The leaders of the Conservative Party, when confronted with this situation, determined that their duty, in accordance with the spirit of the Act of Union, demanded some use of the resources of a joint exchequer for ministration to the peculiar needs of Ireland. They decided that the credit of the State should be employed to effect the abolition of dual-ownership by converting the occupiers of Irish farms into owners of the soil. Let it be granted that this policy had been advocated by John Bright and enshrined in the Land Law Acts of 1870 and 1881. It must be added that these pious intentions remained a "dead letter" until adequate machinery for giving them effect was provided by the Land Purchase Acts, commonly called the Ashbourne Acts, of 1885 and 1889. The method pursued was as follows. Any individual landlord could agree with any individual tenant on the price which he would accept for the extinction of his interest in that tenant's holding. The State facilitated the transaction by advancing that amount to the landlord in cash whenever the holding offered sufficient security, and accepting from the tenant an undertaking to pay an instalment of L4 a year for every L100 advanced over a period of forty-nine years. The instalment comprised L3 for interest, 2s. 6d. for expenses, and 17s. 6d. for sinking fund. The loan from the exchequer was secured against individual failures to pay by the realisable value of the holdings.

The salient features in this procedure were that the landlord received cash and that the tenant paid interest at the then existing rate on Consols, viz. 3 per cent. Both these features are important. A payment in cash, or its equivalent, is preferable for such transactions to a payment in stock, with a fluctuating value, because, if the stock appreciates the landlord gets more than he bargained for, and this, by arousing the suspicions of other would-be tenant-purchasers, produces a disinclination on their part to buy. Again, if the stock depreciates, the landlord cannot carry out contemplated redemptions of mortgages on his property, and this produces a disinclination on the part of other landlords to sell. In the second place it is difficult to persuade Irish tenants that the State is assisting them if they, the poor, are asked to pay higher interest for the State's credit than the State pays for the credit of the rich. The chief defect in this procedure lay in its restriction to separate bargains in respect of single holdings. It made a patchwork, whereas the untoward results of the historic and economic causes on which I have touched demanded the wholesale treatment of convenient areas.

Under these Acts, in the course of six years, more than 27,000 tenants became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to over L10,000,000. The largest number of applications for purchase in any one year was 6,195 for L2,271,569 in 1887, and the average price for all the holdings bought under these Acts was L396.

When the sums provided by the Ashbourne Acts were exhausted, Mr. Arthur Balfour carried the Act of 1891, subsequently amended by the Act of 1896. Under these Acts the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash. The tenant still paid an instalment of L4, which was, ultimately, divided into L1 5s. for sinking fund and L2 15s. for interest. This large sinking fund, L1 5s. instead of 17s. 6d., was retained after interest had been reduced to the rate on Consols, 2-3/4 per cent., chiefly to avoid a discrepancy in the total of annual instalments as between purchasers under the Act of 1891 and purchasers under the Ashbourne Acts. Difficulties were feared if the earlier purchasers were to pay L4 and the later purchasers only L3 15s. for each L100 advanced, so the spare five shillings was put in the sinking fund. This speculative difficulty was afterwards discounted in order to deal with one of a more practical character. Under Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act of 1881, which dealt with rent-fixing, statutory rents were revised every fifteen years, and the second term rents, beginning in 1896, seemed certain to reveal considerable reductions on the rents payable during the first period. It was felt that the security for the earlier advances would be endangered if rents throughout Ireland fell below the level of the purchase-instalments, and that purchase would be retarded if the purchaser did not obtain immediate relief by agreeing to buy. To meet this practical difficulty Mr. Gerald Balfour, in 1896, permitted the purchaser to write off the amount repaid by sinking fund during the first and two successive periods of ten years. These "decadal reductions" were optional. If the purchaser forewent them he paid L4 per L100, and extinguished his debt in 42-1/2 years. If he availed himself of them he paid L3 8s. 7d. per L100 after the first ten years, and continued to pay, with two further reductions in prospect, till the debt was extinguished in a period undefined, but estimated at about 72-1/2 years. But this privilege was made retrospective, so that purchasers under the Ashbourne Acts could also reduce their instalments of L4 to L3 11s. 10d.

The salient features in the procedure of the Acts of 1891 and 1896 were that, (1) the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash. But owing to the rise in the value of gilt-edged securities, Irish Land Stock, with a face value of L100, became at one moment worth as much as L114; (2) the purchaser's interest was at 2-3/4 per cent. i.e. the existing rate on Consols; but (3) his instalment, prospectively fined down by decadal reductions, enabled him to offer an acceptable price and yet pay far less to the State, by way of instalment, after purchase than was due to his landlord, by way of rent, before purchase. The operation of purchase was still confined, almost wholly, to single bargains. But in Mr. Arthur Balfour's Act of 1891 a new departure was authorised which, after development in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896, has led to important and far-reaching consequences. The Congested Districts Board was established to deal with scheduled areas in the West of Ireland that comprised a large number of holdings at once too limited in area, and too poor in soil, for any one of them to support a family by farming or to afford security to the State, under existing facilities for purchase, in the event of the occupier wishing to become the owner. A select committee of the House of Commons, so long ago as in 1878 (No. 249, pp. 4 and 5), when Disraeli was Prime Minister, had recommended that a properly constituted body should be empowered to purchase, not single farms, but whole estates, and to re-sell them after amalgamating, enlarging, and re-distributing what are now called "uneconomic" holdings. Provisions to this end had been inserted in earlier Acts, but, in the absence of administrative machinery and financial resources, they remained abortive. It had for long been evident that the small, impoverished holdings, which had supported a dense population before the famine, stood in need of fundamental remodelling if they were to support even a largely reduced population. The efforts made by wealthy Irish landlords in this direction were arrested by the Land Law Act of 1870 and rendered impossible by the Land Law Act of 1881. With the Purchase Acts of 1891 and 1896 a beginning was made.

Another feature must be noted. In addition to the value of any one holding, as a security against individual failure, a further security was provided against the risk of a combined refusal to repay. The Exchequer was empowered to retain grants due for various purposes in Ireland and to recoup itself in proportion to the defalcation in any county. It should be added that individual failures have been rare to the point of insignificance, and that no combined refusal has been attempted, or advocated, even during periods of agricultural unrest.

Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 in the course of just over twelve years more than 44,000 tenants became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to over L13,000,000. Here we must note that the success of these Acts coincided with, and depended on, a rise in the price of gilt-edged securities. The number of applications rose from 1503 in the year ending March 31, 1896, to 6911 in the year ending March 31, 1900. But, with the fall in the price of stock, land purchase showed signs of coming to a standstill. By 1902 it was evident that new legislation was needed, and in the next year the Irish Land Act of 1903 was carried.

The Irish Land Act of 1903 was not, as some suggest, a short cut to the millennium, evolved on the spur of the moment, and translated into fantastic finance. It had two bases, the one practical, the other moral. In the first place, it was founded on the ripe experience garnered during eighteen years from the operation of preceding purchase Acts. In the second place, it was founded on the historic agreement spontaneously arrived at in 1902 by accredited representatives of Irish landlords and tenants. They resolved that dual ownership ought to be abolished throughout Ireland, and that this primary policy should be accompanied by effective remedies for the uneconomic conditions prevalent in the West, but existing elsewhere, though sporadically, to a limited extent. This agreement, in itself unprecedented, was rendered the more remarkable by the fact that the signatories assumed the responsibility of telling the Government how the first object could be achieved. They advised that landlords could not be expected to sell, as a class, unless the price paid to them in cash would yield from sound securities 90 per cent. of their income in terms of a rent that had been twice revised under the Land Law Act of 1881; and that tenants could not be expected to buy, as a class, unless their instalments due to the Treasury after purchase were from 15 per cent. to 25 per cent. less than such rents so revised. They invited the Government to give effect to that agreement. The Government accepted and, in the Act of 1903, tendered the costly but, under the circumstances, not extravagant imprimatur of the Treasury on a political treaty thenceforward to be binding on all three contracting parties: landlords, tenants, and the State. The Nationalist members, as spokesmen for the tenants, and the representatives of the landlords, subscribed to the provisions offered, and the reports of the Estates Commissioners prove that these have been fulfilled so exactly that, in the case of second term rents, landlords and tenants have obtained average incomes and reductions that differ only by a decimal from the mean advocated at the Conference.

The objects of the Irish Land Act were, in conformity with the conclusions of the Conference, to abolish dual ownership rapidly and, at the same time, to deal systematically with "agricultural slums." Its salient features fall under four heads.

