and but for the reactionary influence of her own priesthood would have
received it in full measure. The same influence maimed as far as it could
the undenominational colleges. Nothing could be more deplorable than the
long series of coercion acts. But it was hardly to be expected that the
English government should strike its flag to assassination and boycotting,
or that the British nation would be moved to concession by the inroads of
American conspirators combined with domestic rebellion. It was about 1866
that Guizot, talking of Ireland as he walked with an English guest,
stopped in his walk and said with an emphatic gesture, "The conduct of
England to Ireland for the last thirty years has been admirable." This,
before disestablishment, was too strong, as the English guest remarked at
the time; but as the judgment of a cool-headed foreign statesman, whose
course had not been one of unbroken harmony with England, it was likely to
be more just at least to the motives of England than the invectives of
O'Connell.

Since the Union there has been no 1641, no 1688, no 1798. The two races
and religions have lived generally at peace if not in concord with each
other. The religious riots at Belfast are a very mitigated relic of the
religious wars of former days. Reform, though its advance has been slow
and fitful, has advanced. Within a generation from the date of the Union,
Catholic Emancipation was carried. The tithe-proctor did not very long
survive. Presently the State Church itself was abolished. Ireland shared
with Great Britain Parliamentary reform, to which the Irish oligarchy
could never have consented without political and social convulsion. Not
long afterwards came national education, bestowed on Ireland before it was
bestowed on England. None of these improvements would directly touch the
agrarian sore, the malignity of which was increased by the growth of the
Irish population under the reign of order, far beyond the power of the
land to maintain it. But relief has been given to famine, and strenuous
efforts have been made and are still being made to effect a radical cure.
Ireland has enjoyed free trade with Great Britain and with the whole
British Empire. Everything has been open to Irish merit and industry.
Millions of Irish and their children have found homes in Britain and the
colonies. To sever Ireland from Great Britain is still possible. To divide
the Irish from the British is not possible. In both islands and in all the
colonies the two races are now joined and cannot be put asunder.

Besides, as has already been said, we must always bear it in mind that we
do not see the other side of Destiny's cards. Suppose Ireland had remained
the land of the Septs, would her lot certainly have been more happy?
Neither at the time of the Norman Conquest nor afterwards do the Septs
appear to have shown any tendency to a union such as would have given
birth to a national polity and its attendant civilization. For aught we
can see, they might have gone on indefinitely, like the clans of the
Scottish Highlands, in a state of barbarous strife fatal to progress of
every kind. Even their common interest in the struggle against the
Anglo-Norman invader produced no general or permanent union. The Brehon
law, which was their principal bond, had no executive force and was in
itself barbarous, not distinguishing public from private wrong. The Septs
warred upon each other not less savagely than the conqueror warred upon
them all. If anything like union came at last, it was not political but
religious, and brought with it a fatal share in the European war of
religions. Nor were conquests other than Anglo-Norman impossible. From the
Highlands and islands of Scotland came bodies of marauding adventurers
which might have been reënforced, and, in the North at least, have
prevailed. It is not certain that without the aid of John de Bermingham
and his Anglo-Normans, the Septs would have got rid of Edward Bruce.

That the interest of Ireland should be regarded as subordinate to that of
Great Britain was the principle on which British politicians acted in the
days that are past. To the past this principle must now be and indeed has
been decisively consigned. That union, to be good for either party, must
be good for both, is the accepted basis of discussion. On the other hand,
it is not to be assumed that the aspirations of Irish politicians
naturally bent on carving out an independent field of action for
themselves, are entirely free from the bias of personal ambition or
identical with a dispassionate view of the interest of the Irish people.
Nor is it to be forgotten that Ulster is a part of Ireland.

There are two questions, perfectly distinct and calling for separate
consideration, though they have become blended in the course and for the
purposes of the political agitation. One is economical, the other
political.

The economical question is whether Ireland can support her present
population. Patriotic eloquence will not change her skies, or render it
otherwise than cruel to induce her people to stay in a land in which they
cannot make their bread. Instances there may be of barren soil made by
the loving industry of the small owner fruitful and capable of supporting
a large population; but the industry of the small owner, though it can
improve the soil, cannot alter the skies. What is to be desired is a
special report, calm and expert, upon this subject. Is Ireland generally
capable of being turned with advantage into an arable country? Can wheat
or grain of any kind be profitably raised there in face of the competition
of the great grain-growing countries such as that now opened, and bidding
fair to be opened over a much larger area, in the Canadian Northwest? The
small farmer to live must have something to sell. Is there reason to look
in any other direction than farming for a speedy extension of Irish
industries such as would provide bread sufficient for the population? Is
the water-power of Ireland, now that electricity has been developed,
likely to do what has been done for England by coal? Is the shipping
trade, for which the Irishman has had little opportunity of showing a
turn, likely to increase? These are questions which it is for economists,
not for politicians or patriotic orators, to decide. It is said that there
are tracts of land in Ireland still unoccupied and fit for occupation. If
there are, the survey will show the fact. Land purchase by government
subvention is a policy hardly to be pursued unless it is certain that its
results will not presently be reversed by nature.

The worst part of emigration is that it carries away the pith and sinews
of a nation, taking the strong and leaving the weak, the aged, and
unsupported women. It is a pleasant proof, already noticed, of the warmth
of the Irish heart that there has been less of solitary and more of family
emigration in their case than in those of some other emigrating races.
After all, how has the earth been peopled, how have all the nations been
formed but by migration?

To turn to the political question. The danger of insurrection has probably
passed away. Fenianism has been largely deprived of its trans-Atlantic
base, and can no longer look confidently to American sympathy for support
and supplies. The Irish vote has less power. Little at least was heard of
it in the last presidential election. Yet the political question is still
most serious, and presses urgently for settlement; a state of things
largely due to the division of parties in the British government which
showed its influence in the abandonment of the Crimes Act by the Salisbury
administration; in the Maamtrasna debate; and in Mr. Gladstone's sudden
coalition with Parnell; but above all in the votes of British members of
the House of Commons for Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill, giving
Ireland a Parliament of her own and representation in the British
Parliament at the same time. Parliament still has in it a body of Irish
members not only alien but hostile, avowing that their object is not to
aid in deliberation but to coerce, playing upon the balance of parties for
purposes of their own, degrading the assembly, and distracting the
councils of the nation. Nor is the source of this evil confined to the
constituencies of Ireland. There is in England and Scotland a large Irish
population, which, as was seen in the election of 1885, obeys the voice of
the Irish leaders and at their command votes inimically to the country in
which it lives and earns its bread. In Ireland itself, moreover, the
hell-broth of agitation is kept constantly seething to the inevitable
detriment of recuperative effort, which cannot do its full work without
security for the future.

As the first step it should be calmly settled what are the specific
grievances under which Ireland labours, and which the Imperial legislature
cannot, but an Irish Parliament could, remove. Historic wrongs are past
remedy. Ireland has more than her share of representation in Parliament.
She has no established Church. If her priesthood would let her, she would
have a complete system of national education. Her land law is now far more
favourable to the tenant than that of the other kingdoms, and she has been
and still is receiving government subventions in aid of the tillers of her
soil which English and Scotch tenants do not receive and which would cease
if she became independent. Nothing is closed against her people. They have
the markets of the whole Empire. All its offices, patronage, and services
are perfectly open to them. So long as they will abstain from outrage and
murder, they enjoy all the personal privileges of British freemen. It
cannot be said that the law has been suspended for any purpose other than
the repression of outrage. If the ordinary law and government were very
bad, Ulster would hardly have prospered as it has done. If Castle
government is the grievance, abolition of it was offered to Ireland long
ago and was by her rejected. Let the existing grievances be specified, and
let it be seen whether Imperial legislation is incapable of redressing
them. The truth is that with the Irish leaders it has not been redress of
particular wrongs and grievances or the introduction of practical
improvements that has been the object of desire. Their aim has been to
create a nationalist feeling which should end in political separation.
Such has been the constant tenor of their appeals to sentiment and the end
to which their policy has really pointed.

