# Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland

IRISH EMIGRATION
AND
THE TENURE OF LAND IN IRELAND.
BY
THE RT. HON. LORD DUFFERIN, K.P.
LONDON:
WILLIS, SOTHERAN, & CO.,
42, CHARING CROSS, (OPPOSITE CRAIG'S COURT.)
1867.
PREFACE.
The greater portion of the contents of the following pages, appeared originally in the form of letters to the Times.
Those letters were written in the hopes of inducing my fellow-countrymen to pause, before adopting without further investigation a theory with regard to Irish emigration and what has been called "the exterminating policy of Irish Landlords," which, after having been for years industriously propagated in Ireland, had at last received the imprimatur of one or two influential Members of Parliament.
But though hastily committed to paper, the views I thus submitted to the public were the result of diligent enquiry, and long-continued observation of the changing phases of our national existence. Nothing but an uncontrollable conviction of the injustice of the accusations with which the landed proprietors of Ireland are assailed, and of the gross incorrectness of the data on which those accusations are founded, would have induced me to embark in so uncongenial a controversy,—my natural repugnance to which ​was enhanced by the generosity of sentiment exhibited towards our unfortunate country, in those very speeches to portions of which I felt compelled to take exception. That persons of great intelligence should fall into error on the subjects in question did not surprise me. In any country it is difficult to disentangle the threads of popular sentiment, or to follow out the intricate operation of economical laws, — but in Ireland, a hundred influences, — many of them compatible with the purest patriotism, and the most scrupulous integrity, had contrived to prejudice local opinion, and to mislead the national conscience. Yet it would be from such sources alone, that a popular champion would naturally seek inspiration, and if his view of the situation should betray considerable misapprehension of the real facts of the case— it would be unfair to doubt the genuineness of his convictions, or to receive with any other feelings than those of respect and gratitude, any suggestions he might have to offer.
Though deeply sensible of my unfitness to do more than offer a slight contribution to the investigation which has been undertaken of late by many eminent persons, into the relations of Irish tenants with their landlords, there was a certain respect in which I felt I occupied an advantageous position. On the one hand, as a northern landlord, I had no interest in refuting accusations, from which, by general consent, the landlords of Ulster have been ​exempted; while, on the other, the phenomena which were supposed to justify them as against the proprietors of the South and West, and the difficulties incident to estate management in Ireland, were sufficiently common both to North and South, to make me familiar with their true origin and character. On this account I was able to enter upon a review of the past, with as much impartiality, and perhaps more acquaintance with the subject than persons totally unconnected with the landed interest of the country. I may indeed be told, that because I am a landlord, I must therefore be prejudiced in favour of the class: I can only reply that I am not conscious of any such partiality, and that I do not even understand the possibility of feeling greater sympathy with the legitimate aspirations of one section of the community, than with those of any other. It has always seemed to me that a true statesman should guard the rights and promote the welfare of the diverse but inextricably associated interests of the Nation with an undistinguishing solicitude.
Even with respect to the future, if I am opposed to many of the changes in the land laws of Ireland which have been suggested, it is not merely because they are detrimental to the interests of the landed proprietors, but because they are gross infractions of the first principles of Liberty, Justice, and Government, and fraught with mischief to the community at large.
​In throwing my letters into the form of a pamphlet, I have not had time to introduce into them the improvements I could have wished. Though here and there considerable additions have been made to some of the paragraphs, most of the original sentences remain as they were written. Even the new matter, only expands or explains statements and opinions which were originally conveyed in the concise form adapted to the columns of a newspaper. But though very little has been altered, there is scarcely a passage which has not been carefully reconsidered by the light of the various criticisms, with which my letters to the Times were honoured.
Whenever I have been able to convince myself that a correction was required, I have hastened to introduce it. Even in those cases where the ascertained facts perfectly justified a broad expression, I have frequently modified that expression in order to bring it into more perfect harmony with an opponent's view, and from first to last I have endeavoured to understate rather than to exaggerate the data on which I based my argument.
I have also carefully revised my figures, and submitted them to the scrutiny of several eminent statisticians both in this country and in Ireland.
