Irish Land League

“ The land system needed reforming; the condition of the tenant was only humanly endurable in years of good harvest. The three years from 1876 to 1879 were years of successive bad harvests. ... Mr. Davitt had been in America, planning out a land organization, and had returned to Ireland to carry out his plan. Land meetings were held in many parts of Ireland, and in October Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, Mr. Patrick Egan, and Mr. Thomas Brennan founded the Irish National Land League, the most powerful political organization that had been formed in Ireland since the Union. ”

“ By the end of 1882 the Land League was reconstructed under the name of the National League. The new organization, of which 'United Ireland' was the especial organ, gradually established branches from one end of Ireland to the other. Strong as the provisions of the Crimes Prevention Act were, no attempt was made to bring the new society under its operation. The columns of 'United Ireland,' on the other hand, bore plenty of evidence of a disposition to move on. The Irish farmers were reproachfully asked if they were content with a paltry reduction of rent. ”

“ Parnell seemed at first reluctant to extend the land movement to the whole of Ireland, but he was easily convinced of the necessity. In October 1879 the National Land League of Ireland was founded at a convention in Dublin, and Parnell was chosen president. The league announced the two-fold aim of bringing about a reduction of rackrents and of promoting the transference of the ownership of the land to the occupiers. A manifesto, addressed by the executive to the Irish race, appealed for support for the league on these terms. ”

“ All the evictions have since been carried out, and the Land Corporation men are at work upon the estate! Whom has all this advantaged? The tenants?—Certainly not. The O’Grady?—Certainly not. The peace and order of Ireland?—Certainly not. But it has given the National League another appeal to the intelligent “sympathies” of England and America. It has strengthened the revolutionary element in Irish society. It has “driven another nail into the coffin” of Irish landlordism and of the private ownership of land throughout Great Britain. ”

“ He gave the country some watchwords that can never be forgotten, as when he told the farmers to "Keep a firm grip of your homesteads!" followed by the equally energetic exhortation: "Hold the harvest!" They were his Orders of the Day to his Irish army. Then came the No-Rent Manifesto, the suppression of the Land League after only twelve months' existence, Kilmainham and its Treaty, and the Land Act of 1881, which I can speak of, from my own knowledge, as the first great forward step in the emancipation of the Irish tenant farmer. ”

“ If its baneful influence upon the social economy of Ireland has been marked with general ruin to that country, its effects upon the attitude of the Irish people towards English law and supremacy—the support of which was contemplated as the chief end of landlordism when introduced into Ireland—have been scarcely less emphatic in their results. A system that is made to supplant another belonging to a subjugated people must possess two qualities that are essential to the permanency of all institutions substituted for those that are abrogated by a dominant power. ”

“ When the Land League, aided fearfully by the famine, began its agitation, its timeliness and force were acknowledged by all Irish parties. The Home Rulers virtually subsided, giving the newcomers their place. The Revolutionists looked on with unfriendly eyes, at first fearing that the land movement, which only aimed at a detail, would distract attention from the National idea. But as they watched, they saw that the new agitation was raising the farmers and tradesmen into activity, and after a time the Land League was left alone in the field to work out its purpose as best it could. ”

“ For the best interests of Ireland it must not be done.
"But," it will be said by some Irishmen, "the Land League means to abolish rent altogether." It means no such thing. It has never said so, nor has it ever so intended. Such a proposition is absurd, so far at least as the present Irish question is concerned. It is a social theory which no country has yet accepted. No sensible person expects poor Ireland, struggling for very life, to voluntarily burden herself also with a socialistic mill-stone that would probably sink the United States. ”

“ Butt, a man of social sensibility and refinement, unfitted for an aggressive part. The agitation under Parnell combined agrarianism with repeal, thus giving the political part of the movement a hold upon the people and a force and a formidable extension in Ireland which by itself it had never had. The Land League, becoming the National League, almost supplanted the queen’s government in Ireland. ”

“ Without the organized lawlessness of the Land League it would have been equally impossible to bring about those more drastic changes in Irish land tenure which, amidst storms of protest from vested interests affected, were initiated under the great Land Act of 1881, and, after another miserable decade of crime and secret conspiracy, extended by the Acts of 1887, 1891, and 1896. ”

“ The Encumbered Estates Act, which had completed the ruin of many of the older proprietors, pressed, in some respects, even more severely upon the tenants, a large number of whom found themselves confronted with new purchasers, who, having invested in Irish land merely as a speculation, had little other interest in it. In 1850 an attempt at a union of North and South was made, and a Tenant League Conference assembled in Dublin. Of this league the remnants of the "Young Ireland" party formed the nucleus, but were supplemented by others with widely different aims and intentions. ”

“ Sir James Stephen, a man of acute discriminations, who has done more justice to the Irish problem than any one else, wrote:—
'The great difficulty the Land League and the National League have had to contend with is that of hindering the neighbouring farmers, peasants, and labourers from frustrating the strike against rent by taking up vacant farms, however they came to be vacant. ”

“ Yet even here I found civilised people who regard the proposed College Green Parliament with undisguised aversion. Not the inhabitants, but Irish tourists, bent on exploring the wildest and remotest nooks of their native land, among them a Dublin barrister, whose critical analysis of the powers proposed to be entrusted to the unscrupulous and self-seeking promoters of the Land League may prove useful and interesting to non-legal English readers. ”

