ing had numerous communications with | to try and frame measures to catch any various persons in different parts of Ire- mere passing popularity-to please those land upon the subject, he (Mr. Napier) whose province and interest it was not to felt that it had become his bounden duty be pleased with any measures that were either to assist in the great object of proposed-but that, on the other hand, effecting the settlement of the question, they should do that which they believed or to make the effort himself. Whilst the to be equitable and right, and trust that late Government were in office, therefore, in the end what was based upon a sound he did what he could for that purpose; and and just principle would commend itself to he got two friends to prepare a complete the people, and that the good sense and digest of the existing state of the law in judgment of the community would adopt a clear and condensed form. When that that which careful deliberation had led statement was prepared, it was sent to them to propose. Now a code of laws, many members of his own profession; and that was intended to regulate and adjust it had been commented upon in terms of the relations between landlord and tenant the highest approval by one of the ablest in Ireland, must provide for the demands lawyers in Ireland-a man well acquainted of the past, the requirements of the future, with the subject itself, and the father of and the exigencies of the present transithe Irish bar-he meant Mr. Robert tion state of that country. He might add, Holmes. Mr. Holmes wrote to Messrs. also, that a code of laws such as a British Vance and Ferguson :Parliament might be expected to pass affecting property, must keep within the "Gentlemen: I have received the book which great landmarks of property, and that no you were so kind as to send to me-your work on right of property universally acknowledged the Tenure and Improvement of Land in Ire- should be tampered with or violated. Moreland,' &c. I deferred acknowledging the gift over, the law should be made to harmonise until I could in some degree appreciate its value. with our commercial policy, as he (Mr. I have now read it, and I consider it due both to you and myself to declare that I have derived Napier) understood it now to be established, from the perusal the greatest satisfaction and though he was somewhat surprised to find most useful information. It is a work which ex- it was thought by the authors of that policy hibits industry and research, professional know- that the principle of free trade needed the ledge and talent, judicious treatment and suggestion, practical good sense, temperate stricture, protection of a declaration on the subject and benevolent purposes in an eminent degree, on the part of that House. What we had and a rare union of brevity and comprehensive- to deal with was the present existing state ness, on one of the most important and interest- of Ireland: and, taking all circumstances ing subjects which can in these times engage into consideration, it seemed to him that and fix the attention of every class in society, the present was a peculiarly fitting opporand which demands the prompt and decisive interference of the Legislature. That your valuable tunity for the settlement and adjustment work may have the influence which it ought to of the relations subsisting between the have with those who possess the power of giv-owner and occupier of the soil in Ireland. ing effect to its wise recommendations, is the sincere wish of, Gentlemen, your obliged and faithful

servant,

"13th May, 1851.

"ROBERT HOLMES."

Discussions afterwards took place in that House upon the subject, and in one of the debates the hon. Member for Cavan and the hon. Member for Middlesex suggested that some person professionally connected with Ireland should endeavour to settle this question. The Government of the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) having paid great attention to this subject, at length brought in a measure with regard to it. The noble Lord was disappointed, however, in any expectation he might have formed of its giving satisfaction, and withdrew it. He said it with the greatest deference, but he must say this with regard to Ireland, that he had always thought it was a wrong policy

Agricultural property there was so greatly rising in value, that according to the information he had lately received, a great competition existed for the land, and some sales had been effected at thirty years' purchase, and others at twenty-five. The prosperity of Ireland was not an isolated question; for with the prosperity of Ireland were bound up the security and strength of the United Kingdom. He did not wish to present her he had never desired to see her coming forward-in the attitude and spirit of a mendicant, and he had always felt a glow of shame when he thought of the greatest nation in the world being placed side by side with a country which seemed to be at all in a mendicant state. Ireland had undoubtedly great resources, but he thought the first and material thing she required for her advancement and pros

