(Michael Davitt is the Pall Mall Gazette.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 214, 3 April 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

(Michael Davitt is the Pall Mall Gazette.)

Admiral Maxse's inquire what the ''abolition of landlordism in Ireland means." What landlordism means in this country may convey an idea of what is to be understood by our demand for its abolition. Until the land legislation of 1881, Irish landlordism meant rack-rent-ing under pain of eviction by a class which was divided (1) into absentees who cook millions of money every year out of Irelahd without expending anything therein, either for the beuertt of the tenant farmers or the improvement of the land which produced these millions ; md (2) resident landlords, who did little more for the material good of the people or the country than to collect their rents With the Laud Act now in operation, landlordism means tho exaction of the old rents, minus an average reduction of eighteen per cent., or about one-fifth of the total rental of Ireland, and the enforcement (less such voluntary abatement is an Irish landlord may choose to give him in times of great depression) of the remaining four-fifths of such rental— notwithstanding that the price of agricultural produce, out of which rent is paid, has depreciated 30 to 40 per cent, during the last few years. Irish landIprdism, past and present, means, in language once used by the London Times, "an institution which enforces its rights with a hand of iron and neglects its duties with a front of brass." It is the chief cause why the country is one of the poorest in Europe. It is also the parent of all our agrarian crime. Things Ciinnot last much longer as they are at present without bringing this country to social perdition and the landlords to bankruptcy. Laudlords cm not get impossible rents had they twenty empires at their back, and as many Coercion Acts to boot. Ireland cannot possibly quiut dowu or progress while landlordism, as we know it, is a constant incitation to disorder and lawlessness, and a paralysing influence upon the industnal resources of the country. The only remedy is to abolish the cause of tliL'se evils. Admiral Maxse asks me how this can be done. I reply, by some such scheme as that which " Economist" has recently put before the English public. An Arbitration Commission would be necessary to determine what would be an equitable compensation for the expropriation of the landlords. To have the decisions of this Commission such as would be accepted as satisfactory on both sides of the Channel, it should be composed of tn equal Irish and English representation. The value of the landlord's interest decided upon according to its market price, the purchase could be made in the manner advocated by " Economist, I ' and the future administration of the land made over to the Irish State, which would then be the only landlord, not in the sense in which a rackrenting abrentee or anti-Irish resident ownor is a landlord, but in the sense of a national stewardship of the soil for the benefit of the entire community. The rent charge upon the laud could be adjusted to what would be required for the civil administration of the country, while the interest upon the Irish national debt which would be contracted in the buyint! out of the landlords could be paid out of of the same sources which now supply Ireland's contributions to the Imperial Exchequer. I am firmly convinced that this is the only way in which the agrarian war can be ended in Ireland. Any scheme that seeks to make a tenant pay a yearly charge which is to provide interest on money borrowed for the purchase of his farm, as well as to repay the loan in a giveu number of years, will overtax his means, while he is handicapped by external competition. What Irish tenants absolutely, and in justice require, is a moderate rent charge which will give | them some hope iv life of bettering ! their social condition. This tax, levied by a sympathetic Irish state, for the administrative needs of their native land would be willingly paid by the tenants. " Where is the money for the carryiug out of such » scheme " to come from ? Suppose a beginning is made with the land occupied by the most hard pressed tenautry. It is in connection with this portion of the soil that the entire agrarian crime of the country is committed. Let us assume that the annual rental of this land is £5,000,000. At, say, ten years purchase it would require £30,000.000 to buy out the owners. This is a trifling sum compared with the value of the conditiou of things which would follow from the abolition of so much of Irish landlordism. The interest upon this sum would be no heavy charge upon the resources of a self-governed Ireland. (Mr Gladstone's scheme, involves the expenditure of £20 i,OO0,O00) If Admiral Maxse thinks that ten years' purchase is too low a figure for the interest of Irish landlords, he must take another standard of value than the market price, as well as include in the landlords' interest that of the tenant-farmer.

' Tramp—" Plea.-c, sir, will you buy this ring? I am starviug. It is my wife's riug — I " (breaks down md bursts into tear*). Gentlemttn (indignantly)—" You lying rascal! I bought your wifeN wedding xing from you only last week to -live you from starvation. You are an impostor!" Tramp--" Not at all, sir. This belongs to my second wife ; I was married again last Monday." Thkvt had had a little party of guests at the house, and he remarked to bis wife, after they had left, that be fluttered himself that he had noted the part of hoot in rather a brilliant manner. <C I can only recall one brilliant aortcti of yours." ahe»afd. " What was that i" ♦'lighting the ga»."