of the tithe rent-charge which was paid to the Government by the landlord. They strengthened their case by reminding the ministers that before 1872 the tithe rent-charge could be revised every seven years, according to the price of corn, which was then much higher than at the time they wrote; that before 1838 the tithe was paid by the occupier, and not by the owner, and that the duty of paying it, or, as it was then said, collecting it, was transferred in that year to the landlord, on the understanding that he could recoup himself in the rent. This rent was now arbitrarily reduced, and the landlord had lost all power over it.
The other suggestion was, that Government might lend money at low interest to pay off the heavy charges which rested on Irish land, and which had been incurred on the faith of legal rights that were now destroyed. Great sums had been already advanced in Ireland for public purposes on such terms, and it was noticed that this policy had very recently been adopted in Russia to relieve the embarrassments of the Russian landlords. As the normal rate of interest on charges on Irish property was little, if at all, below 5 percent., and as, with Imperial credit, State loans might be granted at an annuity not exceeding 3 1/2 percent., repaying capital and interest in about sixty-five and a half years, this measure would have very materially lightened the burden, and probably saved many landlords and many creditors from ruin.45
Such proposals, however, never had the least chance of being accepted. It was certain that the Liberal party, which now depended on the National League, would be steadily opposed to them, and it was quite powerful enough to prevent them. There was, indeed, a melancholy unreality about all such discussions. The two parties moved on different planes. Arguments of justice, precedents, clear statements by Liberal leaders, were put forward by the representatives of the Irish landlords, but every politician knew in his heart that the real question was one of votes and power, and political power had passed away from the Irish landlords.
It is not necessary to follow this story any further, and to describe the almost annual attempts that have been made to grant, through political pressure, to the occupying class in Ireland a larger share of the property of the nominal owners. It cannot be denied that this legislation has redressed some hard cases and benefited a large number of tenants; and as few men look beyond immediate consequences, or rightly estimate those which are indirect and remote, this fact is accepted by many as its justification. For my own part, I believe that it will one day be found that the evils resulting from this policy have greatly outweighed its benefits, and that they will fall far more heavily on another class than on the small class which was directly injured. In a poor country, where increased capital, improved credit, and secure industry are the greatest needs, it has shaken to the very basis the idea of the sanctity and obligation of contract; made it almost impossible to borrow any considerable sum on Irish land; effectually stopped the influx of English gold; paralysed or prevented nearly all industrial undertakings, stretching into a distant future. It has reacted powerfully upon trade, and thus contributed to impoverish the Irish towns, while it has withdrawn the whole rental of Ireland from the improvement of the soil, as the landlord can have no further inducement or obligation to spend money on his estate. In combination also with the Home Rule movement it has driven much capital out of the land. Probably only a small portion of the money which is now received for the sale of land under the Government Acts is invested in Ireland. Prudent men have learned the wisdom of placing their savings, and at least a portion of their realised property, outside a country where the dominant political influences are on the side of dishonesty; where the repudiation of debts and the intimidation of creditors have become leading features of popular politics; where the protection of property and the administration of justice may one day fall into the hands of the authors of the ‘No Rent Manifesto’ and of the Plan of Campaign.
Under such conditions, the difficulty of establishing any system of safe and honest self-government has been immensely aggravated. Ireland must indeed be greatly changed if the withdrawal from her country districts of the presence and influence of her most educated class proves a real benefit; if local institutions are more wisely and honestly administered by passing from the hands of country gentlemen into the hands of the professional politician; if the labourer and smaller tenant find it to their advantage to be more directly under the power of farmers, gombeen men, and local attorneys. Fair rents and free sale, as has been often observed, are mutually destructive, and after a few sales the burden of interest paid to the money-lender will be far heavier than the rent which was taken from the landlord; while the conflict between the farmer and the labourer is likely to reproduce in an aggravated form the conflict between the landlord and the farmer.
Three things, indeed, may be confidently asserted about Irish rents. The first is, that it has never been the custom of the great body of Irish landlords to exact the full competitive rents from their tenants, although a considerable minority have done so. The second is, that it has been the invariable practice of Irish tenants, in selling to one another their tenant-right and in subletting plots of ground to their labourers, to demand the full competitive price. The third is, that in order to make the system of what is practically rack-rent general, no better way could be devised than the recent land legislation. If you give the tenant fixity of tenure at a judicially fixed rent which is considerably below the market price, and at the same time give him a practically unlimited power of selling his tenancy with no restriction of price, the result must be two rents— one paid to the landlord, the other paid to the money-lender in the shape of interest on the money borrowed to purchase the tenant-right. And these two combined will represent the extreme value of the land.
The moral effects on the Irish people of the land legislation and of the agitation that produced it have been still more pernicious. If we ask what are the chief services that a Government can render to national morals, we shall probably obtain different answers. Some men will place the greatest stress on the establishment by the State of the religion which they believe to be true; on the infusion into national education of a large measure of religious teaching; on laws restraining private vices or controlling trades, institutions, or amusements that may produce them. On all these points there may be much controversy about the true province of the State, and there is probably much exaggeration about the good that it can do. To me, at least, the first and greatest service a Government can render to morals seems to be the maintenance of a social organisation in which the path of duty and the path of interest as much as possible coincide; in which honesty, industry, providence, and public spirit naturally reap their rewards, and the opposite vices their punishment. No worse lesson can be taught a nation than that violence, intimidation, conspiracy, and systematic refusal to pay debts are the natural means of rising to political power and obtaining legislative concessions. No worse habit can be implanted in a nation than that of looking for prosperity to politics rather than to industry, and forming contracts and incurring debts with the belief that a turn of the political wheel may make it possible to cancel them.
It is, indeed, a curious and melancholy study to trace the effects of recent legislation on different classes in Ireland. The landlords who have suffered least have probably been those who simplified their properties by the wholesale evictions, the harsh clearances, that too often followed the Famine. Next in the scale came those who exacted extreme rack-rents from their tenants. Those rents had been received for many years, and though they were ultimately more reduced than rents which had always been low, they still, in innumerable cases, remained somewhat higher than the others. The large class who regarded land simply as a source of revenue, and, without doing anything harsh, or extortionate, or unjust, took no part or interest in its management, have suffered very moderately. It is the improving landlord, who took a real interest in his estate, who sank large sums in draining and other purposes of improvement, who exercised a constant and beneficent influence over his tenants, who has suffered most by the legislation that reduced him to a mere powerless rent-charger, and in most cases rendered the sums he had expended an absolute loss. As I have already noticed, the careless and slovenly farmer had his rent more reduced than the farmer who, by good cultivation, had maintained his farm at its full value. An Arrears Act was carried conferring great benefits on the farmer who had allowed his rent to fall many years into arrear, but doing nothing for the farmer who, by steady, conscientious industry, had in bad times honestly paid his way. Even the land purchase Acts, though they are by far the most valuable parts of recent Irish land legislation, had a similar
