LAND SYSTEMS ANI) INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY Ot ]KI<LAND, ERGTJIkND, AND CONTIHENTAL COUNTRIES. T. E. CLIFFE LESLIE, LLB. OP LUTCOLK'B INN, BARIIISTER-AT-LAW. Ezamlner h Po21trual Emomy $n ft~eC'nzzersatl, oJ London, and fiolessor of Junsprzcdencc and Poltltcai Ecoxomy zn the Quecn'a Linlzerslfy m heland, and Queeds College. Belfaaf LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1870. CONTENTS. ]'A(- K *I. INTRODUCTION . l 11. THE STATE OF IRELAND, 1887 . 3 111. IRELAND IN 1868 . 34 *IV. THE IRISH LAND QUESTION, 1870 . 5; V. POLITICAL ECONOMY AND EMIC+RATIOS . 8.5 V1 POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE TENURE OF LANI) 11; VII. LORD DUFFERIN ON THE TENURE OF LAYY . I:$:< YIII. MR. SENIOR ON IRELAND. 131 IX. THE LAND SYSTEM OF ENGLAND, 1867 . I(>() *X. TIIE ENGLISH LAND QUESTION, 1870 . 204 XI. WBTPHALIA AND THE RUHR BASIS, 1868-1869 . 230 'XII. WESTPHALIA AND THE RUHR BASIN, 1869-1870 . "4 XIII. A VISIT TO LA CREUSE, 1868 . 26; vi CONTENTS. PAGY *SIV. A SECOND VISIT TO LA CREUSF: . 283 XV THE PE iS.4NTRT AND FARMS OF BELGIUM, 1867. 294 *?(V1 THE FARMS AND PEASAXTRY OF BELGIUM, 1870. 341 SVII APPENDIX POLITICAL ECONOiClY AND THE RATE TAAND SYSTEMS OF WAGES . 357 &c. INTRODUCTION. ALOWGwith a republication of several essays in de- ference to inany suggestions, this voluine contains additional articles * on the Land Systems of Ireland and England, and on the industrial econoiny of La Creuse, Westphalia and the Ruhr Basin, and Belgium, founded on later study and local inquiry. It appears to the author that the Land Systelns of England and Ireland are best studied together. The two systeins react in many ways on each other; their results present soine striking resemblances, and where they differ most, the differences are instructive. They have a coinmon origin and foundation. The first sentence in Mr. Furlong's standard treatise on the Law of Lnndlord and Tenant in Ireland is : L The coinmon law regulating the enjoyment of real property * Narked with an asterisk in the table of contents. INTRODUCTION. 2 INTRODUCTION. 3 both in England and in Ireland is founded upon and pverty from Ireland ; and there is a reflux of its own governed by the principles of the feudal system.' poverty into that island. Their similarity of structure is the main cause why the Both Irish einigation and English immigration into Irish land system has remained intact down to the towns contrast curiously with an immigration from introduction of the Land Bill now before Parliament. the country into the towns of France, arising from a This is so, not only because the landowners of England very different cause, the ecoiiomic and political effects have been reluctant to permit interference with powers of which are among the subjects discussed in the two similar to their own, but also through the influence of articles on La Creuse. the structure of the English land system on the ideas Although the author has described effects of the of other classes. Had there been in England a simple Land Systems of France, Germany, and Belgium, he jurisprudence relating to land, a law of equal intestate has, in doing so, simply recorded facts which have succession, a prohibition of entail, a legal security for come under 11is own observation, and the genuine im- tenants' improvements, an open registration of title ancl pressions made on his mind by careful inquiry on the transfer, a considerable number of peasant properties, spot. Ile has endeavoured also to indicate the in- the rural economy of England would long since have fluences of geological and other physical conditions on created unanswerable objections to the Irish land the industrial economy of the Continental localities of system in the public mind. which a description is given in the volume. Without On the other hand, there are striking differences in reference to such conditions, to history, and to positive the results of the two systems, which throw much institutions, the author believes it impossible for the light on both. The Land System of Ireland, for ex- economist to arrive at a true theory of the causes ample, tends to suppress the existence of towns; that which govern the production and distribution of of England, on the contrary, to give to large towns wealth. undue predominance in our industrial and social It is right to acknowledge the obligations the author economy. The English agricultural labourer, again, is under to the extensive ailcl profound learning of his friend Francis S. Reilly for information and answers to the Irish small tenant-at-will. And eini- Mr. pration is the movement in the case of Ireland corre- suggestion on many, but especially legal, subjects ; al- sponding with immigration into large towns