"1 "3 tenant: or as Mr. Bright put it, "What we want to do and attempt to do partly by this Bill is to drive famine, and poverty and suffering and discontent, from Ireland:" Mr. Gladstone in introducing the Bill expressly declined "to enter into the economical part of the subject" of a peasant proprietary, since what he desired was "the political and social advantage of the people; "2 while similarly he laid stress on the "immense political advantage that has been found to attend the principle" of tenant right. Our discussion then may be limited to the question whether the means taken for this object were satisfactory when economically considered: we fully accept Mr. Gladstone's test and agree that the question is "what fruits we shall reap in the long future of a nation's existence :" but we are not so confident as he that "we cannot err" if our mere conception of "Justice is to be our guide" (p. 126). Were it so, we might dismiss the economic question altogether and leave the discussion of the Bill to moralists: but "bearing in mind that what is not economically true may be plausible but cannot be really satisfactory" we must turn to the actual provisions of the Bill. 4 86. The chief means for improving the position of the tenant is that set forth in the first section of the Act, which recognises the tenant's right subject to certain conditions of free sale of his interest in the holding. The proposal was supported by the expectation that the additional security thus given to the tenant would call forth greatly increased energy on his part, since he would be secure in enjoying the fruits of his labours. Mr. Errington put the 1 Mr. W. E. Forster, 3 Hansard, cclx. 935. 23 Hansard, cclx. 918. 3 Ibid. cclx. 903. 4 Ibid. cclx. 926. matter most clearly: "What the Bill did was to liberate a capital at present locked up and unavailable, and which was in abeyance between landlord and tenant. The landlord had the legal right; but in most cases he neither could nor would exercise it, and most landlords thought they ought not to do so. On the other hand, almost all authorities in Ireland as well as in England, admitted that the equitable right vested in the tenant; but he of course could not use it except on sufferance. It was, therefore, in its present condition useless to every one, and it was certain that so long as things remained as they were the landlord would never use it. What they proposed in the Bill was to call that right out of abeyance in favour of the tenant in whom vested the equitable right." There is undoubtedly a great mass of evidence to show that many tenants have improved their holdings wonderfully, and to raise the expectation that if they had more security they would do so to a much greater extent: but we may remark once more in passing that the conclusion rests on an argument of a kind which has been already noted as characterised by great uncertainty (p. 131), for it depends on probabilities as to the effects of certain changes on human disposition and character. Security is a negative condition without which great energy cannot be expected, but it does not necessarily follow that greater security will of itself call forth greater energy. It is even possible, as the critics of the Poor Law tell us, that a measure of security will render a man idle; we might argue that security gives a man a chance to show what is in him, and the industrious becomes more diligent, and the idle idler : to prove it a generally satisfactory remedy it would have been necessary to dispose of Mr. Mitchell Henry's asser13 Hansard, cclxi. 64. R tion that "all history taught them that amongst the class that was favoured by the legislation of the moment there would be the thrifty and the idle.”1 Admitting however that the probabilities favoured the opinions of those who held that greater security would favour the investment by the tenants of greater energy in the cultivation of their holdings, it must be admitted that the form in which this security was given, was open to strong objection. By recognising a tenant's interest in his holding as a saleable property, the Land Act conferred upon him facilities for borrowing which he had not previously possessed. Nor is this an imaginary evil; the Irish peasantry have suffered much from the extortion of dealers who supplied them with meal, advanced them the seed for their land, or took off their butter and produce, and occasionally gave them money loans at exorbitant interest; and this evil seemed to be increasing. Mr. W. H. Smith stated that "it had come to his notice that many of those small tenants had been enabled in the early years after the Land Act to obtain credit. It was supposed that they were richer while in fact they were only spending money. They contracted debts till after a time the power of obtaining credit ceased, and their small properties were swallowed up by the money-lenders. . . The end was that they were worse off than ever; and it appeared to him that, as far as those small tenants were concerned, if the Bill gave them a new interest in their holdings, the same thing would happen again that had followed the passing of the Act of 1870. They would obtain credit and for a time would appear more prosperous; but sooner or later disastrous harvests would occur again, their credit would be exhausted, and it would again be the 13 Hansard, cclxi. 343. sad duty of England to endeavour to save the perishing people from starvation." Still more striking evidence was given by Mr. Brodrick from that part of Ireland where similar rights had long existed. "Side by side with the prosperity of Ulster 2 had grown up a system of indebtedness the extent and importance of which it was difficult to exaggerate. A gentleman managing 70,000 acres had said that the indebtedness of tenants in Ulster was so great that they paid more to the usurers than to the landlords. He had himself seen an advertisement of a wholesale stationer in Ulster, who said that at present he made up five times as many bill-books for the entry of accounts as he had done before the Act of 1870 had passed." But the Act not only thus gave facilities for borrowing, but it increased the temptation to borrow money on the part of a tenant who wished to purchase his holding; or on the part of an incoming tenant who might have to pay exorbitantly for the tenant right, and who though he might have the means of recovering his capital when he left the holding, would not have the use of it for improving his holding during his tenancy. No answer was attempted to these prognostications of evil, and indeed Mr. Gladstone appeared to congratulate himself on the fact that the peasants “having the tenant right they will have something on which they can borrow." 3 Of course this objection rests on the same doubtful kind of argument as to the probable effects on the average human character of certain changes in status and legal right; we may admit that the power of borrowing is an advantage to the prudent man, while it may be a danger either to the over-sanguine or the very poor; at 13 Hansard, cclx. 1575. 3 Ibid. cclx. 919. the same time it was sufficiently clear that the danger was a real and increasing one in Ireland which might counteract the good effects of the additional security conferred on tenants by the bill. 87. In order to secure the tenant's interest still further it seemed necessary to provide that the landlord should charge a fair rent, as otherwise the tenant's property might be "nibbled" away by the landlord raising his rent,1 until the value of his interest was destroyed; and it was stated that some landlords had rendered the Act of 1870 nugatory by adopting this course. It was therefore held necessary to create a tribunal through the action of which the fair rents might be assessed, to remain unaltered for fifteen years. The greatest controversies raged round the subject of fair rents, and the meaning of that phrase. 2 in Two difficulties were felt; that of finding out what was fair, and that of having it fixed for just the period of fifteen years. Mr. Law held "that a fair rent was a competition [rack] rent minus the yearly value of the tenant's interest in his holding. . . . To find out what belonged both to the landlord and to the tenant, it was necessary to have recourse to the standard of competition : other words the landlord's rent was to be taken as the highest he could get in open market, and the yearly value of the tenant's interest as estimated from the sum it would fetch in the market-being subtracted, the remainder would prove a fair rent, and would approximate to the rents charged by good landlords at the time. The defect in this estimate was that no account was taken of the changed conditions of competition which were introduced by fixing rents for a considerable period. The 1 Mr. Law, 3 Hansard, cclx. 1394. 2 Ibid. cclxx. 1399, 1400. |