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Title: Notebook “Trade and Finance 1869”. XI. The verdict in the press, the Irish land question and a co-operative colony in Kansas, December 1869–January 1870
Description: Newspaper cuttings pasted by Jenny Marx (daughter) for Marx into the notebook “Trade and Finance 1869”, last part: leading articles of the Daily News and the Pall Mall Gazette on the acquittal of the Overend, Gurney and Co. directors, a letter of Thomas C. Scott on the Irish land question (Daily News, 6 January 1870) and a letter of the Mutual Land Emigration and Co-operative Colonization Company, “America as we found it” (Reynolds’s Newspaper, 12 December 1869).
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1869-12
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1869%20Notebook%20%E2%80%9CTrade%20and%20Finance%201869%E2%80%9D.%20XI.%20The%20verdict%20in%20the%20press%2C%20the%20Irish%20land%20question%20and%20a%20co-operative%20colony%20in%20Kansas%2C%20December%201869%E2%80%93January%201870
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*Newspaper cuttings, from the manuscript, MEGAdigital (MEGA² IV/19).[^lic] [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/1869%20Cuaderno%20%C2%ABTrade%20and%20Finance%201869%C2%BB.%20XI.%20El%20veredicto%20en%20la%20prensa%2C%20la%20cuesti%C3%B3n%20de%20la%20tierra%20en%20Irlanda%20y%20una%20colonia%20cooperativa%20en%20Kansas%2C%20diciembre%20de%201869-enero%20de%201870)*

THE Directors in the ill-fated Overend and Gurney Company have been acquitted of the charges brought against them in a Court of Justice. This result has been foreseen almost since the trial began. To have decided otherwise would have been to disregard alike the rules of law and the conclusions drawn from the evidence. As is common in trials where social interests as well as legal issues are involved, a great warmth of expression characterized the speeches of the opposing counsel. Dr. KENEALY was lavish with superlatives, and not at all chary in casting innuendoes when failed him. In language quite as strong, but in a strain more polished, the SOLICITOR-GENERAL repelled the accusations brought against his clients, and held up the Messrs. GURNEY and Mr. BIRKBECK as men who deserved compassion as great sufferers, rather than prosecution as great sinners. Dr. THOM came in for a share of the harsh things which were said, being singled out for special denunciation by Sir JOHN KARSLAKE, and styled an “adamantine and granitic man.” What this is we do not profess to understand. Doubtless it is something which is as bad as it sounds. Whatever the shortcomings of Dr. THOM, he merely asserted his rights in prosecuting those at whose hands he had sustained pecuniary damage. It would have been a great scandal if the trial had broken down, either through design or accident. Those who rejoice the most over the result have the greatest reason for rejoicing that the proceedings were instituted. Had nothing been done it would have been said that law is swift to smite the small transgressor, but impotent to punish the gigantic wrongdoer. As it is, the accused have been fairly dealt with while the equality of all men before the law has been vindicated in a way which will not soon be forgotten.

The least creditable incident connected with the trial is the inordinate length of time during which the legal guilt or innocence of the defendants has remained an open question. It is now nearly four years since the failure of Overend, Gurney, and Company precipitated a panic. Since the fatal Black Friday of 1866 Joint Stock enterprise has languished. Men have been in doubt as to their actual position. For the first time in the modern annals of the City the profession of a Director has been at a discount. The risk more than outweighed the emolument. This impression has been particularly strong since the Directors of Overend, Gurney, and Company were committed for trial on the charge of conspiracy to defraud. Nearly a year ago this decision was arrived at by the LORD MAYOR, after a careful investigation of the allegations adduced. It is a blot on our system of procedure that such a delay should have been possible. That men of high rank in the circles of commerce and of social intercourse should so long remain under this stigma must have been in itself a punishment not easy to measure or to bear. Yet, on the other hand, the procrastination has been fraught with a tangible advantage. The public mind was greatly excited by the strange stories made public at the Mansion-house. Sides were taken, and the merits of the case unheeded in the anxiety to uphold personal views. There were few who distinctly perceived that in such a case predilections for either party were to be suppressed rather than gloried in, and that the stern and impartial execution of the law was the one object either to be promoted or desired. These conditions may even now have been imperfectly realised. It is by no means certain that the triumph of justice will be welcomed as heartily as the confirmation of foregone conclusions would have been. We think it a subject for general congratulation that the acquittal of the defendants has involved neither straining of the law nor disregard of evidence, but that the jury have impartially discharged their onerous and invidious duty.

The trial itself has happily been free from those sensational episodes which go a great way towards diffusing wrong notions as to the real points in dispute. In this respect it differs conspicuously from the proceedings before the LORD MAYOR. The disclosures then reluctantly made by Mr. EDWARDS were revelations which astounded the public, and delighted scandal-mongers. It was hinted that the whole truth had not been disclosed, that worse remained behind, and that the day of trial would be the occasion for giving currency to still more extraordinary revelations. This expectation has been disappointed. Illness hindered Mr. EDWARDS from obeying the summons to attend. Perhaps his presence would have been without any influence on the result.

