Attitudes to Reform: Political Parties in Ulster and the Irish Land Bill of 1881

Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd

Attitudes to Reform: Political Parties in Ulster and the Irish Land Bill of 1881Author(s): Francis ThompsonSource: Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 24, No. 95 (May, 1985), pp. 327-340Published by: Irish Historical Studies Publications LtdStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60000015 .

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Irish Historical Studies. xxiv. no. 95 (May 1985)

Attitudes to reform: political parties in Ulster

and the Irish land bill of 1881

T he Irish land act of 1881, it is generally agreed, was a victory for the Land League and Parnell, and nationalist policy with regard to the act and

the attitude of southern tenants towards it have been many times subjected to detailed examination by historians of this period. In these analyses of the events of 1880-81, however, little reference is normally made to the part played by the different parties and interests in the north of the country. It is often assumed, for example, that the Ulster tenants held aloof from the campaign for reform, lending no more than occasional vocal support to the agitational efforts of tenants in the south and west. Indeed, they were later excoriated by William O'Brien, Michael Davitt and others not only for giving no support to the land movement but also for sabotaging Parnell's policy of testing the 1881 act by precipitately rushing into the land courts to take advantage of the new legislation: 'that hard-fisted body of men, having done nothing themselves to win the act, thought of nothing but turning it to their own immediate use, and repudiating any solidarity with the southern and western rebels to whom they really owed it'.' If, however, northern tenants were harshly judged by nationalist politicians in the years after 1881, the part played by the northern political parties in the history of the land bill has been either ignored or misunderstood by historians since that time. The Ulster liberals, for example, are rarely mentioned, the implication being that they made no contribution to the act even though it implemented almost exactly the programme on which they had been campaigning for much of the previous decade. The northern conservatives, on the other hand, are commonly seen as leading opponents of the bill, more intransigent than their party colleagues in the south, 'quick to denounce any weakening of the opposition' to reform, and 'determined to keep the tory party up to the mark in defending the landlord interest'.2

'William O'Brien,Recollections(London, 1905), p. 322. See also Michael Davitt, The fall offeudalism in Ireland; or the story of the LandLeague revolution (London and New York, 1904), p. 332; T. M. Healy, Letters andleaders ofmy day(2 vols, New York, 1929), i, 134.

2Alan O'Day, The English face of Irish nationalism: Parnellite involvement in British politics, 1880-86(Dublin, 1977), pp 97-8. See also J. E. Pomfret, The strugglefor land in Ireland, 1800-1923 (Princeton, 1930), pp 160-61; N. D. Palmer, The Irish LandLeague crisis (New Haven, 1940), pp 251-7. One important exception to the general misunderstanding of Ulster conservative attitudes at this time is A. B. Cooke, 'A

327



328 Irish Historical Studies

More attention has recently been given to the land war in Ulster and the belief that tenants there were not involved in the agitation can no longer be maintained.3 Nor can it be seriously contended that the Ulster tenants were responsible for the failure of the Parnellite strategy of testing the act; the fact was that tenants all over the country flocked to the land courts to have their rents fixed with a proportionately higher number of applications in the early months coming from Connacht than from any other province.4 However, there is as yet no adequate account of the part played by the Ulster parties in the events leading up to the land act. This article is intended to provide such an account and it argues that northern opinion had a more important influence on both the contents of Gladstone's bill and its fate at Westminister than has generally been recognised.

I

Gladstone, when he came into office in April 1880, was curiously ignorant of the seriousness of the situation in Ireland, and when it was forced on his attention he acted only hesitantly and reluctantly, hoping for a time that a good harvest would solve the problem and believing that the demand for land reform could be met 'simply by adapting and invigorating his old act'.' It was in fact W. E. Forster, the new Irish chief secretary, who took the initiative in meeting the crisis and who was the principal architect of liberal policy in Ireland during these two years. Forster, traditionally more identified with the early coercive legislation of this government, was convinced that 'the land question [was] the Irish question on which all else hinges'6 and it was he who was responsible both for the abortive compensation for disturbance bill and for the appointment of the Bessborough commission in the summer of 1880.7

conservative party leader in Ulster: Sir Stafford Northcote's diary of a visit to the province in October 1883' in R.I.A. Proc., lxxv, sect. C, no. 4 (1975), pp 61-84.

3R. W. Kirkpatrick, 'Origins and development of the land war in mid-Ulster, 1879- 85' in F. S. L. Lyons and R. A. J. Hawkins (eds), Ireland under the union...: essays in honour of T. W. Moody (Oxford, 1980), pp 201-35; Paul Bew and Frank Wright, 'The agrarian opposition in Ulster politics, 1848-87' in Samuel Clark and James S. Donnelly, Jr (eds), Irish peasants: violence and political unrest, 1780-1914 (Manchester, 1983), pp 192-229. See also T. W. Moody, Davitt and Irish revolution, 1846-82 (Oxford, 1981), pp 424-5, 432-48.

4Up to the end of January 1882, notices to have fair rents fixed had been served in respect of some 17 per cent of the holdings of above one acre in Connacht and 16.2 per cent of those in Ulster, leaving Connacht somewhat ahead of Ulster in its acceptance of the act. The figures for Munster and Leinster were 11.3 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively. See Return of the number of originating notices lodged in the court of the Irish land commission and in the civil bill courts of the counties up to and including the 28th day of January 1882, p. 5 [C. 3123], H.C. 1882, Iv, 361.

