this kind, in a word, would lead to confusion and could not prosper.

'You have destroyed every interest you have built up in Ireland, and have never conciliated the native race-this bitter remark of a distinguished Irishman not unfairly describes the scheme of wrong and of unwisdom thus briefly noticed. A final settlement of the Irish Land System ought, I think, to be based on different principles, and to be constructed on lines in another direction. The Acts of 1881 and of 1887 contain, I have said, the fruitful germs of a happy and lasting reform in this matter; and the object of legislation should be to bring these to maturity and complete development. This consummation is at present checked by obvious and grave defects in these statutes, and by the circumstance that the national mind is in a state difficult to appease and content; and the problem is how so to recast the law, as to effect a settlement of the Irish land, reasonably just, adequate, and above all permanent, and to satisfy, within fair limits, the ideas and wants of the Irish peasantry. The plan I suggest would enlarge the scope of the Acts of 1881 and 1887, and simplify their working in essential points; but it would only boldly extend their principles; and instead of creating peasant ownership throughout Ireland by buying out landlords, it would aim at establishing generally a mode of tenure conforming to popular notions and wishes, and yet at saving, as far as was possible, legitimate existing proprietary rights, and maintaining landlords largely as a class. By the Acts of 1881 and of 1887 the immense majority of the tenants of Ireland are empowered to convert their present tenancies into terms renewable every fifteen years, but practically perpetual at State-settled rents; and in this way the estate of the landlord, though he still retains many rights of ownership, is assimilated to a reversion in fee, subject to a fee-farm rent or a permanent rent-charge. The tenant, therefore, who has recourse to the law, acquires what, to some extent, is ownership, conditional at least, and at a rent fixed by law; but, as we have seen, he can only attain this status through a somewhat costly and tedious process, involving an application to a Court of Justice; a repetition of this process is necessary, too, at intervals of time by no means distant; and, as I have said, the law is so complicated, so little understood, and so expensive, that nearly twothirds of the tenant class in Ireland have not as yet tried to obtain its benefits, and remain under their old mode of tenure. In order to get rid of these grave obstacles, to make the law cheap and intelligible at a glance, and to effect a final and enduring settlement, I propose that, in the case of all tenancies within the Acts of 1881 and of 1887-a mere fraction is not included-the estate of the tenant

shall be at once enlarged into a perpetual interest, at a perpetual rent to be never changed, but subject to conditions nearly the same as those laid down by the existing statutes. The interest thus created should, in all respects, be assignable like a fee-simple estate, regard being of course had to the rights of the landlord; in my judgment it ought not to be defeasible by an ejectment of any kind, for I would give the landlord a different remedy, and as for the rent which, under the scheme, would be infinitely the most important matter, the existing rent should, in all instances, be presumed to be the legitimate rent; but landlord and tenant should have an equal right to appeal to the Land Commission or the County Courts, to have the rent once for all adjusted, within a period say of three years, that finality might be soon attained; and, in order that tenants of the humbler class who could not afford the charge of this process, should have the full benefit of an application of this sort, the landlord ought to be obliged to produce his rent-accounts, and from the examination of these it would be almost always possible to ascertain what was a just rent, especially if the Courts were aided, as they ought to be, by a good staff of valuers.

In this way, by a rapid process, and without litigation in most instances, the tenant class in Ireland, with but few exceptions, would practically acquire the ownership of the soil, subject only to reasonable and easy conditions, and to an unchangeable and perpetual rent, which, from the outset, would be doubtless fair, and, as time rolled on, would be probably low. This great end, however, would have been accomplished by a development only of the existing law, its imperfections having been removed, and the checks on its free working being swept away; and the settlement would be speedy and permanent. Let us next consider what would be the status of the landlord, under the proposed scheme, and what rights would be secured to him. His proprietary position, I fully admit, would be greatly, and for all time, changed; for virtually he would cease to own the land-he scarcely however owns it now; and as to all tenancies affected by this plan, his interest in the land would be very nearly reduced to that of a mere rent-charge; for there would be no periodical revision of rents; and I would not allow the tenant's estate to be capable of forfeiture in any instance. His rights, in a word, already diminished by the legislation of the last eighteen years, would be, further, and even largely, cut down; and compensation, as I shall endeavour to show, ought to be adjudged to him in the national interest, within practicable and fair limits. The position, however, of the Irish landlord would be less affected than might at first sight appear, for even now his reversionary rights cannot be deemed to be of great value; and

assuredly it would be very much better than it could be under any scheme of general expropriation, the assumed alternative. Under the plan I propose he would retain the ownership, with every inducement to continue resident, of his mansion and his demesne lands, possessions which, if he were bought out, would probably be, before long, sacrificed; as mines, minerals, woods, plantations, turf-mosses, to a certain extent, and rights of sporting and other 'royalties,' as justice demands, would be reserved to him, he would still keep rights, which would be all but lost, were Land Purchase by the State carried out; and his income, too, though it could not be increased, would probably be not much diminished, while certainly it would be a great deal more than it could be, whatever might be the equivalent for his estate he could reasonably expect. In a word he would not suffer as much, as might be imagined by unthinking people; and he would fare infinitely better, I repeat, than is possible were he sold out and compensated. The question remains how the landlord should have the rights that would be left to him completely secured, and especially the right to the perpetual rent representing the chief part of his commuted ownership. As I have said, I would not allow him to have the remedy of ejectment in any case, for it is the essence of my plan that the estate of the tenant should be indefeasible like the free fee-simple. But he should retain every other remedy to enforce his rights which he has at present, and these should be made more cheap and summary; and, in the case of the non-payment of the rent, he should have ample and easily accessible power to make the tenant a bankrupt, and to sell his estate1, the purchase-money being charged with the arrear, and the purchaser being assured the right of obtaining, when required, possession of the land. By these means the rent, I believe, would be as safe as any other kind of property.

