Land reforms were at the heart of Gladstone’s Irish policy but mostly failed to achieve their aims. His goal in Irish land reform can be defined by the three Fs: fixity, fair rents and free sale of leases. It was these three things that he tried to address in the 1870 Irish Land Act. The Act was mostly designed to protect poor catholic tenants from being unfairly evicted from their land by greedy protestant landlords. It banned exorbitant rates and stated that if tenants were evicted for any other reason than failure to pay their rent, they could seek compensation. In addition, it granted compensation to those tenants who, upon leaving their land, had made significant improvements to it. The Act also set up a borrowing scheme by which tenants could borrow money from the government at 5% rate repayable over 35 years to buy their land. All of these measures appear to address the issue of the exploitation of catholic tenants by the landowning absentee aristocracy. However, the implementation of the Act was poor. The Bessbrorough commission of 1881 found that legal issues prevented many tenants from claiming compensation. Furthermore, the increase in evictions into the 1880s and the failure of the Act to protect tenants from the depression of the late 1870s serve as further evidence that in most of its aims, the Act failed. Historian J Beckett best summed up the Act, saying ‘[it] failed at almost every point to achieve the purpose for which it was intended’. Nevertheless, there were some limited longterm benefits. One of Gladstone’s goals in land reformed had been to increase the productivity of Irish agriculture and in so doing fix the issue of a starving population. Beckett wrote that the Act ‘marked a decisive advance towards a solution of the agrarian problem’. All in all, the longterm successes of the Land Act suggest that Gladstone did understand the issues at the heart of the land part of the Irish question and that it was poor implementation, not fundamental misunderstanding, that proved the Act’s overall downfall.
On the other hand, Gladstone’s religious reforms reveal some serious misunderstandings. From the Irish Church Act of 1869, it is clear that Gladstone believed the disestablishment of the Irish church would solve most if not all of Ireland’s religious issues. While the Act did mean that catholics no longer had to pay for the upkeep of a church they never attended, the Irish church retained most of its land and two thirds of its endowment. Of the 15 million pounds of the church’s wealth, 10 million was immediately returned to the now independent church. The remaining 5 million was used for the ‘relief of unavoidable calamity and suffering not touched by the poor law’. Furthermore, the Irish church was not really the most pressing issue for catholics living in Ireland. Rather it was issue of land and food that concerned the most. In reality the Act was more a way of pleasing non conformists in England and garnering Gladstone favour among the Liberals than solving the issues posed by the Irish question. Perhaps then in the case of religion, Gladstone used the Irish question to his advantage and did not fully understand how to properly address the issue of religion in Ireland.
If Gladstone’s Irish policy was only partly successful in terms of land and religious reform, than his eduction reform was nothing short of disastrous. Again, a fundamental misunderstanding led to the passage of reforms that did not solve the real issues. The Irish University Bill, proposed in 1873, would have established the University of Dublin as a non denominational but nevertheless christian church. The existing catholic and protestant universities would have been affiliated to it, with higher education improving as a result. Gladstone believed that this would reduce the division between the various sects in Ireland. However, the bill failed, voted down by thee votes. It drew ire from all sides. The Roman Catholics did not want to lose control of their independent universities. Non conformists were upset that it did make higher education secular. Protestants, with ant catholic feeling at an all time high following the Fenian uprisings and papal infallibility, refused to be forced together with catholics. In short, as Russell had done over thirty years previously, Gladstone completely and utterly failed to grasp the issues behind education in Ireland. He could not balance the incongruous demands of disparate groups in a single piece of legislation. As result of the Irish University Bill disaster, Gladstone offered his resignation, which was not accepted. This marked the end to his mission to pacify Ireland, brought about by legislation which demonstrated a clear lack of understanding.
In conclusion, while Gladstone may have understood some of the issues behind the Irish question, he was unable to produce and pass legislation that comprehensively addressed these issues. Instead, his land reform was unenforceable, his religious reform self serving and his education reform incomprehensible. Evictions and rural unrest rose going into the 1880s, disestablishment did not effectively redistribute the church’s wealth and an agricultural depression increased Ireland’s food insecurity. For various reasons, chief among which was misunderstanding, Gladstone could not solve the issue of a starving population, alien church or absentee aristocracy.
by
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