CHAPTER VII.

Tenant-Right.

The rapid and constant emigration which has decimated the Irish population has proved a marvel to statesmen and political economists for many generations. But it would appear that

such investigators after truth must have reasoned from wrong principles, or have been imperfectly acquainted with the country and its people, else they could surely have discovered the cause why myriads of the bone and sinew of Ireland yearly quit her soil, the homes of their affections, the scenes of their early youth, the old roof trees under which they were reared, their trusted companions and weeping relatives; why stalwart sons must bid adieu, a final and everlasting adieu, to their aged and tottering sires-mothers, with the anguish which mothers only know, relinquish their daughters-husbands, in the frenzy of despair, tear themselves from their destitute wives and helpless little children-all, all impelled by ungovernable necessity to seek to better their unhappy condition beyond the western main, or perish in the attempt to seek on a foreign and distant shore, amid the vicissitudes of climes and seasons, the furnace heat of summer and the blood-congealing blasts of winter-to seek there the means of subsistence and comfort, and beneath an alien but friendly Government, to find that security for their property which is denied them at home. The cause of all this misery is palpably plain, though many pretend not to see it. Ireland is an agricultural country. The few who own the soil till it not, and the millions who till the soil own it not; and while tillage and occupation impart increased value to the land, landlord-made law steps in and says to the tenant-"I disown your improvements, or I leave the landlord to appropriate them to himself, to rent you for them, and tax you for your own industry; you are his serf, his engine, his machine; the trust which the legislature confers on you is practically his; vote for his nominee or incur his mightiness's vengeful wrath; you are wholly and completely in his power, and he may evict and exterminate you without let or hindrance." But, in treating of the relations which should exist between landlord and tenant in Ireland, I wish at the very outset not to be understood as advocating socialism; for to all ideas of the sort I am most unequivocally opposed. God forbid I should be found on the

side of socialism, or to advocate the doctrines of Rousseau, nor those of Diderot or D'Alembert, as circulated through the medium of the infidel Encyclopædia, and which led to the horrors of the revolution. It must be remembered, however, that revolutions, which disorganize society, obliterate titles, and destroy the rights of property, as the whirlwind scatters the faded leaves of autumn, are never the offspring of momentary impulse, nor are they produced, nor never could be produced, by a band of disaffected agitators, however influential, or however well inclined to disturb society. No, these fearful eruptions are caused by long festering sores in the body politic itself, the effect of centuries of misrule, and the exercise of arbitrary and despotic power; and their regular recurrence may be looked for and expected where such exist, and can only be averted by wise, salutary, and equitable laws, made and enacted in proper time. It is to this, then, I earnestly desire

to direct attention.

It should be borne in mind that the title-deeds of many of our landed proprietors do not extend beyond the period of the Revolution of 1688. Most of them, particularly the head landlords, hold by grants from the Crown, and in the north many derive their grants from the confiscation of Ulster. What their ancestors were, whether peers, pipers, or pedlars, I care not to inquire. I regard their titles, conferred by the law of the land, as good enough, and therefore I would be unwilling to disturb them. Even the class of middlemen, that virulent excrescence which has grown on the system through the necessities of needy, gambling, spendthrift absentees, I care not to abolish. But this conceded, after all our landed proprietors are but the stewards, the very creatures of the State. From it they derive their all. It was it, at first, which gave them their properties; it was it which buttressed and upheld them therein, and conferred powers upon them over the population scarcely inferior to those of the Sovereign. Now, as this is so, why do we hear a howl raised in Parliament regarding an invasion of the rights of property, when a measure for the equitable adjustment of the relations between landlord and tenant is brought forward by a minister of the Crown? Can that authority which gave, not improve, alter, and modify power? Can it not even cancel the gift, and resume the ownership? If the Sovereign permit the banishment of her people, will she not have to account for it? Is the strength of the King not in the

number of his subjects, and has not the King of Kings made the earth for the use and support of the whole human race?

The peasantry of Ireland are for the most part descended from the old Celtic inhabitants of the country. They hold by right of occupancy from time immemorial. Their settlement on the soil dates from a period long before the days of Strongbow, nay, even before the introduction of Christianity itself. Now, I believe this title-deed of occupancy is as good as any title which the Crown can confer, and should shield the inhabitants of the country from the irresponsible exterminator; should warrant the law to secure them the full value of the improvements which their labour or capital, or both, have conferred upon the soil. But this seems to have been lost sight of both by our parliamentary representatives and the various writers who have treated the subject. They reason as if the landlord alone had exclusive right in the soil, in its state or condition, and in everything thereon. The signs of the times, as well as the increasing intelligence of the working classes, clearly indicate the desirability of settling this vexed question. How, then, is it to be done? The answer is, simply by legalising tenant-right.

