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diff --git a/old/13109-8.txt b/old/13109-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0f007b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13109-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2373 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of About Ireland, by E. Lynn Linton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: About Ireland + +Author: E. Lynn Linton + +Release Date: August 3, 2004 [EBook #13109] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABOUT IRELAND *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Michael Ciesielski and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +ABOUT IRELAND + +BY + +_E. LYNN LINTON._ + +LONDON: +METHUEN & CO., +18, BURY STREET, W.C. + +1890. + + + + +EXPLANATORY. + + +I am conscious that I ought to make some kind of apology for rushing +into print on a subject which I do not half know. But I do know just a +little more than I did when I was an ardent Home Ruler, influenced by +the seductive charm of sentiment and abstract principle only; and I +think that perhaps the process by which my own blindness has been +couched may help to clear the vision of others who see as I did. All +of us lay-folk are obliged to follow the leaders of those schools in +politics, science, or religion, to which our temperament and mental +idiosyncracies affiliate us. Life is not long enough for us to examine +from the beginning upwards all the questions in which we are +interested; and it is only by chance that we find ourselves set face +to face with the first principles and elemental facts of a cause to +which, perhaps, as blind and believing followers of our leaders, we +have committed ourselves with the ardour of conviction and the +intemperance of ignorance. In this matter of Ireland I believed in the +accusations of brutality, injustice, and general insolence of tyranny +from modern landlords to existing tenants, so constantly made by the +Home Rulers and their organs; and, shocking though the undeniable +crimes committed by the Campaigners were, they seemed to me the tragic +results of that kind of despair which seizes on men who, goaded to +madness by oppression, are reduced to masked murder as their sole +means of defence--and as, after all, but a sadly natural retaliation. +I knew nothing really of Lord Ashbourne's Act; and what I thought I +knew was, that it was more a blind than honest legislation, and did no +vital good. I thought that Home Rule would set all things straight, +and that the National Sentiment was one which ought to find practical +expression. I rejoiced over every election that took away one seat +from the Unionists and added another vote to the Home Rulers; and I +shut my eyes to the dismemberment of our glorious Empire and the +certainty of civil war in Ireland, should the Home Rule demanded by +the Parnellites and advocated by the Gladstonians become an +accomplished fact. In a word I committed the mistakes inevitable to +all who take feeling and conviction rather than fact and knowledge for +their guides. + +Then I went to Ireland; and the scales fell from my eyes. I saw for +myself; heard facts I had never known before; and was consequently +enlightened as to the true meaning of the agitation and the real +condition of the people in their relation to politics, their +landlords, and the Plan of Campaign. + +The outcome of this visit was two papers which were written for the +_New Review_--with the editor of whom, however, I stood somewhat in +the position of Balaam with Balak, when, called on to curse the +Israelites, he was forced by a superior power to bless them. So I with +the Unionists. The first paper was sent and passed, but it was delayed +by editorial difficulties through the critical months of the +bye-elections. When published in the December number, owing to the +exigencies of space, the backbone--namely the extracts from the Land +Acts, now included in this re-publication--was taken out of it, and my +own unsupported statements alone were left. I was sorry for this, as +it cut the ground from under my feet and left me in the position of +one of those mere impressionists who have already sufficiently +darkened counsel and obscured the truth of things. As the same +editorial difficulties and exigencies of space would doubtless delay +the second paper, like the first, I resolved, by the courteous +permission of the editor, to enlarge and publish both in a pamphlet +for which I alone should be responsible, and which would bind no +editor to even the semblance of endorsement. + +I, only half-enlightened, write, as has been said, for the wholly +blind and ignorantly ardent who, as I did, accept sentiment for fact +and feeling for demonstration; who do not look at the solid legal +basis on which the present Government is dealing with the Irish +question; who believe all that the Home Rulers say, and nothing that +the Unionists demonstrate. I want them to study the plain and +indisputable facts of legislation as I have done, when I think they +must come to the same conclusions as those which have forced +themselves on my own mind--namely, that the Home Rule desired by the +Parnellites is not only a delusive impossibility, but is also high +treason against the integrity of the Empire, and would be a base +surrender of our obligations to the Irish Loyalists; that, whatever +the landlords were, they are now more sinned against than sinning; +and that in the orderly operation of the Land Acts now in force, with +the stern repression of outrages[A] and punishment of crimes, for +which peaceable folk are so largely indebted to Mr. Balfour, lies the +true pacification of this distressed and troubled country. + + +E. LYNN LINTON. + + + + + +ABOUT IRELAND. + + + + +I. + + +Nothing dies so hard as prejudice, unless it be sentiment. Indeed, +prejudice and sentiment are but different manifestations of the same +principle by which men pronounce on things according to individual +feeling, independent of facts and free from the restraint of positive +knowledge. And on nothing in modern times has so much sentiment been +lavished as on the Irish question; nowhere has so much passionately +generous, but at the same time so much absolutely ignorant, +partisanship been displayed as by English sympathisers with the Irish +peasant. This is scarcely to be wondered at. The picture of a gallant +nation ground under the heel of an iron despotism--of an industrious +and virtuous peasantry rackrented, despoiled, brutalised, and scarce +able to live by their labour that they may supply the vicious wants of +oppressive landlords--of unarmed men, together with women and little +children, ruthlessly bludgeoned by a brutal police, or shot by a +bloodthirsty soldiery for no greater offence than verbal protests +against illegal evictions--of a handful of ardent patriots ready to +undergo imprisonment and contumely in their struggle against one of +the strongest nations in the world for only so much political freedom +as is granted to-day by despots themselves--such a picture as this is +calculated to excite the sympathies of all generous souls. And it has +done so in England, where "Home Rule" and "Justice to Ireland" have +become the rallying cries of one section of the Liberal party, to the +disruption and political suicide of the whole body; and where the less +knowledge imported into the question the more fervid the advocacy and +the louder the demand. + +It is worth while to state quite quietly and quite plainly how things +stand at this present moment. There is no need for hysterics on the +one side or the other; and to amend one's views by the testimony of +facts is not a dishonest turning of one's coat--if confession of that +amendment is a little like the white sheet and lighted taper of a +penitent. Things are, or they are not. If they are, as will be set +down, the inference is plain to anyone not hopelessly blinded by +preconceived prejudice. If they are not, let them be authoritatively +contradicted on the basis of fact, not sentiment--demonstration, not +assertion. In any case it is a gain to obtain material for a truer +judgment than heretofore, and thus to be rid of certain mental films +by which colours are blurred and perspective is distorted. + +No one wishes to palliate the crimes of which England has been guilty +in Ireland. Her hand has been heavy, her whip one of braided +scorpions, her rule emphatically of blood and iron. But all this is of +the past, and the pendulum, not only of public feeling but of legal +enactment, threatens to swing too far on the other side. What has been +done cannot be undone, but it will not be repeated. We shall never +send over another Cromwell nor yet another Castlereagh; and there is +as little good to be got from chafing over past wrongs as there is in +lamenting past glories. Malachi and his collar of gold--the ancient +kings who led forth the Red Branch Knights--State persecution of the +Catholics--rack-rents and unjust evictions, are all alike swept away +into the limbo of things dead and done with. What Ireland has to deal +with now are the enactments and facts of the day, and to shake off the +incubus of retrospection, as a strong man awaking would get rid of a +nightmare. + +Nowhere in Europe, nor yet in the United States, are tenant-farmers so +well protected by law as in Ireland; nor is it the fault of England if +the Acts passed for their benefit have been rendered ineffectual by +the agitators who have preferred fighting to orderly development. So +long ago as 1860 a Bill was passed providing that no tenant should be +evicted for non-payment of rent unless one year's rent in arrear. +(Landlord and Tenant Act, 1860, sec. 52.) Even then, when evicted, he +could recover possession within six months by payment of the amount +due; when the landlord had to pay him the amount of any profit he had +made out of the lands in the interim. The landlord had to pay half the +poor rate of the Government Valuation if a holding was £4 or upward, +and all the poor rate if it was under £4. By the Act of 1870 "a yearly +tenant disturbed in his holding by the act of the landlord, for causes +other than non-payment of rent, and the Government Valuation of whose +holding does not exceed £100 per annum, must be paid by his landlord +not only full compensation for all improvements made by himself or his +predecessors, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, and +reclamation of waste lands, but also as compensation for disturbance, +a sum of money which may amount to seven years' rent." (Land Act of +1870, secs. 1, 2, and 3.) Under the Act of 1881 the landlord's power +of disturbance was practically abolished--but I think I have read +somewhere that even of late years, and with the ballot, certain +landlords in England have threatened their tenants with "disturbance" +without compensation if their votes were not given to the right +colour--while in Ireland, even when evicted for non-payment of rent, a +yearly tenant must be paid by his landlord "compensation for all +improvements, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, and +reclamation of waste land." (Sec. 4.) And when his rent does not +exceed £15 he must be paid in addition "a sum of money which may +amount to seven years' rent if the court decides that the rent is +exorbitant." (Secs. 3 and 9.) (_a_) Until the contrary is proved, the +improvements are presumed to have been made by the tenants. (Sec. 5.) +(_b_) The tenant can make his claim for compensation immediately on +notice to quit being served, and cannot be evicted until the +compensation is paid. (Secs. 16 and 21.) A yearly tenant when +voluntarily surrendering his farm must either be paid by the landlord +(_a_) compensation for all his improvements, or (_b_) be permitted to +sell his improvements to an incoming tenant. (Sec. 4.) In all new +tenancies the landlord must pay half the county or Grand Jury Cess if +the valuation is £4 or upward and the whole of the same Cess if the +value does not exceed £4. (Secs. 65 and 66.) Thus we have under the +Land Act of 1870 (i) Full payment for all improvements; (2) +Compensation for disturbance. + +The famous Land Act of 1881 gave three additional privileges, (1) +Fixity of tenure, by which the tenant remains in possession of the +land for ever, subject to periodic revision of the rent. (Land Act, +1881, sec. 8.) If the tenant has not had a fair rent fixed, and his +landlord proceeds to evict him for non-payment of rent, he can apply +to the court to fix the fair rent, and meantime the eviction +proceedings will be restrained by the court. (Sec. 13.) (2) Fair rent, +by which any yearly tenant may apply to the Land Commission Court (the +judges of which were appointed under Mr. Gladstone's Administration) +to fix the fair rent of his holding. The application is referred to +three persons, one of whom is a lawyer, and the other two inspect and +value the farm. _This rent can never again_ be raised by the landlord. +(Sec. 8.) (3) Free sale, by which every yearly tenant may, whether he +has had a fair rent fixed or not, sell his tenancy to the highest +bidder whenever he desires to leave. (Sec. 1.) (_a_) There is no +practical limit to the price he may sell for, and twenty times the +amount of the annual rent has frequently been obtained in every +province of Ireland. (_b_) Even if a tenant be evicted, he has the +right either to redeem at any time within three months, _or to sell +his tenancy within the same period to a purchaser who can likewise +redeem_ and thus acquire all the privileges of a tenant. (Sec. 13.) + +Even more important than this is the Land Purchase Act of 1885, +commonly called Lord Ashbourne's Act, by which the whole land in +Ireland is potentially put into the hands of the farmers, and of the +working of which much will have to be said before these papers end. +This Act, in its sections 2, 3, and 4, sets forth this position, +briefly stated: If a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and arranges +with his landlord as to terms, he can change his position from that of +a perpetual rent-payer into that of the payer of an annuity, +terminable at the end of forty-nine years--the Government supplying +him with the entire purchase-money, to be repaid during those +forty-nine years at 4 per cent. This annual payment of £4 for every +£100 borrowed covers both principal and interest. Thus, if a tenant, +already paying a statutory rent of £50, agrees to buy from his +landlord at twenty years' purchase (or £1,000) the Government will +lend him the money, his rent will at once cease, and he will not pay +£50, but £40, yearly for forty-nine years, and then become the owner +of his holding, free of rent. It is hardly necessary to point out +that, as these forty-nine years of payment roll by, the interest of +the tenant in his holding increases rapidly in value. (Land Purchase +Act, 1885, secs. 2, 3, and 4.) + +Under the Land Act of 1887, the tenants received the following still +greater and always one-sided privileges, (i) By this Act leases are +allowed to be broken by the tenant, but not by the landlord. All +leaseholders whose leases would expire within ninety-nine years after +the passing of the Act have the option of going into court and getting +their contracts broken and a judicial rent fixed. No equivalent power +is given to the landlords. (Land Act of 1887, secs, 1 and 2.) (2) The +Act varies rent already judicially fixed for fifteen years by the +Land Courts in the years 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, and 1885. (Sec. 29.) +(3) It stays evictions, and allows rent to be paid by instalments. In +the case of tenants whose valuation does not exceed £50, the court +before which proceedings are being taken for the recovery of _any_ +debt due by the tenant is empowered to stay his eviction, and may give +him liberty to pay his creditors by instalments, and can extend the +time for such payment as it thinks proper. (Land Act of 1887, sec. +30.) + +By these extracts, which do not exhaust the whole of the privileges +granted to the Irish tenant, it may be seen how exceptionally he has +been favoured. Nowhere else has such wholesale interference with the +obligations of contract, such lavish protection of the tenant, such +practical persecution of the landlord been as yet demanded by the +one-half of the nation; nor, if demanded, would such partiality have +been conceded by the other half. Yet, in the face of these various +Acts, and all they embody, provide for, and deny, our hysterical +journal _par excellence_ is not ashamed to publish a wild letter from +one of those ramping political women who screech like peacocks before +rain, setting forth how Ireland could be redeemed by the manufacture +of blackberry jam, were it not for the infamous landlords who would at +once raise the rent on those tenants who, by industry, had improved +their condition. And a Dublin paper asserts that anything will be +fiction which demonstrates that "Ireland is not the home of +rackrenters, brutal batonmen, and heartless evictors"; while political +agitation is still being carried on by any means that come handiest, +and the eviction of tenants who owe five or six years' rent, and will +not pay even one to clear off old scores, is treated as an act of +brutality for which no quarter should be given. If we were to transfer +the whole method of procedure to our own lands and houses in England, +perhaps the thing would wear a different aspect from that which it +wears now, when surrounded by a halo of false sentiment and convenient +forgetfulness. + +The total want of honesty, of desire for the right thing in this +no-rent agitation, is exemplified by the following fact:--When Colonel +Vandeleur's tenants--owing several years' rent, refused to pay +anything, and joined the Plan of Campaign, arbitration was suggested, +and Sir Charles Russell was accepted by the landlord as arbitrator. As +every one knows, Sir Charles is an Irishman, a Catholic, and the +"tenants' friend." His award was, as might have been expected, most +liberal towards them. Here is the result:--"We learn that the +non-fulfilment by a number of the tenants of the terms of the award +made by Sir C. Russell is likely to lead to serious difficulties. They +refuse to carry out the undertaking which was given on their behalf, +having so much bettered the instruction given to them that they insist +upon holding a grip of the rent, and not yielding to even the advice +of their friends. About thirty of them have not paid the year's rent, +which all the Plan of Campaign tenants were to have paid when the +award was made known to them. This is the most conspicuous instance in +which arbitration has been tried, and the result is not encouraging, +although landlords have been denounced for not at once accepting it +instead of seeking to enforce their legal rights by the tribunal +appointed by the Legislature." + +With a legal machinery of relief so comprehensive and so favourable to +the tenant, it would seem that the Plan of Campaign, with its cruel +and murderous accompaniments, was scarcely needed. If anyone was +aggrieved, the courts were open to him; and we have only to read the +list of reduced rents to see how those courts protected the tenant and +bore heavily on the landlord. Also, it would seem to persons of +ordinary morality that it would have been more manly and more honest +to pay the rents due to the proprietor than to cast the money into the +chest of the Plan of Campaign--that _boite à Pierrette_ which, like +the sieve of the Danaïdes, can never be filled. The Home Rule +agitators have known how to make it appear that they, and they alone, +stand between the people and oppression. They have ignored all this +orderly legal machinery; and their English sympathisers have not +remembered it. Nor have those English sympathisers considered the +significant fact that this agitation is literally the bread of life to +those who have created and still maintain it. Many of the Home Rule +Irish Members of Parliament have risen from the lowest ranks of +society--from the barefooted peasantry, where their nearest relations +are still to be found--into the outward condition of gentlemen living +in comparative affluence. It is not being uncharitable, nor going +behind motives, to ask, _Cui bono?_ For whose advantage is a certain +movement carried on?--especially for whose advantage is this anti-rent +movement in Ireland? For the good of the tenants who, under the +pressure put on them by those whom they have agreed to follow, refuse +to pay even a fraction of rent hitherto paid to the full, and who are, +in consequence, evicted from their farms and deprived of their means +of subsistence?--or is it for the good of a handful of men who live by +and on the agitation they created and still keep up? Do the leaders of +any movement whatsoever give a thought to the individual lives +sacrificed to the success of the cause? As little as the general +regrets the individuals of the rank and file in the battalions he +hurls against the enemy. The ruined homes and blighted lives of the +thousands who have listened, believed, been coerced to their own +despair, have been no more than the numbers of the rank and file to +the general who hoped to gain the day by his battalions.