The Irish problem/Hope for Ireland!
V.
HOPE FOE IRELAND!
"We Northerns boast ourselves rather vauntingly of our superiority over the Southerns in point of civilization and advancement, but the boast is one we have little right to make. Some people talk of the "Protestant North," some of the "tenant-right system" in the North, some of the admixture of English or Scottish blood in the North; and all these accidents come in in their turn for the credit of Northern prosperity. But, meanwhile, there arises the question:—Is the North so much more prosperous?—Is it, on the whole, more prosperous at all than the Southern portion of this island?
There is good farming in the North, there is good farming in the South; there is bad farming and squalid poverty in^ the South, there is bad farming and squalid poverty in the North also; there are Southern counties in which there is no tenant-right, and where, nevertheless, there is good culture, and every outward sign of prosperity: there are Northern counties where, in spite of an existing custom of tenant-right, we find bad culture and every outward sign of poverty, backwardness, and want. Now, we confess that these are puzzling facts. Objecting strongly to the continued absence of legislation on the subject of tenants' improvements, we should be too glad to be borne out by facts in the argument that, unless you have tenant-compensation in some shape or form, you cannot have tenants prospering: but facts are stubborn things, they will not come at command; and here we tell and assure you that in parts of the South—in localities where no such custom exists—there is prosperity and success as great as any to be found in the most favoured districts in this province (Ulster.) What shall we say then? Have those who have for years been urging a system of tenant compensation for Ireland, from a sincere and earnest desire to contribute to her agricultural advancement (to say nothing of some who have urged it merely for political ends,)—have they all been contending for a mere idea? Let us try to get to the bottom of this difficulty. It is our belief (it may be an erroneous one, and we are open to conviction if we are wrong) that if the wish of the most extreme advocates of tenant right were granted to-morrow, and a system of fixity of tenure, with low rents, were introduced, the great bulk of that particular class of our farmers which stands in special need of improvement would remain virtually at a standstill. Well-to-do men, and men of taste and skill, might build houses and barns, and lay drains, and straighten fences, and make farm roads, fill hollows, sub-soil the land and all the rest of it; but what of the multitude which is not well-to-do—which, notwithstanding the possession of considerable experience, after a fashion, lacks what we should call skill—the skill of the latter end of the 19th century—and which has had little or no opportunity for cultivating taste? What of the men who, doing their very best most industriously, would only, and could only, erect unsightly houses and offices—monuments of industrious energy, if you like, but monuments of ugliness and unfitness. And, putting taste and even comfort out of the question, and proceeding to bare utility, what of the men whose notions of draining were entirely erroneous, and who, with the utmost of willing hard labour, could only succeed in making "shores" which would throw up boils of wet in place of drying the land—and many a good farmer knows what a trouble and expense it is to have to take up badly constructed "shores" in order to lay proper ones? What of the men who have no notion of the most approved systems of rotations of crops; whose ideas on the subject of manuring arc Lamentably deficient? What of the men who use briars and old carts for gates, have no earthly objection to tumble-down fences, and appear to have an affection for thistles? Would fixity of tenure, or a rental at the rate of five or ten shillings an acre, lead to the uprooting of a single ragweed?
And yet we are hearty advocates for tenant right. Tenant right—Yes! but of what nature? The right of the tenant to have secured to him, in some shape or form, the value of his real improvements, such as are necessary to good husbandry, and proportionate to the size of his holding. We do not agree with those who say that legal security is not needed, for that landlords are really to be trusted, whatever agitators may say. If we were to lend a hundred pounds to our dearest friend we should like to have his " handwriting" for it; "in case of accident." We must be business-like even with those whom we trust; and it is very unbusiness-like for one man to lay out, or to be expected to lay out, time and labour in the improvement of another man's land without even "the stroke of a pen" to secure to him or his heirs the value of what he has done.
The right, then, to such security as this is one which should be demanded as a charter right: it is a right to which the British Constitution entitles the farmer—whether he can afford to dispense with it or not—and the deprival of which is an infringement of that Constitution!
