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House in the Bill of last year will be | other property in the soil, while on the expended. I very much doubt that, other side of the road is a man, who because of the nonsensical guarantees has purchased under the Ashbourne and the vexatious arrangements by Act, who gets his 25 or 30 per cent. reducwhich the advances are hedged round. tion in his annual payments, and at I admit that great good has accrued to the end of 49 years becomes absolute the tenant farmers of Ireland under the owner of his holding. No sensible man Ashbourne Act, or to that limited sec- can maintain that such a state of things tion who have been able to avail can continue. It may continue so long themselves of it. The number of as the tenant farmer is able to pay his tenant purchasers are limited by the rent; but when he finds himself unable amount of ten millions under that Act, to meet his judicial rent, then the but I would have the benefits of land anomaly comes home to him, and you purchase extended to the tenants of will have further agitation, which I Ireland as a whole. I do not wish to think will be generally admitted is not see those benefits restricted to a desirable in Ireland. I want to see the minority, who are in no way more Irish land question settled, but I see entitled to the benefits of the Act than no finality except in compulsory purthe majority who are excluded. While chase. I do not believe it is possible I admit the good that land purchase to continue a system of dual ownership. has done, I must allow that, on the When Parliament was passing the other hand, it has created many gross ameliorative measures for Irish tenants anomalies in every county in Ireland. it was not intended that the benefit This may seem a sweeping statement should fall only on the few; it was never to make to hon. Members who do not intended that land purchase should be know the social condition in Ireland as for some of the tenants of the Duke of we do, but let me point out that some of Abercorn or Lord Londonderry, or the the largest land proprietors in the Duke of Leinster, more than for the country-such as the Duke of Aber- tenants of the small proprietor who corn, the Marquess of Londonderry, and lives on his estate. It may be hard the Duke of Leinster, and others to compel a proprietor who lives have, under the Ashbourne Act, sold at home and looks after his land to the amount of £200,000 or estate to sell his land; but what I want £250,000; and these noblemen, in to do is to put all tenant-farmers in selling their land, sold just as much as Ireland upon a level, that, so far as their would relieve them from their mort- rent-paying capacity may go, they may gages and other encumbrances and have an incentive, an encouragement, in sold the least valuable parts of their the knowledge that, at the end of a estates no doubt and were go- certain term of years, they will become verned in the sales by the geo- owners of their holdings. Again and graphical position of the land. They again since 1870 we have been told would naturally sell the outlying that there is no way more effectual to portions of the land rather than create in the Irish farming class loyalty that contiguous to the residence. But to the English connection than to make how in fairness can such a distinction them owners of their farms. But how be made from the tenant's point of can you ever accomplish this except by view? Why should the man because powers of compulsory purchase? The he lives on the outlying portion of an hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. estate receive a benefit of from 25 to W. Russell) has said, with regard to Lord 30 per cent. reduction in his annual Clanricarde and landlords of that class, payments, and his neighbour living on that they ought to be compulsorily exthe better land receive no such benefit? propriated. I think the hon. Member Such a distinction cannot stand the said that a landlord like Lord Clanricarde test of time or the next serious wave of was a standing menace to the peace of agricultural depression. Think what Galway. But how can you expropriate a gross anomaly is created by one man such a landlord without some form of living on one side of a road paying his compulsory purchase? I certainly do full judicial rent without the slightest not see how you can, and it is because probability of his ever acquiring any I desire to see the expropriation of Mr. Kilbride

