The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-09-18 00:00:00

THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.

A banquet which has been given in Skibbereen, to
Mr. McCarthy Downing. one of the members for the
county of Cork, afforded an opportunity for an ex-
pression of opinion on the laud question, whrili
is
becoming the subject of a vehement agitation in the
south of Ireland. The speakers on the occasion were
Mr. Maguire, Mr. Downing., and Sir John Gray.
Mr. Maguire described insecurity of tenure as the ' grand
evil of Inland," and insisted that the ques,lon should lie
dealt with by the government in the ,pint that inspired the
Church Bill. The coining measure should be no sham or
makeshift. It should, like the Church Bill, be a settlement
and not an Instalment, and leave nothing to be done by a
future Parliament ; BO that the country might at tenth
, enjoy the re:aise of which it so greatly stood in need.
Farther than this Mr. Magnire did not go.
Mr. Downing also dwelt at considerable length on the
evils of Insecurity of tenure, and fortified his stet...lute by
abundant quotations. Ile proposed that the tenant should
be permitted to make what Improvements he though: fit in
his land, and developed an elaborate p'au for giving the
occupier security of tenure for a term proportioned to the
value of these Improvements, the principal being that a
term of thirty-one years should be allowed for every 10 per
cent. of the added value, the terms being accumulative. If
this plan were adopted, a man bolding a farm oririnally
valued at £4O a year, and increasiug the value to LSO a year,
might claim a term of ISU years.
The speech which produced the deepest impression and
pave the must satisfaction to the audience wan that of Sir
J.-hn Gray. Ile at once rejected WI balf.measures It was
idle, he sod, to talk flower . mpensation for improvements
or thiity.one years' leases. "Compensation for improve-
ments," he continued, " why should tee ask for it? We want
not property, 110 t empensatiou We want a wrong to be
put an, end La, not to or paid a trifle in charity by the man
who commits it. We want that the ntan who is born on the
land, we want tint the Irishman who nets poEsession as a
tenant farmer, should he slowed to work the land, the sweat
of whose hrow alone makes it va'naale to his latuilwd, and
that no power on earth shall be aide to remove Min as long
as he pays •he lent. Weak no f, irtyame years' tenure.
We ask fixity of tenure." !laving instanced the case of the
Shirley and Bath estates, where the value it, little more than
a century had been raised by the labour and capital of the
tenants from £2OO a year to £51,000 a year, without the land-
lord beetllt expended a farthing upon it, Sir John procee,ed
'Chat is what we want to put a stop to. We want to put
an cattle Shirleyism in all counties, and to prevent it going
on in Monaghan too. We want that when the tenant puts his
labour in the soil, when the tenant puts his capital in the
soil, he Sill putt it there for himself. We want the man who
hm laid out labour in the land routed to that land so that
nothing but the hand of God may be ever able to remove
him.'

THE lioN. CIIABLES now Alto ON TILE LAND QUESTION.
The Hon. Charles Howard, M.P. for East Cumber-
land, speaking at the annual slimier of the Brampton 1
Agricultural Society at Brampton, Cumberland, last '
week, upon the Irish land question, said :
It was his hearty hope that the wisdom of Parliament
might pass some measure which might be effective in giving
the farmers that security which in Ireland they had not, and
he should be very happy it, in athla ion to the security given
to farmers, coma measure could be passed which .h.balel also
give to the great body of the people a greater interest than
they hitherto have bad in the occupation of land. In Cum-
berland their "statesmen," whom they were proud of, had
diminished. They were all, whatever p litres then might
have, proud of that race, and he hoped that in Ireland,
where the landlords were few and the labourers many,
something might be done which night give to the Irish peo-
ple that best feeling of attachment to the land which was
secured by possession. Two or three years ago he made in-
quiries from several of his constituents about the holdings
, of the " statesmen " in this comity, anti he was afraid from
what he had witnessed that the race was hat
the prac ice so long honoured among us of the son succeeding
to his father's acres was disappearing, and that the sir very
often was tempted by considerations of greater profit, and
for various other reasons, to withdraw his interest in the
cultivation of the land, and take his capitol elsewhere Ile
thould be sorry if that happened, because it was his belief
that although it was very possible that as much money might
not be made by the owner cultivating his acres, 30t there
was the compensation that by the thrift and industry and
care which a man had for his own property the land could
often he better cultivated than it could be by a tenant. lie
had hail very interesting answers made to the inquiries he
had made upon this subject, and had hen told by some
whom he consulted teat they thought the number of " Mates-
men " was dimini.bing owing to the heavy rating, owing to
the burden 'mowed upon occupiers of land' by the height of
Ma income-tax, which pressed to a ruiimus extent upon
occupiers. Others had given him as a reason that it was
more profitable for the "statesmen" to employ their capital
elsewhere ; but he had heard from one' statesman," who, he
believed, was piesent today, that the "statesmen " were
attached to their ancient holdings, and that they were sensi-
ble of the benefit of cultivating their acres. The Irish land
question would be attended with great elflaculties, and it
would require great forbearance on the part of all classes
of the community to conduct this me moire— v hlch he thought
was one of the greatest national importance—to &happy
issue.

The "National" prints of Dublin do not in their
i°BIICS of last Saturday no urgently press fora land bill.
Mr. John Martin, in the Nation, "holds it to be
impossible for the English Parliament to give Ireland a
proper land law." "As in the case of the Church
question, they will think it enough to pass some dill
which the landlords will vehemently oppose, and to
give the semblance of a party triumph to the tenants,
while no real relief may accrue to the tenants nor to
the country ; there is only one way to relief—the
way of repeal." The Irish inan, under the heading the
"Land-Avenger," says : "The people have got too
strong to meekly suffer any longer. Who gave to
these landlords the right to decimate the nation The
people have now the stronger hand: the laud was
theirs originally ; it was theirs by the right of
labour and improvement. If they pay rent to
those who have done nothing for them, let these
understand that the day for attempting to fleece
and flay them has gone past. The greatest
enemies the British power ever had have been the
landlords of Ireland. England awakens to the terror
of their deed. Their day of retribution has conic.
The point ef the crowbar is against the landlord's
edifice." The comment of she Flag of Ireland on
reading a story told by The Times' special commis-
sioner respecting a landlord who hail been fired at and
wounded, is, "one cannot almost help regretting, upon
reading this passage, that the agent of agrarian justice
was not a good shot." The Weekly News calls tor "a
, few active and energetic young men to organise de-
monstrations in each locality." "When the people's
, voice proclaims the people's will—when the condemna-
tion of landlord tyranny is poured from the lips of a
united nation—we shall have little fear as to the nature
of the response to our demands."