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standard as yourselves. I demand that you will not lay down a rule of this kind, and say-This is good enough for Ireland. The Irish people differ from the English. There is a positive incapacity in the Irish landlord to deal with his tenants by contract, and in the Irish tenant to take care of himself by contract. The Scotch and English are able to do it. Therefore the true system shall be reserved as a privilegium for them, but the Irish shall not be able to attempt it; because we shall put a clause in an Act of Parliament to prevent it.""

Dr. Ball's speech closed the first day of the debate, which was opened by Mr. Bryan and Captain White, who moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. It became evident at once that no serious opposition would be offered to the second reading, and that the measure would only be dealt with in committee.

Mr. Chichester Fortescue, in the first day's debate, claimed for the Bill that, of all the land bills laid before the House, it was the simplest in machinery. He reviewed the previous attempts that had been made to legislate upon the dangerous subject, and then explained and justified the course taken by the Government with reference to the Ulster custom. They had deliberately preferred not to define it, in all its incidents and conditions, but to direct the Courts constituted under the Bill to enforce it in every case in the form in which it should be found existing. In legislating for the other part of the country the two essential elements of the customsecurity of tenure and compensation for improvements—had been kept in view. Tenants were placed in a position of security by a method going far beyond anything ever proposed before, and for the first time it gave him a right to compensation even if he had made no improvements. As to improvements, the tenant would be able to realise at any time what he had himself spent on the land, or what he had paid on entry. With regard to the second part of the Bill, he believed it would place a fair number of occupants in possession of land, and would strengthen the middle class of Ireland. It was obvious how much further the present Bill went than any previous one, and Mr. Fortescue claimed for it that it would more or less succeed in putting all tenants on the same footing as existing tenants of really good. landlords, with the additional protection that they would not be liable to any reverse of fortune through the succession of a bad landlord or the sale of the estate. In conclusion he assured the House that the Bill had been framed upon the most careful considerations of the facts and wants of Irish life, and after a thorough examination of all former efforts that had been made to solve the great problem.

Mr. Ward Hunt disapproved the whole of the legalization of the Ulster custom as the perpetuation of a bad system, and objected to the new presumption of law that improvements had been made by tenants. The materials were very often found by the landlord. He denied that compensation for the loss of occupancy could be just or equitable in principle; it was "a subtraction from the property of the

landlord." If it was argued that the landlord instead of compensation could offer a lease, then a contract was to be extorted from him, the tenure of which he was not at liberty to define. He did not object to compensation for improvements, or to the purchase of estates on behalf of tenants, but he held that the whole Bill would produce endless litigation.

Mr. Maguire, while supporting the second reading, insisted much on the amendments in Committee, and gave many telling instances of the effect of insecurity even under good landlords.

The Attorney-General (Sir R. Collier) replied to the objection that Ireland was degraded by a treatment which was (legally speaking) too barbarous for England, and maintained that it was the aim of the Bill to produce in Ireland the same results which the English law had already produced in England.

Mr. Moore thought the Bill did not "carry out adequately its own good intentions; good intentions were said to form the pavement of a place that was once offered to the Irish people as an alternative for Connaught; he hoped there was no danger of a similar issue in the present case;" and the O'Donoghue referred to the proceedings of the members who opposed the Bill as "the gambols of excited patriots."

Mr. C. S. Read and Mr. Henley took opposite views of the clause giving compensation for eviction, the former holding that it would operate in favour of the lenient landlord, the latter that it was a direct premium on stinginess in the landlord. Mr. Read argued that the rack-rented tenant, who lost least by eviction, would get most, but believed that the Bill would, on the whole, do a great deal of good. Mr. Henley objected to all the principles of the Bill, thought the disturbance clause unjust, and the compensation clauses unjust and injurious.

The Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Dowse) argued that the Bill carefully provided that the arbitration of judges who were to award compensation for eviction not only might, but ought to, take into account the whole circumstances of the tenancy, abate compensation for every past boon of the landlord's, and raise it towards its maximum in all cases where the landlord could be shown to have dealt hardly with his tenant in times past.

