Part 13

I have no desire to compose an Essay on the Land Question; but it is absolutely impracticable to discuss Irish social economy without finding the Land Question in one's way. It is the question which most closely concerns the industrial classes; for the land is the mainstay of Irish industry. It is the pivot upon which all Irish politics turn; for although priestly influence counts for a great deal, that influence itself depends in great measure on the land hunger of the peasantry. I feel that I should be leaving Hamlet out of the play if I did not say a few words on the matter. As I have already hinted, the Irish peasant has three reasons for his desire to be "rooted in the soil." One is a traditional reason. He thinks that his forefathers were unjustly ousted by foreign conquerors. His belief rests on an utterly distorted view of history. It is true that eight hundred years ago a few of the ancestors of a few of the existing peasantry might in a sort of sense have been called landowners. But so far as the Gaelic race survives, it would be equally true to say that the ancestors of the existing peasantry had been the serfs or the slaves of barbarous chieftains. The old Gaelic tribal ownership, if left to itself, might or might not have ripened into a peasant proprietary; but the only real grievance which the existing Gaelic peasantry can allege, is that the English conquest forcibly interrupted the natural process of evolution. Moreover, a large number of the existing peasants are no true Gael at all, but the descendants of Danes, Normans, and the various waves of Saxon settlers from Elizabeth to William of Orange. In parts of Ireland there are even to be found the descendants of French Huguenots, of Scotch fugitives involved in the Stuart insurrections, and of refugees of 1793. That such a _colluvies gentium_ should claim to be the heirs of Septs which occupied the land

"Ere the emerald gem of the Western world Had been set in the crown of a stranger,"

is simply a proof of profound ignorance of history. Such, however, is the vague traditional belief; and it is complicated with a moral sentiment, that he who tills the land has a right to live by the land. The sentiment is open to no objection, provided it be understood that the land is an instrument of production in which the whole community is interested. The cultivator has the same right to live by the land as the artisan to live by his handicraft, and no more--that is, both peasant and artisan have a right to expect that the social system shall be so adjusted that neither shall be unjustly deprived of the fruit of his labour. But neither peasant nor artisan can claim that any instrument of production shall be used for the sole sake of the producer. Hence, even if peasant proprietorship were undeniably the best thing for the peasant, it does not follow that he has a moral right to it, unless it be good for the whole community as well. This consideration is too often neglected by the thorough-going advocates of peasant proprietorship. They assume that the interests of the peasants are the only interests to be considered. In Ireland, indeed, they are not far wrong; for the peasantry _are_ very nearly the whole community. This, however, only raises the previous question, whether peasant proprietorship would be a success in Ireland--of which hereafter. The last and most practical of the agrarian arguments is that a tenant evicted is a man ruined. Even this is only partially true, and at most is only an argument against capricious eviction. It is conclusive as against the system of tenancy at will, or any of those short tenures which are, in fact, a standing notice to quit. It holds good in favour of peasant proprietorship to this extent--that the ruin of a peasant proprietor can only occur through his own fault or misfortune, and not through the caprice of a landlord. In short, the discontent of the Irish peasantry proves that the Anglo-Irish system of tenure is about the worst of all possible systems; but it proves little or nothing in favour of peasant ownership.