But though I have scarcely done more than review or verify my previous composition, it is not a mere "réchauffé" I submit to those who may ​have patience to glance over these pages. Feeling how little claim I had on public confidence, I have endeavoured to illustrate and corroborate every statement and opinion of my own by a reference to such authorities as are held in universal esteem, and the text of my pamphlet is accompanied throughout by a running commentary of notes, and quotations from various authors.
On no work have I drawn so largely as on the Digest of the Evidence taken before the Devon Commission. I have also frequently appealed to the authority of Mr. Mill, Sir G. C. Lewis, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Fawcett, Dr. Hancock, and other equally honoured names in support of many of my views. With regard to the agriculture of foreign countries, I have taken M. de Laveleye as my guide for that of Belgium, and M. de Lavergne for that of France.
In the General Appendix will be found the answers I have received from a great number of gentlemen living in different parts of Ireland, to whom I ventured to address a series of questions connected with the subjects under discussion, as well as some extracts from Dr. Hancock's valuable pamphlet on the alleged decline of prosperity in Ireland, and an interesting paper on the present condition of agriculture in the counties of Cork and Kerry, drawn up by Mr. Robertson, a very well informed and intelligent agriculturist; who proceeded this spring at my request, to the South ​of Ireland, in order to obtain precise information on one or two disputed matters of fact.
Finally, I have excluded from the present volume everything approaching to a personal allusion. Though differing so widely on many points with the gentlemen whose misapprehensions I have endeavoured to correct, I sympathize most cordially with their unmistakable anxiety to improve the condition of our fellow-countrymen; and I should only be too happy to co-operate with them in promoting such a change in the state of Ireland as would render the real origin of her misfortunes a matter of indifference to every one but the antiquary.
INDEX.
Page.
CHAPTER I.
Appendix to Chapter I.
CHAPTER II.
Appendix to Chapter II.
Page.
CHAPTER III.
A RETROSPECT OF THE ECONOMICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND.
90—144
Appendix to Chapter III.
CHAPTER IV.
Appendix to Chapter IV.
CHAPTER V.
A REVIEW OF VARIOUS PROPOSALS FOR THE ALTERATION OF THE TENURE OF LAND IN IRELAND.
210—275
Appendix to Chapter V.
GENERAL APPENDIX.
Page.
Page.
POSTSCRIPT.
ANALYSIS.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
The classes that have emigrated, 47—The connection of the landlord with the emigrant, 48—The limits of the competence of Parliament, 49—The results of the investigation by the Devon Commission of most of the charges against the landlord, 50, 51—The trying nature of the crisis in 1846, 52—Judge Longfield on evictions in 1846, 53—Emigration the only possible alternative, 54—One-third of the landlords ruined in 1846, 55—The sacrifices made by the landlords to assist emigration, 56, 57—The greater proportion of the emigrants not occupiers of land, 58, 59—The extent to which consolidation has been carried, 60—The reduction of holdings between 1841 and 1861, 6l—Holdings above 15 acres have largely increased since 1841, 62, 63—Emigration of the tenant class, principally confined to occupiers of from half an acre to six acres, 64, 65—Many of the cottier tenants remained at home as labourers, 66—The tenant class may have contributed one-fourth to the total emigration between 1846 and 1851, 66, 67—Since then very few occupiers of land have emigrated, 68—Judge Longfield probably correct in stating that about 4 per cent, of the emigrants are farmers, 69—Comparison of the extinction of small holdings in the four Provinces, 69*—Comparison of the extinction of holdings of all sizes in the four Provinces, 70, 71—Comparison of the emigration from the four Provinces, 72—Annual number of evictions in Ireland, 73—Number of notices of evictions served on Poor-law guardians, 74—Table of notices and actual evictions, 75—Proportion of persons affected by evictions to number of emigrants amounts to about 2 per cent., 76, 77—Rate of evictions amounts to 1 per annum on every 10,000 acres of occupied land, 78—Two-thirds of the actual evictions are for non-payment of rent, 79—Comparison of the proportion of farmers who have emigrated to the total number of emigrants, 80, 81—The analysis of the Emigration Commissioners makes the emigration of Irish farmers amount to 2 per cent, of the total emigration from Ireland, 82, 83—Comparison of the emigration of the professional and farming classes, 84— ​Protestant emigration from Ireland, 85 — Emigration returns, 86 — Occupations of emigrants, 88, 89.
