IRISH LAKD Aro HOME
RULE.

S. LAING
(Late M.P. foe Oekney akd Shetland).

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1886.

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PREFACE.

Two letters of mine in the Daily News, on the Irish Home Ruk
and Land Questions, having attracted considerable attention, it has
been suggested from several quarters that I should republish them in
a cheap form for extensive circulation. I have pleasure in doing so,
with the addition of a few facts and figures relating to the Land
Question, in the hope that they may contribute something towards
enlightening public opinion on the important Irish questions which
are now pending.

IRISH LAND AND HOME RULE.

AN IMPERIALIST ON HOME RULE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY NEWS."
Sir,— As an old hunter in his paddock pricks up his ears when
he hears the music of the hounds, so an " old Parliamentary hand,"
who mindful of the Horatian maxim " Solve senescentem," has
retired from active political life, feels stirrings of desire to take a
part when questions of vital importance come to the front, and the
battle between contending parties waxes fast and furious. I find
myself, therefore, constantly thinking what I should say and how I
should vote on Mr. Gladstone's Bills for Home Rule and Land
Purchase if I were still in the House of Commons. After anxious
consideration, I come to the conclusion that I should vote for their
second reading. If I ask you to give me space in your columns to
state my reasons, it is mainly because my point of view is to a con
siderable extent different from that of' many pf the supporters, and
not altogether unlike that of many of the opponents of those
measures. I am " Imperialist " to the backbone, and heartily adopt Lord
Hartington's axiom that our first duty is to hand down the British
Empire to our sons no less great and glorious than we received it
from our fathers. If, therefore, I thought that these Irish Bills
would weaken the Empire, nothing would induce me to support
them. But this is an assertion more easily made than proved. Is
the present state of things satisfactory, and as matters actually stand,
is Ireland a source of strength or of weakness to the Empire ? Dis
tinctly of weakness. It is a serious matter to have a large majority
of the inhabitants of such an integral portion of the Empire dis
affected to our rule and as actively hostile to us as the inhabitants of
Lombardy were to the Austrian dominion. It is a serious matter
to have the millions of Irish race on the other side of the Atlantic
sympathising with this feeling, subscribing money and using their
political influence in promoting measures adverse to England ; and
still more serious is it to have a compact body of eighty-five Irish
members in the House of Commons, holding the balance between
the two great parties and using their power to obstruct business and
paralyse the existence of any strong Government and continuous

4 Irish Land and Home Rule.
policy. Nor is there the slightest chance of this state of things
getting better if we simply stand still and do nothing. On the con
trary, it is getting worse daily ; for the influence of education, the
Press, and the platform, are extending more widely the feeling of
nationality, which in Ireland, as in Hungary, Italy, and so many
other countries, is a main source of political discontent. The fall
in agricultural prices is also aggravating the evils of the land system
in Ireland and adding to the mass of agrarian poverty and discon
tent, which, while they remain, must always furnish an ample field
for ever-increasing agitation. As a knowledge of the actual facts
of this system permeates the English public, it becomes also more
and more impossible to resort to coercion and enforce existing laws,
when it is seen that this practically means using British bayonets to
enforce by evictions the collection of excessive rents, levied to a great
extent on starving tenants for their own improvements. If, then,
we can neither stand still nor resort to ruthless and thorough-going
coercion, what can we do 1 If by any means it were possible to change
the feelings of Irishmen towards England into those of Scotchmen^
or even of Canadians and Australians, will anyone deny that the
strength and security of the Empire would be greatly improved,
and that we could confront any foreign or domestic foe with greater
assurance 1
To attain so great an object we must be prepared to run some
risks, and to take things as they actually are, and not as we might
wish them to be. If it were a mere question of wishes, I might
prefer that Ireland would be contented with a large measure of land
purchase and of local government administered by provincial
councils. But it is evident that Ireland would not be contented
with this, and that its heart is set on an Irish Parliament sitting at
Dublin, not so much, perhaps, for merely material reasons as because
it is the outward and visible sign of the recognition of Irish
nationality. If, therefore, we wish to escape from the old wretched
groove of spasmodic coercion followed by tardy concession, we must
be prepared to adopt an Irish Parliament. And when it has once
been proposed by an influential Minister, and accepted, in principle,
by an immense majority of one of the great parties of the State, its
adoption is obviously a mere question of time, and that a very short
time. Surely, then, it is better for the interests of the Empire to
adopt it at once, when it is received gratefully by Ireland, and can
be fenced in with all requisite securities for the safeguard of
Imperial interests. What are those safeguards 1 They are elaborate
and minute in Mr. Gladstone's Bill, and if they err it is in the sense
of being too many and too minute, rather than in the oppositet
direction. But those really important from my point of view, that
of the security of the Empire, are the following : —
1. The absolute control of the "army, navy, militia, volunteers,
or other military or naval forces, for the defence of the realm." This

