statement of the right hon. Gentleman | from the House, and would endeavour to remain uncontradicted one moment to earn it, by abstaining from a single longer than I can help. I say that expression that, by its heat or intemperwith reference to a Party led in this ance, might injure the cause he had at House by the right hon. Gentleman the heart. Accordingly, he passed by the Member for North Devon since Lord many hard, bitter, and unjust things Beaconsfield left us for the House of which had been said by both English Lords-a Party, united as it is, the right and Irish Members, not only with rehon. Gentleman was not justified even gard to himself, but also the action of by implication in the conclusion which the Land League in Ireland. He did he drew. I have endeavoured to point not believe a Minister had ever introout some of the main objections which I duced to the House a Bill of equal hold to the fundamental principles of the magnitude, or dealing with a problem. Bill, and why the holding of those ob- of greater complexity. The Governjections have influenced me to vote ment had reason to be satisfied with the against the second reading. This, how-reception it had met with; for it had ever, I would say-nothing is further from the intention of many of us who take this course than the tactics of obstruction or delay which the right hon. Gentleman feared the Bill might meet with in its progress. We agree entirely with him in thinking that the sooner the goal is reached the better, for it is not well that this question should be dangled before the public and made the incessant theme of agitation in Ireland. Nor is it well that by new concessions to public clamour, or undue concession to foregone conclusions or Party prejudice, the measure should be damaged in its proAlthough we have thought it right to protest against the Bill at this stage, I trust that it will meet, when the practical work in Committee is reached, with the same consideration and the same temperate criticism as we have endeavoured to extend to the second reading.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR said, he had never risen to address the House with feelings of deeper depression than at that moment. Whatever prolongation of the debate on the second reading had taken place, it was not due to the speeches of hon. Members with whom he generally acted, for they had abstained from intruding themselves in the discussion until the air had, so to speak, been cleared by the sense-or non-sensewhich might come from various parts of the House. The opinions he had formed on this Bill, after long and painful consideration, were opinions not merely of a minority of Members of the House, but of a minority of a minority, for he had reason to believe that his views with regard to this measure were not shared by even the majority of Irish Members. Under those circumstances, he must claim particular indulgence

been praised alike by Radicals, Whigs, and Ministerialists, and by one of the ablest exponents of Irish Conservatism on that side of the House. It had also received the praises of those Irish Members who were Ministerialists first, and Irishmen a very long way afterwards. An old proverb told them that when rogues fell out honest men came by their own. When he saw Whigs and Conservatives joining together, he thought it was high time for the policemen to look after the pockets of the Irish tenants as affected by this Bill. He was not much affected in his judgment of the Bill by the predictions which came from hon. Members on the other side of the House as to its results. Was there ever an Act ushered into existence amidst so loud a chorus of approval as the Land Act of 1870; and had ever an Act gone to its dishonoured tomb amidst so little expression of even the decencies of burial? All the history of the past legislation with regard to Ireland, all the history of the land legislation that had attempted to regulate the joint interests of landlord and tenant in the soil, all the past examples of history in that respect in Ireland, and in every other country, was a lesson of warning and a beacon to those who had the interests of the tenants at heart; for nothing had been more clearly proved by the history of land legislation than that on paper everything the tenant wanted, or could fairly demand, was given, but that when the Act came into operation the tenant might be left in almost a worse position than he was before. He would not go over the stale ground of the Act of 1870; but he would take the predictions with regard to that Act on three main points. One of the pre[Seventh Night.]