CHAPTER III.
The responsibilities of a former generation of landlords, 91—The position of an Irish landlord 80 years ago, 92—The nature and origin of rack-rents, 93—In former days most of the land let on lease as pasture, 94—The substitution of "la petite culture" for pasture, 95—The inability of the landlord to prevent subdivision of farms, 96—His relations with his fellow countrymen, 97—The middleman often, though not always, sublet against the will of the landlord, 98, 99—The landlord could not have foreseen the curse to the country the middleman would become, 100, 101—The introduction of a middleman occasioned sometimes by benevolent motives, 102, 103—He was intended to act as a link between the peasantry and their landlords, 104, 105—It was not his economical position but his individual defects which produced the evils complained of, 106, 107—The middleman not much worse than his neighbours, 108, 109—It is as fair to take the highest rent as to employ labour at the lowest rate of wages, 110, 111—The one course as fraught with evil consequences as the other, 112—The rise of the middleman, 113—The middleman in Ulster, 114—Competition and rack-rents in Ulster, 115—The Ulster tenant-right is the creature of competition, 116, 117—Prices given for the "good-will" in Down and Donegal, 118—These prices often represent no real value, 119—The disadvantage of the system to the incoming tenant, 120—The inconsistency of restricting the rent by Act of Parliament, and allowing the "good-will" to be put up to auction, 121—The devolution of tenancies of constant occurrence, 122—The fraud on the landlord and on the incoming tenant, 123—The landlords seldom take advantage of competition but the tenants always do, 124, 125—Competition is an irrepressible force, 126—Is equally prevalent in every part of Ireland, 127—Some agency must have checked the prosperity of Ireland, 128—The commercial jealousies of Great Britain, 129—Duties on Irish produce: cattle, wool, provisions, ​leather, 130—Duties on Irish manufactures: woollen and cotton goods, leather, silk, soap, candles, 131—Prohibitions on Irish trade, 132—The land the only resource left to the Irish people, 133—The rapid expansion of the agricultural population and the rise of prices of agricultural produce during the French war, 134—The consequent pressure of the people on the land, 135—The linen trade alone exempted from the effect of the jealousy of Britain, 136 — Expansion of the linen trade in Ulster and the prosperity of that Province, 137—An outlet thus afforded to the agricultural population of the North, 138—Review of the foregoing arguments, 139—The responsibilities of Irish landlords and British manufacturers compared, 140—Mr. Cobden's view of the subject, 141—Mr. Charles Greville's view of the same subject, 142, 143—Sir G. Lewis's view of the same subject, 144—The difficulties of an Irish landlord, 145—The course of his proceedings, 146—The pastures of Ireland, 147, 148—The trade of the North, 149—The trade of Belfast, 150.
CHAPTER IV.