Irish Land and Home Ride. 5
is the one vital security, for, in the last resort, it secures everything.
2. A similar control of all foreign and colonial policy. 3. Control
and levying of Customs and Excise, so as to secure the Imperial
revenue and preserve perfect freedom of trade and intercourse
between Ireland and all parts of the United Kingdom. With these
vital points secured I am content to leave all other details to be
settled in the only way in which they can practically be settled, viz.,
by finding out by discussion in Committee of the House of Commons
what Mr. Gladstone and the Government finally adhere to, and
what the Irish party accept or acquiesce in for the sake of the
general settlement.
There is only one suggestion I would make to meet what is a
considerable difiiculty, the exclusion of Irish members from the
Imperial Parliament. Many Liberals, otherwise favourable to the
Bill, object to this as violating the principle of "No taxation with
out representation." The Irish members, on the other hand, object,
as I understand, to come ; or, if they are to come, say it must be with
undiminished numbers. This is out of the question, for manifestly
they cannot claim more representation than their share of taxation,
and to admit the present number would be to perpetuate the present
evils, and start with the assumption that instead of being a final
settlement there was to be a continuation of the strife with eighty-
five Irish members Still voting as a compact body to extort further
concessions. Why should not the difiiculty be met by saying that it
should be optional with the Irish Parliament to decide whether to
send or not to send to the Imperial Parliament representatives not
exceeding in number their due proportion to their share of Imperial
taxation. Such option to be declared for each Parliament some time
before the general election. Probably they would decide, in the
first instance at any rate, not to send members and to keep men like
Mr. Parnell at home rather than send him back to Westminster at
the head of a diminished phalanx. But in this case the mosb
scrupulous Radical might be content to act without them without
fear of violating his favourite principle, for he would hardly carry it
so far as to force Ireland to send members levied by conscription,
and carried like Egyptian recruits in chains across the Channel. Any
solution, however, which satisfies Ireland while preserving the vital
conditions of Imperial supremacy, is better worth trying than that
of attempting to stand on an infallible non possumus, backed by
coercion, which every serious politician must know would break
down, if not at the first, then certainly after the second or third
general election from the present time, leaving Ireland more exas
perated, and the prospects of a peaceful settlement more remote
than ever.
When we analyse the arguments of those who shriek against
the idea of Home Rule, they resolve themselves mainly into this —
that the Irish are actuated by a feeling of irreconcilable hostility tc

6 Irish Land and Home Rule.
England, and would use any concession as a means of extorting
something further. Those who assert this most loudly are precisely
those who know least about Ireland and Irish feeling. There is no
race animosity whatever, apart from land and politics, and an EngHsh
traveller in Ireland meets everywhere with nothing but civility and
goodwill. Now that the olive branch has been held out to them by
Mr. Gladstone's Bill there is one universal expression of willingness
to accept it and bury the past in oblivion from all influential organs
of Irish opinion, in Parliament and the Press, in Ireland and in
America. We are told that all this is insincere and only intended to
lure us on into passing the Bill. Those who believe in the organised
hypocrisy of the spontaneous utterances of millions of men in all
quarters of the world know very little of human nature, and least of
all of Irish nature, which is eminently emotional and under the sway
of generous and grateful feeling. Depend upon it, they mean what
they say. They may not always mean it, and therefore it is quite
right to take guarantees for Imperial supremacy in vital matters ;
but for the time they mean it, and this gives a precious opportunity,
which once lost may not readily recur, of taking a new departure
«,nd inaugurating a new and happier era. Besides, what should they
agitate for further 1 The Irish are not a stupid race, and they must
be the dullest of blockheads to suppose that they could ever have
the remotest chance of establishing an independent and hostile Irish
Republic within a few hours' sail of England. There is only the
land question on which any conflict will be at all likely to arise, if we
fail to settle that question ourselves, and yet attempt to restrict the
powers of the Irish Parliament to deal with it in their own way. If,
as seems probable, the Land Bill does not pass owing to the opposi
tion of the Conservative party, combined with that of a section of
the Radicals, it will be an evil day for Irish landlords, who will never
again get such a favourable ofier ; but it will relieve us from all
moral responsibility towards them, and they cannot expect us to
sacrifice all prospect of restoring peace and prosperity in Ireland by
limiting the power of the Irish Parliament to deal with the land. I
shall not regret this result, for the present Land Bill is an imperfect
measure, bearing evident traces of being the result of compromises
intended to conciliate the landlords and the British 'taxpayer, rather
than a comprehensive scheme, such as was advocated by myself and
Mr. Gifi'en for transforming at one stroke the conditions of land
tenure, and converting the great body of Irish tenants into proprie
tors of their holdings, on terms giving them large immediate relief.
Unless amended in the sense of the resolutions of the Ulster Tenants'
Association, it is emphatically a landlord's and not a tenant's measure,
and I shall not be sorry if the former are fools enough to reject it,
and leave the ground clear for larger and more liberal legislation. —
I remain, yours faithfully. S. Laing.
5, Cambridge Gate, N.W., April 25th.

