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 SALE AND PURCHASE OF LAND 
 
 (IRELAND) BILL. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P., 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS , 
 
 ON 
 
 Moving for leave to introduce a Bill to make amended provision for 
 the Sale and Purchase of Land in Ireland, 
 
 On Friday, 16th April, 1886. 
 
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 Parliament Street , Westminster , S. W. 
 
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SALE AND PURCHASE OF LAND 
 (IRELAND) BILL. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, on rising to move for leave to bring in a 
 Bill to make amended Provision for the Sale and Purchase of 
 Land in Ireland, said :— 
 
 I have now to ask the permission of the House to bring in a 
 Bill to make amended provision for the sale and purchase of land 
 in Ireland, and in doing so to complete the speech I began on 
 Thursday last, which, inordinately long though it may have been, 
 still remains unfinished. I use that language to describe, not 
 any power that I know of binding on Parliament to treat these 
 two questions as united questions—that must be a matter for 
 the deliberation of Parliament—but to describe their union in 
 my own mind and in the minds of my colleagues. 
 
 An Appeal to Opponents. 
 
 Now, Sir, I stand rather peculiarly on the present occasion 
 in the face of several sections of this House and of the people. 
 As regards the Irish tenants, the proposal I have to make is 
 one which, I think, undoubtedly may confer upon them a very 
 great benefit. As regards the people of Ireland, distinct from 
 the tenants, and considered in the mass, I think that will also 
 be found to be the case. But the principal and the most 
 immediate objects of the measure are the landlords, and I 
 am going to ask the House of Commons to make a great effort 
 —if I may say so, a serious and considerable effort—on behalf 
 of the landlords of Ireland, whom I know to be generally most 
 hostile to the policy which Her Majesty’s Government is 
 pursuing. 
 
 And I have likewise to take into view the fact that many of 
 those who, far from being hostile, are most friendly to that 
 policy, are likewise inclined to give a jealous reception—and I 
 do not make that a matter of complaint—to the proposals I 
 have to lay before the House. In entertaining a jealousy of that 
 kind, in my opinion, they are only fulfilling their duty to the 
 people at large. They have learnt that an effort is to be made 
 in which either the money or the credit of the British Exchequer 
 
4 
 
 Speech of the Rt. Eon. IF. E. Gladstone, M.P., 
 
 is to be made available on behalf of the Irish landlords, should 
 the Irish landlords be disposed to accept that boon. I shall 
 never draw a distinction—on the contrary, I would resist the 
 drawing of any such distinction—between the money of the 
 nation and the credit of the nation. The credit of the 
 nation is just as precious as the money of the nation, 
 and the same discretion should be exercised by the 
 representatives of the people in regard to the use of the one as 
 to the expenditure of the other. I will explain, and I think I 
 can make intelligible, the aspect in which we regard this great 
 subject. 
 
 The Aim of the Government. 
 
 The aim and end of all our endeavours is not, in the first 
 place, for its own sake, simply the contentment of the people in 
 Ireland—it is the social order of the country. That is the first, 
 the greatest, the most sacred, and the most necessary aim of 
 every Government that knows its duty. We have sought, Sir, 
 to come at that social order by means different from those 
 hitherto employed, and we distinguish our course broadly from 
 previous courses. The measures, by which we hope to 
 administer to what is lacking in social order something in the 
 nature of a permanent and effectual remedy, are twofold. In 
 the first place, our petition, our request to the House, is that it 
 will make arrangements for governing Ireland, in Irish matters, 
 by Irish laws ; and, in the second place, that it will undertake, 
 not a partial, tentative, and timid touching of the land question, 
 but a serious endeavour to settle it; for, Sir, as I have said, 
 these questions are at the present moment, in our view, not to 
 be separated one from the other, and of course, when I speak of 
 these questions, I speak of the plan generally which the Govern¬ 
 ment have formed, and I do not include, or attempt to press 
 upon the House, every minute particular of that rather com¬ 
 prehensive and complex plan. 
 
 Three Questions. 
 
 Now, Sir, I think that the argument that I have to make, 
 and also the objections that I have to meet,divide themselves into 
 these three heads. It would be demanded of me, in the first place. 
 Must the land system of Ireland be settled ? why can you not 
 leave it to be dealt with by the organ which you are asking 
 Parliament to call into existence ? This is the first question. 
 Supposing that I am able to prove that an affirmative answer 
 should be given to that inquiry, the next and not less natural 
 question to be put by the representatives of the people, and, 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 
 
 moreover, to be put to a certain extent in the tone and with 
 the aspect of rejection, is, Must Great Britain be cumbered 
 with this question ? Well, Sir, I hope to show that it is an 
 obligation of honour and of policy that Great Britain should 
 undertake it. But I ask no assent to that proposition at present. 
 Then, thirdly, I shall justly be asked, and I shall not attempt 
 to shirk the inquiry, Are we to run pecuniary risks on the part 
 of the English and Scottish people for the purpose of meeting 
 this Irish want ? I hope, Sir, as I meet the two former inquiries 
 confidently with an affirmative answer, so I hope, in regard to 
 the third, to establish not less strongly and clearly a negative 
 reply. But I admit, without reservation, that upon my proof or 
 non-proof of what I have now asserted, with regard to these three 
 points, all depends as regards the case that I seek to make, and 
 as regards the reception which the House, in my humble 
 judgment, ought to give to that case. 
 
 A Dismal Inheritance. 
 
 The first question, then, is, Must the land question be dealt 
 with ? It is impossible for me, Sir, even if I draw largely on 
 the indulgence of the House, to answer that question fully. It 
 can only be answered fully by a careful study of the whole 
 history of Ireland. I shall state the minimum of what appears 
 to me to be necessary, and shall trust to the knowledge of hon. 
 members to fill up what may be lacking in my statement. 
 Even the little that I shall state will probably be treated, and 
 may possibly appear, as an indictment against the Irish landlords. 
 Upon that subject I shall say, in few and summary words, it is 
 an indictment against Irish landlords, against many in the past, 
 against few, I hope, in the present. But although those upon 
 whom censure ought to be pronounced may be few they have 
 been the heirs of a sad inheritance. They have taken up, and 
 been compelled to take up, dismal and deplorable traditions, 
 and when oppression has wrought its very painful experience 
 into the heart and mind of the people, it is not in a moment:, 
 not in a year, not in a generation, that the traces of that 
 painful, of that dreadful process can be effaced. 
 
 I may perhaps refer to a case which, I think, is in point. In 
 1833 this House, to its great honour, its lasting fame, passed the 
 Act for the emancipation of the negroes in the West Indies. It 
 established a system which is known as apprenticeship, and 
 which was intended to invest the negro population with all the 
 rights of freedom, except the liability to render a certain care¬ 
 fully limited amount of labour for a carefully limited time. 
 That law was, in general, peacefully received and faithfully 
 
6 
 
 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., 
 
 obeyed ; but a great philanthropist in this country, whose name 
 should ever be held in honour—Mr. Joseph Sturge, of Bir¬ 
 mingham—paid a visit to Jamaica, made inquiries for himself, 
 by his own eyes and ears satisfied himself that in the case of 
 certain estates in that island there was a deliberate attempt to- 
 keep alive the spirit and the institutions of slavery under the 
 guise of apprenticeship. He brought back the statement of that 
 case to this country. It was never, I believe, asserted that this 
 represented the general state of things in the West Indies or 
 probably even in Jamaica. But such was the impression pro¬ 
 duced by those few cases of horrible abuse and contumacious 
 resistance to the will of Parliament, as well as to the dictates of 
 humanity, that, after a struggle in this House, it was felt that 
 the apprenticeship must at once, against the Parliamentary 
 covenant of 1833, be put an end to ; and, accordingly, it reached 
 an unexpected and immediate consummation. That I quote as 
 an instance of the way in which the offences of the few may be 
 visited upon the many. I have the honour of knowing myself 
 many Irish landlords who are an honour to the class to which 
 they belong. I hope that what I have said will show that, in 
 quoting the mournful testimony of history, I do not seek to 
 make them personally responsible for difficulties and for evils of 
 which they are the victims rather than the cause. 
 
 Origin of Agrarian Crime. 
 
 I must go back to the origin of agrarian crime. Agrarian 
 crime is the index of the difficulty with which I call upon the 
 House to deal. Agrarian crime had an origin in Ireland. Speak¬ 
 ing generally of the Celtic race as they live in Ireland, I believe 
 a great and an almost inexhaustible patience has been one of 
 their most remarkable characteristics. It was not among the 
 Celts of Ireland that agrarian crime began. It was in a population 
 —the population of Tipperary—dashed with a stronger and more 
 vivacious blood that the spirit of resistance arose. I will take 
 my description of the state of things in that crisis from a source 
 which, if suspected of prepossession at all, cannot be suspected 
 of prepossession, either too favourable to myself personally, or 
 too favourable to the policy which we recommend. I am going 
 to quote from the historical work of Mr. Froude known as “The 
 English in Ireland.” 
 
