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grievances. People do not like to stake their lives on sentimental grievances; for this, a solid foundation of physical suffering is necessary.
J
The people in reality have no regard for home rule or any other form of separate government; beyond that they believe, as they are told, that, until they obtain it, their present poverty will continue, all their sufferings being, they believe, the result of the misgovernment of England.
The poverty and sufferings of a large section of the people are great. They are told by their leaders what the cause of it is; they are ignorant and credulous, and they believe it.
This being so, the root of the evil is physical suffering, the result of excessive unem- ployed population, aggravated by the vicissitudes of a most uncertain climate.
I admit, if there were capital to develope the resources of the country, and the skill and will to apply it, with a law-abiding people, what is now a surplus unemployed popula- tion might obtain profitable employment. But then, these are the conditions exactly wanting, and will never probably in the course of events be found co-existing in
Ireland.
Dismissing the idea of the Government employing the people on public works as chimerical, it is certain that capital will not be forthcoming from private sources for their employment in commercial enterprize.
The capital is not in the country, and will never be brought into it, where neither life, property, nor character is safe.
Again, capital requires freedom of contract, and will leave countries where it is not found and go to those where it is enjoyed. The Land Act must in this respect have dealt a fatal blow to the introduction of capital; for, long after security of life is restored, land will continue to be regarded by capitalists as a species of property that is treated by the legislature as outside the category of properties enjoying freedom of contract, and as land constitutes nine-tenths of the property of the country, it is clear that this alone would present an insuperable bar to the introduction of capital. I am informed that insurance and other money-lending companies in London have passed resolutions to make no-more advances on landed security in Ireland.
Now, assuming the increase of population in Ireland to be constant, there then appears to be only two ways of providing for the surplus population.
1. By successive transfers of the landowners' interest in the soil.
But this, I presume, would not be done further without compensation to the owners, and as the repayment of such compensation could never be enforced as against the occupiers, the magnitude of the sum would alone be an insuperable objection.
But, conceding this, transfers, even comprising the whole fee simple in the land, would not afford adequate relief to the most needy class, that of families living on less than five acres of land.
Moreover, each owner in fee would then be able to sub-divide without restriction, and, bearing in mind the absence of manufactures and the strong family affection of the race, sub-division would go ou from both choice and necessity until even the taxes could not be levied.
2. If the surplus population cannot be supported in the country by labour or gifts of land, they must obtain it out of the country; and this is just what the poor people have been forced to do for themselves in their own imperfect way with great suffering, and what I ask the Government to do for them in a more perfect way, on an organized system, and on humane principles.
We have high authority for the loss that has been sustained by failing to observe and follow out the indications and leadings of nature, and it is admitted in medical science that little more can be done than act on this principle and "assist nature."
Well, on this simple principle I would have the Government to seek out and apply the right remedy to the disorders that have for so long a time baffled statesmen in their treatment of Ireland.
It is certain that, but for this, the people's own remedy, the population would long since have become so dense that they must have been scourged by worse famines, epidemics, and civil wars, than they have yet had experience of.
But whilst emigration has thus averted the ruin, it has not secured the prosperity of the people at home or their loyalty abroad.
Emigration, as forced on the Irish people, presents a sad spectacle. Next to the system of slavery, first established by us in America, it is the most ruthless system ever forced on a subject people.
It tramples under foot the holiest instincts of our nature. Under it the young and strong of the family desert their aged and infirm parents and unprotected sisters, leaving them to their fate, too often a cruel one.
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The fragments of the family thus deprived of their natural supports must, in thousands of instances, have fallen victims to misfortunes unknown beyond the narrow family circle, and with the strong social instincts of the race these home-breakings and heart- rendings must have been indelibly burnt into the memories of successive generations, inspiring them with an undying hatred for the "cruel Government" to which all their sufferings were ascribed.
Under the Roman Empire emigration became a settled policy of government, and Europe is studded with the descendants of these plantations. But it was by families the tribes and races were removed to the districts prepared for them, not probably from humane motives, but in the exercise of that art in which the old Roman was the consummate master, that of governing subject races with the least assertion of brute force.
It has been reserved for a Christian era and the most highly professing Christian nation to enforce this system in its most cruel and repulsive form.
It has been said that evictions are "sentences of death." Granted. But the sentences are pronounced by the Government. They are not, in one sense, sentences of the landowner. What is done by him is necessary in the interests of society. For if there were no evictions for non-payment of rent, it would be in effect the transfer of all houses and lands to the present occupants without payment, and that would be the disruption of society, as is well known to the Government. But the homeless, houseless condition of the evicted family, their blank future, their ignorance and helplessness: this it is that constitutes the sentence of death, for which the Government alone is responsible.