Let us look back and see in what state did the old proprietors receive the land from the Crown. We will find that, if culti vated at all, or to whatever extent improved, the improvement and cultivation were effected by the occupiers. But much of it, and of what is now bearing rich harvests of grain, was in a state of nature, overgrown with heath and rushes, and tenanted by the wild-duck, snipe, crane, or curlew.

Did the Crown confer upon those proprietors the right of exterminating the people? It did not. What right did it give them? The right of receiving the rents only. Did it grant to them the right of appropriating the tenants' improvements? No. If the land had remained in the condition in which it was given, in what state would the country be in now? Was it the landlords who made our valleys smile with plenty and teem with fertility? Certainly not; it was the peasantry. Was it the landlords who dislodged the rocks of granite and of whinstone, drained the springs, and caused the ploughshare to ascend to the mountain tops. Certainly not; it was the people. And after all this—after clearance, drainage, fencing, building, have been effected by the people, what deprives them of a legal right to be recompensed for their toils? Landlord legislation. What has crowded the emigrant

ship, and forced the Irish into involuntary exile? The same. What crammed the Workhouses of the South and West, and filled their graveyards with heaps of dead? The same. What banded together in lawless confederacies the Rockites and Peepo-day Boys, the ruthless Molly Maguires, and the cruel, cowardly, immoral, and demoralised ribbon hordes ? The merciless tyranny of the middlemen, and the injustice which arose from the operation of laws which ignore the people and give all to the landlords.

And of
Gentle-

It has been asserted that tenant-right is landlord wrong; but this is a complete mistake, for nowhere are the landlords better repaid, nor the tenants more thriving, peaceful, orderly, and industrious than on such estates as this principle is conceded by the justice and wisdom of the proprietors. these instances are not few, particularly in the north. men of this class, then, can in no wise be affected by the passing of a law making it imperative on all to do what they of their own free will already practice. At all events the matter comes simply to this, the landlords hold from the Crown ; the tenants belong to the soil, which they hold by right of occupancy, and, besides, they have made the improvements ; consequently, they should not be exterminated.

What is to be done? If it were practicable I would like to see a peasant proprietary, as in Sweden and Norway, where each man holds his farm in fee-simple. This, perhaps, would not be quite possible with us, yet the obstacles are not quite insuperable; and, by giving legal facilities for its adoption, for the purchase in perpetuity of the landlords' claims, even at a rate to ensure him from all loss, the practice could be established to a very considerable degree.

In the absence, however, of this, the law should give to every tenant the right of selling his property, that is, his interest in the soil, whenever he pleases, and to the highest bidder, just as he would any other commodity, provided the purchaser be a person of good character and solvent. If this were so, and sooner or later it shall be, the occupier would not be indifferent as to the improvement of his holding, nor afraid of being deprived of the good results of his industry; and he would regard money invested in the land as good and better than in the bank or funds. The produce of the whole country would soon be increased, and consequently its wealth. Agrarian outrages, too, would cease, and the spirit which manifests itself

in periodical outbursts, which aim at overturning the Throne and Constitution, would be laid for ever. The Whiteboy and the Fenian would be unknown, and instead of that tide of emigration, which yearly carries away the bone and sinew of the land, with hearts rankling with hatred for the very name of England, our people would stay at home to improve the great natural resources of the country, and Ireland would become at once the strength and bulwark of the empire.

But it may be asked-"As the practice of tenant-right prevails in the North, why do the people emigrate thence, or why do you complain, as you already enjoy all you profess to ask from the law?" This brings us back to what we have before stated; we might reply by asking why do those landlords oppose the passing of a measure which, if law, could not affect them who already concede what is required? The real answer, however, is, that tenant-right, as it exists in the north, is entirely dependent on the landlord's will, and has nothing permanent or secure about it. What the present proprietor does in that regard his successor may undo. A father, therefore, will not enter upon a course of real improvement of lands from which his children may be expelled, unless he is an adventurer or a fool. Instances are not rare of rents having been increased within a few years after the improvement of farms, and honest industrious tenants thus made pay for their own work, in consequence of the landlord's death, or of the passing of his property into other hands-into those of "a king who knew not Joseph." Emigration, then, proceeds from this insecurity.

Many landlords, again, will not permit the out-going tenant to sell, but will allow him £5 to the pound rent, on the plea that if they allowed a fine to be paid, the incoming tenant would be impoverished. We believe that this, too, is a fallacy, for the simple reason that in a well regulated estate, and under a good landlord, few farms change hands. In the next place, it is one of the most powerful barriers to improvements, as no man will invest capital in land when he knows his only reward and recompense is £5 to the pound rent. Lastly, the idle, thriftless tenant is put upon a par with, and has the same chance as the industrious, and while a premium is thus put on sloth and indifference, we can only expect the worst consequences.

Then, as to the amount of rent, I would say let there be a Government valuation and revision every 35 years, and let the