The difficulty of the case consisted in the legal nature of the charge. Not only were the defendants accused of conspiracy; they were also accused of a form of conspiracy which, being criminal, would subject them, if substantiated, to the degradation of the felon’s doom. In a trial of this kind the strictest proof must be given both as to the guilty knowledge and fraudulent intention of each person. Every step must be taken on sure ground. Nothing should be presumed or inferred. Had a civil action for losses sustained through delusive statements or deliberate concealment been pending, the character and amount of the evidence required for a conviction would have been very different and far less. The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE impressed upon the jury to keep in view the fact that they were dealing with a matter on the confines of civil and criminal law, and that great care was required lest the boundary line should be overstepped. His anxiety to prevent any errors of this kind while the trial was in progress probably induced the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE to put many questions and throw out many hints to counsel and witness. It was necessary for him to master the complicated statistics on which both sides relied, and which each side interpreted and marshalled to suit its purpose. All the witnesses testified at the instance of the prosecutors; the defendants dispensing with witnesses altogether. But only one witness, Mr. HOWELL, could be regarded as favourable to the views of the prosecution. It was chiefly owing to his exertions that the case, as stated to the LORD MAYOR, appeared to be one of great magnitude and great gravity. At the trial his testimony did not remain unshaken. It was rendered probable that he put a worse interpretation on the facts than the facts justified. Once or twice he was detected in making random assertions, and thus the value of his testimony as a whole was deteriorated. Mr. HARDING being summoned to curse the defendants ended by almost blessing them. He combated the notion that the business was wholly worthless at the time it was made over by the Firm to the Company. Yet he could not help admitting that, had the firm wound up its affairs instead of appealing to the public for fresh capital, the deficit would have been equal to 50 per cent.: in other words, the firm would have paid their creditors 10s. in the pound. Another witness, Mr. JONES, who was solicitor to the firm, made avowals which modified the responsibility chargeable on the promoters and directors of the company. One of the accusations made with great effect before the LORD MAYOR was, that the existence of more than one deed had not only been concealed from the shareholders, but that out of the three deeds executed one only was sent to the Committee of the Stock Exchange. It was contended that had that Committee been made acquainted with the contents and import of the several deeds, the privilege of an official quotation of the shares would have been denied, and the continued existence of the company might thus have been put in jeopardy. Mr. JONES avowed that he alone was in fault, if blame attached to any one, and that the Directors had not part in withholding information from the Committee appointed by the Stock Exchange to investigate the affairs of the companies seeking for a settlement of their shares, and a place for them in the official list.

What the jury had alone to determine was the following simple issue. At the time of transfer were the Directors convinced that the shareholders must lose the capital they invested, or did they conscientiously contemplate a restoration of the business after fresh capital was embarked in it and unremunerative enterprises abandoned? They might have been oversanguine and unwarrantably rash, without becoming criminally chargeable with fraud. It told in their favour that they held large stakes in the company, and that some of the new Directors took as many shares as subjected them to a liability of fifty thousand pounds. While one branch of the business had been attended with enormous losses, another continued to yield large returns. The unprofitable portion was given up, and the paying portion was cultivated exclusively. But the past liabilities were too heavy to be discharged without serious loss both in money and credit. The public learned that the partners were disposing of their private estates. Confidence was shaken in the new undertaking. The company could not resist the strain upon its resources. The office doors were closed against the creditors, and the shareholders were ruined. All this was due to the unfortunate attempt to galvanize the old firm by the infusion of new blood and more gold. It was just possible that the calculations of the partners would have been verified in practice, and that prosperity might have attended their project. The question, however, for the jury was whether the venture made was an illegal as well as a desperate one. By the verdict of acquittal they have absolved all the Directors from the charge of willful fraud and foul conspiracy.

Those who demanded a victim and those who have denounced the prosecutors have both been disappointed. The fact of the prosecution having been carried into effect will have a salutary result, if it do nothing more than render the promoters and directors of companies more cautions in the future. The proceedings themselves will lose all their value if they fail to render the investing public less credulous, and more disposed to ask questions than to place trust in great names. Nor are we without hope that this and other examples of the havoc caused by the failure of establishments of reputed solidity will lead to the reconsideration of the conditions under which the liability of a shareholder is limited. The loss of the capital invested in Overend, Gurney, and Company (Limited) could have been borne in many cases where the payment of the subsequent calls produced beggary. Fifteen pounds were paid up on each share of fifty pounds. The prospectus said that no more would be required. Since the liquidation has been in progress calls of five pounds each have been made at frequent intervals. How much suffering would have been saved and ruin averted if the maximum sum according to the prospectus had been the maximum in reality!

