The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-11 00:00:00

which wore now throwing Ireland into so great an ex-
citement as any man could be; but he bad no hesitation
whatever in telling the Right Hon. Gentleman that if he
resorted to coercion he would find it to signally fail. It
was easy also to say that the Irish people were a nation
of assassins and murderers. He denied the assertion.
It was no such thing. It is you (exclaimed the Hon.
Members shaking his finger towards the Ministerial
benches) —it is;you who are the murderers and assassins
—the murderers and assassins of their reputation;
it is you who have scarcely left us anything
worth the retaining. The Honourable Member next
complained of the operation and effects of the
Encumbered Estates Act. That measure was
dispossessing the great mass of the landlords of Ireland;
and the class substituted fur them was composed of shop-
keepers, shoemakers, tobacconists, and other tradesmen,
with their 3,0001. or 4,0004 a piece. Regarding the Bill
of his Hon, Friend as a palliative fur the existing state
of things in Ireland, he thought the House of Commons
would exhibit but little wisdom it they rejected it with
scorn. It was a rational, a proper, and a reasonable
measure; its principle was a principle of justice, and
therefore of peace; and he earnestly called upon the
House not to let that opportunity slip of performing an
act of justice to the Irish people.
Mr. HUME administered a reproof to Mr. Grattan
for the reckless manner in which he had charged the
evils of Ireland upon the present Government. He also
condemned the one-sided view of the case as between
landlords and tenants which was placed before the public
at tenant-right meetings in Ireland. Surely there were
Come gentlemen iu the House who were capable of ex-
plaining what it was the Irish people wanted, and what
it was their landlords objected to.—(Cries of Hear,
hear.") Ever since ho had known Ireland she had been
in a most unfortunate state from misrule, and he had
lately been in hopes that she was getting better; but it
appeared that the Hon. Gentleman now complained of
a new set of proprietors coming in with their 2,0001.
and 3,000/. a-piece, and chat they were buying the lauds
which formerly lay almost useless, and applying their
capital to their cultivation and improvement. This the
Hon. Member complained of as a robbery and an injus-
tice.—(fa laugh.) Why, if anything were calculated to
regenerate Ireland, surely it was toe introduction into
that country of men having capital to employ labour.—
(Hear, hear.) That was the very thing Ireland re-
quired. The Lion. Member complained, too, that the
people were being driven away; but if there were more
men in Ireland than could find employment it was
manifestly for the benefis of the labourers themselves
that the surplus should leave Ireland. In his (Mr.
Hume's) opinion the whole principle of tenant right, as
understood in Indeed, was a principle of communism—
no other than la propriete c'est val. They ought to
know what was the principle of the Hon. Gentleinan'e
motion--what it would lead to if it was followed out—
whether it would lead to the destruction of that properly
which was the origin of all society. It would he impos-
sible to propose any plan of tenant right which would
be applicable to the whole of Ireland any more than to
the whole of England. The proprietor of land and the
man who sought to hire it should be left at perfect
freedom to make their own terms with each ether.
Mr. ROCHE complained that the Government had
done nothing to elucidate the question. The greatest
curse that could betel a country was to be afflicted in
times of distress with a Government which either could
not or would not assist it. Nothing could be more fatal
to the true interests of the country than to have recourse
ti the old, ineffective, arid mischievous system of co-
ercion, as was threatened by the Right Hon. Gentle-
man (Sir G. Grey). Among the evils that bad c
for immediate redress was the present tyrannical law of
distraint in Ireland. It acted most oppressively and un-
jusly in preventing the tenant from obtaining any
credit in a commercial sense, without which there could
be no prosperity in the country. Let them, then, assi-
milate the law of distraint in the two countries. Two
years ago the Speech from the Throne stated that the
law of landlord and tenant was in a most unsatisfactory
state, and recommended its consideration to the Parlia-
ment. The Right Hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ire-
land accordingly introduced a Bill on the question with a
great flourish, but it was suffered to hang up day after day
during the rest of the session, until at its close it was
sacrificed with the other " innocents." He now asked
the Governmentoben, if they meant to do anything
with the question? Lot them know what sort of a Goe
vernment they had for Ireland : if they did not know
the best let Item know the worst; but let them not re-
ceive such a reply as that of the Right Hon. Gentleman,
sehieh was in effect that he would let the Bill be brought
in and remain before the House for a time, but that no
further should it go. Nothing could be more unsatis-
factory than the present state of things; the country
was becoming depopulated ; during the last year a
quarter of a million of people had emigrate(delwromy
Fork),
Ire-
land to one port of the United States wone N
and it the population went on diminishing at that rate,
as there was reason to fear, the country would be in a
short time a desert. Then there were those shocking
and disgraceful murders which, according to the Tenant-
Right Association, which was well-informed on the sub-
ject, arose solely from the unsatisfactory relations of
landlord and tenant. The Government ought to see
whether that statement of the Tenant-Right Association
was founded in fact or not.

