the bards. "This vase," he says, "inspires poetic genius, it imparts wisdom, it reveals a knowledge of the future, the mysteries of the world, the entire round of human acquirements." It requires no labour to explain why a cup or bowl should come to represent a source of inspiration. Poets born with a taste for spirituous liquors, feel instinctively the propriety of the arrangement. Long before Taliesin's time the Tuath de Danaan brought from Denmark, four magic articles, two of which were a cauldron and a spear. Now the word gradal* or graal implies a dish or deep bowl from which food was distributed to those who sat at table, and it is probable that the word translated cauldron" in the old legend (we have not the original before us), may have this meaning. Those readers who have accompanied us so far will scarcely be at a loss to appreciate the extensive information possessed by our author on those dreamy, twilight subjects to which he has chiefly turned his attention, and the masterly manner in which he has treated them. They belong to a department of science in which certainty is not attainable, but wherein the happy conjectures of certain minds peculiarly gifted are nearly sure to arrive at the truth. Among these we are disposed to place Rev. S. Baring-Gould, whom we hope to meet soon again employed in investigating other departments of this curious and interesting study. IRISH LAND "PACIFICATION."† ONE of the most misleading influences in public controversy is the value which comes to be attached to terms that assume what is to be established. Religious equality, free education, tenant-right-whatever the phrases tossed about on the platform, or in the press the effect of the parrotutterance of the words is to produce a lazy or wanton assent, among many persons more or less ignorant of what is signified by them. Only thus can certain errors of strong minds, with respect to facts and elementary principles, be accounted for. Men take what has a fair seeming, and obtains apparently so large a recognition, as incontrovertible, and proceed to reason upon that basis with a blind confidence. But the injunction to "prove all things" is eminently necessary to be borne in mind with reference to claims, grievances, schemes of legislation, or theories of any kind, propounded by regenerators of Ireland. To be sceptical as to these is the fittest state of mind in which to approach an examination of any novel principle or project, for the benefit of a population that has unhappily found distraction and torment, not wisdom, in a multitude of counsellors. The boldest of recent proposers of experiments to pacify Ireland is Mr. J. S. Mill. His name, till lately, carried authority with it, and persons hesitated to dispute any dictum to which it might be attached. But his Irish land-plan is too plainly unjust and impracticable, and the conception of inexperience, to impose upon many, and his pamphlet in which it was put forth found many replies, immediately on being published. Some may think it hardly worth while to slay the slain by giving it yet another and more formal answer, but the danger of allowing the incorrect and mischievous representations abounding in the hasty treatises of party politicians to obtain a hold upon the public, is every day illustrated in the persistency with which previous works of ill-informed essayists are quoted in popular argument. In the modern Welsh grealon is a collection. "Mr. Mill's Plan for the Pacification of Ireland examined." By Lord Dufferin. London: John Murray, 1868. "England and Ireland." By John Stuart Mill. London; Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868. VOL. LXXI.-NO. CCCCXXVI. 48 Lord Dufferin, of all others, was the student of the "land question," and the Irish proprietor, with full knowledge of the subject from former inquiries and personal experience, best qualified to grapple with Mr. Mill, and once for all, and completely, to disprove his statements, and exhibit the futility of his scheme. Mr. Mill proposed to bring the landed estates of the proprietors of Ireland to a forced sale. Parliamentary Commissioners would fix the price at their discretion. "Should the rentroll of any estate be above the figure which may recommend itself to the approval of these gentlemen, it will be reduced to more legitimate proportions, and its owner compensated on the amended valuation. The vacated properties will be handed over to that section of the Irish agricultural class who may happen to be in the occupation of farms at the moment the projected Act receives the Royal assent, and the accruing quit-rents will thenceforth be collected through the instrumentality of government land-agents, government bailiffs, and government process-servers." Stipulations against sub-letting are to be enforced for a limited period against the new proprietors, for the infraction of which they will, it is presumed, "be prosecuted in the courts of law at the public expense, by government officials." So many of the present owners as may happen to have land in their own hands will be allowed to retain possession of it, at all events until further notice, but all existing leases or other terminable contracts will be overridden by the new settlement." In stating the main features of the "plan," before examining it in principle and detail, Lord Dufferin adds, "Whether perpetuity of possession is to be extended to the conacre cultivator and cottier sub-tenants of the Irish peasantry, Mr. Mill does not mention, but as they amount to several hundred thousand persons, their future status will be worthy of his consideration." Mr. Mill leaves it also unexplained whether, in future, the "aggregation