A. State assistance to voluntary bargaining. For this purpose it was provided that (1) cash payments should be resumed to the landlords; (2) that the tenants' instalments should be L3 5s. for each L100 advanced, divided into L2 15s. (2-3/4 per cent.) for interest and 10s. for sinking fund. This was not, as the able and well-informed special correspondent of the Times suggests (February 9, 1912) a sudden departure from an instalment of L4. "Decadal reductions" under the Act of 1896 had, as I have said, diminished the instalments of purchasers under the Act of 1891 to L3 8s. 7d. after ten years with further prospective diminutions, and subjected the instalments of purchasers under earlier Acts to a similar process. A wholesale expansion of purchase was impossible unless would-be purchasers were offered terms comparable to those accorded to their predecessors. For this reason the tenantry of Ireland were offered repayment at L3 5s. per L100 for a period of about 62 years, in lieu, under the Act of 1896, of repayment at L3 8s. 9d., with further reductions, for about 72-1/2 years, and their representatives accepted the offer. They would certainly have refused, and rightly, the offer substituted by Mr. Birrell in the Act of 1909, viz. an instalment of L3 10s. with the same sinking fund—10s.—and interest increased to L3. The third feature to be noted under this head is, that the terms agreed to by representatives of landlords and tenants at the conference could not be ratified unless the State added some help by way of cash to the assistance of its credit. It was agreed by all parties that L12,000,000 should be available to bridge the gap, at the rate of 12 per cent. on the amount advanced, with the right to revise that rate after five years, but only for the purpose of extending the bonus—as it was called—to all future transactions. It was an integral part of a solemn covenant that the bonus should not be diverted to any object other than the abolition of dual ownership and the remedy of "congestion."

B. The substitution of speedy purchase for dilatory litigation. To all members of the Conference of 1902 and of the House of Commons in 1903, with, I believe, the exception of Mr. Dillon, who was away in America while the Conference sat, it was evident that, if dual ownership was to be abolished, our choice was confined to two courses. We could, on the one hand, pursue, under the guise of purchase, the metaphysical and costly distinctions between landlord-right and tenant-right, which Mr. Gladstone had established under the guise of rent-fixing; or else, as the only alternative, we had "to cut the cackle" and get to business. Under this head the House of Commons—Mr. Dillon ingeminating dissent—decided in so far as landlords and tenants were concerned, two things: (1) It was agreed that where the tenant-purchaser's instalment, after purchase, was substantially less than his statutory rent revised at great cost—L140,000 a year for Land Courts—then, in those cases the State needed not to inquire at further cost and delay into either its own security in the holding, or the metaphysical distinction between value due to the landlord's ownership of the soil and value due to the tenant's improvement of the soil. This close approximation to unanimity will not surprise those who grasp that every landlord and tenant was to make a voluntary bargain on precisely those terms which the representatives of their classes had combined to obtain from the State. The alternative method of delay and litigation had been further discounted, for everybody except Mr. Dillon, by the fact that in the classic case—Adams v. Dunseath—tried out in accordance with Mr. Gladstone's panacea, Adams, after repeated lawsuits, improved his financial position by an infinitesimal sum per annum without becoming an owner of his farm. It was also agreed that the Estates Commissioners appointed to administer the Act, should be administrative officials under the Government, and not amateur judges. This was essential, not only to substitute cheap speed for costly delay, but also to ensure that the benefits offered by the State should not be absorbed, say, in the rich province of Leinster to the detriment of the poorer province of Connaught, or—for who knows what may happen in Ireland?—absorbed in the Home Rule province of Connaught to the detriment of the Unionist province of Ulster.

C. Dealing with Estates as a whole instead of with single holdings. This process, till then applied tentatively in the congested districts of the West, became the general method throughout Ireland, and was assisted by the provision of working capital for carrying out necessary amalgamations and improvements before resale.

D. Increase in the 'borrowing power and funds of the Congested Districts Board, for the purpose of dealing systematically with "agricultural slums."

The features of the Irish Land Act (1903), founded, as they were, on experience and the consent of all parties concerned, became widely popular in Ireland. But, by Mr. Birrell's Act of 1909, they were all distorted or destroyed. A solemn treaty, framed in the interest of Ireland, was torn up to deck with its tatters the triumph of Mr. Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury. The effect of this betrayal on the prospects of Irish agriculture will appear from a recital of the changes made by Mr. Birrell's Act, followed by a comparison of the results obtained under the two Acts. From that comparison I shall proceed to an examination of the reasons alleged for the breach of faith, and a statement of the Unionist party's pledge to continue their policy of 1903. I shall then conclude by inviting all who care for Ireland to weigh the prospects of Irish Agriculture under the Union against its prospects under Home Rule.

Changes made by the Act of 1909.—(1) Instead of cash payments landlords are to receive stock at three per cent. issued on a falling market, and this stock cannot appreciate because, owing to the embarrassment of Irish estates, about half of each issue must be thrown back on the market for the redemption of mortgages; a result fatal to land purchase and detrimental to the credit of the State. (2) Instead of paying L3 5s. per L100, tenants are to pay L3 10s. without any reduction in the period of repayment. The sinking fund remains at 10s. and the interest L3 is, for the first time since land purchase was attempted, placed at a higher rate than in the preceding Purchase Act, whilst the whole instalment of L3 10s. is raised, not only above the rate of the Act of 1903, but also above the rates, diminished by decadal reductions, of purchasers under still earlier Acts. This again, in view of these reductions and of periodic revisions of rent under the Land Law Act of 1881, is fatal to purchase. (3) The bonus of L12,000,000—on the application of which all parties agreed in 1903—was diverted from the unanimous policy of that year and brought in aid of Mr. Dillon's hobby, which all parties then rejected. Mr. Dillon is at liberty to rejoice over the ruin of one landlord more than over the salvation of 99,000 tenants. The laws of lunacy do not, and ought not to, touch him. But there is no reason why taxpayers should minister to his peculiar pleasure, with the result of postponing indefinitely any settlement of the Irish land question. (4) By reverting to inspection for security delay is substituted for speed, and speed is necessary in the conclusion of bargains that are themselves the result of prolonged negotiations; the more so when, as now, owing to the substitution of stock for cash, the seller cannot know what his bargain will turn out to be; and the buyer, owing to the block in agreements under the Act of 1903, cannot know when his bargain will take effect. In most cases it will not do so for from six to eight years, which must be added to the period of repayment, although his instalment has been increased. (5) The reversion to attempts at defining the metaphysical rights of the landlords and tenants revives the social poison of litigation of which, in 1903, every one but Mr. Dillon was weary. (6) The revival of litigation in respect of single holdings defeats the policy of dealing with convenient areas. (7) By transforming the Estates Commissioners, much I imagine to their disgust, from administrative officers into amateur judges, a further premium is put on litigation and delay, whilst the interests of one province as against the interests of another, are left without protection from the State. (8) Although more than half the holdings of Ireland are valued at less than L10 a year, a presumption is created that all holdings below that value are to be deemed "uneconomic." The whole of Connaught with the counties of Donegal and Kerry and part of County Cork are branded as "congested," and the Board, charged with conducting purchase in that area, is swollen to unmanageable size, whilst three commissioners are held sufficient for the rest of Ireland, which is twice as large.

To these eight changes, all inimical, and, as I believe, fatal to the abolition of dual ownership, two have been added of a more insidious effect. Compulsion has been adopted. This of itself checks voluntary purchase. It kills it when, as under this Act, compulsory purchases are to be paid for in cash and voluntary purchases in depreciated stock. Finally, the Act contemplates diverting the resources, applied under the treaty of 1903 to the abolition of dual ownership and the remedy of congestion, to a new purpose, for which Ireland can make no special claim. I mean the creation, over all Ireland, of new tenancies, to be sold to new men, who have never suffered from dual ownership or uneconomic conditions, and may be presumed to be ignorant of farming. This new policy amounts to a repeal of the policy sanctioned by all, viz. of giving special State aid to meet the peculiar needs of Ireland.

A comparison of the results obtained under the Acts of 1903 and 1909.—In order to gauge the respective efficacy of these two Acts for the purpose of abolishing dual ownership, it is necessary to distinguish between applications for purchase, and advances actually made in respect of completed transactions. The applications exhibit the comparative popularity and convenience of the two Acts. The advances exhibit only the readiness of the Government to proceed with purchase. They pertain to the financial, rather than the political, aspect of the problem, and may be examined later together with the reasons alleged for the delay of its solution. The fact of the delay appears from the following figures:—

Under the Irish Land Act (1903) the number of purchase agreements lodged in respect of direct sales by landlords to tenants was 217,299 in the course of less than six years from November 1, 1903, to September 15, 1909. To these should be added proposed purchasers in other categories, viz. in respect of estates sold to the Land Commission for subsequent re-sale, or to the Congested Districts Board, or in the Court of the Land Judge, or in respect of offers to evicted tenants. These bring the total of potential purchasers up to 248,109. Under the Act of 1909, in two years from December 3, 1909, to December 1, 1911, the number of applications in respect of direct sales stands at 8,992. In the other categories the number of potential purchasers amounted to 373 up to March 31, 1911. Since then tentative negotiations have been essayed, under the threat of compulsion and the menace of Home Rule, which suggest a far larger figure. But these transactions—to which I shall return—are of an eminently dubious character. We are on safe ground if we compare the number of tenants who were ready under the two Acts to acquire their holdings. After discounting whatever may be claimed on the score that the operation of the Act of 1903 was expedited by the fear of its destruction, a comparision of 217,299 would-be purchasers in six years with 8,992 in two years demonstrates that the abolition of dual ownership has been thrown back to the conditions which called for the Treaty of 1903. Furthermore, it is proper to discount, in turn, even the meagre total of 8,992. For it includes the remainders of estates, other parts of which had been sold under the Act of 1903 and the spurt of applications expedited, in this case, by the revolution of last August. To the over-sanguine and the over-timid this seemed to foreshadow the rapid passage of Home Rule, and, bad as are the terms of the Act of 1909, they are estimated to be better than any obtainable after the Union has been thrown on the scrap-heap of the Constitution. One other comparison may be noted. It was part of the Treaty of 1903 that landlords should be encouraged to remain in their native land by assistance in the repurchase of their demesnes—that is, homes—after selling their properties. Under the Act of 1903 the advances on resale to owners sanctioned by the Land Commission numbered 205. Under the Act of 1909 they number two.

