A THOROUGHLY BAD BILL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 5, 30 May 1890, Page 31

A THOROUGHLY BAD BILL.

(United Ireland, April 5.) The last of the Land Bills, in Us dreary expanse of complicited clauses and sub-clauses, is at length before the world. It seems a strange thing to say that its complication is the very best thing about it from its promoters' point of view. But it is true. Nothing could be so fatal to its prospect of passing aa to be clearly understood. Therefore, the attempt is made with much ingenuity to smother its meaning in mystery. It is as intricate as a maze. It is a succession of screens. The object is to conceal from every class concerned how far they are injuriously affected. From the British taxpayer iB hidden the unpleasant fact that on the British Exchequer must fall the ultimate liability for the £33,000,000 dealt out to the Irish rackrenters, and that all the interposed securities are shams. On the other band, the Irish ratepaying public are assured that the wild scheme for making the funds for the support of lunatics and paupers, and for the promotion of education in Ireland, responsible for the rack-renters purchase money, is a mere piece of financial playfulness, never intended to have any serious effect. "I decline," said Mr. Balfour, to " contemplate any such contingency." But, all the same, the contingency is conteaa plated, and the provision is included in the Bill, and the British taxpayer is assured it is a valuable security for his protection. To the Irish tenant the audacious pretence is made that it is a special kindness to him to compel him, for the first five years, to pay an instalment largely in excess of the full interest on his purchase money— in many cases double the amount— as a kind of collateral cash security for an extravagant advance to his landlord. Let each one of these three great classes once come to understand what is really intended ; let them realise that the interests of all three are to be sacrificed to the most worthless and justly-despised class in the commanity, the Irish rackrenters, and there is an end to the measure. It is a thoroughly bad Bill from whatever point of view it may be regarded There is no real guarantee for the £33,000,000 which the public Treasury is to be induced to advance on false pretences. The contigent se'eurity of the Irish Poorlaw Educational Fund and local rates is a transparent fraud— indeed, it is an almost admitted fraud. It may give trouble but it won't supply coin. If the worst come to the worst, it can never be seriously proposed that Irish paupers are to starve, Irish lunatics to be turned out of the asylums, and Irish peasant children forbidden to learn their ABC, for the sake of extravagant Irish rack-renters— the Abercorns and the Waterfords, and the other noble and moat noble friends and proteges of the Coercian Government.— It must be remembered that there is and can be no moral sanction for this sequestration of Irish local rates and Imperial contributions to local purposes. The consent of the ratepayers is neither obtained nor demanded. The Bill, if it passes at all, will pass by force and against the unanimous protest of the representatives of three provinces, at least, of Ireland — There is no moral obligation to submit to such extortion. Concerted resistance to the contingent guarantee will be not merely a right but a duty if resistance become necessary. The British, taxpayer, then must look to the primary security, the land itself, fjr the lorn if he be foolish enough to make it. This would be good security enough if the price were a fair one and voluntarily contracted to be pai*d But the contract between landlord and tenant is pretty certain to be forced, and the price is not likely to be fair. We cannot forget that Sir James Caird, a high authority, once declared in the columns of the " Forger " that the 558,000 holdings in Ireland were of " no commercial value whatever," and that " their rents were not recoverable either by the Government or the landlords." The "Forger" at the time vehemently endorsed his statement. This bold statement may not be true in as entirety, but it certainly has a larger spice of truth in it than is generally to be found in the utterances of the "Forger." Toe nominal rental always in arrears is no test at all of the value of the lands, yet on this nominal rental the Land Purchase scheme is to be b.sed. While exorbitant arrears of rackrent are preserved, while Coercion is maintained, and while eviction is encouraged, there can be no real contract between the Irish rackrenter ana the Irish tenant who is so completely at bis mercy The British taxpayer is to plank down £33,000,000 on the strength of mock contracts, made under stress and often impossibility of fulfilment. He has the land to get, of course, in default of repayment But the question arißes, how the Government is to realise this Becunty ? The Government can hardly hope to farm at a profit tenacre holdings in Donegal or Connemara ; and as to reletting on the plantation system farms evicted for nonpayment of an impossible purchase-money, Captain Hamilton's experience at Coolgreany does not give much countenance to that prospect as a paying commercial speculauon. Tne leal security, as we have sud, would bo free s»le at fair prices, and possibly a collateral free local guarantee by a competent local authority. All these things are absent Irom the Bill. We need not labour to show t-.e general injustice to Ireland of a meaeure which propos s to confiscate and locfc up all local funds and all Imperial contributions to locil purposes, however useful or even necebsary, in the interest of the rack-renters aloue To'the tenant-farmer the Bill is especially unjust. He has been hoping for and was enatled to something much better than Lord Ash Wne'L Act ; he Is offered something much woise. We cannot dwell too long or too strongly on the iniquitous " insurance " fraud • ej-p -ciallv as its meaning is sought to be ingeniously obscured by terms of the Bill At the risk ot wearying our readers we will endeavour to further expose it. For making such things clear there is nothing hke a ■ spec.al illustratiou. We give an illustration cf its working The laaffe estate m the county Mayo is a typical congested efaie. On the Taaffe estate the tenants were by judicious pressure induced to offer, under Lord Ashbourne's Ast, seveu years purchase of the rental ot their miserable holdings. But tbu Commissioners refused to sanction the sale on the ground tbat the price was exorbitant and the security insufficient. We are therefore justified in assuming that seven yeare' purchaw will be regarded as a

fair price for holdings on many estates in the congested districts. We will take such an estate. We will take it that the tenant of a £10 a year holding bays for seven years' purchase on hia rental. If he bays under Lord Ashbourne's Act his aaaual instalments from the first will be interest at the rate of 4 per cent on his purchase money, £70 — that is to 9ay, only £2 16a a year. If he buys under the provisions of Balfour's Act, he will have for the first five years to pay an annual instalment of £8, or interest at the rate of nearly 10 per cent, on his purchase money. la one case he gets a redaction of £7 4s, ia the other of £2 a year. A careful consideration of these figures ought, we think, to dispose of the Act so far as the Irish tenant-farmer is concerned. The congested district provisions are really too silly to be serionsly discussed. As we have already shown, the insurance fraud presses harder and harder, the more worthless the land and the poorer the tenants. The philanthropic provisions seem to have been devised by children playing at legislation, or by their grandmother in her dotage. A philanthropic board of Castle-hacks and placehunters, setting up as retail dealers in seed, oats, and potatoes, and ascertaining before they sell a stone of either, n )t merely the tolvency, but the good faith of each individual purchaser, or regulating to the hour the period that a Connemara peasant may, with dae regard to public interest, permit his married son to reside in a separate house on his holding, are absurdities that mußt be met by ridicule not argument. The Bill is, as we have said, thoroughly bad. It will ba bad for both countries, if it passes. Bat it is jast passible it may prove to be a bad one only for its fraudulent promoters.