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III. Ireland and the Empire in the 1860s. Imperial Precedents for Gladstone's First Irish Land Act.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. D. Steele
E. D. Steele
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Extract

The influence of British Indian example on the Irish Land Act of 1870 has received some notice in recent years. Dr E. E. Stokes, for one, has commented that it was men with an Indian background like J. S. Mill and George Campbell who educated the Liberal party to think ‘that the State might justly lay hands on the sacred institution of private landed property’. It is argued here that the general influence was very much less than has been suggested. Nor did Indian example point to a single course of action by the state on the Irish problem. Mill and Campbell, the two leading advocates of Irish land reform to draw on India, put forward solutions which, if intended to secure practically the same end, differed significantly in their approach.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 1968 , pp. 64 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

1 Stokes, Eric, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959), p. 122Google Scholar; see also Black, R.D.Collison, Economic Thought and the Irish Question 1817–1870 (Cambridge, 1960), PP. 55–6.Google Scholar

2 The land question in Prince Edward Island during the 1850s and 60s can be followed in Cockburn, A.P., Political Annals of Canada (London, 1909), pp. 304–9; and P.P. (1864), XLI, 649 ff., (1875), LIII, 699 ff.Google Scholar

3 Letter-Books of the 3rd Viscount Palmerston (B.M. Add. MSS. 48579), Palmerston to Molesworth, 30 August 1855.

4 Ibid. Palmerston to Labouchere, 19 December 1855.

5 Mill, J.S., Principles of Political Economy (1st ed.London, 1848), I, 387.Google Scholar

6 The best short account of British Indian land settlements in the mid-nineteenth century, with a sketch of their history, is Campbell, George's The Tenure of Land in India; this was a contribution to Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries. A Series of Essays published under the Sanction of the Cobden Club(London, 1870)Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Systems of Land Tenure. The official controversies of the 1860s are described in Pal, Dharm, The Administration of Sir John Lawrence in India (1864–1869) (Simla, 1952), ch. iii, ‘Post-Mutiny Tenancy Legislation’.Google Scholar

7 Elliot, H.S.R. (ed.), The Letters of John Stuart Mill (London, 1910),II, 188Google Scholar, Mill to Sir Charles Dilke, 9 February 1869.

8 Mill, , op. cit. (5th ed.London, 1862), I, 407.Google Scholar

9 P.P. (1865), XL, 212. Papers relating to the Administration of Oude, Chief Commissioner, Oude, to Government of India, 26 March 1864; a good example of Palmerston on the subject of Irish land reform is his speech in House of Commons Debates, 23 June 1863.

10 House of Lords Papers, 1866 (290), Rights of Occupancy in Oude, pp. 38–9, Financial Commissioner to Chief Commissioner, Oude, 19 June 1865.

11 Ibid. p. 37; see P.P. (1870), Lin, 758–9. Papers relating to the Punjab Tenancy Act, Abstract of Proceedings in the Legislative Council of India, 19 October 1868, for remarks by Strachey which are a faithful echo of Mill.

12 Walrond, T. (ed.), Letters and Journals of James, 8th Earl of Elgin (London, 1872), pp. 446–7, Elgin to H. S. Maine, 25 February 1863.Google Scholar

13 Iddesleigh Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 50025), Lawrence to Northcote, 4 April 1868.

14 Ibid. (B.M. Add. MSS. 50026), Lawrence to Northcote, 7 July 1868.

15 Wingfield, elected to the Commons ‘as a strong Radical’ on his return to England, was prominent among those who lobbied the Indian secretary and his council. According to John Strachey, quoted by Lawrence's biographer, Mill's intervention at home was instrumental in saving the Act. This estimate of his influence is not borne out by Argyll's correspondence (SirBernard, Charles (ed.), George Campbell, Memoirs of my Indian Career, London, 1893, II, 174Google Scholar; Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44101), Argyll to Gladstone, 23 August 1869; Smith, R.Bosworth, Life of Lord Lawrence, 4th ed.London, 1883,II, 565–9).Google Scholar

16 Elliot, , op. cit. II, 170, Mill to H. S. Maine, 1 01 1869.Google Scholar

17 Mayo Papers, University Library, Cambridge (Aaa/7490/36), Mayo to Argyll, 29 July 1869.

18 1852, 1858–9 and 1866–8.