It will readily be inferred, even by those unacquainted with Ireland; that a process for healing ancient wounds has been turned into a process for exasperating future conflicts. A blister has been substituted for a poultice on the sores of centuries. Existing agreements are blocked. Future agreements—for this is their appropriate, if cynical—designation, are relegated to a future which few can foresee. Landlords who have contracted to sell are threatened with bankruptcy by the foreclosure of mortgages. Tenants who have contracted to buy see their hopes deferred with sick hearts. Whilst to owners and occupiers who have not completed their bargains "no hope comes at all." The newly won prosperity of Ireland is doomed because the Nationalist party and British Government have not kept faith; and with prosperity peace is departing. The environment that breeds agrarian disorder and crime has been restored, and agitators, in expectation of Home Rule, are already at "their dirty work again." A new plan of campaign menaces the peace of Ireland in those districts whose past records are most darkly stained.

Examination of the reasons alleged for tearing up the Treaty of 1903.—The Government defended their reversal of the policy of 1903, and departure from their pledges to carry out that policy, by making two assertions. They asserted (1) that the size of the problem, which all parties undertook to solve, would exceed by far the speculative estimate put forward in 1903; (2) that the credit of the British Exchequer, which they have depressed, would prove unequal to the burden foreshadowed by the new dimensions, which they have assigned. (1) Size of the problem. The first assertion, that much nearer L200,000,000 than L100,000,000 must be borrowed in order to complete purchase, is based on two assumptions explicitly stated in the Return presented to Parliament (Cd. 4412 of 1908) as follows: "It will be observed that the purchase money of the agricultural land not yet brought before the Commissioners for sale under the Land Purchase Acts has been estimated on the assumption that it will be all sold and that it will be sold on an average at the price for which lands had been sold up to 30th April last, under the Irish Land Act (1903)." The assumptions on which the Government proceeded are not, therefore, in doubt, but the validity of those assumptions, on which the whole case of the Government depends, is refuted by the ascertained facts of Irish agriculture. The census shows that the number of agricultural holdings in Ireland is about 490,000, including nearly 19 million acres. The whole area of Ireland includes some 21 million acres, apportioned to 3-1/2 million acres under crops, 6 million acres of waste, and 11-1/2 million acres under grass. The Return to which I have referred (Cd. 4412 of 1908) cavils at the figures given in the census on the ground that the 490,000 "holdings" are more accurately 490,000 "land-holders," since a tenant holding "half a dozen farms in the same county is returned as having a single holding." But it is right to take "holders" when, as under the Act of 1903, the limit on advances applies to the person who receives them. Again, the Return throws over the census for figures supplied by the Department of Agriculture. But it is wrong to use these figures, for they include holdings not exceeding one acre, of which there are 80,000 in Ireland, and many more that cannot be described as "in the main agricultural or pastoral." No special pleading on the part of the Government can alter the fact that the 490,000 holdings given by the census include all the lands under crops and grass and two-thirds of the waste. They embrace 19 million acres, and more than cover the ground. For the purpose of an estimate it is an outside figure, the more so since, in respect of grass lands the value of a single farm may exceed the limit of any one advance, and it is not uncommon for a large grazier to rent many grass farms. If the Government, by conferring a judicial status on the Estate Commissioners, surrendered their control over the amounts of single advances; and again, if the Government, at the dictation of Mr. Dillon, embarked on a new policy of creating tenancies in grass land and selling them to new men, they are debarred from increasing the estimate to cover their own misfeasance. In tendering the speculative estimate of 1903, it was clearly laid down that the amount of one advance was only to be increased in rare cases, and the sub-division of permanent pasture was denounced as a "form of economic insanity." It was also explained that deductions must be made from the 490,000 holdings in respect of small town plots, accommodation plots, and market gardens; nor are these insignificant, for to the 80,000 holdings not exceeding one acre we must add 62,000 of from 1 to 5 acres. In the face of these facts, the assumption that "all agricultural land"—as defined in the Return—will be sold, is not only unsound but preposterous.

The second assumption, that the average price of future transactions will equal that of past transactions is opposed to the presumption that better, and therefore dearer farms, came into the market before worse and therefore cheaper farms. I am not referring to the number of years' purchase offered, a point on which I have never expressed an opinion, but to the value of the property which passes. It is with farms as with oranges, the good ones go first. The pertinence of this maxim to land purchase is proved by the reports of the Estates Commissioners. These contradict the Government's second assumption, for they exhibit a steady and continuous decline in the average of advances that have been made. The average amount of advances under the Act of 1903 to March 31, 1908, was in round numbers L361. On some such figures the second assumption rests. I ventured at the time to assert that the average in the future would not exceed L300. This estimate has been confirmed, for the average advances from March 31, 1908, to September 15, 1909—when the Act ceased to operate—was L287. A further reduction may be confidently expected, since the progress of purchase in the richer provinces has by far exceeded its progress in Connaught. In Leinster over 53,000 agreements have been lodged at an average price of over L481; in Munster over 58,000 at an average of over L420; in Ulster over 84,000 at an average of over L226; whilst in Connaught only some 26,000 at an average of just under L200.

The reasons alleged in defence of the Act of 1909 failed to justify, or even to explain, the changes it imposed. An explanation must be sought in the real reasons, and they are not far to seek. The first was that the old methods of litigation and delay, abjured by all parties in 1903, were substituted for the new methods of speed and ease, because Mr. Dillon so willed it; and the second, that the policy of abolishing dual ownership, to which Mr. Redmond stood pledged, had to be ousted, again at Mr. Dillon's dictation, to make way for the folly of creating new tenancies, of symmetrical size, throughout all Ireland. The Treaty was torn up because Mr. Dillon, acting as deputy for Mr. Birrell (whose main argument for Home Rule is that it bores him to be Chief Secretary), ordered Mr. Redmond to eat his words.

From this examination of the reasons for destroying the Act of 1903, the true size and nature of the financial problem emerges. From the total of some 490,000 holdings substantial reductions must be made in respect of waste lands, grass lands, and accommodation plots, and, again, in view of the limitation on the amount that may be advanced to one person. We ought probably to deduct 20 per cent., but if, to be on the safe side, we deduct only 15 per cent., 416,000 are left. These, however, include some 80,000 sold before the Act of 1903, or under the Land Commissioners as distinct from the Estates Commissioners. In respect of the 336,500 remaining, 257,474 agreements have been lodged under all categories in the Acts of 1903 and 1909. Indeed, a larger number have been lodged, for in most cases our information is only to March 31, 1911, leaving less than 79,000 holdings that may still come into the market. This is an outside figure, provided always that the policy of 1903 be adhered to, viz. that advances are made to occupiers and not to new men, except as under the Act of that year (sect. 2 (I) b and d, and sect. 75) in rare cases, rigidly defined, of the sons of tenants and of evicted tenants.

If the average price remains at the figure for the period March 31, 1908, to September 15, 1909—viz. L287—a further sum of L22,673,000 may be required in excess of L84,099,818 already required under the Acts of 1903 and 1909; making L106,772,818. This total includes nearly L1,000,000 for re-sales to owners and some provision for evicted tenants. Under these heads it will not expand in a greater relative degree. It includes, also, purchase of whole estates and of untenanted land by the Estates Commissioners and Congested Districts Board, and these may involve larger sums than were originally contemplated. I promised to return to that point, and will now do so. Since the Return under these heads up to March 31, 1911, tentative negotiations have been made for the purchase of a number of estates and for supplying more evicted tenants with holdings. But this does not increase the money size of the problem by much, because many of these estates—if sold to the new Congested Districts Board—are subtracted from business that would have been done by the Estates Commissioners; again, it is, as we know, impossible to spend much money, or move many migrants, or even enlarge many holdings, in one year. If the new Congested Districts Board attempts to handle some millions' worth of land in a hurry, one of two things must happen, either their work will be indefinitely delayed, or else they will sell off "uneconomic" holdings without amending their defects. The business will not cost more. It will only be scamped, or shirked. I doubt if the additions, which do not conflict with the policy of 1903, will increase the amount to be borrowed in the market, though they may increase the sums needed for working capital. Let us add for these expansions, which are strictly limited by physical impediments, L2,000,000 or even twice that amount. It still remains obvious that, even after expansions, good, bad, or indifferent, of the policy of 1903, the total sum to be borrowed cannot exceed from L110,000,000 to L113,000,000, as the outside figure that need be contemplated, provided we refrain from the "economic insanity" of distributing eleven million acres of permanent pasture among shopkeepers and "Gombeen" men. This figure of L113,000,000, indeed, exceeds what may reasonably be expected. The average of advances fell from L426 on the earliest agreements, to L361 on all agreements to March 31, 1908, and to L287 on agreements between that date and September 15, 1909. We may count on a continuation of that fall until the average approaches L200, the price for Connaught, where purchase has proceeded most slowly. But let the total stand at L113,000,000. That sum neither warrants the breach of faith of which the Government and the Nationalist party have been guilty, nor does it present an insoluble problem to the resources of a united Exchequer. L41,097,939 has already been borrowed in the market, and advanced, in less than eight years.