Suppose Ireland severed from Great Britain, what would be her lot? She
would then have to assume all the burdens and responsibilities of an
independent nation, including military and naval defence, as well as the
entire expense of a separate government. As she could not hope to vie in
strength with her powerful neighbour, she would be at that neighbour's
mercy; nor, considering the temper in which the parting would take place,
would occasions for quarrel be unlikely to arise. Ireland might have to
seek the protection and become the vassal of some foreign power. Irish
trade would no longer be free of British markets or of the markets of
British dependencies. Irish labour would no longer be free of the British
labour market. The Indian service and the Imperial services generally
would be closed against Irishmen.

Nor would Ireland be entirely united in herself or perfectly set free from
the hated British influence. She would still have in her the men of
Ulster, Saxon and Protestant, antagonistic probably to the Catholic
majority, and if they were pressed in the unequal conflict, stretching out
their hands for aid to their fellow-Protestants and kinsmen in Great
Britain.

A mere arm of the sea, such as that which divides Ireland from Great
Britain, is surely not enough in these days of improved navigation, to
form a bar to political union. The distance from London to Dublin is now
practically far less than it was a century ago from London to Edinburgh.
Nor does there seem any reason why salt water should be fatal. The Ionian
Islands are in the kingdom of Greece; so probably some day will be Crete.

If Ireland were detached from Great Britain, into what hands would she
fall? The gentry would be extinguished. To excite popular hatred of them
as landlords has been the constant aim of the Nationalist leaders. There
would be a general repudiation of rent, which the Irish government and
judiciary would lack the will, while the British government and judiciary
would have lost the power, to prevent. The record of Irish landlordism is
not bright. Absenteeism has been a great evil, though the estates of some
absentees have been notably well managed. There have been hideously cruel
evictions, especially it seems on the lands purchased by speculators
under the Encumbered Estates Act. Landlordism, as mere drawing of rent, is
an evil. It is not desirable that any man should own land as a
non-resident or own more land than he can manage or superintend. The old
feudal law attaching service to lordship of land was sound in principle.
But if the Irish gentry would accept that principle, be resident, look
after their estates, and do their duty to their tenants, they would
probably be accepted by their people as social leaders, and they might
play that part with good effect. The life of the French peasant is not the
acme either of civilization or of happiness, even though we may make some
abatement from the picture presented by Zola in "La Terre." Unhappily the
tendency, even in England, seems to be towards the detachment of the owner
from his land and the abandonment on his part of every function save that
of receiving the rent and spending it, perhaps in some pleasure city or
abroad. The decadence of the agricultural interest in England is by some
ascribed to this cause.

The gentry being no more, Catholic Ireland would at first fall into the
hands of the priesthood. The moral character of the Irish priesthood in
the opinion of impartial judges is high, as is that of the priesthood of
French Canada. In both cases ecclesiastical influence is strong, and in
both a population virtuous after the Catholic model is the result. The two
are probably about the best things that the Roman Catholic Church has to
show. But the Roman Catholic religion is mediæval. The training of its
ministers inevitably shuts out light which would be fatal to mediæval
belief. An Irish peasant lad, having been intellectually secluded for
seven years at Maynooth, comes out proof against the intellectual
influences and advancing science of his time. He is the mental liegeman
and the preacher of the Syllabus, which anathematizes freedom of thought
and claims for the Church dominion, not only over the soul but over the
body, such as was hers in the Middle Ages. He laid his ban on the Queen's
Colleges, and has discouraged and thwarted the extension of popular
education. In regard to education and intelligence, he has been in Ireland
what he has been in Spain and other countries subject to his sway. In the
sphere of industry and commerce the influence has generally been the same.
The religious ideal of life with its Church festivals and Saints' Days has
prevailed. In Ireland as in Canada the priest inculcates early marriages,
the effects of which may be morally good but are economically perilous.
The excessive conversion of the fruits of industry to the unproductive
purposes of the Church has already begun to call forth protests.

The power of the Roman Catholic priesthood would be encountered by the
stalwart Protestantism of Ulster in the Parliamentary arena as it still is
sometimes in the streets of Belfast. It might presently find itself
encountered by another adversary, revolutionary Nationalism, the heir of
that party of force which broke away from the leadership of O'Connell, the
devout son of the Church, and was an object of well-founded suspicion and
aversion to the hierarchy of his day. The affinity of this element is to
the revolutionary party in other countries; and if, like the United
Irishmen of Belfast, it has been willing to act with allies devoted to the
Church, it is not itself devout, as the Church, if she comes to share
power with it, may be led to feel.

The idea of unity of race as a basis of Irish nationality has little
support. In the North there is a strong and masterful Saxon element. There
must be a large Anglo-Saxon and English element in the old Pale. The men
of Tipperary, though characteristically Irish, are believed to be
descendants of Cromwellians. There is Huguenot blood.

The revival of Erse as a national language is surely a patriotic dream.
How is it possible to revive a language all but dead, with no valuable
literature or wealth of printed books, in face of a language which has a
grand literature, is spoken by all the educated classes, indeed almost
universally, in Ireland, and is necessary for intercourse with Great
Britain. O'Connell, we are told, had no great sympathy with the revival of
Irish archæology, and no sympathy at all with the project of reviving the
Irish language. He recognized the superior utility of the English tongue
as the medium of all modern communication, and saw without regret the
gradual disuse of Erse. Fancy and sentiment may prevail among a literary
class which nevertheless will hardly carry its patriotism so far as to
darken its own mind by unlearning English.

"Ireland ought to be governed in accordance with Irish ideas." Such is the
current saying, and it sounds wise. But statesmanship would hardly act
upon it before taking measures to learn what ideas are peculiarly Irish
and whether they are features of national character, innate and indelible,
and not traces of historic accident or fancies instilled in the course of
political agitation. The perpetuation of weaknesses accidentally
contracted cannot be wise for man or nation. The political idea which
seems most characteristic is the tendency to personal leadership rather
than to self-government or constitutional rule. But this has been common
to all races in early times. It was fostered and prolonged by the
circumstances of Irish history. It could hardly be pronounced incapable of
modification by familiarity with free institutions.

What would be the political constitution of an independent Ireland? How
would its form be settled? The political training of the people generally
since they came out of political thraldom has been agitation against
government and law; their only notion of rule has been personal. Nor is a
hierarchy friendly to political liberty. To set up a stable democracy in
Ireland, if that is the aim of the revolutionary party, would surely be an
arduous undertaking.

All who look coolly into the matter apart from faction and its necessities
have pronounced that the choice lies between separation and legislative
union. Two Parliaments, two nations; so all wisdom says and so experience
before the Union proved. The forces which under Grattan's constitution
held the two Parliaments together in strained and precarious fellowship,
the nomination boroughs, the pension list, the sinecures, the peerages,
the bishoprics, would no longer exist. What is even more important, there
would no longer be an oligarchical and exclusionist Parliament in Ireland
dependent on British support for its ascendency, perhaps even for the
security of its lands. Antagonism would almost inevitably ensue; the more
surely as the partners would set out with the embitterment of a divorce.
Nothing apparently could avert collision; the result of which would be
repression, making the latter end worse than the first.

