Mr. MAC IVER ventured to think
that he was perfectly in Order now in
continuing the remarks which at an
earlier period of the Sitting had not
seemed to be in Order. Before doing
so, however, he would like briefly to
refer to some remarks which fell from
the Prime Minister. What was the
present position of Her Majesty's
Government? They were trying to sit in
on two stools. They were endeavouring, on
the one hand, to conciliate the hon.
Members from Ireland; and, on the other,
to retain the approval of Members who
generally supported them. If they had
not already discovered the fact, they
would certainly soon find that these
two elements could not possibly be
united without any sort of qualification.
There was no Member in that House who
had a more hearty dislike to this
particular Bill than he (Mr. Mac Iver)
had; yet he would ask the Committee to
consider whether it was not true that
Ireland had some reasonable claims upon that
House and upon the Government which her
Majesty's Government did not seem prepared
properly to consider? He was much struck by
some remarks of the hon. Member for Cork
(Mr. Parnell), who divided the tenants into
two classes - a certain class who could not
afford to pay any rent at all, and a richer
class, whose landlords were not always what
they ought to be. But he (Mr. Mac Iver)
remembered that from more than one Member of
the Government they had heard of the advantages
of small holdings. It seemed to him that the
observations of the hon. Member for Cork were
irreconcilable with the supposed advantages
of small holdings. In Ireland there were more
people desirous to take farms than there were
farms to be had; the country was far too dependent
upon agriculture alone; and, consequently, the
competition between one and other for the land
was such as to induce the offer for rents, which
very often the tenants, when they really could not
pay. Therefore, he thought the hon. Member for Cork,
and those who agreed with him, at least, of the
contentions they had made. But, for his part, he
maintained that the causes of distress were temporary.
Ireland had suffered immensely from our mistaken
fiscal system. In some respects she had not a fair
share of the advantages of the Union, as compared with
England; and he ventured to think that the question
of emigration lay really behind the causes which were
operating to produce this Bill. What were those poor
people to do who had to leave Ireland? The hon. Member
for Berkshire (Mr. Walter), in a most important speech,
which had not received the attention it deserved
in that House, spoke of an emigration rate for Ireland.
Who was to pay that? It was to fall upon the distressed
landlords, who were sometimes in as much trouble as
their tenants. The point he (Mr. Mac Iver) wished to
urge was that if an emigration rate was right at all,
it was right that they in England and Scotland should
come forward and help Ireland to carry it out. It was
not a thing to be done by one part of the United
Kingdom alone, but was a burden which ought to fall
upon the United Kingdom as a whole. This matter of
emigration ought not to be of indifference to any of
them. What was to become of these people? The hon.
Member for Berkshire said that it was the workhouse
on the one hand, and America on the other. But it
should be remembered that we had possessions across
the Atlantic, and that every healthy adult emigrant
who left Ireland was worth 1,000$ to the country which
received him. In the present state of our commercial
relations with foreign nations how could our people be
prosperous? ["Question!"] He ventured to think that was
the Question. Why should our one-sided fiscal policy
continue? It placed Ireland at a special disadvantage,
even as compared with Great Britain, and, at the same
time, induced those poor people to go to America rather than
to our own posessions across the seas.
The United States wanted our material wealth alone.
They would take the bone and sinew of our people,
but held out no welcome except to the young and to the
strong; and those who could not earn their livelihood
would have to remain behind to embarrass alike the tenants
and landlords of Ireland. [Lound cries of "Divide!
Divide!" and "Agreed!" amidst which much of the
observations of the hon. Member was lost.] Was it of
any importance where the people of Ireland went?
["Order, Order!"]
Colonel COLTHURST: I rise, Sir, to ask if the hon.
Member is in Order? The whole of his remarks, as far as
I can hear them, are devoted to the question of emigration.
There is not a word about emigration in the Bill; and
I respectfully submit to you that he is not in Order.