[B] The good +in this no-rent movement is reaped by the agitators alone; and for +them alone have the chestnuts been pulled out of the fire. +Furthermore, whose hands among the prominent leaders are free from the +reflected stain of blood-money? These leaders have counselled a course +of action which has been marked all along the line by outrage and +murder; and they have lived well and amassed wealth by the course they +have counselled. + +From proletariats in their own persons they have become men of +substance and property. These assertions are facts to which names and +amounts can be given; and that question, _Cui bono_? answers itself. +The inference to be drawn is too grave to be set aside; and to plead +"charitable judgment" is to plead imbecility. + +The plain and simple truth is--the protective legislation that was so +sorely needed for the peasantry is fast degenerating into injustice +and oppression against the landlords. Thousands of the smaller +landowners have been absolutely beggared; the larger holders have been +as ruthlessly ruined. For, while the rents were lowered, the charges +on the land, made on the larger basis, were kept to their same value; +and the fate of the landlord was sealed. Between the hammer and the +anvil as he was and is placed, his times have not been pleasant. +Families who have bought their estates on the faith of Government +sales and Government contracts, and families who have owned theirs for +centuries and lived on them, winter and summer--who have been neither +absentees nor rack-renters, but have been friendly, hospitable, +open-handed after their kind, always ready to give comforts and +medicine to the sick and a good-natured measure of relief to the hard +pressed--they have now been brought to the ground; and between our own +fluid and unstable legislation and the reckless cruelty of the Plan of +Campaign their destruction has been complete. Wherever one goes one +finds great houses shut up or let for a few summer months to strangers +who care nothing for the place and less than nothing for the people. +One cannot call this a gain, look at it as one will. Nor do the +tenantry themselves feel it to be a gain. Get their confidence and you +will find that they all regret the loss of their own--those jovial, +frank, and kindly proprietors who did the best they knew, though +perhaps, judged by present scientific knowledge that best was not very +good, but who at least knew more than themselves. Carrying the thing +home to England, we should scarcely say that our country places would +be the better for the exodus of all the educated and refined and +well-to-do families, with the peasantry and an unmarried clergyman +left sole masters of the situation. + +In the desire of Parliament to do justice to the Irish peasant, whose +condition did once so loudly demand amelioration, justice to the +landlord has gone by the board. For we cannot call it justice to make +him alone suffer. His rents have been reduced from 25 to 30 per cent. +and over, but all the rent charges, mortgages, debts and dues have +been retained at their full value. The scheme of reduction does not +pass beyond the tiller of the soil, and the landlord is the sole +loser.[C] + +Beyond this he suffers from the want of finality in legislation. +Nothing is left to prove itself, and the tinkering never ends. A +fifteen years' bargain under the first Land Act is broken up under the +next as if Governmental pledges were lovers' vows. When, on the faith +of those pledges, a landlord borrowed money from the Board of Works +for the improvement of his estate, for stone cottages for his +tenantry, for fences, drainage, and the like, suddenly his income is +still further reduced; but the interest he has to pay for the loan +contracted on the broader basis remains the same. Which is a kind of +thing on all fours with the plan of locking up a debtor so that he +cannot work at his trade, while ordering him to pay so much weekly +from earnings which the law itself prevents his making. + +If the sum of misery remains constant in Ireland, its distribution has +changed hands. The small deposits in the savings-banks have increased +to an enormous extent, and in many places where the tenants have for +some years refused to pay their rents, but have still kept the land, +the women have learned to dress. But the owners of the land--say that +they are ladies with no man in the family--have wanted bread, and have +been kept from starvation only by surreptitious supplies delivered in +the dead darkness of the night. These supplies have of necessity been +rare and scanty, for the most honest tenant dared not face the +vengeance of the League by openly paying his just due. Did not Mr. +Dillon, on August 23rd, 1887, say, "If there is a man in Ireland base +enough to back down, to turn his back on the fight now that Coercion +has passed, I pledge myself in the face of this meeting, that I will +denounce him from public platform by name, and I pledge myself to the +Government that, let that man be whom he may, his life will not be a +happy one, either in Ireland or across the seas." With such a +formidable organisation as this, what individual would have the +courage to stand out for abstract justice to a landlord? It would have +been, and it has been, standing out for his own destruction. Hence, +for no fault, no rack-renting, have proprietors--and especially +ladies--been treated as mortal enemies by those whom they had always +befriended--for no reason whatever but that it was an easy victory for +the Campaigners to obtain. Women, with never a man to defend them, +could be more easily manipulated than if they were so many stalwart +young fellows, handy in their turn with guns and revolvers, and man +for man a match even for Captain Moonlight. If these ladies dared to +evict their non-paying tenants they would be either boycotted or +"visited," or perhaps both. Besides, who would venture to take the +vacant land? And how could a couple of delicate ladies, say, till the +ground with their own hands? The old fable of the dog in the manger +holds good with these Campaigners. Those who will not pay prevent +others who would; and the hated "landgrabber," denounced from altar +and platform alike, is simply an honest and industrious worker, who +would make his own living and the landlord's rent out of a bit of land +which is lying idle and going to waste. + +All through the disturbed districts we come upon facts like this--upon +the ruin and humiliation of kindly and delicately-nurtured ladies, of +which the English public knows nothing; and while it hysterically +pities the poor down-trodden peasant and goes in for Home Rule as the +panacea, the wife of a tenant owing five years' rent and refusing to +pay one, dresses in costly attire--and the lady proprietor knows +penury and hunger; not to speak of the agonies of personal terror +endured for months at a stretch. Let us, who live in a well-ordered +country, realize for a moment the mental condition of those who dwell +in the shadow of assassination--women to whom every unusual noise is +as the sentence of death, and whose days are days of trembling, and +their nights of anguish for the fear of death that encompasses them. +Is this according to the law of elemental justice? Are our sympathies +to be confined wholly to one class, and are the sorrows and the wrongs +done to another not to count? Surely it is time for some of the +sentimental fog in which so many of us have been living to be +dispelled in favour of the light of truth! + +Here is an instructive little bit on which we would do well to +ponder:-- + +A certain authority gives the following anecdote:--He says that he +"has just had a long conversation with one of the leading Galway +merchants. 'A farmer of this county,' said he, 'told me yesterday that +he had let his meadowing at £8 an acre. I bought all his barley, and +he confessed that on this crop too he had made £8 an acre. Now the +judicial rent of this man's holding is 10s. the acre. He said, "I have +nothing to complain of."' This man was a tenant of Lord Clanricarde; +one of those people who decline to pay a farthing in the way of rent +to the lawful owner of the soil. The case we have cited may be an +extreme one, but it is generally admitted by those who are acquainted +with the facts, and who speak the truth that the rents on the +Clanricarde property, speaking generally, are low rents, and yet not +only is it impossible to collect these rents, but the agent who +represents Lord Clanricarde, and whose only fault is that he tries to +do his duty to his employer without unnecessary harshness to the +tenantry, dare not go outside his house without an escort of police, +and every time he leaves his house, he risks his life. Referring to +this agent, Mr. Tener, the correspondent says:-- + +"No one would think from looking at him that he literally carries his +life in his hand, and that if he were not guarded as closely as he is +he would be shot in twenty-four hours. He never goes outside the walls +of the Portumna demesne without an escort of seven policemen--two +mounted men in front, two behind, and three upon his car. He, too, as +well as the driver, is armed, so the would-be assassins must reckon +with nine armed men. In the opinion of those who know the +neighbourhood his escort is barely strong enough. He was fired at a +few weeks ago, and the horse which he was driving shot dead. The +police who were with him on the car were rolled out upon the road, and +before they could recover themselves and pursue the Moonlighters had +escaped.' And this is supposed to be a civilised country, and is a +part of the United Kingdom! + +"Whereas it seems to us Lord Clanricarde is to blame is in not living, +at any rate for some part of the year, upon his Irish property. This +nobleman represents one of the most ancient families in Ireland. He is +the representative of the Clanricarde Burkes, who have been settled +upon this property for 700 years. He draws, or rather drew, a very +large income from it, and there can be little question that his +presence would encourage and sustain smaller proprietors who are +fighting a losing battle in defence of their rights. These proprietors +may fairly claim that the leading men of their order should stand by +them in the time of trial. Unfortunately, this assistance has not been +invariably, or even as a rule, rendered by the great Irish landowners. +It is, indeed, largely because they have failed in their duty that the +present troubles have come upon Irish landlords as a body. If only in +the past the great landowners had lived in Ireland and spent at least +a portion of the incomes they derived from Ireland upon their estates, +the present agitation against landlordism would never have reached the +point at which it has arrived. The absence of the landlords, and in +many cases their refusal to recognise the legitimate claims of their +districts upon them, has made it possible for the agitators who have +now the ear of the people to bring about that severance of classes, +and that embittered feeling of class against class, which is doing +Ireland more injury at the present time than all the rack-renters put +together." + +Those who plead for the landlords who have been so cruelly robbed and +ruined are weak-voiced and reticent compared to the loudly crying +advocates for the peasantry. English tourists run over for a fortnight +to Ireland, talk to the jarvies, listen to the peasants themselves, +forbear to go near any educated or responsible person with knowledge +of the facts and a character to lose, and accept as gospel everything +they hear. There is no check and no verification. Pat and Tim and Mike +give their accounts of this and that, bedad! and tell their piteous +tales of want and oppression. The English tourist swallows it all +whole as it comes to him, and writes his account to the sympathetic +Press, which publishes as gospel stories which have not one word of +truth in them. In fact, the term "English tourist" has come to mean +the same as _gobemouche_ in France; and clever Pat knows well enough +that there is not a fly in the whole region of fable which is too +large for the brutal Saxon to swallow. Abject poverty without shoes to +its feet, with only a few rags to cover its unwashed nakedness, and an +unfurnished mud cabin shared with the pigs and poultry for its sole +dwelling-place--abject poverty begs a copper from "his honour" for the +love of God and the glory of the Blessed Virgin, telling meantime a +heartrending story of privation and oppression. Abject poverty points +to all the outward signs and circumstances of its woe; but it forgets +the good stone house in which live the son and the son's wife--the +dozen or more of cattle grazing free on the mountain side--that bit of +fertile land where the very weeds grow into beauty by their +luxuriance--and those quiet hundreds hidden away for the sole pleasure +of hoarding. And the English tourist takes it all in, and blazes out +into wrath against the tyrannous landlord who has reduced an honest +citizen to this fearful state of misery; knowing nothing of the craft +which is known to all the residents round about, and not willing to +believe it were he even told. For the dramatic instinct is strong in +human nature, and in these later days there is an ebullient surplusage +of sympathy which only desires to find an object. Across the Bristol +Channel, the English tourist finds these objects ready-made to his +hand; and the question is still further embroiled, and the light of +truth still more obscured, that a few impulsive, credulous, and +non-judicially-minded young people may find something whereon to +excite their emotions, and give vent to them in letters to the +newspapers when excited. + +Only the other day a young Irishman who has to do with the land +question was mistaken for a brutal but credulous Saxon by the jarvey +who had him in tow. Consequently, Pat plied his fancied victim with +the wildest stories of this man's wrongs and that lone widow's +sufferings. When he found out his mistake he laughed and said: +"Begorra, I thought your honour was an English tourist!" And at a +certain trial which took place in Cork, the judge put by some absurd +statement by saying, half-indignant, half amused: "Do you take me for +an English tourist?" Nevertheless the race will continue so long as +there are excitable young persons of either sex whose capacity for +swallowing flies is practically unlimited, and an hysterical Press to +which they can betake themselves. + +The following authoritative instance of this misplaced sympathy may +suffice. The _Westminster Review_ published a certain article on the +Olphert estate, among other things. Those who have read it know its +sensational character. At Cork the other day the priest concerned had +to confess on oath that only three of the Olphert tenants had received +relief.[D] + +In the famous Luggacurren evictions the poor dispossessed dupes lost +their all at the bidding of the Campaigners, on the plea of inability +to pay rents voluntarily offered by Lord Lansdowne to be reduced 20 +per cent. After these evictions the lands were let to the "Land +Corporation," which had some short time ago four hundred head of +cattle over and above the full rent paid honestly down; but the former +holders are living on charity doled out to them by the Campaigners, +and in huts built for them by the Campaigners on the edge of the rich +and kindly land which once gave them home and sustenance. How bitterly +they curse the evil counsels which led to their destruction only they +and the few they dare trust know. Take, too, these two authoritative +stories. They are of the things one blindly believes and rages +against--with what justice the dénouement of the sorry farce, best +shows:-- + + +"The correspondents of the _Freeman's Journal_, in response to the +circular some time ago addressed to them continue to supply fictitious +and exaggerated statements of events alleged to have happened 'in the +country,' nearly every day some example is afforded. One of the latest +is a pathetic tale of the 'suicide of a tenant.' It represents that +Andrew Kelly, of Cloonlaugh, 'one of the three tenants against whom +A.W. Sampey, J.P., landlord, obtained ejectments,' became demented +from the fear of eviction, and drowned himself in a bog hole in +consequence. The account is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. +Andrew Kelly was not a tenant of Mr. Sampey's, nor had he been for the +last five years. His son, it is true, is one of the tenants against +whom a decree was obtained, but this did not apparently trouble the +father much, as he had been living away from his son for a long time, +although he had come to see him a few days before he was drowned. +There was no suspicion either of foul play or suicide, and the +coroner's jury returned no such verdict as that given in the +_Freeman_. The veracious correspondent of that journal stated that the +jury found that 'Andrew Kelly came by his death through drowning on +the 22nd October while suffering under temporary insanity brought +about by fear of eviction.' The following is the verdict which the +coroner's jury actually arrived at:--'We find that Andrew Kelly's +death was caused by suffocation; that he was found dead in the +townland of Clooncriur, on the 24th day of October, 1889.' This is the +way in which sensational news is manufactured for the purpose of +promoting an anti-landlord crusade and prejudicing the owners of +property in the eyes of the country." + +"Speaking at Newmarch, near Barnsley, last month, Mr. Waddy drew a +heartrending picture of the tyranny practised in Ireland, and +illustrated his theme and moved his audience to the execration of Mr. +Balfour by the artistic recital of a horrible tale. He declared that a +little child had been barbarously sentenced by resident magistrates to +a month's imprisonment for throwing a stone at a policeman. Some +hard-headed or hard-hearted Yorkshireman, however, would not believe +Mr. Waddy offhand, and challenged him to declare names, place, and +date. On the 15th of November, Mr. Waddy gave the following +particulars in writing. He stated that the magistrates who had imposed +the brutal punishment were Mr. Hill and Colonel Bowlby, that the case +was tried at Keenagh on the 23rd of April, 1888, that the child's name +was Thomas Quin, aged nine, and that the charge was throwing stones at +the police. + +"The clue thus afforded has been followed up. It is grievous that cool +and calculating investigation should spoil a pretty story, but here is +the truth. + +"On the 20th of April, before Colonel Stewart and Colonel Bowlby, +resident magistrates, Thomas Quin, aged 19 years, was convicted of +using intimidation towards William Nutley, in consequence of his +having done an act which he had a legal right to do--viz., to evict a +labourer, Michael Fegan, of Clearis, who refused to work for him. +Thomas Quin was sentenced to one month's imprisonment. + +"I am quite sure that Mr. Waddy will publicly acknowledge that he +played upon the feelings of his hearers with a trumped-up tale of woe, +but I wonder whether anything will teach the British political tourist +that a great number of my countrymen unfortunately feel a genuine +delight in hoaxing them. + +"Your obedient servant, + +"AN IRISH LIBERAL." + + +As for the assertion of poverty and inability to pay, so invariably +made to excuse defaulting tenants, I will give these two instances to +the contrary. + +"Writing on behalf of Mr. Balfour to Mr. E. Bannister, of Hyde, +Cheshire, Mr. George Wyndham, M.P., recounts a somewhat remarkable +circumstance in connection with the position and circumstances of a +tenant on Lord Kenmare's estate who declined to pay his rent on the +plea of poverty:--'Irish Office, Nov. 28, 1889. Dear Sir,--In reply to +your letter of the 22nd inst., I beg to inform you that I have made +careful inquiries into the case of Molloy, a tenant on Lord Kenmare's +estate. I find that so far from exaggerating the scope of this +incident, you somewhat understate the case. The full particulars were +as follow:--The estate bailiffs visited the house of Molloy, a tenant +who owed £30 rent and arrears. They seized his cows, and then called +at his home to ask him if he would redeem them by paying the debt. +Molloy stated that he was willing to pay, but that he had only £7 +altogether. He handed seven notes to the bailiff, who found that one +of them was a £5 note, so that the amount was £11 instead of £7. On +being pressed to pay the balance he admitted that he had a small +deposit of £20 in the bank, and produced a document which he said was +the deposit receipt for this sum. On the bailiff examining this +receipt he found it was for £100 and not for £20. On being informed of +his mistake, Molloy took back the £100 receipt and produced another, +which turned out to be for £40. A further search on his part led to +the production of the receipt for £20, with which and £10 in notes he +paid the rent. You will observe that this tenant, refusing to pay £30, +and obliging his landlord to take steps against him, possessed at the +time £171, besides having stock on his land.