The policy to which the leaders of the Unionist party stand pledged may now be re-stated in the words which I was authorised to use by Mr. Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne after consultation with their colleagues. Speaking on July 9, 1909, I said:—

"Our attitude is, that it is necessary to deal effectively with the block of pending agreements, but in dealing with that block it is not necessary to prejudice the interests either of the landlords or tenants, who may come to terms on some future agreements. We think that the spirit of the Act of 1903 must be observed in the case of pending agreements, but it must not be departed from in the case of future agreements."—Hansard, 1909, vol. vii. No. 93, cols. 1542, 1543.

Mr. Bonar Law confirms this pledge. He instructs me to say that the Unionist party will resume the land policy of 1903, and pursue the same objects by the best methods until all have been fully and expeditiously achieved.

The prospects of Irish agriculture under the Union include a return to the land policy of 1903, with its fair hopes of reconciliation between classes and creeds, and its accomplished result of abounding prosperity. What are the prospects of Irish agriculture under Home Rule? Of what Home Rule may mean in this, as in other respects, we have been told so little that we are driven to consider its effect on Irish agriculture in the light of two contingencies. It may be that the extremists, with whom Mr. Dillon invariably ranges himself, as a preliminary to dragging Mr. Redmond after him, will have their way. In that case, Ireland will exact complete fiscal autonomy from a Government which invariably surrenders to Mr. Dillon's puppet. Should this occur, land purchase will cease abruptly in the absence of credit for borrowing the sums it requires. Take the other alternative, hazily outlined by Mr. Winston Churchill at Belfast. We glean from his pronouncement that the Government intend—if they can—to refuse fiscal autonomy, and to preserve control over land purchase. Can it be expected that this attempt, even if it succeeds, will produce better results for land purchase than the pitiable failure of the Act of 1909? Is it not certain that less money will be raised in England, for Ireland, after Home Rule? And if raised in driblets, on what will it be spent? Obviously, not on the policy of 1903, but on the policy substituted by Mr. Dillon in 1909. It will be spent on expelling landlords and graziers to make room for subscribers to the propaganda of extremists. We must judge of what will happen to agriculture after Home Rule by what has happened since the Treaty of 1903 was repudiated. Nor must we forget that Mr. Dillon's destructive activity has ranged beyond land purchase. That policy could have achieved little but for the untiring and generous patriotism of Sir Horace Plunkett. He established the Department of Agriculture and converted his countrymen to co-operation, in the absence of which no system of small ownership can succeed. He, too, based his efforts on a conference—the Recess Committee. How has he been met? Mr. Redmond, a member of that Committee, as later of the Land Conference, has, here again, succumbed to Mr. Dillon, who seeks to defeat co-operation between farmers, in the interests of his disciples; whilst Mr. Russell, with the hectic zeal of a pervert, has refused Ireland's share of the new Development Grant in order to spite Sir Horace Plunkett.

Such signs of the times are read in Ireland more quickly than in England, and in several ways. To this man they spell speedy triumph for the form of economic insanity in which he vindictively believes; to that man, the retention of an office won by recanting his opinions. But there are others in the saddest districts of Ireland who must also be taken into account. To the few—for they are few—who thrive by deeds of darkness whenever the Union is attacked, these signs of coming change suggest a more tragic interpretation, from which the fanatic and the place-hunter would recoil—when too late. The blatant publican who strangles a neighbourhood in the toils of usury and illicit drink, and the bestial survivor of half-forgotten murder-rings take note of these signs. The atavism of cruelty returns. Emboldened by Mr. Birrell's bland acquiescence in milder prologues to Home Rule, a new plan of campaign is, even now, being devised, charged with sinister consequences from which all men in 1903 trusted that Ireland would be for ever absolved. The prospects of Irish Agriculture under Home Rule include the return, after a brief chapter of "hope, and energy the child of hope," to the old cycle of bitterness and listlessness and despair.

A consideration of these alternatives leads to this dilemma. If the Government concede fiscal autonomy Land Purchase ends. If they refuse it, and Mr. Redmond accepts a "gas-and-water" Bill, that compromise, so accepted, will receive from Mr. Dillon the treatment accorded to the recommendations of the Recess Committee and of the Land Conference. The compromise will be repudiated and the millions already advanced for purchase will be used as a lever to extort complete autonomy. The lever is a powerful one. All depends upon who holds the handle.

It may be said in conclusion that the Unionist policy of Land Purchase vindicates the Union, and that the treatment it has received demonstrates the futility, and the tragedy, of granting Home Rule.



XV

POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION

BY ARTHUR WARREN SAMUELS, K.C.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION.

The best possible system for Irish financial reform is adherence to the principles of the Act of Union. The constitution, as settled by the Act of Union and the Supplementary Act for the amalgamation of the Exchequer, contemplated that each of the three Kingdoms should contribute by "equal taxes" to the Imperial Exchequer. "Equal taxes" were to be those which would press upon each country equitably in proportion to its comparative ability to bear taxation. These taxes were to be imposed subject to such exemptions and abatements as Scotland and Ireland should from time to time appear to be entitled to. If their circumstances should so require, they should receive special consideration.

All the revenues of England, Scotland and Ireland, wherever and however raised, when paid into the common Exchequer, form one consolidated fund. The Act for the consolidation of the Exchequers directs that there shall be paid out of the common fund "indiscriminately" under the control of Parliament all such moneys as are required at any time and in any place for any of the public services in England, Scotland, Ireland or elsewhere in the Empire.[76] Such payments are to be made without consideration of anything but necessity. They are to be without differentiation on the ground of the locality of the expenditure, or of the relative amount of the contributions to the common chest of England, Scotland or Ireland. All expenditure is alike "common"; whatever its object may be, civil, naval or military or foreign, it is all alike "Imperial," and all of it is under the constitution "indiscriminate." The whole United Kingdom forms one domain, and but one area for the purposes of expenditure. As long as the Act of Union lasts no one of the three Kingdoms can be said to be "run" either "at a loss" or "at a profit." They are all run together as one incorporate body. The common revenue balances the common expenditure, and they bear together one another's burden and the weight of Empire.

THE VICE-TREASURERSHIP OF IRELAND.

The Act for the amalgamation of the Exchequers of Great Britain and Ireland contained provisions for the continued representation of Ireland in fiscal matters at the Exchequer and in Parliament. Power was given to His Majesty by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland to appoint a Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. The Vice-Treasurer could sit in Parliament, and appointment to the office did not vacate a seat in the House of Commons. This office has been allowed to fall into abeyance. The Exchequer is only represented in Ireland by a Treasury Remembrancer. Most persons who know Ireland would concur in the view that the existing arrangement is not satisfactory, and that it would be of great advantage to Great Britain, as well as to Ireland, to have in Parliament a Minister specially responsible for Irish finance, acting under the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Vice-Treasurership should be revived, and the occupant of it should be a member in touch with Irish opinion, understanding Ireland and her real wants, which are often very different from the demands upon the Exchequer that are most loudly proclaimed. The restoration of the office would facilitate business, and tend to remove many misunderstandings, and prevent many mistakes. Personal interviews in Ireland with such a Minister would be worth reams of correspondence, and would save weeks of time. Promptitude, economy and efficiency would be secured.

IRISH INTERESTS UNDER TARIFF REFORM.

For the purposes of a system of Tariff Reform, the revival of the Irish Vice-Treasurership is expedient. The peculiar circumstances, conditions, aptitudes, and requirements of Ireland must be regarded, inquired into, discussed and weighed. Her commercial, industrial, and agricultural interests must be specially considered. They vary in many particulars from those of Scotland and England. This can only be done satisfactorily by a responsible Irish Minister charged with the duty of protecting and securing her interests and harmonising them with those of the sister Kingdoms in the framing of a scientific scheme of Tariff Reform.

If Irish interests are properly provided for, she should gain greatly under Tariff Reform. The effect of the Whig finance, inaugurated by Gladstone in 1853, accompanied by a rigid application of the Ricardian theories of political economy, and the continuous narrowing of the basis of indirect taxation, told against Ireland most severely, depleted her resources and retarded her progress. Sir Stafford Northcote thus addressed the House of Commons after twelve years' experience of the Gladstone Budget:—

"The upshot of our present system of taxation has been to increase the taxation of the United Kingdom within the last ten or twelve years by 20 per cent., and they would find that whereas the taxation of England had increased by 17 per cent., that of Ireland had increased no less than 52 per cent, between 1851 and 1861. This disproportion had been brought about by laying upon Ireland the burden of the Income-tax and by heavily increasing the spirit duties, making use at the same time of these two great engines of taxation to relieve the United Kingdom, but more especially England, of particular fiscal impositions.... Taxation in these two parts have pressed so heavily on Ireland, it was incumbent upon the people of England to take into account the necessity of relieving Ireland in any way they could."[77]

This plea of a great Conservative financial authority for that special consideration for Ireland to which she is entitled in fiscal matters under the Act of Union was not carried into effect until the Unionist administration of Lord Salisbury, in 1886. Then began, under the Chief Secretaryship of Mr. Arthur Balfour, that practical application of the "Exemptions and Abatements" clause of the Act of Union in the policy of Constructivism which has fructified so magnificently, and which, if allowed to continue uninterrupted by Home Rule, will lead Ireland to affluence.