5J. L. Hammond, Gladstone and the Irish nation (London, 1938), pp 165, 188. See also John Vincent, 'Gladstone and Ireland' in Proceedings of the British Academy, lxiii (1977), pp 209-11.

6Forster to Gladstone, 7 May 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44157, f.127). 'T. Wemyss Reid, Life of the Rt Hon. W. E. Forster (reprint, with intro. by V. E.

Chancellor, Bath, 1970, of 3rd ed., 2 vols, London, 1888), ii, 243; Joseph Chamberlain, A political memoir, 1880-1892, ed. C. H. D. Howard (London, 1953), p. 6.



THOMPSON - Attitudes to reform 329

From an early stage he believed not only that land reform was necessary but that it 'must be strong and comprehensive'; 'we had better do nothing', he advised, 'than tinker'.8 Any reservations Forster had about fixity of tenure were quickly abandoned,9 and by November he was telling Gladstone that he believed that 'no bill will be a settlement of the question, will in fact do anything but harm which does not meet the popular demand for what is called the three Fs - viz. fixity of tenure at a fair rent and with a free sale'.'0

By this stage it was being increasingly widely recognised that fundamental concessions would have to be made to the Irish tenants. Forster's recommenda- tions were supported by a series of resolutions passed by the Land Tenure Reform Committee, an unofficial group composed of people of 'various political opinions' which had been formed in the previous year to study the whole question of Irish land tenure and which now advocated 'giving a security of tenure to the tenant, amounting practically to fixity of tenure, free sale of his interest, and fair rents, and... the removal of all obstacles to the formation of a peasant proprietary'." Further support for legislation on the basis of the three Fs came in January with the publication of the report of the Bessborough commission and the preliminary report of the Richmond commission (appointed in August 1879 to investigate agricultural conditions in Britain and Ireland). Four of the five members of the Bessborough commission signed the main report in favour of the three Fs;12 and while the majority of the members of the Richmond commission specifically rejected these as a solution to the problem (advocating instead resettlement, emigration and public works), a minority report drafted by Lord Carlingford, an Irish landlord and former chief secretary for Ireland, and signed by six of the nineteen members of the commission came out strongly in their favour."3

Gladstone, however, remained unconvinced. In December he was still hoping for something a good deal less than the three Fs,'4 and as late as January - after the Bessborough commission had reported - he spoke strongly in private against fixity of tenure and fair rents 'saying that both were

'Forster to Gladstone, 25 Oct. 1880 (Reid, Life ofForster, ii, 262). 9In an address to the Irish electors of Bradford in April 1880 Forster had stated that

'on the question of fixity of tenure, he could not undertake to vote for a measure of that sort' but he was, he said, anxious to make the Bright clauses more effective and to give tenants greater security of tenure (Northern Whig(hereafter cited as N. W.), 3 May 1880).

'oForster to Gladstone, 5 Nov. 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44157, f. 193). See also memorandum submitted by Forster to the cabinet, 15 Nov. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W. V. H. 17/2).

"Cabinet memorandum on resolutions passed by the Land Tenure Reform Committee, 23 Nov. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W. V. H. 17/2). See also Lord Monck's memorandum on 'Irish land tenure', 24 Nov. 1880 (ibid.). Monck was an Irish liberal landlord and one of the leading members of the Land Tenure Reform Committee.

12Report ofher majesty's commissioners ofinquiry into the working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, and the acts amending the same (hereafter cited as Bessborough report), p. 19 [C.2779], H.C. 1881, xviii, 1.

'3Preliminary report from her majesty's commissioners on agriculture, pp 7-9, 20-24 [C.2778], H.C. 1881, xv, 1.

'4Hammond, Gladstone & the Irish nation, p. 189; The diary of Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, 1880-1885, ed. D. W. R. Bahlman (2 vols, Oxford, 1972), i, 93.




a robbery of the landlord'.5 The weight of opinion was such, however, that Gladstone had to move his ground but he came round only slowly to accepting the need for a radical measure especially one which included fixity of tenure.'6 Forster was the leading member of the cabinet in bringing about this conversion and he made extensive use of Ulster sentiment in doing so.

The tenant-right movement in Ulster had been campaigning for the three Fs for much of the previous decade and, with tenant dissatisfaction and anti- landlord feeling exacerbated by the agricultural depression of the late seventies, the liberal party had been able, on the basis of this programme, to win eight of the eighteen county seats in Ulster in the general election of 1880 (as against only three county seats in the previous election in 1874). The election of Gladstone, the appointment of the Bessborough commission, and the Land League campaign in the south and west all led to rising expectations of reform in the north which were, however, seriously checked by the defeat of the compensation bill in the lords in August 1880. The fear was now created that the landed interest in the lords would defeat whatever proposals were introduced, and the result was that when the Land League began to campaign in the province from October 1880 it received widespread support not only from catholic tenants but also, to a degree which surprised and alarmed the landed classes, from protestant tenants as well. Northern tenants, far from passively observing the agitation elsewhere in the country, vigorously and determinedly supported the campaign for reform at both Land League and tenant-right meetings throughout the province. In these circumstances - and especially with the Orangemen also taking up the demand for reform - the Ulster landed classes became increasingly anxious to have the question fully settled. By late 1880, in fact, there was near unanimity among the various interests and parties in Ulster that tenant demands would have to be met and that nothing less than the three Fs with an extension of the facilities for tenant purchase would meet them.'7

This unity of opinion in Ulster powerfully reinforced Forster's arguments for a radical land bill rather than the amendment of the 1870 act which Gladstone favoured and which he was so unwilling to abandon. At the beginning of November Forster warned Gladstone - who at this time attached more importance to what appeared to be an expanding liberal power base in Ireland than he did later'" - that 'no Ulster liberal has a chance of return who does not pledge himself to it [the programme of the three Fs] and even the Orangemen cry out for a strong measure at their excited meetings'.'9 In December, he passed on to Gladstone a memorial submitted to himself by the Ulster liberal members demanding 'a substantive measure' of reform in the

'Vincent, 'Gladstone & Ireland', p. 215. 16The first draft of the land bill as explained by Gladstone to the cabinet contained

provisions for fair rents and free sale but not for fixity of tenure (Chamberlain, Political memoir, p. 15).