--Yours faithfully, GEORGE +WYNDHAM.'" + +And I have it on the word of honour of one whose word is his bond, +that certain defaulting tenants lately confessed to him that they had +in their pockets as much as the value of three years' rent for the two +they owed, but that they dared not, for their lives, pay it. They +would if they dared, but they dared not. The plea of inability to pay +the reduced scale of rent is for the most part simple moonshine; and +the terrorism imported into this question comes from the Campaigners, +not from the landlords, nor yet from the police. If these paid +political agitators were silenced, and if the laws already passed were +suffered to work by themselves according to their intent, things would +speedily settle. But then the agitators would lose their means of +subsistence, their social status, and their political importance. As +things are these men are ruining the country they affect to defend; +while the worst enemies of the peasant are those who call themselves +his friends, and the blind-eyed sympathisers who bewail the wrongs he +does not suffer and the misery he himself might prevent. All that +Ireland wants now is rest from political agitation, the orderly +development of its resources;--and especially finality in +legislation;[E]--so that the one side may know to what it has to +trust, and the other may be freed from those illusive dreams and +demoralising hopes which destroy the manlier efforts after self-help +in the present for that universal amelioration to be found in the +coming of the cocklicranes in the future. + +There is, however, a good work quietly going on which will touch the +evil root of things in time, but not in the sense of the Home Rulers +and Campaigners. This good work will render it unnecessary to follow +the advice of that rough and ready politician who saw no way out of +the wood save to "send to Hell for Oliver Cromwell"; also that of the +facetious Dove who winked as he offered his olive branch:--"Shure the +best way to pacify Oireland is for the Queen to marry Parnell." A more +practicable method than either is silently making headway against the +elements of disorder; and in spite of the upsetters and their +opposition the rough things will be made smooth, and, the troubled +waters will run clear, if only the Government of order may be allowed +time to do its beneficent work of repression and re-establishment +thoroughly and to the roots. + + + + +II. + + +In politics, as in nature, beneficent powers work quietly, while +destructive agencies sweep across the world with noise and tumult. The +fruit tree grows in silence; the tempest which uproots it shakes the +earth to its centre. The gradual evolution of society in the +development of art, the softening of manners, the equalization of +justice, the respect for law, the purity of morals, which are its +results and correlatives, comes about as silently as the growth of the +tree; but the wars which desolate nations, and the revolutions which +destroy in a few months the work of many centuries, are as tumultuous +as the tempest and as boisterous as the storm. + +In Ireland at the present moment this rule holds good with surprising +accuracy. Where the tranquilizing effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act +attracts but little attention outside its own immediate sphere, the +Plan of Campaign has everywhere been accompanied with murder, +boycotting, outrage, and the loud cries of those who, playing at +bowls, have to put up with rubbers. Where men who have retained their +sense of manly honesty and commercial justice, buy their lands in +peace, without asking the world to witness the transaction--those +tenants who, having for years refused to pay a reduced rent or any +portion of arrears, are at last evicted from the land they do not care +to hold as honest men should, make the political welkin ring with +their complaints, and call on the nation at large to avenge their +wrongs. And the analogy holds good all through. The Irish tenant +yearns to possess the land he farms. Lord Ashbourne's Act enables him +to do this by the benign way of peace, fairness, and self-respect. The +Plan of Campaign, on the other hand, teaches him the destructive +methods of dishonesty and violence. The one is a legal, quiet, and +equitable arrangement, without personal bitterness, without hysterical +shrieking, without wrong-doing to any one. The other is an offence +against the common interests of society, and a breach of the law +accompanied by crimes against humanity. The one is silent and +beneficent; the other noisy, uprooting, and malevolent. But as the +powers of growth and development are, in the long run, superior to +those of destruction--else all would have gone by the board ages +ago--the good done by Lord Ashbourne's Act will be a living force in +the national history when the evil wrought by the Plan of Campaign is +dead and done with. + +By Lord Ashbourne's Act the Irish tenant can buy his farm at (an +average of) seventeen years' purchase. He borrows the purchase money +from the Government, paying it back on easy terms, so that in +forty-nine years he becomes the absolute owner of the property--paying +meantime in interest and gradual diminution of the principal, less +than the present rent. The landlord has about £68 for every £100 he +used to have in rent. This Act is quietly revolutionizing Ireland, +redeeming it from agrarian anarchy, and saving the farmer from himself +and his friends. Thousands and thousands of acres are being constantly +sold in all parts of the country, and good prices are freely given for +farms whereof the turbulent and discontented tenants professed +themselves unable to pay the most moderate rents. Large holdings and +small alike are bought as gladly as they are sold. Those who buy know +the capabilities of the land when worked with a will; those who sell +prefer a reduced certainty to the greater nominal value, which might +vanish altogether under the fiat of the Campaigners and the visits of +Captain Moonlight. + +The Irish loyal papers, which no English Home Ruler ever sees--facts +being so inimical to sentiment--these Irish papers are full of details +respecting these sales. On one estate thirty-seven farmers buy their +holdings at prices varying from £18 to £520, the average being £80. On +another, six farms bring £5,603, one fetching £2,250. In the west, +small farmers are buying where they can. In Sligo the MacDermott, +Q.C., has sold farms to forty-two of his tenants for £3,096, the +prices varying from £32 to £70 and £130; and the O'Connor Don has sold +farms in the same county to fifteen tenants for £1,934. The number of +acres purchased under this Act for the three years ending August, +1888, are a trifle over 293,556. + +The Government valuation is £171,774,000. The net rent is £190,181 +12s. 9d. The purchase-money is £3,350,933. The average number of +years' purchase is 17.6. + +Perhaps the most important of all these sales are those on the Egmont +estate in the very heart of one of the gravely-disturbed districts. +The rent-roll of this estate was £16,000 a year; and it was estimated +that successive landlords had laid out about £250,000 in +improvements--which was just the sum expected to be realized by the +sales. All this land has passed into the hands of farmers who, from +agitators and No Renters have now become proprietors on their own +account, with a direct interest in maintaining law and order, and in +opposing violence and disorder all round. Other important sales have +been effected. A hundred and fifty tenants on the Drapers' estate in +county Derry have bought their farms from the London Company at a +total of £57,980. These, with others (197 in all), reached a sum total +of purchase-money of £63,305, as set forth in the _Dublin Gazette_, of +November 5th, 1889. + +Lord Spencer, whose political _volte face_ is one of the wonders of +the hour, does not hesitate to say that this Act has not been a +success. Can he give counter figures to those quoted above? And Mr. +Michael Davitt does not approve of the sales in general and of those +on the Egmont estates in especial, "He hates the Ashbourne Act worse +than he hates the idea of an endowed Roman Catholic University, which +is saying a great deal. He hates it because it renders impossible his +visionary scheme of land nationalization, but more because it wrests +from his hands the weapons of Separatist rebellion. And what he openly +says, all the more cautious members of his party think. Every +purchaser under the Ashbourne Act is a soldier lost to the cause of +sedition. More than one of the ringleaders have indeed said this +formerly, but of late they have grown more reticent. The Parnellite, +it has been said, is essentially an Opportunist. Mr. Davitt is hardly +a Parnellite, but the real Parnellite items have discovered that their +seats in Parliament and their future hopes would be endangered, if +they openly fell foul of the Act under which so many Irish tenants are +becoming freeholders. They do not bless the Act, but they leave it +alone." + +There is another misstatement that had better be frankly met. The +objectors to the Land Courts say that the applicants are so many and +the process is so slow, it is almost useless and worse than +heartbreaking to apply for relief. One thing, however, must be +remembered--during the interim of application and hearing, a tenant +cannot be disturbed in his holding, and if he refuses to pay his rent +the landlord cannot evict him. The following correspondence is +instructive:-- + + "Braintree, Nov. 14. + + "Sir,--Will you be good enough to inform me whether the statement I + give below is correct? It was made by an Irish lecturer (going + about with magic-lantern views) for the purpose of showing how + unjustly the Irish tenants are treated. The lecturer was Mr. J. + O'Brady, and he was delivering the lecture at Braintree on + Saturday, November 9:--'There are now 90,000 cases awaiting the + decision of the Land Courts to fix a "fair rent" on their holdings, + and as only 15,000 cases can be heard in one year, do you wonder at + the tenants refusing to pay their present rent?' + + "Your faithful servant, + + "G. THORPE BARTRAM." + + "The Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P." + + "Irish Office, Great Queen Street, Nov. 22. + + "Dear Sir,--I have made special inquiry into the subject of your + letter of the 14th inst., and find that on the 31st of the last + month the number of outstanding applications to have fair rents + fixed was 44,295, and that the number of cases disposed of in the + months of July and August (the latest month for which the figures + are made up) was 5,380. You will see, therefore, that the arrear is + less than one-half of the amount stated by the Separatist lecturer + to whom you refer, and the rate of progression in disposing of it + is considerably higher than that alleged by him. It may reasonably + be hoped also (though the statistics are not yet available) that + this rate has since been increased, as several additional + Sub-Commissioners have been appointed to hear the cases. I would + observe also that under the provisions of the Land Act, passed by + the present Government in 1887, the tenant gets the benefit of the + judicial rent from the date of his application, an advantage which + he did not possess under Mr. Gladstone's Act. Such unavoidable + delay as may occur, therefore, does not, under the existing law, + involve the serious injury to the tenant implied by the lecturer. I + enclose a printed paper, which will give you further information on + this subject. In conclusion, I would point out that the suggestion + that the agrarian trouble in Ireland arises from the difficulty + experienced by the tenants in getting judicial rents fixed is not + warranted by the facts. Take as illustrations the cases of two + estates which have lately been prominently before the + public--namely, the Ponsonby and the Olphert. In the former case + the landlord is anxious, I believe, to get the tenants to go into + Court, and offers to give retrospective effect to the decisions, + though not bound by law to do so, but under the influence of the + agitators the tenants refuse to go into Court. In the latter + instance judicial rents have long since been fixed in the great + majority of cases. + + "Yours faithfully, + + "ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR." + +Together with this easy mode of purchase by which the quiet and +industrious are profiting, rents are reduced all over the country, +though still the Home Rulers reiterate the old charge of +"rack-renting," as if such a thing were the rule. These unscrupulous +misstatements, indeed, make half the difficulties of the Irish +question; for lies stick fast, where disclaimers, proofs, facts, and +figures, pass by like dry leaves on the wind. But for all the fact of +past extortion the present reductions are not always a proof of +over-renting. What Mr. Buxton says has common sense on the face of +it:-- + +"Very serious reductions of rents are being made all through Ireland +by the Land Sub-Commissioners, who are supposed to be in some extent +guided by the appearance of the farms. Now it should be remembered +that at the interview that took place in London on July 3rd, between +Mr. Smith-Barry and some of his tenants, in reference to that +gentleman's support of the evictions on the Ponsonby estate, one of +the arguments for forgiveness of arrears was that when eviction was +threatened 'the tenants gave up their industry,' and 'how could they +get the rents out of the land when they were absolutely idle?' To +admit such a plea for granting a reduction of rent is most dangerous. +Tenants have but to neglect their land, get into arrears of rent, and +claim large reductions because their farms do not pay. An ignorant, or +slovenly, or idle farmer, under such circumstances, is likely to have +a lower rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners than his more industrious +neighbour, and thus a great injustice may be done to both the good +farmer and the landlord, the--perhaps cunningly--idle farmer receiving +a premium for neglecting his farm. A comparison of the judicial rents +with the former rents and the Poor Law valuation is truly startling, +and must lead one to imagine that the system by which so much valuable +property is dealt with is most unjust." + +Thus, the famous reductions in County Clare, where the abatements +granted averaged over 30 per cent., and in some cases exceeded 50 per +cent., were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, but +also may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference. +Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believe +in the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes from +idleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others to +relieve--these others having to suffer for sins not their own--how +about that as a righteous obligation? Must I and my children go +foodless because my tenants will neither till the land they hold from +me, so as to make it yield their own livelihood and that profit over +which is my inheritance, nor suffer others to do what they will not? +If we are prepared to endorse the famous saying: "La propriété c'est +le vol," well and good. Meanwhile to spend all our sympathy on men who +reduce themselves and others to poverty by idleness and unthrift, +seems rather a bad investment of emotion. The old-fashioned saying +about workers and eaters had a different ring; and once on a time +birds who could sing, and would not, were somehow made. + +Co-incident with these conditions of no rent at all--reduction of rent +all round--and the free purchase of land by those who yesterday +professed pauperism, is the startling fact that the increase in Bank +deposits for the half-year of 1889 was £89,000--in Post Office Savings +Bank deposits £244,000--in Trustee Savings Banks, £16,000. + +Mr. Mitchell Henry, writing to the _Times_, says:--"If any one will +tell the exact truth as to Irish matters at this moment, he must +confess that landlords are utterly powerless to coerce their tenants; +that the pockets of the tenants themselves are full of money formerly +paid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely; +that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the +banks--savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks--are +richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of +whisky--that sure barometer of Irish prosperity--is increasing beyond +all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, +with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed +than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation +and long to be let alone; but they are a people of extraordinary +clannishness, and take an intellectual delight in intrigue, especially +where the Saxon is concerned. British simplicity is wonderful, and the +very people who have put on this cupboard love for Mr. Gladstone and +his lieutenants, whom they formerly abused beyond all decent license +of abuse, laugh at them as soon as their backs are turned." + +These savings do not come from the landlords, so many of whom are +hopelessly ruined by the combined action of our own legislature and +the Plan of Campaign. Of this ruin Colonel Lloyd has given a very +graphic account. Alluding to Mr. Balfour's answer in the House on the +21st of June, to the question put by Mr. Macartney on Colonel Lloyd's +letter to the _Times_ (10th of June), the Colonel repeats his +assertions, or rather his accusations against the Court. These +are:--"First, that the percentage of reductions now being given is the +very highest yet made, notwithstanding that prices of agricultural +produce and cattle have considerably increased; secondly, that the +Sub-Commissioners have no fixed rule to guide them save one--viz., +that existing rents, be they high or low, must be cut down, although +they may not have been altered for half a century; thirdly that it was +reported the Commissioners had instructions to give all-round +reductions of 33 per cent.; fourthly, that in the Land Court the most +skilled evidence of value is disregarded, as also the Poor Law +valuation; fifthly, that the Sub-Commissioners assign no reasons for +their decisions; and, sixthly, that the machinery of the Court is +faulty and unfair in the following instances:--_(a)_ If a landlord +appeals and fails, he must pay costs, but if he appeals and succeeds +he will not get costs; _(b)_ tenants' costs are taxed by the Court +behind the landlord's back; _(c)_ their rules are constantly changing +without any proper notice to the public; and _(d)_ appeals are +accumulating with no prospect of their being disposed of in any +reasonable time." + +Colonel Lloyd disposes of Mr. Balfour's denials to these statements, +but at too great length to copy. It may be taken for granted here that +they are disposed of, and that he proves up to the hilt his case of +crying injustice to the landlords--as indeed every fair-minded person +who looks honestly into the question, must acknowledge. As one slight +corroboration of what he says he adduces the following instances:-- + +"The following judicial rents were fixed by the +Assistant-Commissioners in the West of Ireland:-- + + Poor Law Judicial +Tenants' Names. Old Rent. Valuation. Rent + £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. +Tom Regan 9 9 10 12 0 0 5 15 0 +J. Manlon 9 2 6 11 10 0 5 15 0 +C. Kelly 9 12 10 11 5 0 6 0 0 +J. Kenny 4 11 4 6 5 0 2 15 0 + + £32 16 6 £41 0 0 £20 5 0 + +"The landlord appealed, and the appeals were heard a few days ago by +the Chief Commissioners in Roscommon. Two skilled valuers were +employed, who valued within a few shillings of the Government +valuation, and in the face of this evidence the decisions of the +Assistant-Commissioners were confirmed. These are not by any means +isolated instances. In fact they are the rule in the Land Court." + +And he ends by this remarkable assertion:-- + +"The whole machinery of the Court must be remodelled if it is to +possess the confidence of the public. As it is at present composed, it +is too much subject to political influence and to the clamour of one +set of litigants to be independent. There are few of your readers, I +believe, who will not admit that it is a very alarming thing to find +a Court so constituted having the control of millions. The only +officials ever connected with the Court in which there was any degree +of confidence were the Court valuers attached to the Appeal Court. +They were men of independence and impartiality, but they were +dispensed with in a vain attempt to satisfy Mr. Parnell. I see by Mr. +Balfour's statement in the House of Commons on the 25th ult. that the +Chief Commissioners are again engaged in framing new rules with regard +to appeals. One would think that at the end of eight years they would +have had their rules complete, and that an alteration every three +months during that period ought to have brought them to perfection. +How long is this farce to continue? These are serious complaints +against a public body intrusted with the administration of justice. +They do not deserve to be lightly passed over, and I am confident +that, even should it suit the convenience of the present Government to +follow the example of their predecessors and ignore them, the English +people, with their strong sense of justice, will eventually insist on +the unfair treatment and glaring injustice and abuses complained of +being set right, and that those who have from political motives and +influence been placed in honourable and responsible judicial positions +shall give place to impartial men, who will deal out even-handed +justice to the landlord as well as to the tenant.