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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
It is hardly surprising that, for many years, historians of the political crisis of 1885–6 gave relatively little attention to the land purchase proposals which accompanied Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. For the Land Purchase Bill progressed no further than its first reading on 16 April 1886, one week after that of its partner. Within weeks it was recognized by its sponsors as a political liability and, unlike the Home Rule Bill, never reached a parliamentary division. In recent years, there has been a re-evaluation of its significance as a policy initiative for Ireland. Two major works published in the centenary year of the crisis challenged Professor John Vincent's claim, in an article which appeared just over a decade ago, that the Land Bill was a ‘dummy’ whose place in Gladstone's scale of priorities was dictated by the exigencies of the parliamentary timetable and of internal cabinet manoeuvrings. Both Dr James Loughlin and Dr Alan O'Day see purchase as part of a coherent policy designed by Gladstone to tackle the problem of agrarian violence and to lay the foundations of a more secure social order in Ireland. For the first time, then, the content of the Bill has received serious and lengthy treatment. What remains to be discussed in some depth is its reception in the country in the spring and summer of 1886.
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2 Loughlin, J., Gladstone, home rule and the Ulster question, 1882–93 (Dublin, 1986), pp. 80–94Google Scholar; O'Day, A., Parnell and the first home rule episode, 1884–87 (Dublin, 1986), pp. 183–7Google Scholar.
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7 The Times, 2 Jan. 1886.
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9 Chamberlain to Bright, 5 Feb. 1886, Birmingham University Library (B.U.L.), Chamberlain Papers, JC5/7/43.
10 See, for example, the Leeds Mercury, 26, 29 June 1886.
11 All these measures are discussed in greater detail in Pomfret, , Struggle for land, pp. 88–91, 166–8, 222–31Google Scholar.
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24 Scotsman, 3 July 1886.
25 Ibid. 26 June 1886.
26 Ibid. 14 Jan. 1886.
27 Ibid. 21, 23, 26, 28 June, 1 July 1886.
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34 In private Hartington was favourable towards the principle of land purchase. He wrote in January 1886 that ‘if a measure of home rule large or small is to be granted an attempt ought to be made to settle the land question on an equitable and rational basis’ by means of ‘a fair land purchase measure’. Hartington to Lansdowne, 4 Jan. 1886 (copy), Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, Devonshire papers, 340/1984.
35 The Times, 26 June 1886.
36 Grimsby News, 25 June 1886.
37 The Times, 22 Apr. 1886.
38 Annual Register (1886), p. 274.
39 The Times, 2 July 1886.
40 ‘West of Scotland Liberal Unionist Committee, draft report of executive’, n.d., p. 1, contained in minute book of the West of Scotland branch of the Liberal Committee for the maintenance of the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland, 10 May 1886 to 31 Aug. 1894. Conservative and Unionist party office, Edinburgh.
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42 The Times, 12 June 1886.
43 Ibid. 20 Apr. 1886.
44 Ibid. 18 June 1886. This was intended as a reply to the ‘Manifesto to “the sons of toil and artisans of England”’, written by Joseph Arch and Joseph Leicester. (Ibid. 14 June 1886.) Collings' address was reprinted as a Liberal Unionist Association leaflet, number 34, Mr Jesse Collings' appeal to the agricultural labourers, 77 June 1886 (London, 1886)Google Scholar.
45 The Times, 13 July 1886.
46 Ibid. 22 Apr. 1886.
47 Northampton Mercury, 1 May 1886.
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54 Ibid. 24 Mar. 1886.
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56 The Times, 31 Mar. 1883.
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60 Hackney Express and Shoreditch Advertiser, 3 July 1886.
61 Ibid. 8 May 1886.
62 Pall Mall Gazette, 6 May 1886, J. S. Mathers of Leeds reported in March to Herbert Gladstone that ‘the money part of the transaction will not frighten people about here, for, after all, it is only a huge building society operation’. (Mathers to H. J. Gladstone, 24 Mar. 1886, London, B.L., Viscount Gladstone papers, 46035, fo. 50.) Mathers also used the phrase in putting the Gladstonian case to the Leeds United Liberal Association. (See the Leeds Mercury, 21 Apr. 1886.)
63 Scotsman, 20 Apr. 1886.
64 ‘An old but advanced Liberal, always looking ahead’, to the Right Honourable Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., Liverpool, 19 03 1886Google Scholar. (Number 63 in a collection in Cambridge University Library entitled Home rule pamphlets, 1886, II.)
65 Parliamentary election addresses, 1886. (Collection in B.L.).
66 Pomfret, , Struggle for land, pp. 241–2Google Scholar.
67 Parliamentary election addresses, 1886. The seven Gladstonians were: Donald Crawford (Lanarkshire North-East), E. C. Keevil (Berkshire North), E. H. Pickersgill (Bethnal Green South-West), James Rowlands (Finsbury East), the Hon. Philip Stanhope (Wednesbury), Halley Stewart (Lincolnshire, Spalding) and Sir Charles Tennant (Peebles and Selkirk).
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69 Scotsman, 28 June 1886.
70 Manchester Guardian, 5 Aug. 1886.
71 Caine to Chamberlain, 29 Apr. 1886, B.U.L., Chamberlain papers, JC5/10/1.
72 Daily News, 10 July 1886.