#### THE OVEREND AND GURNEY TRIAL.

No one who was read the case for the prosecution in the Overend and Gurney trial can have felt the slightest surprise at the verdict returned. Form first to last the charge against the defendants was absurdly overstated. It was made to appear that the old directors sold, and that the new directors bought, a business which they all knew to be hopelessly insolvent. The acts of the defendants were quite inconsistent with any such theory. Men do not offer their own fortunes to prop up a concern which they know must fall, and the terms on which the old partners obtained this assistance were such as would have done them no real good if ultimate bankruptcy had all along been inevitable. We have no wish to bear hardly upon the manner in which the prosecution was conducted. When a brief of this magnitude is given to counsel on a Friday, and the trial begins on the following Monday, there is ample excuse for shortcomings of all kinds. The emphatic words in which the Lord Chief Justice stated his conviction “that our system of criminal procedure, which commits the prosecution of offences against the public or private parties (a system which differs from that of every other country of Europe), is based upon a false principles, and that a public prosecutor is one of the necessities of due administration of justice,” will be echoed by every one who has watched the progress of the case. It was shown by the witnesses called for the prosecution that though at the date of the transfer to the new company the business was not, strictly speaking, solvent, it was in a state which made it perfectly possible that, with additional capital, great care, and fair good luck, it might be replaced in its old position. On the face of it, this is a very different state of things from that described in the indictment. Consequently, when the Lord Chief Justice put it to the jury to determine whether, upon the whole of the evidence, there was sufficient to satisfy them that the concern was, at the time it was transferred, so worthless as the prosecution had represented, they could only come to one conclusion. The value of the business was not “so small that no person in his senses would, if had known it, have taken shares in it.” On the contrary, there is little doubt that persons of a speculative turn of mind might, even if the facts had been disclosed to them, have taken shares all the same. The new directors were willing to risk large sums in the concern, and there is no reason why smaller men should not have been ready to follow their example. So far, therefore, the defendants have every reason to rejoice that they have been put on their trial. The line taken by the prosecution makes it evident that charges against them have been in circulation for which there is no foundation whatever. When once these charges were put into definite legal shape and made the basis of criminal proceedings, there was no alternative left but to suppose the defendants mad as well as fraudulent, or to acquit them altogether. A very little study of human nature might have convinced Dr. KENEALY that the defendants, as painted by his vituperative imagination, were simply an impossible combination of contradictory vices.

It would have been more satisfactory if the indictment had been so framed as to allege nothing more against the defendants than what may be gathered from the summing-up. In 1865, says the Lord Chief Justice, the firm, though still possessing “an enormous earning power,” had “sustained most grievous losses from a series of advances quite out of the sphere of its proper and ordinary business;” and, “though the usual business continued to be done, the capital began to be absorbed in these advances.” Under these circumstances, “it was plain that, if the house were to remain in this state, then in one of the crises which from time to time occur in commercial history it must go down.” In this way the firm had the choice presented to them either to resign themselves to bankruptcy—a course from which “it was natural for men in their position, with such an enormous business, and with such a name and reputation, to shrink”—or to obtain a fresh supply of capital. In their dealings with the new directors, who represented this fresh capital, the old directors were perfectly straightforward. They disclosed everything to them which it was essential for them to know; they made no dishonest representations; they acted by them throughout in a spirit of fairness and honour. To these facts we have the testimony of the new directors themselves, and the whole history of the transaction corroborates their evidence. Can it be said, however, that the defendants acted with similar straightforwardness towards the shareholders whom they induced to join with them? The old directors had, in effect, told the new directors that the concern could not at that moment meet its liabilities, but that on a fair calculation of probabilities the prospects of the business were sufficiently favourable to make it a speculation worth embarking in. Surely this was not the way in which the old and the new directors jointly described it to the public. It may be conceded that, compared with other examples of this sort of literature, the terms of the prospectus were not extravagant. From the point of view in which the defendants looked at the affair they had no reason to think that it would be necessary to call up more than £15 per share, or to doubt that the vendors’ guarantee would be sufficient to cover the heavy losses which had been incurred. But the fact remains that the business in which the shareholders thought they were investing their money was not the business the directors knew it to be. The latter were virtually trading on a name which, though it was still unshaken in the world outside, they knew did not represent what It had once represented. The shareholders, in putting their money into OVEREND and GURNEY’S, thought they were putting it into a business which, to use a popular phrase, was “as safe as the Bank of England;” the directors knew that instead of this they were putting it into a business which, though promising enough to lead them to invest their own capital in it, was nevertheless an essentially speculative business. We admit that in keeping back this important fact the directors were actuated by the motive suggested by the Lord Chief Justice in reference to the concealment of the second deed, “the fear that timid persons might be alarmed if they knew the nature of the arrangement.” As it turned out, this cowardice, however contemptible it may seem to an adventurous merchant, was not without its justification, and the “timid persons” in question may fairly wish that the case could have been thus put to the jury: Is A legally justified in keeping back facts from B because B, being a “timid person,” will not, if he knows them, put money into a concern which A thinks likely to be profitable? A parallel case would be that of a captain who, in his anxiety to make up a crew for a voyage, conceals the existence of a serious leak in his ship. He is so sanguine of being able to stop it, if he has only fairly good weather, that he has no fear for his own safety, and even takes his wife and children with him. But he thinks that timid sailors might be alarmed if they knew the nature of the leak, and so he says nothing about it. If the ship goes down with all hands in the first storm it encounters his crew may at least ask why he did not give them the means of forming their own conclusion as to the chances of safety. The question which ought to have been raised in this trial has never been more accurately stated than by Vice-Chancellor MALINS. Were not the directors “bound to tell those they invited to take shares of the speculations on which they proceeded, and give them an opportunity of deciding for themselves whether they would join an insolvent and losing concern in the hope of turning insolvency to solvency, and ruinous loss to profit?” It is a matter for profound regret that these protracted proceedings have come to an end without its being ascertained whether the criminal law provides an answer to this inquiry.

