The Irish problem/About leases (part 2nd)
III.
ABOUT LEASES (Part 2nd)
The aim of James L when he devised his "Plantation Scheme," was to give encouragement to men who were willing and able to transform the wilderness of Ulster into a garden. Many such men appeared, and thanks to the wisdom of the Monarch, thousands of our northern acres are now rich with fertility. But in spite of the Monarch's wisdom, other thousands of those acres are still in a state of little better than barrenness; and on many a hillside, squalidity and real or apparent penury reign supreme.^ And this is due to the too frequent departure from the spirit of the scheme in question.
Now, by whom was this departure made? Some will reply—"By the landlords, by a denial on their part of that security which was prescribed by the Sovereign, and which was requisite for the development of the best energies of the tenant."
Let us appeal to unimpeachable facts in order that it may be seen how far this allegation can hold good. We shall confine ourselves to a case within our own direct cognizance. We prefer not to deal in generalities, and will leave it to others to say whether our conclusions are borne out by their own experience.
We have before us a lease granted in the reign of William III., in the year 1700, demising two townlands, containing about 500 acres, to a single individual for the term of three lives, at a rent of £16 per annum. This lease dropped in the year 1750 when the lands in question appear parcelled out amongst about forty holders, who in their turn receive leases for three lives more, or thirty-one to forty-one years, at about 5s per acre. And we have before us a further budget of leases which, at about £1 per acre, bring all these holdings down to the present generation. Some have fallen in, and have not been renewed j others are still running. But as the condition of all the holders is unchanged, save for the better since the time when the last leases began to expire, we may assume that they have all been virtually under a system of security of tenure since the land was first redeemed from its state of wilderness. It will surely then be interesting to see what have been the economic results of this security of tenure, and whether it has established a race of model farmers. Certainly some of the farms and farm steadings in question are inmost pleasing to behold, the houses neat and clean, the yard« tidy, the fences very tolerably trim, the 'fields fairly farmed. But others again, under exactly the same conditions, are in nearly every respect the reverse. We have recently visited. same of the holdings of the latter class; and to say nothing of the more purely agicultural defects, have felt do a state of positive perplexity when striving to devise some means by which the long Irish rows of deformed habitations thereon could be converted into civilized dwellings, rather than be -totally demolished.
Let us return for a while to our starting point, the lease of 1700, and examine some of its terms. They were such as follows:—That the lessee should "erect, or cause to be erected 'On the most convenient place on the premises a large dwelling house of good oak timber, the walls of stone and lime, at least 50 feet long and 14 high; and sufficiently enclose with ditch, and quickset a plantation acre of land adjoining to said house, and should sufficiently plant the same with good fruit trees." Then a proviso that the lessee should preserve all the timber growing then or thereafter on the land; uphold and maintain the buildings in tenantable repair, and at the expiration of the demise should "so 80 yield up and leave the same." Also that he should "scour and fence in the meares and bounds of the premises." And that he should "not at any time, alien, sell, or convey his estate or interest in the premises or any part thereof, without the special license of the lessor in writing."
Now, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, there is not even a tradition of such a house as the one stipulated for having 'ever been built. There is, however, the most palpable evidence that the sturdy yeoman in question, if he did not do his part to improve the face of the country, according to the intention of the Royal scheme, commenced even at that early era to lay the foundation of that system of independence of landlords and their rights which has now become so much in vogue.
For in the face of the stipulation not to assign without consent an writing, we find the land, at the expiration of this first lease, in the hands of forty sub-tenants. It is true that on the back of the lease there is a memorandum of assignment; but not only is this to one individual, and not to forty, but further, it is clearly nought but a little private arrangement between the assignor and the assignee; for although their respective signatures are duly attested, the landlord's assent does not appear thereto at all.[1] The forty were evidently this middle-man's squatters. But it would appear that when the lease fell in, the landlord whose tenants they then became, good-naturedly established to them the benefits of the Plantation Scheme; for they all now received leases for lives with the usual stipulations.
