land hunger had hitherto forced up the competition-value of rents enormously, and had had comparatively little effect on the competition-value of tenant right; but if the rent was fixed for so many years certain, the effect of the land hunger would operate in the way of raising the value of tenant right without affecting the rents at all. Competition was destroyed as affecting rents, while it operated on the price of rights, and the attempt to take it as a guide in determining what was fair was obviously illusory. On the other hand if competition-prices were no longer available, a fair rent could only be assessed by setting a valuator to estimate what it was possible for a man to live on, when the size and quality of his holding were taken into account, and then allowing the landlord to have the rest of the produce as rent. There was therefore much force in Mr. Balfour's contention that "what the Bill was really attempting was to fix the standard of living for Irish labourers. A large proportion of the farmers were really in the position of labourers. To fix their rents was really equivalent to fixing the amount of wages they were to receive. In parts of Ireland the tenants had no capital, and any law regulating the rents they paid was really a law regulating wages." Now the State regulation of wages may or may not be a good thing, we have contended above (p. 71) that it was not such a bad thing in this country as is often supposed but of State regulation of wages without any provision for the State regulation of work we have had no experience, and it would be very hard to argue that it would serve as a means of stimulating to greater industry.

1

We have thus passed to the second point, that of fixing rents for fifteen years: but it was obvious that all 13 Hansard, cclx. 1612.

the conditions of competition for holdings, especially in the face of the development of American farming, might alter in fifteen years, and the opposition of the Land League to the Bill was based on the ground that the rent assessed might easily come to be unfair; in the same way prices might so alter that the possibility of living by a holding and the whole standard of comfort should alter during that period. Indeed the attempt to set a fixed rent of this kind by calculation was never made in those ages when the prices of most commodities and the reward of labour were fixed by rarely altered customs (p. 31). The value of corn or other agricultural produce must vary with the seasons: no attempt was ever made to fix its price, but only to secure conditions in which the competition by which its price was fixed should be fair. Where men lived at a quit rent, this was indeed fixed, but fixed with reference to the value of the services they no longer paid, not with reference to the produce of their land. Competition with all its uncertain incidents was sure to come in sooner or later, and to render any attempt to fix what was fair, in the hope that it would continue to be fair, absurd. If the tenant is a substantial man who bargains freely, he can take the risks of these changes in bidding for a lease: if he is a poor man on a yearly tenancy he may rely on his landlord as a wealthy man exercising some forbearance and waiting till better times: but there was room for doubt whether the Irish oocupier would be sufficiently prosperous to bear up against temporary losses, and whether the landlords would be as willing as before to submit to temporary inconvenience.

The Act however became law without the removal of those difficulties, or much explanation as to the principles by which the tribunal were to be guided in attempting

the difficult task of fixing fair rents. It became increasingly obvious as the bill proceeded, that in whatever way the fair rents were fixed a measure of loss would fall upon the landlords-on one side the operation of competition for tenant rights without competition for holdings would alter the terms of bargains to their disadvantage; on the other, if calculation were resorted to, rents would have to be calculated at a rate which would enable the tenant to bear the loss from bad seasons: by either process farms would be put at a low rent. Mr. Gibson estimated the possible loss of rent at about onethird but the promoters of the measure denied that this result would follow: in introducing it Mr. Gladstone had borne testimony to "the good conduct of the great proportion of the landlords: "2 Mr. Forster expressed his anticipation that "upon the low-rented and a great many of the moderately-rented estates, according to the Irish acceptation of the term, the rent would be raised." On this ground the promoters of the Bill rejected all admission of a claim to compensation: "the English law in the matter depends upon whether damage can be proved, and my firm belief is that no damage can be proved; on the other hand that if the landlord were compensated you would compensate him for conferring on him a benefit." Since this was the opinion of the promoters of the Bill, they certainly committed a tactical error in not providing some means of compensation in those exceptional cases where the landlord could prove damage, as the expense would not have been rated high, and the opposition to the measure would have been greatly disarmed, both in its passage through the house, and in its reception by the

13 Hansard, cclx. 1092. 3 Ibid. cclx. 1160.

2 Ibid. cclx. 892.

4 Mr. A. Grey, 3 Hansard, cclxi. 1390.

landlords of Ireland. Such a provision, and such a provision only, would have taken the edge off the accusation of confiscation.

But whether this Bill would limit the rents of landlords or not, it undoubtedly restricted their legal powers, -legal powers which according to Mr. Gladstone had been on the whole well and wisely used: we may well inquire into the probable effect of the limitation of these rights. In the first place the fact that the landlord was precluded from raising his rents except at stated intervals, would interfere with his receiving an immediate return for his money; while the fact that his ultimate return would depend directly or indirectly on the terms fixed by Commissioners as fair, deprived him of his power of holding out for the terms he thought necessary to repay him. This would be likely to militate both against his investing money in the estate, and against his trying as a resident landlord to exercise any control over his tenantry. The Portsmouth estates which were held up as a model were conducted on this principle, and thus for the first time in Irish history the non-resident proprietor who never spent a shilling on his land was held up as a model whom others were to imitate.1 There was undoubtedly a fair case for arguing that since human beings are what they are, the tendency of the measure would be to induce Irish landlords to sink less capital in their land and exercise less care over their estates than ever. Now whether they had spent much or little, whether what they spent had been their own or borrowed from the State, this was an evil so far as it went. Anything that diverted capital from Ireland would aggravate the evils of the country by providing less employment for labour in industries or works, and thus 1 Mr. Brodrick, 3 Hansard, cclx. 75.

increasing the land hunger. That the want of employment was the root from which the land hunger arose was admitted on all sides, and no attempt was made to show that the diminution of the landlord's rights, apart altogether from the possible diminution of his rents, would not tend in that direction.

By limiting the opportunities for eviction too, the powers of the landlord were limited in another direction: the power of eviction had been the instrument by which he was able to prevent the subdivision of holdings: one of the great curses of the country was the readiness of the Irishman to settle on a holding which was utterly inadequate for supplying him and his with the barest support: and it was incumbent on the promoters of the bill to show how they purposed to exercise this influence when the power of the landlords to evict was so greatly limited.

88. It thus appears that in its economic aspects the Bill of 1881 was difficult to justify the whole argument pro and con., turned on the probabilities of human action. under certain conditions (p. 131), but the possible gain from security of tenure was purchased at the risk of increasing the possible losses from a development of usury, a diminution of employment, and the removal of the practical restriction on the subdivision of holdings. There is no evidence that the promoters of the measure recognised the existence of any of these dangers or made serious efforts to guard against them.

But even granting the unwarrantable, because unstated assumption of the promoters that increased security of tenure was worth purchasing despite these risks, it was certainly incumbent upon them to show that none of the other proposals for securing the tenant's interest were