 I think, when I refer to the mere name of that distinguished 
 man, it shows that I am not seeking to avail myself unduly of 
 the evidence of a witness who has prejudiced the case in my 
 favour. On that subject I may remind the House that it is the 
 opinion of Mr. Froude that the right course for the British 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 7 
 
 Government to pursue in the last century would have been to 
 drop the Irish Parliament—that is, never to have summoned it 
 —to appropriate what he terms the hereditary revenues, and to 
 supply the annual deficit in the Irish Exchequer at the cost of 
 the Treasury of England. Therefore, you cannot say that the 
 man who proposes such an extinction of representative institu¬ 
 tions in Ireland, and the substitution of what he meant to be a 
 benevolent absolutism, is a man prepossessed in favour of the 
 policy which we recommend. But Mr. Froude, although per¬ 
 haps a man of prepossessions—on that I give no opinion—is 
 certainly a man of truth and honour, and a man who, if he sees 
 what he believes to be injustice, will not allow his heart and his 
 conscience to tamper with the principles involved in ex¬ 
 posing it. 
 
 What Mr. Froude says. 
 
 What says Mr. Froude as to the condition of the Irish 
 peasantry before the outbreak of agrarian crime ? In the 
 second volume of that work, and on page 20, he compares the 
 condition of the Irish cultivator, as it had then become, with 
 what it had been under his own native chiefs ; and Mr. Froude 
 says:— 
 
 “ To four-fifths of the Irish peasantry the change of masters meant 
 only a grinding tyranny, and tyranny the more unbearable because inflicted 
 by aliens in blood and creed. Under their own chiefs they had been 
 miserable, but they were suffering at least at the hands of their natural 
 Sovereigns”—and here I may say I believe that of his natural Sovereign 
 the Irishman is by nature inclined to think much (Home Rule 
 cheers)—“ and the clansman who bore his lord’s name, and 
 if harshly used by his own master, was protected by him against 
 others, could not feel himself utterly without a friend. But the 
 oppression of the peasantry in the last century was not even the 
 oppression of a living man—it was the oppression of a system. The 
 peasant of Tipperary was in the grasp of a dead hand. The will 
 of a master whom he never saw was enforced against him by a law irresisti¬ 
 ble as destiny. The absentee landlords of Ireland had neither community 
 of interest with the people nor sympathy of race. They had no fear 
 of provoking their resentment for they lived beyond their reach. They 
 had no desire for their welfare, for as individuals they were ignorant of 
 their existence. They regarded their Irish estates as the sources of their 
 income ; their only desire was to extract the most out of them which 
 the soil could be made to yield ; and they cared no more for the souls 
 and the bodies of those who were in fact committed to their charge than 
 the owners of a West Indian plantation for the herds of slaves whose 
 backs were blistering in the cane fields.” 
 
 A Combination of Troubles. 
 
 That was the state of things which attended the origin of 
 
8 
 
 Speech of the Rt, Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 agrarian crime in 1760; and from that date its continuance has 
 been uninterrupted, with a terrible facility, from time to time, of 
 expansion to alarming dimensions—nay, more, with a facility 
 and a power of developing itself to the harm of England. I 
 will read a few more words from Mr. Froude on this 
 subject. He shows with what fatal force there came upon 
 Ireland at that period a combination of symptoms grouped 
 together for the misery of the land. In the first place, owing 
 to the increased demand of England for animal food, there was 
 the conversion of the small holdings into large grazing farms. 
 In the second place, owing to the same cause, there was the 
 withdrawal, from the tenants, of the hill pastures, which were 
 traditionally enjoyed by them as accompaniments of their small 
 arable possessions and holdings. There was the constant raising 
 of the rents, and there was a progressive and rapid increase of 
 absenteeism. And Mr. Froude says on this subject, in a passage 
 shorter than that which I have just read:— 
 
 “Many causes had combined at that'moment to exasperate the normal 
 irritation of the southern peasantry. ” 
 
 And presently he goes on to show that that irritation was not 
 confined to the southern peasantry :— 
 
 “With the growth of what was called civilisation, absenteeism, the 
 worst disorder of the country, had increased. In Charles IT.’s time the 
 absentees were few or none. But the better Irish gentlemen were 
 educated, and the more they knew of the rest of the world the less 
 agreeable they found Ireland and Irish manners ; while the more they 
 separated themselves from their own estates, the more they increased 
 their rents to support the cost of living elsewhere.” 
 
 Sir, that is the account given by Mr. Froude. I leave the House 
 to appreciate itsjvveight. 
 
 What the Irish Parliament did. 
 
 What else have we to take into account ? The Irish Parlia¬ 
 ment, although at that time its independence had not been 
 acknowledged, was alive and active, and was displaying, in 
 numerous controversies between Ireland and England, a real if a 
 narrow patriotism. But I must distinguish broadly between the 
 Irish Parliament—which I rejoice to commend where that can 
 be done—between the Irish Parliament on questions of nation¬ 
 ality, and the Irish Parliament on questions of class. The Irish 
 Parliament was hostile to absenteeism, for absentees were 
 essentially anti-national. The Irish Parliament did not struggle 
 to do justice to the tenant. It was a Parliament partly of 
 
 P ensioners, partly of placemen, and the rest of landlords. The 
 rish Parliament did nothing to mitigate the evil, and if it be 
 true that there were fresh Coercion Acts passed from year to 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 
 
 year that deplorable fact only strengthens the statement I make, 
 and shows how the sad and dread mischief of agrarian crime took 
 root in the country. 
 
 The Offspring’ of Oppression and Misery. 
 
 Sir, in the varied incidents of social life there are unhappily 
 many marriages which are barren, and many families which die 
 out; but there is one marriage that is never without issue. 
 When oppression on the one hand is married to misery on the 
 other, then there springs from the union a fatal and a hideous 
 progeny of crime ; and that crime is endowed with a vitality that 
 perpetuates itself, and hands on the baleful and miserable in¬ 
 heritance from generation to generation. That is the case of 
 absenteeism in Ireland—that is the case of the rooted tendency 
 to crime which springs from causes most disgraceful to those 
 who were charged with the government of Ireland and the care 
 of its population—most disgraceful to them, and most perplex¬ 
 ing and embarrassing to us. One other circumstance, tending 
 further to complicate the case, has to be added to those that I 
 have already enumerated. The struggle connected with the 
 agrarian relations between landlord and tenant has continued, 
 and has even been, until very lately, seriously aggravated. The 
 differences of religion down to the year 1829 were the basis of 
 an odious political system, and traces of them, unfortunately, 
 survived that period. The one point of union that there was 
 between the Irish landlord and his tenant, that sentiment of 
 nationality which the old Irish Parliament never lost, has, I am 
 sorry to say, since the Union greatly ceased to operate—ceased 
 to form a bond of connection between those classes—ceased to 
 have a mitigating and beneficial influence on Irish life. 
 
 Why Must Britain Deal with the Land Question ? 
 
 Now, after what I have said—after the fearful exasperation 
 which has been introduced into these agrarian relations—into 
 agrarian relations, which are the determining elements of 
 Irish society and Irish life—after the long continuance of 
 the mischief, so that it has become chronic in the system 
 and forms part of the habits of the people, we arrive at 
 the conclusion that it would be an ill-intended and an ill- 
 shapen kindness to any class in Ireland to hand over to an 
 Irish Legislature, as its first introduction to the work that it may 
 have to perform, the business of dealing with the question of the 
 land. It would be like giving over to Ireland the worse part of 
 her feuds, and confronting her with the necessity for efforts 
 which would possibly be hopeless, but which, at any rate, would 
 be attended with the most fearful risks. 
 
10 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., 
 
 And now I come to my second question. I have shown you 
 how terrible the subject of the land is in itself. I come to my 
 second question—why is Great Britain to be cumbered with this 
 subject ? Are we bound to cumber ourselves with it ? Is it an 
 obligation of policy and a dictate of honour ? I am satisfied that 
 the House, however reluctant—it cannot be more reluctant than 
 we are—if it be an obligation of policy, if it be a dictate of 
 honour, and still more if it be partly the one and partly the 
 other, will not shrink from any duty which these considerations 
 may entail. Why then are we to cumber Great Britain with 
 an endeavour to settle this question, which is no slight task ? 
 
 The Obligation Already Admitted. 
 