The Lloyd George Budget penalised Ireland still further by exaggerating those methods of Whig finance which persistently narrowed the basis of indirect taxation and heaped up disproportionate imposts on a few selected articles—articles which are either very largely produced or very largely consumed in Ireland. The effect of Gladstone's Budget of 1853 was to reduce the area under barley in Ireland by 134,000 acres in six years; the Lloyd George Budget has reduced the Irish barley crop by 10,000 acres in one year. Therefore in the framing of the Tariff Reform Budgets of the future, Ireland's equitable claim under the Act of Union should be recognised and given effect to.

REFORM OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TAXATION.

Agricultural land in the hands of the farmers who have bought their holdings under the Irish Land Acts has been made liable to extravagant burdens by the Lloyd George Budget. These peasant purchasers are treated as if they were "Dukes." When they discover their real position, their resentment will be bitter. Form IV. has not yet been circulated among them. It has been kept back deliberately. It would not suit Mr. Redmond or the Ministry, should the Irish farmer discover what the actual working of the new Land taxes means while the legislative logs are still being rolled by the Radical-Socialist-Nationalist combination. When Home Rule is defeated Unionist finance should provide that the burden imposed by these taxes on agricultural progress and national prosperity shall be removed, and that the benefits conferred by the great Unionist policy of State purchase on the peasant proprietors shall not be allowed to be filched away by the Socialist budget, though it was by that very Irish party, whose first duty should have been to protect them, that the Irish farmers' interests have been betrayed.

CONSTRUCTIVISM.

It was found by the Financial Relations Commission that Ireland contributed a revenue in excess of her relative capacity. Mr. Childers, in his draft report, suggested that practical steps might possibly be taken to give Ireland relief or afford her equitable compensation in three different ways—[78]

(1) By so altering the general fiscal policy of the United Kingdom as to make the incidence of taxation fall more lightly on Ireland. It was suggested that the taxation upon tea, tobacco, and spirits, which weigh more heavily on Ireland in proportion to her relative capacity, because of the habits of the people, and the larger proportion in Ireland of the poorer classes, might be reduced and a part of the burden transferred to other commodities. It was, however, felt, he said, that this would open up questions of such magnitude—like Free Trade and the incidence of taxation as between different classes—that it would be inexpedient to urge it, when the object in view was the solution of a pressing difficulty with regard to Ireland taken apart from the rest of the United Kingdom. But that difficulty will be removed under Tariff Reform—one-sided Free Trade is no longer a sacrosanct fetish—and the case of Ireland must be taken not as apart from, but as part of, the United Kingdom. Irish interests, Agricultural and Industrial, can be far better promoted, furthered, and secured under a scientific tariff system than under the so-called free trade system, which insists on the fallacy that identity of imposts means equality of burden, and concentrates its pressure on the great Irish industries of brewing, distillery, and tobacco manufacturing; a system which taxes heavily tea—the great article of consumption—and has brought peculiar disaster on agriculture. Therefore, the remedy which Mr. Childers thought impracticable in 1896 will become eminently practicable with a Tariff Reform Ministry in power.

(2) The second suggestion then made was that there should be a policy of distinct customs and excise for Ireland as apart from Great Britain. This would involve a customs barrier between the two islands. The inconvenience of such a course would be immeasurable and disastrous under modern conditions. It would certainly come sooner or later under Home Rule, but it would be a reversal of the policy of the Union.

(3) The third method which most strongly recommended itself to Mr. Childers was to give compensation to Ireland by making an allocation of revenue in her favour, to be employed in promoting the material prosperity and social welfare of the country.

This is the course which has been pursued by Unionist statesmen, and finds practical expression in their Constructive policy. The results cannot be better proved than by the fact that within the six years from 1904, during which the statistics of Irish Export and Import trade have been kept, her commerce has increased in money value by more than twenty-seven millions. At least four-fifths of that great increase represents a corresponding increase in British trade with Ireland.

Mr. Childers wrote in 1896—

"Apart from the claim of Ireland to special and distinct consideration under the provisions of the Act of Union, and upon the ground that she has for many years been, and now is, contributing towards the public revenue a share much in excess of her relative taxable capacity; I think that Great Britain as a manufacturing and trading country would in the course of time be amply repaid by the increase of prosperity and purchasing power in Ireland for any additional burdens which this annual grant to Ireland might involve. Looked at simply as a matter of good policy, it would be that often advocated with regard to Crown Colonies of Imperial expenditure with a view to the development of a backward portion of the Imperial estate. Ireland is so much nearer to and more exclusively the customer of the trading and manufacturing districts of Great Britain than any Colony, that this argument in her case should have redoubled weight. It is at least probable that, if in place of the fitful method of casual loans and grants hitherto pursued, there was a steady, persevering, and well-directed application of public money by way of free annual grant towards increasing the productive power of Ireland, the true revenue derived from that country might in time be no longer in excess of its relative taxable capacity."[79]

The wisdom of this Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a strange contrast with the folly of the Radical Chief Secretary, who tells England to "cut the loss" at the moment of Ireland's rapid progress because Irish Old Age Pensions have exceeded in number the reckless anticipation of the Right Hon. Mr. Lloyd George.

A SUGGESTION FOR STATE TRANSIT OF HOME-GROWN PRODUCE.

The present writer ventures to suggest that under a general scheme of Tariff Reform, the home-grown food supply of the United Kingdom might be generally increased and cheapened, and Ireland, along with the other agricultural districts of the United Kingdom greatly developed, by an extension of the principle of the Parcel Post, and the constitution of a great Home-Grown Commodity Consignment Service worked through arrangements between the Post Office, the Railway Companies, the Agricultural Departments and Farmers' Co-operative Associations. The railways already provide special rates for farm produce. But if the system were organised by the State in connection with the Railways and Agricultural Associations, and the parcel post expanded from the carriage of parcels of eleven pounds weight to the carriage of consignments of a tonnage limit to be delivered on certain days at depots in the large cities and centres of population, great national interests might be served.

The value of proximity to the Home Markets which has been so depreciated in favour of foreign supplies by modern transit methods and quick sea passages, would be restored to the British and Irish farmer. If this were accompanied by a tariff system which would secure a preference for home-grown cereals such as oats and barley, a direct effect in stimulating agriculture, and an indirect effect in increasing winter dairying, cattle feeding and poultry rearing, would be produced. The country would become more self-sustaining. The peace food supply would be cheapened and the food supply in time of war augmented. The defensive power of the realm would be increased. If, under the new Tariff system, it seems not inexpedient to reimpose the small registration duty on imported foreign as contrasted with colonial wheat and flour, the revenue thus produced might, without exactly earmarking it, be applied partly towards encouraging and advancing agriculture in the United Kingdom, and partly towards financing such a Commodity Post as above suggested. This subvention to domestic, agricultural and pastoral industries would balance the tariff on foreign manufactured goods, and the farmer of England, Scotland and Ireland would share amply in the stimulus of a new fiscal policy. Tariff Reform may assist the manufacturer and artisan by imposing duties at the ports, and the farmer and agricultural labourer by cheapening transit and encouraging food production within the United Kingdom.

EQUIVALENT GRANTS IN AID.

In 1888 a system was inaugurated by which Grants in Aid of Local Purposes have been made in the Three Kingdoms on the basis that England should get 80 per cent., Scotland 11 per cent., and Ireland 9 per cent., when such subventions are given from the Imperial Exchequer. The Legislation sanctioning this proportional allocation began with the English Local Government Act of 1888, when Grants in Aid were made out of the Probate Duties, and has been carried into several other Statutes relating to England, Scotland and Ireland. These proportions have become to a large extent stereotyped in the allocation of such grants. The new basis of contribution was originated by Mr. Goschen and was stated by him to depend upon the amount of the assumed contribution of each country to the Revenue for Common purposes. The method of calculation, he said, was a very complex one.[80]

It was pointed out at the time that under the new system the party that would probably require the largest amount of the grant would be the poorest country, and yet the richer country would get the larger proportionate grants.[81] The method of segregation is as follows. The Revenue and Expenditure Returns divide public expenditure into four clauses: (a) "Imperial or Common Services," (b) "English Services," (c) "Scottish Services," and (d) "Irish Services"; and having treated the three latter as "local services" and charged the particular outlay on them against each of the three countries, they estimate the balance left in cash as "the Contribution" of England, Scotland and Ireland to the "Imperial" Expenditure. It is admitted that this division is absolutely arbitrary. It has no sanction by any Act of Parliament. It is opposed to the system of Finance under the Act of Union. All the revenues of England, Scotland or Ireland are contributed for "Common" purposes, and in which all expenditure of any kind in any portion of the United Kingdom is alike "Common" or "Imperial." The details of the division were never disclosed, when the proportions were originally fixed. The segregation of the services classified as "Imperial" is open to serious objections. The method of computation is empirical and unconstitutional, and if carried to its logical conclusion would now result in depriving Ireland of any share whatever in future Equivalent grants, as her contribution to the services thus classified as "Imperial" is practically a minus quantity, though the revenue actually raised in Ireland is much higher than it ever has been before. This method of Distribution of Grants in Aid has been condemned by a succession of the highest financial authorities. Lord Ritchie, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, "he did not think it possible really to defend in all its details distribution by contribution."[82]