The proposal of federation is surely preposterous. It would be necessary
first to cut the United Kingdom in two and create an Irish government in
order that negotiations for a federal union might be set on foot. But how
could there be a federation of two states, one of them enormously superior
in power to the other? What sort of deliberative assembly would the
federal council be?

Another plan is to form a federation of the four nationalities, as they
are assumed to be, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; wrenching apart
the members of a great nation which have long been united and cancelling
the highest work of British statesmanship. Here again federation could not
work. England being so much the predominant partner, the result would
almost certainly be a perpetual league of the three minor powers against
her domination. The federal system is applicable only to a group of
tolerably equal States. The restoration of the Heptarchy with the addition
of Scotland, divided into Highland and Lowland, and the four provinces of
Ireland erected into States, would be a comparatively practicable system.
The present condition of the Federal system in the United States does not
encourage experiments of that kind.

The mildest proposal of all is devolution; in other words, the concession
to Ireland of a larger measure of local self-government. This probably
would be readily granted to any extent compatible with supremacy of law
and security of life and property, which no government without abdicating
its plainest duty can forgo. Gradual extension of local self-government
would not entail any acute crisis or bring on any party conflict. The
Lord-lieutenancy, Parliament has already shown itself ready to abolish. It
was in deference to the wish of Ireland that it has been retained. The
only thing in the way of undue centralization of which, so far as the
writer remembers, his Irish friends complained, was the necessity of
carrying Irish causes to Westminster as the final court of appeal.
Whether concession on this point would be feasible it is for legal
authorities to say.

However, it can hardly be doubted that in the course of this struggle a
sentiment has been cultivated among the people of Ireland for which it is
wise as well as kind in some way to provide satisfaction. The Irishman
being of lively sensibility and impressible through sight has never seen
the power which really governs him. A session or two of the Imperial
Parliament held at Dublin for the settlement of Irish questions would
probably have had a very good effect, but it was thought to entail too
much inconvenience. Would there be any objection to empowering the Irish
members of both Houses to sit annually at Dublin as a preparatory House of
Irish legislation framing bills to be commended to Parliament? There would
then be something in College Green. The experiment would involve none of
the difficulties or perils of a statutory division of the powers of
Parliament. It would be at first on the footing of an experiment, nor
would it preclude further concessions if further concessions should be
found needful.

With the question of national character, social or industrial, and its
special requirements, I do not pretend to deal. It has been treated
systematically, perhaps for the first time, by an excellent authority,
Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett, in his "Ireland in the New Century." Of Irish
character a part may be aboriginal and fundamental. A part probably is the
result of historical accident more or less ingrained, and probably capable
of modification. I am told that Irish character has been even acquiring a
more serious cast since I watched the Tipperary steeplechases or stood on
the fair-ground of Ballinasloe. Not a little, so far as the masses are
concerned, is probably the work of a priesthood strongly and inherently
reactionary, which has exercised the same influence on the ideal of life,
character, mind, and industry here as in other Catholic countries. Ireland
is perhaps happy in having been cut off from the prodigious development of
luxury and dissipation which, as social writers tell us, has been taking
place on the other side of the Channel as well as from the domination of
the stock-exchange. She may in this way become a saving element in the
social character of the United Kingdom.

Is it vain to hope that for the settlement of a question so vital party
may for one short hour suspend its war? What far-off object of
aggrandizement can be half so important as a contented and loyal Ireland.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE IRISH LAND CODE

BY HUGH J. MCCANN, B.L.

The Irish landlord, poor as his circumstances were before the famine, was
in many instances reduced to sorer straits after the terrible scourge had
passed away. The good landlord, anxious to do his duty by his tenants,
helped them as far as his mortgages and other financial burdens would
allow. The tyrannical one, regardless of the sufferings of his victims,
sought to extract impossible rents from an unfortunate tenantry who had
scarcely the means of subsistence. The Encumbered Estates Act, it was
thought, would relieve the tension. It empowered a court specially
constituted for the purpose to order the sale of estates encumbered with
debt, on the petition of any person sufficiently interested as owner or
creditor.

Landlordism, it was thought, would, by this act, be relieved of much that
made it tyrannical, even when it meant well. But the act was a failure. It
was worse. It was the means of wrecking many a fortune, and driving many
a proprietor to ruin. Men who, in hard times, were doing well for their
tenants and their country under difficult circumstances were driven from
the land.

The act came into operation towards the end of 1849. A wild rush was made
by creditors to the court. Prices fell with amazing rapidity, and landed
property became a drug in the market. Valuable properties failed to
realize sufficient to meet the mortgages, and their owners were inevitably
ruined.

A new class of landlord now appeared on the scene in the person of the
speculator, who bought up the bankrupt properties as they presented
themselves. The new proprietors had nothing in common with their tenantry.
They knew little of their needs and requirements and cared less. They had
but one interest and that was a commercial one. To make their properties
realize a good dividend on their outlay was their one concern, and up went
the rents accordingly. Such was the fate of the unfortunate tenants who
were allowed to continue as tenants of the new proprietor. This was bad
enough, but those that were given notice to quit were even more cruelly
wronged. Compensation for wrongful disturbance was not recognized in
Ireland in 1850, and tenant property amounting to three millions sterling
was sold to pay the landlord's creditors.

Nothing could demonstrate more clearly how utterly rotten was the whole
land system in Ireland at the time. Landlord and tenant alike were in a
miserable plight. Rents fell heavily in arrear, and evictions were the
order of the day. The landlord played the bold game, struck hard, and
without mercy. The tenant sought protection in combination and conspiracy.
Such was the condition of Ireland when thoughtful men sought by
legislation to cure the crying evils of the time. Many remedies were
proposed between 1850 and 1860, but none of them reached the stage of
legislative enactment. In the latter year, however, Cardwell made an
attempt to place the law of landlord and tenant on a better footing.

In spite of a good deal of opposition, government succeeded in placing two
important measures on the Statute Book, viz.: the Landed Property
(Ireland) Improvement Act, 1860, and the Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment
Act (Ireland) of the same year. By the former limited owners were enabled,
subject to judicial sanction, to charge the inheritance with the cost of
specified improvements, and to bind their successors for stated periods.
Agricultural leases for a period of twenty-one years or less could be
given by the limited owners without judicial intervention, but every
improvement lease required the sanction of the chairman of the county in
which the lands were situated.

To tenants the right of compensation was granted for certain specified
improvements made by them, provided that before entering on the
improvements they made them the subject of an agreement with the landlord,
or had given notice of his intention to improve, and the landlord had not
notified his objection within a period of three months from receipt of the
notice. The principle of retrospective compensation was not, as yet,
admitted.

The second act consolidated the existing law of landlord and tenant, and
made some important changes in procedure.

The relationship of landlord and tenant, hitherto based on _tenure_, as in
England, was henceforth to be founded on _contract_.

Before proceeding to examine its provisions, it might be well to point out
that the common law rights of Irish agricultural tenants were in the
absence of special customs governed since the reign of James I. by English
common law rules. The English system of land tenure was imposed upon the
country by virtue of conquest. But the circumstances of the two countries
were entirely different.