of landed property in Ireland, and the re-creation of tenancies is to be a legal or a criminal proceeding; and on the latter supposition what is to become of the peasant proprietor who, from sickness, infancy, or any temporary impediment, is un 66 able to cultivate his own land, and is forbidden by the law to sublet it?" The "argument" that "land is a thing which no man made, which exists in limited quantity, which was the original inheritance of all mankind, which, whoever appropriates, keeps others out of its possession," receives attention from Lord Dufferin. The most daring confiscationist hardly ventures to advance it now, but endeavours rather to make out a necessity for a change of proprietorship, and to lay down a scheme to accomplish it which shall be just, as he thinks, to present owners. It is obvious that there are other forms of property which were the "original inheritance of all mankind," and in which those who have no possessions might claim an interest quite as reasonably as in land. No doubt the admission of the one claim would rapidly be followed by the setting up of the other. One actual case is a better test of a plan than a broad sheet of reasonings, and Mr. Mill's powerful opponent presents to his notice one of the many contingencies that would result from his arrangement, on the new owner being precluded from "letting his land at a competitive rent, or for a terminable period," when the tenure shall be permanent, and the rent fixed by government. A'peasant proprietor' dies, leaving a widow and a young family. Their only support is the farm, but, from ill health, or from want of agricultural skill, the widow feels herself incompetent to conduct an agricultural enterprise. Under ordinary circumstances she would let her farm to some neighbour till her son was grown up. But from such a course she is to be rigorously excluded. No terminable tenures are allowed. Her only alternative is to give up the place for good and all. She accordingly advertizes for a tenant; a dozen competitors present themselves; a government officer comes down and fixes the future rent of the place, which we must now suppose to be composed of two elements the original rent paid by the deceased tenant, and the additional annual value acquired by the farm from his improvements the former being a charge due to the government, the latter to the widow. But, though unable to receive more than the Parliamentary amount, the widow has the right to choose her tenant. Which of the dozen will she take? Why, the man who will pay her down the largest premium for selecting him. The sum-total of the arrangement being the turning of the original occupants out of their property, the re-creation of a petty landlordism, and the imposition of a rack-rent, and of a rack-rent in its worst form, that of a high rent fined down by the payment of a large sum on entry." Having got a new tenant at a rack-rent, and a landlord dependent for her bread on the punctual payment of that rent, what will follow? "Supposing the strain of the situation proves too much for the tenant, as it probably would, he will then resort to the well-known processes by which an agricultural catastrophe is deferred: he will scourge his land with flax, he will grow white crops in succession, he will sell part of his stock, and, as a consequence, deprive himself of manure. Year after year, though the rent be paid, the land is gradually growing out of heart. At last, even the rent cannot be scraped together, and the widow-landlord unexpectedly finds herself deprived of the sum upon which she was depending for the maintenance of her family, and must take legal proceedings to enable her to re-enter into possession of her land." But this is not the worst. She again tries to let the farm, but the government officer discovers that, in consequence of the bad treatment it has received at the hands of the last tenant, it is now worth 5s. an acre less than it was before. The fertility of land is not indestructible: its productive power can be "as easily squandered as a handful of guineas," and if the peasant-landlord is to have the right to evict the peasant-tenant for injurious farming, "to what ubiquitous court of appeal is he to resort when he perceives, or thinks he perceives, the first signs of a deteriorated cultivation ?" When the government had become universal landlord, how would it proceed to manage the enormous property it had taken into its hands? "Just like any other absentee landlord. It must have its innumerable staff of agents, bailiffs, lawyers, and rent collectors. If its tenants neglect to pay their rents, or exhaust the land by bad cultivation, it must resort to the usual processes for the recovery of rent, and the prevention of waste, now adopted by existing landlords. If it wishes to discharge those duties which are acknowledged to belong to the ownership of land-to undertake great works of drainage, to assist its tenantry in the erection of permanent improvements-it must make a descent into the pocket of the British tax-payer, as the revenues of its estates have been alienated to another purpose. If a second time a blight should overspread the 1,000,000 acres now under potatoes in Ireland, the burden of supporting the starving population should fall, not on the rental of the kingdom, as it did in 1846, but on the Consolidated Fund, from which inexhaustible source would also be derived the incomes of the thousand functionaries necessary to the management of a property of 15,000,000 acres." The last observation will show that the picture is in no respect overdrawn. The responsibilities, moral and pecuniary, borne with comparative case as spread over the