APPENDIX No. II. UNHEEDED WARNINGS.

APPENDIX No. II. UNHEEDED WARNINGS.

The three F’s: Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent, Freedom of Sale.

Contemporary Review, February, 1881.

The grounds on which the principle of the three F’s were opposed in 1880:—

The Act of 1870 was to be final, and it is a breach of faith to reopen the land question.

1. The Land Act of 1870 was an encroachment on the rights of landlords, but was allowed to pass on the understanding that it would be final.

2. To reopen the question with further confiscation is a gross breach of faith.

3. More especially it is a breach of faith with those landowners who have, on the invitation of Government, purchased land in the “Encumbered Estates Court.” The indefeasible title granted to them by the Court (and for which they paid large sums) would be turned into a mere claim to a precarious rent charge.

The three F’s are an infringement of the rights of the landlord. He must be compensated for the material, moral, and sentimental wrong which he will suffer.

4. “Tenant right” is landlord wrong.

5. Land is the absolute undoubted property of the landlord, and he has a right to do that which he wills with his own. Any curtailment of his power is an injustice, and affects the very principle of property.

6. If the State interferes with his freedom of action, and causes him any material, moral, or sentimental injury, it must properly compensate him.

7. To take away the enjoyment, control, and management of his land is a very tangible infringement of rights, and one for which compensation must be given.

8. To fix a rent is to deprive the landlord of the advantages of competition, and affects him financially.

9. It would reduce him to the position of a mere mortgagee, but without the security and certainty of payment.

10. To deprive him of his power of eviction, is to take away a privilege, a necessity.

11. The tenant’s claim to a “right” in the soil is not founded on any tangible or real historical basis.

The abuse of eviction or raisings of rent is rare; the use is necessary and justifiable.

12. There is little or no abuse of the power of arbitrary eviction; and even when rent is not paid, the landlords, as a class, are lenient. It is occasionally necessary for the good of the estate to evict (compensation for “disturbance” being paid) in order to consolidate holdings.

13. Eviction is seldom enforced, except in the case of bad and wasteful tenants; good and improving tenants are never evicted. Therefore, any diminution in the power of eviction would be disastrous to the prosperity of the country by retaining on the land worthless tenants.

14. Most landlords do properly compensate their tenants for any improvements effected by them.

15. They are justified in raising the rents when the land produces greater increase.

16. Even if a few bad landlords injure their tenants, it is unfair to visit on the heads of the majority the sins of the few by bringing them all under the same confiscating law.

17. The existing law provides ample safeguards against arbitrary and unjust eviction; the landlord’s power is sufficiently curtailed.

The relations of landlord and tenant are those of contract; the State must not interfere in freedom of contract.

18. Any State interference in contract between man and man is very inexpedient and demoralizing, more especially in interference in the matter of price and value.

19. The relations between landlord and tenant are merely those of contract.

20. The movement of progressive societies is from status to contract, and not the reverse.

21. It is illogical and unfair of the tenant to demand freedom of contract in the sale of tenant-right, and ask for curtailment of contract in his dealings with the landlord.

The objections to a fixed rent; and the difficulties in the way of fixing a fair rent.

22. It would be impossible to fix a rent which would content both parties.

23. As tenants vary in ability, character, and energy, it would be impossible to legislate so that the rent the tenant had to pay would be that which he is able to pay.

24. A fixed rent, even if fair at first, would soon weigh heavily on one or other of the parties.

25. All future enhancements of rent, based on whatever ground, would be strenuously resisted.

26. While the landlord would be bound to accept the valuation, the tenant could refuse to pay it and quit his holding.

27. If the Government, by valuation or arbitration, were to fix the rent, the landlord would consider that he had been guaranteed his rent by the State; while the tenant (in bad seasons) would look to the State to assist him to pay it.

28. If fixity of tenure were conceded, the next demand would be for the abolition of the rent charge, more especially on the ground of increased absenteeism, which would itself have been encouraged by the change.

29. At all events, in bad seasons, a demand would be made for abatement of rent, on the ground that otherwise the value of the tenant-right would be injuriously affected.

30. The power conceded to the landlord of selling the “tenant-right” on breach of contract, would be rendered nugatory by the combination of tenants to prevent a purchase; and so the landlord would be deprived of all means of obtaining his rent, or of preventing subletting or subdivision.

31. It is illogical and unjust that, in the matter of rent, the landlord should be deprived of the benefits of competition, while in the sale of tenant-right competition should be allowed.