Mr. Horsman eulogized the Bill in the highest terms; describing it as less an amendment of the law than the foundation of a system, made necessary by the condition of Ireland, which he described in vigorous language. The perils of property were far more conspicuous than its rights or enjoyments. The statute law was superseded by the law of the secret societies; the policeman was appealed to in vain for protection, while the assassin's arm was always ready when invoked. The Government had done wisely and well; and their Bill dealt successfully with the three complaints of the Irish tenant. It made evictions next to impossible, it secured compensation for improvements, and it discouraged rack-renting. It went further than any of its predecessors in the interest of the

tenant, and whatever sacrifice it required from the landlord would be cheaply purchased by the security that it would give him for life and property. He expected that it would go far to restore tranquillity to Ireland, but insisted that the second reading would cast on the Government the responsibility of accompanying it with supplementary measures for the better protection of life and property. The same lesson was enforced in strong language by

Sir Roundell Palmer, who, on this occasion, may be said to have made himself the spokesman of the moderate Conservatives, pronouncing the Bill "large and important, but not revolutionary," but at the same time "a humiliating necessity." "It is absolutely necessary," he said, "for the success of the Bill, that these disorders should be put an end to. It would be a mockery to talk of justice; it would be a mockery to talk of redressing wrongs, if you allowed the greatest wrong to pass unredressed-if you allow the rights which in this Bill are solemnly asserted to remain at the mercy of the secret assassin and of the bands of conspirators who can invoke him when they please. It would be an absolute mockery. Your Bill will not be worth the paper it is written on if it is not followed up by measures sufficient to establish the authority of the law. Nor will it do to say that in Ireland you can only apply the measures which are suitable to the circumstances of England. This Bill is, in every line of it, an answer to such an argument. This Bill is not suitable to the circumstances of England, and it is so, because the circumstances of Ireland are different. If in England we had such outrages and disorders as prevail in Ireland, does any one imagine for a moment that we would encumber ourselves with difficulties arising out of constitutional forms and precedents, if they stood in the way of the object for which laws exist and did not tend to fulfil those objects? It is, then, I maintain, the most sacred duty of the Government to render their measure effectual by protecting both tenant and landlord in Ireland in the enjoyment of their legal rights, and by putting an end to the murders which now make peace and prosperity in some parts of Ireland-happily they are but a few parts of Ireland after all-impossible. But, mind, though it is true that they are but a few parts of Ireland, no man can tell to how many other parts these crimes would extend, if such a system were allowed to go on unchecked. And I must say, that of all the mockeries in the world, the greatest is to talk about the mischiefs absenteeism produces, and to express a desire that landlords should reside among their tenantry, be the dispensers to them of benevolence, spend their money on their estates, and discharge the other duties which belong to their position, when if a landlord residing upon his property only seeks to obtain his rent, or to exercise the rights of a proprietor for some other just and lawful purpose, his life and the lives of his servants, agents, and children immediately become at stake. I do not think anyone can fail to see that the impotence of the law to punish the commission of crime in

Ireland tends to dissolve all the bonds of society. The effect of such a state of things does not stop with the landlord; it goes down to his bailiffs and agents, to the railway official and the egg merchant; in short, any man who seeks to do what he is allowed to do by the law, and who is the object of his neighbours' jealousy and envy, is liable to have not only his property but his life placed in danger. Nothing on earth, I may add, should induce me to support this Bill but my firm conviction and persuasion, that the Government, which has exhibited so much courage with respect to this Bill, which displayed equal courage last year, although I did not then agree with them, and which is supported by so large a majority both in this house and in the country, are as much determined to do their duty with regard to the steps which remain to be taken for the purpose of protecting life and property in Ireland, as they have shown themselves to be in producing these conciliatory measures, which, if they have the desired effect, may succeed in reconciling two countries which have been so long and so unhappily divided."

