If, during the past ten years, all agricultural tenures, whether of large or small farms, had been by leases of even twenty-one years' duration, no evictions on title could have taken place during that period-no rents could have been capriciously raised; and we are quite justified in believing that no agrarian outrages would have been committed. If, in addition to this voluntary action of the landlords, there had been in existence a law that would have secured to all tenants, at the close of their specified terms of occupancy, compensation for any improvements effected by them during that period and unexhausted at its close, and that there had been a tribunal, such as we have elsewhere described, to carry that law into effect,we are satisfied that things would not have drifted to their present position in Ireland. Half a generation of tenants would have passed away ere the twenty-one years had expired, and those who would have been coming on to supply their place would have grown up in a sense of comparative security and independence that the son of an Irish tenant-at-will, even under the best of landlords, can rarely feel. Industry, with the assurance of a just reward, would have had a fair opportunity for developing itself; while the thriftless, the ignorant, or the idle, if still poor, would no longer have had the plausible excuse of insecurity for their poverty. If reckless subdivision of holdings had still continued to be, as now, prevented, emigration might probably have gone on to its present modified extent, but it would have come to be recognised as what in truth it is, and would have ceased to be called exter'mination.' Hasty, grasping landlords, and strong political partisans, would, so to speak, have been saved from themselves,' while the lack of a text for their discourse would perforce have driven professional agitators from a platform on which they have so often done a grievous injury to their too credulous countrymen. There will, we doubt not, be found those who, reading events by the light of the present glow of popular excitement in Ireland, may be disposed to doubt the accuracy of these speculations. If such there be, we would refer them to an authority which they will probably accept as worthy of their respect-that of Mr. Isaac Butt. In that gentleman's Land Tenure of Ireland,' after he has sketched the form of the measure he proposes to secure the rights of the Irish tenant-in which, as we have seen, a term of sixty-three years was the longest suggested-we find him using the following words: The operation of the Act might be limited • to ten or twenty years. Within that time the present population would have acquired a proprietary interest in the soil. 'The country might then have arrived at a state in which such 'provisions might be dispensed with-most probably, with the 'approbation of all parties, they would be renewed.'* Be this, however, as it may, it is now evident that the time when voluntary action on the part of Irish landlords could have settled the question is gone by, and that Parliament must do for them what they might long since not only have done for themselves, but so done as to have evoked a return of gratitude for kindness, rather than those feelings respectively of triumph and of bitterness, which, for a time at least, must result from any compulsory legislation. Such legislation-well considered, firm, and, above all, final-has now become an urgent necessity; and, as we have already pointed out, the minds of a large section, and that the most enlightened, of the landlord class, are prepared to accept in a frank and patriotic spirit such a change in the law as will, to use a phrase much in vogue at tenant-right meetings in Ireland, make the bad landlord do 'what the good landlord does already.' 6 The In a very few weeks the Bill that is being prepared by Government to deal with this perplexing question will be submitted to Parliament. We have endeavoured in these pages to show at least what such a measure should not propose to do, and have indicated the general line of the policy that, in our opinion, it would be most prudent and practicable to follow. We hope and believe that the vast national importance of setting this question at rest for ever will be so manifest to statesmen on both sides, in the Upper as well as in the Lower House, that by common consent its discussion will be approached in a spirit of patriotism and not of party. public mind was never better disposed to entertain the subject than it is now. There is a general disposition in this country to do what is called 'justice' to Ireland, and to make, if we can, a tardy amends for the centuries of misrule that have been the main primary cause of Ireland's poverty and disaffection. There is in Ireland an honest desire amongst at least a large section of those whose interests would be most imperilled by hasty legislation-the result of panic rather than of true statesmanship-to meet the people 'half way, in the hope of arriving at a settlement that may be just alike to all parties. Even within the last few weeks a more reasonable spirit has shown itself at the tenant-right meetings that have been held in Ireland. There is evidently a growing disposition on the part of the leaders of the popular, constitutional party *Plea for the Celtic Race, p. 59. 