dictions which came from the right hon. | Gentleman (Colonel Stanley) to the very and learned Gentleman the senior Mem- remarkable speech made by the noble ber for the University of Dublin-was Lord the Secretary of State for India that that Act would take £120,000,000 with regard to the intentions of this from the landlords and put it into the Bill. The speech of the noble Lord was pockets of the tenants. Another calcu- far away the most encouraging speech lation was that the 600,000 tenants in he had heard from the Ministers-it was Ireland would obtain- £100 each for far away the best speech on this quesimprovements, and £100 each for dis- tion that had come from Englishmen, turbance. Those were the predictions; because it was the most Land League but what were the results? In the three speech delivered on the question. The years 1871, 1872, and 1873, the total noble Lord said the ultimate solution of amount awarded by the Land Court was the land difficulty in Ireland was & £461,149; and the average awarded to peasant proprietary. That was what the tenants was not £100 for improve- the Land League said; and the first ments and £100 for disturbance, but portion of the Bill, according to the £27 58. That was the manner in which noble Lord, was in no sense a final at£120,000,000 were taken from the land- tempt at solving the question, but was lords and put into the pockets of the merely a modus vivendi to fill up the tenants. Then it was said by the hon. interval between the present condition Member for Tralee, with regard to the of the tenant and the halcyon period effects of the Act of 1870 on evictions when every tiller of the soil should be -and the hon. Member in the same its owner. He should like to see those speech uttered many wise warnings words repeated and emphasized from the against some defects in the Act, which Treasury Bench, because, if that was the were not attended to-that if the Bill view of the Government as to the opera passed he believed it would be next to tion of this Bill, it proved that this was impossible for a landlord to evict a ten- a Bill which the Land League of Ireant, unless he had such reasons for land would be justified in gladly acceptdoing so as everybody capable of dis-ing, and nothing would more encourage criminating between right and wrong the Ministers than that the Lion of would sanction. How tragic was the the Executive Government and the contrast between that prediction and the Lamb of the Land League in Dub1,060 decrees executed in 1877, the 2,888 lin should lie down together. The decrees executed in 1880, and the 2,500 first portion of the Bill was defined decrees which, according to the right by the noble Lord as a modus vivendi. hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, had He wished he could accept that definibeen issued at one Quarter Sessions in tion as accurate. He had so long forthe present year! He would not go in gotten the study of the classics that he detail into the other predictions and the did not know whether he should be right contrast between them and the result; or wrong; but he should rather call the but it was said that the Bill would stop Bill a modus moriendi for the tenants, and rack-renting, and rack-renting had gone not a modus vivendi. He believed he on in Ulster since 1870 with a frequency should be able to clearly prove that, and relentlessness never before paral- whatever might be the benefit from the leled. It was said that the Bill would Bill to the tenantry, it was a remote stop emigration; and last year there thing, but that the injury to the tenant was a larger emigration from Ireland was very clear and very near. What than in any of the preceding 26 years. was the position of the Irish tenant? It was said by the Prime Minister that The hon. Member for Roscommon a few the Bill might reasonably be considered days ago put a Question to the Chief a final solution of the difficulties in Ire- Secretary as to whether or not the eviland; and here to-day they were face to dence of the hon. Member for Kilkenny, face with the difficulties in a more the evidence of Colonel King-Harman, threatening and more wholesale manner and the evidence of several witnesses than in any previous period. Therefore before the Bessborough Commission did he said there was a yawning chasm be- not agree in stating that the condition of tween the predictions of 1870 and the a large number of the tenants in Ireland realities of 1881. Allusion had been at the present moment was a condition made by the right hon. and gallant of indebtedness which in many parts

Mr. T. P. O'Connor

If

dragged through the mire and the mud. He hoped the lesson of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill would not be lost on the Government; and if, having introduced this Bill, they left the tenants still unprotected, the Irish people would know what to think of the friendliness of the present Government. The tenants were in arrear; and, supposing the Bill passed

