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THE WELSH LAND BILL.

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THE WELSH LAND BILL. On Wednesday night last, the eve of St. Patrick's Day, Mr. T. E. Ellis, the Nationalist M.P. for Merionethshire, brought forward an important Bill to reform the tenure of land in Wales. The event was an important one, for two reasons. In the first place, the principle embodied in the Bill was, as Mr. Gladstone remarked, a new principle south of the Tweed and east of St George's Channel. We trust that the fact that the Bill was introduced on the eve of the patron saint's day of Ireland may be taken as an omen that some of the methods which have enabled the Irish mem- bers to make Irish questions of the day, will be adopted in future by the members of the Welsh party, and that they will make it apparent that they represent not only Liberal constituencies but also a separate and distinct nation, the cir- cumstances of whose life are different to those obtaining in England, whose needs and require- ments are different, and whose aspirations and grievances are national and peculiar. When the debate on Mr. Ellis's Bill is viewed in this light it assumes great importance. Mr. Glad- stone and the Front Opposition Bench had made it known that they were not at present prepared to adopt Mr. Ellis's Bill and, in spite of this, the Welsh members fought for a Bill, which, whatever its faults may be, is urgently needed in three fourths of the Principality. Nothing could so plainly indicate the inefficiency of the Imperial Parliament to deal with Welsh affairs than the ignorance that was shown on both sides of the House as to the real condition of the Welsh peasantry. It was assumed—and partly even by Mr. Gladstone—that the condition of the agricultural population of Wales, and the re- lations between landowner and tenant, were similar to those existing in England. It did not seem to be known that in Carmarthenshire, the largest Welsh county in Cardiganshire, which is wholly an agricultural county in Brecknockshire. Pembrokeshire, and nearly all the counties of North Wales the conditions of Welsh agricultural life resemble those of Ireland far more closely than those of England. It is true that the Welsh Land Question is not so well known to the outside world as the Irish Land Question." The reason is that the Welsh Land Question is of more recent origin, and that until lately Wales has not been represented as it ought either in Parliament or on the press of this country, and her grievances are, therefore, less known. Many, yet alive, remember the time when fixity of tenure was practically ensured by what was called les tri bywyd (a lease for three years), and when there was so little competition land that farms were let at moderate rents among a community of small farmers, who were content with living a hardy life, and with eking out a scanty livelihood by the exercise of the most grinding thrift. That period has long since passed away. The development of trade and com- merce, the opening up of the mineral resources of Wales, the consequent influx of English- men. and the extension of the railway system increased the valne of land in Wales, and raised the price of labour. In hundreds of instances the smaller farmers were dispossessed, and several small farms were thrown together to form one large farm. The peasantry, whose attachment to their land is as pathetic and as determined as the Irish cotter's love for his cabin, refused to emigrate to another country, whose language they did not understand, whose mode of life was strange to them, and whose religion was not theirs. A land-hunger was created in the agricultural dis- tricts, and rack-renting became almost as com- mon in many parts of Wales as it was in Ireland. What Mr. Ellis's Bill proposes to do is to give the Welsh peasant practically fixity and reasonable conditions of tenure, which shall be fixed by a responsible commission appointed by the Government. Mr. Gray opposed the Bill on the ground that he did not see any reason why Wales should receive different treatment from England. Mr. Glad- stone's opposition was due to another cause, but was nevertheless fatal to the Bill. "Mr. Ellis," he said, invites us to introduce into this country south of the Tweed principles which we have hitherto confined strictly to Ireland and to the Crofters in the Highlands of Scotland." This Mr. Gladstone, whose ex- | perience of Welsh agricultural life is confined, j /t according to his own admission, to the English portion of the county of Flint, was not pre- pared to do without a full and impartial in- quiry into the matter. The Welsh members had no need to shrink from the most searching investigation into their grievances but they knew that it was useless, notwithstanding Mr. Chamberlain's Llanybytlier speech, to expect the present Government to appoint a commission to inquire into the condition of agricultural Wales. The Government could not and would not consent to an inquiry" said Mr. Chaplin, "into the propriety of establishing a Court to fix rent: as proposed by the Bill. But they were quite willing to consider the propriety of insti- tuting an inquiry into the state of agriculture in Wales." In other words, die Government are willing that an inquiry should be held, but it must be a vague, unmeaning inquiry, whose appointment may bring some credit to the Government but which would result in nothing. to To those Liberals who have hitherto ignored the existence of a "Welsh question," we wish to recommend the words which Mr. John Morley used a few years ago at Ncwtown, and which were quoted by Mr. Ellis in the recent debate :— "It is impossible to deny for a moment." said Mr. Morley, that a case, a strong and irre- sistible case, was made for inquiry. The Tory Government is a Government of landlords, and the Government of landlords resisted even an inquiry, so that the Welsh farmer has to go on practising an industry and a grinding thrift, as I am told, in which lie is not equalled by the inhabitants of any other portion of the realm. He has to go on striving and struggling in these difficulties, and Parliament closes its eyes and folds its arms, leaving the question absolutely neglected. Can we wonder that slack and' sluggish apathy of that kind goes to the very heart of the people and is making the Welsh question ? It is that apathy, that indifference, the shutting of eyes and the folding of arms that made the Irish question." Mr. Ellis's Bill was of course defeated, but it has drawn from Mr. Gladstone the remark that the subject is one well worthy of inquiry, and we trust that the Welsh members will not rest content until they have secured the appointment of a full and impartial inquiry "without any of the re- strictions or conditions with which Mr. Chaplin tried to saddle it.

jWHY THE BARRY BILL WAS IWITHDRAWN.

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NOTES FROM LONDON.

ROUND THE TOWNS.

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