'7For a detailed examination of these developments in Ulster, see Francis Thompson, 'Land and politics in Ulster, 1868-1886' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Queen's University, Belfast, 1982), pp 435-96.

"See Gladstone to Thomas Macknight, I Apr. 1880, in Thomas Macknight, Ulster as it is, or twenty-eight years experience as an Irish editor (2 vols, London, 1896), i, 381.

"Forster to Gladstone, 5 Nov. 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44157, f. 193).




form of the three Fs and 'not a mere amendment of the land act of 1870';20 'they tell me', said Forster, 'that nothing short of this will keep their constituents from joining the Land League'.21 Forster forwarded another memorial in favour of the three Fs to Gladstone in January, this time signed by 22,000 protestant tenants, none of them in any way connected with the Land League and many of them Orangemen.22 And in the same month a deputation of Irish (mainly Ulster) liberal M.P.s met the prime minister himself and impressed on him the importance of including the three Fs and increased facilities for purchase in his bill.23 It was not only, as the tenant-right press in Ulster pointed out, that 'a weak measure would be fatal to the Ulster party' or, as the Daily News claimed, that the liberal party owed 'a special obligation' to the Ulster liberals24 or even, as Lord Derby argued, that it was necessary to sever the 'bond of discontent between Ulster and the rest of Ireland';25 it was rather that the Ulster demand was seen as the absolute minimum required to settle the question. The importance of satisfying opinion in the northern province was strongly emphasised by George Shaw-Lefevre, one of the leading self- proclaimed liberal experts on Ireland and Irish land tenure, in a memorandum specially prepared for the cabinet at Gladstone's request: I believe that these principles represent the almost unanimous opinion of all parties in Ulster at the present time, and are what they understand by the 'three Fs', viz., fixity of tenure, fair rents and free sale. Nothing less than this would, I think, satisfy them, and no scheme of land reform would have the faintest chance of acceptance in Ireland which has not the approval of the Ulster people. They form the main motive power of any reform; without them nothing can be done; with them much, I believe, can be done.26

By early 1881, in fact, it had been made clear to Gladstone that any reform which fell short of the three Fs would fail to satisfy the Ulster tenants and that any reform which failed to satisfy Ulster would afortiori fail to satisfy Ireland as a whole. The only possible alternative was a substantial measure of peasant proprietorship which the liberals' deep-rooted aversion to public expenditure effectively precluded them from adopting and on which they occupied a position less advanced even than that of the British tories.27 Gladstone's view

20Ulster liberal M.P.s' memorial to Forster, 1 Dec. 1880 (ibid., Add. MS 44158, ff 7-8).

2"Forster to Gladstone, 2 Dec. 1880 (ibid., f. 3). See also Forster to Gladstone, 10 Jan. 1881 (ibid., f. 121); W. E. Forster, 'Memorandum on the Irish land bill', 27 Dec. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt papers, W.V.H. 17/2).

22N. W., 22 Jan. 1881; Coleraine Constitution, 29 Jan. 1881. 23N. W., 13 Jan. 1881. Other members of the government were subjected to similar

pressure by the Ulster liberal representatitives. Sir William Harcourt, for example, was warned by one Ulster liberal early in 1881 that 'unless the government meant to accept the three Fs they had better not legislate at all' (R. B. O'Brien, The fife of Charles Stewart Parnell, 1846-1891 (2 vols, London, 1898), i, 298).

24Quoted in Ballymoney Free Press, 23 Dec. 1880. 25Hammond, Gladstone & the Irish nation, p. 217. 26George Shaw-Lefevre, 'Memorandum on Irish land legislation', 3 Jan. 1881 (Bodl.,

Harcourt papers, W.V.H. 17/2). See also Hamilton, Diary, i, 93-4. 27Both the British and Irish tories regretted the failure of Gladstone's bill to do more

in the way of promoting facilities for purchase. The Ulster tories wanted the state to advance the whole of the purchase money to the tenants. See, e.g., Coleraine Constitution, 30 Apr. 1881; Belfast Newsletter (hereafter cited as B.N.L.), 18 June 1881.




simply was that the Irish tenant could not 'be safely accepted as a debtor on a large scale to the imperial treasury'.28 For Gladstone and other liberals local self-government reform was an essential prerequisite of state support for tenant purchase for only then would local institutions be established which could accept responsibility for the loans and give the state the necessary security.29 In the meantime the liberals saw tenant purchase as having only limited application in Ireland.