Irish Land and Some Rule, 7
THE ROOT OF THE IRISH QUESTION
TO THE EDITOR OB' THE "DAILY NEWS."
Sir, — As my letter on Home Rule which appeared in your paper
of the 29th April has attracted a good deal of attention I am induced
to ask you to publish a few other observations, principally on the
Land Purchase scheme, which have been dictated mainly by personal
experience during repeated visits to Ireland. What the British
public want for a right ' understanding of Irish questions is not so
much arguments as facts — positive hard facts, vouched for by com
petent and disinterested witnesses.
Take the case of Mr. Chamberlain's attempt to revive the No
Popery cry by appealing to Welsh Nonconformists to oppose a
measure which will lead to the oppression of Protestants by a
Catholic majority. This is opinion, and not altogether disinterested
opinion, being manifestly influenced a good deal by political feeling.
Contrast it with the following facts, which I can vouch for, having
just returned from the spot. In a certain district in the South of
Ireland, where the Catholics are in an immense majority, and the
National League is supreme, the local council of the League, elected
by its local members, consists of seven men, of whom two are
Protestants. In another district one of the leading spirits of the
Land and National Leagues is a Scottish Presbyterian, who, having
taken a farm and laid out a good deal of money on improvements,
had his rent raised on him by a Catholic landlord. Whatever evils
may have arisen from recent movements in Ireland, they have at
least had this good effect — they have obliterated religious animosities.
The leader of the movement, the " uncrowned King," Mr. Parnell,
is a Protestant, and everywhere Protestant and Catholic farmers
have acted together in agitating for fixity of tenure and fair rents.
No distinction whatever is made between Protestant and Catholic
landlords, and rents have been and are being paid universally where
reasonable reductions are made to meet depressed prices, and as uni
versally resisted where landlords are either unwilling or unable to
give any reducion. Ask any Catholic in the county of Clare who
is their best landlord, and he wiU reply Lord Leconfield, and this
simply because his estate has been managed as an ordinary good
English landlord manages his English estate.
The fact is that, as Lord Spencer says, and as every one who has
been in Ireland and really knows anything of its condition confirms,
land is at the root of the whole Irish question. To understand this
question certain leading facts must be kept in view and substituted
for vague assertions. There are two Irelands as there are two
Scotlands, a lowland and a highland ; the first comprising land of
fair agricultural value, and a fair proportion of substantial tenants