The family of the assignee who has just been alluded to, come in for about seventy-five of the 500 acres under the new arrangement. The love of sub-letting seems still to pursue them; for although the stipulations against this proceeding were renewed in the leases of 1750, we find in an old note book belonging to the landlord who owned the property in the year 1798, the following memorandum respecting their holding: —
"This farm is let mostly to under-tenants far a guinea an acre."
Now, mark the rent for which this land had been let by the landlord in 1750.—Five Shillings an acre. Are we to believe that the family of this assignee had themselves so far improved their holding with buildings, fences, and so forth, as to have it made worth twenty-one shillings an acre before they sub-let it, contrary to their stipulation? We scarcely think so. We fear the assignee did not do by his illicit under-tenants as his landlord had done by him. And what had the landlord done for him? He had let him the land at a rent which would enable him, with much profit to himself to reclaim it, and be able to have a considerable sum to his credit, if he was a thrifty man, at the end of thirty-one years, even after he had delivered up all his improvements in good condition to his landlord, as per agreement. Don't let any one exclaim at the idea of his giving up his improvements; for was it not a bargain? The conditions to build proper houses, quick and weed the fences, scour the ditches, &c., were all in the lease, clearly set forth. It was as though the landlord had said, let us suppose, to some holder of twelve acres, "You shall have these twelve acres for thirty-one years, not at 21s an acre, the price at which you value it amongst yourselves in sub-letting it in an unimproved state to each other, but at 5s an acre, in other words at about £90 for the whole term instead of £390, on the condition that you add what I specify to the value of my land, and restore it to me at the end of the time with the specified improvements upon it." What an excellent bargain for a twelve-acre farmer, even if he built the best of houses, and made the most perfect drains, and the trimmest of fences.
The English landlord charges for similar land at the present day 30s per acre and upwards; having first made the improvements in a much more durable and skilful way at his own cost. We think the English landlord is the most business-like of the two. What he does in drains, fences, or buildings, will last for a century or more. The Irish tenant of each generation in some of our backward districts shows his taste for improvement best, by destroying the improvements of his predecessor: pulling down the old cabin and erecting a better (to be pulled down in its turn by his son who will build a two-storey house), levelling the fences made with much toil, "hoking" up with difficulty the old shallow stone drains and making deeper ones. But it often puzzles us to discover the grounds on which tenants of this class found their claim for compensation. Heartily as we can sympathise with the tenant, who with a farm already let at its full value, is expected to make thereon drains, buildings, and all the rest of it, without any security assuring him the enjoyment of these until he has recouped himself, and who at his own risk carries out these works in a skilful and efficient manner we confess that we cannot extend our commiseration to men whose improvements (being, perhaps to begin with, no improvements at all,) have been effected under a continuous system of leases with rents estimated in accordance with the stipulated work to be done ever since the land was a wilderness. In such cases we reserve our pity rather for the landlord, who, having in the course of 31 years foregone on a farm of say 12 acres an aggregate sum of about £300 of rent, finds himself saddled at the end of that time with a number of ungainly fences—many of them superfluous; some shallow drains which, from having to be "extracted" before new ones can be made are worse than none; and a range of unsightly buildings.
And to crown all, he would be told that the tenant whose advantageous lease had just dropped, had a right to compensation for all these valuable labours.
Those who are extensively acquainted with the modern history of Tenant Bight in Ulster will, we are sure, admit that this is not an overdrawn picture of the too common defects of the system.
While contemplating our sketch we feel sorely tempted to use the words of Lord Palmerston, and say, "what some call Tenant Right is too often Landlord Wrong!" But on further reflection we feel we must admit that in the past there have been faults on both sides. Or perhaps we shall express the position more truly, when we say of both, that the evils which have arisen have been "more their misfortune than their fault." That system which leaves it to the unskilled tenant farmer to build, fence, and drain, without the landlord's guidance or assistance must in many parts of this country—in model Ulster as well as poor slighted Connaught—result in a great deal of unprofitable outlay. And when, in addition to the imperfect skill of many a tenant, and his deficiency of capital to do the work substantially and well, we have the fact of landlords being non-resident, so that there as no check upon the departure of the tenant from those terms of his covenant or lease which were intended to cause him properly to improve his holding, we have the whole secret of the slow progress made on some parts of the much extolled Ulster Settlement.