The CHAIRMAN: On a Motion to report Progress, great
latitude is given to all speeches and all subjects really
connected with the Bill; and, as I understand the hon.
Member is speaking upon the interests of the tenants of
Ireland, I do not think that is outside the question.
Mr. MAC IVER continuing, said, he was speaking
not merely in the interests of the tenants, but of the
Empire as a whole [Renewed cries of "Divide!" and
"Agreed!"]
...Mr. MAC IVER, continuing, said, that the population
of the United States at the present time was about
40,000,000. That was nearly 10 times as much as the
population of Canada; and yet British North America
took far more than a tenth of our manufactures as
compared with the United States. Canada took of our
manufactures last year to the extent of four or five
times as much per head for every emigrant who went
there in preference to the United States. The extent
of emigration from Ireland within the three months
ending June had been something wholly unprecedented.
The steamers which sailed from Liverpool and called at
Queenstown in the last three months - March, April,
and May - carried from those two ports alone no less
than 79,551 persons - mostly Irish - who went to the
United States. He had made inquiries as to where the
passage-money came from; whether it had been contributed
in this country, or sent from other parts of the world.
He remembered, in years gone by, when he was himself
largely connected with the emigration trade, that,
even then, the United States sent home about one-third
of all the passage-money of the Irish emigrants.
Mr. DODDS: I rise to Order, Sir, and I really do
think the time of this House, either at the bidding
of the noble Lord the Member for Leicestershire
(Lord John Manners), or of anybody else, should not be
employed in advertizing emigration agents. I appeal
to you, Sir, on a Question of Order, whether these
observations are not entirely foreign to the Question
before us?
The CHAIRMAN: I have already said that the subject
of emigration, as relating to the peasantry of Ireland,
who may be evicted under the present state of law in
Ireland, is not out of Order; but the hon. Member will
see that the general opinion of the Committee is that
he is going into this subject on the Motion to report
Progress at considerably greater length than is proper
or convenient to the Committee.
Mr. MAC IVER asked permission to make a personal
explanation, after the very unfair attack which had just
been made upon him. He trusted the Committee would
believe him when he told them that he had had nothing
personally to do with emigration for the last six or
seven years. But there was nobody in the world who had
so much to do with it as he formerly had. Therefore, he
had an entire knowledge of the trade, and still
possessed many opportunities of obtaining special
information, although no longer interested in it.
He was, therefore, able to tell the Committee that the
conditions of passage were altogether different from
what they were six or seven years ago. A far larger
proportion of the passage-money was now sent home
from America; and the conclusion he drew from that fact
was that the people of America were relatively more
prosperous than they were in this country. But could
they do nothing for the prosperity of Ireland? He
thought they might; but this Bill was going to do
nothing, in his opinion. If he thought it would improve
the condition of the people he would, instead of
heartily and cordially opposing, be the first to give
it his hearty support. Though Great Britain and Ireland
were, and ever must be, united, he believed that their
present condition was a good deal like that of the
earthen pot and the iron pot in the fable. The two
sailed down the stream together, and the earthen pot
got the worst of it.
...Mr. T. D. SULLIVAN said, he should be very sorry
to see the Bill lost; but, on the other hand, he did
hope that the Government would stand firm, and not
allow it to be whittled away by the Tory members.
At the present time, no sooner was an Amendment or a
suggestion proposed to cripple the Bill, than the
Government went half-way to meet it; and that gave him
a very faint hope of the ultimate success of the
measure in any shape that would make it worth having.
With regard to statistics, he wished the Committee to
remember that the number of recorded evictions of which
they could find a trace in Parliamentary Returns, gave
a very poor idea of the extermination of the people which
was going on. Large numbers of Irish tenants surrendered
their holdings, and gave up their properties, without
requiring the whole process of the law to be carried out.
