same privileges as occupiers of cultivated lands. The landlord likewise is to have his share of the public money for the purpose of reclaiming waste lands adjoining his estate, and in some instances, for paying off the compensation claims of his out-going tenant. All these loans, securities, repayments, and annuities are to be under the direction of the Irish Board of Works at Dublin.

The legal machinery for carrying these and subsequent clauses of the bill into effect will consist of two classes of courts. One of arbitration, consisting of appointees of the parties interested, whose decision shall have all the force of law, and from which there shall be no appeal. The other will be a regular court of law, with very extensive equity jurisdiction, composed, in the first instance, of a civil bill court, presided over by an assistant barrister of sessions; an appeal court, composed of two judges of assize, who may reserve important cases for trial before the court for land cess in Dublin. Taking into consideration the relative wealth and personal influence of the parties litigant, we might hope for a less expensive and complicated mode of procedure; but as the law's delays are still as proverbial on the other side of the Atlantic as on this, it is perhaps the least objectionable plan that could be devised. Much certainly will depend on the independence and humanity of the courts; for while they will be bound by the principles laid down in the bill, it is authorized—

"On hearing of any dispute between landlord and tenant in respect of compensation under this act, either party may make any claim, urge any objection to the claims of the other, or plead any set-off such party may see fit, and the court shall take into consideration any such claim, objection, or set-off, and also any such default or unreasonable conduct of either party as may appear to the court to affect any matter in dispute between the parties," etc., and give judgment on the equities of the same.

The bill then proceeds to secure and define the tenure of all holders of agricultural land, dividing them into four classes: holders by the custom of Ulster, by customs analogous to that of Ulster in the other provinces, tenants from year to year and at will, and lease-holders generally.

The custom of Ulster, derived strangely enough from the terms of James I.'s charter to the undertakers in 1613,[40] as well as from traditional usage, consists mainly of the right of the out-going tenant to compensation from his landlord for all permanent improvements he may have made on the land, or that he has actually paid for to his predecessor, whether with or without the consent of his landlord; or the tenant may elect to sell the same with his good-will of the farm to the best purchaser. This custom, covering about a moiety of the 3,400,000 acres of Ulster, is to be formally recognized as law only in that portion of the country, and in each individual case where it now actually exists. But when "the landlord has, by a deliberate and formal arrangement with an occupier, bought up the Ulster tenant right, it shall not be pleaded against him;" and where the tenant has so sold to the landlord or to the incoming tenant his right, he shall be debarred from all other compensation under the act. The value of this custom, though heretofore only partially recognized, will be perceived from the fact that, though Ulster is by no means the most fertile section, the average annual value of its lands is from four to four and a half dollars per acre greater than the other portions of the country. Why this custom, so manifestly beneficial to all classes, should only be made general in Ulster, but not throughout the island, it is difficult to determine.

There are also customs in other parts of the country which have become traditional, and are said to resemble somewhat that of Ulster; but to what extent they prevail, or of their exact nature, we are not informed. They are commonly supposed to include the right of compensation for improvements of a certain sort, and the sale of the good-will by the out-going tenant. These, however, are not regarded with the same degree of fairness; for they can only be pleaded when the landlord by his own act severs the relation between himself and tenant; and when pleaded, all arrears of rent or damages to the farm may be claimed as an off-set; they are forfeited by ejectment for non-payment of rent, or by sub-letting or subdividing the holding, and are extinguished by the acceptance of a lease of thirty-one years or upward. This is the first attempt we notice in the bill to induce the landlords to grant leases, and we regret to find that throughout its entire length, with the exception of one clause, there is nothing at all prohibitory in its provisions. What good reason can exist for the preservation of the custom of Ulster under a lease, while those of the other three sections are bartered away for that privilege? Is this not another evidence of the partiality of a reform which should be as comprehensive as the evils to be eradicated are wide-spread?

The most important part of the bill is that which relates to the yearly tenant and tenant at will; for it affects by far the largest and most defenceless class of Irish farmers. Out of six hundred thousand heads of families who derive their existence directly from the soil, five hundred and eighty thousand, or nearly ninety-seven per centum of the whole, are of this class, and are liable at any time to be thrown on the charity of the world by the edict of a landlord or his agent, deprived not only of their sole means of livelihood, but of whatever benefits they may have conferred on their little holdings by their hard labor and well-earned money. It is useless now to dwell on the horrible calamities which have resulted from the wholesale evictions of these unfortunate people, or on what famine, pestilence, death, and too frequently agrarian crime, have year after year flowed from the uncontrolled barbarities practised on them by Irish landlords, armed with the terrors of law. The wailings and maledictions of the homeless and expatriated have so long resounded through both hemispheres, that their very echoes have startled the ears of their persecutors into something like attention. "We have," says Mr. Gladstone from his place in the House of Commons, "simplified the law against him, [the tenant,] and made ejectment cheap and easy."[41] This large class, therefore, if not receiving that adequate protection to which they are justly entitled, will, under the operation of the proposed act, have their interests placed beyond jeopardy in such a manner as, compared with their present practical outlawry, will commend Mr. Gladstone to their gratitude. Having no custom to plead, and consequently very little probability of obtaining leases, the landlord can still eject them; but he must do so on a year's notice, duly stamped and dated from the previous gale day, and for proper cause, such as non-payment of rent or the refusal of the tenant to accept another holding equal in value to the one desired by the landlord. If the landlord acts without such cause, the tenant will be entitled to damages against him at the discretion of the court, exclusive of compensation for improvements and reclamation of land. The maximum measure of damages for wanton ejectment is set down in the bill as follows:

Holdings valued at£107 years' rent.
Holdings valued at£10 to £505 years' rent.
Holdings valued at£50 to £1003 years' rent.
Holdings valued at£100 and upward2 years' rent.