But "who is to decide what are real improvements?" is the instant question. Here comes the rub! And how is the backward farmer, whom we have just been describing, to be enabled to make sue improvements? This is another rub! These two, in fact, are the questions which have puzzled statesmen for years. Shall we strive to answer these questions? Shall we endeavour to point out how arbitrators should be appointed by Government, as though landlords were opponents to their own and their tenants' advantage; or how State agriculturists should be appointed, as though landlords neglected the improvement of their tenants in agricultural skill?
Let us rather turn aside for a while, and let us dream a dream! Theorists and visionaries are generally run down in this world; but unless dreams are first dreamed and theories framed, many things which need reformation will never be reformed. The architect fashions in his mind the plan of the building which he is commissioned to erect; he dreams in day-dreams of tasteful outlines and commodious combinations of apartments; then he sketches them on paper, changing, and altering, and amending, till he gets his perfect plan; then that plan is drawn out with care, and the edifice is erected which is to remain, perhaps, for ages, a monument either of success or failure. But we cannot profess to be architects. The nine tailors of Tooley St, thought themselves great architects after their fashion, and everybody laughs at them to this day. So we must be very careful how we dream and how we plan—nay, we must remember that it is not we who have to build the house, we only have to live in it whether it be well or ill constructed. Still a dream for a few minutes will not hurt us; and though we have not great houses to build, it may inspire us with a wish to improve our little one. Let us then close our eyes for a moment and enter into the Land of Visions:—
"We saw a beauteous island, rich in its soil, rich in its mineral productions, rich in its water-power and other natural resources. The natives of the island were numerous, and the bulk of them tillers of the soil. They were quick and clever wherever their quickness and cleverness were developed; they were loving wherever their love was fostered, but we were told that they could be indifferent and even hate when they were slighted, neglected, or wronged! In passing through this island we saw many who seemed listless and stupid, lacking in energy and devoid of skill, open-mouthed, vacant-looking, unshorn, unwashed, ragged men, such as would drive to despair the most well-meaning strivers for their improvement. We asked who these men were, and we were told that they were men who lived without hope, and whose energies had been chilled and stunted within them. "We asked, too, how it came that these listless ones were so numerous, and we were told that it was not so much that they were so numerous as that the better specimens were so few, for that the men of vigour, quickness, and energy had, in innumerable instances, left the island and sought other shores where they could find a better field for their exertions. We asked why this hopelessness existed, but some answered one thing, some another, each according to his own fancy or theory; and nobody seemed to know. It appeared, however, to most thinkers that a great many were hopeless because it was the custom to be hopeless; and that many a man who might have put his shoulder to the wheel for himself did not, because other people persuaded him that it was no use, and that he ought to wait for something which was never going to come.
Then we ask who or where were these people's natural guides. They told us themselves that they scarcely knew! The country had a Sovereign, they said, but that Sovereign had scarcely ever visited it. The land was divided into estates, owned by landlords—some of them excellent ones, and their tenants prospered in consequence—but many of the landlords scarcely ever dwelt on their estates; some had never seen them at all! These landlords had agents—some of them resident, active, and kind; but some were only to be seen once in the year, or twice at the most, and that was when they came for the rent. There were clergy of different denominations, but their duties were spiritual, it was not their place to be temporal guides.
In many parts of the island, there were substantial farmers—men of capital and skill, and the absence of landlord or agent mattered little to them. They would gladly have welcomed them as friends, and looked up to them moreover with the respect tor which their position entitled them, but were to a great extent independent of any aid they could afford as guides or directors. They held their tenements from year to year, it is true; but they improved them as occasion and good husbandry demanded, without security, certainly, and with the chance of having their rent raised for their pains; but if this was done they had broad shoulders, and they merely grumbled and growled, as well they might, and submitted (having no choice), hoping for better times when enlightened laws would ensure to every man the fruits of his toil. They knew that their landlords would not be so blind as to part with good solvent tenants; although there were sundry little qualms, about election times, when passions ran high, and proprietors sometimes forgetting themselves, showed a disposition to punish people for having opinions of their own.
