The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-31
TUESDAY, MAY 81, 1870.
THE IRISH LAND BILL.

IHH IhIOH LAND DILL.
THE passage of the Irish Land bill, by the
British House of Commons yesterday, is an
nounced by q cable telegram. The adoption
of this tardy and partial measure of relief in
the midst of the Fenian agitation in this
country is another confession of English
statesmen that they are at last recognizing
the danger of driving Irishmen from their
native land by cruelty unjust policy and
that fear is combining with a newly awakened
sense of justice and humanity to enforce
partial reform. Nothing can be more iniqui-
tous than the land system which has hitherto
prevailed in Ireland and it reflects lasting
discredit and disgrace upon the Englishmen
who invented and perpetuated it. Two GEN.
turies ago they confscated the property of
the ancient Irish landowners, and to
this day the bulk of the Irish people still
regard this transfer of title as a shameful
wrong the remembrance of which has been
constantly kept alive and embittered by the
tyrannical and heartless manner in which the
new landlords have used their power. The
Irish people are essentially agricultural.
They were compelled to be so by acts of Par
lament and exercises of monarchial rautho-
thority which were prompted by the jealousy
of British manufacturers. The total number
of factory hands in the whole country is but
little mere than 10000, and the people are
obliged to import nearly all their supplies of
manufactured goods from England. Thus
doomed to agriculture, the ownership of
the land, which consists of about 20,O0O,OO
acres, divided into about 100000
farms, is vested in $3.50 men. No
pains have been spared to intensity the evils
which would naturally result from such
distribution of ownership and occupancy.
The landowners are nearly all Protestants
and the tenants nearly all Catholics, so that
religious difficulties and differences embitter
the relations of these parties. Many of the
landlords are absentees, who uniformly ex-
pend in foreign countries the whole revenue
derived from the rents of their estates, and
thus continually drain Ireland of her re-
sources. But even these evils are not the
worst the people have been compelled to en-
dure. Contrary to the practice of all en-
lightened countries, the Irish practical far
mers have been treated heretofore as tenants
at will, who were not allowed to acquire any
rights of ownership in their leases or their
stsntly at the mercy of capricious
landlords and heartless agents. AS
q result of this system wholesale evictions of
the most infamous character have repeatedly
occurred. All incentives to an improvement
of the land have been destroyed, and host of
causes have been set in operation which find
their legitimate effects in the terrible famine
of 1916, in Irish poverty, indignation, and
rebellion, and in the decline of the Irish
population from s, ia 900 in 1S41 to 5, 700, 900
in 1861. From the most of these evils one
part of Ireland, Ulster, has been compare
lively free. She has prospered while other
parts of the country, which are naturally more
fertile, have sunk deeper and deeper in the
dregs of poverty. The main cause of this
contrast is now believed to consist in the
fact that in Ulster custom has uni
formly prevailed of permitting the
tenant to acquire ownership in his improve
ments and his lease. He could not be elected
arbitrarily. If he wished to abandon his
farm, he had recognized privilege of selling
his right of occupancy for the best price he
could obtain. This right of occupancy, pro-
vided the rent was paid, is frequently worth
from HlCy 10 one nuuureu collars, ana ltS
existence served at once to assure the land
lord of his rent and to stimulate the tenant to
an improvement of the land.
The leading idea of Mr.. Gladstones bill,
which has just been adopted, is to extend
this Ulster system to every portion of Ire
land, and its details establish the machinery
for practically enforcing this idea, as well as
financial facilities for the transfer, purchase,
and improvement of land. The British Gov
ernment, which has done so much to i'm
poverish and oppress the people, now pro-
poses to make a slight exertion and to
assume some responsibilities in their
behalf While it deserves credit for taking
a step in the right direction, it remains to be
seen how efficient the new measure will prove
in undoing the work of centuries of wrong.
MIR. Gladstone has made a good beginning,
however, and as the Land bill follows closely
on the heels of the Church bill, he is fairly
entitled to great credit for his vigorous efforts
to do partial justice to an oppressed people.
THE FENIANS AFTER ONEILL.
Tuz oTaat Eanian chiaftain Ganaral 0'Naill