8 Irish Land and Home Rule.
who can afibrd to pay, and ought to pay, fair rents, and are in fact
paying them with the approval of the National League, with such
reasonable deduction for times of agricultural depression as are
made in England and Scotland to the same class of men on similar
holdings, say 20 or 25 per cent, on the rents of two or three years
ago ; the second, or highland Ireland, comprising roundly one-third
of the area, one-fifth of the rental, and one-half of the population of
Ireland, is in a condition resembling that of the worst crofter
districts in the Isle of Skye and the Lewes. It is as if there were
no Glasgow, and the whole western belt of Scotland, comprising
half its population, was densely inhabited by the poorest class of
crofters. The conditions of the lowland part of Ireland difier from those
of the lowlands of Scotland mainly in this — that even here there are
far more of the wretched little holdings under £10 a^-year rent, even
in the better districts ; and that rents are fixed on a lower scale of
living for the tenants than in Scotland, and are levied much more
on them for their own improvements. But in highland Ireland the
conditions are totally different from anything known in England, or
in Scotland, except in a very few outlying districts, chiefly in the
western islands. Population and rents are excessive. I state this
as to rents as a positive fact within my own personal knowleda;e,
from a careful comparison between the rents of small holdings in my
own county — Orkney — and those in the West of Ireland. They are
on a scale that cannot possibly be paid from any produce of the soil,
even though the cultivators are clothed in rags and live on potatoes,
and in point of fact they are paid principally from the earnings of
labour in harvest and other work in England and Scotland, and by
remittances from members of the family in America and the Colonies.
It may be said that rent ought to be paid for a house and small
patch of land to keep a family together, even although the money
comes from such outside sources. True, if the landlord has built
the house and reclaimed the land. But here comes in the fatal
difiiculty in dealing with this class of tenants, that it is almost
universally levied on them on their own improvements. There is not
one case in ten, or rather in a hundred, in which the tenant of these
small holdings, or his predecessor, has not built the house and
reclaimed the land himself, and where the intrinsic value of the land,
apart from those improvements, would be a shilling, or at the very
outside half-a-crown, an acre of annual rent.
When people talk of leaving things as they are and enforcing
the law, this practically means using British bayonets to enforce
payment of these unjust rents by evictions. At this very moment
evictions are going on to enforce payment of rents where, owing to
the failure of last season's potato crop in many districts of the West,
the people are starving, and subscriptions are going on to provide
them with food and seed potatoes Can this state of things last

Irish Land and Home Rule. ,0
when the electors of England and Scotland come, as they are fast
coming, to understand what " enforcing the law " practically means ?
Certainly not. It is in principle as iniquitous, and in practice more
disastrous, than in the very parallel case of negro slavery. But, as
in the case of slavery, the landlords who are not personally
responsible for this state of things, and who have inherited incomes
which have grown up under English law, have a moral claim for a
reasonable compensation. This is the justification of a Land
Purchase BUI. Imperative considerations both of justice, humanity,
and policy require, just as they did in Russia when the serfs were
emancipated, that this state pf things should cease, and the mass of
the agricultural population of Ireland should become proprietprs of
their own holdings, subject to the payment of a moderate fixed
rent-charge. But equally imperative considerations of justice and
self-respect require that the English nation, who are to a great
extent, however ignorantly, resppnsible for the creatien and
continuance of this state of things, should assist in offering Irish
landlords some reasonable cpmpensation. A Land Purchase scheme
ought not to be considered so much as a landlord's measure, but
primarily as a tenant's measure, and a great political measure for
introducing conditions under which the peace and prosperity of an
important portion of the Empire become possible ; the cpmpensation
to landlords being simply the removal of a preliminary difiiculty
which bars the way.
I say distinctly that even if it cost us cash we ought to pay
towards it, for it is to a great extent our own fault. We forced these
land laws on Ireland. We refused to listen to the moderate measures
of Butt and Sharman Crawford for mitigating these evils. We are
at this moment compelled by these laws to enforce evictions at which
the humanity of the civilised world shudders as much as at any
flogging of a negro. Luckily for us, we can pay in credit and not in
cash, and the British taxpayer will in all probability never be called
upon to pay a penny. Here, at least, when we come upon financial
ground, Mr. Gladstone may safely be trusted, and it is evident that
he has cut down his Land Bill by so many compromises that it may
be doubted whether he has not sacrificed the interest of the tenants
and impaired the chances of its success as a great remedial measure
from excessive anxiety to protect the landlords, and, above all, to
protect the British taxpayer.
Those who oppose the measure do so on two opposite and incon
sistent grounds. On the one hand they say, "Leave the Irish
landlords to their fate rather than run the remotest risk to the
British taxpayer." Others say, " Your Land Bill shows that you
know your Irish Parliament cannot be trusted to do justice, and
will confiscate their property without compensation."
As to this latter argument, recollect that it is we, and not the
Irish Parliament, who are under this moral responsibility