Mr. Wyndham said—

"It leads to results which all must hold to be illogical, and results which everybody in Ireland holds to be unjust because the greater the increase of taxation the less is the proportion that comes from Ireland, the poorer partner in the business, and so the less is the equivalent grant. As the evil increases the remedy diminishes, and you have only to force up taxation sufficiently high to extinguish the remedy altogether."[83]

Mr. Asquith said—

"A more confused and illogical condition of things it is impossible to imagine. The House ought really to take the opportunity of threshing out the principle upon which these equivalent grants ought to be distributed between the three countries."[84]

Lord St. Aldwyn said—

"That he always had a very strong objection to the system of Equivalent Grants, because when they had to make a grant for certain purposes to England, they were obliged to make proportionate grants to Ireland and Scotland quite irrespective of whether they needed them or not."[85]

Neither the "Imperial" contribution basis nor the "Population" basis, which has in some instances been resorted to for grants in aid, is satisfactory, nor is the method desirable of setting aside a certain fund raised by some particular tax to finance a particular service. For instance, the subvention of Education in Ireland out of the "Whisky money" recently broke down owing to the diminution of the Revenue from this source. The more sober Ireland became, the less she got for Education. Chaos was imminent, and finally, after much friction, a special grant had to be made from the Treasury to save the situation. There are numerous instances in which great complications have been caused in dealing with local authorities owing to these methods of making grants in aid, and the system should be reformed. The true basis is the basis of each Kingdom's need.... England has her needs, let them be supplied. Scotland has hers, let them be supplied. Ireland has hers, and having regard to her present comparative poverty, let them be supplied "not grudgingly or of necessity," but by the Chancellor of the Exchequer "as a cheerful giver." This is the constitutional principle under the Act of Union, and the soundest financial principle to observe for the United Kingdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 76: 56 Geo. III. c. 98.]

[Footnote 77: "Hansard," Feb. 27, 1865, vol. 177, p. 813.]

[Footnote 78: "Financial Relations Report," 1896, c. 8262, vol. iii. p. 194.]

[Footnote 79: 1896, c. 8262, p. 194.]

[Footnote 80: "Hansard," 1888, vol. 327, p. 1287.]

[Footnote 81: "Parl. Deb.," vol. 332, p. 790.]

[Footnote 82: Ibid., vol. 120, p. 976.]

[Footnote 83: "Parl. Deb.," vol. 120, p. 823.]

[Footnote 84: Ibid., vol. 175, p. 1088.]

[Footnote 85: Ibid., May 31, 1903.]



XVI

THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM

BY L. S. AMERY, M.P.

The history of Ireland for the last two centuries and more is a continuous exposition of the disastrous consequences of political and economic separatism within an area where every natural condition, and the whole course of historical development, pointed to political and economic union. Geographically, racially and historically an integral part of a single homogeneous island group, Ireland has never really been allowed to enjoy the full advantages of political and economic union with the adjoining main island. Almost every misfortune which Ireland has suffered is directly traceable to this cause. In spite of this, it is now seriously proposed to subject her once again to the disadvantages of political separation, and that on the very eve of an inevitable change of economic policy, which, while it would restore real vitality and purpose to political union, would also once more intensify all the injury which economic disunion has inflicted upon Ireland in the past.

In the long constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century her position as a separate political unit made Ireland a convenient instrument of Stuart policy against the English Parliament. Cromwell, with true insight, solved the difficulty by legislative union with England. But his work was undone at the Restoration, and for another 122 years Ireland remained outside the Union as a separate and subordinate state. Her economic position was that of a Colony, as Colonies were then administered. But it was that of a "least favoured Colony." This was due, in part, to a real fear of Ireland as a danger to British constitutional liberty and British Protestantism[86] which long survived the occasion which has seemed to justify it. But what was a more serious and permanent factor was the circumstance that Ireland's economic development could only be on lines which competed with England, and not like Colonial development on lines complementary to English trade. One after another Irish industries were penalised and crippled by being forbidden all part in the export trade. A flourishing woollen industry, a prosperous shipping, promising cotton, silk, glass, glove making and sugar refining industries were all ruthlessly repressed,[87] not from any innate perversity on the part of English statesmen, or from any deliberate desire to ruin Ireland, but as a natural and inevitable consequence of exclusion from the Union under the economic policy of the age. Whatever outlet Irish economic activity took there was always some English trade whose interests were prejudicially affected, and which promptly exercised a perfectly legitimate pressure upon the Government to put a stop to the competition. The very poverty of Ireland, as expressed in the lowness of Irish wages, was an ever convenient and perfectly justifiable argument for exclusion. The linen industry alone received a certain amount of toleration, and even encouragement. These regulations were so little animated by direct religious or racial antipathy that it was upon the Protestant Scotch and English settlers that they fell with the greatest severity, driving them into exile by thousands, to become, subsequently, one of the chief factors in the American Revolution. But if the direct economic effect of political separation weighed less heavily upon the Catholic majority, they suffered all the more from the utter paralysis of all industry and enterprise consequent upon the Penal Laws. These laws, monstrous as they seemed even to Burke, were in their turn a natural outcome of a political separation which made the security of Protestantism in Ireland rest upon the domination of a narrow oligarchy in instant terror of being swamped. Under Union they would never have been devised, or could certainly never have endured.

The revolution by which the Irish Parliament, in 1782, asserted its constitutional equality with the British Parliament, subject only to the power of bribery, direct or indirect, retained by the Crown, brought out in still more glaring relief the utter unsoundness of the existing political structure under separation. After eighteen years of ferment within Ireland and friction without, British and Irish statesmen, face to face with civil war and French invasion, realised that the sorry farce had to come to an end. Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole, years of growing prosperity. Whether, even apart from civil war and increasing taxation, that prosperity would have continued to increase, if the Union had not come about, is, however, a more doubtful matter. The immense industrial development of England during the next half-century would probably, in any case, have crushed out the smaller and weaker Irish industries, while the existence of a separate tariff in Great Britain would have been a serious obstacle to the development of Irish agriculture. A full customs union, with internal free trade, was undoubtedly the best solution of the difficulty. But Pitt's Commercial Propositions of 1785 failed, partly, indeed, owing to political intrigues, but still more owing to the fundamental impossibility of securing an effective customs union without some form of political union.

When finally Ireland entered the Union it was with the severe handicap of an industrial system artificially repressed for over a century. The removal of the last traces of internal protection in 1824 only accelerated the process, inevitable in any case, by which Irish industries, with the exception of linen, were submerged. But manufacturing industry was at the best a small matter in Ireland compared with agriculture. And to Irish agriculture the Union meant an immense development in every direction. Unfortunately the inheritance of the preceding century, a vicious agrarian system and a low standard of living, was not easily to be eliminated, and little attempt was made to eliminate it. The great increase of agricultural production was accompanied, not by a progressive and well-diffused rise in the standard of national well-being, but by high rents and extravagance on the one side, and, on the other, the rapid multiplication of a population living on the very margin of subsistence. The terrible year of famine was a warning to British statesmanship of the need of a constructive and Conservative policy for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural life and for the broadening of the economic basis in Ireland by the deliberate encouragement of new industries. Under a true conception of Union, political and economic—and there were not wanting men like Lord George Bentinck and Disraeli who entertained it—Ireland might within a generation have been levelled up to the general standard of the United Kingdom.

But the evil effects of political and economic separatism in the eighteenth century were still unremedied when the whole economic policy of Union was abandoned. The very principle and conception of Free Trade is, inherently, as opposed to the maintenance of national as of Imperial Union. Ireland was deprived of that position of advantage in the British market which was one of the implied terms of the Union, and was not allowed to protect her own market. Incidentally, and as a consequence of the new fiscal policy, Ireland was saddled with a heavy additional burden of taxation which only handicapped her yet further in the struggle to recover from the famine and to meet foreign competition. The full severity of that competition was, however, not experienced till towards the end of the seventies, when the opening up of the American West, coupled with the demonetisation of silver, brought down prices with a run. A series of bad harvests aggravated the evil. The same conditions were experienced all over Europe, and were everywhere met by raising tariffs to the level required to enable agriculture to maintain itself. Even in England "Fair Trade" became a burning issue. Given normal agrarian conditions in Ireland the Irish vote would have gone solid with the Fair Traders, and the United Kingdom would in all probability have reverted to a national system of economics a generation ago. As things were, landlords and farmers in Ireland, instead of uniting to defend their common interest, each endeavoured to thrust the burden of the economic debacle on the other. The bitterness of the agrarian struggle which ensued was skilfully engineered into the channel of the Home Rule agitation. In other words, the evils of economic separatism, aggravated by the social evils surviving from the separatism of an earlier age, united to revive a demand for the extension and renewal of the very cause of these evils.