 Well, Sir, I wish to point out that the obligation on our part 
 has been admitted already—admitted in a partial form, but in a 
 form which I believe this House, certainly the party opposite and 
 perhaps many gentlemen on this side, have shown a disposition 
 to enlarge—namely, the form of our existing Land Purchase 
 Acts. I consider that these Acts present an extremely bad 
 and dangerous form of dealing with this obligation, and I do so 
 on this ground—that their basis is to place the British Treasury" 
 in contact with the individual occupier and farmer in Ireland. 
 In our opinion, Sir, that is not a wise policy. I do not enter¬ 
 tain a mistrust of the Irishman’s disposition to liquidate his 
 pecuniary engagements. I believe that he may very well— 
 excepting under circumstances of peculiar exasperation—bear 
 comparison with his competitors in other countries in that 
 matter. But it is a dangerous thing for a State, which the 
 course of policy and the condition of legislation have led the 
 people to regard as essentially a foreign State, to make those 
 people in great numbers individually its debtors ; dangerous 
 because tempting the debtor, dangerous because extremely 
 unsafe for the State considered as the creditor. 
 
 I may name another consideration, which is not one of 
 honour but of prudence. We have struggled to introduce into 
 the Irish Government Bill what are called safeguards for the 
 minority, without, I admit, obtaining the smallest mitigation 
 from our adversaries of their opposition. Acting on the same 
 principle—and, if I may allow myself to use hallowed words 
 in no jesting spirit, “walking by faith and not .by sight,”— we 
 desire, by exhibiting the utmost consideration for the imperilled 
 class—or at any rate for the class impressed deeply with fear and 
 apprehension, the Irisji landlords—to do everything on their 
 behalf which duty will allow us to do. If such proposals should 
 produce a mitigating effect, it might lead to an easier and 
 
On the Sals and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 11 
 
 speedier concession to Ireland of what we know to be her 
 demand and what we believe to be her rights ; and if not, still 
 we have done our best, and we must leave the issue to a higher 
 power. 
 
 England’s Responsibility. 
 
 Now, Sir, what are the substantial reasons—those that I 
 have mentioned are collateral considerations—what are the 
 substantial reasons why, as we think, it is the absolute duty 
 of Great Britain to make herself a party in this matter to the 
 extent, at least, of a just offer and a fair opportunity to be 
 given to Irish landlords ? Well, I sum them up in one word. 
 We cannot wash ourselves clean and clear of the responsibility. 
 The deeds of the Irish landlords are to a great extent our deeds. 
 We are particeps criminis ; we, with power in our hands, looked 
 on ; we not only looked on but we encouraged and sustained. 
 
 I think it is a hard case, if I may be permitted to say so, 
 for my fellow representatives of Scotland. The hardest case in 
 this matter is the case of the Scotch people, for England had 
 the blessing in the 18th century of a representative system, 
 which, if not perfect, yet, as we know from great occasions like 
 that of 1783, and like that of 1831, did suffice to bring to the front 
 a strong national sentiment. Scotland had no such system. 
 I think that four or five thousand persons had in their hands as 
 voters the entire representation of the whole of Scotland, and 
 they had in their hands the representation of the Scotch people. 
 The Scotch people had, therefore, no responsibility for the dread¬ 
 ful history of the relations between Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 Our 4 ‘Garrison” in Ireland. 
 
 I must speak of this Imperial Parliament in which Scotland 
 was not allowed to exercise any national or popular influence. 
 I have said that the landlords were our garrison in Ireland. Let 
 me a little unfold that sentence. We planted them there, and we 
 replanted them. In 1641, in 1688, and again in 1798, we 
 reconquered the country for them. I heard a gallant gentleman 
 speak a few nights ago in this House, who seemed to be under 
 the pious impression that rebellion in Ireland had been put 
 down by the superhuman action of a certain regiment of Militia 
 —I really forget which. I beg pardon of my old supporter, but 
 speaking with all respect for his ability as a speaker, his frank¬ 
 ness, uprightness, and the integrity of his whole intention, if he 
 has read the history of the rebellion of 1641 he will find that it 
 was effectually and finally put down, and only put down, by 
 Cromwell, who, whatever he may have been, was not an Irish 
 
12 
 
 Speech of the Pd. Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 Protestant. The rebellion of 1688-9 was put down, not by the 
 Protestants of the North, but by the introduction mainly of 
 foreign hosts; and the rebellion of 1798, to which I think the hon. 
 member specially referred, was unquestionably put down, not by 
 the action of what is termed the loyal minority, which undoubtedly 
 —I do not say from its own fault—had not at that period earned 
 the name, but, when the Irish Government in Dublin was in 
 despair, the rebellion was put down by their inducing the British 
 Government in London to equip and send to Ireland a large and 
 adequate force of British soldiers. 
 
 Lord B. Churchill : They had the Yeomanry. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone: No doubt they had the Yeomanry, but 
 the Yeomanry could not do it. 
 
 How We Obtained the Union. 
 
 Well, Sir, we have more responsibility than that. We 
 used the whole civil government of Ireland as an engine of 
 wholesale corruption, and we extended that corruption to what 
 ought to have been a sacred thing—namely, the Church which 
 we maintained and supported in the land. We did everything 
 in our power to irritate and to exasperate the Irish people by 
 the whole of that policy. Then came 1795, the brightest period 
 of the history of the Irish Parliament under the Lord 
 Lieutenancy of Lord Fitzwilliam, when, through the sentiment 
 of nationality, that Parliament was about to do for Ireland what 
 would have given to it the seed of every promise of happiness 
 and prosperity, beginning with the emancipation of the Roman 
 Catholics, a measure that would have led by a chain of links 
 that could not have been broken to Parliamentary reform and 
 the admission of the people to political power. But we took 
 Lord Fitzwilliam away. They strove to keep him, but England 
 would not let them. What then ? We brought about the 
 Union. I have avoided that subject because I did not want to 
 enter into the details of it. It is dreadful to read the language 
 of Lord Cornwallis and the disgust of an honourable mind at 
 the transactions in which he found himself under the painful 
 necessity of engaging. I will only say that we obtained that 
 Union, against the sense of every class of the community, by 
 wholesale bribery and unblushing intimidation. 
 
 Condition of Irish Labourers and Tenants after the Union. 
 
 Then came the more direct responsibility of the British 
 Parliament. Did things greatly mend under that ? Have hon. 
 members considered the Act of 1816 and its effect upon the 
 
On the Sale and Par chase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 13 
 
 Irish tenant ? Notwithstanding all other changes there had 
 lingered in Ireland a state of law determining the condition of 
 the tenure of the soil w'hich was of such a nature as practically 
 to protect the tenant in something like a real fixity of tenure. The 
 inefficiency of the remedies had been such that they had allowed 
 the tenants still to dream of something of the old tribal usages, 
 and that something of the old tribal permanence remained. But, 
 in the united Parliament was brought in an Act, introduced, as 
 Mr. Leslie Foster, a first-rate authority, said, because, by the 
 law as it then stood, the tenant was enabled to set his landlord 
 absolutely at defiance. All these protections were swept away. 
 
 I do not enter into the merits of the proceedings. All I am 
 now saying is that they were not likely to reconcile the Irish 
 occupier to his lot, or to root out agrarian crime from the soil. 
 Such was 1816. There is, in my judgment, worse to come. We 
 lingered until 1843, when we come to the time of the Devon 
 report—a Conservative report issued under the auspices of a 
 Conservative Ministry. I might read many passages from that 
 report, but I will read only one, and that not a long one. It is as 
 follows:—“ A reference to the evidence of most of the witnesses 
 will show that the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to 
 suffer the greatest privations and hardships ; that he continues to 
 depend upon casual and precarious employments for his sub¬ 
 sistence; that he is still badly housed, badly fed,badly clothed, and 
 badly paid for his labour. Our personal experience and observa¬ 
 tions during our inquiry have afforded us a melancholy confirma¬ 
 tion of these statements: and we cannot forbear expressing our 
 strong sense of the patient endurance ”—now, mind that; as I 
 have stated, the Devon Commission was a Conservative 
 Commission, yet still it is most struck by the patient endurance 
 by which the Irish tenant and occupier sustained his lot. (A 
 Voice : Labourer.) I believe that is possible. I have not the 
 report here. The phrase is “ labouring classes ” ; I believe it 
 means the man who labours upon his land. 
 