My own opinion (_valeat quantum_) is that the soil and climate of Ireland render the country utterly unfit to maintain a considerable body of peasant proprietors; but that, nevertheless, it would be wise and politic to establish peasant properties as widely as may be practicable. The climate is notoriously damp, and variable in the extreme. Grain crops are inferior and precarious--root crops are not much better--even meadows are untrustworthy, because of the difficulty of haymaking--but Irish pasture is perhaps the best in the world. Natural conditions mark out Ireland as a pastoral and cattle-breeding country; and such a country is the destined home of _latifundia_. It is not merely that cattle require large spaces of pasture; but the trade in cattle requires capital, and requires the power of staying through seasons of adversity. An attempt to breed or deal in cattle by a class of peasant proprietors, acting singly, could only end in ruin; a ruin even more complete than bad seasons would bring upon unsuccessful cultivators of grain. Another product for which Ireland is eminently fitted is timber.[26] This also obviously requires spaces of land, and intervals of idle capital, utterly incompatible with any system of small holdings. Nature would seem to have marked out Ireland as a country to be thinly populated; historical accident once made her one of the most populous of countries, and we all know what came of it. The people were dependent on a single kind of food; it failed, and misery ensued such as modern Europe had never beheld. The scenes of 1847 we may devoutly hope will never be witnessed again; but such a season as 1878-79 would be a trial that few peasant proprietors could stand. Why then do I say that a peasant proprietary ought to be created? Because I believe that in the experiment is to be found the sole method of convincing the Irish peasants that their true interest lies in quite another direction. The peasant now believes that all he wants in order to be prosperous is to be "rooted in the soil." It is of no use to appeal to abstract reasoning. He knows that he has to pay rent, and that he is liable to eviction for non-payment. Carefully as recent legislation has guarded him against capricious eviction, he knows that if his landlord chooses to pay for turning him out, out he must go. The few of his neighbours who do acquire freeholds, he perceives to be comparatively prosperous. He does not take into account that the prosperity of the freeholder is maintained by precisely the same exceptional energy and thrift which in the first instance enabled him to secure the freehold. Besides, it is undeniable that _caeteris paribus_ a man who holds rent-free is likely to be better off than one who pays rent; and so long as rent is the rule and freehold the exception, the few freeholders will seem at least to possess an advantage over the many rentpayers. In short, the peasant farmer will never cease to believe ownership a panacea for all his ills, until he shall have tried it, and failed. Of course it does not absolutely follow that the experiment of creating a peasant proprietary must needs fail. It may succeed; and then the Irish land problem is solved. For the reasons given above, however, I think it would fail. If all the holdings of fifteen acres and under (there are 285,000[27] of them, or nearly half the whole number of farms in Ireland) were turned into peasant properties tomorrow, I believe they would in thirty, or at most in fifty, years be recast into large cattle farms, owned probably for the most part by joint-stock companies. The process of consolidation would be partly the buying out of ruined peasants after some such seasons as we are now undergoing; partly a voluntary union of the residue, who would find association desirable in order to secure a sufficiency of land and capital. But those who might be compelled to part with their lands could no longer ascribe their ruin to the tenure by which they held. It would be made clear to them and to all concerned that it is the laws of Nature and not the laws of England which hinder Ireland from maintaining a dense agricultural population.

It may be urged against what I have here said, that it is hardly worth while engaging in a social revolution merely in order that the last state of things may turn out on the whole very similar to the first. I cannot deny the force of this remark; though I may suggest, in my turn, that perhaps it is worth while to make some sacrifice for the sake of attaining stable equilibrium in the social system. I am persuaded that the one great difficulty in Irish affairs is to convince the peasant that the law is a power not hostile but friendly to him. This is no easy task. It is not so very long since the law actually was the hard master it is still supposed to be. Nor is the peasant's own attitude of mind a very easy one to deal with. He clamours loudly to be "rooted in the soil," or, in other words, to be made absolute owner of his farm; but he clamours not less loudly against the absenteeship of his landlord. He utterly fails to perceive the inconsistency of his position. He cannot eat his cake and have his cake. He cannot be at one and the same time tenant to a resident lord of the manor, and owner in fee-simple of his own holding. Absolute peasant ownership is _prima facie_ incompatible with the very existence of a landed aristocracy; and it may be some perception of this that induces certain of the land agitators to propose fixity of tenure at a quit-rent rather than absolute peasant proprietorship. But it is clear that this is a mere evasion of the difficulty. A landlord, who is merely a rent-charger, has no more motive to reside on his estate than if he sold it and lived on the interest of the purchase-money. There is no doubt a sense in which the two things are not absolutely incompatible. Peasant properties might be intermixed with large estates owned by resident landlords. And this would certainly constitute a state of things by no means undesirable; in fact, it is what might possibly emerge from the experiment I have mentioned above. I think it more than probable that a great deal of the land, after such an experiment, would fall into the hands of joint-stock companies; but a considerable portion might also be bought up by individuals, who might choose to become resident landlords. It must, however, be remembered that there are many things besides agrarian agitation which tempt Irish landlords to become absentees. Residence in Ireland is attended with many drawbacks and discomforts, even when a landlord is on the best of terms with his tenantry. Absenteeism is no new complaint; Adam Smith discussed proposals for an absentee-tax. Its prevalence is not uncommonly ascribed to the Union, but it might as well be ascribed to the Deluge. The most potent causes of absenteeism in the latter half of the nineteenth century are the City of Dublin Steam Navigation Company, and the London and North-Western Railway. These, and kindred institutions, are also the channels which conduct a vast deal of wealth into Ireland; and if absenteeism constitutes a perennial drain on her resources, the facilities of locomotion cause the drain to return ten-fold.[28] If these facilities did not exist, it does not follow that the landlords who remained at home would necessarily be of much use to the community. The squires and _squireens_ in Lever's and Maxwell's novels are very amusing to read about; but they are a race that nobody at the present day would seriously wish to revive. However this may be, there is little inducement for the existing landlords to remain resident in a country where they are continually threatened, and occasionally shot. I cannot help thinking that in the tendency to absenteeism, courageous statesmanship might find the means of solving the Land problem. There should be little difficulty, one would imagine, in persuading a number of existing Irish landlords to part with their estates for a reasonable compensation.[29] The Church Surplus is at hand to provide the purchase-money. After deducting the sums to be paid to the Intermediate Education Board, and to the National School Teachers' Pension Fund, there will remain nearly four millions in the hands of the Temporalities Commission. This money judiciously advanced to tenant farmers would enable a considerable number of them to acquire the freehold of their farms, and thus the foundations of a peasant proprietary might be laid without any confiscation or disturbance of vested rights. The Royal Commission on Agriculture would perhaps be a good medium for acquiring information on this subject. They might include in the scope of their inquiry the best method of carrying out some such scheme as has been here indicated.

