The Labor enquirer., 1884-03-22
The Land in Weeds and the
Houses in Wretched
Ruins. y.
England Must Cut the GOrdian
Knot, and Give the Irish
Their Homes.
Taxes Fall Upon the Producers,
and Not Upon the Tax
Payers,
Workers and Idlers.
XVIII.

AS to the disastrous effect OF land lord.
ism upon a country, let US take striking
example.
In Ireland to-day we see land with
out homes people without hope. A
land without liberty a nation of rebels.
A land of landlords race of slaves a
nation of tenants, the land in weeds and
the houses in ruins.
No good influences are exerted, and
every bad influence is at work, If ten
ant makes the land more productive, his
rent is raised if he paints the house or
white washes the fence, the rent is
raised. If the wife raises flower gar
den or beauties the place in any way,
the rent is raised. If a tenant wears a
new suit of clothes, the rent is raised.
If he expresses discomfort, or demands a
decrease of rent, he is summarily ousted.
What encouragement to industry What
a magnificent plan by which to construct
a nation No wonder the people are
degraded and desperate No wonder
there is discomfort and lawlessness.
England needs for her own protection,
to have control over ireland and can
have it both in peace and in justice If
she will only adopt the right course.
But coercion will not do, and compro-
mise measures will not do. England
must cut the GorGian knot, for she can
not unite it. She must give the Irish
people their homes
Give Ireland homes, landlord and Shy
lock and tax proof and it will become,
in twenty years, one of the most pros
porous and beautiful countries on the
globe.
How shall it be done? By the sim
pIeGt and fairest means Let the tenants
pay the landlords for theland in yearly
Einstallments, no greater than the rent,
for twenty years; let each tenant know
that if he makes his payments promptly,
the land is his That he may call it his
own from the start; that it is his on con-
dition of his making those payments.
And he will treble its productiveness
he will beautify and adorn it; and the
payment which is now so grievous a
burden, will set on his broad shoulders
and his happy heart as lightly as stray
feather on the limb of an oak. Instead
of emigrating from, 1t would be immlgra-
ton to, the Green Isle. Do away with
landiordism and tenantry in Ireland, and
rebellion and poverty and ignorance will
disappear with them.
Or, better still, inaugurate in Great
Britain the reform herein proposed SO
that the idle classes will have no reYe-
nues save from the national debt and
foreign countries, and no money will be
drained from Ireland and within one
year after the passage of the law, and
long before it need 60 into effect, the
good influences will be felt. The large
landowners, as a class, will be quite
ready and willing to dispose Of all the
land they cannot use on the best terms
they can make, and they won't be very
unreasonable about it, either, at least,
not for long The real farmers will soon
be reaping the full fruits of their labors
and that is enough. The lords and dukes
may have their revenues lessened; the
cold and purse-proud aristocrats may be
slightly thawed out the idle classes, the
titled paupers, will have no one to pro-
vide for them but the true mobiles, the
yeomanry of the land, the disinherited
heirs of the glory of England will be
freemen again.
XIX.