landlords of this class that I desire to | Amendment. I simply ask the House see some form of compulsory purchase to affirm the principle of compulsory adopted. I believe this advantage of purchase in the direction of these 20 or 30 per cent. is a mere lottery as Amendments. My Motion declares to who shall get it; and while the few that compulsory sale is just and exsuccessful men are well pleased, the pedient; the justice is found many disappointed feel a deeper in the fact that the present grievance as times of agricultural de- condition of affairs creates glaring pression come round, and so the effect anomalies and gross injustice. of your Land Purchase Act will be to It is a gross injustice that upon one encourage disaffection, not loyalty, and side of a roadway a farmer should to make men more anxious for separa- have to pay 30 per cent. more antion if there are those who desire sep- nually than his neighbour opposite. aration. It certainly is not a condition Compulsory purchase is expedient on of things calculated to promote the many grounds. It is expedient to maintenance of the Union. I am not remove an inequality among tenants wedded to any particular form of which is sure to breed discontent, more compulsory purchase; all I desire is an especially in large portions of Ulster, expression of opinion from Irish Mem- but in all the provinces of Ireland. It bers more especially and particularly is expedient also to create the largest from those representing Ulster consti- possible number of landowners tuencies. I think Ulster Members will Ireland; and this ought to have admit this is a burning question among especial weight with hon. Gentlemen their constituents. In other parts of on the other side, for ownership is supIreland we have succeeded in getting posed to check all radical and revoluconsiderable reductions of our judicial tionary ideas, and so I trust that hon. rents; but our brother farmers in the Members opposite will pledge themNorth, perhaps because of their loyalty, selves to support a comprehensive have not been equally successful. The scheme of land purchase which will benefit is, perhaps, measured by the turn all Irish tenant farmers into strong amount of agitation. But we want no Conservatives. distinction between farmers in the

in

(9.24.) MR. KNOX (Cavan, W.): North and South, and I am quite ready | In rising to second the Motion of my to advocate the interests of the Ulster hon. Friend, I feel bound to comment farmers apart from all political on the strange fact that for six years opinions. My Resolution goes in the past-perhaps excepting Home Rule direction of Amendments supported-compulsory sale of land has been last year in the discussions upon the Land Purchase Bill by Members from Ulster. I think an Amendment of this kind was proposed at the instance of considerable bodies of farmers in the North of Ireland. I remember seeing in the Lobby of the House a deputation of associations in Counties Down and Antrim, by whom this Amendment was supported. If I remember rightly, one proposal was that where two-thirds of the tenants on an estate paying threefourths of the rental desired to purchase then the Land Commission should be entitled to buy the whole estate at a fair price, and sell to the tenant purchasers, thus relieving the landlord from the trouble and expense of having a portion of his estate separated from the rest, and left on his hands. I do not desire to commit any hon. Member to this or any other

the question most actively discussed in
Ulster. It is a question upon which,
strange to say-though there are differ-
ences upon other matters-there is
practical unanimity among all tenants
North and South. It is a question upon
which differences of sect have not been
able to create any differences of opinion.
Nevertheless, this is the first occasion
upon which the House of Commons has
been called upon to discuss this question
of so much importance to the people of
Ireland. The reason for this fact is, I
believe, that until the Land Purchase
Act was passed last
that in bringing
before the House of

year, we felt this question Commons we

should be fighting "as one that

beateth the air"- we should have no practical grounds to go upon, for it is obvious it is not within the powers of private Members, even on a private

"Whilst anxious for the fullest development of Land Purchase in Ireland, this House cannot profitably consider or assent to any proposal for the application of a general system of compulsory sale which is not accompanied by adequate financial plans for the carrying out of the principle involved."

Members' night, to propose the grant | room or caroused at the Carlton. An of an enormous sum of public money. enormous sum has been ticketed But by the Act of last year Parliament off for land purchase, and we contend has made that enormous grant, and we that this should be properly applied. have now a clear case to put before the I agree with my hon. Friend beside House of Commons asking the House me in thinking that though the sums to decide, in principle, of course-not already voted by Parliament are not in detail on a Resolution that the enough to pay for holdings in Ireland, power of compulsory purchase is they are sufficient to go a long way necessary in order to apply this large towards the settlement of the Irish sum of money to the full benefit of Land Question if properly applied. Ireland. I notice, with some surprise, The amount which was voted by the that the hon. Member for South Tyrone Act last Session was not fixed. We (Mr. T. W. Russell) has put down cannot exactly say how much was the an Amendment to the effect that- actual Vote for the purpose of land purchase. Certain Estimates multiplied by 25 will give us the amount. These Estimates are Estimates which increase year by year; they had increased largely since the first calculation was made by the Government; and they will be increased still further by the Education Bill of the present Chief Secretary, which is now before the House of Commons, which will devote a further sum of over £200,000 a year to National Schools in Ireland. The effect indirectly of that measure will be to increase the fund for land purchase by £5,000,000 sterling. Therefore, we find the sum voted is a good deal more than £30,000,000, the popularly supposed amount. We find, according to the last Estimates, with the addition of the £200,000, that the amount which has been voted for land purchase is no less than £38,750,000. We have in addition to that £10,000,000 which has already been spent for the purpose of land purchase. Therefore, we have a sum of nearly £50,000,000 which has been devoted by Tory Governments for the purpose of land purchase in Ireland. That sum is almost exactly the same as that which the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, in 1886, supposed would be sufficient to settle the more pressing difficulties of the Irish Land Question. And if at that time, six years ago, the Government representing the British nation considered that £50,000,000 would be sufficient for the compulsory sale of land in Ireland by enabling the landlord to compel the tenant to buy, I venture to think that £50,000,000 is enough, at any rate, to enable us to apply the beginnings of