--I remain your +obedient servant, + +"JESSE LLOYD, Lieutenant-Colonel and J.P., + +"Agent for Lord Rossmore. + +"Rossmore Agency Office, Monaghan." + +Here, then, is the reverse of the medal. Hitherto the outcry has been +all for the tenant, and I do not say for a moment that this outcry was +not just. It was. The Irish peasant has had his wrongs, deep and +shameful; but now justice has been done to him so amply that the +overflow has gone to the other side. It is time to look at things as +they are, and to let well alone. Justice to the one has broadened out +into persecution of the other, and an Irish landlord is for the moment +the favourite cock-shy for aggressive legislation. But, as I have said +before, prejudice dies hard, and sentimental pity is often only +prejudice in a satin cloak. The Irish peasant is still assumed to be a +helpless victim, the Irish landlord a ruffianly tyrant; and a state of +things as obsolete as the Ogham language itself still rouses active +passion as against a living wrong. I go back to that statement in the +_Pall Matt Gazette,_ to which I have before alluded, as an instance of +the way in which the very froth of prejudice and falsehood is whipped +up into active poison by the short and easy way of imagination and +assertion. It is a fair sample of all the rest; but these are the +things which find credit with those who do not know and do not +enquire. + +Advocating the making of blackberry wine as the short cut from poverty +to prosperity in Ireland, the scheme being parallel to Mr. Gladstone's +famous remedy of jam, this sapient "B.O.N." says:-- + +"The blackberry harvest would be over in the sunny Rhine country +before it began in Ireland. Why should not some practical native, go +over from home and see how it is all done? I quite know that any plan +for bettering the physical condition of our people is open to the +objection that as soon as they seem a little 'comfortable' the +landlord would raise the rent in many a case; but perhaps in a still +larger number of cases he would now be afraid to do so. And I know, +too, that even a blackberry wine industry will not be quite safe till +we have Home Rule; but is not that coming fast?" + +This mischievous little word is in the very teeth of the fact that +rents cannot be raised on any plea whatsoever--certainly not because +the tenant makes himself better off by an industry other than his +farming--and that the whole machinery of Government had been put in +motion to protect the land tiller from the land-owner. Yet the _Pall +Mall Gazette_ is not ashamed to lend itself to this lie on the chance +of catching a few fluttering minds and nailing them to the mast of +Home Rule on the false supposition that this means justice to the +oppressed tenant and wholesome restraint of the brutal proprietor. +Professor Mahaffy, in a long letter to the _New York Independent,_ +speaks of the same kind of thing still going on in America--this +bolstering up a delusion by statements as far removed from the truth +as that of "B.O'N.'s," to which the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gives sanction +and circulation. That part of the American press which is under the +influence or control of the Irish Home Rulers still goes on talking of +the oppression to which the Irish tenant is subjected, just as the +speeches of the Agitators (_vide_ the astounding lies, as well as the +appalling nonsense talked, when Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld were +made citizens of Dublin, and it was asserted that the Government +turned tail and fled before these "delegates") teem with analogous +assertions wherein not so much as one grain of truth is to be found. +Let it be again repeated in answer to all these falsehoods:--No tenant +can be evicted except for non-payment of one year's rent; that rent +can be settled by the courts, and if he has signed an agreement for an +excessive payment, his agreement can be broken; and he must be +compensated for all the improvements he has made or will swear that he +has made. Also, he can borrow money from the Government at the lowest +possible interest, and become the owner of his farm for less yearly +payment than his former rent. He, the Irish tenant, is the most +protected, the most favoured of all leaseholders in Europe or America, +but the old cries are raised, the old watch-words are repeated, just +as if nothing had been done since the days when he was as badly off as +the Egyptian fellah, and was, in truth, between the devil and the deep +sea. Let me repeat the legal and actual condition of things as +summarized by Mr. Montagu Crackanthorpe, Q.C. These six propositions +ought to be learned by heart before anyone allows himself to talk of +Home Rule or the Irish question:-- + +1. That every yearly tenant of agricultural land valued at less than +£50 a year can have his rent judicially fixed, and that the existence +of arrears of rent creates no statutory obstacle whatever, nor any +difficulty in procedure, if he is desirous of availing himself of the +Acts. + +2. That every such agricultural tenant, whether he has had a fair rent +fixed or not, may sell his tenancy to the highest bidder whenever he +desires to leave; and that, if he be evicted, he has the right either +to redeem within six months, or to sell his tenancy within the same +period to a purchaser, who can likewise redeem, and thus acquire all +the privileges of the tenant. + +3. That in view of the fall in agricultural produce, the Land +Commission is empowered and directed to vary the rents fixed by the +Land Court during the years 1881 to 1885, in accordance with the +difference in prices of produce between those years and the years 1887 +to 1889. + +4. That no tenant in Ireland can be evicted by his landlord unless his +rent is twelve months in arrear, and that the yearly tenant who is so +evicted must be paid full compensation for all improvements not +already compensated for by enjoyment, such, for instance, as +unexhausted manure, permanent buildings, and reclamation of waste +land. He may, it is true, be evicted on title after judgment obtained +against him for his rent, and in that case his goods and interest +(including his improvements) may be put up to auction by the Sheriff. +This is a matter which seems to require amendment; but it is to be +observed that the same consequences would follow if the judgment +creditor were a shopkeeper who had given the tenant credit or the +local money-lender or gombeen man. A compulsory sale under these +circumstances is not peculiar to landlordism, and it is a method to +which landlords seldom resort. + +5. That if a tenant falls into arrear for rent, and becomes liable to +eviction, whether on title or not, the Court can stay process, if +satisfied that his difficulty arises from no fault of his own, and +can give him time to pay by instalments. + +6. That if a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and comes to terms with +his landlord, he can borrow money from the Government at 4 per cent., +by the help of which he may change his rent into an annuity, the +amount of the annuity being less than the rent, and the burden of the +annuity altogether ceasing at the end of forty-nine years. + +The result by the way of this peasant proprietorship will be twofold. +On the one side it will create a greater uniformity of comfort and a +larger class of peaceable, self-respecting, law-abiding citizens. On +the other it will lower the general standard by doing away with that +better class of resident gentry and capitalized landowners, who in +their way are guides, teachers and helps to the peasantry. The absence +of this better class of resident gentry is one of the misfortunes of +French agricultural life and the justification of M. Zola; their +presence is one of the blessings of England. How will it be in Ireland +when the exodus is more complete than it is even now, and when the +villages and rural districts are left solely to peasant proprietors +and a celibate clergy? The Romish Church has never been famous for +teaching those things which make for intellectual enlightenment and +social improvement. The difference between the Protestant north and +the rest of Roman Catholic Ireland, as between the Protestant and +Romish cantons in Switzerland; is a truism almost proverbial. And +without the little leaven of such influence as the better educated and +more enlightened gentry may possess, the Irish peasant will be even +more superstitious, more blinded by prejudice and ignorance than he +is now. As it is, the old landlords are sincerely deplored, and the +good they did is as sincerely regretted. Those grand old hunting days, +now things of the past, still linger in the memory of the men who +participated in the fun and had their full share of the crumbs--and +the times when a grand seigneur paid a hundred pounds a week in wages +alone seem something like glimpses into a railed and fenced off El +Dorado, which the Plan of Campaign has closed for ever. So that the +sunshine has its shadow, for all the good to be had from the light. + +It ought to be that peasant proprietorship will make the holder more +industrious and a better farmer than he has been as tenant. Whether it +will or not remains to be seen. As things are--always excepting Ulster +and the North generally--farming could scarcely be more shameful in +its neglect than it is--domestic life could scarcely be more squalid, +more savage, more filthy. Even rich farmers live like pigs and with +their pigs, and the stone house is no better kept than the mud +cabin--the forty-acre field no better tilled than the miserable little +potato patch. Had the farming been better, there would never have been +the poverty, the discontent, the agitation by which Ireland had been +tortured and convulsed. Had the men been more industrious, the women +cleaner and more deft, the Plan of Campaign would have failed for want +of social nutriment, where now it has been so disastrously triumphant. +Physical well-being is a great incentive to quiet living--productive +industry checks political unrest. Those who have something to lose are +careful to keep it; and we may be sure that Captain Moonlight would +not risk his skin if he had a good coat to cover it. + +Also there is another aspect in which this land question may be +viewed, and ought to be viewed--in reference to the manner in which +the Irish farmer treats the property by which he lives:--that is the +aspect of his duty to the community in his quality of producer for the +community. We must all come down to the land as the common property of +the human race. Parcelled out as it may be--by the mile or the square +yard--it is the common mother of all men. We can do without everything +else, from lace to marble--from statues to carriages--but food we must +have; and the holders of land all the world over are really and +rightfully trustees for the race. The Irish peasant has no more right +to neglect the possibilities of produce than had William Rufus, or his +modern representative in Scotland, to evict villages for the making of +a deer forest. The principle of trusteeship in the land holds good +with small holders and great alike; but imagine what would be the +effect of a law which required so much produce from a given area on an +average for so long a period! The principle is of course conceded in +the rent, rates and taxes; but a direct application to produce would +set the kingdom in a blaze. + +But in Ireland fields of thistles and acres of ragwort, with tall +purple spikes of loose strife everywhere, seem to be held as valid +crops, fit for food and good at rent-paying. These are to be found at +every step from Dublin to Kerry, and the most unpractised eye can see +the waste and neglect and unnecessary squalor of both land and +people. As an English farmer said, with indignation: "The land is +brutally treated." So it is--idleness, unthrift, and bad farming +generally, degrading it far below its possibilities and natural +standard of production. Cross the Channel, and Wales looks like a trim +garden. Go over to France, and you find every yard of soil carefully +tilled and cultivated. Even in comparatively ramshackle Sicily, among +the old lava beds of Etna, the peasants raise a handful of grain on +the top of a rock no bigger than a lady's work-table. In Ireland the +cultivated portion of a holding is often no bigger relatively than +that work-table on an acre of waste. Will the tiller, now the owner +and no longer only the leaseholder, go back from his evil ways of +thriftlessness and neglect, and instead of being content to live just +above the line of starvation, will he educate himself up to those +artificial wants which only industry can supply? Will the women learn +to love cleanliness, to regard their men's rags and their children's +dirt as their own dishonour, and to understand that womanhood has its +share of duties in social and domestic life? Will the sense of beauty +grow with the sense of proprietorship, and the filth of the present +surroundings be replaced by a flower garden before the cottage--a +creeper against the wall--a few pots of more delicate blooms in the +window? Will the taste for variety in garden produce be enlarged, and +plots of peas, beans, carrots, artichokes, pot-herbs, and the like, be +added to the one monotonous potato-patch, with a few cabbages and +roots for the baste, and a strip of oats as the sole cereal attempted? +Who knows? At present there is not a flower to be seen in the whole of +the West, save those which a luxuriant Nature herself has sown and +planted; and the immediate surroundings of the substantial farm-house, +like those of the mud cabin, are filth unmentionable, savage squalor, +and bestial neglect. + +These things are signs of a mental and moral condition that goes +deeper than the manifestation. They do not show only want of the sense +of beauty--want of the sense even of cleanliness; they show the +absence of all the civilizing influences--all the humanizing +tendencies of modern society. By this want Ireland is made miserable +and kept low in the scale of nations. Had the race been +self-respecting, sturdy, upright, stubbornly industrious, all this +savage neglect would have mended itself. Being what it is--excitable, +imaginative, spasmodic, given over to ideas rather than to facts, and +trusting to Hercules in the clouds rather than to its own brawny +shoulders--this squalor continues and is not dependent on poverty. +Time alone will show whether changed agrarian conditions will alter +it. So far as his power goes, the priest does nothing to touch it. The +Church uses up its influence for everything but the practical purposes +of work-a-day-life. It teaches obediences to its ordinances, but not +civic virtues. It encourages boys and girls to marry at an age when +they neither understand the responsibilities of life nor can support a +family; but in its regard for the Sacrament it forgets the +pauperization of the nation. It enforces chastity, but it winks at +murder; it demands money for masses for the souls of the dead, but it +leaves on one side the homes and bodies of the living; it breeds a +race of paupers to drag the country lower and lower into the depths of +poverty, and thinks it has done a meritorious work, and one that +calls for praise because of the paucity of numbers in the percentage +of illegitimate births. Thus in Ireland, where everything is set +askew, even morality has its drawbacks, and less individual virtue +would be a distinct national gain. + +The Home Rule enthusiasts say all that is wanted to remedy these +ingrained defects is a Parliament; all that is wanted to make Irishmen +perfect and Ireland a paradise is a Parliament chosen by the people +and sitting in College Green. Human nature will then be changed, and +the lion and the lamb will lie down together. The Papist will love the +Protestant, and the moral of the story about those two Scotch +Presbyterian boys, whose presence at the Barrow House National School +so seriously disturbed both priest and people, is one that will read +quite the other way. All the bitter hatred poured out against England, +against Protestants, against the law and its administrators, will +cease so soon as Catholics come to the place of power and the +supremacy of England is at an end. The Church which burned Giordano +Bruno and is affronted because his memory has been honoured--which +placed the Quirinale under the ban of the lesser excommunication, and +withstood the national impulse towards freedom and unity as +represented by Garibaldi--the Church which has ever been on the side +of intolerance and tyranny will suddenly, in Ireland under Home Rule, +become beneficent, just, and liberal, and heretics will no longer herd +with the goats but will take their place among the sheep. If, as Mr. +Redmond says, it is the duty of Irishmen to make the Government of +England an impossibility, it will then be their pleasure to make her +alliance both close and easy. Ulster and Kerry will march shoulder to +shoulder, and Leaguers and Orangemen will form an unbroken phalanx of +orderly and law-abiding citizens. In a word the old Dragon will be +chained and the Millenium will come. + +The prospect seems too good to be true. Were we to follow after it and +put the loyal Protestant minority into the power of the anti-imperial +Catholic majority in the hope of seeking peace and ensuing it, we +might perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat from +between his teeth--losing the substance for shadow. We do better, all +things considered, with our present arrangements--trusting to the +imperfect operations of human law rather than shooting Niagara for the +chance of the clear stream at the bottom. + +The whirligig of Time has changed the relative positions of the two +great parties in Ireland. Formerly it was the Catholics who desired +the abolition of Home Rule, and the Protestants who held by the +National Parliament. That Parliament was exclusively Protestant, and +the powerful minority ground the helpless majority to the very ground. +Catholics were persecuted from shore to shore, and all sorts and +conditions of Protestant bullies and tyrants sent up petitions to +forbid the iniquity of Catholic trade rivalry. What was then would be +now--changing the venue and putting the Catholics where the +Protestants used to be. We do not believe that the "principle of +Nationality" is the working power of this desire for Home Rule, as Mr. +Stansfeld asserts--unless indeed the principle of Nationality can be +stretched so as to cover the self-aggrandizement of a party, the +bitterness of religious hatred, and the tyranny of a cruel and +coercive combination. The grand and noble name of Nationality can +scarcely be made so elastic as this. Respect for law lies at the very +heart of the principle, and the Irish Home Rulers are of all men the +most conspicuous for their contempt of law and their bold infraction +of the very elementary ordinances of civilized society. + +As for tyranny, no coercion established by Government--not even that +proclaimed by Mr. Gladstone--has been more stringent than the coercion +exercised by the Plan of Campaign. What happened in Tipperary only +the other day when certain rent-paying tenants, who had been +boycotted, did public penance in the following propositions? They +offered:--"Firstly, to come forward to the subsequent public meeting +and express public contrition for having violated their resolution to +hold out with the other tenants; secondly, not to pay the next +half-year's rent, due on the 10th of December, but to in future act +with the general body of the tenantry; and thirdly, to pay each a +pecuniary sum, to be halved between the Ponsonby tenants and the +Smith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on." +Surely no humiliation was ever greater than this!--no decree of secret +council or pitiless Vehmgericht were ever more ruthlessly imposed, +more servilely obeyed! Can we say that the Irish are fit to be called +freemen, or able to exercise the real functions of Nationality, when +they can suffer themselves to be hounded like sheep and rated like +dogs for the exercise of their own judgment and the performance of +their duties as honest men and good citizens? + +If the mere presence in Ireland of Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld +dismayed Mr. Balfour and scattered his myrmidons as the forces of the +Evil One fly before the advent of the angels, could they not have used +their semi-divine power for these humiliated rent-payers? Instead of +complacently listening to bunkum--which, if they had had any sense of +humour would have made them laugh; any of modesty would have made them +blush--could they not have brought their inherited principles of +commercial honesty and manly fidelity to an engagement to bear on +these irate Campaigners, and have reminded them that the very core of +Liberalism is the right of each man to unrestricted action, provided +he does not hurt his neighbour? But Home Rulers are essentially +one-sided in their estimate of tyranny, and things change their names +according to the side on which they are ranged. To boycott a man, to +mutilate his cattle,[F] to commit outrages on his family, and finally +to murder him outright for paying his rent or taking an evicted farm, +are all justifiable proceedings of righteous severity. But for a +landlord to evict a tenant from the farm for which he will not pay the +covenanted rent--will not, but yet could, twice over--is a cowardly, a +brutal, a damnable act, for which those slugs from behind a stone-wall +are the well-deserved reward. + +Here is an instance of the vengeance sought to be taken by wealthy +tenants evicted for non-payment of rent. + +"Lord Clanricarde writes to the _Times_ to corroborate the statement +that an infernal explosive machine had been found in a cottage at +Woodford, in Ireland. His lordship quotes as follows from the account +of an eye-witness:-- + +'When possession was taken of the sub-tenant's house, No. 1, there was +the usual crowd crowding as close to our party as the police would +allow; but it was remarked that on our approach to houses Nos. 2 and +3, close together, and which concealed the infernal machine, the crowd +kept well away out of hearing, while the Woodford leaders were on a +car on the road, but out of danger like the others; but all well in +sight of any destruction that might befall the officers of the law. +This house, No. 3, when last examined in June, was found vacant, door +not locked, but open, and used as a shelter for cattle. Finding it +locked now, X. detached the lock, pushed the door open, and he and I +and others went inside. The house was empty, but a pile of stones was +heaped up in the doorway, some of them had been displaced by the door +when opened, and the top of a box 6 in. square was seen embedded in a +barrel containing 25 lbs. of 'excellent gunpowder,' a bottle full of +sulphuric acid, and other explosives, as well as a number of +detonators, and the blade of a knife (apparently) with a spring +attached by a coil of string to the door, the machine being so +arranged as to be liable to explode in two ways. The expert who +examined the machine said that had the sulphuric acid been liberated, +as meant, all our party, twenty in all, must have been destroyed, as +there were enough explosives to destroy any living thing within 100 +yards. Neither on that day, nor on the 22nd (date of sale) did either +the tenant or the Woodford leaders--R. and K.--utter one word of +surprise, much less of abhorrence!' + +The tenant proceeded against (says Lord Clanricarde, owed four and +a-half years' rent, at £47 8s. per annum) much below the taxation +valuation of £67 19s., for a mill, with the sole use of the +water-power, a valuable privilege, and 440 statute acres, a +considerable part of them arable land. He had ten sub-tenants, was +reported to make £500 per annum from mill and farm, and though he had +removed part of his stock, there were still cattle on the land on the +day of eviction enough to cover two years' arrears. If he had paid +even those two years on account he would have received an abatement, +and saved his farm. The judge in Dublin who gave the decree against +him, gave also costs against him to mark his sense of the tenant's bad +conduct." + +And to think that good, honest, noble-hearted, and sincere Englishmen, +who in their own persons are law-abiding, just, honourable, and +faithful, should uphold a state of things which strikes at the root of +all law, all commercial honesty--blinded as they are by the glamour of +a generous, unreal, and unworkable sentiment! If only they would go +over to Ireland to judge for themselves on the basis of facts, not +fancies--and to be informed by truths not lies! + +I know that we cannot all see alike, and that every shield has its two +sides. In this matter, on the one side stand Earl Spencer, now +converted to Home Rule, since his Viceroyalty; on the other is the +example of Mr. Forster, who went to Ireland an ardent Home Ruler and +came back as strong a Unionist. The Quaker became a fighting man, and +the idealist a practical man, believing in facts as he had seen them +and no longer in sentiments he could not realise--in measures grounded +on the necessities of good government, and not like so many epiphytes +with their roots in the air. Let Lord Spencer bring to this test his +late utterances. He goes in now for Home Rule, and the right of +Ireland to appoint her own police and judges. He is out of the wood +and can hallo; but where would he have been if the Irish had appointed +their police when he was at the Castle?