The present; landlord of the property of which the lands in question form a part, is now resident thereon, but his predecessors dwelt elsewhere. It will remain for him, and those who succeed him, to cure the faults of the past—to see that by future stipulations and agreements, which should be made the indispensable condition on which the present tenants and their heirs should enjoy security of tenure, proper houses should be erected if needed, proper fences made, and the land properly drained.
These stipulations were duly made in past leases era after era. They were not, for the most part, carried out in the intended spirit; for many of the houses are incommodious and unsightly, the farming too often indifferent, the fences fearful to behold.
Now, are these houses, farms, and fences the property of this landlord, or of the tenant? Clearly the property of the landlord; for in consideration of their being made, improved, kept up, and given up by the tenant at the end of the term, the landlord gave to the latter a lease of the premises for 31 years, at a proportionate rent.
We have taken some pains to prove this, not for the sake of being hard upon tenants in any way, but merely to show, that supposing past "improvements," which are not "improvements," will have in future to be destroyed, those who have made them agreeably to the conditions of such leases have no just claims respecting them. The loss is that of the landlord and his predecessor, who chose to forego the power of letting the land at a higher rent, in order that they might have these things done for them.
There are their "improvements"—Failures—and there's an end of it! For the future we would propose a new state of things. As we have said, we should be willing to leave the invidious right of revaluation to the State, and let it be at certain set periods. But we would still claim for the landlord the right to stipulate for those improvements to his property in which his forefathers, and his tenants and their forefathers, have tried their hands and in too many cases failed. We would seek for no evictions save" for non-payment of rent, or for failure or refusal to carry out 'reasonable stipulations of the above nature; and lest such should at any time be considered unreasonable, we would submit them gladly to the opinion of some government official appointed for that purpose.
And whatever improvements were made at the tenant's cost, if he had not a set-off in the rent, we would leave to his credit, claiming the same terms for improvements made by the landlord.
It is our belief that such an arrangement alone would meet the real intention of the Plantation of Ulster.
To the system of terminable leases, as we have already stated, we would not return. A bad tenant slips through a lease. For a good tenant it is, we maintain, an insufficient reward; if at the present usually prevailing rental (about £1 per acre) the bulk of future improvements, supposing that they are to be really improvements, devolves upon him. And we have lively recollections, which make us inimical to leases, of an aged relative of our own having been obliged a short time before her death to quit a house in which she had spent most of her life, because her lease had expired, and the house was sold over her head. We Irish love the prospect of handing down to our heirs that which was the home of our fathers before us, whether we be high or low; and while holding that wilful neglect or mismanagement deserves to be visited, in any class, with the natural penalties, we here put in a plea in favour of security foe the well deserving. And since, in the foregoing remarks, we have spoken much of the shortcomings of the slovenly and unskilled amongst a tenantry which we suppose we may take as a fair sample of many Irish tenantries, we gladly bear witness to the willingness which exists amongst many of these to improve, if only they can be shown the way. And at the same time we gladly admit that these slovenly and unskilled ones form but a section of the whole. But as with individual estates, so it will be with Ireland. And it should not be suffered, if good laws or good landlordism can prevent it, that even a section of Ireland should be left to lag in arrear of the age!
Believing, for our own part, that in the past, the security of leases has in reality been more general than some would lead us to suppose; we also hold that this form of security has proved a failure so far as regards the general advance of the country. For the future development of our agricultural resources we look with more hope to a land partnership, which, commencing by a valuation of actual improvements already made by the tenant over and above any proved stipulation, and not against the consent of the landlord, which shall in all matters for the time to come bring landlord and tenant into mutual co-operation for the general good. Sic floreat Hibernia! Erin-go-Bragh!
- ↑ The landlord's name does appear at the foot of another and a most peculiar endorsement, viz.—a stipulation that if the trusty yoeman and his family attend at the parish church and hear prayers and sermons, he is to be let off £l per annum of his "dues!"