 Lord J. Manners : And who works for wages ? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone : Yes, undoubtedly, because the great bulk 
 of these people, half the Irish population, are partly dependent 
 upon wages. However, for fear there should be anything in that 
 objection, on the next occasion I will bring down a stronger 
 passage. This Commission then expresses its strong sense “ of 
 the patient endurance which the labouring classes ”—that is, not 
 the labourers alone—the enormous majority at that time of the 
 Irish agricultural tenants belonged to the labouring classes—• 
 “ have generally exhibited under sufferings, greater we believe 
 than the people of any other country of Europe have to 
 sustain.” : • 
 
14 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., 
 
 Bad Made Worse. 
 
 That is the description given at a period when we were main¬ 
 taining a corn law, for which we boasted that the justification was 
 to be found in the higher level at which it kept our labouring 
 population. That is the report of the Devon Commission. It 
 does not end there. Passages like this were not overlooked by 
 men of the stamp of Sir It. Peel, and the late Lord Derby in the 
 House of Lords introduced a Bill to give effect to the most im¬ 
 portant recommendations of the Devon Commission. Had that 
 Bill been passed much of the subsequent history might have 
 been modified or changed. The House of Lords, as we know, 
 usually accepts with great facility the recommendations of a Tory 
 Government; but this recommendation of a Tory Government, 
 for the improvement of the condition of the occupiers and the 
 agricultural population of Ireland, was too much for the patience 
 and political loyalty of the House of Lords. The next effort was 
 that of Mr. Napier, a gentleman sitting on that side of the 
 House. That Bill was lost also. The mischief did not stop there ; 
 we produced the Encumbered Estates Bill, with a general, lazy, 
 uninformed, and ineffective good intention of taking capital to 
 Ireland. What did we do by that Bill ? We sold the improve¬ 
 ments of the tenants. The tenant lost his old landlord, who was 
 in many cases an easy-going personage, and had oftentimes 
 established a modus vivendi with his tenant, who was handed 
 over to a horde of new proprietors, who were told that they 
 might exact a greater rental from the tenant, and who took, in 
 the form of rent, that which was the produce of the tenant’s 
 labour. That Bill took away the last mitigation of the case of 
 the Irish peasant; it took it away through a deplorable error of 
 uninformed, and, I must say, irreflective benevolence. 
 
 Lord R. Churchill : It was taken away by Lord Russell. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone : I beg pardon. The noble lord’s informa¬ 
 tion is always interesting, but sometimes partial. I would say 
 that the Act was suggested to Lord Russell. 
 
 Lord R. Churchill : It was passed by Lord Russell. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone : But, Sir, I am speaking of this House. I 
 have not said a word against the noble lord’s party, or the noble 
 lord’s principles, if I knew what his principles were. I am 
 speaking of this House, and I claim no exemption for any great 
 party in this House. Many distinctions may be drawn in 
 respect to the treatment of the land question at that period; 
 I am not aware that any distinction can be drawn in respect of 
 party. It is the fact that this was not the action of a party, 
 but the action of a Parliament, and that is why I ask this House 
 whether, after even such a summary recital as I have given, it 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 15 
 
 is possible to deny that the landlords have been our garrison, 
 and our representatives; that we have relied upon them as 
 they have relied upon us ; and that we cannot wash our hands 
 of responsibility for their doings, or for the consequences of 
 those doings. 
 
 Irish Landlords’ Rights. 
 
 We acknowledged—I admit in a different way—our concern 
 in the case of the landlords by the Acts of 1870 and 1881. 
 Lord Russell, who was alive at the passing of the first of these 
 Acts, was among its cordial supporters. But I will not dwell 
 upon that subject; it is beside my argument. At that time we 
 modified, most essentially, the condition of the landlords, and 
 as we did so there arises an obligation from different sources, 
 but tending to the same point—namely, that, in my opinion, 
 Great Britain, within the limits of reason, cannot refuse to be 
 cumbered with this important question of the Irish landlords. 
 
 Having proceeded so far, I have still one important matter 
 to argue, namely, the third of the questions which I put. It is 
 an important inquiry,—whether I am proposing to inflict a 
 pecuniary risk upon the people of England and Scotland. But 
 I think I have now reached a point at which, before dealing with 
 the third question, I ought to explain to the House the scheme 
 which we are about to submit. 
 
 The Scheme. 
 
 I shall have a great number of points to mention; I will 
 therefore mention them in the most summary manner, and I will 
 beforehand endeavour to impress upon hon. members that 
 although I will do my best under circumstances which have 
 been those of some haste and difficulty—yet I am strongly 
 impressed with the belief that it will not be possible for them 
 to acquire any adequate idea of this measure except by a close 
 inspection of the Bill itself, which we are using every effort to 
 place at the earliest moment in their hands. Even as single 
 provisions, some of them perhaps may be difficult to under¬ 
 stand ; but bearing as these provisions do one upon the other, 
 
 I am confident it would be impossible to appreciate them 
 except in the manner I have suggested. 
 
 New Three per Cent. Stock. 
 
 The Act will take effect on the same day with the Irish 
 Government Act. As we think it our duty to press for the 
 passing of this Act with the Irish Government Act, so un¬ 
 doubtedly we provide in the Bill itself that it is not to pass 
 
16 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 without the Irish Government Act. Secondly, the legislative 
 body in Dublin may appoint any person or body to be what is 
 called under the Act the State authority. I shall refer again to 
 that phrase, which is used in the Act in various important rela¬ 
 tions. Thirdly, the purchases under the Act are to be made in 
 a Three per Cent, stock, issued on the application, probably of 
 the Land Commission, to the Treasury, and under regulations to 
 be made by the Treasury. 
 
 This Three per Cent, stock will, in all likelihood, be what is 
 termed the New Three per Cents. The most obvious name that 
 occurs to every one is the name of Consols. But the amount of 
 the New Three per Cent, stock is £180,000,000, quite sufficient 
 to insure extensive dealings, and it so happens that the mass of 
 Irish dealings in the stocks is in the denomination of Three per 
 Cents. I think the comparison is between £5,000,000 or 
 £6,000,000 for Consols, and £25,000,000 or £27,000,000—I 
 forget which—for the New Three per Cents., and, therefore, it 
 is probable that that stock will be most convenient for Irish 
 holders. The stock, of course, is to be issued at par; it may 
 suit the convenience of parties and the Treasury to commute it 
 to a stock of a lower denomination, and that may be done with the 
 consent of the Treasury. If it so happen that, under the neces¬ 
 sary limitations of the Act, stock cannot be issued to vendors 
 forthwith, scrip, at the same rate of interest, will be given to 
 them in anticipation. These are general, but still not unimpor¬ 
 tant, provisions. 
 
 The Object of the Bill. 
 
 Now, Sir, I will describe in a very few words what I may 
 term the substance and purpose of the Act. I will avoid that trap 
 into which it seems I fell the other night about “ essential ” and 
 “ vital ” points. It is not difficult to say what are the principal 
 enactments; it is extremely difficult, especially in the early 
 stage of discussion, to say what is vital and what is not. It is 
 very difficult indeed, and, in consequence, I suppose, of its being 
 so difficult, it is never done. I am not aware that I ever heard 
 of a great measure introduced with a thorough-going attempt 
 to separate its enactments into two classes, and to say one of 
 them is vital and you cannot touch them, and the other is non- 
 vital and you may do with them what you please. I will not 
 attempt that; but I think I will use words which will give to 
 hon. members a sufficient idea of the sense and spirit of the 
 measure, and enable them to judge what are really its main 
 provisions. 
 
 The object of this Act is to give to all Irish landowners 
 the option of being bought out on the terms of the Act; to 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 17 
 
 give to all Irish landowners an opening towards the exercise of 
 that option. I will show later on what portion of them can 
 exercise it, if they like, under the terms of this particular Act; 
 but the policy is a policy which is to be distinctly understood as 
 the policy of giving this option to all Irish landowners as re¬ 
 gards their rented land, and such lands, with certain excep¬ 
 tions which I will state more particularly, as may be described 
 by the word agricultural. As a general description, please to 
 take that for the present moment. I wish it to be understood 
 that the Act has no concern whatever with mansions, demesnes, 
 or with woods as commonly understood; and I, for my part— 
 
 I may be very, very sanguine, but I am in hopes that many a 
 nobleman and many a gentleman in Ireland will long continue 
 to inhabit his mansion and his demesne in a new and happier 
 state of things—yes, I believe it may be possible that even the 
 Irish Nationalists may desire that those marked out by leisure, 
 wealth, and station for attention to public duties, and for the 
 exercise of influence, may become, in no small degree, the 
 natural, and effective, and safe, leaders of the people. 
 