amounted to absolute bankruptcy. hon. Members would look through either the Commission over which the Duke of Richmond presided, or that presided over by Lord Bessborough, they would find that both the tenant farmer and the landlord, both the official, like Professor Baldwin, and the active politician agreed in representing that indebtedness as existing. There were three facts acknow-in its present shape, how did the tenant ledged by everybody. It was acknow- in arrear stand? The landlord did not ledged that the Irish tenants had gone find the collection of his rents very easy through three bad seasons recently; that just now. He would go to the tenant and a large portion of those tenants would say "Here is a Bill given by the have been face to face with famine but Liberal Ministry; by the friendly hands for almsgiving from all parts of the of the First Lord of the Treasury, world on a scale of gigantic generosity; and by the Chief Secretary," whose and the state of the Irish tenants through humanity was now a bye- word in their past indebtedness, approaching to Ireland. Here was a Bill which was bankruptcy, received its final seal of ac- approved of by the hon. Member for knowledgment by the introduction last the County of Cork, a displaced but still year of a Compensation for Disturb- adored leader; here was a Bill approved ance Bill, the main effect of which was of by several hon. Members who were to alter by law existing contracts with re- supposed to be extreme advocates of the gard to rent. Therefore, he called the Mi- tenants' cause. Surely the tenant could nisters themselves to witness. His chief not object to a Bill introduced under testimony was Ministerial utterances such beneficent auspices. The landlord that the condition of a large number of would say " You owe me three years' the Irish tenants was a condition of rent. You have the right of free sale. large indebtedness amounting almost Here is this magnificent measure; this to bankruptcy. His charge against this final, this generous, this gigantic boon Bill was that the people for whose bene- to you and all your fellows. Go into fit the Compensation for Disturbance Court and get £30. I will take what Bill was brought in last year were left you owe me, and the shopkeeper whom utterly, entirely, and completely unpro- you owe for meal will try to take his tected by this Bill. Do not let there be £30." The solicitor would try to take again any of the miserable excuses which £2 or £3, and how much of the £30 the Government gave for their conduct would remain to the tenant, upon whom on the Bill of last year. It was their this Bill was to confer such benefits? statement that unless they carried that The shopkeeper might make a composiBill the task of governing Ireland would tion, and the landlord might give up his be difficult, and well-nigh impossible. right of precedence; but all that would A large portion of the tenants were be left to the tenant might be as much threatened with eviction, which, as the as would take him to the nearest emiPrime Minister had said, came very near gration ship, so that he might leave his to a sentence of starvation. Those home. What, then, was the position of amounted to nearly 15,000 in number; the tenant? It was this-his farm gone, and because of the rebuff of another his house broken up, and not a penny Assembly which they were now trying left in his pocket. And what was the alternately to bully and cajole-to hold position of the landlord? The old tenant up as a bugbear and a Paradise alter- gone, and a new and a better tenant in nately the Government left those 15,000 his stead; or, if he employed the right sentences to be carried out, and left the of pre-emption, he would have the farm government of the country difficult and back in his own possession without paywell-nigh impossible. And when the ing anything for it, because the comLand League took up the work of go-pensation to the tenant for disturbance vernment which the Government could would be swallowed up by the arrears. not fulfil, and gave that protection which | The landlord either took the farm back the Government could not extend, they himself, or gave it to a new and better were thanked by having their leaders tenant, and the latter had to pay the [Seventh Night.]

on.

compensation for disturbance which, but | entirely prospective in its operation, for this Bill, the landlord would have because, when the landlord and tenant had to pay. Further, the landlord got went to the Court for the purpose of fixpayment of his arrears. This magnifi-ing the rent, the rent should be deemed to cent Bill was a magnificent Bill, the good results of which were all on the side of the landlord, while the bad results were on the side of the tenant. Then, with regard to emigration, the tenant would be at a double disadvantage. There would be the landlord shoving him out through what was called free sale" at the door, and at the door was the emigration agentunder the emigration clause-with a free pass, bidding him go to that land in the West, where an Irishman had some chance of success. So that there was a double agency for eviction going What, therefore, did this part of the Bill mean? It meant, with regard to something like 100,000 or 200,000 tenants, eviction, vast, huge, made easy and profitable to the landlord, and expensive to the tenant. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the generous reception which this Bill had received in Ireland. It had received a generous reception; but the generosity had, he thought, rather overcome the prudence and good sense of the people. What made the case in regard to the tenants worse? They were in arrear of rack rent; they were in arrear of rent which was acknowledged by hon. Gentlemen opposite to be an unfair rent. Cases of rack-renting had been given over and over again in the House. In one case the rent was increased at one stroke from £530 to £790 a-year. Professor Baldwin had told them that in the case of one farm on Lord ---'s estate, the rent had been increased by 95 per cent in a few years; in 1860 the rent was £6 10s. 6d., and it was increased, year by year, until in 1869 it was £12 138. 2d. Now, what were they going to do with a case like this, which was simply one of monstrous injustice? According to the Bill no one was going to be driven out of his house and home because he could not pay an unjust rent. But mark this, they had carefully made, with the exception of one clause to which he would presently refer, the whole effect of the Bill prospective. Hon. Gentlemen talked of compensation to landlords. He could meet them by the claim of restitution to the tenant. But there was nothing about such restitution. The Bill was almost