19 Mayo Papers (Aaa/7490/47), Argyll to Mayo, 1 November 1869. The passage in which Argyll makes it clear that it was the limitations of landlord right in the Punjab and in India generally which decided him to maintain the Act, is omitted from the letter as printed in the Argyll, Dowager Duchess of (ed.), George Douglas, Eighth Duke of Argyll, Autobiography and Memoirs (London, 1906), II, 280–1.Google Scholar

20 Mayo Papers (Aaa/7490/36), Mayo to Argyll, 29 July 1869.

21 See his speech on the Tenants Improvements (Ireland)Bill, , House of Commons Debates,18 February 1867.Google Scholar

22 Mayo Papers (Aaa/7490/37), Mayo to Lord Denbigh, 7 October 1869. After the relatively mild Land Act of 1870 had become law, he remarked: ‘I cannot congratulate the wisdom of Parliament on the success of its efforts for the pacification of Ireland. I said that confiscation was a rude and unstatesmanlike device, and seldom improved the condition of any country to which it was applied’. Ibid. (Aaa/7490/43), Mayo to Lord Longford, 22 June 1871. DrHambly, G.R.G. writes: ‘Irish experience led him (Mayo) to take a view of Indian land problems which was marked by a warm-hearted sympathy for tenant-right... ’,‘Richard Temple and the Punjab Tenancy Act of 1868’, E.H.R. (1964), pp. 62–3. This, clearly, must not be taken to mean sympathy for Irish tenant-right.Google Scholar

23 Op. cit. 1st ed., I, pp. 387, 390–8; 3rd ed. (London, 1852), 1, pp. 396–406; 5th ed., I, pp. 407–8; 6th ed. (London, 1865), I, pp 412–18. With regard to Irish land, the second edition did not differ significantly from the first, nor the fourth from the third.Google Scholar

24 Mill, J.S., England and Ireland (London, 1868), esp. pp. 22–3, 36–8.Google Scholar

25 The Spectator, 17 February 1866: ‘;Mr Gladstone on Irish Policy’; 9 March 1867: ‘The Insurrection in Ireland’ asserting ‘...now in Ireland, as a hundred years ago in Bengal, the secret of order will be found in a Perpetual Settlement... ’. A typical reaction was that of The Pall Mall Gazette, 26 February 1866: ‘Ireland and her Friends’

26 In Hughes's speech, to his constituents at Lambeth, he said: ‘He thought that a rearrangement of the land system should be adopted, similar to the permanent settlement of Bengal under... Lord Cornwallis... This might be termed confiscation and robbery, but it was the only way...to convert the Irish people from what he might call foreigners and enemies into firm friends’, The Times, 20 December 1867. The Times commented on 23 December:‘In Bengal the Government was entitled to exact rent from the land, and could fix it as it pleased. In Ireland it has no such right’; what Hughes asked would be a‘ flagrant... act of iniquity’. For the verdict on Mill's pamphlet, see: The Times, 22 February; The Pall Mall Gazette, 24 February, ‘Mr Mill and Ireland’; The Economist, 22 February, ‘Mr Mill on Ireland’; The Saturday Review, 7 March, ‘Ireland’; The Edinburgh Review, April no., ‘The Irish Abroad’; and House of Commons Debates 10, 12, 13, 16 March 1868, esp. the speeches of Charles Neate (10 March), Robert Lowe (12 March), Gathorne Hardy (12 March), John Bright (13 March), and Gladstone (16 March).