--with Lord Frederick and Mr. +Burke! And if the judges were appointed by the Irish, we should have, +in all probability, Mr. Tim Harrington, barrister-at-law, on the +bench; and a few years ago Mr. Tim Harrington crumpled up the Queen's +writ and flung it out of the Court House window. And what power over +the fortunes of others can be given to men who boycott a railway for +political spite?[G] + +So many things have conspired to make this Irish question a +Gordian-knot which no man can untie, and but few would dare to cut. +The past extravagance of the landlords, absenteeism, rack-renting, +injustice of all kinds; the past jealousy of England and her +over-shadowing all native industries and productions; difference of +religion, racial temperament, and the irreconcilable enmity of the +conquered towards the conquerors; ignorance and idleness; the morality +which marries too early, when the land, which was just enough to +support one family, is expected to keep three or four; want of +self-respect in the dirt and disorder of domestic life; want of all +communal life or amusement, save in heated politics and drink; bogs +here, unthrift there, small holdings everywhere--all these things help +to complicate a question which passion has already made too difficult +for even the most radical kind of statesmanship to adjust. All the +panaceas hitherto tried have been found ineffectual. The repeal of +Catholic disabilities, the establishment of national schools, the +disestablishment of the Protestant Church, the Maynooth grant, the +various Land Acts--all have done but little towards the settlement of +the question, which, like certain fabulous creatures, has increased in +strength and the extensions of its demands by every concession made. +The best chance yet offered seems to be in the quiet working of Lord +Ashbourne's Act, by which the tenant becomes the owner and the +landlord is not despoiled. And certainly the crying need of the moment +is legislative finality and political rest. Existing machinery is +sufficient for all the agrarian ameliorations demanded. To do much +more would be to act like children who pluck up their seeds to see how +they are growing, leaving nothing sufficient time for development or +reproduction. + +No one would deny such a measure of Home Rule to Ireland as should +give her the management of her own internal affairs, in the same +manner and degree as our County Councils are to manage ours. But this +is not the Home Rule demanded by the leaders of the party. That for +which they have taken off their coats means the loss of the country as +an integral part of the Empire; the oppression and practical +annihilation of the Protestant section; the opening of the Irish +ports to all the enemies of England; or the breaking out of civil war +in Ireland and its reconquest by England. The alternative scheme of +federation is for the moment unworkable. But to hand over the whole +conduct of Irish affairs to the Roman Catholic majority would be one +of those ineffaceable political crimes the greatness of which would be +equalled only by the magnitude of its mistake. The language of the +indigenous Home Rulers and their Transatlantic sympathisers--as well +as the things they have done and are still doing--ought to be warnings +sufficiently strong to prevent such an act of folly and wickedness on +our part. Even our men--men of light and leading like Mr. John +Morley--seem to lose their heads when they approach the Irish question +and to become as rabid in their accusations as the paid political +agitators themselves. I will give these two short extracts, the one +from Mr. Morley's speech at Glasgow, and the other from Lord +Powerscourt's temperate and rational commentary:-- + +"Mr. Morley says," quotes Lord Powerscourt, "that the Irish people are +more backward than the Scotch or English, which I venture to doubt, at +least as regards intelligence, and gives as the reason:-- + +"'It is because the landlords, who have been their masters, have +rack-rented them, have sunk them in poverty, have plundered their own +improvements, have confiscated the fruits of their own industry, have +done all that they could to degrade their manhood. That is why they +are backward. (Cheers.) Will anybody deny that the Irish landlords are +open to this great accusation and indictment? If anybody here is +inclined to deny it, let him look at the reductions in rent that have +been made since 1881 in the Land Court.' + +"Well, have not rents in England and Scotland been reduced quite as +much, nay, more, than Irish rents since 1881? And have not the +economic causes which have lowered the prices of all farm produce all +over Europe caused the same depreciation in the value of land in +Germany or France, for instance, in the same ratio as in Ireland? And +has not the importation of dead meat from America, Australia, or New +Zealand had something to do with it? + +"These facts are well known. But to return to the Irish landlords. +Does not every one who is resident in Ireland, and therefore +conversant with the state of affairs there for the last twenty or +thirty years, know that the discontent and uprising against the land +system is due to the action of a very few unjust persons, now mostly +dead, but whose names are well known to any one who really knows +Ireland, as I venture to maintain Mr. Morley does not? The principal +actors in the drama could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And +Mr. Morley, _ex uno disce omnes_, accuses the whole of the Irish +proprietors of these cruel and unjust practices which we should scorn +to be guilty of. And he is an ex-Cabinet Minister, and late Chief +Secretary for Ireland for a few months, and a very popular one he was! + +"He says, again: 'Public opinion would have checked the Irish +landlords in their infatuated policy towards their tenants,' &c. He +challenges denial of these charges. Well, I deny them most +emphatically, and am quite willing to abide by the verdict of the +respectable tenants. I throw back in his face the accusation that the +Irish landlords as a body have rack-rented or plundered their tenants +or confiscated their improvements. + +"Far be it from me to taunt the Irish population. No, they have been +tempted very sorely by prospects being held out to them of getting the +land for nothing, and, all things considered, it is wonderful how they +have behaved. But Mr. Morley is like many another politician who comes +to Ireland for a few months or a few weeks, and goes about the few +disturbed districts and listens to all the tales told him by +cardrivers and those very clever people who delight in gulling the +Saxon, and goes back to England, full of all sorts of horrors and +crimes alleged to have been perpetrated by landlords, and takes it all +as gospel, making no allowance for the great intelligence and +inventive genius of his informers, and says, 'Oh! I went to the place, +and saw it all.' And this he takes to represent the normal state of +the whole of Ireland, and makes it a justification of the Plan of +Campaign!" + +Take too the Irish Home Rule press, and read the floods of abuse--some +spreading out into absolute obscenity--published by the principal +papers day after day against all their political opponents, and we can +judge of the temper with which the Irish Home Rulers would administer +affairs. Of their statesmanlike provision--of their patriotism and +care for the well-being of the country at large--the local war now +ruining Tipperary is the negative proof--the damnatory evidence that +they are utterly unfit for practical power. Governed by hysterical +passion, by mad hatred and the desire for revenge, not one of the +modern leaders, save Mr. Parnell, shows the faintest trace of politic +self-control or the just estimate of proportions. To spite their +opponents they will ruin themselves and their friends, as they have +done scores of times, and are doing now in Tipperary. History holds up +its hands in horror at the French Terror--was that worse than the +system of murder and boycotting and outrage and terrorism in the +disturbed districts in Ireland? And would it be a right thing for +England to give the supreme power to these masked Couthons and +Robespierres and Marats, that they might extend their operations into +the now peaceable north, and reproduce in Ulster the tragedies of the +south and west? Mr. Parnell puts aside the tyrannous part of the +business, and cleverly throws the whole weight of his argument at +Nottingham into the passionless economic scales. All that the +Nationalist party desires, he says, "is to be allowed to develope the +resources of their own country at their own expense," "without any +harm to you (English), without any diminution of your resources, +without any risk to your credit, or call upon you," all to be done "at +our own expense and out of our own resources." Yet Mr. Parnell in +another breath describes Ireland as "a Lazarus by the wayside"--a +country "where unfortunately there is no manufacturing industry." "Ex +nihilo nihil fit," was a lesson we all learned in our school days. Mr. +Parnell has evidently forgotten his. + +I will give a commentary on these brave words which is better put than +I could put it. + + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD." + +"Sir,--People in England, whatever political party they belong to, +should glance at what is now going on in the town of Tipperary before +finally making up their minds to hand over Ireland body and soul to +the National League. No country town in Ireland--I think I may add or +in England either--was more prosperous three months ago than +Tipperary. The centre of a rich and prosperous part of the country, +surrounded by splendid land, it had an enormous trade in butter and +all agricultural produce, and a large monthly pig and cattle fair was +held there. It possessed (I use the past tense advisedly) a number of +excellent shops, doing a splendid business, and to the eyes of those +who could look back a few years it was making rapid progress in +prosperity every year. + +"All is changed now. Many of the shops are closed and deserted, others +will follow their example shortly; the butter market has been removed +from the town, the cattle fairs have fallen to half their former size. +One sees shopkeepers, but a short time back doing capital business, +walking about idle in the streets, with their shops closed; armed +policemen at every corner are necessary to prevent a savage rabble +from committing outrages, and many people avoid going near the town at +all. All this is the result of William O'Brien's speech in Tipperary +and the subsequent action of the National League. The town and whole +neighbourhood were perfectly quiet till one day Mr. O'Brien descends +on it like an evil spirit, and tells the shopkeepers and surrounding +farmers that they are to dictate to their landlords how to act in a +case not affecting them at all. For fear, however, of not sufficiently +arousing them for the cause of others, he suggests that, in addition +to dictating to the landlord what his conduct shall be elsewhere, all +his tenants, farmers and shopkeepers alike, shall demand a reduction +of 25 per cent, on their own rents. As to the farmers' reduction I +will say nothing; if they wished it, they could go into the Land +Court, and if rented too high could get a reduction, retrospectively +from the day their application was lodged. The reduction, however, +that the shopkeepers were advised--nay, ordered--to ask for must have +surprised them more than their landlord. Many of them, at their +existing rents, had piled up considerable fortunes in a few years; +others had enlarged their premises, doubled their business, and +thriven in every way; nevertheless, they had to obey. The landlord +naturally refused to be dictated to by his tenants in matters not +affecting them; he also refused to reduce the rents of men who in a +few years had made fortunes, and some of whom were commonly reputed to +be worth thousands. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and the +tenants' interests were put up to auction. Some of the most thriving +shopkeepers declined to let their tenancies, out of which they had +done so well, be sold; others, in fear of personal violence and +outrage, not unusual results of disobeying the League, did allow them +to be knocked down for nominal sums to the landlord's representative. +Let lovers of liberty and fair-play watch what followed. All the +shopkeepers who bought in their interests were rigorously boycotted; +men who had had a large weekly turnover now saw their shops absolutely +deserted. Plate-glass windows that would not have shamed Regent +Street, were smashed to atoms by hired ruffians of the League, and +the shopkeepers themselves and their families had to be protected +from the mob by armed police, placed round their houses night and day. +All this because they desired to keep their flourishing businesses, +instead of sacrificing them in a quarrel not their own. + +"Let us follow still further what happened. The shopkeepers, finding +their trade quite gone, for it was almost worth a person's life to go +into their shops, watched as they were by paid spies, had to +capitulate to the League. An abject apology and a promise to let +themselves be evicted next time were the price they had to pay to be +allowed in a free country to carry on their trade. Ruin faced them +both ways. After having the ban of boycotting taken off them, with +eviction not far distant, most of them held clearance sales, at +tremendous sacrifices, so as to be prepared for moving. One man is +reputed to have got rid of seven thousand pounds' worth of goods under +these circumstances. Of the other division, who allowed their places +to be sold, most of them are now evicted. Dozens of shop assistants, +needlewomen, and others connected with the trade of a thriving town, +are thrown out of employment, and a peaceful neighbourhood has been +changed into a scene of bloodshed and violence. + +"I appeal to the English people not to encourage or support a vile +system of intimidation and violence, a system which not only pursues +and ruins its enemies, but refuses to allow peaceably-inclined people +to remain neutral. A case like this should not be one of Party +politics, but should be looked upon as the cause of all who wish to +pursue their lawful vocations peaceably against those who wish to +tyrannise by terror over the community at large. + +"I am, Sir, your obedient servant, + +"FOEDI FOEDERIS ADVERSARIUS." + +"December 12." + + +My private letters strengthen and confirm every word of this account; +and the following letter is again a proof of personal tyranny and +political malevolence not reassuring as qualities in the governing +power:-- + + +"TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.' + +"Sir,--I have received a letter from my friend Mr. Edward Phillips, of +Thurlesbeg House, Cashel, and the round, unvarnished tale that he +delivers throws more light upon Ireland than any amount of the windy +rhetoric which is so plentifully displayed on Parnellite and +Gladstonian platforms. Mr. Phillips writes as follows:-- + +"'I hold 270 acres from Mr. Smith-Barry at a rent of £340 under lease +and tenant-right, which, with my improvements, I valued at £1,000. The +Land League have decided, thinking to hurt Mr. Smith-Barry, that all +tenants must prepare to give up their farms by allowing themselves to +be evicted. They are clearing off everything, and because I refuse to +do this, and forfeit my £1,000, I am boycotted in the most determined +manner. I am refused the commonest necessaries of life, even medicine, +and have to get all from a distance. Blacksmiths, &c., refuse to +work, and labourers have notice to leave, but have not yet done so. + +"'Heretofore people were boycotted for taking farms; I am boycotted +for not giving up mine, which I have held for 25 years. A neighbour of +mine, an Englishman, is undergoing the same treatment, and we alone. +We are the only Protestant tenants on the Cashel estate. The remainder +of the tenants, about 30, are clearing everything off their land, and +say they will allow themselves to be evicted.' + +"I think this requires no comment. Public opinion is the best +protection against tyranny, and your readers can judge how far the +above narrative is consistent with the opinions expressed by Mr. +Parnell and others as to the liberty and toleration which will be +accorded to the loyal minority when the Land-National League becomes +the undisputed Government of Ireland. + +"Your obedient servant, + +"R. BAGWELL." + + +"Clonmell, December 27th." + +Again an important extract:-- + +"This is Mr. Parnell's language at Nottingham, but would he venture to +use the same arguments in this country? Would he enumerate clearly to +an Irish audience the countless advantages they derive from Imperial +funds and Imperial credit, and tell them that the first step to Home +Rule is the sacrifice of all these advantages? Our great system of +national education is provided out of Imperial funds to the extent of +about a million a year; so are the various institutions for the +encouragement of science and art which adorn Dublin and our other +large towns. The Baltimore School of Fishery and other technical +training places, the piers and harbours on the Irish Coast, the system +of light railways, and the draining of rivers and reclamation of waste +lands, are all supported out of the Imperial Exchequer. The Board of +Works alone has been the medium of lending almost five millions of +money on easy terms under the Land Improvement Acts in the country. +Nor have the agricultural interests been neglected. For erecting +farmhouses alone over £700,000 has been given, while immense sums have +been spent in working the Land Acts. For drainage over two millions +have been lent, and a sum of over one million has been remitted from +the debt. A debt of eight and a-half millions appears in the last +return as outstanding from the Board of Irish Public Works, besides +three millions and a-half from the corresponding board in England. In +fact, there is not a project enumerated by Mr. Parnell as necessary, +under a new _régime_, to promote the 'Nationality of Ireland,' which +is not at present being helped on by the funds or the credit of the +'alien Government.' All these national advantages the supporter of a +shadowy Home Rule bids us give up." + +If ever there was a case of the spider and the fly in human affairs +this mild and perfectly equitable reasoning of Mr. Parnell is the +illustration. How about the djinn crying inside the sealed jar, and +the fate of the credulous fisherman who obeys that voice and breaks +the seal which Solomon the Wise set against him? + +In writing this pamphlet I have not cared for graces of literary style +or dramatic strength of composition; and I have largely supported +myself by quotations as a proof that I am not a mere impressionist, +but have a solid back-ground and a firm foothold for all that I have +said. Judged by these extracts it would seem that, outside the right +of full communal self-government, the cry for Home Rule is either +interested and fictitious--or when sincere--save in certain splendid +exceptions, of whom Mr. Laing is the honoured chief, and the only Home +Ruler who makes me doubt the rightness of my own conversion--it is a +mere sentimental impulse shorn of practical power and working +capacity. In any case it is a one-sided thing, leaving out of court +Ulster, the integrity of the Empire, and the obligations of historic +continuity. It is a cry that has been echoed by violence and murder, +by outrage and ruin, and that has in it one overwhelming element of +weakness--exaggeration. It is the cry at its best of enthusiasts whose +ideas of human life and governmental potentialities are too generous +for every-day practice--at its worst but another word for self. For +the men who raise it and hound on these poor dupes to their own +destruction are men who would be rulers of the country in their own +persons, or members of a Gladstonian ministry, were the Home Rule +party to come to the front. With neither section does the strength, +the glory, the integrity, and the continuance of the Empire count; +and the honour of England, like the true well-being of Ireland, is +the last thing thought of by either party. The motto of the one is: +"_Fiat justitia ruat caelum_"--of the other: "_Après moi le déluge._" +The one abjures the necessities of statesmanship, the other the +self-restraints of patriotism. Surely the good, wholesome, working +principles of sound government lie with neither, but rather with the +steady continuance of things as they are--modified as occasion arises +and the needs of the case demand. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote A: Lord Hartington's statistics--and Lord Hartington is a +man whose word not his bitterest enemies have dared to question or to +doubt--are these: + +1880 (No coercion) 2,585 agrarian crimes. +1881 (Partial and weak coercion) 4,439 " " +1883 (Vigorous coercion) 834 " " +1888 (Vigorous coercion) 660 " " + +] + +[Footnote B: Mr. Hurlbert, a Roman Catholic, an American, and a +personal friend of Mr. Davitt--all which circumstances give a special +weight to his testimony, now borne after frequent and lengthened and +recent visits to Ireland, and after close converse with men of all +classes and of all political and religious views, says in his _Ireland +under Coercion_: "An Irish gentleman from St. Louis brought over a +considerable sum of money for the relief of distress in the north-west +of Ireland, but was induced to entrust it to the League, on the +express ground that, the more people were made to feel the pinch of +the existing order of things, the better it would be for the +revolutionary movement."