[54] For the state of Ireland from the end of the Famine to 1868, reference may be made to ‘Two Centuries of Irish History,’ edited by Mr. Bryce; to the Greville ‘Memoirs,’ vols. vii. and viii.; to Greville’s ‘Policy of England towards Ireland;’ to the ‘Recollections and Suggestions of Earl Russell;’ to parts of the ‘Life of Lord Palmerston;’ to ‘Journals, Conversations, and Essays relating to Ireland,’ by Nassau Senior; to the ‘Young Ireland,’ the ‘Four Years of Irish History,’ and ‘The League of the North and South,’ by Sir C. G. Duffy; to the ‘New Ireland’ of Mr. A. M. Sullivan; and to the ‘Parnell Movement’ of Mr. T. P. O’Connor. Valuable information as to this period will also be found in Mr. Barry O’Brien’s works, ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland’ and ‘Irish Wrongs and English Remedies;’ and there are many other authorities. This period is dealt with in my ‘Ireland, 1798-1898.’ ch. vi.
[55] From the mass of literature on this subject reference may especially be made to ‘The Irish Land,’ by the late Sir George Campbell; Judge Longfield’s essay in ‘Systems of Land Tenure;’ the ‘Irish Land and the Irish People,’ by Butt; and the ‘Ireland, Industrial, Political, and Social,’ of the late Mr. J. N. Murphy. As Special Commissioner of the Times, I went into the Irish land question at length on the spot; and it would be affectation to deny that my letters, since republished, powerfully contributed to the legislation which ere long followed. See, for further information, ‘The Irish Land Question’ of John Stuart Mill; ‘Emigration and the Tenure of Irish Land,’ by Lord Dufferin; ‘The New Ireland’ of the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan; parts of Mr. Barry O’Brien’s ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland’; ‘Ireland in 1868,’ by the late Mr. G. Fitzgibbon, a Master of the Court of Chancery in Ireland; and Mr. Lecky’s ‘Democracy and Liberty,’ vol. i. ch. ii.
[56] This fact has been established by conclusive and impartial evidence, which hardly admits of question. It should be steadily kept in the reader’s mind; for an idea, largely countenanced by iniquitous legislation badly administered, has prevailed of late years, that rack-renting in Ireland was common, nay, general. Exactly the contrary has been the case during the last half century. Butt, in his ‘The Irish People and the Irish Land,’ published in 1867, hardly alludes to over-renting; he properly dwells on the insecurity of Irish land tenure. Master Fitzgibbon, a great authority on the subject, in his ‘Ireland in 1868,’ p. 268, pointedly remarked, ‘452 estates are under my jurisdiction, in the Court of Chancery, the rents of which amount to £330,809, paid by 18,287 tenants. I have been now nearly eight years in office, during which time the rents have been paid without murmuring or complaint worth noticing.... It is well known that my ears are open to any just complaint from any tenant.’ The testimony of Judge Longfield, another great authority, is nearly to the same effect. In ‘Systems of Land Tenure,’ published in 1870, he wrote thus (p. 21): ‘This complaint of high rents has been made without ceasing for more than three hundred years. There was never less ground for it than at the present day, although in some instances the rent demanded is still too high; but this chiefly occurs where the landlords are middlemen, or where the property is very small.’ These views are fully confirmed by evidence of a later period, to which I shall refer. I may add that, in 1869, I examined the rentals of many scores of Irish estates, and was convinced that over-renting was very rare. See my ‘Letters on the Land Question of Ireland,’ republished from the Times, passim. I quote a single instance, from many to the same purpose (p. 221): ‘It may be asserted, too, without fear of contradiction, that if in some districts rents are too high, they are not so as a general rule.’ I have managed an Irish estate for upwards of fifty years, and have some claim to be an agricultural expert.
[57] For the characteristics of the Ulster tenant right, see Butt’s ‘Landlord and Tenant Act, 1870,’ ch. xv. pp. 296-310. As to the legal authorities on the subject, reference may be made to the learned treatise of Messrs. Cherry and Wakley, ‘The Irish Land Law and Land Purchase Acts,’ pp. 150-152. A popular account of the Ulster custom will be found in my ‘Letters on the Land Question of Ireland,’ pp. 242-247, and a more technical account in a legal treatise from my pen on the Land Act of 1870, pp. 30-56. The best definition I have seen of the right is one made by the late P. J. Blake, Q.C., C.C.J. of a northern county, ‘Cherry and Wakley,’ p. 150: ‘The right or custom in general of yearly tenants, or those deriving through them, to continue in undisturbed possession so long as they act properly as tenants and pay their rents. The correlative right of the landlord periodically to raise the rent, so as to give him a just, fair, and full participation in the increased value of the land, but not so as to extinguish the tenant’s interest by paying a rack rent. The usage or custom of the yearly tenants to sell their interest, if they do not wish to continue in possession, or if they become unable to pay the rent. The correlative right of the landlord to be consulted, and to exercise a potential voice in the approval or disapproval of the proposed assignee.’
[58] I quote a few passages from the speeches of Mr. Gladstone, and others, on this subject. Mr. Gladstone said, March 11, 1870, ‘If you value rents you may as well, for every available purpose, adopt perpetuity of tenure at once. It is perpetuity of tenure only in a certain disguise.... The man who becomes a mere annuitant loses all general interest in the prosperity of the land.’ And again, February 15, 1870: ‘Perpetuity of tenure on the part of the occupier is virtually expropriation of the landlord.... The mere readjustment of rent can by no means dispose of all contingencies the future may produce in his favour.’ Sir Roundell Palmer, afterwards Lord Selborne, said, March 10, 1870, ‘Fixity of tenure, in plain English, means taking away the property of one man and giving it to another.’ So Lord Granville, June 14, 1870, said in the House of Lords, ‘They might have introduced a Bill—which they were determined not to do—adopting fixity of tenure, taking away his property from the landlord, and establishing a valuation rent.’ Passages of this kind, at least as strong, might be multiplied a hundred-fold.
[59] It is impossible, in a sketch like this, to describe in detail the agrarian legislation for Ireland, which Parliament has enacted from 1870 to this time. The work of Butt referred to before is an admirable commentary on the Bill of 1870, which soon became law. A brief account of all this legislation will be found in Mr. Lecky’s ‘Democracy and Liberty,’ vol. i. ch. ii. The legal treatises of Messrs. Cherry and Wakley, pp. 149-448, and of Mr. Justice Barton, are elaborate and complete.
[60] Judge Longfield and Mr. Lecky are much the most distinguished of these numerous censors.
[61] By this time I was an Irish County Court Judge; and I had some experience of reprehensible acts of this kind, extremely few as they were.
[62] It is very remarkable that the stringent provisions of the Act against exorbitant rents seem to have been almost unknown to the peasantry, though exorbitant rents were, no doubt, existing here and there.
[63] Report of the Judges of the Special Commission, vol. iv. pp. 478-480.