perity was security for life and protection | system of tenure at will prevailed was not for property; and those objects would be less an evil in the days of Elizabeth than assisted by the enactment of really just in those of Victoria; and whoever read the and fair laws; and the next thing he pages of Sir John Davies would find that thought she required at this moment was he had emphatically insisted that the apthe adjustment of the long-vexed land ques-plication of the English land tenure to tion. Ireland was an agricultural country; Ireland was essential to save the occuthey could not expect that manufactures or pants of land in that country from the commerce would make great way there great and increasing misery, the prostrauntil there had been a large advance in tion to which the uncertainty of their teagricultural improvement. The adjust-nure in their holdings exposed them; and ment of the land question was therefore a Edmund Spenser had written in exactly great question for Ireland first, and second- the same spirit; yet, up to the present ly, for the British empire at large. The time, the vast proportion of the land there adjustment of the land question had re- was occupied by tenants-at-will, having no lation not merely to present exigencies, security whatever for their industry or but also to past difficulties. He had now, their enterprise, and consequently in a pohowever, only to deal with that portion of sition befitting the idle or the improvithe question which was connected with the dent man, but altogether unsuited to the law of landlord and tenant; and he be- honest and industrious cultivator. Often lieved that if they could but see life neglected by the absentee proprietor, secure, property protected, and the land ground down by the middleman, livingquestion equitably adjusted, an improved if living-from hand to mouth, utterly uncultivation of the soil would follow, and certain and insecure in his holding, the they would witness among his countrymen occupier of land lived wretchedly on the more of mutual forbearance and of com- potato, and when the first storm arosemon co-operation for their common welfare. when the first calamity occurred at all beHe should then have no fears for that yond the ordinary condition-wholly founcountry; Ireland must improve and grow dered. In this way the whole structure largely in prosperity. With regard to that of society had become vicious; and in a portion of the subject to which he had now country where they ought to have had a to address himself in the adjustment of the well-organised state of society, they found land question, it was attended with two that civilisation made small progress, that classes of difficulties, which ought to be con- the people did not improve, and that diffisidered separately for the purpose of under-culties and disasters were of periodic restanding the nature of the remedies which it was proposed to apply to them. These were the permanent difficulties and the temporary difficulties. With respect to the permanent difficulties, they had heard numerous discussions and various theories as to what caused these permanent difficulties. One theorist would tell them that they were owing to the priests; another that they were caused by the parsons. One would attribute it to the landlords, another to the tenants. One would charge it upon the Government, and upon English legislation, another upon Irish neglect; whereas the truth was that all these several causes had contributed their quota towards producing the general result. But, for his own part, after carefully and attentively considering these various causes, he felt that there could be no question that the policy which had been adopted in earlier times, and had been since long pursued by England to wards Ireland, had most severely aggravated the evils under which that country had suffered. The extent to which the

currence. The commercial policy of Eng-
land towards her sister country had largely
tended to produce this most unhappy re-
sult.
In 1785 he found Mr. Pitt thus
describing the effect of that policy upon
Ireland :-

"That which had been the system counteracted the kindness of Providence, and suspended the industry and enterprise of man. Ireland was put under such restraint that she was shut out strained from sending the produce of her own from every species of commerce;-she was resoil to foreign markets, and all correspondence with the colonies of Britain was prohibited to her, so that she could not derive their commodities but through the medium of Britain." [Hansard, Parl. Hist. xxv. 317.]

That the English system "had debarred Ireland from the use of her own resources, and made her subservient to the interests and the opulence of this country, without suffering her to share in the bounties of nature and in the industry of her citizens" -a system "which counteracted the kindness of Providence, and suspended the industry and enterprise of man." Again,

""

how to get rid of many, and, therefore, amongst other remedies for the existing evils, they recommended emigration; and, again, in the years 1823 and 1827, other Committees recommended similar tempo

also, in 1799, Mr. Pitt, speaking on the sat in 1819 appeared to have arrived at question of the Union, repeated the same the conviction that man in Ireland was a sentiments, and declared that "Ireland nuisance, and that the main question was had long felt the narrow policy of Great Britain, who, influenced by selfish motives, had treated her with partiality and neglect, and never looked on her prosperity as that of the Empire at large. What had been the result of that policy? Why, that Ire-rary remedies and nostrums. But he had land, with her commercial and manufactu- perused a report from another source on ring growth thus stunted, had been com- the same subject, to which he would direct pelled to remain a purely agricultural coun- the attention of the House. It was a report try, and, from the enormous and reckless emanating from some members of the Socompetition for land which had hence arisen, ciety of Friends. In the year 1827 the a most vicious state of society had deve- excellent Mrs. Fry and her brother, who loped itself of difficulties and misery had conceived a deep interest in the subamong the occupiers of the soil, of incum-ject, visited Ireland; they examined every brances among its proprietors a state county, and made the most minute inquiof society most graphically described by ries into every element of her condition; the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland in and the result was, that they prepared a his evidence before the Committee of 1824. kind of report on the subject for the MarA large proportion of the incumbrances quess of Wellesley, and a better state paand settlements on Irish estates dated per on Ireland never was produced. They their origin from the latter end of the last stated that what they found in Ireland and the beginning of the present century; was a want of employment, a defective and were based, in a very material degree, administration of justice, and a want of upon a fictitious value of land arising out education, prevalent throughout the counof the circumstances of the time, such as try; and they added, as a remarkable feathe infinite subdivision of the land, the ture, that scarcely anything was made the undue competition, the system of sublet- most of, and that everywhere the country ting, and the artificial value of land and presented the spectacle of a fine and fruitproduce consequent on the state of prices ful land with utterly inadequate cultivation. before the conclusion of the war. But re- They expressed their conviction that, if cent occurrences having stripped things sufficient cultivation was applied to the of that false aspect which they had as- soil, by the adequate employment of the sumed at the period he referred to, the people, any failure of the potato cropwhole system was found to be rotten and under existing circumstances so terrible a unsound; and having been cleared away calamity-would be amply and most beneby the sufferings of the last few years, an ficially met by a regular supply of the open space was made for a new arrange- more suitable and far more nutritious dement, which he hoped they would endea- scription of food, wheaten bread. They vour to aid him in turning to account for considered, they said, that employment remedial purposes. There were various would be a far better remedy for the disother matters connected with the country tressed people of Ireland than emigration, to which he might advert as explaining its although to a limited extent this latter position; such as the political influences remedy also might be useful; and they inbrought to bear upon owners of property sisted, as a grand remedy, upon the effecon the one side and the other. For in- tual alteration of the system under which stance, of the two parties in the country, high nominal rents, low wages, and inseone was corrupted and the other coerced, curity of tenure, afflicted the country; and and all the evils arising out of this state of they also recommended (for this was before things were inherited by the landowners of the Relief Bill of 1829) the establishment the present day, who ought not to be of equality of civil rights, adding that the blamed for the evils arising out of the vi- less distinctions of religion were insisted cious system that had been thus entailed on in civil polity, the greater would be upon them. At a subsequent period the the probability of the establishment of a intervention of Parliament was invoked to state of things leading to permanent tranprovide a remedy, and a series of Parlia- quillity. Had the suggestions made by mentary Committees investigated the sub- these able and benevolent persons been ject. A Committee of the House which acted upon at the time, he would venture