Since then the underlying conditions of Irish economic life have undergone a complete transformation. The wealth and credit of the United Kingdom have been used to inaugurate a settlement of the agrarian question. The productive and competitive efficiency of Irish agriculture has been enormously increased both by Government advice and assistance and by patriotic private effort. Old Age Pensions have alleviated the burden of an excessive residue of older persons, and irrigated the poorer districts with a stream of ready money. In every direction there is a deliberate effort to raise the economic standard of Ireland to the British level. Last, but by no means least, the exclusion of all foreign live stock from the United Kingdom, though originally designed only as a precautionary measure against cattle disease, has in effect protected one most important branch of Irish agriculture and given it a vital interest in the maintenance of the Union. On the eve of the revival of a national policy of economic development Ireland stands on a far sounder basis, and in a far better position to take advantage of that development, than in 1800. The standard of life is rising, and will of itself put a check on a mere multiplication of beings living on the margin of subsistence. For the natural increase of population, which will once more come about, there will be provision not only through more intensive cultivation and in rural industries, but also in a real, though possibly gradual, development of new manufacturing industries. Incidentally the establishment of a protective tariff for the United Kingdom will, by lowering the excessive duties on tea and tobacco which weigh so heavily upon Ireland, increase still further the local excess of Government expenditure over revenue and facilitate the local accumulation of capital, already so noticeable a feature of recent years, and thus provide an essential factor in stimulating new enterprise, whether agricultural or industrial. Nor would it be in any way inconsistent with a national economic policy for the United Kingdom as a whole to devote special sums, through bounties and in other ways, towards the opening up of new fields for the economic activities of the Irish people. For the first time in her history Ireland will have a fair start, and, under the Union, the twentieth century may yet prove Ireland's century just as Canadians claim that it will prove Canada's century.

Now let us turn to the other side of the picture. The establishment of Home Rule, in other words of political separatism, must inevitably be followed by active economic separatism, i.e. by the creation of a completely separate fiscal system in Ireland. The idea that an Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer can carry on in dependence on a British Budget, which may at any moment upset all his calculations of revenue, is absurd. So is the idea that there can be separate tariffs with mutual Free Trade, or a common tariff without a common government to frame it. If Free Trade, indeed, were to be maintained in England, fiscal separation would be no disadvantage to Ireland. On the contrary, she would continue to enjoy the same access to the British market while giving her own industries such protection as might be convenient. It is one of the glaring weaknesses of the policy of Free Imports that it actually puts a premium on separatism. But it is impossible to discuss the future on that assumption. Whatever the fate of the Home Rule Bill may be it is certain that Free Trade is doomed, and that the United Kingdom, whether united or divided, will revert to a policy of national protection and national development.

What will be the effect upon Ireland? Assuming mutual good will, assuming that the Irish Government will be ready to grant a substantial preference to British trade over foreign trade, there can be no doubt that Great Britain would respond and give to Irish products the same preference as might be extended to Canadian or Australian products. But the first duty of the British Government would be to British producers. While Empire-grown wheat, and possibly meat, would come in free, the British farmer would receive a measure of protection against the rest of the Empire in dairy products and poultry, in barley and oats, in hops, tobacco, sugar beet, vegetables and fruit, in all those crops, in fact, in which the British production could meet the British demand without an undue effect upon prices.

Now, it is precisely by these intensive forms of production that Ireland stands to gain most under Union. Under Home Rule she would lose this advantage and have to compete on an equality with the rest of the Empire both in respect to these products and in respect to wheat and meat. It is extremely doubtful, too, whether her special privileges with regard to store cattle would long survive. They could no longer be defended, as against Canada, by the arguments now used, and as a piece of pure protectionism there would be no reason for Great Britain to give them a separate fiscal entity. And if the hopes of Irish agriculture would be severely checked, still more would that be true of those hopes of new industries already referred to. Even the great linen industry might find a small duty enough to transfer a large part of its production within the British tariff zone. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether any tariff that Ireland could impose, consistently either with preference or with reasonable prices in so small a market and on so small a scale of production, could be of much effect against the competition of British industries, strengthened and made aggressive under the stimulus of a national trade policy.

This is the most favourable hypothesis. But it is at least conceivable that a Nationalist Government, whether actuated by a laudable desire to hurry on Irish industrial development, or influenced by the tradition of animosity which still plays so strong a part in Nationalist politics, may refuse to enter upon the policy of Imperial preference. It might even be tempted by various considerations to give a preference to the United States or to Germany. Germany is a large importer of foodstuffs. The establishment of a British tariff may prove a serious blow to her manufacturing interests. A trade agreement with Ireland might be a very useful temporary business expedient from the German point of view. Incidentally a large increase of German merchant shipping in Irish harbours might, in the case of possible hostilities, be of no little service in providing commerce destroyers with a most convenient excuse for being in the most favourable area for their operations. Any fiscal excursions of that sort would inevitably be visited upon Ireland by severe economic reprisals of one kind or another on the part of Great Britain, from which Ireland would receive permanent injury far outweighing any temporary advantage which might be secured from foreign countries.

In other words, Ireland under Home Rule would be in almost every respect thrust back into her eighteenth century position of "least favoured Colony." She would, at the best, be handicapped in the British market in respect of those products by which she could profit most, and in those which she is less fitted to produce would have to compete with the virgin soil and competitive energy and organisation of the great Dominions. At the worst, her fiscal policy might invite reprisals and make her "least favoured" not only by her circumstances but by the intention of those who would frame the British tariff. It is true that the British Government would no longer dream of directly interdicting Irish exports. But in that respect modern organised capital has an influence to promote or kill almost as great as that of governments in former times. And the influence of British capital, under such circumstances, would certainly not tend to be directed towards the economic development of Ireland.

But the use of the customs tariff is by no means the only great instrument of a national economic policy. To promote the flow of trade in national channels, to secure the fullest development of the national territory and resources, the removal of natural internal barriers is often even more important than the setting up of artificial external barriers. Statesmen who have had to face the task of giving strength and solidity to weak political unions have always aimed at the development of internal communications. Washington's first concern after the success of the American War of Independence was to endeavour to create a system of internal river and canal navigation in order to help to bind the loosely allied States into a real union. Bismarck used the Prussian railways as well as the Zollverein to build up German unity. In the making of Canada the Intercolonial railway and the Canadian Pacific were essential complements to the national tariff. Railways forced South Africa into union, and will gradually give Australia real cohesion and unity. In the United Kingdom there has been no national policy with regard to communications, least of all any nationally directed or stimulated effort to cement the political union of 1800. But such a policy is essential to the reality of the Union. To get rid, as far as possible, of the barrier which the St. George's Channel presents to-day both to the convenience of passenger traffic and to the direct through carriage of goods between internal points in the two islands should be one of the first objects of Unionist policy in the future. In the train-ferry, which has bridged the channels of sea-divided Denmark, which in spite of the Baltic, has made Sweden contiguous with Germany, which for the purposes of railway traffic, has practically abolished Lake Michigan, modern developments have provided us with the very instrument required. To Irish agriculture the gain of being put into direct railway communication with all England and Scotland would be immense. From the tourist and sporting point of view Ireland would reap a doubled and trebled harvest. More than that, the bridging of St. George's Channel will for the first time enable the west coast of Ireland to become what it ought to be, the true west coast of the United Kingdom, the starting point of all our fast mail and passenger services across the Atlantic.

But all this implies the Union, the existence of a single Government interested in the development of the United Kingdom as a whole. Separate governments in Great Britain and Ireland would not have the same inducement to give financial encouragement to such schemes. Irish manufacturers and British farmers alike might protest against being taxed to facilitate the competition of rivals in their own markets. An Irish Government would have neither sufficient money nor sufficient interest to give the subsidies necessary to secure a three days' service across the Atlantic. A British Government would naturally develop one of its existing ports, or some new port on the west coast of Scotland, rather than build up a new source of revenue and national strength in a separate State. No one could blame it, any more than we could blame the Canadian Government for wishing to subsidise a fast service from Halifax or some other port in the Dominion rather than one from St. John's, Newfoundland. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Navigation Acts deliberately destroyed Irish shipping. A policy of laisser faire in matters of national communication has hitherto prevented its revival. To-day new ideas are in the air. Those ideas can be applied, either from the standpoint of the Union or from that of separatism. In the one case Ireland has the prospect of becoming, what her geographical position entitles her to be, the eastern bridge-head of the North Atlantic. In the other the immense power of the larger capital and larger subsidies of Great Britain will be as effective as any navigation laws of the past in leaving her a derelict by the wayside, continuing to wait idle and hungry, with empty harbours, while the great streams of commerce flow past her to north and south.

And if the theory of laisser faire is rapidly dying out in matters of trade and communications, it has already been largely superseded in regard to social questions. The duty of the State to expend money in order to level up the standard of life of its citizens, or to prevent their sinking below that standard, is to-day universally recognised. The methods by which that object is aimed at are various. There is the crudest form, that of direct money relief, such as is involved in Old Age Pensions. There is the subsidising of socially desirable economic operations, such as insurance against sickness or the acquisition of freehold by tenants. There is the expenditure of money on various forms of education, in the scientific assistance of industry and agriculture, in promotion of forestry, drainage, or the improvement of local communication. There is the enforcement of innumerable regulations to safeguard the health and safety of the working population. Nowhere has this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence than in Ireland during the last twenty years. The Congested Districts Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme, illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect. Old Age Pensions, cheap labourers' cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another. All these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer. They could not be provided out of Irish revenues. Still less could Irish revenues provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a level with English conditions.

It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great Britain. Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small part of the field. For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great Britain and Ireland to a common standard. The Irish Government would never have the means to carry out the same programme of social legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain. Handicapped in competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of production. There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.[88]

But such a policy would not only be disastrous in itself in its ultimate effect upon Irish national life. It would at once provide a fresh and valid excuse for effective fiscal differentiation against Ireland in Great Britain. Once again, as in the eighteenth century, Ireland would be penalised for being a poor and "sweated" country.