In England the landlord owned the soil and everything on it. The dwelling
houses and out-offices, the farm roads, the drainage, were built by him or
his predecessors. He let a holding to a tenant as a going concern, and for
the holding so equipped he received rent. The relations between landlord
and tenant in England rested on a business footing. If the tenant did not
feel satisfied with his farm or his lot, he moved on. There were none of
the ties there, either of attachment or of interest, that existed in
Ireland. In Ireland the tenant or his predecessor provided, by his labours
or his savings, the whole equipment of the farm. His family for
generations back occupied the same plot, and he dearly learned to know and
love every stone and hedge about the place. In England the improvements
were effected by the landlord out of the rent paid him by the tenant, and,
of course, were legally his by the law of the land. In Ireland the
improvements, almost universally made by the tenant, became at common law
the property of the landlord, who was under no _legal_ obligation to
compensate the tenant for them on ejecting him from his holding. The
following extract from the report of the Devon Commission contrasts the
practice in the two countries very well. "The Commission finds on all
hands, it is admitted, that, according to the general practice in Ireland,
the landlord builds neither dwelling-house nor farm-offices, nor puts
fences, gates, etc., into good order before he lets his land to a tenant.
The cases in which a landlord does any of those things are the exceptions.
The system, however, of giving aid in these matters is becoming more
prevalent. In most cases whatever is done in the way of building is done
by the tenant, and in the ordinary language of the country
dwelling-houses, farm-buildings, and even the making of the fences are
described by the general word 'improvements,' which is thus employed to
denote the necessary adjuncts to a farm, without which in England or
Scotland no tenant would be found to rent it."

What I have said represents the general, but, I should add, not the
universal, condition of things in Ireland at this time.

In parts of the country, especially in Ulster, certain customs prevailed
which recognized that a tenant was something more than a rent producer.
They denied the right of the landlord to raise rents by reason of any
value added to the soil by the tenant's outlay. They recognized a right of
continuous occupancy by the tenant at a fair rent. This right, called
tenant right, became on some properties of immense value, and was often
sold by an out-going tenant at a price exceeding in value the fee simple
purchase of the holding. In Ulster more than anywhere else in Ireland the
custom was very widely prevalent, but was as yet without the sanction of
the law.

But I have digressed from the Act of 1860. In dealing with the Act of
1870, what I have just said will be of importance. The Landlord and Tenant
Act, 1860, otherwise known as "Deasy's Act," is a voluminous measure of
one hundred and five sections which may be conveniently grouped into three
sections. The first deals with the _Contract of Tenancy_, the second with
_Surrenders and Assignments_, and the third with the _Methods of
Procedure_. Section three enacts that "the relation of landlord and tenant
shall be deemed to be founded on the express or implied contract of the
parties." The conduct of the parties may imply a contract of tenancy,
payment of rent being evidence, but not irrefutable evidence, of its
existence.

Section four requires that "every lease or contract, with respect to
lands whereby the relations of landlord and tenant is intended to be
created for any freehold estate or interest, or for any definite period of
time, not being from year to year, or any lesser period, shall be by
_deed_ executed, or _note in writing_ signed by the landlord or his
agent." It is further provided that a tenant may, if there be no agreement
to the contrary, remove his fixtures within two months of its
determination by an uncertain event. Two covenants are implied in the
contract of tenancy by each of the parties thereto. The landlord by his
lease implies an agreement on the part of himself and his successors that
he has a good title to make it, and that the tenant shall have quiet and
peaceable enjoyment of his holding.

The tenant agrees to pay rent, taxes, and impositions payable by the
tenant, and to keep the premises in good and substantial repair and
condition; and, secondly, to give up peaceable possession of the demised
premises in good and substantial repair and condition on the determination
of the lease, subject to any right of removal or of compensation for
improvements that may have lawfully arisen in respect of them, and to any
right of surrender in case of the destruction of the subject-matter of the
contract.

_Surrenders and Assignments_ may be made (1) by deed, (2) by a note in
writing, or (3) by operation of law.

Sections forty-five to one hundred and two deal with actions for the
recovery of rent and actions of ejectment. The most important provision is
that which provides that if a tenant has had a decree given against him in
an action of ejectment, he may be restored to his holding on applying to
the court within six months, and paying the rent with arrears and costs.

Such are the main features of Deasy's Act. Beyond consolidating and
regularizing the existing law it achieved nothing. A decided advance,
however, was made in the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, which
was restricted in its operation to agricultural and pastoral tenancies. We
have seen how there existed in Ulster and other parts of the country
certain customs favourable to the tenant. To the Ulster custom, as it was
called, Ulster was indebted for exceptional prosperity.

The contentment of its agricultural population was in strange contrast to
the seething discontent of the other parts of the country. Much of the
thrift and plenty that exists in parts of Ulster to-day can be traced back
to the exceptional treatment accorded to the tenants of Ulster long
before legislation came to the aid of their less fortunate brethren south
of the Boyne. The aim of the Land Act of 1870 was to place the latter
class in a similar position to the Northerns. The act legalized the Ulster
custom and similar usages. It gave tenants not subject to these a right to
be compensated for their improvements on quitting their holdings, and
guaranteed a measure of security by providing compensation for
disturbance. What is "disturbance" is a question for the court, and must
be decided on the facts of each particular case.

Agreements not to improve the holding, or not to claim for improvements,
are declared void. If the holding be subject to the Ulster custom, there
is a general presumption that the improvements belong to the tenant.

The term "improvements" shall mean in relation to a holding (1) any work
which, being executed, adds to the letting value of the holding, on which
it is executed and is suitable to such holding; and (2) tillages, manures,
or other like farming works, the benefit of which is unexhausted at the
time of the tenant quitting his holding.

We have not proceeded far before it becomes apparent that to secure to the
tenant the full enjoyment of his own property was the line along which
land legislation was travelling. The Act of 1870 went some distance in
this direction. But the great advance was not made till ten years after,
when Gladstone proposed to establish a tribunal which would assess and fix
the property of the two partners in the dual ownership of land in Ireland.
The act recognized and legalized dual ownership. It created a partnership
between two parties whose interests were hostile. It was a great act, and
did incalculable good, but many years were not to elapse until it became
evident that a return to single ownership--but this time by the
tenant--was absolutely necessary. The endeavours to work dual ownership
irretrievably broke down.

Both parties had little confidence in the Land Court established by the
Act of 1881.

The landlord complained that his property was being confiscated; the
tenant believed that he was still paying rent on his own improvements. The
act was meant to give tenants fixity of tenure, fair rent, and free sale.
A new judicial body, the Irish Land Commission, with jurisdiction to hear
and determine all matters of law or fact arising under the act, was
established. The commission consists of three commissioners--one a
judicial commissioner and numerous assistant commissioners appointed by
the lord lieutenant for the time being with the approval of the treasury.
This is not the place to examine the provisions of this complicated
measure minutely, but as it is the foundation of much of the land
legislation that followed, it is important that its main provisions be
understood.

The act distinguishes between "present" tenancies and "future" tenancies,
a "present" tenancy being "a tenancy subsisting at the time of the passing
of the act, or created before the first day of January, 1883, in a holding
in which a tenancy was subsisting at the time of the passing of the act,
and every tenancy to which the act applies shall be deemed to be a present
tenancy until the contrary is proved."

A "future" tenancy means a tenancy beginning after the passing of the act.
The act applies only to agricultural and pastoral holdings. It gives
qualified powers to both "present" and "future" tenants to dispose of
their holdings for the best price they can get, or to mortgage them if
they think fit.

Fixity of tenure was secured by enabling a tenant to convert his interest
into what is called in the act a _statutory term_. Such a term may be
created by an agreement between the landlord and tenant for an increased
rent, or by having a fair rent fixed, or by filing in court an agreement
for a judicial rent. A _statutory term_ can be created only in respect of
a "present" tenancy except when in regard to a "future" tenancy the tenant
has agreed with the landlord to an increased rent. The provisions as to
the fixing of a fair rent apply only to "present" tenancies. Section three
of the act gives a tenant power to dispose of his holding by bequest.
Perhaps the most important provisions of the act are those enabling a
landlord or tenant to have a "fair rent" fixed.