Having set out with no intention beyond that of offering a general view of a few leading facts and figures relating to Irish affairs, I find myself insensibly gliding into a political discussion. So far as I have any excuse for this, it must be found in the irrepressible character of the Land problem; which, as I before remarked, can by no possibility be evaded by any one who writes on Irish social economy. Yet this problem itself is in one aspect simply a phase of the struggle going on all over the world between, labour and capital. Side by side with this there is yet another struggle going on, which is also a phase of a world-wide conflict. It is the old story of Priesthood against Free Thought; but in Ireland, like nearly all things Irish, it bears a peculiar aspect of its own. Many a man here would be amazed to be told that he is fighting on the side of the priests; yet the Irish Orange Tory, and to some extent even the Irish Evangelical clergyman, is really and truly (though of course unconsciously) helping the policy of the Roman Church. But it would extend my essay beyond all reasonable limits to discuss this matter; and besides, I set out to write on statistics, and not on politics.[30]

EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] The statistics in this Essay are chiefly taken from _Thom's Almanac and Official Directory for 1878_. The tables given in that Almanac are for the most part brought down no later than 1876. It so happens, however, that 1876 is a very convenient date for the purpose of this paper. It marks the conclusion of a period of just thirty years from the worst crisis of the Potato Famine; and it marks also the conclusion of a cycle of commercial inflation, some of whose results were strongly felt in Ireland.

I have, of course, consulted other authorities besides _Thom's Directory_, but I shall specify these as occasion arises. When no special reference is given, my authority is Thom.

[22] While I write _Eason's Almanac for 1879_ has been published. This authority gives the total average of paupers daily in receipt of relief through 1877 as 78,223, or 146.5 in 10,000 of the population. An increase of less than six in ten thousand is not very alarming, and the fact seems in some measure to justify the opinion I have ventured to express in the text, that Ireland will be found to suffer less from the present crisis than other parts of the United Kingdom. It must, however, be taken into consideration that the present year (1879) threatens a very poor harvest: and this circumstance is absolutely certain to enhance whatever distress already exists.

[23] See note on previous page.

[24] The 24-1/4 millions in England and Wales are kept in order by a police force of 29,689. In Scotland 3-1/2 millions of population have only 3356 policemen. In Ireland, with a population well under 5-1/2 millions, there are 12,081 policemen. And yet, as will appear presently, there is far less crime in Ireland relatively than in either of the other kingdoms.

[25] It is only just to admit that the death sentences are not a fair test. Too many murders remain undetected, owing to the existence of agrarian conspiracy. The number of murders known to have been committed is unluckily not to be found in the returns to which I have access. But the very fact of their remaining undetected is a proof that they are not directly connected with intoxication, for it shows that they are for the most part agrarian.

[26] It has been calculated, apparently on trustworthy data, that an acre of land planted with larch or fir, at an expense of about £20, would be worth £2000 at the end of forty years, besides the intermediate yield from clearings of young timber, game cover, and so forth. This is a very high return for a small outlay; but it is completely beyond the means of any peasant proprietor.

[27] _Eason's Almanac_, 1879. The actual number is 285,464. The total of agricultural holdings is 581,963.

[28] I have unfortunately been unable to obtain any statistics of the cross-channel trade. I find it stated in _Thom's Directory_ that the trade of Belfast alone was valued in the year 1866 at £24,332,000--viz., £12,417,000 imports and £11,915,000 exports. The year 1866 was a bad year: so it may be assumed that these figures represent a low average. I find no means of estimating the import and export trade of Cork and Dublin.

I may mention here that one cause of interruption in the composition of this paper was an unsuccessful search for complete trade statistics.

