THE ENGLISH GARRISON'

Lastly, there remains one other blessing which our Irish Land Acts have conferred upon us. It has been said over and over again that the Irish landlords are the English garrison. The fact is to a certain extent true, but the conclusion which has been deduced from it is a strange one. The principle that the sole use of a British garrison is to abandon and betray it has not yet been universally accepted, though from the days of Khartoum downwards it has found, no doubt, an increasing number of adherents. To many it would seem that if the necessities of the State compel Parliament to inflict upon Irish landlords a treatment which is meted out to no other class in the community, it is the peculiar and obvious duty of the State to give the fullest and most liberal measure of compensation to those whom it is compelled to interfere with. Among all the dangers that threaten us in Ireland, perhaps none is greater than that which we have made for ourselves. We have many enemies in Ireland; we have had them long, and we have not been much the worse. But if the day ever come when we add to the list of our enemies the gentry of Ireland, who, despite all contradiction, are the true leaders of Irish society, and if they become our enemies because we have treated them meanly and unjustly, we shall be face to face with a danger greater than any which has yet confronted us.

It is idle to contend, as some persons do, that the fact that there have been large voluntary reductions of rent in England furnishes an absolute justification for all the reductions made by the Land Commissioners in Ireland. In the first place, the circumstances of Ireland in this, as in so many other particulars, are different from those of England, and the value of agricultural property in one country is by no means a certain criterion of its value in the other. But quite apart from these considerations there is the fact that the reductions in one case are compulsory and permanent, and that as long as human nature remains what it is there can be no analogy whatever between a voluntary gift and a surrender under compulsion. This distinction, which indeed seems elementary, would be appreciated by Englishmen with extraordinary rapidity the moment an attempt was made to try upon them the experiment they have so lightly inflicted upon Irishmen.

And while on the special subject of the landlords and the treatment they have received, a word may be said with regard to the extraordinary inconsistency of our dealings with the owners of land on the one hand, and their tenants on the other. At this moment there are many landlords whose estates are subject to incumbrances. It is fashionable to sneer at the folly and improvidence of men who have incumbered their estates. The taunt is a peculiarly foolish one, for it is probable that there are not five men in a hundred in any rank of

life in the United Kingdom who have not at one time or another borrowed money on the security of their property in land or goods, their personal reputation, their labour, or their skill. The man who does not occasionally use his capital as the security for an advance, is not a very wise one. The improvident man is he who pledges his security for more than it is worth. The Irish landlords and their predecessors raised charges on their land, many of them for most excellent purposes, and the value of the land at the time was fully sufficient to cover the charges and to leave a surplus. The British Government has now stepped in, and by a series of operations unknown in any civilised country, and therefore not to be anticipated, has for the benefit of the State made enormous and permanent reductions in the value of the landlord's property. It has done more-it has strictly forbidden him to test the value of his property by the ordinary method of offering it for sale to those who wish to purchase it. To the tenant, on the other hand, the Government has given the enormous advantage of the Imperial credit, which enables him to buy the property which the landlord is compelled to sell, with money at per cent. Meanwhile the landlord, who is met at every turn by éxceptional laws directed against his interest, finds that the laws which regulate his own outgoings are enforced with the most punctual regularity, and that if he desire to pay off the incumbrances upon his estate, he must borrow the money, if he can borrow it at all, at 4, 5, or 6 per cent. interest, and is forbidden to look to the State for the loan of a farthing. At this moment there are hundreds of landlords who have hitherto managed to live upon the margin of rent which they still receive. The reductions which have now become the fashion will sweep away the whole of these margins, and will leave the landlords with a debit balance, and utterly unable to meet the interest on their incumbrances. In other words they will be absolutely ruined. The equity of enabling the landlords to borrow money on Government security for the discharge of the whole or a part of their incumbrances is so obvious that it may safely be assumed it will not commend itself to a British Cabinet.

3

THE WAY OUT, BACK AGAIN'

We have now enumerated some of the consequences of the amazing remedy for Irish disorders which Parliament in its wisdom has adopted. It would be hard to conceive a more unsatisfactory and unpromising result. And depressing as is the result itself, the attitude which many Englishmen have thought fit to adopt in regard to it is more depressing still. Those who are most ready to admit and deplore the evil are often the most ready to submit without protest to its indefinite prolongation. We are in presence,' they say, 'of a fait accompli; what is done cannot be undone. The Act of

6

1870 was bad, the Act of 1881 is worse, but we cannot go back upon them.' This is a counsel of despair, and the sooner it is abandoned the better. We must go back on this legislation. We must repudiate it; we must admit that it was legislation for the hour and the emergency only, not for the daily life and the ordinary needs of a civilised people. If we do not, the penalty is certain. In Ireland the reign of the attorney will be for ever prolonged; litigation is already becoming the only profitable industry; it bids fair to survive all others. The ill feeling between classes, which it is our professed object to remove, will and must continue, if it does not become aggravated. The weary task of fixing sham values by the aid of sham courts, which we are beginning over again, will have to be renewed, at ever-shortening intervals, in sæcula sæculorum. The infinite series of additional land bills with which we are threatened will engage and waste the time of the Imperial Parliament. But the mischief which will be done in Ireland will be insignificant in comparison to that which will assuredly be inflicted upon Great Britain. Once admit that the principles and the practice of the Irish land laws are anything but rules for a state of siege, hasty expedients to meet an emergency, and we thereupon accept them as reasonable bases for the laws of a civilised community. Every departure from common honesty and from true economy which the Irish Land Code contains will be cited here, and justly cited, as the foundation for new claims and new methods, not in regard to land only, but in regard to every other form of property. The English members, who with such a light heart have given carte blanche to successive governments to play the mischief in Ireland and in Ireland only, will find to their cost that the principles to which they have so wantonly given their adherence will come back and will grow with a vigour which will astonish them in English soil. It is, therefore, not only desirable, it is essential, that the whole system of Irish land tenure as it now exists should be destroyed. Dual ownership must cease to exist. The land courts must be abolished and men once more allowed to earn their living with some confidence in the future. Purchasethe one and only method by which we can escape from our present difficulty—must be made easy, universal, and just. Sir William Harcourt pretends to be shocked at the idea of purchase being proposed by those who are supporters of the Union and the cause of law. To buy out the landlords is to buy out the English garrison. But to keep a garrison in an enemy's town after you have deprived that garrison of its leaders, of its arms, and its organisation, is a folly which should be apparent even to an enemy like Sir William Harcourt.