Either party may apply to the court to have the rent made a _judicial
rent_. The court fixes this rent after considering all the circumstances
of the case, holding, and district, and having regard to the interests of
both parties. No rent shall be payable in respect of improvements made by
the tenant unless he has been already compensated for them by the
landlord. In the administration of the act the word "improvements" has
given rise to endless litigation. In the now famous case of Adams _v._
Dunseath it was held that "improvements" meant improvement works and not
increased letting value. It was also held in a case affecting the same
holding that a tenant is entitled to "a fair return by way of annual
allowance in respect of the present capital value of his improvement works
which may be estimated by way of percentage on such capital value; and if
after making this percentage there is still a surplus of increased letting
value, it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Land Commission to
determine whether, and in what proportions, such surplus shall be divided
between landlord and tenant." It was further laid down that the Land
Commission was to treat "the latent and dormant resources of the soil, as
let by the landlord to the tenant, as the property of the landlord, and
the development of those resources by the tenant as the act of the
tenant."

This act was undoubtedly a great charter for the tenants and created
something like a revolution in Ireland. It contained many defects, and was
marred by many blemishes, but on the whole it was a masterly attempt to
settle the question. Like much of the land legislation for Ireland, most
of its shortcomings were due to a reckless disregard on the part of
British ministers for Irish opinion. Indeed, this was the cause of most of
the amending legislation that followed.

Under the Act of 1881 "fair rents" were fixed for periods of fifteen
years, when they were again ripe for revision. Roughly speaking, the old
non-judicial rents were reduced by twenty per cent on an average to
convert them into first term rents. These again were further reduced by
twenty per cent on an average for the second term. This, of course, played
havoc with the landlord's income, and did not materially benefit the
tenant, the prices of the produce of whose farm was falling with even
greater rapidity. The experiment of dual ownership had been tried and was
found wanting; a return to single ownership was sought for by the series
of acts known as the Land Purchase Acts.

It was not till 1885 that the experiment of land purchase was seriously
tried in Ireland, but it is right to say that the question first came
before the public in a practical form so far back as 1869 in the
discussions on the disestablishment of the Irish Episcopal Church. At that
time Mr. Bright proposed to increase the number of owners of land in
Ireland by allowing the glebe tenants to purchase the property attached to
the glebes. The idea was embodied in the Irish Church Act, and over six
thousand occupying owners were thus created. Under this act three-fourths
of the purchase money was advanced by the State, and the balance paid in
cash by the purchasers. The money was advanced by the State for
thirty-two years, the shortest period allowed by any of the acts. From the
tenant's point of view this act cannot be said to have been an unqualified
success. The price of land was high at the time, and the purchasers having
bought high sustained the whole burden of the sudden fall in the prices of
produce which almost immediately succeeded the conclusion of their
bargains. In 1870 and in 1881 there were embodied in the acts of these
years provisions to enable tenants to purchase their holdings; but the
procedure to be followed was made so complicated that the tenants did not
avail themselves of the purchase clauses to any great extent. The
insignificant number of sixteen hundred sales were completed under the two
acts.

In 1885 a Conservative government came into power, and though their term
of office was of short duration, they introduced and passed a measure
which, by its marvellous and, I might add, its unexpected success, pointed
the direction and paved the way for all future legislation for the
settlement of the land problem in Ireland. Back to single ownership was
the keynote of the measure. Hitherto the credit or discredit of all
legislation on the land problem belonged to the Liberals. They strove to
make dual ownership a possibility. Conservative statesmen sought for a
settlement in the opposite direction.

In sales under all the purchase acts from 1885 to the Act of 1903 all the
purchase money is advanced by the State to the selling landlord, and is
charged by the State to the tenant who purchases. The tenant repays the
amount borrowed or "advanced," to use the language of the acts, in annual
instalments, which instalments clear off not only the original "advance,"
but the accumulated interest.

Roughly speaking, the procedure is this. The landlord and tenant, having
agreed on a price, sign an agreement for sale, and file it with the Land
Commission, which body has the carriage, so to speak, of all purchase
transactions, as well as all other transactions under the land acts. The
holding is inspected by the Land Commission which, having been satisfied
that the land in question is security for the "advance," pay the purchase
money to the landlord and collect from the tenant the annual instalments
necessary to repay it to the State.

The plan of the Act of 1885, better known as the Ashbourne Act from the
fact that it was Lord Ashbourne who introduced the measure to the lords,
was simple in the extreme, and to this is due, in no small measure, its
rapid success. It was easily understood by the people, and so popular did
it become that in three years the money provided by it was completely
exhausted.

In 1888 a second bill was passed under which an additional sum of five
millions--this was the amount provided by the Ashbourne Act--was set aside
for purchase. Under the two measures 25,368 owners were created.

"Almost from the start," writes Mr. George Fottrell (a gentleman well
qualified to discuss the question of land purchase in Ireland) in the
_Morning Post_, "the Ashbourne Act was a success. During the first five
years of its working, the 'advances' actually paid over by the Land
Commission to landlords amounted annually on an average to £1,250,000
sterling. The 'applications' represented a considerably larger sum. By
1887 they had more than exhausted the £5,000,000 which had been voted by
Parliament for the Ashbourne Act, in 1885, and thereon a further sum of
£5,000,000 was voted. The scheme continued to work well; the
'applications' came in steadily but with no feverish haste, the largest
total sum applied for under the Ashbourne Act in any one year being in
1887 when it reached £3,700,000. In each of the next two years it reached
just two millions. In 1890 it had dropped to less than a million and a
half; in 1891 it was slightly in excess of that amount. By 1891 it was
plain that the second vote of five millions had been virtually absorbed,
and that Parliament must be applied to for further money. To cool-headed
people in Ireland it seemed that the obvious course was to ask for a small
grant, say of ten millions, so as to continue to test cautiously the
usefulness of an act which had so far worked well, while by the very
smallness of the grant keeping in reserve a check on the expansion of the
act if it should prove to work mischievously.

"This course was not taken. In 1891 Parliament was asked to make a much
larger grant. Over thirty millions were voted, but coupled with conditions
which made the money useless."

Mr. Balfour's act, the Purchase Act of 1891, was extremely complicated.
Under it Ireland was entitled to draw upon Imperial credit to the extent
of £33,000,000. The rate of interest payable by the purchasers was
substantially the same as under the acts of 1885 and 1888, the period of
repayment in the three cases being forty-nine years.

But a change was made in the method of payment to the landlord. Previous
to 1891, he had been always paid in cash. Under the Balfour Act he was
paid in guaranteed land stock. There were many complicated provisions in
regard to the creation of a guarantee fund, an insurance fund, and other
safeguards. The complexity of the measure and the procedure under it, and
the consequent delays in completing any transactions in a reasonable time,
acted as a deterrent to intending purchasers and the act was virtually a
failure. At this point it is well, perhaps, to summarize the results of
the working of land purchase under the acts already dealt with. We have
seen that a total sum of (say) £44,000,000 was made available by the
various acts for land purchase. Out of this a total sum of £21,182,268 has
been expended, leaving about twenty-three millions still available. Under
all the acts up to and including that of 1891, 62,241 tenants purchased
their holdings, 6057 under the Church Act, 877 under the Land Act of 1870,
731 under the Act of 1881, 25,368 under the Purchase Acts of 1885 and
1888, and the balance of about 30,000 became purchasers by means of the
Act of 1891.

Numerous and extensive as these operations were, it is satisfactory to
note, and it redounds to the credit of the Irish people, that Mr.
Wyndham, when introducing his Land Bill of 1902, was able to assure the
House of Commons that Irish Land Purchase had this one merit that the
State had incurred no loss under it and was exposed to no risk. In no case
did an Irish tenant break his bargain. There was no case of bad debt to
mention.