Mr. T. P. O'Connor

be rent payable by the tenant from the period of the next succeeding rent day. There was not a word with regard to the past. It was only with regard to the future that the Bill came in, and accordingly the Bill would help the landlords to evict between 100,000 and 200,000 tenants for arrears of rent, the injustice of which the Government themselves admitted. He now wanted to deal with the general facts, and subsection 4 of the famous Clause 7. There were some hon. Friends of his who were under the delusion that this section was going to make a large and general reduction of rents in Ireland. They were under that delusion, in spite of the most express admissions from the Treasury Bench, for when the ex-Attorney General for Ireland stated that the effect of the Bill would be to leave rents pretty much as they now stood, up rose the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to confirm and emphasize that declaration. The right hon. Gentleman said that, in his opinion, in nine cases out of 10, the rent would remain exactly where it was. What was the position he and his hon. Friends took up with regard to the renting of Ireland? It was this-that unless they had a very general and almost wholesale reduction, the tenant farmers of Ireland would be utterly unable to compete with any success, under the changed condition of agriculture with American competition. ["Hear, hear!"] An English Member cheered that observation. Why was that? Because those who represented the agricultural and landed interests had been taught, within the last two or three years, to believe that if the farmers of England were to be able to compete with America they must be required to pay smaller rents; and if lower rents on a large scale be demanded in England, with how much greater force ought they to be demanded in Ireland, where they had no capital but their spade? If any of his hon. Friends were under the impression that this Bill was going to largely reduce rents they could never retain that impression under the words of disillusion which had come from the Treasury Bench. If, intrusted with the interests and hopes of the

Irish tenants in his constituency; if, | meetings, to emphasize that advice which raised by no merit of his own to be one he had been giving consistently for the of the executive body of their tenant last 12 months. Litigation was made organization, he were to deceive them absolutely inevitable. What was the with the false hope that they would be evidence of the Commissions on the saved from eviction, that they would question of litigation? It was to the get free sale and have their rents largely effect that a large number of the tenants reduced, what would be his position of Ireland dreaded going to law. It was when they had had experience of the said the Irish were litigious. His hon. operation of the Bill? He would be Friend the senior Member for the City very probably regarded as a deceiver of of Waterford (Mr. R. Power) told him those who had put trust in him. This that in Ireland it was unusual even for Bill conferred no new property on the tenants to go through the legal process tenant; it conferred no property on the of making a will. The man would get tenant that was not already acknow- a Poor Law Guardian to draw up his ledged in the Act of 1870. It provided will, it was signed or not, and the whole different machinery for the protection thing went on by a quiet understanding. of that property it was true, and the He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) could say that new machinery was no better than the to the ordinary Irish peasant nothing old; in fact, it was the old machinery was more appalling or abhorrent to his re-furnished, and no tinkering could imagination than the prospect of litigamake the machinery of the Land Act of tion; and he boldly asserted that many 1870 good machinery. It conferred no of the tenants went without, over and new property on the tenant. It left the over again, compensation for improvequestion of the tenant's property in the ment and for disturbance rather than land exactly where it stood in the Land face the uncertain risk of a suit at law Act of 1870. The average value of the before a landlord Judge. He had incitenant's property in the land was fixed dentally alluded to the question of emiby the Land Courts under the Act of gration, and had endeavoured to show 1870 at £27 58., and the Irish tenants the House that emigration was a powermight now be rejoiced to learn that the ful ally of eviction. He wanted to show present Bill would not increase that that emigration was the deadly enemy value. [An hon. MEMBER: And after of migration. There was plenty of work a law suit.] Yes, after a law suit; and for every Irishman on Irish land, and this magnificent measure, which was to Ireland was quite able to support a stop agitation, which was to break the much greater population than she had reign of Saturn-he thought he had at present. What did emigration mean? better say Satyr-this Bill, which recog- What was meant by a family leaving nized the property of the tenant in the Connaught for the United States? It soil, valued that property at £27 58. meant, from the very lowest point of each. But in order to get this recog-view, the exportation of the wealthnition of property in the soil a law suit was necessary. He was delighted to hear the Prime Minister emphasize the fact that law was much more offensive and dangerous to the tenant than to the landlord. The Prime Minister well knew that the tenant was poor and the landlord was rich. What did the declaration of the Prime Minister mean? They would find the declaration would be repeated on many Land League platforms within the next two or three years, because it meant that the tenant, being poor, had been simply impotent against the landlord, and it was only by combination that his poverty could be put upon an equality with the richness of the landlord. He should take care, when he went to any Land League

producing machine. Why was America anxious to get the Irish emigrant, and why was Canada willing to pay his passage? Because they knew that farmers who were brought from Ireland and put there would produce not only his own food, but would also very largely increase the general wealth of the community. Every emigrant who was shipped to America was lost to Ireland. Too many had left already, for there was plenty of land in Ireland on which to employ them. Until the population was congested there was no need to send Irishmen to America or Manitoba. Let them be sent on the 2,000,000 acres of unreclaimed land, and in a few years' time the present waste land of Ireland would be amongst the most productive [Seventh Night.]