The enthusiasm displayed by a large and sympathizing audience at the result of the trial may, perhaps, claim exemption from criticism; but at a time when the tide of popular favour certainly does not run on the side of the prosecution, we think it well to point out that, if the shareholders had done their duty in supporting Dr. THOM, a trial might have been obtained at a very much earlier period, and under circumstances very much more favourable to a thorough investigation of the case. The anxiety of so many persons to keep matters quiet, lest by exposing what they at all events suspected to be a fraudulent transaction they might sustain further loss, is, as we have before said, not a long step from compounding a felony. Probably nothing but the effectual reform of the present system of prosecution will prevent men from yielding to such a temptation, but it is not the less incumbent upon the journalist to point out to them that their silence is not easily distinguishable from conduct which the law justly visits with imprisonment and hard labour.

#### THE IRISH LAND QUESTION

##### TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY NEWS

SIR,—As legislation on Irish land tenure is now inevitable, it appears incumbent on every one at all qualified to contribute his quota towards a solution of the difficulty, and I beg leave to offer you mine. It is not the result of a recent run through the country, but of a twenty years’ acquaintance with it, begun previous to the potato famine, and continued up to the present time, otherwise I would not venture to express an opinion on a subject which is surrounded by so many antecedent circumstance of the most anomalous and perplexing character. I shall not, however, revert to the past, but take Ireland as it is the present time, and endeavour briefly to point out the changes most practical and necessary for her future agricultural improvement. Agitation has, for the moment, carried the claims of tenant farmers into the region of romance, and it is difficult to escape altogether being influenced by it; for, in reality, we have to deal with a people’s feelings, as well as with their pecuniary interests. Fortunately for Irish occupiers the British public is at present disposed to give their case a more patient consideration than is usually accorded to a contemplated act of class legislation, although its own affairs are in the meantime literally precluded from attention.

The primary claim put forward for “fixity of tenure” was rather starling when first announced, as it was as new in theory as it would be novel in practice; but a little reflection showed its glaring absurdity, and that, in addition to its one-sidedness and injustice, its adoption would stereotype upon Ireland the worst agricultural organisation that any country in Europe has ever drifted into; and now its disturbing influence is gradually dying away. Change, and not fixity, is the real key to the future development of Ireland’s agricultural resources, involving, amongst other things, the gradual reduction—by one half at least—of the present number of occupying tenants. It is futile to attempt to escape this conclusion, and a mere waste of effort to endeavour to make the existing appropriation of land fit into any rational system of farming. The yearly progress of consolidation from 1847 up to 1867 shows this, by a decrease, in round numbers, of 12,000 one-acre farms, 48,000 of five acres, 80,000 of 15 acres, [xxx] of 30 acres—making, altogether, 154,000 fewer occupants than possessed the land 20 years ago; and, deducting the increase of farms at and over 50 acres in extent—namely, 21,000—the nett diminution of holdings is 133,000; equal to an average of 6,650 per annum. The Government returns for 1867–8, just issued, show the same process to be still going on, and that 961 farms of one acre, 956 of 5 acres, and 1,435 of 15 acres have in one year disappeared from the roll, while 575 new holdings of over 30 acres have sprung up in their place. Even in France, where sub-division is enforced by law for national purposes, it is found to engender penury, diminished produce, and weeds, and the present Finance Minister, M. Magne, has recommended the reduction and suppression of certain duties to “facilitate the agglomeration of plots of land, as it has been found that the cutting up system is prejudicial to good farming.” And he adds, “all the agricultural committees who recently inquired into the condition of the country reported against small divisions.” The demand for an extension of Ulster tenant right is entitled to more consideration, because it is an existing reality, and has some charms for Irish tenants, although not equal to those possessed by an anticipated guarantee of perpetuity of occupation.

