The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-06-30
TENANT PRoPRIEToRs IN IRELAND.
london Tablet. juno Is.

Act, in reference to the Bright clauses,
Issued their report last week, after
heightened examination Of large number
of Witnesses, including landlords, agents,
lawyers, etatisticians. and economists, and
judges and leading officials connected with
the Landed Estates Court, and with the
sale of the landed estates of the Disesta.
blished Church. The Recommendations of
the Committee are eminently practical,
and, on the whole, satisfactory.
It is declared that the Bright clauses of
the Irish Land act of 1870, as now framed
and worked, are wholly inadequate for
their object, namely, to the conversion of
enancies into ownership by purchase. the
present administration of that scheme
being divided between the Landed Es-
tates Court, the Board of Works, and the
Treasury and the report recommends the
constitution of a Special Commission
charged with the promotion of tenant
proprietary 10 Ireland, the State to supply
funds for that purpose from an Irish source
If possible. The source suggested is OBJ
viOusly the surplus fund of the disestab-
lished Church, which will not be available
for several years, but upon the credit of
which the Treasury could without dificul-
ty advance loan. We doubt, however,
whether such an application of the funds,
however desirable the object, comes within
the scope of the declared general purposes
stated in Parliament in 1869, in reference
to the appropriation of the surplus. It is
true that none of the fund would be lost,
but such an application of it would effec
tually ALLEVIATE it from an application more
in character with the essential objects of
ecclesiastical endowments, as relief of the
poor, education. and purposes of popular
benevolence. Bot we heartily concur with
the Committee in the opinion "that the
increase of small owners would tend to
give stability to the social syetem, would
spread coutentmeBt and loyalty, and would
supply q much needed spur. to industry
and thrift"
By the supplemental return of Irish land
owners just published, in which some eI-
rors in the previous return of 1876 are cor
rected, we find there are only 80 ,6l2 owners
OF 20 l52 9S5 acres of land in Ireland of an
annual valuation of fl2 053,719, each
owning an acre OF upwards but vast
ers in fee. Analysis of the return shows
that the main bulk of the landed estates is
in the hands of q email number of proprie-
tors. One hundred and ten owners hold
more than one fifth of the whole soil of
Ireland, snds including these, 8, 76l persons
claim four fifths of the country. We fiDd
36. l43 set down as owners of less than
statute acre, with an aggregate acreage of
1904 acres, and valuation of f1 366. .30S,
being lees than rood of land, valued at
f3S to each, showing clearly that these are
town lots, and not agricultural holdings
There are exceptional causes of his
toricaf character that should lead the State
to promote the extension of peasant pro-
prietary In ireland and the more general
partition of the ownership of laod-causes
that have slender existence in Scotland
and none in England. The desire of the
populace to purchase their own homesteads
and farms s intense, and the Committee
reports THAT the experiment which has
already taken place in this direction, 10 the
sale of Church property to its occupying
tenants, is eminently satisfactory, and
shows that there is great desire on the
part of the tenants to become owners by
purchase, especially at the time when the
land they occupy is changing hands and
there is q prospect of their being handed
over to new landlords" }" a striking proof of
which was given few days ago in the
purchase by or.for the tenants of the Har-
eBe estaeein Kerry at Ge5 GEO. he report
recommends that three. fourths of the pur
chase. and in exceptional casss even more
than that proportion, should be advanced
by the proposed Commission to aid the
tenants.
The operation of such measure muet
necessarily be slow, but no other scheme
coald lay firmly the solid foundation of
industrial production, and social progress.
To the Homestead Laws and Land Allott-
ment system the United States, Canada,
and Australia are indebted for their chief
wealth while, if we turn to the continent
of Europe, from France to Russia, from
Norway to Naples, we find the mass of the
agricultural population the owners of their
own holdings. According to the latest
cfficial returns. the cultivated land of
France, 52s, SIT square kilometres, was
divided into 5,550.OOO properties five
millione were under ak acres 500, 900
under .ixty acres; and Sc, 900 averaged 600
acres AS there were, in 1879, only 400,
GA inhabited houses in France, and as 81
per cent. of the whole population lived in
towns, it follows that in the rural districts
nearly every householder is the owner of
his residence and tenement, so that France
is a nation of small proprietors. Nor can
this general ownership of the soil be sep-
arated from the extraordinary fscal re-
sources Of the country, which raised in the
three years 1870 70 upwards of e37l ,OO0,-
600 to defray the late war expenditure.
The number of holders of the annual
rentes, or of about ESQ 600 900. interest on
the National Debt of 9937 600 900, is
1880, ,933, SO that the fund holders of the
National Debt and the owners of the soil
show striking similarity, numbering
about five millions. Belgium has much
the same enb division of landed propertY.