One of the first stumbling-blocks to a tenant proposing to purchase under
the Act of 1891 was that he was unable to know, or even approximately
gauge, what was the actual sum he would have to pay, by way of annuity,
each year. This was a serious flaw, and helped more than anything else
perhaps to clog the wheels of purchase. This state of things, however, was
remedied by the Purchase Act of 1896, by which the maximum sum payable in
any year was an instalment at the rate of £4 per cent on the purchase
money, no matter at what number of years' purchase of his rent the tenant
might buy. Most of the cumbrous restrictions of the Act of 1891 were
removed, and once more the applications began to tumble in. In 1895-1896
the applications received numbered less than half a million. In 1897-1898
and in 1898-1899 they reached nearly two millions. A steady decrease then
set in, but on the whole purchase proceeded at a satisfactory pace.

A strange condition of things now existed in Ireland, and a condition of
things that could not last. Here and there over the country there existed
a contented peasantry, the virtual owners of their holdings, paying a
reasonable annuity for a definite period to the State. If they had not the
sense of complete ownership, they had the very next best thing to it. They
knew that if they themselves were not the absolute owners of their
holdings during their lives, their children and their children's children
would be, and they set to work with a heart and a will to work and improve
their farms, knowing full well that the results of their labour would, at
last, be theirs, and could not be wrung from them by the whims or
exigencies of the landlord. On the other side of the fence, or river, the
tenant who had not purchased and, perhaps, could not purchase, for his
landlord would not sell, continued to pay a rent sometimes exorbitant, but
always higher than his friend the purchaser close by. Such was the
position of the tenant's side of the question. Now let us examine the
landlord's.

Under the Act of 1896 the landlord was paid in government stock. Between
the years 1891 and 1896 government stock rose from 96 to 110. A premium of
ten per cent was a strong incentive to the landlord to sell. If he had an
estate worth £5000, he received in reality for it £5500, for he was
credited with £5000 stock which, sold on change, realized £5500 in cash.
In some cases, where the estate was mortgaged, the gain was even more.
This was gold finding for the landlord until the price of stock fell,
which it did and with a vengeance. Stock which in 1897 stood at 113 fell
in 1901 to 91. The fall again clogged the wheels, and the question once
again became the burning question of the hour. It is right to say here
that there were other forces at work which made the landlord anxious to
get out, if he could at all, on reasonable terms. The fall in the price of
produce continued, and the Land Commission, which had under the Act of
1881 twice revised the rentals, and reduced them each time by twenty per
cent on an average, were preparing for the third revision. The landlords
looked forward to 1911 with fear and trembling. With their estates mostly
heavily mortgaged, and the third revision at hand, they were as anxious as
the tenants, if not more so, that Parliament should step in to their
mutual aid. It did so in the Land Act of 1903. The introduction of this
measure was preceded by a conference of landlords and tenants,
representatives in Ireland which met in the Mansion House, Dublin, and
after five sittings reported as follows:--

"Whereas it is expedient that the land question in Ireland be settled so
far as it is practicable and without delay,

"And whereas the existing position of the land question is adverse to the
improvement of the soil of Ireland, leads to unending controversies and
law-suits between owners and occupiers, retards progress in the country,
and constitutes a grave danger to the state,

"And whereas an opportunity of settling once for all the differences
between owners and occupiers in Ireland is very desirable,

"And whereas such settlement can only be effected upon a basis mutually
satisfactory to the owners and occupiers of the land,

"And whereas certain representatives of owners and occupiers have been
desirous of endeavouring to find such basis, and for that purpose have met
in conference together,

"And whereas certain particulars of agreement have been formulated,
discussed, and passed at the conference, and it is desirable that the same
should be put into writing and submitted to his Majesty's government,

"After consideration and discussion of various schemes submitted to the
conference, we are agreed:--

"1. That the only satisfactory settlement of the land question is to be
effected by the substitution of an occupying proprietary in lieu of the
existing system of dual ownership.

"2. That the process of direct interference by the State in purchase and
resale is in general tedious and unsatisfactory; and that, therefore,
except in cases where at least half the occupiers or the owners so desire,
and except in districts included in the operations of the congested
districts board, the settlement should be made between owner and occupier,
subject to the necessary investigation by the State as to title, rental,
and security.

"3. That it is desirable in the interests of Ireland that the present
owners of land should not as a result of any settlement be expatriated,
or, having received payment for their land, should find no object for
remaining in Ireland, and that as the effect of a far-reaching settlement
must necessarily be to cause the sale of tenancies throughout the whole of
Ireland, inducements should, wherever practicable, be afforded to selling
owners to continue to reside in that country.

"4. That for the purpose of obtaining such a result, an equitable price
ought to be paid to the owners, which should be based upon income.

"Income, as it appears to us, is second term rents--including all rents
fixed subsequent to the passing of the Act of 1896--or their fair
equivalent.

"5. That the purchase price should be based upon income as indicated
above, and should be either the assurance by the State of such income, or
the payment of a capital sum producing such income at three per cent or at
three and one-fourth per cent, if guaranteed by the State, or if the
existing powers of trustees be sufficiently enlarged.

"Costs of collection where such exist, not exceeding ten per cent, are not
included for the purpose of these paragraphs in the word 'income.'

"6. That such income or capital sum should be obtainable by the owners:--

"(_a_) Without the requirement of capital outlay upon their part, such as
would be involved by charges for proving title to sell. Six years'
possession, as proposed in the bill brought forward in the session of
1902, appears to us a satisfactory method of dealing with the matter.

"(_b_) Without the requirement of outlay to prove title to receive the
purchase money.

"(_c_) Without unreasonable delay.

"(_d_) Without loss of income pending reinvestment.

"(_e_) And without leaving a portion of the capital sum as a guarantee
deposit.

"7. That, as a necessary inducement to selling owners to continue to
reside in Ireland, the provision of the bill introduced by the chief
secretary for Ireland in the session of 1902 with regard to the purchase
of mansion houses, demesne lands, and home farms by the State, and resale
by it to the owners, ought to be extended.

"8. We suggest that in certain cases it would be to the advantage of the
State as insuring more adequate security, and also an advantage to owners
in such cases, if upon the purchase by the State of the mansion house and
demesne land and resale to the owner, the house and demesne land should
not be considered a security to the mortgages.

"9. That owners wishing to sell portions of grazing land in their own
hands for the purpose of enlarging neighbouring tenancies should be
entitled to make an agreement with the tenants, and that in the event of
proposed purchase by the tenants such grazing land may be considered as
part of the tenancies for the purpose of purchase.

"10. That, in addition to the income, or capital sum producing the income,
the sum due for rent from the last rent day till the date of the agreement
for purchase and the hanging gale should be paid by the State to the
owner.

"11. That all liabilities by the owner which run with the land, such as
head-rents, quit-rents, and tithe-rent charge, should be redeemed, and the
capital sum paid for such redemption deducted from the purchase money
payable to the owner. Provided always that the price of redemption should
be calculated on a basis not higher, as regards annual value, than is used
in calculating the purchase price of the estate. In any special cases
where it may have to be calculated upon a different basis, the owner
should not suffer thereby. Owners liable to drainage charges should be
entitled to redeem same upon equitable terms, having regard to the varying
rates of interest at which such loans were made.