Thus Gladstone reluctantly and only after a long campaign of persuasion on Forster's part introduced in April 1881 a bill that he had 'never expected to propose when he took office in April 1880'.30 It was a bill which effectively conceded the main demands of the northern tenant-right movement - the three Fs along with a moderate extension of the facilities for tenant purchase -and one which caused immense disquiet in British liberal as well as conservative circles.31 Whatever its imperfections, the bill was, certainly by the standards of the time, a revolutionary measure and there was always the danger that it would either suffer the same fate at Westminster as the compensation bill of 1880 or else be emasculated to the point where it would be totally unacceptable to the Irish tenants. But if the Ulster liberals could claim at least some of the credit for the actual terms of the bill, the Ulster tories were to play a more crucial role in securing its passage through two houses of parliament the majority of whose members were - and remained - distinctly uneasy about its implications.

II

Northern landlords were, as we have seen, increasingly anxious to have the land question settled. Many of them were convinced even before 1880 of the need for further legislation32 and the events of 1880-81 - the conservative losses in the election," the activity of the Land League, and the northern

28Quoted in Vincent, 'Gladstone & Ireland', p. 220. See also Gladstone to Forster, 7 Dec. 1880 (B.L., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44158, f. 34); Hansard3, cclxiii, 289-90 (7 July 1881).

29See Hammond, Gladstone & the Irish nation, pp 185-7. 3olIbid., p. 167. 3The resignation of the duke of Argyll from the government reflected the general

unease at the principles of the bill among the whigs and other liberal members and supporters. The general committee of the National Liberal Federation accused a number of liberal M.P.s of trying to impede the progress of the bill at the committee stage by 'proposing or supporting amendments calculated to strike at some of the vital principles of the bill' while others weakened the government by abstaining (National Liberal Federation, 4th annual report (Birmingham, 1881), pp 13-18).

32An increasing number of Ulster landlords had during the previous parliament come round to the view that an amendment of the 1870 land act was necessary to settle the question of leasehold tenant-right - that is, the question of tenant-right at the end of a lease - which had emerged as one of the main points of controversy and one of the main tenant grievances under the 1870 act in Ulster. See Thompson, 'Land & politics in Ulster', pp 218-23, 347-50.

33The general election of 1880 not only underlined the damaging effect the land question was having on landed political influence in Ulster but brought into office a




protestant and Orange support for the league and more generally and vociferously for reform - reconciled them to accepting a much more radical measure of reform than they would ever have contemplated in the 1870s. Their view was that nothing short of the three Fs would settle the question, that tenants on the conservative estates in Ulster already enjoyed the substance of these demands and that legislation along these lines would merely give legal sanction to existing practices. Their attitude was well summed up by Ellison Macartney, the conservative M.P. for Tyrone: 'such a measure would not materially affect the system at present adopted on the largest and best managed estates in Ulster. I do not think that anything short of it will allay the ferment which the Land League agitation has raised.'34

Macartney and other landed representatives were encouraged in this belief by government spokesmen who represented the land bill to parliament as a measure designed mainly to curb the excesses of a minority of landlords -generally, according to Gladstone, the smaller landlords - and not calculated to inflict any injury or loss upon the great majority of landowners who had, said Gladstone in introducing the bill, 'stood their trial and..., as a rule, been acquitted'."35 Where there was harmony between landlords and tenants and especially where landlords had already conceded the three Fs the bill, it was contended, would have practically no operation at all; 'in fact, all that would probably happen', claimed Hugh Law, the Irish attorney-general, 'would be that a certain number of rack-rented tenants would get their rents reduced and have a limited fixity of tenure. The government..,. did not admit that there would be any loss to the landlord, except the loss of a power which he ought not to exercise.'36 'I deny', said Lord Selborne, the English lord chancellor, 'that it [the bill] will diminish in any degree whatever the rights of the landlord or the value of the interest he possesses'.37 Carlingford in moving the second reading in the lords claimed that the main effect of the bill would be to place southern landlords like himself 'very much in the position in which the Ulster landlords are now'.38 He also maintained - and so too did John Bright and others -that the bill would cause 'the landlord no money loss whatever... except in those cases in which a certain number of landlords may have imposed upon their tenants excessive and inequitable rents, which they are probably vainly trying to recover'."39 Forster repudiated the suggestion that there would be 'a great rush into court' and argued - and this was an argument which had

government pledged to introducing household suffrage in the counties. 'Will the Irish landlords', Barry O'Brien pointedly asked, 'obtain better terms from a parliament elected under a new franchise than they are likely to receive from the existing assembly?' (O'Brien to editor, 7 June 1881, in Land, 11 June 1881, p. 411). Many conservatives thought not and believed it was essential to settle the land question before this happened. See, e.g., Coleraine Constitution, 24 Apr., 1 May, 10 July 1880; Fermanagh Reporter, 10 June 1880.

"4Speech at Enniskillen (B.N.L., 1 Jan. 1881). See also Bessborough report, p. 19. "Hansard 3, cclx, 892-4 (7 Apr. 1881). 36Ibid., cclxi, 1378-9 (26 May 1881). "Ibid., cclxiv, 532 (1 Aug. 1881). 38Ibid., col. 258. 39Ibid., col. 252. For Bright's speech, see ibid., cclxi, 103 (9 May 1881).




increasing appeal to Irish landlords40 - that landlords would benefit from the improved facilities for purchase which would, he maintained, help end the stagnation in the Irish land market.4'

