The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-01 00:00:00

Mr. -Bright on the Irish Land Question.

D uum, Wednesday Evening.
Pursuant to arrangement, a deputation from the
Cork Farmers' Club waited on Mr. Bright at 12
o'clock to-day, at the residence of Mr. Jas. Haugh-

ton, for the purpose of presenting him with an
_ _

address.

Mr. BRIGHT said in reply—Mr. Murphy and gen-
tlemen, I am in a much greater difficulty than I

should be if I had 300 or 400 people to speak to on
an occasion of this kind ; but I observe, in the
second paragraph of the address which you have
kindly brought, that you refer to supposed services
which I have rendered to the cause of humanity and
freedom. The fact is, I feel, what I suppose every-
body feels who is honestly engaged in public life,
that after a great deal of work, after many years of
labour, very little has been done ; for the world
seems to move on very slowly, and what any man
can do to make it move appears to be very little.
But I have always had the opinion that people are

very much what their laws make them. I entirely

disbelieve those theories which assume that it does

not matter very much what kind of laws you have,
that after all everything depends on a man's self.
A great deal depends on the laws ; and I think if
we trace history back and look over the countries
we know something of, we shall find that the people

are in the main what their laws and institutions

make them. Now, my mind, from a very young
age has led me always to a feeling that laws should

be equal, and should be just—that all the people

living in a country have an equal right to be con-
sidered and well treated by the institutions and laws
under which they live. Now in this country, more
perhaps than in almost any other country in Europe,
that has not been the principle on which-the Go-
vernment has been conducted ; because it is quite
clear that the laws have been made until recently
by a party, or rather for the supremacy of a party,
than for the whole people. And as regards the

land, which is the question to which you par-
ticularly refer, there can be no kind of doubt of

this—that the laws have been absolutely the pro-
duct of the selfishness and ignorance of the landed
proprietors, and by no means the product of the

general intelligence of all classes in this country. It
is the same to a great extent in England, where Mr.

Murphy knows perfectly well that in the House of
Commons there are questions which you can dis-

cuss with an expectation that they will be fairly

considered ; but if you come to any question con-
nected with the land—with the supremacy of that

particilar property in the country—argument is of
no avail whatever ; and the slightest tendency to
what I would call intelligence and justice with re-
gard to that subject is met with the most deter-
mined opposition by the great landowning classes
in the house. Of course there are many admirable
exceptions there as there are here, but on the whole
the great weight of that party and class is directed
against any wise change in regard to the laws affect-
ing their property. Now, twenty years ago they
thought we were going to ruin them when we were
proposing to allow corn to come to this country
free of duty, and I believe there were many of them
who did absolutely believe that their estates would
be of no value, and that as far as landowning went

in Great Britain and Ireland the world was about

coming to an end. They, find now they have got

rid of all the odium of that system, and at the same
time they have not got rid of their land, but their
land is of more value than ever it was. Certainly

in England farmers are in a more satisfactory posi-
tion than they were before. The whole tone of

society in England is wonderfully improved by the
change which took place in 1846. I believe that if

in England and in Ireland the laws of political

economy were applied to land, we should find just
as great a change, from this point forward, with

regard to matters which are influenced bylaws affect-

ing land as we have found in past times by the
abolition of the laws which prevented the importa-

tion. I remember my lamented friend Mr. Cobden,
who was not likely to undervalue the effect of free
trade in corn, saying, on more than one occa-
sion, that the men who should hereafter entirely
free the land, place the laws with regard to land on
a just and satisfactory footing, would at least con-
fer as great a benefit upon the people as he and
those of that former agitation had been able to con-
fer by the success of their movement. He was no
mean judge of such a matter, and his opinion is
worth taking now ; for he was not a man of violent
party at all, but judged this question, perhaps, with
a dispassionate,ness and intelligence which have never
been exceeded by any public man amongst us. Now
there is this great difficulty in discussing the whole
Irish question. The great Church party is the Tory
party. The boundaries which mark out the limits
of the Established Church are almost the boundaries
which mark out the limits of the Tory party. They
think that if the Irish Church were got rid of, if the
voluntary principle were established as the universal
practice in Ireland, that principle would by-and-bye
cross the Channel and raise a similar contest, to be
settled in like manner, in Great Britain. And al-
though if you were at the Antipodes—l am speak-
ing of the Church as a political institution—you
might sweep it off the face of the earth, and there
would be no tears shed in the House of Commons ;
yet being so near us they have no doubt a great
and, to some extent, a natural dread that the same
thing would be asked for and done hereafter in Eng-
land. And so with regard to land, in a degree not
less obvious. They think that the concession of any
measure of tenant right, or security for a tenant for
his improvements, would be followed by some coer-
cive movement on the part of the tenants ; and in
England and Scotland the tenants are so powerful,
that if they ever once put their heads in one direc-
tion there is no possibility of withstanding them,
They are much more powerful than the tenants are
here, because you, acting alone, have to act upon a
great and powerful body in London. If you had a
Parliament in College-green, clearly the tenantry
of Ireland, with the present feeling in Ireland,
would be able to force that Parliament to any
measure of justice they named. But as you have
to deal with . a great Parliament sitting in Lon-
don, all the clamour you may make or the demands
you may urge from this side of the Channel come
with a very feeble effect in London, especially as it
can only be represented by about 100 members ; and
of these it unfortunately happens that a considerable
number are not willing to support the demands that
are made. But if in England the tenantry, and in
Scotland the tenant farmers —the most capable, the
most intelligent, 'and the best agriculturists, per-
haps, in the world—if they were to join in favour of
measures such asresolutionshostile to the game laws,
hostile to anyinjustiee which is supposed to exist with
regard to the improvement of tenants, it would be
quite impossible for the Parliament to resist their
demands. You see, therefore, the great difficulty
you have to contend with. You have to wrest your
rights from a; Parliament sitting in London, to whom
you send 105 members. Perhaps half are not in fav-
our of your rights, and therefore the other fifty, so
to say, are lost in the 600 they find there ; and the
effort on the part of your members to do anything is
one of the most disheartening things that any repre-
sentative of the people can have to do. (Hear, hear.) I
I have since have been in Parliament—which is
now 23 years
heard one hundred times—nay, much
oftener—blame attached
I to the Irish members for the
little they do therelicve at this moment the
Irish Liberal members are
the most respected and the most respectable and
most influential of all the
Liberal members uho have satin Parliament during
these 23 years. That is
myyon,Pinulnltshailnlky it is
admitted in the House of" en,,,:n
that
the Irish Liberal r etnbers in this Pariai ment are not
. inferior but are superior to the Irish Liberal
ill
bens that sat iu former Parliaments during the lasetnaA
years. But notwithstanding that, and though I think
they have a corresponding increase of influence, yet
it is one of the tnost difficult things in the world for 50
men, acting amongst 600 men some hundreds of miles
from those whom they represent, to work up any
questions which may be against the prejudices and
sympathies of the 600 amongst whom they are acting,
and therefore Irish constituencies, whilst they should
make no allowance in favour of any of those mem-
bers who are not honest towara them and do not do
their duty, yet for those who are honest, and do
their duty, they should make proper allowance.
These are difficulties for English members, as the