# The Irish Land Acts/Fifteen Years of Land Purchase

SECTION XI.
Fifteen Years of Land Purchase.
It will be convenient to pause for a moment at the stage we have now reached and take a retrospective glance at the progress made in Land Purchase with a view to ascertaining how far actual experience confirms the theoretical advantages of peasant proprietorship, and what, if any, are the drawbacks attendant on the establishment of such a system in Ireland. The materials for this retrospect are to be found in the Report of an Inquiry instituted in November, 1902, into the condition of Tenant Purchasers who had acquired their holdings under the Land Acts. For the purposes of this Report, which was the first comprehensive survey of the working of the Land Commission, 65 Estates, selected indifferently from the four provinces ​and comprising approximately 14,813 tenant purchasers, were inspected and considered. None of the tenants thus visited had been less than seven years in possession of their holdings, and the majority had been in enjoyment of them for from ten to fourteen years; so that sufficient time had elapsed to enable them to come to a definite conclusion on the merits of their new, as compared with their former status. A summary of the report will, accordingly, give us a fair impression of the general results of Land Purchase up to the date at which it was written.
In the vast majority of cases the amelioration was unmistakable. The purchasers, no longer afraid that improvements resulting from careful treatment of the soil would be taxed by an increased rent, set themselves assiduously to cultivate their holdings to the best advantage. The carrying powers of the soil were increased by manuring, top-dressing, and draining. Gripes were periodically cleaned, farm roads and fences maintained, and rough lands reclaimed for tillage. To use Arthur Young's famous phrase, "the magic of property had turned sand into gold." New buildings were erected and old repaired. On some estates, where the condition of purchased and non-purchased holdings could be contrasted, it was found that, while the houses on the first had been much improved, on the second they were in a very neglected state. The tendency to sub-let and sub-divide lay dormant or disappeared, and the tendency to sell diminished. The legislative restrictions on sub-letting and sub-division, however, probably contributed largely to this result, as on one Estate the Inspector noted that "if it were possible to overcome the objections of the Land Commission, sub-letting would be resorted to."
The purchasers themselves were better off. They had increased their stock, they had paid off debts to bankers and shopkeepers, and they could get money more easily on loan. A noteworthy proof of their improved financial condition was the caution they showed in using this increased credit. The insolvent man will borrow where and when he can; the man with a property which can be made liable acts with more circumspection. The tenant purchasers avoided incurring liabilities which they did not clearly see their way to meet, and limited their expenditure on improvements to what they could supply themselves. On an estate in Mayo the local agent for the sale of artificial manures told the Commissioners that "it was not like the old times. They do not ask for or want credit now—they pay in cash."
As during the period under review the general standard of living had gone up in Ireland, it was not surprising to find that peasant proprietors were sharing in the rise; but, making the fullest allowance for this collective improvement, the individual benefit to the tenant purchaser was still evident. The first and in many respects the most important outcome of purchase ​was the feeling of contentment it gave to the people. Their minds were at ease. The anxiety as to the future, which had previously oppressed them, had disappeared. They had no fault to find with the new conditions; if misfortune came their way, it was accidental and could not he helped; in a few years they hoped to be on their legs again. Even in the poorest districts evidence of improved circumstances was found in the better clothing and greater neatness of the people.
The feeling of security that accompanies ownership was seen to have an excellent effect on the character of the purchasers. According to the parish priest of a district in Cavan, which before the sale to the tenants was in a state of turbulence, "Purchase has brought peace. The people are more industrious, more sober, and more hopeful as to their future prospects"—and his testimony was confirmed by the local constabulary and the Land Commission Inspector. Similar evidence collected from all parts of the country confirmed the belief that a spirit of self-help, self-respect and contentment was the natural outcome of Land Purchase.
Side by side, however, with these encouraging examples of progress there was an appreciable minority of cases in which it appeared that the tenant had derived no lasting benefit from the purchase of his holding. The land had deteriorated in value, the owner was heavily in debt to shopkeepers and moneylenders, his family were starved-looking and ill-clad. The general neglect of the buildings furnished a sad index to the decline of the occupier. Sometimes a whole estate had become submerged in this way. No purchaser could assist his fellow, for all were equally impoverished. They were worse off than then neighbours under the non-purchase system, for they had lost hope and self-respect, and had sunk despairingly into idleness and squalor.
Investigation into such cases showed that in some instances the lack of prosperity was due to unavoidable misfortune, the dying of cattle, sickness in the household, the death of the working member of the family, or such other casualties as might be considered amongst the normal accidents of life. But apart from these casual and unexpected misadventures, two opposite reasons were given by purchasers as to why they had not prospered. One class said that their holdings were not large enough fully to employ their labour and capital, while the other had not capital enough to work and stock the land they possessed. The first class had to buy or hire additional land to use then available labour to advantage and secure a reasonable living. The second started in poverty, and were never able to recover themselves. Either they borrowed money from the local banks at high rates of interest, which were increased by renewals up to 20, 30 or even 40 per cent, of the original loan, and thus accumulated a load of debt which they were never able to shake off—or else to acquire the necessary capital they let their lands ​for the season to some more prosperous neighbour. That was the beginning of the end. The amounts obtained became smaller year by year as the fertility of the soil decreased, and it was only a matter of time until the voluntary or forced sale of the holding took place, and the original occupier disappeared from view.
The result of the inquiry, then, was to demonstrate clearly the general benefits conferred by Land Purchase, even in its comparatively early stages, and at the same time to elicit some few concomitant disadvantages which subsequent legislation has done much to minimise or remove. The evils arising from the initial poverty of the tenant and the insufficient extent of his land were remedied (a) by providing capital out of the Reserve Fund for the enlargement and improvement of uneconomic holdings; and (b) by the substitution of the sale of "estates" for that of individual holdings. It was thus secured that "estates" which contained an appreciable proportion of uneconomic holdings would not be dealt with, or State money advanced for their purchase, except under conditions that would provide for their permanent reorganisation and improvement. On these lines later developments in the history of Land Purchase were directed.