--_The Irish Question_, I., 193. By Dr. +Bryce.] + +[Footnote C: Some time after the Great Famine, the Government brought +in an Act called the Encumbered Estates Act. A judge was appointed to +act as auctioneer. The income of the estate was set out in schedule +form, and a man purchased that income by competition in open court. He +got with his purchase what was supposed to be the best title then +known, commonly called "A Parliamentary title." If he wanted to sell +again, that was enough. Many years after the bargain was made by the +court, Mr. Gladstone dropped in and upset it. A friend of mind +purchased a guaranteed rental of £600 a year, subject to £300 annuity, +as well as other charges, head rent, &c., &c. Now the Government may +have been said to have pledged its honour to him, speaking by the +mouth of a judge in open court, that it was selling him £600 a year. +Surely it was a distinct breach of faith to swoop down on the +purchaser, years after, and reduce the £600 to £500 without reducing +the charges also in due proportion, or giving back one-sixth of the +purchase money. Mr. Gladstone and his party say the land was rented +too high. Does that (if true) get over the dishonesty of selling for +£600 a year what was really worth only 500? Such a transaction as that +between man and man would be actionable as a fraud. But this excuse is +not true, for when any tenant wants to sell his tenant-right he gets a +large price for it, far larger than the normal proportion to his rent. +When a nation sanctions such absolute dishonesty as this on the part +of its Prime Minister, it is not surprising that the shrewd Irish +peasant profits by the lesson and improves the example.] + +[Footnote D: The following in reference to the Olphert estate +evictions under the Plan of Campaign is from the _Freeman's Journal_. +Will Mr. Spencer when exhibiting his photos, state the facts about +this case--which reason and common-sense show to be altogether in the +landlord's favour? + +"Mr. Spencer, Trowbridge, England, arrived in Falcarragh to-day, +visited the scenes of the late evictions, and took photographs of +several of the demolished houses in the townland of Drumnatinny. Mr. +Spencer intends, on his return to England, to bring home to the minds +of the English people by a series of illustrative lectures, the misery +and hardships to which the Irish peasantry are subjected."] + +[Footnote E: On this question of further legislation I will quote part +of a letter from a correspondent which shows the views of a singularly +able, impartial, and fair-minded Irishman. "The breaking of leases was +another risky thing to do, for it shook all faith in the sovereignty +of the law and the finality of its _dicta_. Till Mr. Gladstone made +himself the champion of the tenants and the oppressor of the +landlords, Parliament never dreamed of revising rents paid under +leases. Mr. Gladstone began by breaking these leases when held for a +certain term defined by him. But we cannot stop there now. If another +Land Bill is to be brought in by the present Government it must, to +really and finally settle matters, _break all leases_. If it stops +short of this the trouble will crop up again. If a man now with a +thirty-nine years' lease can go into the Land Court, the man with a +lease of a hundred years, or a hundred and fifty, or two hundred, +should not be shut out. This point cannot be put too strongly to this +Government. If the thing is to be done let it be done thoroughly, and +let every man who holds a lease--no matter for what term--go into the +Land Court, and also purchase under Lord Ashbourne's Act. Lord +Ashbourne's Act is the real cure if made to apply all round."] + +[Footnote F: The Irish have always been cruel to animals. It is a +curious fact that most Roman Catholic peasants are. In the time of +Charles I. an Act was passed to prevent the Irish farmers from +ploughing by their oxens' tails. Even now they pluck their geese +alive.] + +[Footnote G: The boycott against the Great Northern Railway line +between Carrickmacross and Dundalk is now in full swing. It was begun +at Friday's fair in the former town, intimation having been given to +all dealers in cattle and pigs that not an animal was to leave by the +Great Northern line. Not a hackney car was permitted to attend the +railway station, and commercial travellers had to leave their samples +at the station. Many of the cattle and pigs purchased at the fair were +driven by road to Kingscourt, where there is a station of the Midland +Great Western Company, a local National League branch having published +a resolution recommending all goods to be sent and received _viâ_ +Kingscourt. It has also been resolved to do no business with +commercial travellers from Belfast, or other parts of the North of +Ireland, whose goods had been carried over the Great Northern system. +Travellers from Scotland, England, and Dublin are only to be dealt +with under guarantees that they do not use the Great Northern line. + + + +BOYCOTTING IN COUNTY WATERFORD. + +THE LEAGUE'S BLACK LIST. + +There has been issued by the National League in the county Waterford a +"list of objectionable persons, with whom it is expected that no true +man will have any dealings whatever"--cattle dealers, butter +merchants, grain and hay merchants, brokers, and farmers being +specially enjoined to refrain from any dealings with them, the farmers +being told that they "must carefully avoid" the sale of milk or stock +to agents of objectionable persons, and evicted tenants that they +"must deem it their strict and imperative duty to follow to the +markets all stock and produce reared upon their farms." + +Look, too, at the abuse poured out on all the Government leaders and +officials. In the _Freeman's Journal_, of December 5th, is one of the +most disgraceful attacks on Mr. Balfour ever made by journalism. It +reads like a filthy outpour of a Yahoo rather than the utterance of a +sane and responsible man. Are these the minds to govern a great and +honest country?] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of About Ireland, by E. 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Lynn Linton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY {margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + /* To show page numbers inline, uncomment this declaration: + .pagenum:after { + display: inline; + content: "[" attr(title) "]"; + } */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + .centre {text-align: center;} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of About Ireland, by E. Lynn Linton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: About Ireland + +Author: E. Lynn Linton + +Release Date: August 3, 2004 [EBook #13109] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABOUT IRELAND *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Michael Ciesielski and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<a class='pagenum' name='Page001' id='Page001' title='001'></a><h1>ABOUT IRELAND</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2><i>E. LYNN LINTON.</i></h2> + +<p class="centre">LONDON: +METHUEN & CO., +18, BURY STREET, W.C.</p> + +<p class="centre">1890.</p> +<a href='#EXPLANATORY'><b>EXPLANATORY</b></a><br /> +<a href='#I'><b>I</b></a><br /> +<a href='#II'><b>II</b></a><br /> + + + + +<br /><a class='pagenum' name='Page002' id='Page002' title='002'></a> + +<h2> +<a name='EXPLANATORY'></a> +<a class='pagenum' name='Page003' id='Page003' title='003'></a>EXPLANATORY.</h2> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I am conscious that I ought to make some kind of apology for rushing +into print on a subject which I do not half know. But I do know just a +little more than I did when I was an ardent Home Ruler, influenced by +the seductive charm of sentiment and abstract principle only; and I +think that perhaps the process by which my own blindness has been +couched may help to clear the vision of others who see as I did. All +of us lay-folk are obliged to follow the leaders of those schools in +politics, science, or religion, to which our temperament and mental +idiosyncracies affiliate us. Life is not long enough for us to examine +from the beginning upwards all the questions in which we are +interested; and it is only by chance that we find ourselves set face +to face with the first principles and elemental facts of a cause to +which, perhaps, as blind and believing followers of our leaders, we +have committed ourselves with the ardour of conviction and the +intemperance of ignorance. In this matter of Ireland I believed in the +accusations of brutality, injustice, and general insolence of tyranny +from modern landlords to existing tenants, so constantly made by the +Home Rulers and their organs; and, shocking though the undeniable +crimes committed by the Campaigners were, they seemed to me the tragic +results of that kind of <a class='pagenum' name='Page004' id='Page004' title='004'></a>despair which seizes on men who, goaded to +madness by oppression, are reduced to masked murder as their sole +means of defence—and as, after all, but a sadly natural retaliation. +I knew nothing really of Lord Ashbourne's Act; and what I thought I +knew was, that it was more a blind than honest legislation, and did no +vital good. I thought that Home Rule would set all things straight, +and that the National Sentiment was one which ought to find practical +expression. I rejoiced over every election that took away one seat +from the Unionists and added another vote to the Home Rulers; and I +shut my eyes to the dismemberment of our glorious Empire and the +certainty of civil war in Ireland, should the Home Rule demanded by +the Parnellites and advocated by the Gladstonians become an +accomplished fact. In a word I committed the mistakes inevitable to +all who take feeling and conviction rather than fact and knowledge for +their guides.</p> + +<p>Then I went to Ireland; and the scales fell from my eyes. I saw for +myself; heard facts I had never known before; and was consequently +enlightened as to the true meaning of the agitation and the real +condition of the people in their relation to politics, their +landlords, and the Plan of Campaign.</p> + +<p>The outcome of this visit was two papers which were written for the +<i>New Review</i>—with the editor of whom, however, I stood somewhat in +the position of Balaam with Balak, when, called on to curse the +Israelites, he was forced by a superior power to bless them. So I with +the Unionists. The first paper was sent and passed, but it was delayed +by editorial diffi<a class='pagenum' name='Page005' id='Page005' title='005'></a>culties through the critical months of the +bye-elections. When published in the December number, owing to the +exigencies of space, the backbone—namely the extracts from the Land +Acts, now included in this re-publication—was taken out of it, and my +own unsupported statements alone were left. I was sorry for this, as +it cut the ground from under my feet and left me in the position of +one of those mere impressionists who have already sufficiently +darkened counsel and obscured the truth of things. As the same +editorial difficulties and exigencies of space would doubtless delay +the second paper, like the first, I resolved, by the courteous +permission of the editor, to enlarge and publish both in a pamphlet +for which I alone should be responsible, and which would bind no +editor to even the semblance of endorsement.</p> + +<p>I, only half-enlightened, write, as has been said, for the wholly +blind and ignorantly ardent who, as I did, accept sentiment for fact +and feeling for demonstration; who do not look at the solid legal +basis on which the present Government is dealing with the Irish +question; who believe all that the Home Rulers say, and nothing that +the Unionists demonstrate. I want them to study the plain and +indisputable facts of legislation as I have done, when I think they +must come to the same conclusions as those which have forced +themselves on my own mind—namely, that the Home Rule desired by the +Parnellites is not only a delusive impossibility, but is also high +treason against the integrity of the Empire, and would be a base +surrender of our obligations to the Irish Loyalists; that, whatever +the landlords were, they are now more sinned against than <a class='pagenum' name='Page006' id='Page006' title='006'></a>sinning; +and that in the orderly operation of the Land Acts now in force, with +the stern repression of outrages<a name='FNanchor_A_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_A_1'><sup>[A]</sup></a> and punishment of crimes, for +which peaceable folk are so largely indebted to Mr. Balfour, lies the +true pacification of this distressed and troubled country.</p> +<br /> + +<p>E. LYNN LINTON.</p> + + +<h2><a name='ABOUT_IRELAND'></a> +<a class='pagenum' name='Page007' id='Page007' title='007'></a>ABOUT IRELAND.</h2> + + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<a name='I'></a><h2>I.</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Nothing dies so hard as prejudice, unless it be sentiment. Indeed, +prejudice and sentiment are but different manifestations of the same +principle by which men pronounce on things according to individual +feeling, independent of facts and free from the restraint of positive +knowledge. And on nothing in modern times has so much sentiment been +lavished as on the Irish question; nowhere has so much passionately +generous, but at the same time so much absolutely ignorant, +partisanship been displayed as by English sympathisers with the Irish +peasant. This is scarcely to be wondered at. The picture of a gallant +nation ground under the heel of an iron despotism—of an industrious +and virtuous peasantry rackrented, despoiled, brutalised, and scarce +able to live by their labour that they may supply the vicious wants of +oppressive landlords—of unarmed men, together with women and little +children, ruthlessly bludgeoned by a brutal police, or shot by a +bloodthirsty soldiery for no greater offence than verbal protests +against illegal evictions—of a handful of ardent patriots ready to +undergo imprisonment and contumely in their struggle against one of +the strongest nations in the world for only so much <a class='pagenum' name='Page008' id='Page008' title='008'></a>political freedom +as is granted to-day by despots themselves—such a picture as this is +calculated to excite the sympathies of all generous souls. And it has +done so in England, where "Home Rule" and "Justice to Ireland" have +become the rallying cries of one section of the Liberal party, to the +disruption and political suicide of the whole body; and where the less +knowledge imported into the question the more fervid the advocacy and +the louder the demand.</p> + +<p>It is worth while to state quite quietly and quite plainly how things +stand at this present moment. There is no need for hysterics on the +one side or the other; and to amend one's views by the testimony of +facts is not a dishonest turning of one's coat—if confession of that +amendment is a little like the white sheet and lighted taper of a +penitent. Things are, or they are not. If they are, as will be set +down, the inference is plain to anyone not hopelessly blinded by +preconceived prejudice. If they are not, let them be authoritatively +contradicted on the basis of fact, not sentiment—demonstration, not +assertion. In any case it is a gain to obtain material for a truer +judgment than heretofore, and thus to be rid of certain mental films +by which colours are blurred and perspective is distorted.</p> + +<p>No one wishes to palliate the crimes of which England has been guilty +in Ireland. Her hand has been heavy, her whip one of braided +scorpions, her rule emphatically of blood and iron. But all this is of +the past, and the pendulum, not only of public feeling but of legal +enactment, threatens to swing too far on the other side. What has been +done cannot be <a class='pagenum' name='Page009' id='Page009' title='009'></a>undone, but it will not be repeated. We shall never +send over another Cromwell nor yet another Castlereagh; and there is +as little good to be got from chafing over past wrongs as there is in +lamenting past glories. Malachi and his collar of gold—the ancient +kings who led forth the Red Branch Knights—State persecution of the +Catholics—rack-rents and unjust evictions, are all alike swept away +into the limbo of things dead and done with. What Ireland has to deal +with now are the enactments and facts of the day, and to shake off the +incubus of retrospection, as a strong man awaking would get rid of a +nightmare.</p> + +<p>Nowhere in Europe, nor yet in the United States, are tenant-farmers so +well protected by law as in Ireland; nor is it the fault of England if +the Acts passed for their benefit have been rendered ineffectual by +the agitators who have preferred fighting to orderly development. So +long ago as 1860 a Bill was passed providing that no tenant should be +evicted for non-payment of rent unless one year's rent in arrear. +(Landlord and Tenant Act, 1860, sec. 52.) Even then, when evicted, he +could recover possession within six months by payment of the amount +due; when the landlord had to pay him the amount of any profit he had +made out of the lands in the interim. The landlord had to pay half the +poor rate of the Government Valuation if a holding was £4 or upward, +and all the poor rate if it was under £4. By the Act of 1870 "a yearly +tenant disturbed in his holding by the act of the landlord, for causes +other than non-payment of rent, and the Government Valuation of whose +holding does not exceed £100 per annum, must be paid by his <a class='pagenum' name='Page010' id='Page010' title='010'></a>landlord +not only full compensation for all improvements made by himself or his +predecessors, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, and +reclamation of waste lands, but also as compensation for disturbance, +a sum of money which may amount to seven years' rent." (Land Act of +1870, secs. 1, 2, and 3.) Under the Act of 1881 the landlord's power +of disturbance was practically abolished—but I think I have read +somewhere that even of late years, and with the ballot, certain +landlords in England have threatened their tenants with "disturbance" +without compensation if their votes were not given to the right +colour—while in Ireland, even when evicted for non-payment of rent, a +yearly tenant must be paid by his landlord "compensation for all +improvements, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, and +reclamation of waste land." (Sec. 4.) And when his rent does not +exceed £15 he must be paid in addition "a sum of money which may +amount to seven years' rent if the court decides that the rent is +exorbitant." (Secs. 3 and 9.) (<i>a</i>) Until the contrary is proved, the +improvements are presumed to have been made by the tenants. (Sec. 5.) +(<i>b</i>) The tenant can make his claim for compensation immediately on +notice to quit being served, and cannot be evicted until the +compensation is paid. (Secs. 16 and 21.) A yearly tenant when +voluntarily surrendering his farm must either be paid by the landlord +(<i>a</i>) compensation for all his improvements, or (<i>b</i>) be permitted to +sell his improvements to an incoming tenant. (Sec. 4.) In all new +tenancies the landlord must pay half the county or Grand Jury Cess if +the valuation is £4 or upward and the whole <a class='pagenum' name='Page011' id='Page011' title='011'></a>of the same Cess if the +value does not exceed £4. (Secs. 65 and 66.) Thus we have under the +Land Act of 1870 (i) Full payment for all improvements; (2) +Compensation for disturbance.</p> + +<p>The famous Land Act of 1881 gave three additional privileges, (1) +Fixity of tenure, by which the tenant remains in possession of the +land for ever, subject to periodic revision of the rent. (Land Act, +1881, sec. 8.) If the tenant has not had a fair rent fixed, and his +landlord proceeds to evict him for non-payment of rent, he can apply +to the court to fix the fair rent, and meantime the eviction +proceedings will be restrained by the court. (Sec. 13.) (2) Fair rent, +by which any yearly tenant may apply to the Land Commission Court (the +judges of which were appointed under Mr. Gladstone's Administration) +to fix the fair rent of his holding. The application is referred to +three persons, one of whom is a lawyer, and the other two inspect and +value the farm. <i>This rent can never again</i> be raised by the landlord. +(Sec. 8.) (3) Free sale, by which every yearly tenant may, whether he +has had a fair rent fixed or not, sell his tenancy to the highest +bidder whenever he desires to leave. (Sec. 1.) (<i>a</i>) There is no +practical limit to the price he may sell for, and twenty times the +amount of the annual rent has frequently been obtained in every +province of Ireland. (<i>b</i>) Even if a tenant be evicted, he has the +right either to redeem at any time within three months, <i>or to sell +his tenancy within the same period to a purchaser who can likewise +redeem</i> and thus acquire all the privileges of a tenant. (Sec. 13.)</p> + +<p>Even more important than this is the Land Purchase Act of 1885, +commonly called Lord Ashbourne's Act, <a class='pagenum' name='Page012' id='Page012' title='012'></a>by which the whole land in +Ireland is potentially put into the hands of the farmers, and of the +working of which much will have to be said before these papers end. +This Act, in its sections 2, 3, and 4, sets forth this position, +briefly stated: If a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and arranges +with his landlord as to terms, he can change his position from that of +a perpetual rent-payer into that of the payer of an annuity, +terminable at the end of forty-nine years—the Government supplying +him with the entire purchase-money, to be repaid during those +forty-nine years at 4 per cent. This annual payment of £4 for every +£100 borrowed covers both principal and interest. Thus, if a tenant, +already paying a statutory rent of £50, agrees to buy from his +landlord at twenty years' purchase (or £1,000) the Government will +lend him the money, his rent will at once cease, and he will not pay +£50, but £40, yearly for forty-nine years, and then become the owner +of his holding, free of rent. It is hardly necessary to point out +that, as these forty-nine years of payment roll by, the interest of +the tenant in his holding increases rapidly in value. (Land Purchase +Act, 1885, secs. 2, 3, and 4.)