Unfortunately for its extension to other provinces, no basis for its creation at present exists; and its establishment would, therefore, involve the necessity of all landowners giving their tenants a slice of their freehold to begin with. In its own province, it has long ago arrived at maturity, and is now felt to have served its purpose, and require extinction. Why then should it be allowed to make an incision into the inalienable rights of property elsewhere? It prevents the exaction of a full rent—the best stimulus to improved management and increased produce, in proof of which I would quote what the late Mr. Blacker, the great Armagh land agent, says in one of his numerous pamphlets:—“The miserable appearance of some farms held at nominal rents compared with adjoining lands let at fair and moderate prices, proves that rents are required to call forth the exertion and industry necessary to good husbandry.” It begins by absorbing and literally burying one half a tenant’s capital, which, if actively employed, would yield from 10 to 20 per cent. It usually compels the tenant to borrow at usurious interest, and leaves him embarrassed and at the mercy of extraneous money lenders. Mr. Blacker, speaking relative to the extensive estates of the Earl of Gosford and Colonel Close, in Armagh, for which he was agent, says;—”The great amount of debt in which I found the poorer tenants involved turned out to be far beyond anything I thought it possible for them to have incurred.” For a time it has protected tenants against rack-rents, but at any moment new or needy landlords, or adverse times, may obliterate this seeming protection, and sweep away the capital sunk in its purchase. As affecting owners, it tends to convert those who would be resident and improving into indifferent onlookers or absentees. It lessens the value of their freehold; for, as tenant right goes up, the fee simple value of their estates comes down. True, it is not sanctioned or protected by law, but it is by a kind of equity and personal danger to landlords, which is worse. Its origin was probably equitable, and arose from tenants doing landlords’ work; but after a hundred years’ beneficial occupation, one may reasonably ask if such a hollow and unstable system is ever to come to an end. In Scotland nearly all the land under cultivation, up to the year 1800 or later, had been reclaimed by the occupiers pretty much in the same way as the land in Ulster, except that in Scotland tenants were under long leases for a specified number of years, and for lives; and when these expired—as the great bulk of them did about the beginning of the present century—the owners came into their natural positions, and the receipt of the full rents of their estates. The absence of such agreements, and of an equal amount of personal supervisions, has allowed the Ulster system to take such hold on the land there, that it is now almost beyond the power of owners to buy it up, or extinguish it by effluxion of time. The somewhat parallel usage that obtains in several English counties, especially in Surrey, Sussex, and part of Kent, of extracting from a tenant at entry to a farm a heavy payment for an over-estimated tenant rights, including what are called half tillages and half dressings, is found to be so prejudicial to the interests of all parties concerned, that intelligent landlords rarely lose an opportunity of buying it up. Farms let under this usage are seldom found to be in a high state of cultivation, or rented at more than half their intrinsic value. So much for the impolicy of sinking tenant’s capital in purchasing a lien, as it were, upon an owner’s freehold. The tenant-right of Lincolnshire is a very different thing as, under it, the incoming tenant receives tangible value for his money in current acts of husbandry, and improved and inexhausted manures. In Ulster, on the contrary, he gets no value whatever for his goodwill payment to an outgoing tenant, unless he subsequently obtains it out of his landlord by continuing to pay an inadequate rent.

In 1855 I wrote:—“The advance of Irish agriculture depends on an equitable tenant right, retrospective from the passing of an Act for, say, seven or ten years, but mainly prospective from that date; not the tenant-right of Ulster, which can be obliterated at any moment by an arbitrary increase of rent, but a national Act that would guarantee tenants, in the event of compulsory removal, Full payment for legitimate expenditure in unexhausted improvements.” Time and reflection have confirmed me in this opinion; and although expectation and hope have risen to a height they never attained before, I believe that even now such an Act would assuage the minds of many uneasy tenants—and they are not a few—and induce them to settle down and make the most of their lands. Whether or not it would be found to be all that is required to remedy the existing defects of Irish land tenure, I will not venture to say; but I firmly believe it is the greatest amount of interference with the management of private property that any Government, however powerful, will be permitted by Parliament to make. It would not necessarily be put in force at every change of tenants, [b]ut only where mutual negotiation between landlords and [t]enants had failed. An inexpensive staff, similar to that [w]hich has worked so well in England for the commuta[ti]on of tithes, the enclosure of commons, the enfranchise[m]ent of copyhold estates, and the distribution and super[vis]ion of drainage loans, could readily be continued to [car]ry it out—say, three chief commissioners sitting in [Du]blin to hear appeal cases only, and give final decisions; [one] assistant-commissioner for each county, to hear claims [in] the first instance; and whatever number of district [sur]veyors they might find it necessary to employ. Sup[lacem]ent such an Act with greater facilities for capital to [flow] upon the land for permanent improvements; and we should soon see the arable land of Ireland teeming with abundant crops, and its sweet pastures covered with improved breeds of cattle and sheep.