"12. That the amount of the purchase money payable by the tenants should
be extended over a series of years, and be at such a rate, in respect of
principal and interest, as will at once secure a reduction of not less
than fifteen per cent, or more than twenty-five per cent on second term
rents or their fair equivalent, with further periodical reductions as
under existing land purchase acts until such time as the treasury is
satisfied that the loan has been repaid. This may involve some assistance
from the State beyond the use of its credit, which, under circumstances
hereinafter mentioned, we consider may reasonably be granted. Facilities
should be provided for the redemption at any time of the purchase money or
part thereof by payment of the capital or any part thereof.

"13. That the hanging gale, where such custom exists, should be included
in the loan and paid off in the instalments to be paid by the purchasing
occupier, and should not be a debt immediately recoverable from the
occupier, but the amount of rent ordinarily payable for the period between
the date when the last payment fell due and the date of agreement for sale
should be payable as part of the first instalment.

"14. That counties wholly or partly under the operations of the congested
districts board, or other districts of a similar character (as defined by
the Congested Districts Board Acts and by section four, clause one, of Mr.
Wyndham's Land Purchase Amendment Bill of last session), will require
separate and exceptional treatment with a view to the better distribution
of the population and of the land, as well as for the acceleration and
extension of these projects for migration and enlargement of holdings
which the congested districts board, as at present constituted and with
its limited powers, has hitherto found it impossible to carry out upon an
adequate scale.

"15. That any project for the solution of the Irish Land Question should
be accompanied by a settlement of the evicted tenants' question upon an
equitable basis.

"16. That sporting and riparian rights should remain as they are, subject
to any provisions of existing Land Purchase Acts.

"17. That the failure to enforce the Labourers Acts in certain portions of
the country constitutes a serious grievance, and that in districts where,
in the opinion of the local government board, sufficient accommodation has
not been made for the housing of the labouring classes, power should be
given to the local government board, in conjunction with the local
authorities, to acquire sites for houses and allotments.

"18. That the principle of restriction upon subletting might be extended
to such control as may be practicable over resales of purchasers' interest
and mortgages, with a view to maintaining unimpaired the value of the
State's security for outstanding instalments on loans.

"And whereas we are agreed that no settlement can give peace and
contentment to Ireland or afford reasonable and fair opportunity for the
development of the resources of the country, which fails to satisfy the
just claims of both owners and occupiers,

"And whereas such settlement can only be effected by the assistance of the
State, which, as a principle, has been employed in former years,

"And whereas it appears to us that, for the healing of differences and the
welfare of the country, such assistance should be given, and can be given,
and can effect a settlement without either undue cost to the treasury or
appreciable risk with regard to the money advanced, we are of opinion that
any reasonable difference arising between the sum advanced by the State,
and ultimately repaid to it, may be justified by the following
considerations:--

"That for the future welfare of Ireland, and for the smooth working of any
measure dealing with the transfer of land, it is necessary:--

"1. That the occupiers should be started on their new career as owners on
a fair and favourable basis, insuring reasonable chances of success, and
that in view of the responsibilities to be assumed by them they should
receive some inducement to purchase.

"2. That the owners should receive some recognition of the facts that
selling may involve sacrifice of sentiment, that they have already
suffered heavily by the operation of the land acts, and that they should
receive some inducement to sell.

"3. That for the benefit of the whole community it is of the greatest
importance that income derived from sale of property in Ireland should
continue to be expended in Ireland.

"And we further submit that, as a legitimate setoff against any demand
upon the State, it must be borne in mind that, upon the settlement of the
land question in Ireland, the cost of administration of the law and the
cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary would be materially and permanently
lessened.

"We do not, at the present time, desire to offer further recommendations
upon the subject of finance which must necessarily be regulated by the
approval of the government to the principles of the proposals above
formulated except that, in our opinion, the principles of reduction of the
sinking fund in the event of loss to the State by an increase of the
value of money should be extended by the inclusion of the principle of
increase of the sinking fund in favour of the purchasers in the event of
gain to the State by decrease in the value of money.

"Inasmuch as one of the main conditions of success in reference to any
land purchase scheme must be its prompt application and the avoidance of
those complicated investigations and legal delays which have hitherto
clogged all legislative proposals for settling the relations between Irish
landlords and tenants, we deem it of urgent importance that no protracted
period of time should ensue before a settlement based upon the
above-mentioned principles is carried out; that the executive machinery
should be effective, competent, and speedy, and that investigations
conducted by it should not entail cost upon owner or occupier; and, as a
further inducement to despatch, we suggest that any state aid, apart from
loans which may be required for carrying out a scheme of land purchase as
herein proposed, should be limited to transactions initiated within five
years after the passing of the act.

"We wish to place on record our belief that an unexampled opportunity is
at the present moment afforded his Majesty's government of effecting a
reconciliation of classes in Ireland upon terms which, as we believe,
involve no permanent increase of Imperial expenditure in Ireland; and that
there would be found on all sides an earnest desire to coöperate with the
government in securing the success of a Land Purchase Bill, which, by
effectively and rapidly carrying out the principles above indicated, would
bring peace and prosperity to the country.

"Signed at the Mansion House, Dublin, this third day of January, 1903.

    "DUNRAVEN (_Chairman_)     JOHN REDMOND
    "MAYO                      WM. O'BRIEN
    "W. H. HUTCHESON POE       T. W. RUSSELL
    "NUGENT T. EVERARD         T. C. HARRINGTON"

It soon transpired that the idea of a conference between landlords' and
tenants' representatives was the government plan for laying the foundation
of the bill that they contemplated introducing as a government measure
later on. The tenants' representatives, who, in the then position of the
land question, with prices falling and the third revision term looming in
the distance, had all the trumps in their hands, were hopelessly
outmanoeuvred by the landlord section.

The question to be discussed was largely a financial one, but still the
tenants had not a man of financial ability at the board. It is true the
members of the conference were nominated, and not selected by their
respective sides, though afterwards, for reasons easily understood, the
nominations were ratified by the parties concerned. But nominated by whom?
By a Captain Shawe Taylor, a personage popular with all parties, but in
this matter undoubtedly the agent of the government. The conference sat
five times, and all through the proceedings the nationalist
representatives were rubbing their hands with glee, for they thought the
millennium had come.

The landlord party, on the other hand, were in nightly communication with
the Castle. Treasury experts were drafted over to Dublin, and no stone was
left unturned to secure for the landlords a measure which would satisfy
the most exacting. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. On the 3d
of January, 1903, the land conference issued its report. Clear-headed
politicians saw at once that the tenants had played the game and lost.
Every advantage or benefit that the landlord sought or claimed was secured
to him by this treaty, as it was afterwards styled, in terms that could
not be gainsaid. The tenants' clauses in the report were mostly pious
expressions of opinion, which were afterwards, when the Land Bill came to
be drafted, brushed aside, or quietly ignored. But all was not yet lost.

The _Freeman's Journal_, under the able guidance of Mr. Thomas Sexton, in
a series of powerful articles, reviewed the whole position. It boldly but
temperately pointed out the defects in the conference report. It refused
to shout with the crowd. It could not see that much was gained. It clearly
saw that a great deal had been lost. The bill, a large and complicated
measure of eighty-nine clauses, was shortly afterwards introduced. It was
a great measure and aimed at the final settlement of the land question.
And, indeed, such an end, devoutly to be wished, would certainly have been
attained had the amendments pressed on the government during the passage
of the bill by the organ of the tenants been accepted and embodied in the
act.

Clause after clause was closely examined, and the defects exposed by Mr.
Sexton in a series of articles, inspired if not actually written by him in
the _Freeman_. He had done much service for Ireland in the past, but I
doubt if his great abilities had ever been better applied than to the work
of examination, elucidation, and amendment of the Land Bill of 1903.