[29] A few of the Home Rule M.P.'s who are now stumping the country on the Land grievance are themselves landlords. It has been suggested that they should introduce fixity of tenure on their estates, in one or other of its various forms. Mr. Errington (who is _not_ one of the stump orators of the party) has, I am told, notified his intention to give long leases to his tenantry. In a case like this the _argumentum ad hominem_, though a perfectly fair one, is a perfectly useless one.

[30] I have referred above (note, p. 463) to my failure to obtain trade statistics. This circumstance has caused me to fail also in fully carrying out the original plan of this paper. I had intended not only to give a general view of the recent condition of the Irish people, but to enter somewhat fully into its causes, and discuss the probabilities of the future. The great revival in prosperity, which I have imperfectly sketched, was closely connected with the cross-channel trade. At present, affairs look sufficiently gloomy both here and in England; and the forecast of the future depends mainly upon the prospect of revival in English trade.

THE DELUGE:

ITS TRADITIONS IN ANCIENT NATIONS.

Of all traditions relating to the history of primitive humanity, by far the most universal is that of the Deluge. Our present purpose is to pass under review the principal versions of it extant among the leading races of men. The concordance of these with the Biblical narrative will bring out their primary unity, and we shall thus be able to recognize the fact of this tradition being one of those which date before the dispersion of peoples, go back to the very dawn of the civilized world, and can only refer to a real and definite event.

But we have previously to get rid of certain legendary recollections erroneously associated with the Biblical Deluge, their essential features forbidding sound criticism to assimilate them therewith. We allude to such as refer to local phenomena, and are of historic and comparatively recent date. Doubtless the tradition of the great primitive cataclysm may have been confused with these, and thus have led to an exaggeration of their importance; but the characteristic points of the narrative admitted into the Book of Genesis are wanting, and even under the legendary form it has assumed these events retain a decidedly special and restricted character. To group recollections of this nature with those that really relate to the Deluge would be to invalidate, rather than confirm, the consequences we are entitled to draw from the latter.

Take, for instance, the great inundation placed by the historic books of China in the reign of Yao. This has no real relation, or even resemblance, to the Biblical Deluge; it is a purely local event, the date of which, spite of the uncertainty of Chinese chronology previous to the eighth century B.C., we may yet determine as long subsequent to the fully historic periods of Egypt and Babylon.[31] Chinese authors describe Yu, minister and engineer of the day, as restoring the course of rivers, raising dykes, digging canals, and regulating the taxation of every province throughout China. A learned Sinologist, Edouard Biot, has proved, in a treatise on the changes of the lower course of the Hoang-ho, that it was to one of its frequent inundations the above catastrophe was due, and that the early Chinese settlements on its banks had had much to suffer from this cause. These works of Yu were but the beginning of embankments necessary to contain its waters, carried on further in following ages. A celebrated inscription graven on the rocky face of one of the mountain peaks of Ho-nan passes for contemporaneous with these works, and is consequently the most ancient specimen of Chinese epigraphy extant. This inscription appears to present an intrinsically authentic character, sufficient to dispel the doubts suggested by Mr. Legge, although there is this rather suspicious fact connected with it, that we are only acquainted with it through ancient copies, and that for many centuries past the minutest research has failed to re-discover the original.

Nor is the character of a mere local event less conspicuous in the legend of Botchica, such as we have it reported by the Muyscas, the ancient inhabitants of the province of Cundinamarca, in South America, although here mythological fable is mingled much more largely with the fundamental historic element.

Huythaca, the wife of a divine man, or rather a god, called Botchica, having practised abominable witchcraft in order to make the river Funzha leave its bed, the whole plain of Bogota is devastated by its waters; men and beasts perish in the inundation, and only a few escape by flight to the loftiest mountains. The tradition adds that Botchica broke asunder the rocks inclosing the valley of Canoas and Tequendama, in order to facilitate the escape of the waters, next reassembled the dispersed remnant of the Muyscas, taught them Sun-worship, and went up to heaven, after having lived 500 years in Cundinamarca.

I.

_Chaldean and Biblical Narratives._--Of the traditions relating to the great cataclysm the most curious, no doubt, is that of the Chaldeans. Its influence has stamped itself in an unmistakable manner on the tradition of India; and, of all the accounts of the Deluge, it comes nearest to that in Genesis. To whoever compares the two it becomes evident that they must have been one and the same up to the time when Terah and his family left Ur of the Chaldees to go into Palestine.

We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed indeed, but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of Babylon and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of the Greeks.[32] After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the Chaldean priest continues thus:--