32. The landlords, bound by a hard-and-fast rule, would expect to receive their full fixed rents, and would not be willing or able, as they are now, to allow indulgences in time or remission in bad seasons.

33. The pressure of violence would be brought to bear on the valuators to induce them to undervalue the rents.

The right of free sale of “tenant-right” would amount to confiscation of part of the landlord’s property. It would benefit only existing tenants, and would cripple all future tenants.

34. As the existing tenants would, on the day of the passing of the law, be able to sell their tenant-right for a large sum, having done nothing to earn it, the amount at which it can be valued, is so much subtracted from the rightful gains of the landlord.

35. As tenants had not this scheme in view when they bargained for their farms, its adoption would be conceding them a valuable privilege entirely at the expense of the landlords.

36. Only the existing tenants would benefit pecuniarily from the change; all future in-coming tenants would be burdened by the amount they would have to pay for the “tenant-right,” and the interest on this payment in addition to the “fair” rent, would constitute a sum exceeding any rack-rent.

37. The unhealthy “earth-hunger,” which exists in Ireland, would force up the price of tenant-right far above the real value, and thus entrench on the security of the landlord for his rent, whilst reckless tenants would outbid the prudent.

38. The payment for tenant-right would cripple the in-coming tenant just at the moment when he most required capital to cultivate the land—to the injury of production, while it would leave him no margin to fall back upon in bad times.

39. The tenants who would benefit most would be those who have had indulgent landlords. When rents are low “tenant-right” would be more valuable than when they are high.

40. The tenants can obtain security of tenure by demanding and accepting leases; many landlords are willing to grant long leases at fixed rents on fair terms.

41. Therefore, at the most the law should force the landlords to grant “security leases,” and leave them to obtain (by means of a fine) any extra value which security will fetch.

42. Any further privileges obtained by the tenant would only be used as additional facilities for borrowing money at ruinous rates.

43. The Ulster tenants have obtained their tenant-right by purchase, or by a quid pro quo; the concession of free sale would gratuitously endow existing tenants with a valuable property, which they have neither earned, bought, nor inherited.

44. Many landlords have bought up the tenant-right on their farms; it is manifestly unfair to reimpose it without compensation.

The landlords have largely invested capital in the soil; the three F’s would prevent them in future from making improvements; and the tenants’ power to do so would also be diminished.

45. The landlords, as a class, have invested capital very largely in the improvement of the soil; the improvements have been by no means entirely effected by the tenant.

46. It would no longer be to the interest of the landlord to invest his capital in the soil; an effectual obstacle would have been placed in the way of his doing so.

47. Therefore, those improvements,—drainage, straightening fields and boundaries, &c., which affect many holdings, and can only be done by the landlord, would no longer be executed.

48. As he will have to pay for the “tenant-right,” the in-coming tenant will have less capital to invest in the soil than at present, while the sum he has paid will be taken out of the land for ever; thus, on both hands, the capital available for these purposes would be diminished, and production would suffer.

Further evils which would result from the adoption of the three F’s.

49. By making the landlord merely a rent-charger, and depriving him of all power or interest in his land, absenteeism and non-residence, with their attendant evils, would be enormously increased.

50. The proposed scheme would perpetuate the present system of landlord and tenant, while the desirable aim should be to increase the number of proprietors.

51. The tenant, possessing security of tenure, would be less desirous of purchasing land, while sale, except to the tenant, would be greatly hindered.

52. It would perpetuate the absurd distribution of land at present existing in many parts of Ireland.

53. While it would confirm not only good and bad tenants in their tenure of land and affect equally good and bad landlords,

54. It would increase the antagonism between the landlord and the tenant;

55. It would be practically impossible to prevent subdivision and subletting with their manifold attendant evils.

56. The Irish people are so miserably lazy, thriftless, and short-sighted, that no reform of the land-law would benefit them.

57. Nothing short of separation from England will satisfy the Irish; land-reforms are useless.

58. Under small proprietors or semi-proprietors, the lot of labourers would be harder than ever.

59. The various parts of Ireland differ so much in every way that it would be inexpedient and impossible to apply one scheme to the whole; if it answered in one part it would necessarily fail in others.

60. If the principle of the three F’s were once conceded, it would form a precedent for land-legislation in England; and then for legislation directed against all forms of property.

61. It is the first step towards democratic and socialistic legislation.

62. The concession is the more dangerous, inasmuch as it is only conceded to clamour and lawlessness.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.