</p> + +<p>Under the Land Act of 1887, the tenants received the following still +greater and always one-sided privileges, (i) By this Act leases are +allowed to be broken by the tenant, but not by the landlord. All +leaseholders whose leases would expire within ninety-nine years after +the passing of the Act have the option of going into court and getting +their contracts broken and a judicial rent fixed. No equivalent power +is given to the landlords. (Land Act of 1887, secs, 1 and 2.) (2) The +<a class='pagenum' name='Page013' id='Page013' title='013'></a>Act varies rent already judicially fixed for fifteen years by the +Land Courts in the years 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, and 1885. (Sec. 29.) +(3) It stays evictions, and allows rent to be paid by instalments. In +the case of tenants whose valuation does not exceed £50, the court +before which proceedings are being taken for the recovery of <i>any</i> +debt due by the tenant is empowered to stay his eviction, and may give +him liberty to pay his creditors by instalments, and can extend the +time for such payment as it thinks proper. (Land Act of 1887, sec. +30.)</p> + +<p>By these extracts, which do not exhaust the whole of the privileges +granted to the Irish tenant, it may be seen how exceptionally he has +been favoured. Nowhere else has such wholesale interference with the +obligations of contract, such lavish protection of the tenant, such +practical persecution of the landlord been as yet demanded by the +one-half of the nation; nor, if demanded, would such partiality have +been conceded by the other half. Yet, in the face of these various +Acts, and all they embody, provide for, and deny, our hysterical +journal <i>par excellence</i> is not ashamed to publish a wild letter from +one of those ramping political women who screech like peacocks before +rain, setting forth how Ireland could be redeemed by the manufacture +of blackberry jam, were it not for the infamous landlords who would at +once raise the rent on those tenants who, by industry, had improved +their condition. And a Dublin paper asserts that anything will be +fiction which demonstrates that "Ireland is not the home of +rackrenters, brutal batonmen, and heartless evictors"; while political +agitation is still being carried on by any <a class='pagenum' name='Page014' id='Page014' title='014'></a>means that come handiest, +and the eviction of tenants who owe five or six years' rent, and will +not pay even one to clear off old scores, is treated as an act of +brutality for which no quarter should be given. If we were to transfer +the whole method of procedure to our own lands and houses in England, +perhaps the thing would wear a different aspect from that which it +wears now, when surrounded by a halo of false sentiment and convenient +forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>The total want of honesty, of desire for the right thing in this +no-rent agitation, is exemplified by the following fact:—When Colonel +Vandeleur's tenants—owing several years' rent, refused to pay +anything, and joined the Plan of Campaign, arbitration was suggested, +and Sir Charles Russell was accepted by the landlord as arbitrator. As +every one knows, Sir Charles is an Irishman, a Catholic, and the +"tenants' friend." His award was, as might have been expected, most +liberal towards them. Here is the result:—"We learn that the +non-fulfilment by a number of the tenants of the terms of the award +made by Sir C. Russell is likely to lead to serious difficulties. They +refuse to carry out the undertaking which was given on their behalf, +having so much bettered the instruction given to them that they insist +upon holding a grip of the rent, and not yielding to even the advice +of their friends. About thirty of them have not paid the year's rent, +which all the Plan of Campaign tenants were to have paid when the +award was made known to them. This is the most conspicuous instance in +which arbitration has been tried, and the result is not encouraging, +although landlords have been denounced for not at once accepting it +<a class='pagenum' name='Page015' id='Page015' title='015'></a>instead of seeking to enforce their legal rights by the tribunal +appointed by the Legislature."</p> + +<p>With a legal machinery of relief so comprehensive and so favourable to +the tenant, it would seem that the Plan of Campaign, with its cruel +and murderous accompaniments, was scarcely needed. If anyone was +aggrieved, the courts were open to him; and we have only to read the +list of reduced rents to see how those courts protected the tenant and +bore heavily on the landlord. Also, it would seem to persons of +ordinary morality that it would have been more manly and more honest +to pay the rents due to the proprietor than to cast the money into the +chest of the Plan of Campaign—that <i>boite à Pierrette</i> which, like +the sieve of the Danaïdes, can never be filled. The Home Rule +agitators have known how to make it appear that they, and they alone, +stand between the people and oppression. They have ignored all this +orderly legal machinery; and their English sympathisers have not +remembered it. Nor have those English sympathisers considered the +significant fact that this agitation is literally the bread of life to +those who have created and still maintain it. Many of the Home Rule +Irish Members of Parliament have risen from the lowest ranks of +society—from the barefooted peasantry, where their nearest relations +are still to be found—into the outward condition of gentlemen living +in comparative affluence. It is not being uncharitable, nor going +behind motives, to ask, <i>Cui bono?</i> For whose advantage is a certain +movement carried on?—especially for whose advantage is this anti-rent +movement in Ireland? For the good of the tenants who, under the +pressure put on them by those whom they <a class='pagenum' name='Page016' id='Page016' title='016'></a>have agreed to follow, refuse +to pay even a fraction of rent hitherto paid to the full, and who are, +in consequence, evicted from their farms and deprived of their means +of subsistence?—or is it for the good of a handful of men who live by +and on the agitation they created and still keep up? Do the leaders of +any movement whatsoever give a thought to the individual lives +sacrificed to the success of the cause? As little as the general +regrets the individuals of the rank and file in the battalions he +hurls against the enemy. The ruined homes and blighted lives of the +thousands who have listened, believed, been coerced to their own +despair, have been no more than the numbers of the rank and file to +the general who hoped to gain the day by his battalions.<a name='FNanchor_B_2'></a><a href='#Footnote_B_2'><sup>[B]</sup></a> The good +in this no-rent movement is reaped by the agitators alone; and for +them alone have the chestnuts been pulled out of the fire. +Furthermore, whose hands among the prominent leaders are free from the +reflected stain of blood-money? These leaders have counselled a course +of action which has been marked all along the line by outrage and +murder; and they have lived well and amassed wealth by the course they +have counselled.</p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page017' id='Page017' title='017'></a>From proletariats in their own persons they have become men of +substance and property. These assertions are facts to which names and +amounts can be given; and that question, <i>Cui bono</i>? answers itself. +The inference to be drawn is too grave to be set aside; and to plead +"charitable judgment" is to plead imbecility.</p> + +<p>The plain and simple truth is—the protective legislation that was so +sorely needed for the peasantry is fast degenerating into injustice +and oppression against the landlords. Thousands of the smaller +landowners have been absolutely beggared; the larger holders have been +as ruthlessly ruined. For, while the rents were lowered, the charges +on the land, made on the larger basis, were kept to their same value; +and the fate of the landlord was sealed. Between the hammer and the +anvil as he was and is placed, his times have not been pleasant. +Families who have bought their estates on the faith of Government +sales and Government contracts, and families who have owned theirs for +centuries and lived on them, winter and summer—who have been neither +absentees nor rack-renters, but have been friendly, hospitable, +open-handed after their kind, always ready to give comforts and +medicine to the sick and a good-natured measure of relief to the hard +pressed—they have now been brought to the ground; and between our own +fluid and unstable legislation and the reckless cruelty of the Plan of +Campaign their destruction has been complete. Wherever one goes one +finds great houses shut up or let for a few summer months to strangers +who care nothing for the place and less than nothing for the people. +One cannot call this a gain, <a class='pagenum' name='Page018' id='Page018' title='018'></a>look at it as one will. Nor do the +tenantry themselves feel it to be a gain. Get their confidence and you +will find that they all regret the loss of their own—those jovial, +frank, and kindly proprietors who did the best they knew, though +perhaps, judged by present scientific knowledge that best was not very +good, but who at least knew more than themselves. Carrying the thing +home to England, we should scarcely say that our country places would +be the better for the exodus of all the educated and refined and +well-to-do families, with the peasantry and an unmarried clergyman +left sole masters of the situation.</p> + +<p>In the desire of Parliament to do justice to the Irish peasant, whose +condition did once so loudly demand amelioration, justice to the +landlord has gone by the board. For we cannot call it justice to make +him alone suffer. His rents have been reduced from 25 to 30 per cent. +and over, but all the rent charges, mortgages, debts and dues have +been retained at their full value. The scheme of reduction does not +pass beyond the tiller of the soil, and the landlord is the sole +loser.<a name='FNanchor_C_3'></a><a href='#Footnote_C_3'><sup>[C]</sup></a></p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page019' id='Page019' title='019'></a>Beyond this he suffers from the want of finality in legislation. +Nothing is left to prove itself, and the tinkering never ends. A +fifteen years' bargain under the first Land Act is broken up under the +next as if Governmental pledges were lovers' vows. When, on the faith +of those pledges, a landlord borrowed money from the Board of Works +for the improvement of his estate, for stone cottages for his +tenantry, for fences, drainage, and the like, suddenly his income is +still further reduced; but the interest he has to pay for the loan +contracted on the broader basis remains the same. Which is a kind of +thing on all fours with the plan of locking up a debtor so that he +cannot work at his trade, while ordering him to pay so much weekly +from earnings which the law itself prevents his making.</p> + +<p>If the sum of misery remains constant in Ireland, its distribution has +changed hands. The small deposits in the savings-banks have increased +to an enormous extent, and in many places where the tenants have for +<a class='pagenum' name='Page020' id='Page020' title='020'></a>some years refused to pay their rents, but have still kept the land, +the women have learned to dress. But the owners of the land—say that +they are ladies with no man in the family—have wanted bread, and have +been kept from starvation only by surreptitious supplies delivered in +the dead darkness of the night. These supplies have of necessity been +rare and scanty, for the most honest tenant dared not face the +vengeance of the League by openly paying his just due. Did not Mr. +Dillon, on August 23rd, 1887, say, "If there is a man in Ireland base +enough to back down, to turn his back on the fight now that Coercion +has passed, I pledge myself in the face of this meeting, that I will +denounce him from public platform by name, and I pledge myself to the +Government that, let that man be whom he may, his life will not be a +happy one, either in Ireland or across the seas." With such a +formidable organisation as this, what individual would have the +courage to stand out for abstract justice to a landlord? It would have +been, and it has been, standing out for his own destruction. Hence, +for no fault, no rack-renting, have proprietors—and especially +ladies—been treated as mortal enemies by those whom they had always +befriended—for no reason whatever but that it was an easy victory for +the Campaigners to obtain. Women, with never a man to defend them, +could be more easily manipulated than if they were so many stalwart +young fellows, handy in their turn with guns and revolvers, and man +for man a match even for Captain Moonlight. If these ladies dared to +evict their non-paying tenants they would be either boycotted or +"visited," or perhaps both. Besides, <a class='pagenum' name='Page021' id='Page021' title='021'></a>who would venture to take the +vacant land? And how could a couple of delicate ladies, say, till the +ground with their own hands? The old fable of the dog in the manger +holds good with these Campaigners. Those who will not pay prevent +others who would; and the hated "landgrabber," denounced from altar +and platform alike, is simply an honest and industrious worker, who +would make his own living and the landlord's rent out of a bit of land +which is lying idle and going to waste.</p> + +<p>All through the disturbed districts we come upon facts like this—upon +the ruin and humiliation of kindly and delicately-nurtured ladies, of +which the English public knows nothing; and while it hysterically +pities the poor down-trodden peasant and goes in for Home Rule as the +panacea, the wife of a tenant owing five years' rent and refusing to +pay one, dresses in costly attire—and the lady proprietor knows +penury and hunger; not to speak of the agonies of personal terror +endured for months at a stretch. Let us, who live in a well-ordered +country, realize for a moment the mental condition of those who dwell +in the shadow of assassination—women to whom every unusual noise is +as the sentence of death, and whose days are days of trembling, and +their nights of anguish for the fear of death that encompasses them. +Is this according to the law of elemental justice? Are our sympathies +to be confined wholly to one class, and are the sorrows and the wrongs +done to another not to count? Surely it is time for some of the +sentimental fog in which so many of us have been living to be +dispelled in favour of the light of truth!</p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page022' id='Page022' title='022'></a>Here is an instructive little bit on which we would do well to +ponder:—</p> + +<p>A certain authority gives the following anecdote:—He says that he +"has just had a long conversation with one of the leading Galway +merchants. 'A farmer of this county,' said he, 'told me yesterday that +he had let his meadowing at £8 an acre. I bought all his barley, and +he confessed that on this crop too he had made £8 an acre. Now the +judicial rent of this man's holding is 10s. the acre. He said, "I have +nothing to complain of."' This man was a tenant of Lord Clanricarde; +one of those people who decline to pay a farthing in the way of rent +to the lawful owner of the soil. The case we have cited may be an +extreme one, but it is generally admitted by those who are acquainted +with the facts, and who speak the truth that the rents on the +Clanricarde property, speaking generally, are low rents, and yet not +only is it impossible to collect these rents, but the agent who +represents Lord Clanricarde, and whose only fault is that he tries to +do his duty to his employer without unnecessary harshness to the +tenantry, dare not go outside his house without an escort of police, +and every time he leaves his house, he risks his life. Referring to +this agent, Mr. Tener, the correspondent says:—</p> + +<p>"No one would think from looking at him that he literally carries his +life in his hand, and that if he were not guarded as closely as he is +he would be shot in twenty-four hours. He never goes outside the walls +of the Portumna demesne without an escort of seven policemen—two +mounted men in front, two behind, and three upon his car. He, too, as +well as the driver, is armed, so the would-be assassins must reckon +with nine armed <a class='pagenum' name='Page023' id='Page023' title='023'></a>men. In the opinion of those who know the +neighbourhood his escort is barely strong enough. He was fired at a +few weeks ago, and the horse which he was driving shot dead. The +police who were with him on the car were rolled out upon the road, and +before they could recover themselves and pursue the Moonlighters had +escaped.' And this is supposed to be a civilised country, and is a +part of the United Kingdom!</p> + +<p>"Whereas it seems to us Lord Clanricarde is to blame is in not living, +at any rate for some part of the year, upon his Irish property. This +nobleman represents one of the most ancient families in Ireland. He is +the representative of the Clanricarde Burkes, who have been settled +upon this property for 700 years. He draws, or rather drew, a very +large income from it, and there can be little question that his +presence would encourage and sustain smaller proprietors who are +fighting a losing battle in defence of their rights. These proprietors +may fairly claim that the leading men of their order should stand by +them in the time of trial. Unfortunately, this assistance has not been +invariably, or even as a rule, rendered by the great Irish landowners. +It is, indeed, largely because they have failed in their duty that the +present troubles have come upon Irish landlords as a body. If only in +the past the great landowners had lived in Ireland and spent at least +a portion of the incomes they derived from Ireland upon their estates, +the present agitation against landlordism would never have reached the +point at which it has arrived. The absence of the landlords, and in +many cases their refusal to recognise the legiti<a class='pagenum' name='Page024' id='Page024' title='024'></a>mate claims of their +districts upon them, has made it possible for the agitators who have +now the ear of the people to bring about that severance of classes, +and that embittered feeling of class against class, which is doing +Ireland more injury at the present time than all the rack-renters put +together."</p> + +<p>Those who plead for the landlords who have been so cruelly robbed and +ruined are weak-voiced and reticent compared to the loudly crying +advocates for the peasantry. English tourists run over for a fortnight +to Ireland, talk to the jarvies, listen to the peasants themselves, +forbear to go near any educated or responsible person with knowledge +of the facts and a character to lose, and accept as gospel everything +they hear. There is no check and no verification. Pat and Tim and Mike +give their accounts of this and that, bedad! and tell their piteous +tales of want and oppression. The English tourist swallows it all +whole as it comes to him, and writes his account to the sympathetic +Press, which publishes as gospel stories which have not one word of +truth in them. In fact, the term "English tourist" has come to mean +the same as <i>gobemouche</i> in France; and clever Pat knows well enough +that there is not a fly in the whole region of fable which is too +large for the brutal Saxon to swallow. Abject poverty without shoes to +its feet, with only a few rags to cover its unwashed nakedness, and an +unfurnished mud cabin shared with the pigs and poultry for its sole +dwelling-place—abject poverty begs a copper from "his honour" for the +love of God and the glory of the Blessed Virgin, telling meantime a +heartrending story of privation and oppression. Abject poverty points +to all the outward <a class='pagenum' name='Page025' id='Page025' title='025'></a>signs and circumstances of its woe; but it forgets +the good stone house in which live the son and the son's wife—the +dozen or more of cattle grazing free on the mountain side—that bit of +fertile land where the very weeds grow into beauty by their +luxuriance—and those quiet hundreds hidden away for the sole pleasure +of hoarding. And the English tourist takes it all in, and blazes out +into wrath against the tyrannous landlord who has reduced an honest +citizen to this fearful state of misery; knowing nothing of the craft +which is known to all the residents round about, and not willing to +believe it were he even told. For the dramatic instinct is strong in +human nature, and in these later days there is an ebullient surplusage +of sympathy which only desires to find an object. Across the Bristol +Channel, the English tourist finds these objects ready-made to his +hand; and the question is still further embroiled, and the light of +truth still more obscured, that a few impulsive, credulous, and +non-judicially-minded young people may find something whereon to +excite their emotions, and give vent to them in letters to the +newspapers when excited.</p> + +<p>Only the other day a young Irishman who has to do with the land +question was mistaken for a brutal but credulous Saxon by the jarvey +who had him in tow. Consequently, Pat plied his fancied victim with +the wildest stories of this man's wrongs and that lone widow's +sufferings. When he found out his mistake he laughed and said: +"Begorra, I thought your honour was an English tourist!" And at a +certain trial which took place in Cork, the judge put by some absurd +statement by saying, half-indignant, half amused: "Do <a class='pagenum' name='Page026' id='Page026' title='026'></a>you take me for +an English tourist?" Nevertheless the race will continue so long as +there are excitable young persons of either sex whose capacity for +swallowing flies is practically unlimited, and an hysterical Press to +which they can betake themselves.</p> + +<p>The following authoritative instance of this misplaced sympathy may +suffice. The <i>Westminster Review</i> published a certain article on the +Olphert estate, among other things. Those who have read it know its +sensational character. At Cork the other day the priest concerned had +to confess on oath that only three of the Olphert tenants had received +relief.