These assurances were not given only to discourage opposition to the bill; they were genuine convictions held by government ministers. Forster, for example, had earlier assured the cabinet that the 'actual position [of the majority of landlords] would not be changed. Their rents are at present fair, and they rarely, if ever, think of getting rid of a solvent tenant.'42 The fact was that neither the government nor anyone else really expected the act to have the effects it eventually had. Certainly the belief that rents on most of the larger estates would not be seriously affected by the act was shared by members of all parties in Ireland though clearly not by all tenants. Parnell, for example, was voicing a widely held opinion when he declared that the act would 'practically speaking... affect but a very small proportion of the rents in Ireland. It would leave the great majority of them untouched.'43 This was the view especially of the majority of the leading proprietors in the north who had always maintained that their rents were moderately set. The liberal landlord Hugh Montgomery deplored the fact that 'thoughtless persons should have prepared disappoint- ment for many tenant-farmers by leading them to expect reductions of rent such as neither landlords nor legislation can possibly give them',44 while the Belfast Newsletter, the main conservative organ in Ulster, observed that 'people must be extremely credulous if they fancy that the result of the new law will be a general reduction of rents'.45 In fact, Ulster landlords did not expect the act to bring about any radical change in landlord-tenant relations in Ulster in the matter of rents or anything else. 'We are confident', said the Newsletter, 'that Ulster will not give very much employment to the land court, and that as regards most of the large properties little or no change will be perceptible'.46

40'There will be no possibility to sell land until this new land bill becomes law' (Earl of Charlemont to Hugh Boyle, n.d. (P.R.O.N.I., Charlemont papers, D.266/367/51)). See also speeches of Charles Lewis, conservative M.P. for Derry city (Hansard3, cclxi, 1386, 26 May 1881) and Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, conservative M.P. for Coleraine (ibid., cclxiii, 307-8, 7 July 1881).

41Hansard 3, cclx, 1166 (25 Apr. 1881). 42W. E. Forster,'Memorandum on the Irish land bill', 27 Dec. 1880 (Bodl., Harcourt

papers, W.V.H. 17/2). 43Hansard3, cclxii, 1839 (1 July 1881). See also ibid., cols 802-3 (17 June 1881); T. P.

O'Connor, The Parnell movement; with a sketch of Irish parties from 1843 (London, 1886), pp 457-8.

44Circular from Montgomery to his tenants, 10 Feb. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Montgomery papers, D.627/307a). For the belief that rents would not be seriously reduced, see also Montgomery to G. Ford, 15 Apr. 1881 (ibid., D.627/316); J. A. Pomeroy to Montgomery, 25 Apr. 1881 (ibid., D. 627/318); Earl of Charlemont to Hugh Boyle, 11 Apr. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Charlemont papers, D.266/367/37); Finlay Dun, Landlords and tenants in Ireland(London, 1881), p. 262; Hugh de F. Montgomery, Irish landand Irish rights (London, 1881), p. 24.

45B.N.L., 20 Oct. 1881. 46Ibid., 18 Aug. 1881. See also Coleraine Constitution, 20 Aug. 1881: 'we sincerely

hope the measure may benefit the farmers of Ireland, though in this province it will not make much change'.



THoMPsoN - Attitudes to reform 335

The Ulster tories did not of course give an unqualified welcome to the bill. It was, they thought, complex and involved, 'in many respects an unjust measure as regards the landlords of Ireland... especially the landlords of the south and west'.47 But they wanted the bill to pass and thirteen of the eighteen Ulster tory M.P.s voted for the second reading with only one - Cole of Enniskillen -opposing.48 If, however, they supported the second reading they were also anxious to have the bill amended and simplified in committee. They were particularly concerned about the rent-fixing clause - 'so far as Ulster is concerned, it is beyond all doubt the cardinal section of the bill'49 - about the constitution of the new court and the powers being given to the assistant commissioners, and about the fact that the court was closed to the landlord except with the consent of the tenant.5" Generally they were anxious to safeguard landlord interests and limit the application of the bill especially in the non-tenant-right provinces where it represented a much more serious encroachment on landlord interests than it did in Ulster. Thus they supported a whole series of amendments - protecting landlords who had bought up tenant-right on holdings and then re-let them;5' obliging tenants when they applied to the court to specify the alteration they wished to have made in their rents;52 limiting the scale of compensation for disturbance;53 allowing the court to fix the selling price of holdings not subject to the Ulster custom and limiting the sale of such holdings to tenants under £50;54 excluding tenants of £100

47B.N.L., 9 July 1881. See also ibid., 8, 9 Apr. 1881; Coleraine Constitution, 9 Apr., 7 May 1881.

48For the division list see Hansard 3, cclxi, 928-32 (19 May 1881). The four who did not vote were Corry (Belfast), Bruce (Coleraine), Castlereagh (Down) and Crichton (Fermanagh). Corry afterwards issued a statement saying he was unavoidably absent from the division and would have voted for the second reading (B.N.L., 24 May 1881). Bruce explained that he was generally in favour of the bill but not in its original form (Coleraine Constitution, 28 May 1881). In fact Bruce and Crichton were the two Ulster members most consistently hostile to the measure during its course through the commons, Crichton being the only Ulster M.P. who voted against clause 7, the rent-fixing clause and the clause generally acknowledged to be most important to Ulster.

