buildings, and then afterwards adds in the fair rent for the buildings. From the total thus obtained it then proceeds to deduct the improvements made by the tenant. But the question arises :-How can one estimate the fair rent of a bare piece of land, exclusive of the buildings? It is manifestly impossible to separate the land from the buildings, or the buildings from the land. And what are the results of this system, in practice? In practice the Commissioners, when estimating the fair rent of a farm "exclusive of the buildings on it," unconsciously take account of those buildings in their valuation. They then count them a second time over when they are adding the rent of the buildings to their first estimate, for the purpose of obtaining the total " gross fair rent." In this total therefore the buildings have been reckoned twice over, and it is the tenant who bears the losses resulting from this miscalculation. 20

Another point. The fair rent is to be fixed, as has been said, "having regard to all the circumstances of the case, holding, and district:" it is upon this phrase that the Land Commission bases its claim to impose a surplus rent on the products of the tenants' industry or on the interest of their capital. George Curran, for instance, held a farm of 7 acres in the county of Armagh, on the Cope estate. He planted, at his own expense, an acre of orchard; expended labour on it, and denied himself any profit from that acre of land during all the time that the trees were growing to maturity. At the end of that period the Land Commission raised his rent by £1 (one-eighth of the whole) on account of the increased value given to his holding by the orchard. They justified this decision on the ground that his land is in a district suitable to the cultivation of fruit trees, a fact which (according to their interpretation of the Act) must be taken into consideration

20 It is complained also that in calculating the net cost, the Land Commission does not take account of the cost of repairs nor of the insurance of buildings (Cf. Royal Commission on Local Taxation, 1900. vol. V. (Ireland), p. 195, 196).

when fixing the rent.21 Another case that of a tenant whose farm was situated by the seashore. At low tide he used to go waist-deep into the water to cut the seaweed from the rocks, and then would pile it in heaps and burn it for the purpose of extracting soda and iodide. In this manner he secured a small profit which caused his rent to be raised. This was on the estate of Colonel Nolan. Again: Patrick Mac Morrow, a tenant on the Phibbs estate near Sligo, built at his own expense, on one of his fields near the road, a public house and a building which gave accommodation to the police. On this account his rent was raised from £6 15s, to £10.— Are not these curious methods of defeating the most explicit provisions of the Act to the effect that rent is not payable on improvements made by the tenants.22

Such decisions are obviously but little calculated to inspire the tenants with confidence in the courts, that is to say, in the Land Commission. In practice, rather than be duped into doing their landlord's work for love, the tenants abstain from making any improvements. Insecurity, that curse of agriculture, is upheld by the judicial authorities. All progress is paralysed by this spectre of higher rents resulting from improvement. The tenants live in a state of anxiety and inertia. This is the result, not so much of the Gladstonian legislation itself, as of its biassed application by the Land Commission and the Irish Court of Appeal, which have been accused, and not without truth, of having done their utmost to destroy the agrarian laws instead of applying them.23

21 Judgment of December 3rd, 1898.

22 Mr. Murrough O'Brien, Land Commissioner, with regard to the Phibbs and the Mac Morrow cases above cited. Cf. Father Finlay's articles The Art of Rent Fixing, in the New Ireland Review (May to September, 1901).

23 T. W. Russell. Ireland and the Empire, London, 1901, p. 161, etc. This insecurity is the principal obstacle to the development of agricultural co-operation. (V. Part III., Chapter iii.).

CHAPTER II.-THE LAND QUESTION (Continued.1)

As a temporary palliation and compromise the Gladstonian legislation was both necessary and beneficial. But it was in no sense a solution of the problem; and the definite and permanent solution of the land question it certainly was not, and could not claim to be. This fact is now admitted by everyone; by the government, the landlords, and the tenants alike. Tenants, landlords and government, in fact everybody, is discontented for various and usually contradictory reasons, with the regime of judicial liquidation" established by Mr. Gladstone. Everyone declares that it cannot continue and that an immediate end should be made of it.

66

I-LAND PURCHASE: THE FIRST ATTEMPTS.

But how is it to be ended? What is to be the true and final solution of the problem? Over twenty-five years ago the solution was formulated by the founders of the Land League, Michael Davitt and Charles Parnell : the landlord must be bought out, and the peasant must be made proprietor of the land that he is cultivating.

1 Bibliography, Chap. I. V. especially, on the Land Act of 1903, our communication to the Société d'Economic Sociale (January 11th, 1904, Réforme Sociale of March 1st following). Bechaux, La Question Agraire en Irlande, Paris, 1906. Walker and Farran, The Law of Land Purchase in Ireland, Dublin, 1906. The Irish Land Act, 1903, Explained, by G. J. and F. Fottrell, solicitors, Dublin, 1903 (with the complete text of the law). The Land Conference and its Critics, by W. O'Brien, Dublin, 1904. The Annual Reports of the Estates Commissioners, Dublin, C†. the Parliamentary debate on the Act (Hansard, March 25th to the end of August, 1903). Cf. Hansard, 24th March, 1904, July 8th, 1904, March 9th, 1905, July 20tb, 1905, and May 3rd, 1906, later Parliamentary debates.

