GLADSTONE - (3) IRELAND
GLADSTONE (1845): “Ireland! Ireland! That cloud in the West, that coming storm, the minister of God’s retribution upon cruel and inveterate and but half atoned injustice.”
Even at the height of the Fenian movement, he reminded his colleagues that they should not forget the real genuine grievances of the Irish.
“My mission is to pacify Ireland.”
FIRST MINISTRY:
1. 1869 - Disestablished the Irish Church.
Part of the income was allotted to the relief of “unavoidable calamity and suffering.”
2. 1870: Began attempts at agrarian reform.
Essentially, at the very leas needed to undo the work of Russell’s Encumbered Estates Act 1849. It had been passed, as Gladstone suggested, with
“Lazy, heedless, uninformed good intention.”
The aim of the 1849 Act had been to grow more food. In order to achieve this, the Act gave landlords the right to sell land to those who possessed capital to make the land profitable. It was complemented by two other Acts, which made evictions easier. The results had been mass evictions, large portions of land given over to grazing and a new kind of landlord - the capitalist.
Gladstone’s solution was the Irish Land Act 1870:
a) vaguely tried to protect the tenant in law
b) recognised the tenant’s retrospective right to compensation for disturbance
c) secured compensation for unexhausted improvements to an outgoing tenant
d) Courts were empowered to revise exorbitant rents
e) By the so - called ‘Bright clauses’ an attempt was made to facilitate land purchase tenants.
NOTE: Latter point was eventually how the agricultural problem was solved.
WEAKNESSES OF THE ACT:
1. Even Gladstone failed to fully understand the Irish problem.
2. Act failed to define clearly the rights of tenant and owner. As a result, legal disputes were numerous, and seldom advantageous to the tenant.
3. With a class-biased judiciary, the tenants still had no security of tenure or protection against vast rent increases.
4. The HofL’s passed an amendment substituting “exorbitant” for “excessive” in the clause allowing a Court to compensate a tenant dispossessed for non - payment of rent.
NOTE: 1875 saw the beginning of the great agricultural depression - mass failures to pay rent revealed the uselessness of the Act.
3. Like Disraeli, Gladstone wanted to establish a Royal Residence in Ireland. He wanted to turn the post of Viceroy of Ireland into a purely ceremonial post and give it to the Prince of Wales. Queen Victoria prevented this.
4. With a continuing trend towards violence and crime, Gladstone eventually was forced to pass a Coercion Bill, known as the Peace Preservation Act in 1870, and the Westmeath Act in 1871, widening the power of the Lord Lieutenant.
5. In 1873, introduced a Bill for Irish University Reform - wanted to combine all the Higher Education establishments in Ireland into one university. This angered both Catholics and radicals and the vote was lost by 3 in the HofC’s.
GROWTH OF UNREST:
1. 1870 Irish Home Rule League was founded in Dublin.
2. 1877 Michael DAVITT founded the Irish Land League with the object of reducing exorbitant rents and enabling tenants to buy their holdings outright.
3. Post 1875 An increasingly severe agricultural depression:
Poor harvests
The lowering of prices as a result of cheap foreign competition, particularly from the New World.
4. 1872 Secret Ballot Act - meant landlord influence was lost;
5. 1874 58 Home Rulers returned to Westminster.
Once BUTT died and was replaced by Parnell, the Irish began to make their views known in Parliament.
(See Irish notes)
SECOND MINISTRY
The 1880 election produced 65 Irish Home Rulers. In Ireland, people saw an ever widening amount of violence and crime. It was becoming increasingly vital that something should be done.
Gladstone announced that the Liberals would try and rule Ireland without Coercion.
1. Compensation for Disturbances Bill
This was an attempt to alleviate the consequences of eviction. This was thrown out by the HofL’s.
Boycotting began in Ireland.
2. Coercion Act
Boycotting was accompanied by violence and even murder. FORSTER - Chief Secretary for Ireland and LORD COWPER - Lord Lieutenant of Ireland - demanded a new Coercion Act. Gladstone had reluctantly to agree but it was accompanied by a new Land Act.
3. Irish Land Act 1881
Remembered as the three ‘F’s - fixity of tenure, fair rents and free sale.
a. Rent tribunals were to be set up. A tenant was to be free from fear of eviction as long as he paid the rent so established by the tribunal.
b. Tenants were given the right to sell their tenancy to any one of whom their landlord did not disapprove.
c. An amendment prevented the rent being raised against improvements carried out by tenants.
The Act took 58 sittings in the HofC’s. Gladstone had to shoulder the responsibility - perhaps a reflection on the interest of the rest of the Cabinet.
NOTE; The Act did not compensate those tenants already in arrears - calculated at around 100,000. They were thus excluded from the Clauses of the Act.
In the long term, the Act laid the foundations for a solution to the agrarian problem in Ireland but in the short term, it was tragically too late.
4. Parnell and the nationalists opposed the passage of the Act:
a. no provision for those in arrears
b. had appeared to prove the efficacy of violence. Many now hoped that violence would ‘convince’ the rent tribunals to keep the rents set very low.
c. Some went even further and tried to prevent tenants making applications to the rent tribunals on the grounds that rents owed to alien landlords were contrary to natural justice.
Parnell and others were eventually arrested following the declaration of a rent strike. The Phoenix Park Murders saw a second, even more severe Coercion Bill passed, and whereby magistrates were allowed to hold secret enquiries without formality or charging anybody.
5. Arrears Act 1881
Part of the Kilmainham ‘Treaty’. Cancelled arrears of rent in cases when tenants occupying land worth less than _30 per year were unable to pay.
1883 - Corrupt Practices Act
Set down exact rules concerning the amount of money that could be spent in the course of an electoral campaign. Designed to remove last chances of bribery and corruption and was successful.
No other Act of real significance was passed. Minor reforms were encompassed in such Acts as:
Abolition of flogging in the Army and Navy - 1881
Married Women’s Property Act 1882
Settled Land Act 182
Seamen’s Wages Act
Grain Cargoes Act
Some were minor additions to the first Ministry’s work and some were the product of radical pressure.
THIRD MINISTRY 1886
Too short to allow for any measure of domestic reform.
FOURTH MINISTRY 1892 - 1894
Unlike the second ministry, the Liberals were not in a strong position in Parliament. The Conservatives actually had more seats than the Liberals who therefore had to depend on the Irish to give them a majority of about 40 in the HofC’s.
The Liberals were of course in a permanent minority in the HofL’s - this had been shown during the 1884 Reform Act - and was to be shown up more and more clearly as time progressed. Equally, it could be said that Gladstone had come back to power only as a result of his desire to give Home Rule to Ireland.
Few Acts of substance can be found -
Parish Councils Act Introduced by Fowler, completed the work of the County Councils (1894) Act.
Even the above legislation was ‘mauled’ by the House of Lords. Their power - now deliberately used by the Conservatives - wrecked an Employers Liability Bill and was of course responsible for the failure of Home Rule.
Gladstone suggested to his Cabinet that - in the face of the HofL’s - the Party should ask the Queen for dissolution and go to the country asking for a mandate to limit the power of the HofL’s. The Cabinet refused. This problem, together with Gladstone’s dislike of the new arms race and his failing health were enough to convince him to resign.