49B.N.L., 28 Apr. 1881. SOSee, e.g., speeches of Bruce (Hansard 3, cclx, 1879, 5 May 1881), Edward

Macnaghten, conservative M.P. for Co. Antrim (ibid., cclxi, 306, 317, 12 May 1881), Lewis (ibid., cols 1386-7, 26 May 1881). Under the bill as originally introduced if the landlord wanted to increase the rent of a holding he had to do so by giving notice to the tenant with the possible consequence of having to pay ten times the difference between the rent demanded and what the court decided was a fair rent, or having to pay the tenant the amount the selling value of his tenant-right was depreciated by the increase in rent. Gladstone eventually conceded the point allowing the landlord as well as the tenant access to the court. See B.N.L. 9 Apr., 20 June 1881.

"1Hansard 3, cclxiii, 1960-2 (26 July 1881); ibid., cclxiv, 773-93 (4 Aug. 1881); Sir Thomas Bateson to Lord Salisbury, 27 July 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).

52See Coleraine Chronicle, 9 July 1881. s53N. W., 1 July 1881; Ballymoney Free Press, 7 July 1881. '4Hansard 3, cclxii, 364 (13 June 1881); N. W., 1, 14, 16 June 1881.




valuation and over from the operation of clause 7;55 and exempting 'English- managed' estates from the terms of the bill."56

Few of these amendments - in fact only the first two of those listed - had any direct relevance to tenants holding or claiming under the Ulster custom and it is clear that the Ulster landed representatives were anxious to avoid actions which were likely to bring them into conflict with their own tenants and supporters. On the other hand, they showed a strong disposition to support amendments limiting the application of the bill in non-tenant-right areas. But it was not simply a question of satisfying the protestant tenants of the north and refusing to meet the demands of tenants elsewhere in the country. Rather their policy was essentially one of supporting the legalisation of existing practices whether north or south and of resisting innovations which they believed to be contrary to landlord interests. But even in the latter case they were reluctant to push their resistance to the point where it would either delay orjeopardise the bill. Thus, despite their reservations about the bill and despite supporting a whole series of amendments against the government during the committee stage, their tactics were never wilfully obstructive and they gave a steady support to the measure at its most crucial stages and in all its leading provisions. Their importance, however, lay less in the votes they registered than in the debilitating influence they had on the opposition of other sections of the tory party to the bill.

The main Irish opponents of the bill were the conservatives in the three southern provinces. Of the seven tory M.P.s returned for constituencies outside Ulster six voted against the second reading,57 and this opposition continued during the committee stage and later in the house of lords where southern interests were more strongly represented. The southern landlords were not totally opposed to reform. Although the Irish Land Committee had publicly adopted a hardline attitude, deprecating in particular all proposals for the three Fs,58 Irish landlords were, as Lord Cairns informed Beaconsfield in December, prepared 'to accept any bill, not altogether unreasonable, rather than let the relations of landlord and tenant continue as they are'.59 This view was corroborated by Edward Gibson, the conservative M.P. for Dublin University, who wrote from Dublin: 'the opinion of prudent men here is in favour of an attitude of moderation towards any reasonable land bill that may be introduced by the government'.60 In the event, however, the bill brought in

5sHansard 3, cclxiii, 1956-9 (26 July 1881). 56Ibid., cclxii, 734-7 (16 June 1881). 'English-managed' estates were estates on which

the landlord had provided all the fixtures and improvements as was normally done in England. There were in fact very few such estates in Ireland.

"Ibid., cclxi, 928-32 (19 May 1881). 5"The Irish Land Committee published three pamphlets on the three Fs, all of them

extremely critical: Lord Dufferin on the three Fs (London and Dublin, Jan. 1881); Mr Gladstone and the three Fs (London and Dublin, Feb. 1881); Mr Bonamy Price on the three Fs (London and Dublin, Feb. 1881).

59Cairns to Beaconsfield, 3 Dec. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire, Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ca/272).

60Gibson to Beaconsfield, 9 Dec. 1880 (ibid., B/xxi/G/66). See also Gibson to Sir Stafford Northcote, 21 Dec. 1880 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B71/10).




by Gladstone was a good deal less reasonable than they had hoped. For them it was a much more radical break with past practices than it was for the Ulster landlords, a much more serious infraction of proprietorial rights, transferring, as they saw it, the property of the landlord to the tenant 'without giving the former a single farthing of compensation'.6' It was, they claimed, 'a measure of confiscation, pure and simple',62 which would 'materially lower rents',63 'lead to a large diminution in the value of every estate in Ireland',64 and convert the landlords into 'mere rent-chargers - bailiffs for the recovery of rents and nothing more'.65

Southern landlords had in fact a great deal more to lose than those in the north66 and many of them felt that their position had been compromised by the northern conservatives who because of their greater numbers tended to be regarded in the commons as the main representatives of Irish conservative opinion.'67 In the months preceding the introduction of the bill, while the predominantly southern Irish Land Committee was issuing pamphlets defending the landlords' position and opposing all proposals for change, the northern conservatives and Orangemen were lending their weight to the campaign for reform, creating the impression, as the earl of Donoughmore complained to Beaconsfield, 'that there is a pretty general consensus of opinion in Ireland for reform in the direction of the three Fs'; 'this', he assured the conservative leader, 'is certainly not the case'.68 These divisions continued after the details of the bill were announced leading Colonel A. L. Tottenham, the tory M.P. for County Leitrim, to remark bitterly that it was being

thrown in the teeth of the opponents to it [the three Fs] that some of the Ulster landowners see no objection to it. ... Of what consequence is the opinion of these few individuals who have already got the custom established, and therefore will not be so much affected by it, and who do not care, or are unable to look beyond their own selfish interests, instead of regarding this, not as an Ulster, but as an Irish, aye, and as an imperial question.9

But in fact, fiercely critical of the bill as they were, the southern conservatives quickly realised, once the terms had been announced and

6"Earl of Donoughmore to editor, n.d., in The Times, 12 Apr. 1881. See also Ion T. Hamilton, conservative M.P. for Co. Dublin, to editor, 11 Apr. 1881 (ibid.).