“ The Irish protested against this being added to tithes of the Earl of Aberdeen, the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Tenants' Defense League.—This was an offshoot of the suppressed Land League, and Irish National League. It was formed after the latter was suppressed by Balfour's Coercion Act of 1887. The object of this league was to defend the tenant farmers against tyrannical landlords, and to obtain the land for the people at just rents. This league was announced by Parnell and William O'Brien in July of 1888. ”

“ One argument remains to be noticed which the opponents of Home Rule urge as absolutely condemnatory of the measure, whereas, if properly weighed, it is conclusive in its favour. Home Rule, they say, is a mere question of sentiment. "National aspirations" are the twaddle of English enthusiasts who know nothing of Ireland. What is really wanted is the reform of the Land Law. Settle the agrarian problem, and Home Rule may be relegated to the place supposed to be paved with good intentions. The Irish will straightway change their character, and become a law-abiding, contented, loyal people. ”

“ Amidst all the troubles of the present movement, and in face of the opprobrium that has been heaped upon Ireland by its enemies in this country, there have not been wanting generous and justice-loving Englishmen who could brave the storm of popular prejudice in defence of the cause of the Land League and its leaders. ”

“ The landlord system of Ireland is being rapidly abolished; the great estates are being divided into small farms and sold to the men who till them. The agricultural lands of Ireland will soon be occupied by a population of independent farm owners instead of rent-paying tenants.
The Agricultural Department is furnishing practical instructors to teach the farmers how to make the most profitable use of their land and labor, how to improve their stock, and how to produce better butter, pork, and poultry. ”

“ It follows that every dairy farmer in Ireland is not only interested in seeing that every farmer in his district forwards the best butter he can produce, but he is also concerned to see that farmers in other districts do the same. The ownership of the land by the occupier, which has been brought about by legislation, will not of itself give the Irish farmer the prosperity he hopes for. It is not only the farms, but the habits of the people upon the land which need improvement. ”

“ This is a mode in which private capital may be employed in renovating the social and agricultural economy of Ireland, not only without sacrifice but with considerable profit to its owners. The remarkable success of the Waste Land Improvement Society, which proceeded on a plan far less advantageous to the tenant, is an instance of what an Irish peasantry can be stimulated to do, by a sufficient assurance that what they do will be for their own advantage. It is not even indispensable to adopt perpetuity as the rule ”

“ The pressure of competition is so great—as is natural in a country in the greater part of which there is no other employment or industry than that of agriculture—that, very large sums, often far in excess of the value of the land, measured by any standard of productive capacity are paid for the mere right to occupy. Again, the nature of the land, in large parts of Ireland, is such as to prevent owners from working it on the English system of equipped farms. ”

“ If "patriot" members had to live on the voluntary offerings of their constituencies, the trade would expire of inanition. The members would return to their bogs, their tripe shops, their shebeens, and patriotism would become a lost art. Irishmen will applaud with enthusiasm. They like a red-hot patriotic speech. But, like the crowd listening to the harp and fiddle at the street corner, they begin to shuffle off when the bag comes round.
Irish land hunger is easy to understand and simple to define. The bulk of the population are agricultural, and closely wedded to custom. ”

“ Land holding in Ireland remained largely based on the tribal system of open fields and common tillage for nearly eight hundred years after collective ownership had begun to pass away in England. The sudden imposition upon the Irish, early in the seventeenth century, of a land system which was no part of the natural development of the country, ignored, though it could not destroy, the old feeling of communistic ownership, and, when this vanished, it did not vanish as it did in countries where more normal conditions prevailed. ”

“ The people of Ireland are to-day without a national policy. The splendid Land League organization goes on grinding, but it is not grinding toward nationality. Its great-hearted work for the present winter is to protect the evicted families of farmers who refuse to pay rent because England has outraged even her own laws. But Ireland cannot go on forever fighting with all her forces against a minor evil. If she go on for six months longer, England will open her eyes to her opportunity, and bind Ireland in new hemp by the sale of the country to the farmers. ”

“ I have a theory that, in England as well as in Ireland, the proprietors of the soil are chiefly responsible for whatever bad legislation has been inflicted upon us. The ownership of land confers more political power than the possession of any other description of property. The Irish landowners have been willing parties to the past legislation for Ireland, and they have also had the administration and execution of the laws in that country. The encumbered condition of landed property in Ireland is at this moment the most pressing question. ”

“ Under the various purchase Acts over 180,000 Irish farmers have become the owners of their holdings, thanks to over one hundred millions of public money advanced on Imperial credit for the purpose. The first task of a Unionist government, when again in power, must be the resumption of this policy of State-aided land-purchase—the only completely and unquestionably successful and pacifying piece of agrarian legislation in the history of English rule in Ireland. ”

“ The time for that struggle must be selected by us and not by England; but one must not forget that our hand may be forced in spite of all our endeavours; and it therefore behoves us to commence stirring up our people in America now. I think the Land League has now money enough for present purposes, and that the state of things prevailing in Ireland demands that all money that can be got from our people here should be devoted to revolutionary purposes. ”

“ When contending forces are aiming for the approval and support of the people who are to be benefited by the outcome of the contest, it is only natural to expect that whoever gives to or secures most for the people will gain most in their regard. Admitting, what no one can deny, that England must be a factor in any settlement of the land question that takes place, so long as England's authority is dominant in Ireland, the selection of land systems must be determined by their relative merits as such, and their respective adaptability to the genius and requirements of our people. ”