I only know of one solid objection that can be made to a scheme of this kind. Of the half million of tenants in Ireland about 150,000 are mere cottagers, that is possessors of little plots of land, who are scarcely able to eke out existence, even though they held altogether rent-free. Would you stereotype these miserable peasants in the soil, and practically make them owners in fee, subject only to a perpetual rent-charge? My answer is that the same difficulty would arise under a plan of State-purchase; most probably, too, these petty holdings would be gradually bought up by the larger farmers, and would disappear with the growth of prosperity; and, besides, no reform of land tenure will remove at once all that is ill in Ireland. The relief, indeed, of the congested districts,' in which 1 The County Court could carry out this process at quite a trivial expense. But of course the absolute supremacy of law would have to be restored in Ireland.

these masses of poor are crowded, whether through a large system of Public Works, or by emigration conducted by the State, is a problem of great and increasing importance; but it is foreign to my immediate subject, and it is unnecessary to do more than to allude to it. Let us briefly consider what would be the practical effects of the scheme I propose. The tenant class of Ireland would not be converted into freeholders at a terminable rent; for they have no claim to a huge bribe like this, and the revolution is, I believe, impossible. But they would acquire a status infinitely better than that sought by their fairest advocates; they would be owners of the land at a permanent charge borne easily at first, and probably growing lighter; and virtually they would have become copyholders, without onerous copyhold incidents, a mode of tenure far more akin to their national and archaic usages than the absolute freehold of English ownership'. By a change, in a word, in itself not unjust, though liberal in the extreme, for the sake of peace, and one, too, that may be pronounced feasible, they would have been made a 'proprietary,' in no doubtful sense; for, as Mill says, 'the idea of property does not necessarily imply that there shall be no rent, it merely implies that the rent should be a fixed charge,' and fair. On the other hand the landlords of Ireland would certainly have been deprived of important rights, and for this loss, they ought, I have said, to be reasonably indemnified by the State; but they would still retain many rights of property; their revenues, I believe, would not be much less than they are at present if they could not increase; they would preserve interests of the greatest value, which they could scarcely preserve under a scheme of Land Purchase; and they would still be an aristocratic order, not a discredited class deprived of their lands by a forfeiture solemnly decreed by Parliament. Their position, in short, would, beyond comparison, be better than it could be were they sold out compulsorily or generally by State-agency-very probably their only other choice; and-a national gain of great importance— they would remain in Ireland to perform the duties, political and social, which, were they removed, would be performed much worse, or even not at all. That an Irish landlord, indeed, should hesitate between expropriation and such a plan as mine, appears to me not easy to understand; and this could be explained only, I think, by supposing that many of the class have a lingering belief that general expropriation is not possible, and that the existing land

1 The Irish tenant-farmer never thought of freehold ownership until the idea was put in his head from external agencies. Even now he very much prefers the three F's, the tenure which I propose extended to the furthest limits. Freehold ownership is an English, not an Irish, idea.

system will still continue. This idea, however, is a chimera; that land system is already doomed; and let not Irish landlords, even now compared by their enemies to the French emigrés, deserve the stern judgment pronounced on these men-- they have learned, and they have forgotten nothing.'

I have now reached the difficult question of a reasonable indemnity for Irish landlords, and this, I have said, is justly their due. The Act of 1870, in my judgment, did not affect the value of Irish land, though it certainly trenched on proprietary rights; the selling price of estates, indeed, rose immediately after it had become law. But the inevitable result of the Act of 1881, independently of the depression of the times, and of the agitation of the last eight years, has been to depreciate property in Irish land; the statute violently annulled contracts, had necessarily the effect of reducing rents, and assimilated the status of the Irish landlord, in some degree, to that of a rent-charger; and the operation of the Act of 1887, going as it does so far as to break leases-contracts hitherto on the same footing as mortgages and even marriage settlementswill of course be in the same direction. The Legislature, therefore, by its deliberate act, has deprived Irish landlords of most important rights, for which compensation may be fairly claimed; and it is no argument against this to say that justice required the reform that was made, that the contracts interfered with were not fair, that the rents that were lessened were not legitimate, that the Irish landlord was only brought down to the position which he ought to have always held. The reply is conclusive: the state of things thus transformed had been for ages placed under the sanction of laws of the most solemn kind, and innumerable and vast rights of property had been created on the faith of these; and according to all European usage-as was seen even in the case of the owners of slaves-law cannot undo what law had done, to the utter wrong of those who suffer from the change. This is so evident, indeed, that Mr. Gladstone, in bringing in the measure of 1881, distinctly admitted that Irish landlords had a just claim to compensation from the State, if it could be proved that they incurred loss; and whether he is now of the same mind or not the irrevocable word cannot be forgotten. Irish landlords therefore have a fair right to indemnity, even as the law now stands; and, were anything like my scheme carried out, their title would be more assured and manifest. Assuming then that, as I propose, they were converted into mere fee-farm renters, as regards tenancies of the ordinary kind, what claim for compensation could they prefer, and what settlement could they reasonably expect? They could not make a demand in respect of losses owing to seasons and prices; but they