62Speech of marquis of Waterford (Hansard 3, cclxiv, 306, 1 Aug. 1881). 63Earl of Limerick to Salisbury, 25 July 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury

papers, Ser. E). "4Speech of marquis of Lansdowne (Hansard 3, cclxiv, 291-2, 1 Aug. 1881). 65Speech of Edward Gibson (ibid., cclx, 1100, 25 Apr. 1881). See also speech of Col.

A.L. Tottenham, conservative M.P. for Co. Leitrim (ibid., cclx, 1364-90, 28 Apr. 1881). 66It is significant that even within Ulster it was the landlords in the strongest

tenant-right areas who had been most ready to support reform. Those in the outer province where tenant-right existed only in a more attenuated form were slower to accept the demand for reform and showed least enthusiasm for the 1881 bill.

67See, e.g., earl of Limerick to Salisbury, 25 July 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).

"Donoughmore to Beaconsfield, 19 Dec. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Disraeli papers, B/xxi/D/287).

69Hansard 3, cclx, 1373 (28 Apr. 1881).




especially after it had passed its second reading with northern conservative support, that no more moderate bill would ever again be accepted by the Irish tenants.70 Thereafter, while still openly opposing the bill, they directed their main efforts to securing its amendment and in particular to arguing a case for both compensation and greater opportunities for the sale of estates.71 But compensation or no compensation - and there was, of course, never any prospect of Gladstone conceding such a claim or of the English tory leaders seriously supporting it72 - the Irish conservatives were, in the final analysis, more fearful of the consequences of defeating the bill than of it being passed. As the marquis of Lansdowne, one of the most vehement critics of the bill, warned the lords, 'its rejection would be the signal for a recrudescence of the conflict already raging there [in Ireland]. During the coming autumn and winter we should have to deal with anarchy and terrorism worse than those which have already made Ireland a bye-word. .... These conditions could only have one result - they would lead to a renewal of the proposals now made to us in a probably more extreme and violent shape.'73

The most determined opposition to the bill, in fact, came from the English conservatives who viewed the Irish land question in a much broader context than the purely Irish one and who clearly agreed with the American radical, Henry George, that what was being arraigned 'in the arraignment of the claims of the Irish landlords is nothing less than the widespread institution of private property in land'.74 Despite earlier - and in some quarters of the party continuing - opposition to tenant purchase, the tories had come round to the view that a moderate extension of the purchase clauses of the act of 1870 might provide the main solution to the problem and the heads of such a bill had been drawn up and circulated in the cabinet before they left office in 1880.75 But they were determined to resist any proposals which threatened in any way the fundamental rights of property. Hence they had, with the full support of the Irish conservatives, vigorously opposed and finally rejected (through their control of the house of lords) the compensation for disturbance bill of 1880,

70'Do the landlords seriously think', asked Barry O'Brien during the committee stage, 'that a less extreme measure will ever again be proposed with any likelihood of its being generally accepted as a satisfactory solution of the Irish agrarian problem' (O'Brien to editor, 7 June 1881, in Land, 11 June 1881, p. 411). Gladstone made the same point during the debates in parliament (Hansard3, cclxi, 606, 16 May 1881). See also N. W., 20 June 1881.

7"'See, e.g., speech of Edward Gibson (Hansard 3, cclx, 1103, 25 Apr. 1881); Lord Oranmore and Browne to Salisbury, 13 June 1881, 1 Aug. 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E); Earl of Limerick to Salisbury, 25 July 1881 (ibid.).

72See, e.g., the hostile comments of Sir Stafford Northcote to Salisbury, 21 Nov. 1881 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).

73Hansard3, cclxiv, 301 (1 Aug. 1881). See also speech of earl of Dunraven (ibid., col. 332).

74Henry George, The Irish land question: what it involves and how alone it can be settled: an appeal to the Land Leaguers (London and Glasgow, 1881), p. 10.

7"Heads of bill, 26 Jan. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Disraeli papers, B/xii/D/47 i); W.F. Moneypenny and G. E. Buckle, The life ofBenjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield (6 vols, London, 1910-20), vi, 510. The bill proposed to advance four-fifths of the purchase money to tenants as against the two-thirds allowed by the act of 1870.




Beaconsfield seeing this 'as not merely an Irish measure but as the opening of a great attack on the land'.'76 The land bill of 1881 was seen as a greater danger still. Sir Stafford Northcote, whose earlier description of the three Fs as 'force, fraud and folly' had caused great embarrassment to the party in Ulster,77 expressed the fear that they were 'being silently but rapidly drawn into the jaws of a whirlpool, which will engulf English as well as Irish landed property, and may probably not be satisfied with landed property alone'.78 The conservatives, in fact, taking heed of Beaconsfield's earlier warning not to 'relinquish their outposts',79 wanted to defeat the measure for English rather than Irish reasons and the English agricultural and property journal Landcorrectly identified the main threat to the bill as the 'English predilection for free contract and territorial privilege'.80