The disproportion of cultivators to the area cultivated in Ireland reconsidered, 152, 153—Table of proportion of cultivators per acre in Ireland, England, Belgium, and Flanders, 154—Comparison of results in produce, 155—Proportion of cultivators per acre larger in Connaught and Munster than in Ulster, 156—The amount of produce nearly in inverse ratio to the proportion of cultivators in different parts of Ireland, 157—The proportionate number of cultivators in Ireland about the same as in Belgium, though Ireland is less adapted to spade-husbandry than Belgium, 158, 159—The opinion of various persons on the minimum size of farms on which a tenant can live with comfort, 160, 161—The agriculture of Belgium, 162—The rack-rents and short leases of Belgium, 163—The profits of the Belgian farmer, 164—The agricultural population of Belgium most wretched where the farms are smallest, 165—Condition of the Belgian farm-servant, 166—The advantages afforded in Belgium to 'la petite culture,' 167—The market gardening of Belgium, 168 ​—The facilities of obtaining manure in Belgium—The amount of manure per acre applied in Belgium, 170—Stolen and textile crops, 171—The manufactures of Belgium auxiliary to her agriculture, 172—A great number of the minute holdings of Belgium held by artizans, 163—The climate of Belgium compared with that of Ireland, 174, 175—The rainfall of Ireland at harvest-time, 176—The lessons to be learnt from the example of Belgium, 177—A proportion of the farms in Ireland might be enlarged with advantage, 178, 179—Judge Longfield's opinion on the subject, 180—The definition of the relations of landlord and tenant to one another and to the land, 181—The confiscations of Elizabeth and Cromwell, 182—The ownership of an Irish proprietor identical with that of his English fellow-countrymen, 183—A tenant's position defined, 184—The hiring of land and the chartering of a ship compared, 185—The conditions of each arrangement determined by contract, 186—The rights of the Commonwealth over landed property, 187—The equitable duration of a tenancy defined, 188—The dissoluble nature of the connection between landlord and tenant, 189—Susceptibility of land to deterioration by neglect, 190—Agriculture has become a science, 191—Large farms are not suitable to Ireland, 192—The landlord must be left the liberty to give the industrious tenant sufficient scope, 193—Emigration the resource of an embarrassed tenant, 194—Cases of emigrants who have returned to the author's estate, 195—The extreme rights of the landlord should be exercised with great consideration, 196—The relations of an employer of labour to his men, and of a landlord to his tenants compared, 197—The sources of the present discontent in Ireland, 198—The opinion of the Catholic Prelates on the subject, 199—The actual occupiers of land not tainted with Fenianism, 200—No difference of tenure would have affected emigration, evictions, or Fenianism, 201—The probable result of an agrarian revolution in Ireland, 202—The absence of tenant-right agitation in Ulster, 203—The three sources of uneasiness in the mind of the Irish tenant farmer, 204—Number of Irish cultivators, 205—Note by the Registrar General of Ireland, 206—Table of English Cultivators, 207—Table of Belgian cultivators, 208, 209
CHAPTER V.
Mr. Bright's proposition considered, 211—Difficulties in the way of establishing a yeoman class in Ireland, 212—Tendency to sublet or subdivide, 213—Impossible to prevent the tendency by mere legal restraints, 214—'La petite culture' and subdivision in France, 215—Number of small freeholders in France, 216—Their indigence, 217—The large extent of fallow in France, 218—The inferior rate of production in France, 219—The mortgages on these small properties, 220—Mr. Michelet's method of solving the difficulty, 221—The embarrassment of the French peasant proprietor occasioned by competition, 222, 223—The desire to subdivide as prominent as ever in Ireland (note), 224—The Farmer's Club of Cork (note), 225—The tendency to subdivision which seems excessive in France would be more intense in Ireland, 226—The proposals to deprive Irish landlords of their proprietary rights considered, 227—The conditions under which the state can expropriate, 228—Mr. Butt's plan, 229—The effect on the interests of the landlord, 230—The expropriation of the landlord's improvements in his property, 231—The extent of those improvements both in the North and South, 233—Amount of compensation which has been paid to tenants, 234—The duration of leases in England, Scotland, and Belgium, 237—Mr. Butt's 63 years' lease, 237—Probable consequences of Mr. Butt's plan with reference to the interests of the tenant, 238—Three standards of valuation of land in Ireland, 239—And three rents, 240—Judge Longfield's opinion of fixity of tenure, 241—Difficulties of valuation, 242—The moral aspect of the schemes to deal with the property of the country. 243—It is an easy task to persuade uneducated people that what is apparently for their interest is right, 244, 245—The objections to such an arrangement, 248—The right of contract should be left as free as possible, 249—Alterations are not always improvements, 250—An operation which is slightly beneficial to a farm may be detrimental to an estate, 251—An instance of the foregoing assertion, 252—The Government bill of 1866, legitimate and politic in principle, faulty in detail, 254—Some ​amendments suggested, 255—The reversal of the presumption that what is affixed to the soil is the property of the landlord, 256—An improvement executed by a tenant outside of an agreement to be presumed to be his property, 257—Registration of improvements necessary, 258—An illustration of this necessity, 259—The difficulty of identifying an improvement after a lapse of time, 260—The necessity of the landlord having an opportunity of acquainting himself with liabilities incurred on his account, 261—The consequences to a tenant of surreptitious operations, 262—Economy in improvements in the interest of the tenant, 263—Leases most desirable but should not be issued indiscriminately, 264—Leases not always desired by the tenant, 265—The reasons why some landlords hesitate to grant leases, 266——The consequences to the tenant of landlords being forced to grant leases, 267—An illustration of the result, 268—The result of such an obligation on the falling in of an old 61 years' lease, 269—Great caution is necessary in legislating on this subject, 270—A suggestion that the State should lend landlords money to compensate their tenants for existing improvements, 271—The result if such assistance were afforded, 272—The benefits to be derived from the distribution of capital over Ireland, 273—The probable effects of an alteration in the law of tenure on emigration and disaffection, 274—Conclusion, 275.