 Sir, the spirit in which we have drawn this Act I wish also 
 to be understood. You may construe enactments perhaps in 
 different ways ; but the spirit in which we have drawn the 
 present measure is that of making on this great occasion—the 
 use or the rejection of which evidently must have important 
 influences on the future course of the question—the spirit in 
 which we have drawn it is that of making the most liberal offer 
 to the Irish landlords that we believe our obligations to them 
 demand, or even justify, or that we can expect the representa¬ 
 tives of the people to accept. I come one step nearer to my 
 point, and I will endeavour to give a three-fold indication which 
 will be useful in following the leading provisions of the Act. 
 
 The Parties to a Transaction. 
 
 4 
 
 The groundwork of the Act is an option to the landlords. 
 Upon that I will only say that we have considered much with 
 regard to an option to the tenants, and, again, with regard to 
 including in the Act provisions, like those of the present Land 
 Purchase Acts, for contemplating voluntary arrangements. I do 
 not say that these are necessarily to be rejected, but we have not 
 seen our way to incorporating them with this measure. The 
 measure, as we have found it our duty to present it, is founded 
 on the landlord’s option to sell. The State authority, as I have 
 described it—that is, an organ representing the Irish legislative 
 bodies—is to be the middle term, instead of the Treasury, 
 between the vendor and the occupier. It is through that medium 
 
18 
 
 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., 
 
 that the transaction is to take place. And, lastly, as a general 
 rule, what we propose is that upon the sale the peasant is to 
 become the proprietor. He is not to be, in our view, as a general 
 rule, an occupier subject to rent-charge, or subject to be dealt 
 with by any one as such until the expiration of a certain term, 
 when he is to become the proprietor, but he is to become the 
 proprietor at once, except that he is to be subject to a burden 
 which I will presently describe. 
 
 “Purchaser,” “Proprietor,” and “Occupier.” 
 
 As to the nature of the transaction, the State authority is to 
 be the purchaser, and the occupier is to become the proprietor. 
 There are exceptions. It has appeared that it might not be 
 well in all cases to force the very smallest occupiers to become 
 proprietors, if, for any particular reasons, it did not suit their 
 condition. At any rate we do not compel the tenant at £4 and 
 under to become a proprietor unless he wishes it. 
 
 There is another more important exception. Every one 
 knows the great importance in Ireland of what are called 
 congested districts. These congested districts we propose te 
 deal with in a manner which forms an exception to the 
 general rule. In the congested districts we propose that the 
 State authority should be not merely the vehicle through which 
 the purchase is to be effected and carried on to the tenant; but 
 in these congested districts, which we propose to schedule at a 
 certain time in the Bill, the State authority is to be the 
 proprietor. 
 
 A Reservation. 
 
 I am bound to say that we reserve for further consideration 
 the question whether in these districts, and these only, there 
 should be introduced the power of compulsory expropriation of 
 landlords—voluntary expropriation with regard to the landlords 
 being the general basis of this Bill. 
 
 Encumbrances and Public Burdens. 
 
 What are commonly known as encumbrances, and what are 
 commonly known in Ireland as public burdens, in which phrase, 
 if I am rightly informed,rates are mot usually comprehended, are 
 to be taken over from the selling landlord, and he is entirely 
 discharged from them as a matter of arrangement in the 
 transaction. The mortgages, of course, constitute a very easy 
 portion of the transaction. The more difficult part of the 
 transaction is in the quit rent and the head rent, the jointures 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill . 19 
 
 and miscellaneous payments. But we feel it necessary for many 
 reasons to disembarrass the estate of these, and likewise of public 
 burdens, such as the tithes commutation, because otherwise 
 we should be in the difficulty of having the tithes commutation 
 liability divided among a multitude of small holdings, which 
 would be highly inconvenient, if not impracticable. The State- 
 authority will take over encumbrances of this character—I do- 
 not mean encumbrances in capital sums, but, speaking generally,, 
 encumbrances in the form of annual charge—will take them 
 over either with the option of continuing to pay them, or to 
 redeem them upon the terms which are stated in the Bill. 
 
 Then comes a rather important provision. No one, as a 
 general rule, will have the option to sell except the immediate 
 landlord, our object being a political and social object, dealing 
 with the heart and root of the difficulty. It is to him that we 
 give this option, in order to bring about relief from the dilemma. 
 But his encumbrancer—that is, the mortgagee—will not, by 
 foreclosing, be able to acquire the option for himself. There are 
 certain provisions which provide for cases where the interest of 
 the immediate landlord is extremely small, and the principal 
 interest in the property is in the superior landlord. I only 
 mention this as an exception, which I will not attempt to 
 explain at present. So much for the general nature of the 
 transaction. 
 
 What may be Sold under the Act. 
 
 Now we come to the application which is to be made. The 
 first condition is this—the application must, as a general rule, 
 be for the whole of the tenanted estate. I can conceive 
 nothing more grossly unjust to the landlord than to tear his 
 property into rags by arbitrary provisions, and therefore the rule 
 is that the application must be for an integral estate, and the 
 Land Court or Commission will determine what is one estate. 
 But there are two exceptions to which I ought to refer. One 
 is the case of the grazings. The great grazings in Ireland 
 appear to stand in a very different condition from that of 
 most agricultural property. We leave it open to either party 
 to apply the definition of an agricultural holding contained in 
 the Act of 1881, and exclude these grazings from the transac¬ 
 tion. The other is that it is impossible to say in the measure 
 what sort of villages ought, and what ought not, to be included 
 in the Act. In cases where the village is purely subservient 
 to the agricultural purposes of the estate it ought to be included 
 in the expropriation. In many cases there may be a village 
 which has other shades of character, or is even essentially 
 
20 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., 
 
 different, and that question we treat as exceptional, and leave 
 to be determined by the Land Commission. Now, Sir, the next 
 proposition is that town parks will not be included in the Bill. 
 So far as we can judge they do not belong to the same category. 
 All the applications received are to be registered, and are to 
 rank according to priority. The persons making the application 
 must give security to pay the costs if it be not completed into 
 a binding transaction; and in certain cases the Land Commission 
 is to be intrusted with the power of refusing to entertain the 
 •application. 
 
 Computing’ the Value of an Estate. 
 
 Now, Sir, I speak to gentlemen many of whom are better 
 acquainted, more minutely acquainted, than I am with the 
 agricultural circumstances of Ireland, and I believe I am right 
 in saying that there is a certain class of estates in Ireland—I 
 will not go the whole length with that eminent authority, Sir 
 James Caird, on a recent occasion—that there is a certain class 
 of estates of which the real, substantial, natural value is from 
 various circumstances. so depressed that it would be impossible 
 to put a scale of years in the Act which would really reach 
 them. We should have to go so low that it might introduce 
 great uncertainty in the general character of the Bill. With 
 regard to these we thought the best thing we could do was to 
 empower the Land Commission to refuse an application in these 
 exceptional cases if it deems it inequitable that the State 
 authority should be required to buy an estate at the price laid 
 down in the Act. 
 
 Finding the Net Rental. 
 
 Now, Sir, I come still nearer to the centre of gravity of the 
 Act. The basis on which we compute the price to be paid to 
 the outgoing landlord is twofold. First of all it must be taken 
 on the rental at a certain time, subject to certain conditions, 
 and secondly it must be taken in a certain number of years 
 purchase on that rental. Our basis is to be the net rental; and 
 the net rental is to be ascertained—I have spoken already of the 
 public burdens—by deducting the rates and the outgoings. In 
 the outgoings I include law charges, bad debts, and manager 
 ment. These are the great heads. There are minor heads 
 where particular arrangements have been made, and to these I 
 need not refer. The time upon which the calculation is to be 
 based must be a recent one. We have, therefore, thought it 
 best to take a year the selection of which would give no en¬ 
 couragement to any artificial action or agitation with a 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 21 
 
 view to illegitimately influencing the standard of rental. The 
 general idea, therefore, would be that it would be for a rental 
 due in the year ending November, 1885 ; the judicial rental, 
 where there is one, to be adopted as the standard of gross 
 rental. Where there is no judicial rental, we are in greater 
 difficulty, and we introduce a provision which enables the Land 
 Court, if it shall see cause, to take a given district of Ireland— 
 probably an electoral division—to take the judical rents within 
 that division, to take Griffith’s valuation within that division, to 
 see the relation between the judicial rents and Griffith’s valua¬ 
 tion, and to use that relation as a guide in determining what 
 shall be the standard rental which is to be the basis of the 
 transaction. 
 
 We have also provided, Sir, in order to get over the diffi¬ 
 culties connected with the great fluctuations in payments and 
 prices, that the Land Court shall examine the books of the 
 estate. That may sound to gentlemen not conversant with Irish 
 transactions a cumbrous arrangement. But we have extremely 
 able public servants in Ireland conversant with these transac¬ 
 tions affecting the land, and we are assured by them, without 
 the least doubt or hesitation, that the examination of the books 
 will be not only a practicable, but the best and by far the most 
 practicable, method of deciding the important question of 
 amount. Those books ought to be examined over a considerable 
 time in order to meet the difficulty which arises out of agricul¬ 
 tural fluctuations, and we propose to fix the time at ten years. 
 So much as to the rental. 
 