10 Irish Land and Horm Rule
towards the Irish landlords. The system is of our creation, and not
that of the Irish nation. We could not call the Irish Parliament
dishonest if they re-enacted Healy's clause as the Imperial House
of Commons intended it to be before their intention was frustrated
by the judgment in the case of " Adams v. Dunsmeath," against the
opinion of Lord Chancellor Law, who carried the clause through the
House. I speak with knowledge on this point, fpr I, in cpncert
with the present Attorney-General, Sir C. Russell, framed the words
in which the clause was passed, and I know that what was under
stood by the House of Commons was reversed by that judgment.
You cannot call them dishonest if they re-enact that clause and
provide that no writs of eviction shall issue unless where landlords
submit to a fresh valuation of fair rents, in which the effect of that
clause, and of the great reduction in agricultural prices, is taken
fairly into accpunt. If you mean that an Irish Parliament is to be
precluded from such legislation, and that bad landlords are to con
tinue to enforce excessive and unjust rents by the screw of evictions
backed by British bayonets, you had better, no doubt, refuse to
grant an Irish Parliament and fall back on the only other possible
alternative, that of coercion and martial law. But if you do so,
farewell, a long farewell, to every hope of regenerating Ireland and
converting it into a peaceful, contented, and loyal portion of the
British Empire.
No, you must either offer the Irish landlords fair compensation
as proposed by the Land Purchase Bill, or you must leave them to
their fate, which practically means social war, with endless loss and
misery to both sides, for perhaps four or five years, which is the
longest period for which you can hppe to stave off an Irish Parlia
ment, and at the end, the certainty of far worse terms than are now
offered tp them. — I remain ypurs faithfully, S Laing
5, Cambridge Gate N W., May 3rd.

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Irish Land and Home Rule. 11

THE QUESTION OF THE LAND.
The question of the land is of such paramount importance for a
right understanding of Irish affairs, that I add a few facts and
figures to assist English readers in arriving at just conclusions.
What is the actual state of land tenures in Ireland ?
The following table shows it as given by the latest official returns
in 1881 :— 218,000 holdings averaging £2
196,000 78,000 46,00047,00024,000 ,,
14,000 „
24,00012,000 „
On the other hand there are about 9,000 landlords ; of the
20,000,000 acres of land in Ireland, one half is owned by less than
750 preprietors ; and 110 landlprds hpld among them 4,000,000
acres. Fact First. — The scale pf rents is generally too high. The
absence of other modes of employment has led to an intense competi
tion for land, which has screwed up the standard of rents to a scale
which is far too high, whether relatively to the scale of rents in
England and Scotland, or to the value of the produce of the soil.
Legitimate rent is the surplus of so much of the produce as remains
after the cultivators of the soil have been supported in a position of
decent comfort compatible with civilised existence. By far the most
numerous class in Ireland, the tenants pf small hpldings, are neither
decently fed, clpthed, ner Ipdged, and live in a state ef destitution
unknown among the peasantry of any other European country.
Fact Second. — This scale of rents, always excessive, has
become impossible owing to the great fall in the prices of cattle and
other agricultural produce, on which Irish farmers mainly depend.
In my own county, Orkney, where the circumstances are very
similar to those of the better class of Irish farmers, the average
price of cattle exported, which in 1882 was £18 a head, fell in
1885 to £12. Most English and Scotch landlords have had to give
reductions ef at least 25 per cent, pn the rents pf three years ago,
and gpod Irish landlords have almost universally given similar
reductions on the judicial rents paid under the Land Act. One of
the fallacies commonly stated is that rents are not paid in Ireland,
owing to a general conspiracy of dishonest tenants to evade payment.

