Chapter XXIV: Blunder and Plunder

I have already shown the utter failure of the prophecies of your Free Trade Prophets, now let me show the failure of the prophecies of your Right Hon’ble Friends with regard to the Land Act of 1881, and ask if such lamentable want of discrimination is fitting in one pretending to be an administrator.

_PROPHECY._ _FULFILMENT._

Mr. Gladstone, in 1880, scouted Judge Flannagan, 1883:--
the warning that there would “The rents are so well secured
be no bidders for land, after the that the property ought to bring
Land Act had been passed, and thirty years’ purchase.”
he fixed the value of land at
twenty-seven years’ purchase. The owner:--
“Three years ago I could have
sold the property for £1,775.”

Judge Flannagan:--
“You must submit to the
inevitable. Is there no advance
on eleven years’ purchase? This
is the first estate I have had
to sell on which the rents have
been fixed by the Land Commission.
I hoped to get twenty-five or
thirty years’ purchase.” The land
was sold for £875; according to
Judge Flannagan’s valuation it
was worth £2,386.
Mr. Forster:--
“My firm belief is, that no In 1840, the rents of Mr.
damage can be proved. On the Usborn’s estate in Kerry
other hand, if the landlord were amounted to £2,376 _punctually
compensated, you would compensate paid_. The nearest railway
him for conferring upon him station was then 150 miles
a benefit.” distant. There is now a railway
station on the property, the
landlord has spent money on its
improvement, and the “fair” (?)
rent now fixed by the Land
Commission is £1,893.

Irish newspapers teem with
Lord Selborne, 1880:-- similar instances.
“I deny that it will diminish,
in any degree whatever, the rights Judge Ormsby, 1883.
of the landlord, or the value of
the interest he possesses. I should The Judge then asked if there
never agree to such a proposal.” was any advance on £2,200.
Hansard, cclxiv. 252. Offers were given until £2,450
was reached. Mr. O’Meara, on
behalf of the estate, objected to
the sale. In Chancery proceedings
connected with the estate it
was mentioned that £4,500 had
been offered for this lot, and
refused.

Lord Carlingford, 1880:-- Judge Ormsby:--
“I maintain that the provisions “No one could foresee what
of the Bill will cause the would subsequently occur to
landlord no money-loss whatever.” depreciate the value of the
property. _I cannot adjourn for
a third time._”

Mr. Gladstone, 1880:-- Mr. Fitzgerald, of Dublin,
“I certainly would be very slow states, that the Judges have
to deny that when confiscation adjourned sales from time to time
could be proved compensation rather than consent to a wanton
ought to follow.” sacrifice of property, and there
are “600 estates in the Court
waiting for sale, and for these
hardly a bidder.”

Again I ask your verdict of guilty or not guilty? Are your Right Hon’ble Rulers either incompetent or dishonest, to have made such prophesies? It was not for want of warning that they have blundered so hopelessly. The whole country rang with warnings[89] that the measure was one of confiscation. Even Mr. Parnell predicted it, telling his hearers that there would be no buyers, and the tenants would have “an opportunity of purchasing their holdings under the Bright Clause.”

The whole measure is one which commenced by breach of faith and ended in confiscation.[90]

Mr. James Lowther, M.P., has been blamed for saying, that “loyal subjects have been deliberately plundered by the Land Act.”

Let us see how the political economist defines “plunder:”

“When a portion of wealth passes out of the hands of him who has
acquired it without his consent and without compensation, whether
by force or artifice, to him who has not created it, I say that
property is violated, that _plunder is perpetrated_.... If the
law itself performs the action it ought to repress, I say that
_plunder is still perpetrated_, and even in a social point of
view, _under aggravated circumstances_.”[91]

Now tell me, my Friend, how do the instances I have given above differ from legalized PLUNDER as defined by Bastiat?

When Judge Flannagan says, “you must submit to the inevitable,” he says, in fact, “_you must submit to be legally plundered_.”

When Judge Ormsby says “no one could foresee what would occur,” he says in fact, “no one could foresee that the law would become an instrument of _plunder_.”

No one could foresee it? Why, every one with common sense could foresee it--every one but those wilfully blind. An admirer of Mr. Gladstone naively writes in the _Westminster Review_ respecting the Land Act:--

“The people of the United States would not have tolerated such
an interference with the laws of contract as it involved. No
member of Congress could be found who would propose anything so
_indefensible_ from the American point of view.”[92]

And he might have added _indefensible from every point of view_.

Froude, the historian, says:

“It was England which introduced landowning and landlords into
Ireland as an expedient for ruling it. If we choose now to remove
the landlords or divide their property with their tenants, we
must do it from our own resources; we have no right to make the
landlords pay for the vagaries of our own idolatries.”[93]

FOOTNOTES:

[89] See Appendix No. II, in which is a resumé of the unheeded warnings, drawn up in 1880, from the arguments brought against the Bill. Any one not blinded by party prejudices, who read those arguments, could not fail to see that the Bill must be a measure of confiscation; and the subsequent action of the Bill shows that the forebodings have been verified.

[90] Froude, the historian, writing in 1880, says:--“The policy has been to make the property of the landlords worthless, and their possession so dangerous, that they would find their estates not worth keeping.”

[91] ‘Political Economy’--Bastiat.

[92] _Westminster Review_, October, 1883.

[93] _Nineteenth Century_, September, 1880.