If I understand this Amendment rightly, the opinion of the hon. Member is that the House should not discuss a measure of compulsory sale unless it is proposed by a Minister of the Crown, who has the power of proposing that a large charge shall be made on the Revenues of the United Kingdom. In fact, it seems to be the object of the hon. Member for South Tyrone to put off the discussion until Doomsday. I can quite understand this. A discussion on this question is very awkward for the hon. Member. There are many of his constituents who, though they are in other questions keen supporters of the hon. Members, yet in this agree with us. I cannot, however, understand how the House can accept this Amendment, seeing how the House was occupied for the greater part of last Session. To read the Amendment, it might be supposed that the hon. Member for South Tyrone had forgotten the longdrawn discussions on the Purchase of Land and Congested Districts Ireland Bill.

Several months the House spent in discussing the Bill, and I think with some adequacy. The majority of Members of this House were heartily tired of the Bill, and sick of the sound of "cash" and " contingent guarantees." Nevertheless, at this distance of time the hon. Member for South Tyrone seems to have forgotten it all, though he was most diligent in attendance-the watch-dog of landlordism-while his landlord friends lounged in the smoking Mr. Knox

which would,

never

compulsory sale the other way round. | year, and That sum of £50,000,000 is not, I ven- theless, rank higher in the financial ture to think, an inadequate financial market. We have an instance in the Vote. We take no credit for the sum, case of the Corporation of Dublin. A except so far as it is due to the agita- little while after the Chancellor of the tion which compelled the Government Exchequer converted Consols, the to give the money. The money is voted, Member for West Belfast, then Lord and when we come before the House of Mayor of Dublin, converted the loans Commons and ask that, under the of the Corporation of Dublin with Land Purchase Act, the money already a loan at 3 per cent.; and while voted should be applied in this way, we the loan of the Chancellor of the think we are not going into the region Exchequer stands to-day at a discount of castles in the air, but that we are of five, the loan of the Corporation of bringing before the House of Commons Dublin stands to-day at a premium of proposals for the utilisation of sums five over and above the price at which it they have already set aside for this pur- was actually put on the market. I hope pose by Acts of the Imperial Parlia- the House will not be put aside from ment. Of course it would be easy to the discussion of the just claims of the make a calculation which would show tenants of Ireland by any well-woven that a still larger sum might be neces- web of financial speculation drawn out sary. I have great doubts of these by the hon. Member for South Tyrone. calculations, which are based merely on We do not ask the House in this Agricultural Returns, so-called, pre- Motion to pledge itself to any single sented to the House of Commons. We farthing of further grant for land purhave one case of real experience to chase beyond what has already been guide us-i.e., the number of holdings made; we merely ask them to assert which have been taken into Court the principle that those monies, having under the Fair Rent Clauses of been voted for the purpose of land the Act of 1881. Yet very little purchase, should really be applied to more than half the reputed number land purchase in Ireland. What has of holdings in Ireland have had been the effect of this Act? You have a fair rent fixed under the Act, and put before the eyes of the Irish tenant that after a period of ten years. We farmers the great prize of nearly find further, when we go into details, £40,000,000, but you have so hedged that we have to make many exceptions it round with safeguards and securities from the total number of holdings that the Irish tenant farmer, for before we arrive at the number to be the life of him, cannot get near purchased. In the first place, large it. Α man who may have found holdings are already excluded from the it hard enough to get on at his Land Purchase Act. Speaking for my-present rent finds this great grant of self, under a measure of compulsory purchase I would be prepared to see something further done in the way of excluding the large holdings. And even if this money already voted may be taken to be the last sums that are likely to be voted on Imperial security for the purpose, of land purchase, yet I say the resources of Ireland and the resources of any administrators or legislators for Ireland will not be exhausted. It is the fashion to laugh and scoff at the notion of Irish security. I say it would be possible on Irish security to give stock bearing not very much higher interest than the 2 per cent. borne by the stock issued under the Land Purchase Act of last