Mr. Hardy followed the line of argument of Dr. Ball and Mr. Ward Hunt, insisting on the injustice done to purchasers under the Encumbered Estates Act, maintaining that any compensation due from them for back improvements ought to be paid for by Parliament, and supporting freedom of contract.

Mr. Disraeli, describing the Bill as a "political Bill," acknowledged the necessity for the introduction of some such measure, but denied that previous Administrations had trifled with the question. He admitted that he was in favour of retrospective compensation, with a term fixed, extending to all objects, without any exception, and on that ground, as the Bill of 1852 had included that question, gave his assent to the principle of the second reading. But he objected altogether to the provision which assumed that all past improvements had been made by the tenant instead of the landlord. He then proceeded to indicate the course he proposed to take in committee, and pointed out the provisions to which he was chiefly adverse. The first of these was that relating to the Ulster custom, which he described as neither more nor less than asking Parliament to legalize the private arrangements of every estate in the north of Ireland. "What is the Ulster custom?" he said. "No gentleman has pretended to tell us. There is no such thing as Ulster custom. There is no prescription, because it is not ancient; there is no certainty, because it varies under every rule. Then I want to know in what manner you will deal with this question of Ulster custom. Besides, even if it were a custom, I very much doubt the propriety, as a general principle, of legalizing customs. The moment you legalize a custom you fix its particular character; but the value of a custom is its flexibility, and that it adapts itself to all the circumstances of the moment and of the locality. All these qualities are lost the moment you crystallize a custom into legislation. Customs may not be as wise as laws, but

they are always more popular. They array upon their side alike. the convictions and the prejudices of men. They are spontaneous. They grow out of man's necessities and invention, and as circumstances change and alter and die off the custom falls into desuetude, and we get rid of it. But if you make it into a law, circumstances alter, but the law remains, and becomes part of that obsolete legislation which haunts our statute book and harasses society. Therefore I say, as a general principle, I am against legalizing customs. You cannot, if you are to legalize custom, legalize the custom of Ulster, because it does not exist. But if it did exist, what is the reason that you should have special legislation for the custom of Ulster? These agricultural customs exist in other parts of Ireland; you have provided for them in your Bill. Why should there be two clauses-one for the Ulster and one for the other customs? Protesting against legalizing customs, I say that, if the House in its wisdom decides upon that course, it will be expedient to get rid of this special legislation for Ulster, and to support a general clause upon the whole subject of legalizing the agricultural customs of Ireland." He also disapproved entirely of the clause giving compensation for occupation, as a proposition terminating "at one fell swoop all moral relations between the owner and the occupier." "No doubt," he said, "there may be some gentlemen-and those probably who have least considered the subject-who will be surprised to hear that there are moral relations existing between landlords and their tenants even in the extreme south of Ireland. But among the most important moral relations between these two classes is exactitude in demanding and paying rent. Sir, moral qualities of a very high order are developed when the tenant does not pay you rent. Forbearance in its most Christian aspect may then be exhibited in a manner that may claim the respect and admiration of society. There is no body of men who require forbearance to be shown to them more than those small Irish tenants. In what position towards them do you now place the Irish landlords, to whose kindness and sympathy the tenants hitherto have preferred a claim? An industrious man, a hardworking and good man, is overcome, we will suppose, by those vicissitudes of seasons which Ireland is not exempt from, and he applies-as others have applied before, and not in vain to the distinguished facility and good nature of the Irish landlord. But the landlord naturally asks who is the man who thus comes to him with a claim for consideration. The relations that once existed, the relation of patron and client-a relation that, truly conceived and generously administered, is one of the strongest elements of the social system-no longer subsists. And the landlord says—' This man, who comes and asks me to exercise all the higher qualities of human nature-this man, under the law as it has now been constituted, is a man who is no longer my tenant, but my co-parcener. He may to-morrow, by the decision of some person that I have never heard of, claim seven years' rent from me, to be increased by at least three years' more reut if he

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