classes of Ireland, and that was the insta- for the improvement of the relation of bility of tenure. No Bill which did not landlord and tenant there were two indisaim at affecting an alteration in the state pensable postulates-the one, that the proof things in which ninety-five out of every visions of the Bill should be clear and 100 tenants existed on the soil by the mere simple; the second, that they should be will of the landlord could ever be called self-acting. The moment they enacted ina settlement of the question. That alte- tricate provisions legislation became use. ration should be effected cautiously, gradu- less. The moment landlords and tenants ally, and with due respect to the rights were brought into any kind of collision it of property. It would be worse than use- was simply mischievous. The old saying, less, it would be an additional irritation, vigilantibus non dormientibus leges subwere any Government to place upon the venire should be reversed in this case. statute book any enactment which should Bearing in mind the dangerous ground on not have this eventual change of tenure as which they legislated, the infinite mischief its prominent and predominant feature. they might create by any enactment proThe noble Lord (Lord Naas) knew Ireland moting litigation between landlord and well enough. He must be well aware that tenant, the new arrangements, whatever there could be no attachment to the insti- they might be, should work silently and of tutions of a country on the part of a pea- themselves. Their objects should be rather santry who are living on sufferance on its dormientibus quam vigilantibus subvenire. soil. It would not be inconsistent with Apply these tests to every successive LandConservative principles to try and remedy lord and Tenant Bill brought in by different this evil. There was nothing conservative Governments, and they will all be open to in a tenancy-at-will. In his opinion it was objection, the Bill of the late Chief Sethe most revolutionary tenure in the world. cretary as well as that of the noble Lord. In making these observations he had not But it is said why legislate at all, no meathe least idea of advocating any measure sure which Parliament could sanction would to force landlords to give leases right and ever satisfy the real feeling which lay unleft without due precautions and selection. derneath this land question. That feeling The discretion of landlords should be con- was derived from old traditionary custom, sidered; but that discretion might be that the land belonged to the tribe, that is urged and encouraged. He entirely agreed to the people, that the utmost the owner with Lord Dufferin, who thus wrote- could claim was a reserved rent held on a valuation, and that no eviction should ever be allowed or interference permitted in the tenant's management of the land so long as that annuity was paid. He (Mr. Gregory) remembered well making that observation to Mr. Dillon last year, and here he would express his regret at the untimely death of a man whose honesty and moderation and thorough knowledge of the question would have been of inestimable service as a mediator in this matter. Mr. Dillon replied that unquestionably that feeling prevailed, but that it took its strength and vigour from the irritation which had grown up under the present state of things, and that he was confident that if he and others whom the tenants looked on as their advocates and friends came forward and declared that a measure had been passed which, while doing no wrong to landlords, would place the tenants' position on a more secure foundation, this source of agitation and bitterness would speedily dry up. It was now necessary to advance another step, and in order to ascertain what should be the tendency of legislation, it was worth "No one had been a stronger advocate for leases than myself. To refuse a lease to a solvent, industrious tenant is nothing less, in my opinion, than a crime. The prosperity of agriculture depends on security of tenure, and the only proper tenure is a liberal lease. Yet, I cannot conceive a measure more fraught with disaster to agriculture, more productive of discontent, more certain to inflict suffering on a large proportion of the tenant farmers of the country than that the Irish landlords should be driven by any legislation into an indiscriminate issue of leases for a term of years." This opinion of Lord Dufferin agreed with the Report of the Devon Commissioners, who say— "Upon some well regulated estates the property of intelligent and liberal landlords who are upon the best footing with their tenants, no leases are given; but we cannot forbear to express our opinion that, as a general system, it is more for the interest of both landlord and tenant that leases of moderate length should be given." It was true that even here the Commissioners deprecated the "direct interference of the Legislature;" but though they might have deprecated compulsion, it is quite clear they would not have deprecated encouragement. Now, in framing any Bill while to trace the growth of what was called the Irish Land question. Lord Naas was quite right in saying that it was only of recent years that it had assumed its present prominence. It was true that O'Connell did, as the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) mentioned, refer at times to the lamentable condition of the Irish peasantry; still the land question, as such, was small until recent years, when successive Governments discovered the danger of the sore, and had tried to plaister it. It seemed strange enough that in