Litchfield enquirer., 1881-04-21
The Irish Land Bill.

N-N EA -HA N That ownership in isnd should mean less than ownership. In any other property Is a novel notion to the Anglo. Saxon. The Amer ican conceives 1t even less readily than the Englishman; yet such is the meaning of the Irish Land Bill recently introduced into Par
 liament as government measure by Mir. Gladstone The tenure of land in Ireland has cometo this. the landlord. usually anab. sentee, asks 90 near the whole product of the land, for its rent, that but the coarsest, barest maintenance is left the tenant in good seasons, and in bad seasons, nothing. This has been going on, to be sure, for centuries. but, in our time, people are more sensitive about misery aud famine than In any former generation, and Ireland has become such disgrace to British rule that government calling itself Liberal could no longer neglect some attempt 1t solution of the problem. To do the pres ent cabinet justice, it has long been ready to venture some radical measure, but the dead weight of English prejudice and the deter
 nined opposition of the House of Lords, made
 
 oecome law. The famine of the lest sea. son, the wide spread land league excitement, and the revolutionary persistence of the Home Rulers in Parliament, have united to force the burning necessity of reform upon the at. tention of the people of Great Briain, and to l.ake it easier for the Government to force some efectual measure through parliament.
 What the government proposes seems very radical plan to the American, accustomed to lie freest and fullest ownership of land. Mir. Gladstone says to the Irish landlord, ih effect, You have 60 atrOciously misused the rights you hold that the full privileges of ownership are to be taken from you. You must grant your tenants hitherto without legal interest in the land they tIlI, vested rights that will be .aleable, permanent tenure, reasonable rent, and fair payment for Improvements. Rents cannot be raised except every fifteen years, and then not at the arbitrary whim of 8 landlord but by decision of court. If the tenant makes improvements. he gains by them if he sells. If the rent is raised the land, lord must allow the tenant ten times the an n,ial increase of rent. In short, from being nere tenant at will, the Irish peasant is ,ranted an interest in land somewhat like that 'f the English ''copyholder Help is also to be given those wishing to emigrate or to make permanent improvements and fifty mil lion dollars is to be contributed by the English Treasury for such aid.
 There can be little doubt of the ability of the Government to pass the bill in the Con- mons. Will the Lords dare interpOse their veto, or render the measure worthless by Gladstone's land bill of 1870 If they do ven. ture on such step, it will give the Liberals such an opportunity to attack the House of Lords itself as they ought at once to improve. If the Lords yield, as they are apt to do when they see that popular feeling is against them, it will be the greatest victory for progress recorded Tn English History since the passage of the great Reform bill half 8 century since.
 Viewed in broader light. the introduction nf this bill is an era in the great contest we Americans know something abOut-the con test of manhood against monopoly. In Amer ca land is so plenty and in so many hands that there is no monopoly oft, The settle inent of American land tenure can be safely left to our grandchildren or to our great-grand- children. Not so the rights of the people as against the great railroad, telegraph, oil. and ''ther American monopolies already establish ed. with consolidated capital ,grasping at var lous vital interests besides. The American people have vast amount of work waiting for some American Gladstone to do-work to which none of the politicians will ever prove adeQuate.