 Number of Years’ Purchase. 
 
 Now as to the years’ purchase. We propose, Sir, that the 
 normal rate, if I may so call it—that is, the rate which we con¬ 
 ceive will be applicable on a fairly well conditioned estate in 
 Ireland—setting apart exceptional cases—both of the few 
 extremely good and valuable, and I am afraid the more numerous 
 class that will fall below that—the normal rate would be 20 years 
 on the basis of the rental which I have described. I must add 
 some important particulars of explanation. An addition may be 
 made to the sum on which the charge will be founded in the 
 case of arrears coming due after November, 1885, when it is 
 shown to the satisfaction of the Land Commission that every 
 attempt has been made to collect them, and that it has 
 not been found practicable. An addition may be made to 
 the 20 years in the case of exceptionally good estates, 
 limited, however, by a maximum of 22 years. It is still 
 more necessary that there should be a power to effect a 
 
22 
 
 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 • 
 
 decrease from the 20 years, and it is not possible to attach a 
 fixed limit to that decrease, because if we were to give a fixed 
 limit we must found it on the farthest case to which it ought to 
 go, and that would imply so considerable a deduction that I 
 think it would shake the confidence and tend to pervert the 
 general impression as to the main aim of the Act, which is a 
 normal standard of 20 years. 
 
 I will illustrate my meaning. This power of deduction I 
 will thus define. It would have by no means an exclusive 
 reference, but a somewhat special reference to small holdings. 
 As regards estates composed principally of small holdings, in the 
 considerable majority of cases, even after making the deductions, 
 they are less valuable than estates which are not made up of 
 holdings so small. But, again, if 37-011 were to attempt to meet 
 that, as we thought at one time, b) r naming a more limited 
 number of years for holdings under certain rates, we should fall 
 into an error, because there are estates, particularly in Ulster, 
 which are made up in a great degree of small holdings, but 
 which are, nevertheless, of extremely good, sound, general repute. 
 For that reason we leave this power of distinction in the hands 
 of the Land Commission. I think, Sir, that is the end of the 
 general provisions of the Act which I ought to mention, with 
 the important exception as to the mode in which we are to find 
 the money. 
 
 Financial Security. 
 
 I come then, Sir, to the third question which I have stated 
 to the House. The House has a right to ask me and to ask the 
 Government, “ You confess that you are going to make use of 
 the public credit; do you intend, under this Bill, that the 
 country is to undertake a real pecuniar}^ risk, and that Parlia¬ 
 ment is to be requested to compromise its duties as guardians 
 of the public treasury and of the public credit ? ” My answer, Sir, 
 is twofold. In the first place, in my opinion, the introduction of 
 a plan, founded on the basis I now propose of building upon the 
 responsibility of an Irish State authority, will not increase but 
 will greatly diminish the public risk—that public risk which is 
 inseparable from the condition of the Treasur)^ when it comes to 
 be the creditor of perhaps hundreds of thousands of tenants in 
 Ireland. Observe that you cannot have an extensive plan in 
 Ireland without being prepared to deal with tenants in hundreds 
 of thousands. Therefore I distinctly plead to the House that this 
 Bill, if passed, will not be an increase but will be a diminution 
 of public responsibilit) 7 . 
 
 I do not hesitate to say that it will be a grief to me that I 
 can never dismiss from my mind if, at the end of a very long 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 28 
 
 life, much of which has been devoted to a guardianship—perhaps 
 very ineffectual, but still with the best attention I could give— 
 of the public treasury and of the public credit, I should submit 
 to Parliament a measure founded upon opposite principles, or a 
 measure to which we had not ourselves applied the most 
 jealous scrutiny with a view to obtaining what I will not hesitate 
 to call an absolute security. 
 
 The risk which the public might have to undergo would be 
 twofold. We are proceeding upon a basis of not making loans in 
 the market to meet the Irish demand, but of issuing stocks. There 
 are two things, therefore, to be considered. First of all, the 
 certainty of the repayment of the money ; but that is not the 
 only question. The other thing is the effect of our issues upon 
 the general credit and the general condition of the public 
 security. I not only do not deprecate but I invite scrutiny of 
 the Bill when printed in relation to both these subjects. 
 
 Amount of Stock to be Issued. 
 
 The proposals we make, Sir, are these. Of course, one of our 
 great difficulties in this business is that neither we nor any 
 human authority can determine beforehand whether the offer— 
 the great offer, signal and conspicuous—which is now made will 
 be accepted universally, largely, or at all. We are obliged to 
 make the best calculation or conjecture that we can. It is quite 
 necessary to make an attempt on what may fairly be called, in 
 reference to ordinary transactions, a large scale. That proposi¬ 
 tion we accept. Notices coming in will be, of course, limited to 
 certain times. The State cannot remain subject to a perpetual 
 recurrence of proceedings lying so far out of the ordinary road, 
 and the Act will prescribe strictly the notices which may be 
 given and the transactions—issues of public stocks to meet 
 them—which may take place in pursuance of those notices. 
 In respect of the notices which may be given in the financial 
 year 1887-8, we propose to authorize the issue, as a maxi¬ 
 mum, of £10,000,000 of stock, because we assume that, 
 although the notices of that year may be very numerous, if the 
 Act works largely, yet the transactions to be concluded in it 
 cannot by any means be so abundant, for these transactions 
 evidently cannot be carried through in a day, and you cannot 
 have an innumerable army of official persons to carry them 
 through. Therefore, we authorize an issue of £10,000,000 for 
 the notices given in 1887-8, a further issue of £20,000,000 to 
 meet notices in or before the year 1888-9, and a further issue of 
 £20,000,000 for notices in or before 1889-90. That will give a 
 total of stock, issuable at par, under the Act, amounting to 
 
24 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.p 
 
 £50,000,000 should it be called for. The operative portion of the 
 Act, the House will feel, must be provided for, because no notices 
 will be given under the powers of the Act after March 31st, 
 1890. 
 
 Effect on the Money Market. 
 
 But the House will understand with reference to what I 
 described as the second kind of risk which we have to keep in 
 view that it would not have done for us to say that the purchase 
 may be effected to the extent of £50,000,000, and leave it a 
 matter of chance when the stock shall be issued. We must 
 consider carefully what amount of stock we can undertake to 
 issue within the twelve months, and, at the same time, maintain 
 a reasonable amount of confidence that we shall not by that 
 issue unfavourably affect the general price and credit of securi¬ 
 ties. This point I consider of very great importance. It is 
 necessary for us to maintain the very high level of the price of 
 the public securities. I would even say, setting apart the 
 extraordinary casualties and combinations of circumstances 
 which no man can predict, it is necessary that we should main¬ 
 tain them at something not very far from the level where they 
 now are, and where they have been for a considerable time. 
 Therefore I may be justly asked, Do you think that £20,000,000 
 is the amount which in one year you may venture to fix as the 
 limit, and yet feel confident in maintaining your price ? 
 
 Now, Sir, that is a question which thirty or forty years ago 
 it would have been impossible to answer in the affirmative, 
 because the powers of Parliament for purchasing stock were so 
 limited that, when even a second-rate purchase was necessary, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no option but to go hat 
 in hand to the Bank of England, or lesser authorities, to see 
 what they could do for him. I am able to say now, however, 
 that on our own account we are in a condition, under the 
 normal and regular action of the Acts relating to the disposal of 
 Exchequer deposits and banking deposits at the command of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, to exercise so large a power of 
 purchase in the stock market as effectually to counteract any 
 abnormal depression which might otherwise be threatened by 
 the fact that many of those who may acquire a considerable 
 proportion of stocks under the Act will be desirous to exchange 
 them for others perhaps not quite so stable, but at the same 
 time more lucrative. I think I can give that assurance to the 
 House with considerable confidence after having made it a 
 subject of careful inquiry among those who have the largest 
 experience and the greatest faculty of determining what is the 
 point to which we may safely go. 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 25 
 
 An Improvement in the Bill. 
 