27 Mill, , Autobiography (1st ed.London, 1873), p. 294.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. p. 25.

29 Mill, , Principles of Political Economy, 1st ed., I, pp. 378–9.Google Scholar

30 Bernard, , op. cit. IIGoogle Scholar, chs. VII, vIII X. He contested Dunbartonshire as ‘a good Radical’ at the general election of 1868, withdrawing his candidature before the poll for lack of support, ibid. pp. 185–8.

31 Systems of Land Tenure, p. 187.

32 Salisbury Papers, Campbell to Salisbury, 29 December 1869.

33 Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44101), Argyll to Gladstone, 13 October 1869.

34 Campbell, George, The Irish Land (London, 1869), pp. 168, 16, 52–4. This book consists of his two Irish pamphlets discussed here.Google Scholar

35 Elliott, , op. cit. II, 230, Mill to Cairnes, 16 11 1869.Google Scholar

36 Campbell, , op. cit. p. 16Google Scholar; Bernard, , op. cit. II, p. 96; p. 37 of memoir of Maine cited next footnote.Google Scholar

37 Stokes, Whitley (ed.), Sir Henry Maine. A Brief Memoir of his Life by the Right Hon. Sir M. E. Grant Duff, G.C.S.I., with some of his Indian Speeches and Minutes (London, 1892), pp. 23–36Google Scholar; Gopal, S., British Policy in India 1858–1905 (Cambridge, 1965), p. 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Stokes, Eric, op. cit. ch. 11, ‘Political Economy and the Land Revenue’Google Scholar.

39 First published in 1861.

40 The Times, 15 February 1870.

41 Campbell, , op. cit. pp. 36–9, 90–3.Google Scholar

42 Ibid. pp. 6, 24–42.

43 Mill, , England and Ireland, pp. 12–13;Google Scholar native Irish tenure contemporary with the final English conquest is lucidly discussed by Hayes-McCoy, G.A., ‘ Gaelic Society in Ireland in the late Sixteenth Century’ in Hayes-McCoy, (ed.), Historical Studies IV, Papers read before the Fifth Irish Conference of Historians (London, 1963).Google Scholar

44 This summary is based on the evidence collected by several official inquiries of the period: the Devon Commission, P.P. (1845), XIX-XXII; the Commons' select committee of (1865), P.P. (1865), xi, 341 ff.; and the investigation carried out by Poor Law inspectors at the orders of the Gladstone government, P.P. (1870), XIV, 37 ff.

45 Campbell, , op. cit. pp. 86–91.Google Scholar

46 A point emphasized by Gladstone in his memorandum of 11 December 1869 on Irish land to which further reference is made below.

47 Campbell, , op. cit. p. 91.Google Scholar

48 Ibid. pp. 166, 183–5.

48 Fitzgibbon, Gerald, The Land Difficulty of Ireland with an Effort to Solve it (London,1860).Google Scholar

50 Campbell, , op. cit. pp. 185–8.Google Scholar

51 Campbell, not a modest man, himself admitted that ‘Few people... went the whole length with me’. At the same time he mentioned the report that Gladstone had frequently cited his book. Bernard, , op. cit. II, 191.Google Scholar

52 Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. Bristol Meeting.1869(London, 1870), p. 171.Google Scholar

53 Lang, Andrew, Life, Letters and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote, First Earl of Iddesleigh (new ed.Edinburgh and London, 1891), pp. 172–3, Northcote to Lawrence, 15 August 1867.Google Scholar