Some recent suggestions have been made that tenants should be entitled to long notices to quit, extending to five years, to enable them to compensate themselves by working out the condition of their farms. This could only result in landlords being enforced to live in prolonged danger and discomfort, to postpone all contemplated improvements, and to receive back at the end of time specified a foul and exhausted piece of land. Better far compensate the tenants under the proposed new regime for all equitable claims, and terminate the tenancies at the expiry of, say, a twelve-months’ notice to quit, a period to which all notices to yearly tenants should be made, by law, to extend on this side of Channel, as well as the other. To obvious the necessity for any greater amount of interference by the State with the management of private property is a “consummation devoutly to be wished,” for assuredly whatever exceptional legislation is applied to Irish tenancy will be claimed by Englishmen when it suits their interests; and the rights of property, as at present established and understood, will be materially shaken. All attempts hitherto made by partial legislation to raise Irish agriculture from a prostrate and disorganised condition have been futile in effect. So, too, has been the action of the Royal Improvement and other Agricultural Societies, and the examples of the Government model farms, because they are mere landlords’ playthings, and do not exemplify a practice adapted to the wants and necessities of the Irish tenantry. If then these national efforts are of no effect, what hope is there for a dangerous Government interference with private property? The future of Irish agriculture inevitably depends on the good management of estates; and when the tenantry are put upon a better footing, as I have suggested, self-interest will gradually do the rest. Even under the present defective relationship of landlord and tenant much may thus be done, and I adduce the following instance in proof:—An estate of over 3,000 acres in the county of Cork was purchased by an English gentleman in 1853, in the Encumbered Estates Court, and an English agent appointed to carry out a course of management he had previously recommended in a report on the estate. This consisted principally in the re-arrangement and consolidation of farms, and reletting them under simple yearly agreements, containing positive stipulations to debar underletting and future claims for unauthorised improvements, and a few negative clauses to protect the farms against deteriorations. There were upwards of 100 tenants on the estate, and notices to quit were served on the whole of them, a proceeding that would not have commended a stranger to their good opinion, had they not been assured at the same time that this was not for the purpose of indiscriminately dispossessing them, but mainly to enable the lands to be better arranged and relet. This assurance was believed, and subsequently fulfilled, and when the day came to give up possession, every tenant but one resigned his holding into the agent’s hands. When the new arrangements were completed, each holding was coloured separately on an Ordnance map of the townland, and submitted to the old tenants, and to approved new applicants, and the whole of the estate, with the exception of 100 acres retained for a park round the mansion, and 50 acre for an example farm was relet in a few days at an increase of 63 per cent. on the old rental. A considerable amount of back rents and old arrears had been purchased with the estate, and one of the conditions of reletting to old tenants was that these should first be paid off, which was done. The changes involved in this new arrangement were the reduction of small and poor tenants to cottiers, and to mere caretakers in some cases, i.e., occupiers of cottages and gardens, receiving nominal sums for their services—the dispossession of all non-resident tenants—the consolidation of intermixed and scattered lands, and the enlargement of the farms of those who had capital, and skill to stock and manage them. The written agreements granted were accompanied by a verbal intimation that the tenants would not likely be disturbed again for another ten years; and I think this assurance was more appreciated than the vague provisions of any general Act of Parliament are ever likely to be. An able farm steward or bailiff, who had been bred in Scotland, and had subsequently had considerable experience in England, was then appointed, and an extract from his first report, and another from a letter of the parish priest—the tenants being nearly all Roman Catholics—will show the then condition of the estate, and that which it subsequently assumed. “The farming,” he says, “is wretched in the extreme, no seeds or green crops, although the soil and climate are most suitable; no drilling on hoeing of other crops, and the land is consequently covered with weeds: the pick of it is constantly planted with potatoes and then left exhausted; not half the stock kept that could be kept, nor half the produce made from what is kept that should be made, principally for want of winter keep. The people, however, appear tractable and willing to learn.” The means taken to enable the tenants to pay the new rents as easily as they had paid the old was to teach them new and improved arts of husbandry, especially in the cultivation of green crops and artificial grasses, and for this purpose 10tons of guano, a ton of Italian rye grass, and a large assortment of other seeds were sent over at wholesale prices, with twelve-month’s credit, by two first-class English firms, and distributed amongst the tenants. These were applied under the personal direction of the land steward, and the result may be inferred from the following extract from the letter of the reverend gentleman’s already alluded to. “It is not,” he says, “out of consideration for small or reduced rents that the people are grateful—for the lands never before realised the rents now expected from them—but for the system of management adopted, under which I am persuaded the people would be enabled to pay any rent. They have improved more for the last twelvemonths—and I speak from experience—than they have done for the last twenty years before; and contrast between the different farms this year and that which they presented at the corresponding period last year could not but strike the most superficial observer. The tenants have learned more practical farming from the instructions given them than twenty years of experience could have taught them.” Everyone at all acquainted with Ireland knows that high rents militate against the interests of parish priests, unless accompanied by a counterbalancing increased ability to pay; and the inference to be drawn from the above letter is, that the reverend gentleman—a man of great activity and talent—thought this was the case in this instance; and the best proof that he was correct in his anticipations is the fact that the increased rents have been punctually paid for 17 years; that there is not an arrear on the estate; and that last year, on the death of the owner, the property was sold in the Estates Court at about double its cost.