PURCHASE

Moreover, there is no reason whatever why an honest scheme of purchase should not give the same facilities to the landlord to become

VOL. XL-No. 235

BB

the purchaser of the tenant's interest as are now accorded to the tenant who wishes to purchase the interest of his landlord. Lastly, there must be no more Land Acts of the pattern of 1887 and 1896, Acts which in themselves are makeshifts of the poorest kind, which solve no problem, which bring us to no goal, and which, above all, are calculated not to facilitate but to postpone that extension of purchase to which, and to which alone, we can look for a real remedy for some of the troubles of Ireland. As to how purchase shall be effected, that is another matter. There are various ways in which the object can be accomplished; but, whatever method be selected, success can only be hoped for if certain essential features of the situation are recognised at the outset. It must be recognised that the only justification for such a step is a national emergency. If the measure be attempted in a petty spirit of animosity against any particular class, and be made the opportunity for giving effect to the prejudices and the hatreds of one section of the community, it will fail, and it will deserve to fail. Sir George Trevelyan, Mr. Byles, late of the Shipley Division, and others of their way of thinking, have announced that though the skies may fall they will never give a penny to the Irish landlords.' That is the language of spite, not of statesmanship. To begin with, whatever the Irish landlord has done or left undone, he has acted in strict accordance with the laws which the Imperial Parliament, it may almost be said the Parliament of England, has enacted. Every law up to a comparatively recent date has been made in the supposed interests of England, and the landlords have done precisely what every other British subject would do under similar circumstances, lived and acted under the law as he found it; some wisely and well, some ill and unwisely. The basis of purchase must be a generous recognition of the landlords' rights, and an admission of the iniquity of atoning for the errors of a nation by the sacrifice of individuals.

There is good reason to believe that not even the most extreme members of the Separatist party in Ireland are anxious to ruin the landlords, provided that purchase can be effected; the opposition to a reasonable scheme will not come from them.

ULSTER AND THE NEW LAND ACT

There is, moreover, a special reason why the terms of purchase should be generous. It is one of the many blessings of our Irish land legislation that it has invariably rewarded bad men, and inflicted special disabilities on good men. The murderer, the perjurer, the boycotter have found their respective professions pay. The rogue can point with satisfaction to the indisputable truth that roguery has proved to be the best policy. And now in Ulster, and to a limited extent in other parts of Ireland, we are face to face with the fact that

tenants are being denied the benefits of the purchase clauses simply because they have been honest, industrious men, who have earned and paid their rents. Landlords who by their forbearance, their good sense, and their enterprise have made their properties valuable, are threatened with confiscation because other men, less provident and less well behaved, have brought down prices in the South and West. Indeed, the condition of affairs in Ulster is the only real excuse for the Bill of the present Session. The Bill itself is full of the most patent absurdities. It is part of a system which is replete with injustice and pregnant with failure. But certain rough considerations of equity seemed to require its passage. If after the storming of Badajoz the Duke of Wellington had given permission to the Portuguese troops and to the King's German Legion to sack the city, but had forbidden the British troops to take part in the operation, there would have been a certain amount of injustice in the prohibition. There would have been something to be said for allowing the British soldier to 'go in' with his comrades. But even that would not have furnished a good argument for sacking towns as a general principle; still less for plundering a city which happened to be occupied by your friends.

It is permissible to claim that the provisions of the Land Acts should be extended to Ulster without admitting that the Land Acts are either wise, just, or expedient.

But to return to the question of purchase. The terms on which compulsory purchase is based must be sufficiently generous to prevent gross injustice. If necessary, the State, which hopes to reap the benefit, must bear at least a portion of the cost. To the tenant should be given the first option, or rather to him should be transferred the fee of his holding subject to the rent-charge. But facilities should also be given to the landlord, and he should be encouraged and enabled to purchase their tenant-rights from his tenants by agreement. To achieve this object money should be advanced to the landlord on the same terms as to the tenant; the security will be as great, probably greater, and the Exchequer cannot suffer. If it does suffer, the loss will not be comparable to the expenditure past and future upon the paraphernalia of land courts, land commissions, and all the complications and miseries which have followed in their train.

Purchase once made universal, what will follow? Not necessarily peace, not necessarily prosperity; but, at any rate, the chance, the possibility of peace and prosperity. We cannot produce either of those blessings by Act of Parliament, but we can refrain from making their attainment impossible. Is it not at least worth while to try the experiment?

H. O. ARNOLD-FORSTER.