Ireland and the Home Rule Movement

by Sir Michael McDonnell

[70]the papers published the same day a letter from Captain Shaw Taylor, an Irish landlord, inviting representatives of tenants and landlords to meet in conference in Dublin and discuss a way out of the agrarian impasse. The proposal was scouted by the Times, the Daily Express, and the Dublin Daily Express, but was favourably received by the Press in other quarters. A motion by Lord Mayo at the Landowners' Convention, in favour of the conference, was rejected by 77 votes to 14. A poll on the question being demanded, 4,000 landlords, each with an estate of more than 500 acres, received voting papers, and of these 1,706 replied, 1,128 in favour and 578 against a conference, while the small landlords were almost unanimously in its favour. A second appeal was then made to the Landowners' Convention through its president, Lord Abercorn, but an answer in the negative was received, for it went on to say—"It would be merely to give long-discredited politicians a certificate of good sense and of just views, we might almost say of legislative capacity to sit in an Irish Parliament in Dublin, were we to accept Captain Shaw Taylor's invitation to join them."

The criticism of an unbiassed foreign observer on this attitude of rigid cast-iron non possumus is instructive. "Rappelons nous," writes M. Bechaux, "que le parti irlandais au Parlement, si grossièrement insulté represente 4/5 du peuple irlandais, nous avons un specimen de l'esprit réactionnaire et irréconciliable du landlordisme irlandais." In spite of this the Conference met at the end of the year. The landlords' representatives were:—Lord Dunraven, Lord Mayo, Col. Hutcheson Pöe, and Col. Nugent Everard; and those of the tenants were:—Mr. John Redmond, Mr. W. O'Brien, Mr. T.W. Russell, and Mr. T.C. Harrington. On the 3rd January, 1903, a joint report to serve as the basis of the new Bill was issued.

The Report was in favour of purchase as the only possible policy to be carried out on such terms that

[71]the yearly payments of the tenants should be 15 to 25 per cent. lower than second term rents, while the sum received by the landlords was to be such as at 3 or 3-1/4 per cent. interest would yield them the same income as second term rents, less 10 per cent. deduction, as an equivalent for the cost of collection under the old system. The difference between these two sums was to be bridged by a bonus from the Treasury to the landlords in the interests of agrarian peace. The Report was further in favour of enlarging small holdings by dividing up grazing lands, and under it evicted tenants who, as such, were not entitled to have judicial rents fixed were to be given the option to purchase.

Second term rents are those fixed for the second judicial period of fifteen years under the Act of 1881, and they were on an average 37 per cent. less than those before the passing of that Act.

Under the Act which Mr. Wyndham introduced on March 25th, 1903, the Treasury may advance a sum up to one hundred millions at 2-3/4 per cent. interest, with another 1/2 per cent. sinking fund. The advances to the tenants, which are limited to £5,000 or, in exceptional circumstances, £7,000, are made in cash by the Land Commissioners, of whom three, serving as the Estates Commissioners, are expressly responsible for the working of the Act. A Treasury loan at 2-3/4 per cent. provides the necessary funds. Under the Act the issue of this Stock was limited to five million pounds a year for the first three years, but in January, 1905, this was changed to a sum of six million. By adding to the 2-3/4 per cent. interest which the tenants pay on the loan the further sum of 1/2 per cent. which they contribute to sinking fund for repayment, we arrive at 3-1/4 per cent. which they have to pay for sixty-eight and a half years to obtain the fee-simple of their land. The security which Mr. Wyndham produced for the repayment of interest was the credit of the Irish peasantry, of whom, out of more than seventy

[72]thousand purchasers owing an eighth of a million to the State under previous Purchase Acts, only two had incurred bad debts, which, as being irrecoverable, had fallen on the taxpayer. As a further safeguard the payment is secured by the annual grants-in-aid paid by the Treasury to the County Councils, which can be withheld on default to pay interest on purchase advances. In order to facilitate sales the system of "zones," which has been so much canvassed, was devised. Under it the Estates Commissioners are bound to make advances of purchase-money in all cases in which the total annuity paid by the tenant ranges from 10 to 40 per cent. less than the rent which he has hitherto paid. If it be a first term rent the reduction must be at least 20 and not more than 40 per cent. less, and if it be a second term rent there must be a reduction of not less than 10 and not more than 30 per cent. It will be, perhaps, clearer if put in this way. If a first term rent amounts to £100, then the tenant-purchaser has to pay at least £60, and at most £80, as annuity, while if the £100 represent second term rent the yearly payment varies from a minimum of £70 to a maximum of £90.

If purchases are proposed outside the zones, in which, that is to say, the annuity proposed is under 10 or over 40 per cent. of the judicial rent, the estate must, before sales are effected, be surveyed by the Estates Commissioners in order that they may see whether the security is sound, and whether the equitable rights of all parties concerned seem to be safeguarded, and without this sanction advances will not be made in the case of sales in these circumstances. The amount received by the landlord, of course, does not, if invested in Trust Securities at 3-1/4 per cent., provide the same income as did his rent roll, even when one takes into account the 10 per cent. for collection to which we have referred. On the other hand, he is secured from the possibility of further reductions in rent in the future, and there is a likelihood that the

[73]securities in which he invests may rise, but, in addition to this, a sum of twelve millions of bonus is to be devoted to bridge the gap between his former rent from the tenant and his present income from his investments.

Under this provision every landlord gets 12 per cent. bonus on his sale, and this sum is part of his life estate, and need not, therefore, be invested in trust securities, but may be invested in stock yielding a higher rate of interest. This point was not clear in the Act of 1903, but was explicitly enacted in an amending Act of 1904.