many landlords of the country, would crush the State if it took them upon its own shoulders. Its administration of great departments is not so successful as to encourage confidence in its management of an enormous land-scheme, with all its complicated problems and processes, its sudden emergencies, and difficulties neither to be foreseen nor averted by any code of procedure. Lord Dufferin asks the simple question which occurs to every mind, and to which Mr. Mill cannot make a reply that will satisfy the least critical of his readers: "How shall we prevent the ignorant peasants of Donegal or Mayo from confounding the harsh acts of the English Legislature, in its capacity of landlord, with its would-be beneficent attitude of a paternal government ?" Would its efforts to regain possession of large tracts of country from its peasant-landlords or peasant-tenants, in the event of non-fulfilment of obligations, be calculated to quicken the attachment of the cultivators to British rule? It must be remembered that Mr. Mill puts forward his plan as one for the "pacification" of Ireland. Would wholesale evictions pacify? would ejectment by State officers produce no reprisals? "On the other hand, how could we intrust the power of providing pecuniary obligations, and the enormous influence such a privilege would imply, to any individual or to any Board, more especially when we remember that it could only be exercised through several thousand agents, belonging to every grade of life, who would thus acquire the opportunity of indulging their worst passions, whether of vindictiveness or of cupidity, at the expense of the Irish peasantry?" In fine, Mr. Mill's scheme of government landlordship and administration would render it impossible for the country ever to escape from the miseries of agrarian strife and crime, and the shocks of chronic rebellion. We are sorry to be obliged to say it, but it is the truth, that Mr. Mill displays, almost in every page of the treatise in which this "plan" is developed, a rudimental ignorance of Irish land-relations, and the peculiarities of Irish society. That ignorance Lord Dufferin exposes all the more effectively from his perfect equanimity as a critic, The temp tations to be satirical and severe at the Philosopher's expense were very great. Lord Dufferin, however, addresses himself to the subject in the same spirit that has characterized all his works on the question of Landlord and Tenant, and the result is an entire demolition of the crazy structure raised in his study by the accomplish ed theorist. The final passages of Lord Dufferin's answer are not the least telling. He asks Mr. Mill and others what do they imagine is likely to be the practical effect of their proceedings? If the landlords of Ireland adopt his opinions out of deference to his authority, they are bound by the same motive to believe in his predictions; and when he assures them that a democratic Parliament of the future will carry his proposals into effect, they must prepare for that evil day. How will they set their house, or rather their land-in order Every landlord with a grain of sense in his composition, will at once cease to spend money on an estate which in a few years will belong to some one else. Outstanding arrears will be called in. All cottage-building, and farm-improvements will be discontinued from one end of the kingdom to the other . . . If any of us desire to retain possession of any portion of our estates, the only plan will be to serve notices to quit on the occupiers of the lands we wish to secure.. The one individual whose interests will be comparatively unaffected in the general crush, will be the persistent absentee, whose affections have never been entangled in his estate, whose revenues have never contributed to its improvement, and to whom it will be a matter of indifference whether his rents are collected for him free of charge by the government, or by an agent with a salary of £1,000 a year." The solemn language_employed by so calm a writer as Lord Dufferin, in describing the injurious character of such a change, is sufficient in itself to startle those who speak or write in haste, and without information. "As for myself," says this Irish statesman, "I would rather be in my grave than see my country become the theatre of so disastrous an experiment." Not only do the proprietors of Ireland, but all who love their country, and desire to see it wisely governed, and "pacified" by just legislation alone, owe the deepest debt of gratitude to Lord Dufferin for his earnest, prompt, and complete_dealing with imposing theories on Land, and projects of Land-laws, which, as supported by the names of men in favour with large classes of the public, would otherwise have wrought the most serious mischief. If no section of the daily press ventures now to push Mr. Mill's scheme, or Mr. Bright's, or Mr. Butt's, or any other of the confiscatory and foolish proposals that have been put forward, the triumph for common sense and experience, over unsound views, is due to the labours of the author of the searching and unanswerable Pamphlet upon which these observations are based. INDEX TO VOL. LXXI. Ad Pyrrham; 168. Ancient English Culture; 603. BISHOP PERCY'S FOLIO MANUSCRIPT: The BRITISH ARMS AND SOLDIERS, ANCIENT tian Influence of the Cross; Legend of Gown and Town Rows at Oxford, and HAUNTED LIVES. BY J. S. LE FANU, Dublin Book Auctions and Book Buyers of JOHN HALLER'S NIECE. By Russell Gray. EARLY IRISH BUILDINGS AND THEIR ARCHITECTS: Who the Cuthites were; Edmund Burke,-a Historical Study; 597. a Bohemian Story; Sivga's Son, a Shet- and the Blue Flower; The Piper of Chap. XXIX., The Old, Old Years; Chap. |