to say-not scrutinising the design of the with property, the maintenance of the Almighty in the dispensations which had rights of property being the great chabefallen the country, nor causes over racteristic of social improvement and prowhich men had no control-he would ven-gress of civilisation, and any attempt to ture to say, humanly speaking, we should interfere with it constituting the severest have been spared calamities which Ireland blow that could be given to industry and had in late years endured. In 1830- the accumulation of wealth. Accordingly, after emancipation, and when the Roman that Commission proceeded with its inCatholic prelates of Ireland had published quiry, subject to the conservation of the a manifesto that they had got all they rights of property. There were 1,117 desired, and that now all parties ought to witnesses in all examined before it, of unite for the common good of Ireland- which number 117 were proprietors, 451 another Committee sat on Irish affairs, were farmers, 219 land-agents, and 44 were which reported that one-fourth or one-fifth professional men. The Commission went of the population of Ireland were out of through every county in Ireland, seeing employment, and that it was the impera- with their own eyes, and hearing with their tive duty of the Government and of the Le- own ears. They were personally connected gislature to take into consideration the most with every province in Ireland, some of effectual means of diminishing this amount them having property in every province. of non-employment, of introducing into Ire- They were honourable men, and men well land a sounder economical and social sys- acquainted with the country. The views tem, and of regulating on more rational and of such men, he conceived, furnished a useful principles the relations between land-basis on which Parliament might then have lord and tenant. Nothing, however, was proceeded, and might still proceed, with done. Another Committee sat a few years security to all the just rights of property, afterwards, who reported that there would and with satisfaction to all the just claims absolutely not be a sufficiency of labour in of industry. These gentlemen stated that Ireland if the soil were adequately culti- the testimony was uniform as to the unvated, and recommended most emphati- improved state of certain districts, as to cally that some measures should be adopted the want of employment, the poverty and for giving tenants for life powers of leas- hardships of the agricultural population, ing and charging the inheritance for per- and they recorded, as their decided opinmanent improvements. Still nothing was ion, that the agricultural improvement of done. Mr. Crawford was at this time Ireland was one of the first and most impressing his Bills in Parliament, but with- portant steps towards the amelioration of out result; but in 1843 Sir Robert Peel the state of Ireland, and the establishment suggested that a Commission should be of its prosperity. They particularly and appointed, of respectable and well-informed feelingly adverted to the condition of the persons, to inquire into the whole subject, unfortunate labourers, whom they described to ascertain what precise differences there as being badly housed, badly fed, and badly were between the tenures of England, of paid for precarious labour; and they comScotland, and of Ireland, and maturely mended their patient endurance of their sufconsider the result of those inquiries, and ferings, as entitling them to the best atthe steps which they appeared to suggest. tention of the Government. They recomUpon that Commission, at the head of mended the allotment system, the repair. which was Lord Devon, were his hon. and of the cottages, and other measures for valued Colleague near him, also the hon. the amelioration of the labourer; and they Member for Derry, the late Under Secre- spoke also of the impediments in the way tary and the present Under Secretary for of that agricultural improvement which Ireland. That Commission was appointed would give employment to the labourer. in February 1843, and made its report in But the labourers had no political influ1845. He was aware that much obloquy ence; they were neglected, and the disashad been cast upon that Commission, and ters which succeeded the failure of the many strong observations made upon the potato were the result of that neglect, and manner in which they were said to have formed fa sore penalty on those who had taken their evidence; but he must point neglected them. Among these impediments out that upon its appointment the late to the improvement of the soil, the ComSir Robert Peel said, that by it he did mission adverted to the small number of not intend to excite any expectations that owners in fee in Ireland as compared with there would be the slightest interference England, there being only 8,000 in Ire