In any case the tenant upon ejectment will be entitled to compensation for improvements, from which arrears of rent may be deducted. It is the wise and beneficent intent of the bill to place this helpless class under the special protection of the court, and make it the object of large equity jurisdiction conferred; and it even holds out a release to the landlord of these penalties, providing he gives to his yearly tenant a lease of at least twenty-one years' duration.

The regulation of the tenure of lease-holders generally is most judicious, and the only compulsory one in the bill. In future all leases shall be submitted to, and the terms, as regards rents and covenants, approved by, the court, before their validity will be recognized. Heretofore, Irish leases have been made exclusively for the benefit of one party, and the ingenuity of the lower grade of the legal profession seems to have been taxed to the utmost to devise restrictions on husbandry. We have copies of several of those instruments of recent execution before us, and they certainly smack more of the pre-magna-charta era than of the present enlightened century. A petition presented to the House of Commons at its last session, from the inhabitants of the parish of Clonard, county of Meath, set forth that tenants there "are charged with a penalty of £5 for every tree, and every perch of hedge cut, injured, or destroyed;" they are to break no land without permission of the landlord, and even then only such land and in such manner as the landlord specified; a fine of £10 is exacted for "each acre or part of acre assigned, let, underlet, or let in con-acre or otherwise, or meadowed without formal written permission;" they are not to remove or cause to be removed any top-dressing, compost, or manure of any sort, nor any hay, straw, corn in the straw, holm, or fodder of any sort, nor any turnips, mangel-wurzel, or other green crop of any kind, under penalty of £5 per load or part of load; and the top-dressing, manure, etc., are to remain on the land at the termination of the tenancy, and are to be the property of the landlord. The Earl of Leitrim, a very large landed proprietor in the north, probably not considering the above restrictions sufficiently onerous, has had inserted in his numerous leases clauses whereby the tenants are required to preserve his fish and game; and without his permission in writing they are not to make any new roads, fences, or drains, nor to build up or alter houses or buildings, nor to grow two white grain crops in succession, nor to have beyond a certain maximum of tillage, nor to break up permanent grass-fields, nor to set potatoes where there has been grass the year before,[42] nor to cut turf, etc.; and to surrender their leases at any time at six months' notice, or in case any of them be imprisoned by any civil or criminal process for a term exceeding fourteen days! But Edward Henry Cooper, who is supposed sometimes to honor Markie Castle with his presence, requires not only the observance of all the above conditions on the part of his serfs, but binds them to become informers and prosecutors in their own names against any poachers who may be found in the leaseholds; and they are also to procure evidence (how is not stated) against their neighbors who might kill a hare or spear a salmon on their premises. The farmers who have the happiness of living under this philanthropist are required "to submit all disputes and differences touching trespass or measuring to, and abide by the final award of"—Edward Henry Cooper or his agents; a very impartial tribunal, no doubt! The above extracts may be taken as specimens of the restrictions which surround even the most favored class of Irish farmers of the present day, and which, being made with all the forms of law, backed by the certainty of the strict enforcement of the penalties, must have a direct and ruinous tendency to check improvement and limit the scope of improved cultivation of lands.

The term improvements, so frequently met with in the bill, is defined to mean such as are suitable to the character of the holding and add to its letting value, such as buildings, reclaimed land, manures, and tillage, and the old rule of law, which presumed all improvements made by the landlord unless proved to the contrary, is reversed in favor of the tenant. No existing improvement will be paid for if not made within twenty years previous to the passage of the act, except permanent buildings and reclaimed land, nor where by the terms of a lease the holder agreed to make the improvements at his own expense. In the future no claim will be allowed for improvements made contrary to the terms of the letting, or for such as are not required for the due cultivation of the farm, nor when the landlord agrees to make them and does not neglect to do so, nor where the tenant, as part of the consideration of the lease, agrees to do them at his own charge. But whatever the tenant pays to the out-going tenant for compensation, with the sanction of his landlord, he shall be reimbursed on the termination of his tenancy.

Such, in brief, is an outline of the law under which the farmers of Ireland will have to live for some years to come. Although not all they demand and have a right to expect, it is nevertheless a great improvement on the present system, if system it may be called, under which they have so long tried to exist. Whatever is valuable in the local customs will be substantially preserved and legalized; the tenant will have some remote prospect of becoming a purchaser, and the tenant at will, a leaseholder. Compensation for improvements is guaranteed to every one capable of paying his rent, and the luxury of evictions, if not destroyed, is made an expensive one for landlords. We cannot expect that this measure, if passed in its best form, will wholly stop agitation in Ireland, but we trust and believe that it will largely conduce to the wealth and industry of her people.