12 Irish Land and Home Rule,
This is directly contrary to the fact. Rents have been, and are
being, almost universally paid, where reductions are granted equal
to those given by English and by good Irish landlords. The rule of
the National League is understood to be that rents are not to be
paid unless under compulsion where a reduction of at least 15 per
cent, is refused, but that tenants may settle with their landlords
on the best terms they can, provided they get this reduction. In
point of fact, I doubt if a single case can be produced in which a
landlord, who offered 25 per cent, reduction, has not got his rents
paid, except in a few cases of extreme destitution in the West of
Ireland, where the last potato crop was a failure, and the people
are starving. You might as well call English tenants dishonest
because a number pf them have struck against their old rents,
and thrown up their farms unless they got large reductions.
Fact Third. — In a vast number of cases Irish rents are not only
too high, but are levied on the occupiers for their own improvements.
You may go round the whole West pf Ireland from Donegal,
through Mayo, Galway, Clare and Kerry, and hardly find one small
holding out of ten in which the intrinsic value of the land was half-
a-crown, or in many cases sixpence an acre, and where the whole
additional value acquired by draining, enclosing, building a cottage,
and bringing bog or moor into cultivation, has not been created by
the tenant or his predecessor.
Such a state of things is scandalous, and the abstract justice of
Healy's clause is incontestible, that tenants ought not to be rented
on their own improvements, but its practical application would ruin
many landlords whose incomes have grown up under the protection
of English law.
Fact Four. — Another common fallacy is to assume that all
Ulster is Protestant, and to ask if it is to be sacrificed to a Nationalist
Parliament. In point of fsict Ulster returns a majority of Nationalist
Members, and if a General Election took place to-morrow that
majority would probably be increased rather than diminished.
Except in three counties, the Land Question overshadows the political
one, and the Land League had no stronger adherents than among
the tenant farmers of Ulster, without distinction of race or religion.
With these facts clearly fixed in our minds, we can begin to
realise the true meaning of the Irish Question.
Why do the vast majority of the Irish people wish for an
independent Irish Parliament ? Mainly that they may be able to
deal with the Land Question according to Irish ideas, which would
doubtless be to convert the mass of Irish tenants into proprietors,
subject to a fixed feu duty or quit rent, assessed with due regard to
the fall in prices and the tenants' improvements. Practically,
this would mean an average reduction of some 40 per cent, on the

Irish Land and Home Rule. 13
old rents, more perhaps in the case of small holdings in poor districts,
and less in that of the better class of farms in the fertile counties.
And they would propose to buy out the existing landlords at four
teen or fifteen years' purchase of these reduced rents, and refuse to
enforce evictions where any landlord declined these terms.
From the Irish point of view this would be a measure of simple
justice to the tenants. They would say these excessive and unjust
rents are the results of English, not Irish, legislation ; let the
landlords look to England for compensation ; we treat them only too
generously if we allpw them any compensation at all for what they
had originally no moral right to, and for which they have been paid
many times over by levying unfair rents for a long series of )'ear3.
But from the landlord's point of view this is fiat spoliation and
robbery, and his one idea is to continue the old powers of enforcing
rents by evictions, and to put down boycotting, land leagues, and any
attempts to resist the landlord's right to do what he likes with his
own. " Don't concede an inch, enforce the law for five-and-twenty
years and all will come right." Such is Lord Salisbury's remedy,
and he supports it by saying that enforcement pf the law simply
means restraining Irishmen from indulging in certain bad Irish
ideas touching the houghing of cattle and the murder of bailiffs.
But this is va rhetorical phrase rather than a serious argument.
Nine-tenths of the crime in Ireland is agrarian, and enforcing the law
means practically enforcing evictions, whether rents are just or unjust,
and putting down all attempts at combined action to obtain reduc
tions. It is just as if the law made strikes and trades' unions penal,
while it supported masters in locks-out and reductions of wages.
What does English law mean to an average Irish peasant ? It
means an irresistible malevolent power which comes down on him
with writs of eviction and police, to make him pay a rent which leaves
him a bare living of potatoes, for a cottage which he has built him
self and a patch of land which he has reclaimed from the bog. And
then you wonder that he is not law-abiding and loyal, and that his
sympathies run with those who break the law rather than with
those who uphold it.
Does Lord Salisbury really think that it is possible to persist in
such an enforcement of the law for five -and-twenty, or even for
five years 1 or that, if it were possible, Ireland, at the end of the
time, would be less disaffected to English rule than it is at present ?
There can be no peace in Ireland, with or without Home Rule, until
this land question is settled, as the emancipation of the serfs was
settled in Russia, by converting the mass of tenants into proprietors,
subject to a moderate fixed rent-charge, and under a tenure giving
them perfect freedom of sale, but prohibiting sub-division below a
certain limit, and sub-letting at an increased rent.
Placed in such conditions, the 500,000 agricultural tenants of
Ireland, who, with their families, form more than half of its popula-

