Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1Bright, John
History
Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1
Bright, John
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
I come now to those social questions which must also receive the
attention of Parliament; for if they do not, the political remedies
will, after all, be of very little permanent use. I advocate these
political changes on the ground, not that they will feed the hungry or
employ the idle, but that they will be as oil thrown upon the waters,
and will induce the people no longer to feel themselves treated as a
conquered race. It is agreed on all sides that the social remedies which
are immediately possible to us, are those having reference to the mode
in which the land of Ireland is owned, or held and cultivated--perhaps
'not cultivated' would be a more correct expression. The noble Lord at
the head of the Government has alluded to parts of Ireland in which it
is impossible that the land as at present held, or the rates which can
be collected, can find relief or sustentation for the people. It is a
notorious fact, that there are vast tracts of land in Ireland, which, if
left in the hands of nominal and bankrupt owners, will never to the end
of time support the population which ought to live upon them. And it is
on this ground that I must question the policy of measures for expending
public money with a view to the cultivation and reclamation of these
lands.
The true solution of this matter is to get the lands out of the hands of
men who are the nominal, and not the real, possessors. But Parliament
maintains laws which act most injuriously in this particular. The law
and practice of entails tends to keep the soil in large properties, and
in the hands of those who cannot perform their duty to it. It will be
said that entails exist in Scotland and in England. Yes; but this
Session a law has passed, or is passing, to modify the system as it has
heretofore existed in Scotland; and in England many of its evils have
been partially overcome by the extraordinary, and, to some degree, the
accidental extension of manufacturing industry among the people. In
Ireland there are no such mitigations; a code of laws exists, under
which it is impossible for the land and the people to be brought, as it
were, together, and for industry to live in independence and comfort,
instead of crawling to this House, as it does almost annually, to ask
alms of the hardworking people of England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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