THE ARREARS QUESTION.
THE Irish Arrears Question is perhaps as perplexed and confused as any that has ever been presented to Parlia- ment. Essentially it is a choice of evils. To do anything in it, is necessarily to do a great deal of wrong. To do nothing, seems like losing an opportunity for the pacification of Ireland. Arguments of expediency, and arguments of right and justice, can be produced on either side, and on both sides these argu- ments seem urgent and effective. For instance, it is argued that, as a matter of expediency, we ought to sweep away or reduce the arrears of Irish rent. It is said,—' It may seem unfair to again deprive the landlord of a part of his property by Act of Parliament, but so imperative is the necessity to keep Ireland quiet, that the landlords' interest must yield. Nothing now remains to make it absolutely impossible for the Irish tenant to argue that he is rack-rented or unfairly treated by his landlord except the arrears. These arrears have pre- vented, and are preventing, the tenant from enjoying the legis- lative benefits conferred upon him. If this burden of arrears is not lifted from the tenant's shoulders the landlords will at once avail themselves of the opportunity thus given, and begin an eviction campaign which will plunge all Ireland into disorder. Relieved of it, however, the Irish tenant will be given a fair start ; and while the landlord will be deprived of what is only a very illusory pecuniary advantage, a real oppor- tunity will be given to the country to settle down.' Such are the arguments founded on expediency as stated by those who go with Mr. T. W. Russell in his support of Mr. Parnell's Arrears Bill,—arguments which, it must be admitted, are not without very considerable force. Yet, on the other side, the weight of expediency is even greater. A large number of Unionists, Liberal and Conservative, regard it as all-important that the Irish Land Question shall not be reopened. Even supposing that a few hard cases will result from not dealing with the arrears, they argue that it is all-essential that the tenant shall learn the stern lesson that he must now rely on his own industry, and not look for any more support from Parliament. They declare,—' It is hard enough now to convince him that he can no longer expect such help, but must look, not to reductions of rent, but to improved agricul- ture, to better his position. It would be a hundred times harde'r if a new Arrears Bill were to encourage the notion that getting behindhand with his rent was not a thing a farmer need be afraid of, since when arrears became troublesome again, there would only be another Act reducing them. Up till now the Irish farmer has believed that the Arrears Act was something exceptional. This notion would be shattered for ever by Mr. Parnell's Bill.' Certainly, these reasons against reopening the Arrears Question are strong enough. If we take the arguments derived from right and justice, we shall see that they also can be applied by both sides. The supporters of the Arrears Bill say it is a monstrous thing to declare that a man may have his rent reduced by the Court under the Act of last year—which reduction is tantamount to a declaration that the old rent was unfair—and yet be evicted because he cannot pay the arrears of rent which have not been reduced. This, it is alleged, is obviously wrong and unjust. On the other hand, it is argued, —' The reduction of rent does not show that the old scale of rent under which the arrears are claimed was unfair. It merely shows that it would not be a fair rent if continued now. When the arrears were due as rent, they were fair rents, and they are now as perfectly equitable as a debt, as a shop- debt for tobacco incurred when tobacco was high is good, though demanded in full now that tobacco has fallen. Besides, to reduce arrears now is to give a premium to dishonesty, lawlessness, and illegal combination. Under Mr. Parnell's Bill,
the honest man who paid his rent in full when due will be put in a far worse position than the dishonest man who did not. It must be remembered that a very great number of the farmers owing arrears of rent are persons withholding rents under cover of secret illegal combinations. Is it fair that these men should be given an indulgence which cannot be enjoyed by those who have paid their rents and obeyed the law If they are given it, will not Parliament be entering into com- petition with the Parnellites to bribe men to be dishonest.?' These being the respective arguments of those who supported and of those who opposed Mr. Parnell's Bill, it can hardly be wondered that the Minister responsible for the good govern- ment of Ireland refused to accept the measure.
