The Express. — 1867-12-20 (London, England)

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. (THIS DAY.) 1  THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.  Lord Clanricarde sends to the Times a copy of his scheme on the law of landlord and tenant; which was set aside by a majority of a select committee, but which be intends, it appears, to submit again to parliament. Treging of the general subject, the Times thinks it must be allowed on the evidence that, with the exception of certain large estates, belonging for the most part to wealthy English owners, the burden of improvement is in Ireland thrown on the tenant ; and this gives special significance to the other fact that in Ireland lemon are rare. It is true that in England leases are rare also, but where the landlord bears the burden of outlay for permanent improvements it is of comparatively small importance that the occupier should be only a yearly tenant. The backward state of Irish agriculture is universally confessed, and is a sufficient reason, apart from the question of discontent on the side of tenants, why the relations between landlord and tenant should be pressed on the attention of the legislature. Let it be remembered that we have to deal in Inland—object to some great and prominent exceptions—with a poor proprietary clinging to their rights with the same tenacity with which the peasantry cling to their holdings, unable if desirous, but commonly as indifferent as unable, to under. take the coat of any considerable and permanent improvements ; and besides these we have the actual cultivators, on whom the burden of making improvements is thrown, and who, strangely enough, do sometimes make them, though conscious that the property in the improvements passes to another as soon as made, and that they are liable to the alternative of immediate eviction or increased rental ; and the problem to be solved is now to reconcile these conflicting interests without introducing a new and, perhaps, still more dangerous element into the complicated relations of landlord and tenant.  Observing that the trade murders of Sheffield end other places are in themselves quite as serious as the Fenian outrages of Clerkenwell and Manchester, the Daily News adds that the question they involve is only adjourned. Mr. Mundella's account of the process by which a good feeling has been brought about in Nottingham, the headquarters formerly of the Luddite movement, will greatly assist in the discussion of this matter. The board of arbitration there established works so well, that questions are seldom pushed to a division. Full and candid explanations usually produce unanimity ; the grounds of dispute appear. The artisans become better acquainted with the general laws of trade and the special conditions imposed by foreign and domestic competition upon their employers. The employers, on the other hand, learn by the free interchange of opinion with their operatives the mechanical and material conditions of the manufacture in which they are engaged, and the arrangements which will beet meet the interests and convenience of the workmen. For seven years this council of conciliation has averted strikes and lock outs in the trades which are represented in it, and the good example baa been followed pretty generally throughout the counties of Notts, Derby, sad Leicester, and is likely to be introduced into one of the iron trades of . .  Sheffield. It is applicable to all branches of industry, and to every district in the country. Let councils of conciliation be established in the mining district of Cleveland, and the ironmasters and ironworkers of Staffordshire and South Wales will be unable to afford the expensive luxury of lock-outs and strikes.  IS