former days, when agrarian outrages and murders were rife in Ireland, this subject should have formed so small a part of the political professions of the day; but that now, when murder and outrage were almost unknown, when wealth and education had so much increased, it should have assumed its present prominence. The cause of this was worth examining. The first forty or fifty years of this century were different from the present. The tenure of land was different-leases were far more the rule than at present. [Colonel FRENCH: They were universal.] There was less supervision over estates, and the proceedings of leaseholders were unchecked. He (Mr. Gregory) remembered that when his father succeeded to his estate in 1840 there was not a holding which did not depend on lease. Twenty years afterwards there was not a single lease on the property, but almost everywhere there was a crop of small and almost pauper under tenants. In those days the elective franchise depended on a 40s. freehold, and subsequently on a lease. The landlord's political status and influence depended on the numbers he could bring to the poll. In short, the people did as they liked, they increased and multiplied, subdivided and again subdivided. The pressure for existence was strong enough, but the crisis had not yet come. Outrages there were without end, but they were directed against infractions of a lawless code, established and recognised by the peasantry. Their sufferings had not entered into the domain of politics. They had no mouthpieces. They made themselves intelligible by the bludgeon and the blunderbus. That the social system was diseased, was clear enough to all; but it was thought a periodical and generous system of hanging would put all things to rights, and so they hung them. A change, however, came; the Corn Laws were abolished and there was a period of low prices. The mode of voting was changed, and votes depended not on leases but on rating. The old long lease with lives was found most injurious to the country, though pleasant enough to tenants, as by their means indefinite and unchecked sub-divisions were carried on, and so landlords refused to renew. During the great political agitation of O'Connell, in many cases tenants went against landlords, and when leases fell in they were not renewed. Last of all came the famine, and nearly every lease in Ireland was swept away. To that succeeded the Incumbered Estates Court. By its operations a vast amount of land changed hands, and very many of the old landlords passed away with it. All these changes, though an improvement to the country, brought little comfort to the peasant. The old landlord, if wasteful and careless and needy, was generally kind to, and easy with, the tenants. Their families and his family had lived in close contact for many a long day, and with a people so disposed to attach themselves, a deep sympathy with what was called the old stock existed, and that feeling was reciprocated by the landlords. Too much easiness, far more than too much harshness, was the fault and characteristic of the past age of Irish landlords. Then came a new race, men who had accumulated funds and laid them out in land as an investment, who knew not the peasantry and cared but little for them. The land must pay more, that they might have a better interest for their money. The land was badly tilled, and there was not sufficient stock, so they took it into their own hands. The peasant thus found himself with his rent raised and in danger of eviction, and in the hands of new and unsympathetic landlords. Of course, he (Mr. Gregory) was speaking generally. In many instances now the landlords had regenerated their property, and were esteemed and trusted by the tenants. He knew many such in his part of Ireland, but they were exceptions. It will be seen that every change had made the peasant's condition more precarious than before. Throughout the length and breadth of the land that is to say, in the East, West, and South of Ireland, for he was not speaking of the North, where a better tenancy prevailed-there was no stability of tenure. Every ninety-five out of every 100 tenants knew that a breath had made them and a breath could unmake. Then arose the cry for landlord and tenant legislation. If he (Mr. Gregory) had rightly traced the history of But what is called the land question, it would | brought to see that all were not like themnot be difficult to find the real remedy. selves. Against such it is hard to contend. At first compensation for improvements Every witness before the Land Committee was the cry, but that was because the of 1864 deposed that if all landlords were words sounded speciously in English ears, good and did their duty no legislation but compensation for improvements was would be required. They had great authe merest moonshine. All the compensa-thority for saying that the law was not tion which the wit of lawyers could devise would not give contentment. In treating a question like this in connection with any people under the sun, sentiment and feeling should be a strong ingredient, but of all people this ought to be well considered in dealing with a susceptible, imaginative people like the Irish. If that sentiment and feeling were utterly unreasonable and absurd let them cast it behind them, but if they themselves being in the same position would, in all probability, be under the same influences, they were bound to consider them in legislation. He (Mr. Gregory) then tried to put himself in the position of the Irish peasants, and he was satisfied that the predominant cause of dissatisfaction