OUR IRISH LETTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 21, 21 May 1903, Page 9

OUR IRISH LETTER.

(From our own correspondent.) Dublin, March, 1903 Land Legislation.

Kaiely has thei c been a time of such intense general interest and anxious expectancy as we have passed through Willnn the last month since it became known that the Chiel Secretary, Mr. Wyndham, intended to bring in his .Lund Purchase JJill on the 25th of March, on Lady Day, which is, cutiou&ly enough, the spring-gale or rent-day ot the Irish fanners. Every man and woman in Ireland having any interest in the country looked forward to the morning of the 26th, when all would know the late of the peasantry who have made as brave a struggle for life in thenown land as ever a people made. .Every Irish member of Parliament, every Irish landowner who could be present was in his place in Parliament to hear the Chief Secietary's speech in proposing the Bill, and the pooiestman in the community at home found the puce ol a newspaper next morning. Many weeks belore this reaches you, the cablegrams will have given you all the details of this long-lookedr for and most momentous Bill, a Bill so long due and which, it was hoped, would be of such ample scope as would make some amends for many disappointments, would realise the hopes so long deferred, would, in lact, be, not just, for in the present state of England's war budget it would be impossible to repay the hundreds of millions of over-taxation that have been drawn from Ireland for Imperial purposes, but a Bill that would Rive peaceful ownership and comparative comfort to the peasantry and at the same tune satisfy the natural desire of the out-going landlords not to be losers by tho bargain. 1 do not pretend to understand all the intricacies of the proposed scheme, all that I can clearly see is that the Bill (upon which so many national hopes weic built) is a Landlords' Bill , that unless the Irish Parliamentaiy Patty persuade the Government to reconsider and amend its principal clauses, it is such as could not be accepted r>y the nation, save at the cost of hanging a millstone round the fanners' necks for two generations to come and loading their pockets with stones for ever and amen An>one can see, with halt an e.ve, that the landowners, at least the smaller owners, aie more than pleased, aie astonished at the terms ofiei ed them, even though they Irv haul to hide their smiles, for, as you doubtless aheadv I .novv , the owneis of snia'll estates come under the eategoiy of scllei s who get a bonus of 15 per cent , while the laige estates of high value will only hi ing their owners a 5 per cent, share of the inducing bonus, and as the (Jovernnient absolutely refuses (so lar) to make sale compulsory the \eiv men whose estates, divided out, would piove the greatest boon to the many aie the men who, m all probability, w ,11 not sell at all It is a pity the Covet nnient did not make a biu, honest effort instead of peddling, lor peddle it is, as things stand now, and, great as js the sell-connnand the people are exercising, though there is something like the hush of a grief or a disappointment too gieat to be expressed, still it is e\ ident that disappointment is the geneial feeling l!owe\er, beloie aciv many days are over, the National Convention called to consider the Bill will be held in Dublin, and the interval will give the Irish people time to con over, to consider to mutually advise upon this momentous crisis The Irish peasant i.v aie an "intellitM-nt people and a uih' people, as Mr John Redmond said m Ins speech on the mtioduction of Mr W>nd,ham's Bill, and they will not decide unwisely at that Convention as to the course to be pursued. Of a ceitamty, if the clauses lav ing down the pi ice to be paid.by the faimeis, the time — H9 years — to be consumed m that payment, the additional sum to be paid in [Cipetuity (the eiuhth of the purchase money, when a pepi er< orn would serve the purposes °f the ieserve)and the scale of bonuses given to owneis as inducements to sell, if those clauses be not materially altered it will go haid with the Irish fanners in the future should they now. in their longme for peace and secuiitv, consent to buy at such a price. There is little happiness in owning the i oof over your head if \ou have iringrv childien beneath that loof. The childien will still go iinav to the free lands and send home more and moie cat lie and coin to heat ('own still lower the prices at home Yes 1 , it )s a pity Mr \V\ nrihiim was not more coniageous Both Fnt>land and Ti eland were piepared for his being so ITe had a magnificent opportunity. Land Values A book that is not mal a propos of this land purchase (Question has lust been published It is hv Mr Ridei Haggaid, who has spent three years studying the subiect of the depre(iation of Lmd \alurs in England The result of Mr Itider ITaggaid's in\ est iga t ions is startling and U strikes the Tush mind that it wojild be instructive reading for both English and liish Tory landlords, law officials, etc , etc , who still permit themselves to call the Irish peasant 'n man of picdatory habits.' and so on The statistics contained in MiRider Haggard's book are long and dismal, and if

