MR. PARNELL'S PROPOSED LAND SYSTEM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2976, 8 January 1881, Page 4

MR. PARNELL'S PROPOSED LAND SYSTEM.

At a late demonstration, Mr Parnell said : —" It is our part to teach the people of Ireland what their national rights aro in respect to the land of Ireland. (Cheers.) We will not r>arley with landlordism. That institution, created for the purpose of maintaining English rule in Ireland, and for the interests of the few against the many, will have to fail. (Cheers, and a Voice—' Lord Mountmorres fell.') How did it fall in Prussia ? The tenants enjoyed what is called fixity of tenure at valued rents, but the syatem of fixity of tenure at valued rents •was 'found so intolerable to the Prussian tenants that the State was compelled to come in and. put an end to the rights of the landlords over the land. (Cheers.) With a system of land tenure far more just to the tenant than that which we possess, a system which, under the name of fixity of tenure at valued rents, is advocated to-day for Ireland by many able, earnest, devoted, and talented men, it was found necessary in Prussia to go still further and to do that for Prussia which we ask may be done for Ireland to-day. (Cheers.) The King of Prussia issued an edict giving the landlords two years in which to transfer the land to their tenants, and he told tbeni in the same edict that if they did not agree with their tenants as to the terms of the transfer -svithin two years, then he, the King, would step in and transfer it to himself. (Cheers, and a Yoice —'You may be King of Ireland yet.' Another Voice — ' We will mate him President.' Cheers.) The landlords were unable to mate terms with their tenants and the King of Prussia at the expiration of the two years fulfilled his pi'omise, and he gave the land to the tenants as their own. (Cheers.) He compensated the Prussian nobles by giving them paper bearing 4 per cent, interest, and he decreed that the tenants should pay interest on this debt for a certain number of years—4o years, I think ifc was—and that at the end of that time there should be nothing farther to pay. (Cheers.) Now, we ask to-day for settlement on a somewhat similar basis, and we gay that what Prussia was able to do at the commencement of the century England ought to be able to do to-morrow or in a short while. (Cheers.) I believe, and I should be very sorry to mislead anybody—l should be very sorry to raise the hopes of the tonante of this country—but I am perfectly confident that if they will follow our advice within a very brief period we shall have transferred two-thirds of the land of Ireland from the Irish landlords to the tenants (cheers), and the annual payments to be made by the tenants for a period of, say, 35 years, will be, very much less than the present rackrents that they are obliged to pay. (Cheers, *'»r>d a voice— 'We will give them w}m& IJord Mountmorres Jgot.') Perhaps, di>riiig tho next Session of Parliament the Ministry will find Itself unabld-A settle this land question. I think it exceedingly likely. (tlear, hear; and a voice—'We will have a Parliament in Collegegreen yet.') I think it is vory probable that the present Ministry will ;offer us some •worthless concessions not worth our acceptance. (Cheers and a voice—' 'Obstruction ; obstruction, then. , ) But I feel sure that in that case the longer a settlement of the question is delayed the "worst terms the landlords will get. (Loud cheers.) It would be better for them lo come forward now and to offer fail; terms to the Irish tenants, for I tell, them that if they do not we shall soon be an the position of victors and shall be able to dictate our own terms. (Loud cheers.) While, then, some of the old habits of subservience and slavish obedience still remain among the Irish tenantry, that is the time for the landlords to come forward and to make their proposition. We have made ours, and we say that interested as we are in the welfare of the shopkeepers of Ireland, the trading community of Ireland, the merchants, the labourers (cheers), every class that earns the right to live in this country by iiard work, either physical or

mental, we say that interested as we are in the welfare of those classes, determined as we are to do our very utmost to make Ireland great, glorious, prosperous, and free (loud cheers), to take tho powor of governing Ireland out of the hands of the English Parliament and people and to transfer it to the hands of our own people (loud cheers), determined as wo are to achieve those ends we believe that we can only achieve them by making the land as free as it was when the waters of the Flood left it. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)