 I am evidently open to an important observation. I have 
 said that our policy embraces in its final scope—if they desire 
 to avail themselves of the opportunity—embraces in its final 
 scope all Irish landlords. I am bound to express my hope that 
 a good many Irish landlords, not on pecuniary and fiscal 
 grounds only, but upon moral, social, and political grounds, are 
 in such a position that they will not dream of availing them¬ 
 selves of it in its final scope. I am prepared to say that what 
 we contemplate is that every man who desires to avail himself 
 of it shall have a fair opportunity of doing so. It is evident 
 from what is known of the value of Irish landed property, if we go 
 to its total, falling within the definition of the Act, it would 
 certainly exceed to a very considerable extent, not 50 millions, 
 but 100 millions; I will not say how much, but very consider¬ 
 ably. We do not know what fraction we might safely cut off as 
 the proportion of those who under no circumstances would be 
 likely to exercise the option ; but it is obvious that a transaction 
 of that kind, if acted upon to that extent, would not be covered 
 by the final issue. When we commenced first drawing the 
 rudimentary sketch the dominant idea in our minds naturally 
 was to redeem fully the constructive promise we made to the 
 Irish landlords. Therefore, I certainly thought at the 
 first moment to put in the Bill a larger figure as the sum 
 upon which I founded the computation of what might be 
 provided. That figure was not fifty, but so much as 113 
 millions. That was the computation on which I founded the 
 figures which I first brought before my colleagues. Two of 
 those colleagues, the right hon. gentleman the member for the 
 Border Burghs, and the right hon. gentleman the member for 
 West Birmingham, in particular, felt jealous of charging the 
 public for Irish land or charging it to that great extent. To their 
 objections I certainly feel indebted for what I think a great 
 improvement in the Bill. Because although there is no change 
 whatever in the policy of the Government, I certainly have to 
 thank them for having set me to consider more carefully what 
 is the relation between an Executive Government asking an 
 advance of that description from Parliament and Parliament 
 charged with the responsibility of maintaining the public credit. 
 
 Why the Estimated Cost was Reduced. 
 
 I am not ashamed of saying that this plan is not a plan 
 which sprang up in the brain fully armed at a moment’s notice. 
 I have told the House of the extraordinary and unprecedented 
 
26 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 difficulties under which it has been framed, amid the pressure of 
 Parliamentary business from day to day, and I am very glad to 
 own any assistance which has been given to me. It is very 
 pleasant to me to make it known to my colleagues, as regarding 
 this question, that I had the means of bridging over very consider¬ 
 ably such difficulties as might exist between us. The matter 
 never came, strictly speaking, to an issue between us. Now hon. 
 gentlemen may think that I have no real or substantial reason for 
 making this reduction except what might be called meeting a 
 popular outcry.. Quite the reverse. Unquestionably it was 
 our duty to consider the probability of the acceptance of the 
 measure. But we had many other considerations, and I must 
 say that, upon considerations quite apart from difficulties in 
 procuring the acceptance of the measure, I arrived at the 
 deliberate conviction that it would have been a great error on 
 our part to ask at this moment, now, at once, for a sum founded 
 upon anything like an outside estimate of the possibilities of the 
 case. I felt we ought to ask from Parliament what would secure 
 an efficient progress of the measure, if it became really an 
 operative measure, but that we ought to reserve to Parliament, 
 after we had reached that limit, an opportunity of exercising its 
 discretion afresh. 
 
 A Safe Experiment to be Repeated. 
 
 Hon. gentlemen must have seen that, so far as we are 
 concerned, there are some things which I have said which 
 may be considered to be in the nature of pledges of good 
 faith as between us and the landlords. To make this offer, to 
 make it in an efficient shape, and with the intention so far as 
 we are concerned of following it up if necessary, I conceive to be 
 a matter of honour and good faith ; but there are a multitude of 
 other conditions and considerations affecting the future Irish 
 authority, conditions affecting the Irish tenant, conditions affecting 
 the money market, and the nature of those issues, which are not 
 matters of good faith even for us, but are more or less, though 
 by no means generally or universally matters of good faith, 
 matters of good policy and expediency. From my point of view, 
 I conceive that it is quite right in an arrangement of this kind 
 that we should secure to Parliament an opportunity of exercising 
 its judgment afresh on the subject we now submit to it. So far 
 as good faith is concerned I am quite certain of this—that 
 if Parliament accedes to and accepts this particular Bill, if it 
 finds that the promises under which we commend the Bill are 
 fulfilled, if it finds that public credit is duly maintained, if it 
 finds that repayments are duly made, if it finds that the whole 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 27 
 
 complex machinery is so well oiled that it works like a loco¬ 
 motive, and if the public credit is safe, as we are sure it will be, 
 in my opinion Parliament will never under-estimate the moral 
 obligations that may be comprehended in the subject. There¬ 
 fore, Sir, this proposal, subject to the declarations which I have 
 not scrupled to make, is in a manner so far experimental that the 
 discretion of Parliament upon its particulars will be reserved. 
 
 How the Repayments are to be Seeured. 
 
 But then I shall be asked, perhaps, how these repayments 
 are to be secured. They are to be secured in a manner which I 
 commend to Parliament as simple, as effective, and as warranted 
 by the circumstances of the case. It is proposed that there shall 
 be appointed a Receiver-General under British authority, who 
 shall not levy rents or other revenues in Ireland, but through 
 whose hands all rents and all Irish revenues whatsoever must 
 pass before a shilling of them can be applied to any Irish purpose 
 whatever. It is necessary for the Irish authority, if it is to 
 govern Ireland, to have funds for the purpose. Under the plans 
 we propose, and with the economies which I have not the least 
 doubt they will make, I believe their funds will be ample and 
 abundant; but what we propose is this, that these funds shall 
 be subject to the discharge of prior obligations, and that the 
 right of the Irish authority to the money shall begin at the 
 point where the prior obligations end. For that purpose, except 
 under the limited arrangement as to the Customs and certain 
 Excise duties, we are not going to take the levying of the rents 
 and revenues out of Irish hands. That is the very last thing I 
 should desire to do ; that of all others is the thing which would 
 be most opposed to the purpose and the policy of the whole 
 Act. But we are going to require that the money which has 
 been levied for the service of Ireland shall all converge and run 
 into a certain channel. We shall have the money, as it is some¬ 
 times said, between the body and the head, the head being the 
 Irish Government. The money must all pass through the 
 channel of the neck, and the neck is the Receiver-General. 
 
 The Receiver-General will find it necessary to appoint two 
 deputies, but he will have nothing to do with the taxpayer— 
 nothing to do except with the tax receivers ; they will receive 
 and collect the revenue for him. He will be subject to audit. 
 He will be liable to prosecution by the State authorities, and 
 he will have full authority over the sub-receivers. He will, 
 however, never annoy the taxpayer, nor come near him, nor, 
 I hope, ever be heard of by him. He will not be the appointer 
 of the collectors of taxes—that is a function we do not wish 
 
28 
 
 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 to see in his hands. The power of bringing actions against the 
 sub-receivers in the Court of Exchequer will rest with the 
 Receiver-General, and that explains the provision which I have 
 already mentioned to the House on a former occasion as to 
 the judgments of the Court being supported by the public 
 forces. This security will extend to everything in Ireland for 
 the central purposes of government, to Customs and Excise, 
 and all public revenues whatever. Perhaps I may be told the 
 old story of calling into existence a new Irish legislative body, 
 and at the same time showing a mistrust of it. With great 
 respect, I show nothing of the kind. These provisions have 
 nothing whatever to do with my notions ; they are not intended 
 to satisfy me nor the British public; but these are large 
 operations, and the provisions are intended to satisfy a some¬ 
 what peculiar and fastidious class, the class of public creditors. 
 
 Maintenance of the Public Credit. 
 
 I say boldly that the maintenance of public credit is a 
 common interest; it is the interest of gentlemen opposite; it 
 is the interest of gentlemen here ; above all, it is the interest 
 of the Irish Nationalists, because Ireland will undoubtedly 
 want to organize a credit of her own for public purposes. She 
 will require it—I hope not to excess. She will want to organize 
 her own credit by degrees, and she cannot organize a credit to 
 be worked economically and safely unless the ground is abso¬ 
 lutely solid under her feet, and the ground cannot be solid 
 under her feet unless the securities for the fulfilment of all her 
 prior engagements are absolutely unimpeachable. I submit 
 that the Exchequer will be as safe in respect of these advances, 
 under the provisions which I propose, as it is in respect of the 
 collection of the taxes in England for the ordinary purposes of 
 government. 
 
 An Example Worked Out. 
 
