THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
28th November 1846.
Sin—Amofig the endless speculations to which the distress in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland has naturally given rise, I have remarked, in your own able paper as well as in the Morning Chronicle, and even in the " LeadingJour- nal," articles calling attention to the unsound condition of Irish landed property in reference to the connexion of landlord and tenant; pointing on the one hand to the ruined and helpless state of the former—their utter inability to improve their estates, pay for labour, or support their labouring poor; the necessity consequent on the absence of employment for the peasant to have land for his support, and yet the wretched manner in which he manages it, and the lamentable effects of the present cottier system. On the other hand, they point to the vast extent of improveable land lying waste in Ireland; the multitude of labourers placed there, as it were by Providence, to reclaim it; and hint that those who possess that land should no longer be permitted to act "the dog in the manger " part, in preventing others from enjoying what they cannot. enjoy—from doing what they ought but cannot do. Nay, some go so far as to speak of fixity of tentsre; proposing thereby that a portion of the farmers or cottiera now in occupation of the laud as tenants at will, should by some legislative act be secured in possession, with or without the will of the present owners, and be made to all intents and purposes proprietors of the soil, subject or not to some small quit-rent, never to be increased. Now, Sir, I would ask, purely for information sake—information which I am sure would be grateful to your readers, and which few are better qualified to afford than yourself—" what does all this mean ? " Is it, frankly, that Govern- ment should, or can interfere with the rights of landed property, so as to dispose of the waste or the cultivated I nds of any men, embarrassed or not, with or without his own consent ?—sureif that can hardly be iutended; but if not, what else is meant? That waste lands should be improved, the poor employed and fed, and the country thereby vastly benefited, is no doubt most desirable: but the cost of so doing must be taken into account; and would not the rink if not the certainty of shaking the whole framework of society by any direct inter- ference with the rights of property be an evil infinitely greater than the benefit aimed at or than the delay incident to awaiting the influence of self-intenst upon individuals? o doubt, there may be proprietors of vast tracts in Ireland, or in Scotland, whose personal interest in their estates scarce enables them to exist, so deeply are they encumbered: yet the soil is still theirs until wrested from them by the existing law of the land; others may be so wedded to their family properties and the status given by large landed possessions, that they will rather live on a crust, though unable to improve an acre or assist a pauper, than sacrifice the object of their fancy: others again would sell, if they could, were it not for the fetters of some old entail. But, according to the received spirit of our con- stitution, their rights are still sacred; and the only way to deal with them is to purchase them, if the proprietor will sell; if not, to insist on his fulfilling his part of the social contract which preserves these rights. But his duties must be ac- curately defined. If one of those be to support the poor on his property, then he must do so, or part with his rights to some one who will and can supply his deficiency. It is not the money revenue alone, which he may have mortgaged or forfeited, that the proprietor of land may claim in such a case, but the value of his position, his feudal rights—the prvtium afectionis which he sets upon his property, if in a condition to insist upon it; and Government, in dealing with any proprietor, whether for waste or cultivated land, is bound to satisfy him before taking any part of his land to give to others. lf, in abort, his title to his land be good, it cannot be taken from him legally; if not, the sooner that is proved and he divested of it, the better; but the only way of dealing with the matter, con- sistently with equity and public safety, is, I conceive, by the law of the land.
It is true that extreme cases may call for extreme measures: but no measure can be safe or good that is not intrinsically just; in national emergencies, how-
ever brought about, the loss ought not to fall on any one class, but on It is true, that in the case of Ireland there are operating a singular complication of evils, which act and react, in a circle as it were, militating most injuriously against all beneficial change. The redundant population, encouraged by the reckless impro- vidence of former proprietors, has become a dragon which will be fed, even when destroying the means of providing for its support. Habits of wild idleness, gene- rated by hopeless despondency, unfit multitudes for that labour which, now offered, would support them in comfort; and who not only stand out themselves against any system of improvement, but hinder others from availing themselves of it. Yet these are the people whom the Morning Chronicle points at as subjects for "hilly of tenure," and looks to it as a means of improving their moral and indus- trial habits. A choice, it may be urged, would be made—but how? where is the line to be drawn ? what are to be the tests? what to be done with the im- mense majority of the unworthy, who would frustrate all the efforts of the good ? In most parts where gratuitous or too easy tenure of land has been tried, it has proved a signal failure. A certain amount of reponsibility has been found favour- able to industrious habits, and a certain amount of rent has excited to diligence; but thoee indolent, ignorant, and turbulent cottiers of Ireland, (as we find them taken as a class,) are to spring, per solitary into a race of quiet, industrious, im- proving, and thriving farmers, by being put into possession of a few acres of land! Let those who dream this dream be assured that it is a delusion fraught with danger: such improvement, when it comes, must be gradual, and very slow. What may be the best means to secure even a commencement of it under so many disadvantages, it will require the soundest judgment and discretion to deter- mine; but assuredly it cannot be accomplished without the strenuous cooperation of the very men whom the aforesaid scheme, however modified, would disgust, and deprive of the power and the will and the interest to promote it. Define the landlords' duties clearly, and protect them resolutely in their rights. Make it their interest to perform these duties, by making their own advantage commen- surate with their discharge—with the improvement of the people and the country. By making it imperative on them to maintain the poor of their estate or pariah, you make it the interest to employ the people and Improve: by abolishing entails you will enable a landlord to sell if he fears that burden, and to provide for his family and himself by parting with part or the whole of his estate to those who will do the duty which he cannot or will not perform. If, as has been objected to the that of these measures, such a poor-law would be equivalent to the confiscation of half Ireland, I reply, so much the better; it solves the difficulty you have to con- tend with: it will place such proprietors in their true position, and set free so much land to better people, or to any measures Government may see fit to take. If• interference with existing entails be deprecated as also a violation of property, I answer, that if it be so, it is trifling in comparison with the proposed spoliation, and would receive support from &majority of society as a generally useful measure, while cases of peculiar hardship might become subjects for compensation. Such details might be easily arranged. Anything to relieve Ireland or the Highlands, without so tremendous and uncertain an experiment as a wholesale attack upon property in present possession.
[Our correspondent is mistaken if he classes the Spectator among those who Wive countenanced any proposal for committing violence on rights of property. We have upheld no proposition for reforming the land system in Ireland more compulsory than his own. One process was suggested in our Supplement at the close of last year; another, through the intervention of the Court of Chancery, was suggested by a legal correspondent a few weeks back: both contemplated the redemption of lands at a fair value, and might prove positively advantageous to embarrassed landholders.—En.]
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