And in some parts of the island, these substantial farmers—aye, and the poorer men too—had this consolation, that if they did lose their farm, the in-comer would have to pay them for what they or their forefathers had done to improve it. In the parts where this custom did not exist, the moneyed farmer, as we have said, risked his money and his labour notwithstanding; but the poor farmer, knowing that he was a description of tenant whom few cared to keep, did about as little as he could, (and if he had done as much as he knew, that would have been little too,) and so the chances of anybody caring to keep him were lessened instead of increasing as the world advanced around him?
And in this, we thought, lay the root of the whole evil. Everybody who cared about the matter at all—everybody who spoke about it—considered the case of the sturdy farmers, who were best able to take care of themselves; but even those who proposed themselves to be the " tenant's best friends," appeared to overlook the case of the cottage farmer with his ten acres, half-skilled, struggling and poor?
And the hulk of the people held ten-acre farms; and the hulk of the ten-acre farmers needed guides, and they had none?
In this island, political agitation of one kind or another was constantly going on; and no wonder; for it had plenty of fuel, as may well be supposed; and agitation had readied such a head that even those who wished to bring about reform for the real benefit of the people were looked on with mistrust, and deemed self-seekers by legislators and others who, being very comfortable and prosperous themselves, thought that if others were not so, it must be their own faults somehow; though they did not seek too diligently to study how!
Then we dreamed again; and behold! an active spirit of love for this poor island filled the mind of the sovereign; and that sovereign said—"I will annually reside among this my people; and furthermore, no subject of mine who derives revenue from the rents paid by this my people, shall find favour in my sight if he does not, in his turn, visit that portion of those my dominions in which under me, he is to his tenants what I am to him and to all. Nor will I receive at my court elsewhere any landholder of this island who has not first paid homage to me at the court which shall be holden by me therein. And I will issue commissions of able men who shall inquire into the condition of the country's natural resources, and learn the nature of the obstacles which impede their development. And then will I exhort my Parliament to frame such just and wise laws as will tend to encourage and facilitate the operations of industry, develop the skill, and augment the wealth and prosperity and happiness of these my subjects."
And that Sovereign came and dwelt among the people of the island; and landlords came and dwelt on their estates, and, with their wives, and their sons, and their daughters—following their sovereign's example—visited the poor, considered their condition, worked for their amelioration! Heirs to landed property were no longer left to amuse themselves, or employ themselves as best they might, till the course of nature should chance to place them in their father's shoes; but they received a new training. They, like the sons of the new, the manufacturing aristocracy, were brought up to their business. They were taught how to perform the duties of their station; how the people who were under them could best be advanced, how the properties which maintained them could best be developed. And the rustic youth of that island were especially instructed in the details of the calling by which they had to live, according to the rules of modern agricultural science, so far as they were adapted to their humble style of husbandry; and their sisters were taught to make clothes, to mend them, to cook, and to clean. Poverty vanished, rags vanished, dirt vanished, discontent vanished, the people learned to respect themselves, and they also learned to respect those who were placed over them; love reigned supreme, and that attachment between chief and retainer for which the island had been famed in times of old revived with twofold intensity.
The island prospered; not more, it is true, than other countries on the adjoining mainland had been prospering for years, but then it had been far behind them, and now, like them, it prospered; and Heaven smiled on those who had done their duty by tens of thousands of struggling poor, and most especially on that One, that sovereign who had led them by example to do their duty!
Our Island Dream is told: God grant it may come true!
DESIDERATA FOR A TENANT RIGHT MEASURE.
1.—An admission of the principle that no good landlord would arbitrarily evict a good tenant.
2.—A definition of a "good tenant."
3.—Security to the tenant against valuation of his improvements for a rise of rent; and against eviction so long as he fulfilled the conditions of good tenantship.
4.—Security to the landlord against refusal by the tenant either to improve or suffer the landlord to do so.
5.—A court of arbitration for the settlement of differences between landlord and tenant, consisting of a Government agriculturist, and two arbitrators, (one chosen by each of the parties.)
6.—Clause against subletting or assignment without landlord's consent.