The alternative proposal, however, put forward by the bulk of the Liberal Unionist Party, was met by a statement from Mr. Balfour that he would assent to any scheme of the kind that should be brought forward. The proposal made by Mr. Powell- Williams, seconded by Lord Ebrington, and endorsed by Mr. Chamberlain, was in effect what was known as the Bankruptcy Clause of last year's Bill, though that name conveyed a some- what wrong impression of its scope. The scheme advo- cated was roughly this. In cases where a tenant should apply to obtain partial relief from the payment of his arrears of rent, the County-Court Judge was to order a similar reduction in all his other debts. Thus the County Court Judge would not assume the extraordinary position devised for him in Mr. Parnell's Bill of declaring that a man must pay his shop- debts in full, but that a debt tainted by the fact that it arose from the hire of land need only be paid after a heavy reduc- tion. Instead, he would say to all the man's creditors,—' This man's financial position has been proved to me not to be a. solvent one. I therefore require all his creditors to come in, and accept what I shall determine to be a reasonable composi- tion, landlord, banker, gombeen-man, publican, shopkeeper, all sharing alike.' Surely this is not a very unreasonable suggestion. It may be urged that the shopkeeper will suffer because the tenant has been unwise enough to take a farm on which he cannot live ; but this objection is not really valid, for it applies to all compositions with creditors. Every man who makes such an arrangement as this has been brought to it by some extravagance, or bad bargain. It is needless to say that the Parnellites to a man opposed this scheme with the utmost virulence. Probably the reason for their vehemence was that given by Mr. Chamberlain. The shopkeepers and the publicans are the supporters and the organisers of the Parnellite movement ; and to allow any Bill to pass which would touch their pockets would strike a death- blow at the Irish agitation. In truth, the shopkeepers, the publicans, and the money-lenders want to be allowed to keep the position which was once assumed by the landlords, but which the landlords have now lost., and rightly lost. They want to be regarded as privileged creditors whose right to the tenants' assets shall take precedence of the claim of the man who is engaged in what they appear to stigmatise as the infamous business of letting land on hire. The only seemingly reasonable argument in favour of special treatment for the debts of the shopkeeper was that adduced by Mr. T. W. Russell. It was that the shopkeeper now tided the small tenant in the West over bad times by letting him have the necessaries of life on credit. If this help was withdrawn, as it would be—for allowing the tenant not to pay the shop- keeper in full would destroy his credit—the result would be famine in the next bad season. Of course, this sounds very serious. We very much doubt, however, whether Mr. T. W. Russell's prophecy would come true. In the first place, the- shopkeeper does not at present ever get the sums he professes to charge. The reduction of his nominal debt would then in most cases leave intact the sum he really obtains from the small tenant. But even if it made the small shopkeeper more disinclined to allow the peasants to get so heavily into debt as Mr. Take has shown that they do at present, we are not sure that the result would be bad. At present, the shopkeeper does all he can to bind the peasant to his holding, for loss of popula- tion means loss of custom. Accordingly, the shopkeeper dis-
courages all emigration, and uses the power he possesses over the tenants through their indebtedness to keep them from going away. Certainly, if the shopkeepers check emigration in Ireland, they ought not to be treated with any special con- sideration.
We must confess that we are, on the whole, a little disap- pointed with the attitude of the Government on the question.
They make the Parnellites a certain offer, and then say,—' If you will not accept this offer, the responsibility is with you.' If the Parnellites were in reality anxious for the welfare of the Irish farmers—were their true friends—this might be a proper enough way to deal with the question. But the Ministry know well enough that the Parnellites are not the real friends of the Irish tenants, and that, except as tools in their agitation, they care nothing for them. The Government claim to be, and are in fact, the true friends and pro- tectors of the Irish tenants. It behoves them, then, to consider whether, on the whole, the Arrears Question ought to be dealt with at this moment under the scheme of which they approve in principle. If they consider it should not, then they should -definitely put aside all notion of any such measure. If, on the other hand, they consider it advisable to take it up, they should force it through Parliament in spite of the opposition of the Parnellites. In such a course the country would sup- port them, while their action would have the advantage of showing the people of Ireland what the Parnellite agitation really is. Perhaps, however, it may be argued that though the Government think such a measure would do no particular harm, it would not be beneficial enough to allow of their devoting to it so much of the time of Parliament as would be necessary to carry it in the teeth of Mr. Parnell. If that is so, let the Government make their offer once and for all, and if -it is not accepted, refuse absolutely to again open the question • of Irish rents on any pretext whatever.
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