I have not the slightest doubt, that you will tell me that Ireland is not ruined, that she was never before in so satisfactory condition, and that you will bring forward ingeniously manipulated statistics to prove your case.
You will tell me that the farms are larger,—that the farm stock is richer,—that the peasant proprietors who were a failure (contrary to Mr. Mill’s theories) are disappearing, and holdings are more consolidated; but, my Fanatical Friend, if Ireland be not ruined, what is the meaning of this frantic legislation, which many of its supporters can only excuse on the ground of expediency, not equity? How is it that, during the last thirty-two years, nearly 1,500,000 acres have gone out of tillage and 677,000 acres have gone out of farming altogether?
How is it that, during the last nine years, there has been a decrease of 1,000,000[82] live stock in Ireland, or nearly one-ninth of the total?
How is it that, during one year, 114,327[83] acres of land in Ireland have gone out of farming, and that with a decreasing population, and that in spite of a better crop in 1880 than in 1879?
What is the meaning of the increase of 18,000 paupers and 115,000 emigrants in Ireland within the last three years?
Mill would have told you that the extinction of peasant proprietors was a sign of retrogression; whether that be so or not, the crushing out of weaker industries is decidedly not a sign of prosperity.
But now tell me, what would you think of the prosperity of an undertaking in which the original shareholders had been ruined and sold their shares at a greatly depreciated price; and this second set of shareholders again being ruined, again sold their shares at a still further depreciated price, whilst the third set of shareholders, obtaining their shares at this enormously depreciated value, were able to make some little show of temporary prosperity. Would any business-man call that a prosperous undertaking?
Now this is precisely the case with Ireland. Under the Encumbered Estates Act, thousands were reduced to beggary,[84] and the new landlords were able to make a temporary show of prosperity on the ruin of their predecessors. When this was over, the still more iniquitous Land Act of 1881 was passed to complete the ruin of landlords.
Mr. FitzGerald, of Dublin, states that there are more than 600 cases before the Court, and that the Judges have, from time to time, adjourned the sales rather than consent to a “wanton sacrifice of property, for which there are no bidders.”
Land, which one of the Judges declared to be worth thirty years’ purchase, was sold for eleven years’ purchase, and the unfortunate owner was told “You must submit to the inevitable.”