TRUTH ON THE PURCHASE BILL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 10, 4 July 1890, Page 7

TRUTH ON THE PURCHASE BILL.

It is well that it should be made clear what we are buying in Ireland, and what price we are paying for it. In Mr. Gladstone's Purchase Bill 20 per cent, was taken off the rent for cost of management, landlords' rates, bad debts, etc., as the basis for purchase. One-half of the Irißh tenants have not yet had their rents reduced in the Land Courts. The average reduction is 20 per cent. Mr. Balfour takes no count of the probable -reduction, and he reduces Tent for his estimate by 4 per cent, (the landlords' rates) instead of 20 per cent. — Moreover, he allows two years' arrears to be added to the purchase price. Let us suppose that twenty years' purchase is given for a holding, now rented at £100. The purchase price, including the two years' arrears, would be £2,140. But when the rent has been redaced in the Land Court, and when cost of management, etc., is deducted, the real rental would be £60. The landlord, therefore, in reality receives thirty-five and a half years' purchase on what is the actual annual value of his estate to him, Having paid this excessive amount in cash, we proceed to sell the land for the same amount on credit— a credit that is to extend over forty-nine years. But who can say that there will not be a fall in the prices of produce in the next fifteen years equivalent to the fall in the last fifteen years? In estimating the result of a fall, we must remember that, if produce falls 10 per cent., rent, to remain the same burden and no more, must be reduced by at least double, even though full allowance be made for the portion of the produce consumed by the occupier and for the lower cost that he pays for material. " Oh, but produce cannot fall," is the answer. Precisely the same answer would have been made fifteen years ago. Ireland is a grazing country. Its produce is in the main live stock. People do not seem to be aware of the enormous extension of the dead meat importation which will take place when the trade is thoroughly organised. My own impression is that a fall in the price of Irish agricultural produce is certain. The fact is that there is no economical ralue in land as a national investment for agricultural enterprise, unless the Und be very favourably situated. Land in England does not produce in rent 3 per cent, on the money sunk in it by the landlord. In Ireland all this expenditure has been incurred by the tenant, and is recognised by the law as his propErty. If, therefore, we pay the Irish landlords 160 millions for their land, we are paying this sum for what is, at most, worth ten millions. One hundred and fifty millions goes into their pockets as compensation for the right to extort a rent above tbat charged for the same article in England by English landlords. Their freehold is a freehold m extoriion, just as the freehold which the Government proposes to confer on the publicans is a freehold in an exclusive right to provide the public with spirituous liquors.— One swindle is precisely on a pax with the other swindle and

both swindles are to be perpetrated at the cost of the British taxpayer. Party politics aside, it surpasses my understanding that any British Government should have brought in the Irish Purchase Act, or that any British Parliament shoald have voted for it. If we are to reduce rentß by the guarantee of thirty-three millions, it follows that we shall have to apply the same rule to all Irish rents, and, therefore, the guarantee means 160 millions. This, indeed, is so clear that it was not denied by any Government speaker during the debate od the second reading of the Bill. Why are we to incur this vast liability ? Mr. Gladstone, it is true, coupled Home Rule with a Land Purchase Bill, as a final settlement of the Irish difficulty. 1 thought this a mistake, and the electorates concurred in this view almost unanimously. Mr. Balfour baa explained that he does not think that his scheme will render the Irish better affect id towards English rule in Ireland. The issue, he says, is not a political one, but a financial one. In this latter aspect, however, there is positively nothing to be Baid for it. If the Irish are paying too high rentß, we have already acted upon the principle that they ought to be reduced without compensation. If they are not paying too high rents, why are we to enable them to pay rents below >alue? It is said that it is desirable to create a vast number of peasant proprietors in Ireland. Possibly. But why in Ireland more than in England ? It is said that, haying established dual ownership, this creates such difficulties, that the only way out of them is to revert to single ownership, by making the occupier the owner. What difficulties 1 No one has ever vouchsafed an explanation. An Irish tenant has fixity of tenure. He has compensation for all improvements if he gives up his farm. A Lmd Court decides whether his rent is fair or the reverse. His only grievance can be either that the Land Court decides unfairly, or that he cannot obtain a decision owing to his being encumbered with unpaid arrears. If this view be correct, we might make everything smooth by seeing that the Land Court decisions are fair, and by dealing in some way with the arrears. It is not necessary for us to buy the entire freehold of Ireland with cash, and then to resell it on credit. This is <ibout as absurd as it would be to set a town on fire because some of its inhabitants feel cold. Single ownership and peasant proprietorship may be a better system than that now established in Ireland. But, assuming that this be so, is the advantage over the present system so enormous that it is worth incurring a liability of 160 millions to effect it ? From the Irißh standpoint the scheme is a ruinous one. Ireland could not stand the drain of its entire rents passing over to England. Yet that this must be the case is certain, for a Government security bearing a low rate of interest always gravitates to a centre of wealth. The salus pepuli principle would, therefore, oblige Ireland to repudiate if its inhabitants did not wish to be financially bled to death, whilst the dread of this repudiation would be urged as a plea against granting Home Rule.