Irish History And The Irish Question Part 10

His criticisms culminated in the publication of a schedule of amendments which he claimed were necessary to the final settlement of the question.

It is worth while now putting them on record, for they have a true historical value. It is now seen in the working of the act, that the acceptance of some of the amendments contained in the schedule materially improved the bill, while the omission of the others explains the necessity for still further legislation on the subject.

The following is a summary of the amendments referred to:--

1. The rights of tenants under the Fair Rent Laws should be maintained intact.

2. No non-judicial tenant should be excluded from purchase by reason merely of his tenure. Caretakers of holdings of which they had previously been tenants should have the rights of tenants for the purpose of purchasing such holdings.

3. As a condition precedent to purchase, non-judicial rents and first term rents fixed or agreed upon down to the end of 1896 should be reduced to the average level, substantially of second term rents, and purchase should not be transacted in the cases of non-judicial rents, or of such first term rents, except upon this basis.

4. The purchase system being voluntary, the compulsory limits of price in this bill should be struck out.

5. The aim of the system being to extinguish dual ownership and equal treatment being essential both as between past and future transactions, and also between the tenant who buys his holding and the landlord who buys back his land sold by him to the State, no rent charge should be reserved.

Such a reservation would forever exclude the tenant from ownership, by erecting a new and perpetual system of landlordism in the place of the old.

6. The rate of interest on consols being now two and one-half per cent, the new guaranteed stock might be issued at two and one-half, instead of two and three-fourths as proposed, and by this means the decadal reductions, instead of being abolished as the bill provides, might be allowed at the rate of eight per cent; or, at the option of the purchaser, the period during which his annuity would be payable could be shortened by about ten years. If the annuity rate were three and one-half, the purchaser might be allowed to choose between decadal reductions at the rate of eleven per cent, and a term of redemption shorter by nearly twenty years than that prescribed in the bill.

7. Sales of untenanted land, and, in particular, resales of demesne or other land to vendors, should be subject to the needs of migration, of enlarged holdings, and of making provision for evicted tenants, in the case of each estate or district, and no evicted farm should be resold to the vendor, or sold to a new tenant, if the evicted tenant, or his personal representative, is willing to become the purchaser.

8. The cost of improvement of estates and untenanted land, being charged to every purchaser and repaid by his annuity, should be provided for as part of the advances required for the purposes of this act, leaving the reserve fund available to the estates commissioners for cases of exceptional need.

9. It is necessary to maintain the existing satisfactory condition that the holding, or other land purchased, is to be sufficient security for the repayment of the advance.

10. The Purchase Aid Fund should be increased to not less than twenty millions; and distributed either in inverse ratio to the number of years'

purchase in each case, or by a uniform grant of a fixed number of years'

purchase to every selling landlord.

11. A term of years should be fixed in the bill, on the expiration of which term the provisions for grants from the Purchase Aid Fund, resales to landlords, and distribution of purchase money free of cost should cease to operate.

12. The subject of sporting and mineral rights calls for clear provision dictated in the public interest, instead of the ambiguous, loose, and inconclusive proposals which appear in the bill.

13. It is requisite that the limit of advance to an evicted tenant be not less than the ordinary limits; also, that provision be made for restoring evicted tenants to their former holdings when vacant; for making arrangements to that end when the holdings are occupied; and for stocking the land.

14. The cramping restrictions imposed on the congested districts board, which have effectually prevented that body from dealing with the great agrarian evil of the West, would not be removed or substantially diminished by the meagre proposals of the bill; nor can the privations and miseries endured in the congested districts be sufficiently abated in any other way than by such a redistribution of grazing ranches as will provide the people of those districts with land enough to yield them the means of living. As the guarantee fund--now ample enough for every purpose--is henceforth to apply alike to congested and other districts, and as advances for land purchase are seen to be free from risk, and special treatment is to be applied to congested estates throughout the country, it is evident that the time has come for a uniform system of land purchase, and that this is to be secured, either by investing the congested districts board, for all the purposes of land purchase in their particular areas, with powers corresponding to those of the estates commissioners, or else by giving the estates commissioners jurisdiction for land purchase in the congested districts, and authorizing the board to apply its income wholly to its various other objects of expenditure.

15. The proposals with regard to the Labourers' Acts are so trivial that they cannot be amended. The government should be asked to appoint a commission to inquire and report, this year, how the question may be adequately dealt with; and a bill directed seriously to that end should be pa.s.sed into law next session.

The Irish Land Act, 1903, otherwise known as the Wyndham Act, from the name of the Irish chief secretary who introduced it, came into force on the 1st of November, 1903. This is not the place to set forth its provisions, but the princ.i.p.al advantages which accrue to a selling landlord and a purchasing tenant availing of its provisions may be briefly stated. The entire purchase money agreed upon is paid to the landlord in cash. No part of the purchase money is retained as a guarantee deposit.

For the purchase of a single holding the limitations of preceding acts are extended to 7000.

The vendor of an estate shall receive in addition to the purchase money from the tenants a bonus for his own immediate benefit. The landlord is enabled to sell his demesne, and repurchase it at a profit. The landlord may sell his estate direct to estate commissioners appointed by the act, or to the congested districts board, and these bodies are enabled to resell to the tenants after readjustment and part.i.tion of the holdings on the estate if necessary. Enlarged powers of investment of purchase money are conferred upon trustees. The princ.i.p.al advantages secured to the tenant are as follows: At the end of sixty-eight and one-half years, a tenant becomes owner in fee of his holding. As soon as the agreement to purchase is signed, he ceases to be liable for rent. He is enabled to repay the advance at the rate of three and one-fourth per cent of his purchase money. (Though the reduction of the annuity rate from four per cent under the previous act to three and one-fourth per cent under the Wyndham Act is an undoubted advantage to a tenant, it is certainly to his disadvantage that the amount set aside towards the sinking fund should be reduced from one and one-fourth per cent and one per cent to one-half per cent.) In congested districts the land commission, or congested districts board, may purchase lands under certain conditions to enable them to deal with the problem of congestion.

The greatest blot on the measure is undoubtedly what is known as the "Zones." The act provides that if the price agreed upon between the parties allows a reduction of not less than ten per cent nor more than thirty per cent on a tenant's existing rent, in the case of a second term rent, and a reduction of not less than twenty per cent nor more than forty per cent in the case of a first term tenant, the bargain _must_ be sanctioned by the commissioners without inquiring whether the land in question is security for the "advance."

The result of this provision is that tenants have been wheedled or cajoled into agreeing to bargains which they will find it difficult or impossible to keep. The price of land became artificially inflated, and the average of eighteen years' purchase paid for land in Ireland under the previous Purchase Acts has been raised by five to seven years' purchase. It is essential that free bargaining should be restored if purchase is to proceed on sound economic lines. In spite of the efforts of the wisest of their leaders, the Irish tenantry are rushing into bargains under the Wyndham Act that may eventuate in dire consequences for themselves and for the country.

The importation of Canadian cattle when it comes will have a serious effect on the Irish produce market, and a further decline in produce prices may be expected.

Will the Irish tenant be then able to discharge his liability to the State and have sufficient margin for living? That is the question for the future. The answer to it alone can settle whether we have yet reached finality in the Irish Land Code.

Footnotes:

[1] Carlyle, Appendix, No. 17.

[2] See Lecky, II., 216 _et seq._

[3] T. P. O'Connor, "The Parnell Movement," pp. 53, 54.