The inexpensive and conciliatory process by which this has been accomplished is on applicable to many Irish estates. I believe its results would be uniformly satisfactory, and that, in time, it would regenerate Ireland; only, there must be no religious distinctions mixed up with it, otherwise the fountain from which so much good and peace may flow will be poisoned at its source.—I am, &c., THOS. C. SCOTT. Dec. 28.

#### “AMERICA AS WE FOUND IT.”

##### TO THE EDITOR OF REYNOLDSʼS NEWSPAPER.

SIR,—In your last weekʼs impression, a letter with the above heading appeared, signed James and Charles Sargood, which, under the pretext of imparting information to your working class readers regarding the “actual condition and state of work and the working classes of America,” is made the medium of libellous and damaging mis-statements, calculated, if not satisfactorily answered, to do grievous injury to the Mutual Land Emigration and Co-operative Colonization Company, Limited, whose central office is at 18, Denmark-street, to which your correspondents refer. That communication is, in great part, a relation of statements regarding the first operations of the above company, which the present writers, acting by order, and on behalf of the board of directors, claim of you the opportunity of applying the antidote through the medium of the same channel that the poison was circulated. Acknowledging, as we do, as a part of the public, the obligations we are under to Reynolds’s Newspaper, for the enlightened and fearless manner in which mischievous shames, and fraudulent companies are continually unmarked and exposed in its pages, we can also bear testimony to the ready and courteous manner in which its columns have ever hitherto been available to the wronged in order to right themselves before the public. Therefore, we anticipate with confidence the same fair play extended to this company, and, consequently the insertion of this defence and explanation, conscious, as we are, that after its perusal by your readers, there will be little cause for fear that any stain will attach either to our motives or actions. It is fifteen months ago since the originators of this company first called public meetings to test the worthiness of the objects in view, and the soundness of the principles upon which it has since been legally incorporated. After long and anxious consideration, the promoters had become convinced that the time has come, through opportunities and advantages of recent growth, when the evils and disappointments inseparable from emigration might be considerably mitigated, if not altogether avoided. As social reformers of the Bronterre OʼBrien school, they believed that the chief causes of the evils here from which the emigrant seeks to escape, grows out of the vast monopolies of the land and money-lords, which are secured to them by self-privileged class legislation. Finding by experience how slow is the progress of reform in the teeth of the opposition of united and powerful action, and unscrupulous vested interests, they naturally looked across the Atlantic, where free institutions and ample opportunities are continually inviting the British, Irish, and Continental toilers to come share in their enjoyment.

The originators also had the advantage of the personal experience of former friends—whose veracity they doubted not—who in past times were co-reformers in England. These men, after years of experience in the United States, returned on short visits, and without selfish ends to subserve, fervently exhorted them not any longer to waste time and means in vainly endeavouring to obtain reform here at the expense of years of struggling, and the sacrifice, perhaps, of vigour and health, while all the rights refused in England, and more than the advantages in natural resources that England possess, are in the United States open to all comers and longing for wooers.

Among the recent growths in the United States, these old and tried friends pointed out the Great Union Pacific Railway, which with its various branches was about to open up the all but boundless and beautiful “Far West” to settlements. There are lands, rivers, minerals, and every asserted requisite to sustain in happiness hundreds of millions of human beings. Above all, there is the one, that the people setting upon their lands, share in the enjoyment of the freest, most popular, and cheapestly-administered Government on the face of the earth. All these things were considered over by numerous gatherings of working man—extending over nine months—and led to the incorporation of the company. The chief object of the company is the acquiring and joint holding of freehold estates by the shareholders and their settlement thereon by means of capital equally subscribed by all, either in money or labour. Thus our plan is to emigrate, by means provided by co-operative effort, to our own lands, acquired by united subscriptions. These lands to be settled in colonies by means of mutual co-operation. Being opposed to land monopoly, the originators have inserted in the rules of the company clauses that in their operation prevent the first settlers becoming the landlords of after comers, by forbidding re-leasing by individual shareholders, and by making all rents the property of the entire body, at the disposal of a vote of the majority, and available as a fund out of which to assist all in turn to prosecute, by temporary advances, every kind of useful occupation. The rules (called articles of association) likewise guarantee to the shareholders only the occupation of such lands as may be acquired in farms or town lots upon reversible leases, in such sizes as they themselves may determine. The rents it is relied upon, will equalize the disadvantages of one lot as compared with another. Emigration by co-operation and settlement in colonies is what we are carrying out; and we can prove by practice that families can emigrate by those means and their own combined resources who would never be able to get out by unaided effort.