statesmen who have gone to the next world still know of and take an interest in terrestrial matters, one would give a good deal to know John Bright's and Mr Gladstone s opinion of the outcome of Free Trade, supposing these gentlemen to be permitted still to keep an eye upon their lavonte children here below. Taking a few examples of the fall of land values in rural England, briefly, we learn that — 6 In Dorsetshire, famous for its dairy products, rents have fallen in the measure given in the following taliles : 1860-1870. 1900. H) 870 foO (U) 750 250 (3) 450 240 Total £.2070 £890 Reduction, 1870 to 1900, 52 per cent. Wiltshiie, chiefly tillage and sheep farming. Rents on arable farms — 1870-1875. 1900. (1) 2600 825 (2) 1500 600 (3) 2000 400 (4) 800 250 Totals £6900 £2075 Reduction since 1870, 70 per cent. And the same startling figures are given for the other counties, while the reduction in the selling price of farms is even gi eater throughout the entire of rural England. Irish History ' as she is Wrote.' We hear incessantly of ' higher education ' nowadays, so much so that many people are evidently falling into a way of believing that young people are now endowed with far deeper, broader, finer intellects than were those ot a generation, or any generation back, and have not to learn the A. B.C. of knowledge in the self same way that their forefathers did. They jump into knowledge, as it were, and are, or aro supposed to be, profound at an age when the miserable little boys and gitls of long ago played marbles, .rolled hoops, and talked to dollies. At times, though, some of us get shocks. The other day 1 took up a volume of English. History, a histoiy in use in a boys' college. A page fell open at the following lucid and eminently instructive summing up of an agonising penod in Irish modem history :—: — ' '1 he year 1847 was also marked by great distress both in England and liejand. The potato crop again failed theie was a famine in Ireland ; and, though tho Btitish Pailiament voted j-overal millions to buy food for the starving Irish, they nevertheless rose in rebellion. O'Lonnell had now \anished from the scone, and Mr William Smith O'Bnen, who attempted to sustain his pait had noi the requisite qualities for it. 1 1 is attempt to excite a lebclhon m 18-4H proved a ridiculous failure: he was captured m a cabbage garden, convicted of high tieason. and transported The Irish, being deprived of then principal agitators, by degi ees settled down into a moie tranquil state A large emigration, the introduction ol a more extended corn-cultivation and the investment of a large amount of English capital have siiue much improved tlv condition of the country ; and thus the potato tot, which at first appeared a curse- on inland, eventually tinned out a blessing ' Iheie are men and women vet living, at home and in the colonies, who know something of the real history of Black '1H But is it any wonder that the English, as a nation, cannot realise the whys and wherefores of Irish discontent and Irish agitation, when it is thus the history of one ol the most terrible periods of our nation's stoiy is told .Strange, that the Irish have never yet come to see the blessing of the potato iot and of all the horiois that came in its wake, that still oppress our people It has been remarked that never since '48 have the Itish laughed so merrily as they used to do before the famine 1 once asked a thoughtful farmer why were not the country people so gay and light-hearted as they weie said to be long ago. ' I think,' he said, ' it's because their notheis wero all young in the famine times and t lie soriow that struck into their hearts then has descended, m a manner, on their children.' M.B.