THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 620, 8 January 1870, Page 2

THE IRISH LAND QUESTION.

The special correspondent of the Thnes, in a few well chosen words, gives us, in illustrating the plan pursued by Lord Bessborough, the key, as it were to an equitable settlement of the question of tenant right :■?-" As Lord Bessborough manages his estate for the most part upon the English plan, so he does not permit the Irish custom of the sale of the. goodwill of farmß to grow up, and he retains dominion over his property. What are the lessons which a reflecting mind will derive from observing this prosperous, scene 1 In the first place, it will be noticed how, by a singular humane process, a landlord has been gradually enabled to change the character of his estate, and to transform if from one of an Irish type to one, to a great extent at least, modelled on a modern English patern. Lord Bessborough has not expatriated his tenantry j he has retained the system of small holdings ; yet he has preserved property without serious loss through the ordeal of a social revolution, and he has largely added to its essential value. In the second place, as during the last tweniv years, he has, either by direct expend: ture or by liberal allowances for them effected most of the improvements on his estate, he has in a great measure at least,, excluded the equity in this respect which, his tenants otherwise would have in his lands, and he has not permitted his freehold ownership to be eaten away by a tenant-right which practically would leave him only a rent charge. He has thus not only, with infinite pains, put his proper*: v into good order, but he has a fair right v call it his own in an exact and legitima:^ sense, disencumbered, certainly in a gre;u degree, from most of those infinite clairrs which form the grand difficulty of t>.& Irish Land Question." The Dublin Irishman has an article on "Hanging Bid Landlords," in which it is said :— "If &hy one is capable of giving us a correct interpretation of British law, it is a British Minister. A very distinguished British Minister [Lord Clarendon], then, has sail that the landlord who plunders his tenants of their improvements is guilty of felon? Now this being accepted, the followhV syllogism, we take it, is unimpeachable in point of law : — lt is lawful to resist : felon : A plundering landlord 13 a felau : Therefore, it is lawful to resist a plundering landlord. This is clearly pure logic. But the case may be explored still further. The bad landlord, when he comes £•* plundering, no more than another felon, ■will be put off by remonstrances. It is lawful, then, to oppose force to forge, to,

repel the plunderer by force of arms, to protect one's property from the felonious attack, even at the risk of the felon's life ? So holds the law. A late instance was decided in Cork. A man entered a genJJeman's house at Blackrock, and re"quested his gun. The gentleman shot him, believing his life was in danger, in protecting his property. The jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide, the judge having carefully explained that this verdict was authorised by law. Here, then, the syllogism may run thus : — It is lawful to shoot a felon, if the victim in protecting his property believes his life imminently endangered by the felon's attack. The plundering landlord is a felon. Therefore, it is lawful to shoot a plundering landlord, if the victim in protecting his improvements— his property — believes his life imminently endangered by the felon landlord's attack." Mr Heron, Q.C., has issued his address to the electors of Tipperary. He says : — "As to the land question, there must be an end of all paltering with the subject. It is the vital question as regards the existence of the Irish nation. The Irish tenant should have the absolute property in his improvement of the land, and fixity of tenure. These measures, with a protection against the capricious increase of rent, will give the Irish tenant tenantright, political independence, and security for the fruits of industry." At the Bandon agricultural dinner held at Cork on October 19, Lord Bandon stated that the Times' Commissioner was quite misto the condition of the country Xl the relations of landlord and tenant. He believed that landlords and tenants were on the best and kindliest term?, and that no grievances existed. He also asserted that the county was prosperous.