By this two-fold process there will be eradicated once and for all that plague of the land in Ireland, landlordism.2 Nowadays there is no question of doling out assistance. here and there, in small driblets to a few individual tenants possessing the privilege of buying their holdings (as Gladstone did at the recommendation of John Bright, in the Acts of 1870 and 1881).3 There must be a regularly organised comprehensive scheme for the purchase of the soil of Ireland, by means of a system of general advances out of the public funds. I do not say that it will be an easy matter. The great scheme of expropriation which Mr. Gladstone had prepared in 1885, as an accompaniment to his first Home Rule Bill, would probably have proved impracticable (in any case it never even reached the

2 V. the plan adopted by the Land League Convention, April, 1880, in Davitt's Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, London and New York, 1904, p. 241, etc. We may note that no responsible organ of the Land League or the Nacional League nas ever recommended taking the land by force or expelling the landlords: the plans proposed have never been founded on any basis but that of legal expropriation by means of a fair indemnification. Personally Mr. Davitt, following the doctrines of Fintan Lalor and Henry George, would have been in favour of a plan for the nationalisation of the soil; this plan has never found any support in Ireland, where, on the contrary, the idea of individual ownership is all powerful.

3 The Act of 1870 (Section 32, etc., Section 44, etc.) authorised the Board of Works to advance two-thirds of their purchase price to all tenants who had bought the ownership of their holdings before the Landed Estates Court. This Loan was to be repaid in 35 annuities of 5 per cent. of the capital. 877 tenants availed themselves of these provisions in the Act of 1870. The Act of 1881 (Section 24 and the following Sections) authorised the Land Commission to advance threequarters of the purchase money to tenants who wished to buy their farms. The repayment of the loan was to be made as under the Act of 1870; 731 tenants availed themselves of these provisions. The Act of 1881 also authorised the Land Commission under certain conditions, to buy properties in order to re-sell them to the farmers (Section 26, modified by the Act of 1885, Section 5). These provisions produced only very few applications and were abolished by the Act of 1903, which laid down new rules for the purchase of estates. Why is it that all these provisions have produced so little practical result? Because the tenants were allowed only a portion of the purchase money, and were therefore obliged to borrow the rest at usurious rates of interest. We may add that the Act of 1869 for the Disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland had made provision for the sale to the farmers of the church lands, the price to be paid as regards 25 per cent. in cash, and the remainder in 32 annuities of 5.33 per cent. 6,057 farms out of 8,432 were thus sold to the tenants.

point of being debated).4 But it is the true solution, the necessary and final solution of the land problem. And it is so genuinely the Conservative solution of the question, that the Conservative Government has adopted it for its own, as an opposition policy to the Gladstonian legislation. The Conservatives, indeed, began to apply it experimentally and on a small scale as long as twenty years ago. This was the aim of the Land Purchase Act of 1885, called after its author the Ashbourne Act.5

To sum up the system. In case of a landlord wishing to sell, the Imperial Treasury advances the whole of the purchase money on certain guarantees, and provides for repayment by the tenant-purchaser in 49 annuities, respectively equal to 4 per cent. of the purchase price (including interest and sinking-fund): a fund of 5 millions sterling (increased to 10 millions by an Act of 1889) is established for the purpose of supplying these advances.6 As the purchase prices ruled low (they average about 17 years purchase) the annuities payable by tenantpurchasers, far from exceeding their former rents, show an average rate of about one-third less. These figures prove the immense advantage of the system for the farmers. We may add that, to become binding, these

4 The estates of landlords were to be bought by the farmers at 20 years purchase (after deducting expenses), through Treasury Loans repayable in 50 years.

5 Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 48 and 49 Victoria, Ch. 73. This Act has been amended by two Acts of 1888 and 1889 (51 and 52 Vict. ch. 49; and 52 and 53 Vict., ch. 13).

6 The Act of 1885, Sections 2 and 4; Act of 1888, Section 1. The usual maximum of these loans is £3,000 per tenant. The Land Commission can raise it to £5,000 (Act of 1888, Section 2). One-fifth of the price is retained as guarantee deposit by the Commission, and is only paid to the landlord when the repayments to the Treasury have reached à total equivalent to it in amount (Act of 1885, Section 3). The guarantee deposit bears interest at 3 per cent. The Act of 1896 (Section 29) has authorised the Land Commission to exempt the tenants from the guarantee deposit. The Act of 1889 (Section 1) authorises the Land Commission to advance loans to a tenant-purchaser, to enable him to buy supplementary land, under certain conditions (this provision has never, I think, been applied in practice).

The

7 Report of the Land Commission for 1905-1906, p. 94 and 101. average difference between the annuity and the former rent comes out at 31.6 per cent.