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Home History of Ireland since 1815 History of Ireland since 1815; Part 3 |
History of Ireland since 1815; Part 3A new stage was reached in the Irish problem when Gladstone came into office in 1869. His first act was the disestablishment of the Irish Church', its connection with the State was severed, and some of its endowments were devoted to secular purposes, though the reorganized Protestant Church kept the greater part. His second measure was an attempt to deal with the land question. The land system in Ireland was quite different from that in England. In Ireland, the landlords were often absentees. The tenants and not the landlords were responsible for the buildings and the gates, and, as a rule, made the improvements. Yet, despite this, the great mass of I he tenants - except in Ulster - were merely tenants-at-will, who could be expelled at any time, and they did not receive any compensation for their improvements; on the contrary, it occasionally happened that their rents were raised as a consequence. The Land Act of 1870 tried to remedy this state of affairs by making the landlord pay compensation both to outgoing tenants who had made improvements increasing the value of the farm, and to those who were evicted from their holdings for causes other than the non-payment of rent or the refusal of reasonable conditions of tenure.Yet still the Irish remained unsatisfied, and Gladstone had to pass another Coercion Bill to preserve order. During the rule of his successor, Disraeli, a new personality appeared in Irish politics. In 1879 Parnell became the leader of the Irish party. His mother was an American, and his father an Irish Protestant squire. Educated in England, he went into Irish politics, and entered Parliament in 1875. A hater of England, he became, by his abilities and the force of his will, the despotic ruler of the excitable Irish party, though he himself was of a silent disposition, and held aloof from his followers. His policy may be briefly explained. From the Irish in America he collected, by periodical visits, funds to support his party. In Parliament, his object, as has been stated, was to force the new policy of Home Rule, or, in other words, the old policy of Repeal, upon the attention of British electors by obstructing all business which was not connected with Ireland. In Ireland he made an alliance with the Land League. This league had been started in 1871 to agitate for further reforms in the land system. It used all forms of intimidation, including the new weapon of the Boycott - the refusal to work for, or supply anything to, anyone who opposed the policy of the league or who took the farms of evicted tenants (The first victim of this policy was a Captain Boycott - hence the name. Parnell summarized the policy to be pursued by saying that if a tenant took a farm from which someone else had been evicted, he was " to be isolated from his kind as if he were a leper of old"). |
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