6 in Ireland to smooth the way for a graceful retreat from their most 'extreme' positions. Even the Tipperary election, though a pitiful exhibition in the eyes of Europe, has not been altogether barren of useful results, inasmuch as it has shown certain too impulsive patriots the danger of playing with edge tools.' It has made patent to all, what thoughtful men must have already known full well, that there is a fraction of the Irish nation as we believe, a small and not a really influential fraction-whom no measures of mere justice will satisfy, men who vastly prefer a grievance to a remedy, and whose ultimate aim -if indeed they have any aim more definite than to make mischief-is separation from England. For this section of the Irish people it is in vain to propose remedial legislation. When the Prime Minister made use of those now celebrated words, that Ireland must be governed in accordance with Irish ideas, he uttered a noble sentiment, and one that must in due time bear good fruit. But to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas is one thing-to govern it according to Irish-American ideas is quite another. Let Parliament then, when discussing remedial legislation for Ireland, dismiss from its thoughts the 'irreconcilable' element of Irish so-called patriotism. The day may not be far distant when the influences of remedial legislation may be brought to bear on even this class of Irishmen, through the effect that it will have produced on those of their countrymen who now ask for no more, and who, we trust and believe, will receive no less, than justice. No. CCLXVIII, will be published in April. THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, APRIL, 1870. No. CCLXVIII. ART. I.-1. Indian Polity: a View of the System of Administration in India. By GEORGE CHESNEY, AccountantGeneral to the Government of India, Public Works Department; Fellow of the University of Calcutta. London: 1868. 2. Tenure of Land in India. By GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq. [An Essay published under the sanction of the Cobden Club.] London: 1870. WHEN an illustrious servant of the old East India Company lately returned to us, after governing India for five years as the representative of Her Majesty the Queen, the Press naturally teemed with notices of his services, character, and distinguished career. The writers of these papers drew attention to the early life of Lord Lawrence, to his selection by Lord Hardinge and by Lord Dalhousie for special employment after the Sikh campaigns, to his services as a revenue officer in the Punjab, and to the part which he had played in smothering the flames of rebellion and anarchy in that province, which enabled him materially to assist in the capture of Delhi by the supply of arms and by the detachment of troops. In the present paper, while fully endorsing all that has been written of the vigour and determination of Lord Lawrence during the crisis of 1857, we shall confine our remarks to the period of his Viceroyalty, and shall endeavour to explain the progress made under his administration, and the legacy bequeathed by him to the English statesman who assumed the government of India not much more than a year ago. The administration of Lord Canning, shattered, as every one is aware, by the most tremendous convulsion to which VOL. CXXXI. NO. CCLXVIII. X our rule had ever been exposed, terminated in the peace and tranquillity in which it had commenced. The native regiments which, with a few honourable exceptions, rose in rebellion, had fallen in scores of engagements or had gradually melted away. The double Government of the East India Directors and of Mr. Pitt's Board of Control was superseded by the direct action of a Secretary of State in Council responsible to Parliament. The administrative agency in the whole of the North-West Provinces and in Oudh, abolished or split into fragments, had been reconstructed or repaired. The policy of annexation, sound, just, and indispensable at the time it was carried out by the Marquis of Dalhousie, was practically at an end; and a new policy, which would have been dangerous and impracticable while three large independent kingdoms were rallying points for the opponents of British power and influence, was formally proclaimed. After contributing largely by his stately displays of power and pageantry to the tranquillisation of the country-after rewarding with princely liberality those chiefs and nobles who had with us confronted the tide of rebellion-after extending a magnanimous forgiveness to others who, from misapprehension, timidity, or sheer ignorance of the depth and variety of our resources, had gone over to the enemy-and after laying the foundations of the new system by which the Queen is openly recognised as the Paramount Sovereign of India, and every other Power between the sea and the Himalayas as Her Majesty's tributary or feudal subordinate-Lord Canning left India, severely tried by domestic bereavement and by political events, to die within three months after reaching England. His administration (to which we have attempted on a former occasion to do justice) will long be remembered in India as that of a statesman who, though open to the charge of delay in some measures and of insufficiency in others, was remarkable for a serene and calm fortitude in the most trying scenes, for lofty purposes, exemplary justice, and a well-timed clemency, and who matured and issued several noble manifestoes calculated to vindicate the dignity and majesty of England, and to impress Asiatics with a sense of their inferiority to their conquerors in the hour of triumph as well as in the day of conflict. Of Lord Elgin, who succeeded Lord Canning, it may be simply said that during the twenty months of his too brief administration the land had rest and, if he originated nothing, he made no mistakes. The administration of Lord Lawrence, from several coincidences, marks the full development of the policy by which India is now governed. It might almost be termed a new |