 Now, I will endeavour to exhibit with some exactitude to the 
 House the position of the four parties interested in a pecuniary 
 sense in this plan—namely, the Irish landlord, the Irish tenant, 
 the Irish State authority, and the British Exchequer. The case 
 which I take of the Irish landlord for the sake of simplicity is 
 the case of the landlord who has no public burdens and no 
 encumbrances. I should greatly confuse the House were I to 
 take the contrary case, and therefore I take the case of an Irish 
 landlord who is so happy that he has nothing but his rates to 
 pay. I take as an instance a gross rental of £1,200 a year and 
 ask, “ What will be the deduction ? ” I can only calculate from 
 
On the Sale and Purchase of Land (Ireland) Bill. 23 
 
 general information as to rents. The circumstances of particular 
 estates vary so enormously with regard to outgoings, other than 
 encumbrances, that while the figure I am going to name would 
 be much too high in some cases, it would be much too low in 
 others. I am obliged to strike an average, and the deduction I 
 take as the average figure is 20 per cent. Therefore, my gross 
 rental of £1,200 will be reduced by the deduction of £240 to 
 £960, and the normal rate of compensation at 20 years—and 
 here again I put aside exceptional cases—will be £19,200. 
 
 Now, what will be the condition of the tenant ? The 
 maximum that he will have to pay will be £960—that is to 
 say, 4 per cent, upon 20 years’ purchase, not of the sum the 
 landlord receives, but of the gross rental which he has hitherto 
 paid. That is the maximum payment, because, as I shall 
 show you presently, there is a fund out of which, if it should 
 seem right to the State authority, some further favourable 
 arrangement may be made. On receiving that deduction, he 
 will become subject to half-rates, because he becomes an owner. 
 The 4 per cent, charge will continue for 49 years, and the legal 
 ownership will become, at the end of that time, perfectly free 
 ownership, without any annual payment unless taxes should be 
 laid upon the land by the State authority. 
 
 Now for the position of the State authority. That authority 
 will receive £960 from the tenant. What will it have to pay to 
 the Imperial Exchequer ? It will have to pay 4 per cent, also, 
 not, however, upon the gross rental, but upon the net rental. 
 That will be £768. The cost of the collection of the net rental, 
 we can confidently state, will be very low. It will only be 2 
 per cent.—that is, £19 4s. The State authority will therefore 
 receive £960, and the total charge upon it will be £787 4s, 
 That leaves the State authority £172 16s., or nearly 18 per 
 cent. Then what is the State authority to do with this 
 £172 16s. ? On the one hand it may be enlarged, because it 
 will be larger in those cases where the compensation will be 
 below 20 years, and therefore it will be larger if the average is 
 below 20 years. On the other hand, it maybe subject to certain 
 deductions on account of the cost of conveyance, because we have 
 thought it fair not to leave the landlord liable to unrestricted 
 charges in respect of proof of title ; and we shall accordingly fix 
 very low the maximum of the costs which can be charged upon 
 the landlord with respect to conveyance. The State authority 
 may also be liable to a somewhat heavier charge, in respect of 
 the redemption of quit rents, head rents, tithe commutations, 
 and jointures, which cannot always be kept within the limit of 
 20 years. Upon the whole, there is no reason to believe that 
 those considerations will cause any great invasion of the balance 
 
30 Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone , M.P., 
 
 which I have shown to be free for the State authority, about 18 
 per cent, upon the sum payable to the landlord. 
 
 We have proceeded upon the principle that the State 
 authority may in certain cases find it necessary or think it 
 expedient to grant some further remission to the tenant. But 
 we are not acting simply for the interests of the Irish tenant; 
 we are acting also for the interests of the Irish labourer and 
 the Irish community, and it is our duty, if Great Britain is to 
 make an effort by the use of her credit to bring about an 
 improved state of things—it is our duty to leave some fair 
 portion of the resulting profit to be for the advantage of Ireland 
 at large, subject to the distribution and according to the 
 direction of the Irish authority. 
 
 Ireland’s Balance after the Debt is Paid. 
 
 I may say, that in case the whole of these transactions 
 should go forward the sum becoming subject to the discretion 
 of the Irish State authority would be not much less than 
 £400,000 a year. Now a few words with respect to the position 
 of the Imperial Exchequer. The Imperial Exchequer assumes 
 a maximum expenditure of £50,000,000. It may, or may not, 
 be that, but I take the maximum. The interest at 4 per cent., 
 including sinking fund, will be £2,000,000. That will be the 
 cash which the Imperial Exchequer will receive every year 
 from the Irish authority through the Receiver-General, that 
 admirable personage to whom I have already referred. How 
 will this £2,000,000 be secured ? If these transactions take 
 place, the land rents which the State authority will levy will 
 amount to a net rental of £2,500,000, and we have the highest 
 possible security for its vigilance in levying those rents. First 
 of all, in its sense of right; secondly, in its sense of prudence, 
 and thirdly, in its sense of necessity, inasmuch as until the 
 prior charge is paid it can touch nothing. The sum will in the 
 first place be secured upon this amount of £2,500,000 ; but it 
 will be secured also upon the balance of all Irish revenue ; and 
 thirdly it will be a first charge on the taxes levied under the 
 Irish State authority, which I have assumed will amount to 
 £5,778,000. You may say there is also the Imperial contribu¬ 
 tion to be taken into, view. Yes, there is ; but there is also a 
 large further fund which may be taken into account, namely, 
 Customs and Excise. If I add to the Imperial contribution 
 and to the charge for the constabulary the £2,000,000 which I 
 have now spoken of in respect to land, the sum comes out 
 thus. We want to get £6,242,000, and that is secured upon 
 £10,850,000, no portion of which can be applied for any other 
 
On the Sale ancl Par chase of Land (Ireland) Bill . 31 
 
 purpose until our claim in respect of the £6,242,000 is satisfied. 
 That I conceive to be securing British credit, and that is the 
 only possible foundation for Irish credit also. 
 
 England’s Loss on Ireland. 
 
 There is one other matter to which I wish to refer—it is the 
 last with which I shall trouble the House. Some people have 
 an idea that, under the present arrangement, we receive from 
 Ireland, if not all that we desire, yet enough to replenish very 
 materially our Imperial resources. That is a woeful delusion. 
 We do nothing of the kind, and I will prove it. I do not say 
 that Ireland does not pay enough, but I do say that we receive 
 very little ; and I am bound to add that, with the views I hold 
 with respect to the unwisdom of our policy, I do not think that 
 we deserve to receive more. The present contribution of the 
 Irish taxpayer to the revenues of this country is £6,980,000, and 
 out of that we pay back for Irish civil charges, £4,840,000. The 
 residue of £2,000,000, in round numbers, is apparently an 
 Imperial contribution from Ireland for the Army, t.he Navy, the 
 National Debt, and other Imperial Civil Service charges. But 
 having got that what do we do with it ? We send an army to 
 Ireland of 26,000 men, whom we have not dared to release, and 
 which costs us £3,000,000 a-year, nearly £1,000,000 more than 
 the apparent surplus of £2,000,000 to which I have just referred, 
 without any provision whatever for debt, the Navy, or Imperial 
 Civil charges. That, Sir, is the economy of the system which 
 we have to root up from out the land. 
 
 Submitted for Scrutiny. 
 
 I have detained the House a long time, but this is a complex 
 question. I will detain the House no longer. I commend this 
 measure with the utmost earnestness as a complement to our 
 policy, adopted under serious convictions both of honour and 
 of duty—I commend it to your strict, your jealous, your care¬ 
 ful, and your unbiassed examination, convinced as I am that 
 when that examination has been given to it, both in regard to 
 policy and honour and duty, it will be recognised as a fitting 
 part of our proceedings upon this certainly great and, as I 
 believe, auspicious occasion; and as fitting to—I do not say 
 adorn—but to accredit and sustain the plans of the British 
 Legislature for the welfare of ’“what is, and what has long 
 been, and what I hope will ever be, under happier circumstances 
 than heretofore, an integral portion of Her Majesty’s dominions. 
 
Authorised Edition.—Price One Penny. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL. 
 
 SPEECH of the RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P., 
 
 On Moving for leave to introduce a Bill for the better Government of Ireland, 
 
 April 8th, 1886. 
 
 National Press Agency, Limited, 13. Whitefriars Street, Fleet Street, E.C.—E. Dawsoi* 
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 Authorised Edition.—Price One Penny. 
 
 REPLY OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, NLP., 
 
 On the closing of the Debate on the Motion for leave to introduce the Bill 
 { for the better Government of Ireland, April 13th, 1886. 
 
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 Authorised Edition.—Price One Penny. 
 
 SPEE C ZEE ZEE! S 
 
 OP THE 
 
 RT. HON. SIR W. VERNON HARCOURT, M.P. 
 
 (CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER), 
 
 AND 
 
 MR. SAMUEL WHITBREAD, M.P., 
 
 On the Motion for leave to introduce the Bill for the better Government 
 
 of Ireland, April 12th and 13th, 1886. 
 
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