So far the discussion of the economic results of separation has been confined to Ireland, because Ireland would undoubtedly be the chief sufferer. Her dependence on the English market, the smallness of her home market, her backward social condition, would all be insuperable obstacles to a really healthy development on independent lines. Great Britain, on the other hand, would suffer relatively much less from Home Rule. The immediate shrinkage of trade with Ireland, even with an Irish tariff to overcome, might not be very great. The real loss would be not so much any actual decrease of trade, as the loss judged by the standard of the possibilities of Irish development under the Union. The essence of the situation after all is that the United Kingdom is a single economic area. The exclusion of one part of that area from the political and economic life of the rest, while injurious to the rest, must prove disastrous above all to the part excluded. After centuries of alternate neglect and repression Ireland has at last been brought to a condition in which she is capable of taking the fullest advantage of a new era of progress and development for the United Kingdom as a whole. And this is the time which is chosen for seriously suggesting that she should once again be excluded from all the benefits of partnership in the United Kingdom and driven out into the wilderness of poverty and decay. The plea for this folly is an unreal sentiment which is itself merely the survival of the mistaken political or economic separatism of the past, and which is nothing to the real and justifiable sentiment of bitterness which would be roused in Ireland if the plea were accepted.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 86: This fear itself was the result of separatism. Miss A. E. Murray, in her work on "The Commercial Relations between England and Ireland" (p. 51), points out: "It was not so much jealousy of Ireland as jealousy and fear of the English Crown which influenced the English legislature. Experience seemed to show that Irish prosperity was dangerous to English liberty.... The difficulty was that Ireland was a separate kingdom, and that the English Parliament had no direct authority over her. It was this absence of direct authority which made England so nervously anxious to restrict Irish resources in all those directions in which they might even indirectly interfere with the growth of English power."]

[Footnote 87: For details, see Miss Murray's "Commercial Relations between England and Ireland."]

[Footnote 88: It is worth noting that in 1893 the Liberal Government rejected amendments moved by Mr. Whiteley to prevent existing laws for the protection of workers in factories, workshops, and mines, being repealed by the proposed Irish Legislature, and by Sir J. Gorst to reserve laws affecting the hours and conditions of labour to the United Kingdom Parliament.]



XVII

PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION

BY THE RIGHT HON. WALTER LONG, M.P.

The argument so often and so plausibly presented in favour of Home Rule, which urges that the Imperial Parliament is overburdened with local affairs, contains an element of truth. It would, however, be more in accordance with the facts to put the case the other way round: for localities are much more seriously inconvenienced in certain respects by the necessity of referring local business to the Imperial Parliament, than the Imperial Parliament is inconvenienced by the transaction of such business, which, if we are to believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it neglects (vide Nash's Magazine, February, 1912). At the same time, to affirm that, in order to remedy what is no more than a defect in administration, it is necessary to overturn the British Constitution, and to build on its ruins four semi-independent Legislatures and one supreme Parliament, is merely to exemplify the cynical imposture of partisan misrepresentation: what Mr. Balfour described as "the dream of political idiots."

There is no impartial person who does not clearly recognise that to constitute a separate Parliament for Ireland (to say nothing of England, Wales, and Scotland) must necessarily result, not in the more efficient despatch of legislative and administrative business, but in perpetual friction, clogging the mechanism alike of the subordinate and the predominate body. Ireland enjoyed—or endured—an independent Parliament during eighteen years, from 1782 to 1800; and, in the result, the greatest statesmen both in Ireland and in England were forced to acknowledge that the system had in practice failed utterly; and that there remained no alternative but the Union. To that view of the situation the great majority of the Irish people, irrespective of race or creed, were converted within a year before the passing of the Act, an event which was hailed with rejoicing. The experience of 112 years, fraught as they have been with occasional calamity and burdened with many blunders, has not produced a single valid objection to the principle of the Union, unless the survival among a diminishing section of the population of the old, bad tradition of hatred towards England, and its deliberate exploitation by pledge-bound politicians, is to be regarded as a reason for sacrificing the welfare and the prosperity of both countries.

The framers of the Act of Union did not, and indeed could not, provide for every contingency. It is therefore the business of those who are determined to maintain the Union, to adjust its machinery to modern requirements. An omission of capital import was the failure to provide for the efficient promotion of private Bills. The matter was, indeed, actually considered by the authors of the Act of Union. The Duke of Portland wrote to Lord Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, under date December 24, 1798, as follows:—

"One of the greatest difficulties, however, which has been supposed to attend the project of union between the two kingdoms, is that of the expense and trouble which will be occasioned by the attendance of witnesses in trials of contested elections, or in matters of private business requiring Parliamentary interposition. It would, therefore, be very desirable to devise a plan (which does not appear impossible) for empowering the Speaker of either House of the United Parliament to issue his warrant to the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in Ireland, or to such other person as may be thought more proper for the purpose, requiring him to appoint a time and a place within the County for his being attended by the agents of the respective parties, and reducing to writing in their presence the testimony (for the consents or dissents, as the case may be) of such persons as, by the said agents, may be summoned to attend, being resident within the County (if not there resident a similar proceeding should take place in the County where they reside), and such testimony so taken and reduced into writing may, by such Chairman or by the Sheriff of the County, be certified to the Speaker of either House, as the case may be. It seems difficult to provide a detailed Article of the Union for the various regulations which such a proceeding may require, but the principle might perhaps be stated there, and the provisions left to be settled by the United Parliament."

According to Lord Ashbourne's "Life of Pitt," the Prime Minister himself framed a scheme for constituting a Court of Appeal in Ireland, with power to examine evidence and certify all preliminaries and other matters respecting private Bills. Why the provision was not included in the Act of Union is not clear. The fact of its omission, however, proves that the necessity of resorting to the Imperial Parliament for the transaction of private business was not an objection that hindered the passage of the Act of Union, although to-day the same omission is absurdly used as an argument in favour of the repeal of that measure. At the same time, it is true that the requirements have immensely increased in proportion as the resources of the country have been developed since 1800. The introduction of railways, telegraphs, telephones and electric appliances, together with the grant of compulsory powers to municipalities, has involved the promotion of numerous private Bills at vast expense to Ireland. Mr. A. W. Samuels, K.C., who contributed a paper on the subject to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland in November, 1899, quoted some instances of the cost of private Bill legislation in Ireland:—

"The ratepayers of Dublin, of Rathmines, of Pembroke, of Clontarf, and other suburbs of the city, long will feel the burden added to their rates by the London litigation of the Session that has passed. The Dublin Boundaries Extension Bill of 1899 has cost the city, as I am informed on reliable authority, between L12,000 and L13,000. There were twenty-four separate sets of opponents. The cost to Rathmines of its opposition approaches, I am informed, L8,000. To meet it about one shilling in the pound must be added to the taxation of that township. The costs of Pembroke cannot be far short of the same sum. If we add those of the oppositions of Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clontarf, and of the County of Dublin, and of private persons and public bodies, the total expense to the inhabitants and ratepayers of the city and its suburbs will not fall short of L45,000.

"Mr. Pope, Q.C., stated before the Committee which considered the Irish Railways Amalgamation Scheme of last Session, that the Bill at hearing was costing L5 per minute. A high authority conversant with the proceedings in this case has informed me that this was an under-estimate rather than an over-estimate, having regard to the fact that there were twenty-seven separate oppositions. The Bill occupied twenty-seven working days of four hours each, and its cost to the shareholders of the promoting Company were calculated to amount to about L400 per day. What the loss was to the shareholders of other Companies, and to the ratepayers represented by public bodies, it would be impossible to say. The Bill probably cost at least L50,000. There was a Belfast Corporation Bill. There was an Armagh and Keady Railway Bill. There were several other Irish Bills before the Houses, exhausting thousands more of Irish capital, and diverting it from the material development of the country. So abnormal was the waste of Irish money on the Railway Bill that it excited general attention even in England, and became the subject of comment in Parliament. Mr. J. H. Lewis, the member for Flint Burghs, speaking on the 24th July, 1899, on the third reading of the Scotch Private Legislation Procedure Bill, said, 'I am sure everybody must have regarded with great dissatisfaction the enormous expenditure to which certain Irish Railway Companies were put during the last few weeks within the walls of the House. Surely a better system can be devised than that which drags over from different parts of the United Kingdom a host of witnesses, who could be examined on the spot. I am sure all honourable members deeply regret this great waste of public money.'"

These disabilities have been the subject of frequent representations. Resolutions advocating reform have been repeatedly passed by the Irish Chambers of Commerce, by the Incorporated Law Society, and by local bodies. Leaders of the Unionist party have constantly urged the necessity of a provision for expediting and cheapening Private Bill procedure. In 1896 a deputation from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce laid the matter before Mr. Gerald Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary for Ireland. He expressed a hope that the Government would introduce a reform. In the Queen's speech of February, 1897, it was announced that Bills for amending the procedure with respect to Private Bills coming from Scotland and Ireland had been prepared. The opportunity for laying these measures before Parliament did not arise.

But in 1899 a Bill amending the procedure of Scottish Private Bill Legislation was passed into law. The measure forms the precedent for future legislation. In the year 1900, Mr. Atkinson (now Lord Atkinson), speaking for the Government, said that the Government were—