Large numbers again, after being served with notice to
quit, did not wait until the matter was completed -
the fires quenched on their hearths, and their little
furniture thrown out on the road-side - but surrendered
their holdings and fled the country. Therefore, he
hoped it would be remembered that these official
statistics in no way gave either a fair idea of the
extent to which the people were being turned out, or
of the suffering that they were undergoing. With
reference to the limitation proposed in this measure,
it ought also to be recollected that the argument of
the Chief Secretary for Ireland was founded on the
existing state of things. It was true that the crops,
at present, looked in good condition, and that there
was a promise of an abundant harvest; but the weather
at present was unfavourable, and it might be that,
after all, the promise of the present would only
result poorly afterwards. He feared that they would
not have in Ireland, at any rate, that abundant harvest
which was calculated upon so confidently by many
Members of the House. The Ministerial measure had
been assailed in the most violent manner by the
Opposition, and by a few Gentlemen on the Ministerial
side, and that caused him to think there must be a
great deal of good in it. A measure dealing with the
Irish tenants, and intended for the relief, so
violently denounced and so frantically assailed by
the Representatives of the landed interest, must have
some benefit in it to the Irish peasantry. That Bill
had been assailed by all sorts of stories - with
alleged figures, with unauthoritative statistics,
with extracts from private letters, with every possible
mode and means of attack. Actually a Gentleman on the
opposite side of the House, a few nights ago, had
quoted a story from Vanity Fair. The next time that
hon. Gentleman spoke, he supposed he would oblige them
with a quotation from Moonshine. The good landlords
had been quoted against them. There were, he believed,
such men in Ireland; but history did not give that
character to the class, and it was not the good landlord
who sent Irish exiles all over the world, bearing in
their hearts hatred and detestation of the rule by
which they were driven from the land where they were
born. Let it be remembered, also, that it was not the
good landlord they were dealing with by this Bill,
and the majority of the class were not good landlords.
The noble Lord who had just spoken had referred to the
Ulster tenant-right; and it was not the first time that
he had heard that tenant-right referred to by Gentlemen
who represented the landed interest in a manner which
showed that they were by no means enamoured of it. It
had this great fault - that it gave other creditors
than the landlords something to go upon for their
debts. It gave the creditors something that was
not seizable by the landlord; and that argument was
continually produced against the extension of that
tenant-right to the other parts of Ireland. It had
been said that custom enabled the money-lender to
come upon the tenant for what was due to him. Well,
why not? Why should not the money-lender, or the
grocer, or the baker, have something to go upon
for his debts? What was the function of the
money-lender? In some cases the tenants went to
the money-lenders to borrow from them the money required
to pay their exorbitant rents. Yet it was a great
outrage, according to the view of the landlord, that
the money-lender should have any way of recovering his
debt. Frequent reference had been made to the sanctity
of a Parliamentary title, and this proposed change in
the law had been called confiscation, Communism, and
he knew not what. But the last of all classes of men
in the world to say anything about confiscation should
be the Irish landlords; for, but for confiscation,
where would they be? He would tell them. They would be
engaged in some honest occupation; they would be digging
the soil, or carrying the musket at 1s.a-day, but for
confiscation. They and their forefathers had lived on
the fruits of confiscation. He did not refer merely to
the confiscation resulting from wars and conquests,
for at the present time confiscation was going on as
it had been going on for many years past - namely, the
confiscation of the improvements made by Irish tentants
on their farms. Upon the confiscation of those improvements
the landlords had grown rich and fat, obtaining incomes
which enabled them to spend their time in racing and
chasing, and sporting about the world. A Parliamentary
title, they had been told, was a sacred thing; but there
was a still higher title than that, and it was the title
of an honest man willing to work while there was room for
him to live in his own country. It was the title of a man
to justice - the title of a man to enjoy the fruits of
his industry in his own land. That was higher than a
Parliamentary title, and that was the title which they
had not yet got in Ireland, because they were shut out
from it by the laws, rules, and regulations made for
them by the British House of Commons.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