Mr. MOORE said that the history of the present re-
lations between landlord and tenant in Ireland was this:l
between 200 and 300 years ago the forces of Englund
had driven the Catholic population of Ireland into Con-
naught, giving them the alternative of Connaught or
hell, as it was said at the time. Since that time the
landlords had scarcely reclaimed au acre, dug a drain,
built a farmyard, or made a fence, for the improvement
of the land. But the people, thus driven out to the un-
cultivated districts, had by their own toil, and with the
sweat of their brow, reclaimed the howling wilderness;
and as they progressed year after year and generatien
after generation, the landlords grasped and confiscated
the property which the tenants had made, and had driven
them further into the wilderness, to again reclaim and
again to confiscate. Was not that a great mural wrong,
if not a legal one? and what he arid those who thought
with him asked was, that it should be made a legal
wrong—that some protection should be given to that pro-
perty which the toil of the tenant created. Whether the
Bill of his Hun. Friend would tia,ve that effect it was for
the [louse to decide; but every jut and humane man
should be prepared to give the question special couside-
ration, and if he had any prejudices ornt, to give them
in favour of. the weak and the oppressed.
Sir J. YOUNG, on the part of the largo and influen-
tial class with which he was connected, and who la-
garded the relations of landlord and tenant as in by no
means a satisfactory state, repudiated the interpretation
which the Hon. Gentleman sought to put on the ques-
tion. He had been unable to hear the speech of the Hon.
Gentleman who introduced the subject (Mr. Crawford),
who had certainly paid great attention it) the question,
and for whose integrity he had the highest respect, but
from the mode in which the Han. Gentleman had ap-
proached the question, and from his preconceived no-
tions upon it, he was hopeless of any satisfactory solu-
tion of the question being arrived at through his means.
The Bill proposed to give the tenant a part ownership in
the land—to create, in fact, a divided ownership; and it
dealt with a variety of interests which the Honourable
Gentleman perhaps did II of mean to touch, and which
it would be most unjust and improper to deal with.
Compensatiou to the improving tenant was, he admit-
ted, a question of the deepest importance; but it was
fallacious to base any measure for that purpose on the
tenant-right of Ulster, which was supposed, but er-
roneously, to benefit that part of Ireland, and to be
connected with its comparative prosperity. He was
well acquainted with the operation of tenant-right;
for in no part of the country was it more firmly
established then in that with which be was
connected; and from his knowledge of its effects,
he pronounced it an evil to the tenant. For,
supposingeihima solvent peasant, he, by purchasing the
tenant-right
of the outgoing tenant, paid what was
equivalent to a fine in money, the use and interest of
which were lost to him during his occupancy; while if he
should become insolvent, the fine, or purchase-money of
the tenant-right, served only as a fund out of which the
landlord was paid the arrears of rent which happened to
rack-
renting
be due, The only person benefited by it was the
landlord, wrehnotlaent
dhilstvlea,ndensdo
who
eh
tthheant,twhe tenant
could
the
could not pay his
of the tenant-right. The origin of th
tenant quitted, paid himself his arrearsecs:LofotfhteenParnicte.
seeettlers there, some
right was the practice of the English
trade, investing their savings two or three hundred years
theback,w
gmaganedneirn,
in
that they were making
under the erroneous impressionnet
by such means that
a prudent investment. It was land ei
nr this e engaged
of the various
but by the consolidation and simplification
competent hand, such as that
the relations of landlord and tenant were to be improved,
laws on the subject by a
hsawnear
him (Mr. Napier
of a Learned Gentleoaan
was understood to be the Gentleman referred to.) They
might as well say that the black-mail of the Highlands
of Scotland had proved an advantage to that district,
and ought to have been introduced into the Lowlands,
as to hold that tenant-right was a benefit that ought to
be extended to the whole of Ireland.
Mr. SALEIR.
Bid. the Hon. Baronet appeared to
misunderstand the Bill. He (Mr. Sadleir) could not
agree with him that it afforded encouragement to in-
dolent tenants. The lion. Baronet had given an ex-
ample of the operation of the custom in the north of
Ireland; but he (Mr. Sadleir) could
give many illustra-
tions of the state of things which
prevailed in the south,
where tenants who had spent large sums on permanent
improvements were treated as yearly tenants in the
sales of the Encumbered Estates Court, and noticed to
quit on the transfer of the properties,
all their improve-
ments being seized by the incoming landlord, and no
comp,:imation whatever made. He (Mr. Sadleir) was
bound to say that the Bill of his Hon. Friend fell very
much short of the legal remedy that should be applied
to meet the evil; but, neverthetese, he freely
admitted
that its adoption would be a substantia ilhmopwroeyveermentto
the existing state of Ireland.
He asked, l
rejewhe-
therct
the it was possible that the Government could' re• t
the measure and do nothing in the matter themselves?
c
It that was their intentioe, then the best thing they
do would be to reject it at once; for continued
suspense on the subject would only have the effect of
increasing that agitation which lay at the foundation of
crime in Ireland. After the various
declarations
made by the Government, however,
when
opposition, and after the various measures which
they had given notice of end even introduced while in
tgre a r ian
power, it could not be possible that they would permit
another session to pass without introducing some one or
other of that series of measures which they had on so
many occasions admitted to be necessary for Ireland. As
the law stood, all permanent improvements fell on the
occupying tenant, the landlords being unable or unwil-
ling to expend money in that direction; tine tenant was,
th,7,!efore, neturalla. attach, d to the land and necessarily
telt tutus he in a sect of pertnerehip with the land-
lord. • it was eonsequentia tlesiratte that unmet alteration
should take place in the law ee r,garilkA itepievemeeta,
as it was not to be supposed that an improving tenant
would consent to occupy land as a yearly tenant without