money removes him no further from starvation and debt, so that the effect of the great act of justice and mercy of the British Parliament is to add the tortures of Tantalus to the pains of starvation. You have simply put this great boon out of the reach of the Irish tenant farmer. The Amendment of my hon. Friend would bring it into reach. I ask the House on every ground to decide that it is expedient that this great sum should be used for this purpose. We have many arguments which we could use in favour of a measure of compulsion. In asking the House to apply compulsion in this way we move on the lines of well-considered English and Irish precedents, and we ask for an extension of a

principle already recognised. There is supported by the almost unanimous compulsion in the English Allotment voice of Liberals and even some Acts and in the Irish Labourers' Acts. Conservatives. There is a precedent There was compulsion in the Redemp- in Ireland which comes even nearer the tion of Rent Act of last Session. The point. We have a system of dual tenants who got the benefit of that ownership by landlord and tenant. But Bill were those who had taken land you have already given the landlord at a full agricultural rent for ever, the power of compulsorily expropriating who had feued their land. Those the other dual owner, the tenant, at a tenants usually had large holdings; price fixed by the Court. The Land they had their land for ever at a fixed Act of 1881 contains provisions rent, a rack-rent, no doubt, but that for the compulsory sale of the was a thing they could not foresee at tenant's interest in the land to the the time they took the land: in fact landlord on certain conditions. I they merely made a bad bargain. I ask ask why, if ten years ago you gave whether, if compulsory sale is per- one dual owner the right to expropriate mitted in that case, without providing the other, you should now refuse to means for every tenant in Ireland to the tenants of Ireland the right to buy his holding, it is not within the expropriate the landlords at a fair province of this House to assent to the price? There is another point of principle of compulsory sale in the case strong reality. It is is impossible of other tenants numerous enough to in many cases under the present take the whole of the money already system to arrange, by any voluntary voted? As to the Small Holdings Bill, arrangement, to sell holdings at a we find among Liberal Unionists and fair price in Ireland. If it was some Tories, as well as Liberals, a thought necessary to have compulsory general expression of opinion that sale before, it is much more necessary the great fault of the measure now. This argument has occurred to introduced by the many people, but no one has put it so well as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, who, speaking on the Land Purchase Bill in 1890, dwelt at considerable length upon the fallacy of supposing that a fair settlement could be arrived at by what was called voluntary arrangement. He said

Minister for Agriculture is that it contains no provisions for compulsory sale. I find from the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, of the hon. Member for Bordesley, and of some Conservatives, there was unanimity on the point that for England compulsion was necessary. And under what condition? Under the condition that the English County Councils might be allowed to break up the boundaries of existing holdings, and take the land in patches of fifty acres wherever they liked over the whole of the area of a county, and to take these holdings for the purpose of selling them out to tenants whom they were afterwards to find, and who had never been tenants before. If the County Council in England, having a number of landlords to choose from, would be unable to get land conveniently at a fair price, how much more impossible will it be for a poor Irish tenant, who can buy one plot of land, and one only, to make terms with the one landlord, and the one landlord only, who is in a position to sell to him? I cannot understand why this Vote should not be Mr. Knox

"As long as you allow these contracts under the name of voluntary engagements, the landlord can screw out of the tenant whatlandlord will do this, but there are many who ever terms he likes. I do not mean that every would. I am showing what we ought not to permit. We are placing in the hands of the landlord an instrument enabling him to enrich himself, and to obtain an excessive and exorbitant price for his land, in direct contravention of the intentions of Parliament. That is what Ulster is well aware of. Ulster is not deceived. Ulster sees into it. The tenants there are somewhat stronger than they are upon the average in Ireland; their position is a stronger position; but what is the language they hold? The language they hold is that if you want to have a useful Bill it must be not voluntary, but compulsory. The tenants must have the right to require that the purchase should take place. That is a very different demand, and it involves a very serious question. I am not going to give an opinion upon that ment, which I think irrefragable, that the subject now. I am pointing out by an argutenants, for the sake of whom we are going to pledge British credit, will be at the mercy of

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