But in order to defeat the bill the conservative leaders needed the full support of the Irish landlords. In the months leading up to its introduction they were anxious to prevent 'any appearance of disunion', and to discourage proposals being made on the conservative side which, they feared,'would simply be taken [by the government] as a point of departure'.81 This whole strategy, however, was sabotaged by Ulster's support for the three Fs. As Salisbury wrote to Beaconsfield: 'Ulster has surrendered to the three Fs and with Ulster doubtless will go Gibson, Cairns and Richmond - and a good number of our peers... Bad for us, and bad for them! They have sacrificed every vestige of principle on which they can fight for proprietary rights: and we are left with the choice of giving in, or else of being Hibernis Hiberniores.'82

The Ulstermen had, Beaconsfield agreed, 'sold the pass' and (as Beaconsfield and Salisbury expected and as Northcote predicted) the tactics of the Ulster party continued to vitiate conservative opposition 'not only in the first division but throughout the conduct of the bill'.83 By the committee stage

76Moneypenny & Buckle, Life of Disraeli, vi, 582. See also Robert Blake, Disraeli (London, 1966), pp 728-9.

77Macknight, Ulster as it is, i, 397. See also Lord Cairns to Beaconsfield, 15 Dec. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ca/274): 'I wish Northcote and Lowther had been, on their part, a little more forbearing in discounting the question. Their joke about the "three Fs" is not a good one, and does infinite harm in Ulster.'

78Northcote to Edward Gibson, 23 Dec. 1880 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B71/11).

79Beaconsfield to Salisbury, 27 Dec. 1880 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E).

8sLand, 23 Apr. 1881, p. 242. 81Lord Cairns to Beaconsfield, 11, 15 Dec. 1880 (Hughenden Manor, Buckingham-

shire, Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ca/273, 274). See also Sir Stafford Northcote to Edward Gibson, 17 Oct. 1880 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers, T.2955/B.71/7); Edward Gibson to Sir Stafford Northcote, 21 Dec. 1880 (ibid., T.2955/B.71/10).

82Salisbury to Beaconsfield, 20 Dec. 1880 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. D). Salisbury's biographer states that Salisbury 'recognised from the first the hopelessness of championing a cause so defended' (Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert, marquis of Salisbury (4 vols, London, 1921-32), iii, 42-3).

83Beaconsfield to Salisbury, 27 Dec. 1880 (Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E); Salisbury to Beaconsfield, 2 Jan. 1881 (ibid., Ser. D); Northcote to Salisbury, 15 Apr. 1881 (ibid., Ser. E).




John Gorst was expressing the general exasperation felt by English tories at the behaviour of their northern Irish colleagues:84 The Ulster landowners do not seem to me to be capable of regarding the land bill from any but a selfish point of view, and are apparently ready on every occasion to sacrifice both sound policy and common sense to their fancied interests... What I protest against is their insisting on dragging the whole conservative party in bondage at their heels, and expecting people to subordinate opinions based on actual experience to the crude ideas which they hastily take up as most in accordance with what they imagine to be their own interest."5

The conservative party had of course the power to stop the bill in the house of lords but with conservative ranks divided there could be no question of rejecting it outright as had been done with the compensation bill. The English conservatives could not take it on themselves to defeat a measure which, whatever its implications for landed property in Britain, was of most direct concern to Ireland and which all parties in Ireland now wanted to see passed. Salisbury still wanted the lords to hold out against the government by insisting on a number of fairly drastic amendments.86 But the other conservative peers were increasingly uneasy and anxious for a settlement especially after Edward Gibson, who had been closely consulted by the party leaders throughout the crisis, 'strongly and plainly' told them at a private meeting on 13 August that 'the loss of the bill would by almost every rational man in Ireland be regarded as unmixed calamity'; 'it would', he warned, 'lead to a saturnalia of outrage'."87 The Irish Land Committee, which had earlier encouraged and advised Salisbury on his amendments, also informed him at this time that they saw 'no advantage in further disputing the provisions of the bill'.88 In these circumstances, therefore, Salisbury agreed to a compromise so that the bill finally went through in a shape not vastly different from that originally introduced by Gladstone. Sir Stafford Northcote, looking back on the events of the previous months, placed responsibility for the conservative failure to defeat the bill squarely on the shoulders of the Ulster tories: 'of course, if the Irish landlords, and especially the Ulster members, had taken a decided line against the bill, we could have stopped it or cut it down to nothing by action in the two houses. But this was impossible in the face of their determination to pass the measure.'89

FRANCIS THOMPSON St. Joseph's College of Education, Belfast

84Relations between the Ulster tories and the party leaders in England were at rock bottom at this time, the Ulstermen holding the latter largely responsible for their losses in the election of 1880. Comments such as those of Gorst, Salisbury and others were matched by equally bitter comments by the Ulster tories about the leadership in England. See, e.g., B.N.L., 12 Dec. 1879, 14 Apr., 15 Dec. 1880.

85Gorst to W. H. Smith, 14 July 1881, in O'Day, English face oflr. nationalism, p. 98. "6Edward Gibson's diary, 13, 15 Aug. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers,

T.2955/AI/1). 87Ibid. 8"Copy of resolution of executive committee of Irish Land Committee, 16 Aug. 1881

(Christ Church, Oxford, Salisbury papers, Ser. E). 89Northcote to Edward Gibson, 29 Aug. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., Ashbourne papers,

T.2955/B71/15).



Attitudes to Reform: Political Parties in Ulster and the Irish Land Bill of 1881

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Transcript of Attitudes to Reform: Political Parties in Ulster and the Irish Land Bill of 1881