On the 21st of April the first general meeting of shareholders was held; sixty was our number then. At that meeting, Mr. E. G. Smith was elected agent for the company; and he accepted the responsibility of that duty. He received authority, under the seal of the company, to proceed to the Western States, and secure for the company the first estate upon which to commence operations. That is the Mr. Smith to whom your correspondents refer. He is a man of years, experience, and tried integrity. He is well known to reformers in England and America. Your correspondent states that he combined in himself “a director and secretary.” That statement is false; he was neither one nor the other. He was, and is still, the companyʼs land and colonizing agent. It was at first intended that not more than two or three persons should form the pioneer party, as the funds in hand were very limited. It was only at the earnest wish of the others forming the first party, and upon the stipulation that each should bear the whole of their own expenses, that their companionship was acceded to. It was further stipulated that all who did go should proceed together to the West, and that pending the operation of prospecting and choosing land, all should support themselves by getting employment. It was further stipulated that all the party should, upon arriving on the land after acquirement, pay down at least 5l, not for the company’s use or benefit, but for themselves, to provide lumber, implements, seeds, and provision. Charles and James Sargood, who have paid but 6s. between them, were among those who signed those stipulations. The document, with all the signatures, is now in our possession, and was exhibited and read at our usual meeting last Sunday evening, at the Eclectic Hall, to a crowded audience. The conversation said to have passed with Mr. Smith on board the Paraguay was doubtless in reference to that five pounds. We will not be positive, as Mr. Smith will doubtless answer for himself in due time, as he will see your paper when it arrives at the English Co-operative Colony, Nameha County, Kansas, where it is eagerly read as it arrives. We will, however, be bound for Mr. Smith that he made no unreasonable request, or other than in accordance with the above-named stipulations. The Sargoods tell your readers that after this dissensions took place. This statement is contrary to all the letters that have come to hand since, including Mr. Smith’s relation of the affair in his first letter from New York.

Your correspondents charge us with persuading a man to leave his home and family, and then “cruelly dropping him” in New York. That statement is also false. The shareholder alluded to urged his fellow shareholders, as did also his wife, to assist him to New York. They did so, on the condition that he should support himself there, and afterwards work his way up West. John Shallis is the party’s name, formerly of King’s-cross. He was out of work, and when he arrived in New York, he obtained immediate employment, at more than double the wages he earned here. His wife and family have joined him three months ago. So much for “that cruellest act of all” Indeed, sir, there has occurred in our operations, so far, only acts of similar cruelty.

The pioneer party, with Mr. Smith as agent, proceeded on their mission honourably, and arrived in the State of Kansas the same week. After three weeks prospecting about, our agent secured for the company, by a deposit payment, one whole section of prairie land, one mile square, and also a half-quarter section of woodland, affording fencing and fuel materials. These estates, comprising 680 acres of first-class land, are legally secured to this company upon the completion of the purchase money, with an absolute and secure title.

Our shareholders on the land have acted like heroes; and, in spite of scarcity of funds, have overcome all difficulties, and are manfully prosecuting the work of preparing the way for the spring emigrants. As a proof that we have not neglected our duty to them, it is only necessary to mention that funds have been furnished from here that have sustained them during the past three months; that they have been able to prosecute the work of fencing and ploughing; that they have purchased four ploughing steers, a cow and calf, two good horses and waggon, seeds, implements, &c., besides provisions for the winter. They have built one dwelling of three rooms, in which are lodging Mr. Smith and two shareholders. Besides these and other proofs of progress, another of our pioneers—Mr. Charles M‘Carthy—aided by his brother, have built themselves a dwelling, in which resides his family of four children and his wife. That good lady is one of the three women that your correspondent gratuitously pities, yet her husband writes in all his letters that she and the children are healthy and happy. Being provided with food, dwellings, and fuel, there is no fear that they will “freeze up” this winter.

With regard to the statements concerning the general condition of the working classes of America, we, as a company, have nothing to do. If they contain no more truth than their statements concerning this companyʼs operations, they are worse than worthless—they are mischievous, as calculated to mislead. Out of the hundreds of thousands who have emigrated to the States during this year, it is only to be expected that some get left behind in the race after competence. Yet America will absorb them all before the spring, and will again receive another enormous army, many of whom will be poverty-stricken. Who, however, expects to hear that any one of these alien-born people will be a lowed to starve to death, as the born subjects of Queen Victoria do in Britain and Ireland?

On behalf of the board of directors, Yours, respectfully, CHARLES MURRAY, Chairman, JOHN ROGERS, Secretary.

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