This could not have been provided for by the landowner; to do so would have required large previous outlay and organization, not in their interest, but in that of the community, and ought therefore to have been provided by the Government alone in the interests of society.
Whilst our Colonial Empire ought to have been gathering these homeless outcasts under her ample wings, they were being driven forth, Governinent neither knowing nor caring what became of them.
How does the case really stand? On the one hand, we have a large and increasing number of families living on patches of land insufficient to support them, subject to periodical famines. On the other hand, we are of all nations the most richly endowed with unoccupied fertile lands in latitudes favourable to human life. On the one hand, rich tenantless lands; on the other, poor landless tenants. Thirdly, we have the command of capital to move the people from their patches of land, where it is known they must either die of starvation or live under conditions that an English country gentleman would not allow his dogs or horses to live under; and all this done under circumstances that raise grave suspicions that it is deliberately acquiesced in to enable the employer of labour to force these unfortunates to work for lower wages than they otherwise could be induced to accept.
A family cannot continue to live and pay rent on less than 15 acres, employing hired But there are 230,000 tenants' families living on between 1 acre and 15 acres who must employ hired labour under the following contingencies:-
labour.
(1) Where the tenant dies leaving a widow; (2) or is superannuated (or near it); (3) or is a long time or permanently disabled, without grown-up sons. Taking one-fifth to be always thus circumstanced, and three and a half to a family, there would be 150,000 souls, or about 45,000 families, always in extreme poverty, liable to eviction in Ireland.
I have often reviewed the circumstances of the case to discover, if possible, some grounds on which such conduct may be justified; but I can find none.
The only plea with the semblance of validity is that they were free to emigrate or enter the workhouse, as they liked; but, having regard to their number, the poverty into which they were born, and their ignorance, such a plea appears little better than a mockery.
To this extent at least it appears clear that our national duty goes. I believe, however, it could be shown to extend much further, and that, if rightly considered, we are in duty bound, not only to re-settle these people, but also to some extent to prepare the children for their new life, as might be done with little outlay.
•
We are now incurring the penal consequences of this breach of national duty in a series of murders and outrages paid for by these Irish-American emigrants thus cruelly driven from our shores, or their descendants, to whom was bequeathed a sense of their parents' bitter wrongs.
It is an evil which, if not checked, may continue to increase with the wealth and numbers of the Irish Americans, so as to render Ireland ungovernable-a consideration that might alone be put forward as enough to justify the proposed measure.
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I will now glance at some of the ways in which the measure would ameliorate the condition of the non-emigrants and conduce to the pacification of Ireland.
The first would be by enlarging the holdings of the class just above those who emigrated, comprising tenants of from 5 to 10 acres, by adding to their holdings those vacated by the emigrants, thus at once increasing their means of subsistence and gratifying their craving for land.
There would be a permanent reduction of rents without a corresponding increase in the tenant's liabilities in the only possible way in which that can be effected, that is, by reducing the competition for land.
All tenants acquiring their holdings by purchase or devise since 1881 will in a few years come under as heavy or heavier liabilities than they were under before the artificial reduction of rents, as your Lordship is doubtless aware.
In a country like Ireland, with little commerce or manufactures, there can be no more just grounds of disquietude than the total inability of the parent in most cases to make any adequate future provision for his sons, or see any prospect of his doing so. only useful knowledge he can impart to them is about agriculture, not available in the The country under the circumstances, but valuable to them as emigrants. In this way the Government through such a measure could confer on the poor agricultural classes of Ireland a boon greater than it is in the power of any other European Governments to confer on their subjects, and of a nature that comes home to the heart and understanding, enabling them to realize, better probably than anything else could do, the value of belonging to a great empire.
From my knowledge of the people, I have no doubt that much money would be entrusted to the emigrants by their relatives and friends to be invested in Australian farms on a joint account.
Tenure conditions could be introduced into the tenant's fee farm grants that would greatly conduce to law and good order.
If telegraph charges to Australia were reduced to three pence a word, and the emigrants conveyed by steam ships the shortest route, the apparent distance would be diminished, advantages easily attainable by the Government operating on a large scale.
By these means would every emigrant be converted into a hostage or pledge for the loyalty of his family abroad, and, in some degree, for that of his relatives at home.
For each emigrant's family, thus bappily settled, we might fairly calculate on one made loyal, and three favourably affected at home. Two hundred thousand families thus settled would be a long step towards the complete pacification of Ireland.
Those who had left our shores paupers and disaffected in a few years would be converted into loyal subjects and profitable consuiners of British manufactures. Nor would there be anything surprising in this, we should be only reaping what we had sown, as we are now doing in the case of the Irish-American emigrants. No land league could long make head against the sure and silent action of such a measure. agitators were declaiming and conspiring, their supporters would be melting away, changed in spirit and tewer in numbers.
