Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Pension List

       Lessons to be drawn from American experience

CHAPTER 2

       Majorities required in different nations for constitutional changes

       Attempt to introduce the two-thirds majority system in New South Wales

       Small stress placed in England on legislative machinery

       The English belief in government by gentlemen

       Declining efficiency of parliamentary government throughout Europe

       England has not escaped the evil

       Increasing power and pretensions of the House of Commons

       The Parish Councils Bill of 1894

       Excess of parliamentary speaking—Its causes

       Its effects on public busines

       Growth of the caucus fatal to the independence of the House of Commons

       The relation of the House to Government—Disintegration of parties

       Results of the group system

       Increase of log-rolling

       And of the appetite for organic change

       Both parties have contributed to this

       Conservatism in English Radicalism

       Growth of class bribery

       Rendered easy by our system of taxation

       Sir Cornewall Lewis on the best taxation—Indirect taxation

       Remissions of direct taxation sometimes the most beneficial

       Exaggeration of Free Trade— The corn registration duty—The London coal dues

       The abolition of the income tax made an election cry in 1874—History of this election

       Appeals to class cupidity by the Irish Land League

       Its success has strengthened the tendency to class bribery

       Irish Land Question

       Peculiar difficulties to be dealt with in Ireland

       Tenants' improvements—Sharman Crawford's proposals

       The Devon Commission

       Abortive attempts to protect improvements

       Land Act of 1860

       And of 1870—Its merits and demerits

       Paucity of leases and tenants' improvements—How viewed in Ireland

       Rents in Ireland before 1870 not generally extortionate

       But such rents did exist, and most tenancies were precarious

       The Act of 1881

       Absolute ownership of land under the Incumbered Estates Act

       Circumstances under which this Act had been car ried—Its nature

       It guaranteed complete ownership under a parliamentary title

       Confiscation of Landlord Rights by the Act of 1881

       The purchased improvements

       Fixity of tenure given to the present tenant

       Which could not honestly be done without compensating the owner

       Inseparable rights of ownership destroyed

       The New Land Court and its proceedings

       ‘Judicial decisions’. .

       Rights of the Legislature over landed property—Mill

       Dishonest character of Irish land legislation

       The defence of the Act of 1881

       Misconception