was the uncertain and precarious character of the tenure on which their very existence depended. He had seen much of the people lately. He had endeavoured to arrive at their inmost thoughts, and this was the result of his investigation. Was it unnatural? Unfortunately the opponents of the conclusions at which he arrived were the very best men in Ireland. The really good, conscientious, improving landlords were the persons who least could appreciate the feeling he had described. They lived among an attached and contented tenantry. They knew that those men neither wanted nor would accept increased security. As far as security went these tenants believed that a tenancy-atwill offered more permanency than a lease, for the expiration of the lease implied a break of tenure. In some properties a tenancy-at-will was almost a fixity of tenure. He would give a strange illustration of that. A few years back a noble Friend of his, one of the best and most beloved landlords in Ireland, ejected a tenant for the most outrageous conduct. The tenant took defence, and pleaded that so long as a tenant paid his rent there had not been an instance of ejectment on the estate, and that such was the custom of the country. The plea, of course, was disallowed. Here, then, is the chief difficulty of those who plead for leases. They had for opponents men of the highest authority, authority derived from the exemplary performance of duties, and who cannot be made for the righteous. Precisely the gory) did not propose to interfere directly even in such an outrageous case as this, but he did think legislation should be resorted to to discourage such a state of things. That, then, was his reply to the argument that leases were not cared forthey were not cared for undoubtedly where the tenant had thorough confidence in his landlord, and the successor of his landlord. They were desired and craved for when there was no confidence in the landlord, or even where there was confidence, but when the destination of the property was uncertain. Then, again, he was asked would he encourage leases to very small holders. His answer was certainly not. The tenants' witnesses in 1864 deposed unanimously that in these cases it would be unnecessary and even unwise to give leases. Judge Longfield, Mr. M'Carthy Dowling, the Catholic Bishop of Cloyne, and even Mr. Dillon himself, were of that opinion. Then he was told to look at the evil effect of leases in former days-" See," say the objectors, "how these leases have turned out-the middleman has been their creation, and the lands held by them have been pauper warrens, the source of half the misery of the country." The objection was a valid one, but why? because these leases were long and almost gambling leases-leases of thirty-one years and three lives, leases in which there were no covenants, or if any they were cove nants without penalties and evaded. He (Mr. Gregory) believed such leases to be worse than none at all, and such was the almost unvarying_depositions of the witnesses before the Devon Commission, that these leases had been the curse and bane of Ireland. Again, it was said - leased land was not one whit better cultivated, or more capital and labour expended on it than in the cases of a tenancy-at- will. That was a disputed point, but even if admitted let them do this-let them place a tenant-at-will and a tenant on lease side by side on any property save that of a firstrate landlord, and then he would leave it to them to estimate who would be the loyal man in an emergency-who would be the defender of law, order, and the institu tions under which he lived. That was a consideration for a legislator. One would hardly imagine that arguments were needed to prove that a country where the landlord, generally speaking, did little for the tenant-he qualified his language by the words generally speaking-and where the whole tenure was at will, could never be really contented. It was totally impossible it should be so. A community that could dwell together in unity under such circumstances must be a community of angels. The mere fear of eviction was not the sole disturbing cause, but that constant exercise of power and interference which must be galling to any man of independent spirit. The Irish peasant is reproached for want of that independent spirit. He is described as servile, lazy, unimproving, dependent. May not the training he has had for centuries account for this. He (Mr. Gregory) would be slow to admit inferiority of race to have much to do with the backwardness of those whose relations and comrades have been pre-eminent in France and Spain, and even in England, for their military and civil genius. Hitherto, and up to this point, he had been debating this question on mere abstract ar guments. Let him now turn to something more definite. Take the example of two countries where there was the greatest content among the agricultural classesnamely, Scotland and Prussia. He did not refer to France, because there the peasants were proprietors. Now he (Mr. Gregory) said, on the introduction of this Bill, that Scotland showed us how the largest possible amount of produce could be derived from the soil, how the largest rents could be obtained, and how perfect harmony and good feeling could prevail between landlord and tenant. But had they tenancies-at-will then? Such a thing was unknown, and would not be listened to. Leases of fixed but of moderate duration prevail. In Prussia, again, 25 per cent of the peasantry were tenants, the rest were proprietors in fee. There, also, great content prevailed, but a tenancy-atwill