in England. though he ought to add that Mr. Reilly is in no way The latter movement is inoreover swollen by immigrant responsible for his conclusions. Without the hospitable aid and instruction which he has received from M. Ldonce de Laverpe during visits to La Creuse, it is improbable that he would have attempted a description of that singular departinent- the history of which, isolated as it is, has been strangely interwoven with the political and social history of THI3 STATE OF IRELAND," 1867. France for more than two hundred years. STUDENTSof Iris5 history know how from tirne to time 2 STONEBUILDINGS, LINCOLN'S INN: in its troubled course, after some overwhelming dis- Fehrua y 21, 1870. aster, there has come a pause in misfortune, a tranquil interval, when statesmen, beholding the capabilities of the country and its people, and mistaking the signs of exhaustion for those of a, new life of peace and pro- sperity, congratulated themselves lipon the regeneration of Ireland in their own days. ' In the first nine years of King James,' wrote Sir John Davis, after three rebellions in the reign of Elizabeth, 'there hath been more done in the reformation of the kingdom than in the 440 years since the Conquest.' A still profounder statesman, Bacon, four years afterwards congratulated a Chief Justice of Ireland on his appointment at a time when ' that kingdom, which within these twenty years wise men were wont to doubt wlietlier they should wish it to be a pool, is like now to become a garden, and younger sister to Great Britain.' A generation had not passed before these words were followed by * Reprinted from ' itlacmillan's Rlagazine' for February 1867. In the reprint of this and other essays in the ~olnme,a passage here and there has been omitted. In other respects hardly any change has been made. But as the situation of things hns changed in succeeding years, changes in the author's ~iews111ay occa~ionallyappear, owing to that cause, or to furiher inquiry and reflection. 6 LAND SYSTEMS AND INDUSTRIAL ECONOhfY THE 8TATE OF IRELAND, 1867. 7 another rebellion, suppressed in its turn in such a man- long backwardness ancl misery ? Can legislation do ner that Sir William Petty in 1672 expressed his con- allything for its benefit? viction that the Irish never would rebel again, the more The chief difficulty in answering the two first of so, as they had never before such prosperity as then.* these inquiries arises from the very different state of Political wisdom and sagacity are both supposed to different parts of the island. Different counties and have made great progress since the reign of Cha~lesII., towns-adjoining estates, and even adjoining farms yet such has been the falsificatiori of repeated hopes of and houses-are very differently circumstanced, and Ireland's reformation that there are still to be found would return a very diferent report; nor is it too men who repeat the very wishes (doubtless ignorant of much to assert that the man does not exist who could their antiquity) which Sir William Petty 200 years give a complete and true account OF Ireland's present ago sternly rebuked, and of which nearly 300 years condition. Even the very same results may be pro- ago the poet Spenser exposed the folly.+ The repe- duced in different places by opposite causes, and are tition of such sentiments in itself might merely prove of different-import and omen accordingly. Of this that political and moral progress has been unequal in striking instance offers at once in the rate of wages; England as in Ireland, and be worth notice only on an instance of great importance in itself, because it the part of those historic minds who find an inte- touches the root of the whole Irish question, as for rest in every living vestige of ancestral barbarism in brevity it is sometimes called. Great stress is laid by either island. But it is connected not remotely with some on the advance in Irish wages as a proof of a inquiries of more practical interest and importance, to proportionate increase in general prosperity, and of which conflicting answers are returned ; inquiries such the benefit of emigration. As a matter of fact, the rise as, What is really the present state of Ireland ? Has in wages is much less than those who take this view it made any real progress since its last great disaster? suppose; and, in truth, the bulk of the elnployers of Is the land, the people, or the law, the cause of its labour below the landed proprietors are in no condi- tion to pay such a price for it. The demand at such * 6 Political Anatomy of Ireland,' chaps. iv. and xii. t Some furious spirits have wished that the Irish wonld rebel again, a price as has been stated could in most Irish counties that they might be put to the sword.