ANSWERS TO QUERIES.
Rate of agricultural wages,276,277—Rate of wages for unskilled labour, 278—Rate of wages at harvest-time,279, 280—Supply of labour, 281, 282—Allowances to agricultural labourers, 283, 284—The classes which have contributed to emigration, 285—The classes to which the Irish emigrants belong, 285, 286—Emigration the only alternative for the sons of small farmers, 287, 288—Emigration not the result of evictions or landlord influence, 289—Emigration voluntary; sacrifices made by landlords, 290—Emigration not the result of pressure put on the tenant by the landlord, 291—Tillage v. pasture, 292—Ireland is not being converted into a cattle ​farm, 293—During the last decade the extent of area under crops has increased, 294, 295—The cause of the late tendency to convert tillage into pasture, 296, 297—Evidence on the subject from different parts of Ireland, 298, 299—The influence of the rise in the price of stock in promoting the change from tillage into pasture, 300, 301.
PROGRESS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE.
Rate of sub-division of land in France, 302.
M. de Lavergne on the progress of French agriculture, 303.
GENERAL APPENDIX.
THE ULSTER TENANT-RIGHT.
The Ulster tenant-right, 308—The definition of the custom, 310—Its effects, 311—The proper method of compensation, 312—The position of a small tenant under the custom of tenant-right, 313—Goodwill, 314—Two views of the custom of tenant-right, 315—Arbitration, 316—The Ulster tenant's notion of tenant-right, 317—Compensation for buildings, 318—For drainage, 319—The sale and purchase of tenant-right, 320—An agricultural lease not sufficiently long to compensate the tenant for the expenditure in buildings, 321—A tenant makes an improvement more cheaply than a landlord, 322—The feeling of the tenantry of Ulster with respect to legislation, 323—Subdivision, 324—North and South are under the same law, 325—No great desire for leases in the North, 326—Different modes of assessing the rent, 327—An instance of subdivision, 328—Sublet lands are generally highly rented, 329—The anxiety to subdivide has been a little checked in the North, 330—Conditions introduced into grants of lands in Ireland by James I., 331—Counter claims of the landlord for dilapidations and bad ​cultivation likely to prove a formidable offset to a tenant's claim for compensation, 332, 333.
SMALL v. LARGE FARMS.
THE PROGRESS OF IRELAND.
RISE OF WAGES v. RISE OF PRICES.
Comparison of the rise in wages and in the price of food, 344.
CORK AND KERRY IN 1867.
TABLES AND STATISTICS.
NUMBER OF CULTIVATORS TO ACRES IN ENGLAND.
THE COST OF HAND POWER.
EMIGRATION.
AGRICULTURAL LABOUR IN IRELAND.
PRESENT AND FORMER RATE OF WAGES IN DOWN.
POSTSCRIPT.
Mr. Butt's New Work on Ireland.
Mr. Hill's Article on Ireland.
IRISH EMIGRATION
AND
THE TENURE OF LAND IN IRELAND.
N.B. The figures in the Table, p. 35, are estimates published by the Registrar-General.