55 Trans. N.A.P.S.S. (1869–70), pp. 171–2.

55 Gladstone indeed took it for granted that in the event of Liberal disruption by the question Disraeli would not hesitate to concede undisguised fixity of tenure to still the heightened clamour in Ireland. Some weeks before Northcote's speech he told a cabinet colleague that legislating on Irish land would demand ‘a great deal of nice steering, and the worst of it is that if we fail much more will have to be done by others’; Ramm, A. (ed.), The Political Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville 1868–1879, Camden 3rd ser., lxxxi-ii (London, 1952), I, 1868–1871, pp. 54–5, Gladstone to Granville, 14 September 1869. Later when the government's bill was under fire from its own backbenchers, he wrote: ‘ The next Bill will be adequate and something more... Disraeli has not spoken one word aga inst valuation of rent, or perpetuity of tenure.’ Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44538), Gladstone to Argyll, 21 April 1870.Google Scholar

56 The History of The Times (London, 1935–1952), II, 412Google Scholar, Gladstone to Delane, 6 October 1869. The History errs in stating that the leading article of 27 October was written ‘almost certainly...with foreknowledge of what had passed in cabinet the previous afternoon’. Though Gladstone in this letter to Delane mentioned 26 October as the start of the cabinet's autumn meetings, Irish land did not come before it until 30 October. See Spencer Papers, Fortescue (Irish secretary) to Spencer, 31 October.

57 The Times, 27 October 1869.

58 Ibid. 15 February 1870.

59 Maine, , Ancient Law (World's Classics ed. 1959) p. 141.Google Scholar

60 The story of the struggle within the Liberal cabinet over the provisions of what became the Irish land bill of 1870 has been fully told in the present writer's doctoral dissertation on ‘Irish Land Reform and English Liberal Politics 1865–70’ (Cambridge University Library, 1963), chs. ii-v. Gladstone discovered Campbell's first pamphlet shortly after beginning work on proposals for the cabinet; and gave a copy to the confidential emissary whom he sent to take soundings in Ireland, Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44537), Gladstone to Bright, 1 September 1869.

61 Granville Papers (P.R.O. 30/29/51) Argyll to Granville, 12 November 1869.

62 Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44538), Gladstone to Argyll, 5 January 1870.

63 Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44758), memorandum of 11 December 1869 by Gladstone on Irish land.

64 Granville Papers (P.R.O. 30/29/66), Lowe to Granville, 21 December 1869.

66 Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44101), Argyll to Gladstone, 4 January 1870.

65 Ibid. Argyll to Gladstone, 7 January 1870.

67 Ibid. Gladstone to Argyll, 8 January 1870.

68 Gladstone's speech on the first reading gives the clearest explanation of the bill, House of Commons Debates, 15 February 1870. He then stated that even where in the three Southern provinces custom could be proved to have the landlord's sanction, it was only recognized for the purpose of compensation for eviction; the market value of the tenant's interest being a convenient method of assessing such compensation. This and other lesser restrictions on custom outside Ulster were removed during the bill's passage through the Commons.

69 Ibid.

70 P.P. (1864), XLI, 721, the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to Lieut.-Gov. Dundas, 11 July 1863.

71 P.P. (1875), Lin, 760–1, Report of the Minister of Justice, Canada, 23 December 1874, on Prince Edward Island Land Purchase Act (1874).

72 Maguire, J.F., The Irish in America (London, 1868), pp. 37, 43, 56–7.Google Scholar

73 The Economist, 25 January 1868, ‘Lord Stanley at Bristol’.Google Scholar

74 The Times, 5 February 1868.Google Scholar

75 At Liverpool, 14 October; The Times, 15 October 1868.

76 Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44100), Argyll to Gladstone, 16 October 1868.

77 Ibid. Argyll to Gladstone, 20 October 1868.

78 Maguire, , op. cit. pp. 622–3.Google Scholar

79 Gladstone Papers (B.M. Add. MSS. 44101), Argyll to Gladstone, 13 Jan. 1870.

80 Ampthill Papers, India Office Library (MSS. Eur. E. 233/13), Morley to Lord Ampthill, 9 January 1906. I owe this reference to Dr R. Hyam of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

81 Maine, , Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (7th ed.London, 1905), p. 207Google Scholar.