was unknown-in every case of letting land there was a contract or lease made for a given number of years. In Eastern Prussia this contract usually ran from twelve to twenty years; in Westphalia, from seven to twelve; in the Rhine Provinces, from three to seven and nine years. His informant was a gentleman who went to Prussia two years ago for the express pur pose of looking into the state of land tenure and education there. Commenting on the tenant's position in Prussia, Mr. Ussher says "What is known as 'tenant right' among the been heard of in Prussia. The tenancies being Irish farmers in the North of Ireland has never all by contract or lease at the expiration of the term agreed upon-be it for whatever period, ment once the contract ended." He long or short-the farm is re-let to the highest | class were to be stigmatized as reckless, and most solvent bidder, and it would seem to a overbearing, oppressive, or else as neglectGerman peasant a most inexplicable thing how ful and unmindful of their tenants. anyone could have a right to or claim on anything which he hired from the owner for a yearly pay- had no doubt many persons imagined that Irish upper society was, as in the days described by Sir Jonah Barrington, and Now he (Mr. Gregory) quoted that sen- the author of Harry Lorrequer, drinking tence, as it was pregnant with wholesome and gambling all night, fighting duels in deductions. Irish landlords complained of the morning, and the survivors riding the strange doctrines that were springing steeplechases all day. But a visitor to up, of fixity of tenure, compulsory valuation, Ireland would tell a different story. If he and other communistic invasions of the went about among the lower classes he right of property, against which he in- would generally find great attachment on veighed as strongly as any one; but in the part of the peasantry to the resident Scotland, and above all in Prussia, the landlords. Instead of a reckless and imcountry of Stein and Hendenburgh, where provident set he would describe the landinfractions on proprietary rights might be lords as rather saving than wasting, and expected to be advocated, no such doc- as taking the greatest pains in the imtrines were maintained. It was grievance provement of their properties. If he had which gave birth to the demand for wild known the country for the last twenty-five and impracticable remedies, and grievances years he would remark the most notable if not redressed would make these remedies improvement in the cultivation of the land, appear less wild and less impracticable and of the stock on the land, and in the every day they were deferred. Now, it is dress and general deportment and besaid in England there are plenty of tenan-haviour of the people. He would tell you cies-at-will, and all goes well with them; but the difference is great; the English tenant is comparatively wealthy, his landlord has done everything for him, built, fenced, drained. If he goes out what does he leave behind him-not even a regret. But to the Irish tenant eviction is tantamount to ruin, expatriation, and the breaking up of every family tie; and the fear of this, the chance of this, made men rebels in thought if not in acts. Mr. James O'Connell last year made a speech at Killarney against the Fenians, and he said, "It is the greatest folly to talk of rebellion with butter at £4 the firkin." There was true wisdom in that observation-disaffection and misery and insecurity went hand in hand; and he would venture to say that if the system of leases were as prevalent in Ireland as the tenure-at-will, they would find almost every farmer in the country a special constable, unsworn indeed, but determined to protect those institutions under which he dwelt in safety, none making him afraid, and he (Mr. Gregory) would not modify that assertion, even by the fact of a farmer with a lease of forty acres having been shot when out with the Fenians some weeks ago. Now, let him (Mr. Gregory) take this opportunity of saying a few words as regards that class to which he belonged-namely, the landlords of Ireland. One would really ima gine from the speeches made and the articles written that the Irish landlords as a also that there is a landlord side as well as . a tenant side of the question. That much had been said of the improvements by tenants, but very little of the reckless and ruinous destruction of the land by tenants, and that if a balance were struck far more land was returned to the landlord deteriorated and worn out than had came back to him with improvements. He (Mr. Gregory) was bound to say that, if they exterminated the landlords, which had been so charitably and judiciously proposed, they would not oblige the tenants. There must be a landlord somewhere, and there was no fact more notorious, as he had said before, than that the new landlords under the Incumbered Estates Court had pressed more heavily on the tenants than the old. They, the landlords, had their faults—all classes had their faults-but extermination was a bad cure. He had never heard the extermination of the millowners proposed by the holders of land, because some of them practised and enforced the villanies of the truck system, or because some of them tried to reject the Ten Hours' Bill under the specious title of freedom of labour, which freedom of labour they knew in their hearts meant freedom to grow up like beasts-freedom to pine away an unhealthy youth-freedom to seek into an untimely grave. He (Mr. Gregory objected to being exterminated himself. He objected to the extermination of any class, because of the |