“They were free not to pay it and go out, with their goods and chattels,” says my old friend, the Economist. I answer: No. They were not, for a thousand reasons, and had to obey the will of the vampires, as long as it was strictly possible.
Either the tenants, having become proprietors in name but not in reality (or, as it were, proprietors of a shadow of land mortgaged for half a century), would have paid their annuity,—and in that case they were as poor as before; or they would not have paid it, and then the Liberal party would have heard a fine din!
In fact the Gladstone plan rested on an entirely chimerical hope: that of settling the Irish question without its costing a penny to the British Exchequer. To entertain such a hope is clearly to prove that one sees indeed the evil, but without descrying its deeper cause.
This cause lies in the impossibility to the modern tenants, in the face of the competition of better organized countries, and generally under the present conditions of the world’s agriculture, to pay any rent whatever.
The Irish tenant is a bankrupt, because he has paid, for too long a time already, the rent that he could not afford. The land is impoverished for the very same reason. Now, to sell it to a penniless buyer is absurd enough; but to pretend to believe that the penniless buyer shall render it prosperous and make it yield riches, is perhaps more absurd still.
Such illusions ought to be discarded. If England really wants to settle the Irish question, as her honour and her true interest both command her to do, she must manfully accept the idea of a pecuniary sacrifice and a real restitution. It would be useless to cheat herself into acceptance of half-measures. She had much better weigh the real cost of an imperious duty, pay it, and square matters once for all.
Not only must she give, gratuitously give away as a present, the land to the Irish tenant, but she must provide him, at the lowest rate of interest, with the capital necessary for putting that land in working order.
This consummation might perhaps be attained at a lesser cost than would at first sight appear possible,—let us name a figure,—at a cost of one milliard francs, or £40,000,000. But this milliard should be forthcoming in cash, presented by the British nation to the sister isle as a free gift, a premium paid for peace, or rather a lump sum of conscience-money, such as we see sometimes advertised in the columns of the Times.