14 Irish- Land and Home Rule.
don, would, in all probability, become, as in France, a highly
Conservative body, opposed to any revolutionary changes or disputes
with England, which might have the effect of endangering their
tenure or lowering the price of Irish cattle in the English market.
For this state of things three solutions are proposed, which may
be identified with the names of their principal advocates — Mr.
Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Chamberlain.
The first, that of Mr. Gladstone, is to give Ireland an independent
Parliament, with full powers of dealing with all local matters,
including land, reserving Imperial guarantees fpr Imperial matters,
-such as the army, navy, and finance; and using Imperial credit as
.1 means pf transforming the tenure of land and buying out landlords
who are unwilling to remain under the new order of things. The
second, that of Lord Salisbury, to refuse an Irish Parliament, keep
the Imperial Parliament as it is, and enforce the existing law
steadily for twenty-five years. The third, Mr. Chamberlain's, to
grant an Irish Parliament, but limit its powers to purely local
matters, reserving all general legislation on such questions as the
land to the Imperial Parliament, retaining its present quota of Irish
members. Of these plans the last is decidedly the worst. It would
leave all the existing evils untouched, and make it certain that the
eighty-five Nationalist members, backed by a discontented Ireland,
would at once proceed to obstruct and agitate for fuller powers for
the Irish Parliament. So far from being received with gratitude,
such a measure would be at once taken as a stepping-stone to further
demands, which must either be conceded or resisted by coercion.
The second plan is open to this fatal objection, that it is im
practicable. To give it a chance of success it must be accompanied by
a large measure of Land Purchase, and what chance is there of the
Conservatives, even if supported by Lord Hartington and the Whigs,
being strong enough to carry out such a scheme and follow it -up by
permanent and persistent coercipn, in the face pf the opposition of the
eighty-five Parnellite members, the Chamberlain Radicals, and the
overwhelming majority of the English, Scotch, and Welsh Liberals
who support Mr. Gladstone. It remains true, therefore, that Mr.
Gladstone's scheme "holds the field," without a rival or possible
alternative policy, and that in its main lines and subject to amend
ment in details, it is certain to be adopted sooner or later. And if
so, better sooner than later, for in dealing with these Irish questions
nothing has ever been gained by delay. On the contrary, the fatal
words " too late, too late" have been inscribed on the history of
Catholic Emancipation, the Disestablishment of the Irish Church,
the Land Act, and all concessions to Ireland tardily wrung from
English pride and prejudice.
In conclusion, I should wish to say one word on Federation. The
solution which I have suggested for the difficulty of excluding
Ireland from representation in the Imperial Legislature which

Irish Land and Home Rule. 15
imposes taxation, viz., that it should be optional with the Irish
Parliament to send to the House of Commons a number of members
proportioned to the share of Imperial taxation borne by Ireland,
seems to me to afford a basis on which Federation might be
extended to Canada, Australia, and other integral portions of the
great British Empire.
Why not say that any Colony which speads a certain amount on
such armaments as are necessary for the defence of that portion of
the Empire, and as we should be obliged to supply in case of war if
the Colony did not, should have the right, if it chose, of sending to
the Imperial House of Commons such a number of members as
represented its contribution towards -ihs total Imperial expenditure 2
such Colonial forces being, like our Army Reserve, primarily
applicable to the defence of their own Colony, but if not wanted
there, applicable in case of emergency to strengthen the Imperial
forces elsewhere.
The presence of such Colonial members in the House of
Commons would often be of immense advantage in enlightening it
upon important points of Colonial policy and feeling, of which it is
profoundly ignorant. How many wars and disasters would have
been avoided in South Africa and elsewhere, if Ministers, before
embarking on any line of policy, had been obliged to have it
threshed out in debate in the House of Commons, in the presence of
able and intelligent representatives of Colonial interests ?
This, however, is for the future ; the question of the present is
the Irish question. It obviously cannot be settled without an appeal
1x) the nation at a General Election. Vast issues depend on the
result of that appeal, and it is in the hope of contributing something
towards a right understanding of its real position and difficulties,
that the above has been written by one who is above all things
anxious to promote the honour and security of that great British
Empire, not of Great Britain only, but of that Greater Britain which
includes Ireland and all English-speaking lands united by the
common tie of common interests and by allegiance to Her Majesty
the Queen.

YALE UNIVERSITY L

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