His criticisms culminated in the publication of a schedule of amendments
which he claimed were necessary to the final settlement of the question.

It is worth while now putting them on record, for they have a true
historical value. It is now seen in the working of the act, that the
acceptance of some of the amendments contained in the schedule materially
improved the bill, while the omission of the others explains the necessity
for still further legislation on the subject.

The following is a summary of the amendments referred to:--

1. The rights of tenants under the Fair Rent Laws should be maintained
intact.

2. No non-judicial tenant should be excluded from purchase by reason
merely of his tenure. Caretakers of holdings of which they had previously
been tenants should have the rights of tenants for the purpose of
purchasing such holdings.

3. As a condition precedent to purchase, non-judicial rents and first term
rents fixed or agreed upon down to the end of 1896 should be reduced to
the average level, substantially of second term rents, and purchase should
not be transacted in the cases of non-judicial rents, or of such first
term rents, except upon this basis.

4. The purchase system being voluntary, the compulsory limits of price in
this bill should be struck out.

5. The aim of the system being to extinguish dual ownership and equal
treatment being essential both as between past and future transactions,
and also between the tenant who buys his holding and the landlord who buys
back his land sold by him to the State, no rent charge should be reserved.
Such a reservation would forever exclude the tenant from ownership, by
erecting a new and perpetual system of landlordism in the place of the
old.

6. The rate of interest on consols being now two and one-half per cent,
the new guaranteed stock might be issued at two and one-half, instead of
two and three-fourths as proposed, and by this means the decadal
reductions, instead of being abolished as the bill provides, might be
allowed at the rate of eight per cent; or, at the option of the purchaser,
the period during which his annuity would be payable could be shortened by
about ten years. If the annuity rate were three and one-half, the
purchaser might be allowed to choose between decadal reductions at the
rate of eleven per cent, and a term of redemption shorter by nearly
twenty years than that prescribed in the bill.

7. Sales of untenanted land, and, in particular, resales of demesne or
other land to vendors, should be subject to the needs of migration, of
enlarged holdings, and of making provision for evicted tenants, in the
case of each estate or district, and no evicted farm should be resold to
the vendor, or sold to a new tenant, if the evicted tenant, or his
personal representative, is willing to become the purchaser.

8. The cost of improvement of estates and untenanted land, being charged
to every purchaser and repaid by his annuity, should be provided for as
part of the advances required for the purposes of this act, leaving the
reserve fund available to the estates commissioners for cases of
exceptional need.

9. It is necessary to maintain the existing satisfactory condition that
the holding, or other land purchased, is to be sufficient security for the
repayment of the advance.

10. The Purchase Aid Fund should be increased to not less than twenty
millions; and distributed either in inverse ratio to the number of years'
purchase in each case, or by a uniform grant of a fixed number of years'
purchase to every selling landlord.

11. A term of years should be fixed in the bill, on the expiration of
which term the provisions for grants from the Purchase Aid Fund, resales
to landlords, and distribution of purchase money free of cost should cease
to operate.

12. The subject of sporting and mineral rights calls for clear provision
dictated in the public interest, instead of the ambiguous, loose, and
inconclusive proposals which appear in the bill.

13. It is requisite that the limit of advance to an evicted tenant be not
less than the ordinary limits; also, that provision be made for restoring
evicted tenants to their former holdings when vacant; for making
arrangements to that end when the holdings are occupied; and for stocking
the land.

14. The cramping restrictions imposed on the congested districts board,
which have effectually prevented that body from dealing with the great
agrarian evil of the West, would not be removed or substantially
diminished by the meagre proposals of the bill; nor can the privations and
miseries endured in the congested districts be sufficiently abated in any
other way than by such a redistribution of grazing ranches as will provide
the people of those districts with land enough to yield them the means of
living. As the guarantee fund--now ample enough for every purpose--is
henceforth to apply alike to congested and other districts, and as
advances for land purchase are seen to be free from risk, and special
treatment is to be applied to congested estates throughout the country, it
is evident that the time has come for a uniform system of land purchase,
and that this is to be secured, either by investing the congested
districts board, for all the purposes of land purchase in their particular
areas, with powers corresponding to those of the estates commissioners, or
else by giving the estates commissioners jurisdiction for land purchase in
the congested districts, and authorizing the board to apply its income
wholly to its various other objects of expenditure.

15. The proposals with regard to the Labourers' Acts are so trivial that
they cannot be amended. The government should be asked to appoint a
commission to inquire and report, this year, how the question may be
adequately dealt with; and a bill directed seriously to that end should be
passed into law next session.

The Irish Land Act, 1903, otherwise known as the Wyndham Act, from the
name of the Irish chief secretary who introduced it, came into force on
the 1st of November, 1903. This is not the place to set forth its
provisions, but the principal advantages which accrue to a selling
landlord and a purchasing tenant availing of its provisions may be briefly
stated. The entire purchase money agreed upon is paid to the landlord in
cash. No part of the purchase money is retained as a guarantee deposit.
For the purchase of a single holding the limitations of preceding acts are
extended to £7000.

The vendor of an estate shall receive in addition to the purchase money
from the tenants a bonus for his own immediate benefit. The landlord is
enabled to sell his demesne, and repurchase it at a profit. The landlord
may sell his estate direct to estate commissioners appointed by the act,
or to the congested districts board, and these bodies are enabled to
resell to the tenants after readjustment and partition of the holdings on
the estate if necessary. Enlarged powers of investment of purchase money
are conferred upon trustees. The principal advantages secured to the
tenant are as follows: At the end of sixty-eight and one-half years, a
tenant becomes owner in fee of his holding. As soon as the agreement to
purchase is signed, he ceases to be liable for rent. He is enabled to
repay the advance at the rate of three and one-fourth per cent of his
purchase money. (Though the reduction of the annuity rate from four per
cent under the previous act to three and one-fourth per cent under the
Wyndham Act is an undoubted advantage to a tenant, it is certainly to his
disadvantage that the amount set aside towards the sinking fund should be
reduced from one and one-fourth per cent and one per cent to one-half per
cent.) In congested districts the land commission, or congested districts
board, may purchase lands under certain conditions to enable them to deal
with the problem of congestion.

The greatest blot on the measure is undoubtedly what is known as the
"Zones." The act provides that if the price agreed upon between the
parties allows a reduction of not less than ten per cent nor more than
thirty per cent on a tenant's existing rent, in the case of a second term
rent, and a reduction of not less than twenty per cent nor more than forty
per cent in the case of a first term tenant, the bargain _must_ be
sanctioned by the commissioners without inquiring whether the land in
question is security for the "advance."

The result of this provision is that tenants have been wheedled or cajoled
into agreeing to bargains which they will find it difficult or impossible
to keep. The price of land became artificially inflated, and the average
of eighteen years' purchase paid for land in Ireland under the previous
Purchase Acts has been raised by five to seven years' purchase. It is
essential that free bargaining should be restored if purchase is to
proceed on sound economic lines. In spite of the efforts of the wisest of
their leaders, the Irish tenantry are rushing into bargains under the
Wyndham Act that may eventuate in dire consequences for themselves and for
the country.

The importation of Canadian cattle when it comes will have a serious
effect on the Irish produce market, and a further decline in produce
prices may be expected.

Will the Irish tenant be then able to discharge his liability to the State
and have sufficient margin for living? That is the question for the
future. The answer to it alone can settle whether we have yet reached
finality in the Irish Land Code.

Footnotes:

[1] Carlyle, Appendix, No. 17.

[2] See Lecky, II., 216 _et seq._

[3] T. P. O'Connor, "The Parnell Movement," pp. 53, 54.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the
original.