Whilst
There is nothing after all to excite astonishment in the long continuance of disorder in Ireland, no adequate remedy ever having been applied. It was left to cure itself. it partially did by applying a remedy right in principle, but wrong in details, that This prevented its being altogether efficacious; once remove these defects, and the remedy will be perfect, and in the course of time the cure will be complete.
Communications with the Agents - General of the Australian Governments and experienced colonists give me good grounds for believing that such a system could be framed (securing these results), that would be acceptable to the Colonial Governments. But much would be required to be done by negotiation, and, if properly directed, it would be the means of securing valuable Colonial aid.
On the Colonial aspect of the case, however, so much remains to be said that I would prefer reserving it to another letter.
To assume that insecurity of tenure is the root of the disorder, is to mistake a prominent symptom for the primary cause of the disease.
As in nosology a violent suppression of a symptom may aggravate the complaint, so may the Land Act by increasing the population. The population is already too numerous for cultivating the land in the most profitable way, which in Ireland is by green crops; by this mode of cultivation the people are enabled to live in greater comfort, because the profits are larger. But this is the kind of cultivation that requires the least number of hands. Therefore no measure can bring adequate relief which does
9
not reduce the population, so as to enable the people to devote the soil to its most profitable use. But the Land Act, I fear, will increase the population and aggravate the disease.
When a steamer rolls from there being too many passengers on deck, who cannot keep their feet, this is an insecurity of position that is not to be remedied by fastening them to the deck, but by putting some ashore, not forcing them to swim off as and where they can, but conveying them as comfortably as may be.
One result at all events would be certain, apart from other considerations; the difficulties of governing a turbulent people must be reduced in proportion to the reduction of the population: of itself, I would submit, no inadequate gain.
It is sometimes asserted that the people are weary of agitation. This is a mistake. They have gained too much by it; it has been too long successful; besides, agitation and intrigue are favourite diversions of the people, as may be plainly seen by reference to their history even long before their conquest by England.
The objections to such a measure so far as I can collect them are few and easily answered.
There is one very distinctive characteristic which, if due weight were given to it, would disarm honest opposition.
The measure may be shortly described as one of legislation for Ireland, though not in it. Though calculated to profoundly affect the social condition of the people, it does not directly deal with a single right of property or person, or in any way interfere with the social habits of the people. It is essentially a free offer from a wealthy State to its industrious poor, which each may accept or reject as he likes, an offer which, if accepted, may with industry raise the family from their unutterably hopeless condition of poverty to one of comparative comfort and independence.
Seeing that it is not an offer addressed to an evil passion, or weakness of humanity, but rather to the best instincts of our nature, I can conceive of no objection to such a measure, springing from a genuine or honest motive.
Some objectors would almost seem to look upon an emigrant leaving our shores as passing out of existence deserving of no more human sympathy and regard. But surely if we enable families to exchange a state of almost hopeless poverty for one of com- parative comfort anywhere, that is a good deed that will not be without its reward; not the less because it is done by us collectively as a State and to thousands of families instead of to one or two.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number, irrespective of geographical limits is a principle that ought to influence us; we ought not to try all questions by the standard of £. s. and d., however taking it, even on that principle, it would be found that a pros- perous emigrant in a Colony is more profitable even to the English manufacturer than a seditious pauper in Ireland.
Again it is argued that as capital and land are valueless without labour, so to reduce the population, must impoverish the State. But this is not so; when excessive population is diminished, reproductive labour is relatively increased. The former often leads to lawlessness; thus prosperity may be promoted by reducing a redundant population.
Population follows capital, but not capital population, but shuns it, under certain
conditions.
It has been objected that such a measure would require the Government to do too much for the individual. But there is no force in the objection; if the individuals really compose a numerous class, and if the benefitting of this class is of advantage to the whole community, as the permanent pacification of Ireland would be; and if all this can be done without cost to the State.
Then again the Irish peasant is very ignorant and could not combine, and carry out such an undertaking; as the Germans are in effect doing by their emigration clubs.
To apply all resources to all difficulties is said to be among the highest functions of a statesman, and surely this is a case in point, to supply a deficiency of national character by a suitable organization. Different races require different treament. Thus what might well be supererogatory in the case of an educated self reliant German or Scotch emigrant is necessary for the Irish.
It has been further objected that such a scheme would operate as a bounty on the export of British labour tending to raise the home rate of wages, or more plainly, that though any one is free to emigrate, yet State funds are not to be employed to promote Irish emigration, because British manufacturers require cheap labour.
If this policy is to keep in existence an impoverished class in Ireland for the benefit of the employer of labour, it is a dangerous one, and in the end will not pay, in principle like the American captain who to win his race sits on the safety valve of the engine.
B
R 6095.