<a name='FNanchor_D_4'></a><a href='#Footnote_D_4'><sup>[D]</sup></a></p> + +<p>In the famous Luggacurren evictions the poor dispossessed dupes lost +their all at the bidding of the Campaigners, on the plea of inability +to pay rents voluntarily offered by Lord Lansdowne to be reduced 20 +per cent. After these evictions the lands were let to the "Land +Corporation," which had some short time ago four hundred head of +cattle over and above the full rent paid honestly down; but the former +holders are living on charity doled out to them by the Campaigners, +and in huts built for them by <a class='pagenum' name='Page027' id='Page027' title='027'></a>the Campaigners on the edge of the rich +and kindly land which once gave them home and sustenance. How bitterly +they curse the evil counsels which led to their destruction only they +and the few they dare trust know. Take, too, these two authoritative +stories. They are of the things one blindly believes and rages +against—with what justice the dénouement of the sorry farce, best +shows:—</p> +<br /> + +<p>"The correspondents of the <i>Freeman's Journal</i>, in response to the +circular some time ago addressed to them continue to supply fictitious +and exaggerated statements of events alleged to have happened 'in the +country,' nearly every day some example is afforded. One of the latest +is a pathetic tale of the 'suicide of a tenant.' It represents that +Andrew Kelly, of Cloonlaugh, 'one of the three tenants against whom +A.W. Sampey, J.P., landlord, obtained ejectments,' became demented +from the fear of eviction, and drowned himself in a bog hole in +consequence. The account is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. +Andrew Kelly was not a tenant of Mr. Sampey's, nor had he been for the +last five years. His son, it is true, is one of the tenants against +whom a decree was obtained, but this did not apparently trouble the +father much, as he had been living away from his son for a long time, +although he had come to see him a few days before he was drowned. +There was no suspicion either of foul play or suicide, and the +coroner's jury returned no such verdict as that given in the +<i>Freeman</i>. The veracious correspondent of that journal stated that the +jury found that 'Andrew Kelly came by his death through drowning on +the 22nd October while suffering under tempo<a class='pagenum' name='Page028' id='Page028' title='028'></a>rary insanity brought +about by fear of eviction.' The following is the verdict which the +coroner's jury actually arrived at:—'We find that Andrew Kelly's +death was caused by suffocation; that he was found dead in the +townland of Clooncriur, on the 24th day of October, 1889.' This is the +way in which sensational news is manufactured for the purpose of +promoting an anti-landlord crusade and prejudicing the owners of +property in the eyes of the country."</p> + +<p>"Speaking at Newmarch, near Barnsley, last month, Mr. Waddy drew a +heartrending picture of the tyranny practised in Ireland, and +illustrated his theme and moved his audience to the execration of Mr. +Balfour by the artistic recital of a horrible tale. He declared that a +little child had been barbarously sentenced by resident magistrates to +a month's imprisonment for throwing a stone at a policeman. Some +hard-headed or hard-hearted Yorkshireman, however, would not believe +Mr. Waddy offhand, and challenged him to declare names, place, and +date. On the 15th of November, Mr. Waddy gave the following +particulars in writing. He stated that the magistrates who had imposed +the brutal punishment were Mr. Hill and Colonel Bowlby, that the case +was tried at Keenagh on the 23rd of April, 1888, that the child's name +was Thomas Quin, aged nine, and that the charge was throwing stones at +the police.</p> + +<p>"The clue thus afforded has been followed up. It is grievous that cool +and calculating investigation should spoil a pretty story, but here is +the truth.</p> + +<p>"On the 20th of April, before Colonel Stewart and Colonel Bowlby, +resident magistrates, Thomas Quin, <a class='pagenum' name='Page029' id='Page029' title='029'></a>aged 19 years, was convicted of +using intimidation towards William Nutley, in consequence of his +having done an act which he had a legal right to do—viz., to evict a +labourer, Michael Fegan, of Clearis, who refused to work for him. +Thomas Quin was sentenced to one month's imprisonment.</p> + +<p>"I am quite sure that Mr. Waddy will publicly acknowledge that he +played upon the feelings of his hearers with a trumped-up tale of woe, +but I wonder whether anything will teach the British political tourist +that a great number of my countrymen unfortunately feel a genuine +delight in hoaxing them.</p> + +<p>"Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p>"AN IRISH LIBERAL."</p> +<br /> + +<p>As for the assertion of poverty and inability to pay, so invariably +made to excuse defaulting tenants, I will give these two instances to +the contrary.</p> + +<p>"Writing on behalf of Mr. Balfour to Mr. E. Bannister, of Hyde, +Cheshire, Mr. George Wyndham, M.P., recounts a somewhat remarkable +circumstance in connection with the position and circumstances of a +tenant on Lord Kenmare's estate who declined to pay his rent on the +plea of poverty:—'Irish Office, Nov. 28, 1889. Dear Sir,—In reply to +your letter of the 22nd inst., I beg to inform you that I have made +careful inquiries into the case of Molloy, a tenant on Lord Kenmare's +estate. I find that so far from exaggerating the scope of this +incident, you somewhat understate the case. The full particulars were +as follow:—The estate bailiffs visited the house of Molloy, a tenant +who owed <a class='pagenum' name='Page030' id='Page030' title='030'></a>£30 rent and arrears. They seized his cows, and then called +at his home to ask him if he would redeem them by paying the debt. +Molloy stated that he was willing to pay, but that he had only £7 +altogether. He handed seven notes to the bailiff, who found that one +of them was a £5 note, so that the amount was £11 instead of £7. On +being pressed to pay the balance he admitted that he had a small +deposit of £20 in the bank, and produced a document which he said was +the deposit receipt for this sum. On the bailiff examining this +receipt he found it was for £100 and not for £20. On being informed of +his mistake, Molloy took back the £100 receipt and produced another, +which turned out to be for £40. A further search on his part led to +the production of the receipt for £20, with which and £10 in notes he +paid the rent. You will observe that this tenant, refusing to pay £30, +and obliging his landlord to take steps against him, possessed at the +time £171, besides having stock on his land.—Yours faithfully, GEORGE +WYNDHAM.'"</p> + +<p>And I have it on the word of honour of one whose word is his bond, +that certain defaulting tenants lately confessed to him that they had +in their pockets as much as the value of three years' rent for the two +they owed, but that they dared not, for their lives, pay it. They +would if they dared, but they dared not. The plea of inability to pay +the reduced scale of rent is for the most part simple moonshine; and +the terrorism imported into this question comes from the Campaigners, +not from the landlords, nor yet from the police. If these paid +political agitators were silenced, and if the laws already passed were +suffered to work by themselves according to their intent, things would +speedily settle. But then the agitators would <a class='pagenum' name='Page031' id='Page031' title='031'></a>lose their means of +subsistence, their social status, and their political importance. As +things are these men are ruining the country they affect to defend; +while the worst enemies of the peasant are those who call themselves +his friends, and the blind-eyed sympathisers who bewail the wrongs he +does not suffer and the misery he himself might prevent. All that +Ireland wants now is rest from political agitation, the orderly +development of its resources;—and especially finality in +legislation;<a name='FNanchor_E_5'></a><a href='#Footnote_E_5'><sup>[E]</sup></a>—so that the one side may know to what it has to +trust, and the other may be freed from those illusive dreams and +demoralising hopes which destroy the manlier efforts after self-help +in the present for that universal amelioration to be found in the +coming of the cocklicranes in the future.</p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page032' id='Page032' title='032'></a>There is, however, a good work quietly going on which will touch the +evil root of things in time, but not in the sense of the Home Rulers +and Campaigners. This good work will render it unnecessary to follow +the advice of that rough and ready politician who saw no way out of +the wood save to "send to Hell for Oliver Cromwell"; also that of the +facetious Dove who winked as he offered his olive branch:—"Shure the +best way to pacify Oireland is for the Queen to marry Parnell." A more +practicable method than either is silently making headway against the +elements of disorder; and in spite of the upsetters and their +opposition the rough things will be made smooth, and, the troubled +waters will run clear, if only the Government of order may be allowed +time to do its beneficent work of repression and re-establishment +thoroughly and to the roots.</p> +<br /> + +<h2> +<a name='II'></a> +<a class='pagenum' name='Page033' id='Page033' title='033'></a> +II.</h2> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In politics, as in nature, beneficent powers work quietly, while +destructive agencies sweep across the world with noise and tumult. The +fruit tree grows in silence; the tempest which uproots it shakes the +earth to its centre. The gradual evolution of society in the +development of art, the softening of manners, the equalization of +justice, the respect for law, the purity of morals, which are its +results and correlatives, comes about as silently as the growth of the +tree; but the wars which desolate nations, and the revolutions which +destroy in a few months the work of many centuries, are as tumultuous +as the tempest and as boisterous as the storm.</p> + +<p>In Ireland at the present moment this rule holds good with surprising +accuracy. Where the tranquilizing effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act +attracts but little attention outside its own immediate sphere, the +Plan of Campaign has everywhere been accompanied with murder, +boycotting, outrage, and the loud cries of those who, playing at +bowls, have to put up with rubbers. Where men who have retained their +sense of manly honesty and commercial justice, buy their lands in +peace, without asking the world to witness the transaction—those +tenants who, having for years refused to pay a reduced rent or any +portion of arrears, are at last evicted from the land they do not care +to hold as honest men should, make the political welkin ring with +their complaints, and call on the nation at large to avenge their +wrongs. And the analogy holds good all <a class='pagenum' name='Page034' id='Page034' title='034'></a>through. The Irish tenant +yearns to possess the land he farms. Lord Ashbourne's Act enables him +to do this by the benign way of peace, fairness, and self-respect. The +Plan of Campaign, on the other hand, teaches him the destructive +methods of dishonesty and violence. The one is a legal, quiet, and +equitable arrangement, without personal bitterness, without hysterical +shrieking, without wrong-doing to any one. The other is an offence +against the common interests of society, and a breach of the law +accompanied by crimes against humanity. The one is silent and +beneficent; the other noisy, uprooting, and malevolent. But as the +powers of growth and development are, in the long run, superior to +those of destruction—else all would have gone by the board ages +ago—the good done by Lord Ashbourne's Act will be a living force in +the national history when the evil wrought by the Plan of Campaign is +dead and done with.</p> + +<p>By Lord Ashbourne's Act the Irish tenant can buy his farm at (an +average of) seventeen years' purchase. He borrows the purchase money +from the Government, paying it back on easy terms, so that in +forty-nine years he becomes the absolute owner of the property—paying +meantime in interest and gradual diminution of the principal, less +than the present rent. The landlord has about £68 for every £100 he +used to have in rent. This Act is quietly revolutionizing Ireland, +redeeming it from agrarian anarchy, and saving the farmer from himself +and his friends. Thousands and thousands of acres are being constantly +sold in all parts of the country, and good prices are freely given for +farms whereof the turbulent and discontented tenants pro<a class='pagenum' name='Page035' id='Page035' title='035'></a>fessed +themselves unable to pay the most moderate rents. Large holdings and +small alike are bought as gladly as they are sold. Those who buy know +the capabilities of the land when worked with a will; those who sell +prefer a reduced certainty to the greater nominal value, which might +vanish altogether under the fiat of the Campaigners and the visits of +Captain Moonlight.</p> + +<p>The Irish loyal papers, which no English Home Ruler ever sees—facts +being so inimical to sentiment—these Irish papers are full of details +respecting these sales. On one estate thirty-seven farmers buy their +holdings at prices varying from £18 to £520, the average being £80. On +another, six farms bring £5,603, one fetching £2,250. In the west, +small farmers are buying where they can. In Sligo the MacDermott, +Q.C., has sold farms to forty-two of his tenants for £3,096, the +prices varying from £32 to £70 and £130; and the O'Connor Don has sold +farms in the same county to fifteen tenants for £1,934. The number of +acres purchased under this Act for the three years ending August, +1888, are a trifle over 293,556.</p> + +<p>The Government valuation is £171,774,000. The net rent is £190,181 +12s. 9d. The purchase-money is £3,350,933. The average number of +years' purchase is 17.6.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most important of all these sales are those on the Egmont +estate in the very heart of one of the gravely-disturbed districts. +The rent-roll of this estate was £16,000 a year; and it was estimated +that successive landlords had laid out about £250,000 in +improvements—which was just the sum expected <a class='pagenum' name='Page036' id='Page036' title='036'></a>to be realized by the +sales. All this land has passed into the hands of farmers who, from +agitators and No Renters have now become proprietors on their own +account, with a direct interest in maintaining law and order, and in +opposing violence and disorder all round. Other important sales have +been effected. A hundred and fifty tenants on the Drapers' estate in +county Derry have bought their farms from the London Company at a +total of £57,980. These, with others (197 in all), reached a sum total +of purchase-money of £63,305, as set forth in the <i>Dublin Gazette</i>, of +November 5th, 1889.</p> + +<p>Lord Spencer, whose political <i>volte face</i> is one of the wonders of +the hour, does not hesitate to say that this Act has not been a +success. Can he give counter figures to those quoted above? And Mr. +Michael Davitt does not approve of the sales in general and of those +on the Egmont estates in especial, "He hates the Ashbourne Act worse +than he hates the idea of an endowed Roman Catholic University, which +is saying a great deal. He hates it because it renders impossible his +visionary scheme of land nationalization, but more because it wrests +from his hands the weapons of Separatist rebellion. And what he openly +says, all the more cautious members of his party think. Every +purchaser under the Ashbourne Act is a soldier lost to the cause of +sedition. More than one of the ringleaders have indeed said this +formerly, but of late they have grown more reticent. The Parnellite, +it has been said, is essentially an Opportunist. Mr. Davitt is hardly +a Parnellite, but the real Parnellite items have discovered that their +seats in Parliament and their <a class='pagenum' name='Page037' id='Page037' title='037'></a>future hopes would be endangered, if +they openly fell foul of the Act under which so many Irish tenants are +becoming freeholders. They do not bless the Act, but they leave it +alone."</p> + +<p>There is another misstatement that had better be frankly met. The +objectors to the Land Courts say that the applicants are so many and +the process is so slow, it is almost useless and worse than +heartbreaking to apply for relief. One thing, however, must be +remembered—during the interim of application and hearing, a tenant +cannot be disturbed in his holding, and if he refuses to pay his rent +the landlord cannot evict him. The following correspondence is +instructive:—</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"Braintree, Nov. 14.</p> + +<p> "Sir,—Will you be good enough to inform me whether the statement I + give below is correct? It was made by an Irish lecturer (going + about with magic-lantern views) for the purpose of showing how + unjustly the Irish tenants are treated. The lecturer was Mr. J. + O'Brady, and he was delivering the lecture at Braintree on + Saturday, November 9:—'There are now 90,000 cases awaiting the + decision of the Land Courts to fix a "fair rent" on their holdings, + and as only 15,000 cases can be heard in one year, do you wonder at + the tenants refusing to pay their present rent?'</p> + +<p> "Your faithful servant,</p> + +<p> "G. THORPE BARTRAM."</p></div> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"The Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P."</p> + +<p> "<a class='pagenum' name='Page038' id='Page038' title='038'></a>Irish Office, Great Queen Street, Nov. 22.</p> + +<p> "Dear Sir,—I have made special inquiry into the subject of your + letter of the 14th inst., and find that on the 31st of the last + month the number of outstanding applications to have fair rents + fixed was 44,295, and that the number of cases disposed of in the + months of July and August (the latest month for which the figures + are made up) was 5,380. You will see, therefore, that the arrear is + less than one-half of the amount stated by the Separatist lecturer + to whom you refer, and the rate of progression in disposing of it + is considerably higher than that alleged by him. It may reasonably + be hoped also (though the statistics are not yet available) that + this rate has since been increased, as several additional + Sub-Commissioners have been appointed to hear the cases. I would + observe also that under the provisions of the Land Act, passed by + the present Government in 1887, the tenant gets the benefit of the + judicial rent from the date of his application, an advantage which + he did not possess under Mr. Gladstone's Act. Such unavoidable + delay as may occur, therefore, does not, under the existing law, + involve the serious injury to the tenant implied by the lecturer. I + enclose a printed paper, which will give you further information on + this subject. In conclusion, I would point out that the suggestion + that the agrarian trouble in Ireland arises from the difficulty + experienced by the tenants in getting judicial rents fixed is not + warranted by the facts. Take as illustrations the cases of two + estates which have lately been prominently before the + public—namely, the Ponsonby and the Olphert. In the former case + the landlord is anxious, I believe, to get the tenants to go <a class='pagenum' name='Page039' id='Page039' title='039'></a>into + Court, and offers to give retrospective effect to the decisions, + though not bound by law to do so, but under the influence of the + agitators the tenants refuse to go into Court. In the latter + instance judicial rents have long since been fixed in the great + majority of cases.</p> + +<p> "Yours faithfully,</p> + +<p> "ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR."</p></div> + +<p>Together with this easy mode of purchase by which the quiet and +industrious are profiting, rents are reduced all over the country, +though still the Home Rulers reiterate the old charge of +"rack-renting," as if such a thing were the rule. These unscrupulous +misstatements, indeed, make half the difficulties of the Irish +question; for lies stick fast, where disclaimers, proofs, facts, and +figures, pass by like dry leaves on the wind. But for all the fact of +past extortion the present reductions are not always a proof of +over-renting. What Mr. Buxton says has common sense on the face of +it:—</p> + +<p>"Very serious reductions of rents are being made all through Ireland +by the Land Sub-Commissioners, who are supposed to be in some extent +guided by the appearance of the farms. Now it should be remembered +that at the interview that took place in London on July 3rd, between +Mr. Smith-Barry and some of his tenants, in reference to that +gentleman's support of the evictions on the Ponsonby estate, one of +the arguments for forgiveness of arrears was that when eviction was +threatened 'the tenants gave up their industry,' and 'how could they +get the rents out of the land when they were absolutely idle?' To +admit such a plea for granting a reduction of rent is most dangerous. +Tenants <a class='pagenum' name='Page040' id='Page040' title='040'></a>have but to neglect their land, get into arrears of rent, and +claim large reductions because their farms do not pay. An ignorant, or +slovenly, or idle farmer, under such circumstances, is likely to have +a lower rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners than his more industrious +neighbour, and thus a great injustice may be done to both the good +farmer and the landlord, the—perhaps cunningly—idle farmer receiving +a premium for neglecting his farm. A comparison of the judicial rents +with the former rents and the Poor Law valuation is truly startling, +and must lead one to imagine that the system by which so much valuable +property is dealt with is most unjust."</p> + +<p>Thus, the famous reductions in County Clare, where the abatements +granted averaged over 30 per cent., and in some cases exceeded 50 per +cent., were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, but +also may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference. +Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believe +in the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes from +idleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others to +relieve—these others having to suffer for sins not their own—how +about that as a righteous obligation? Must I and my children go +foodless because my tenants will neither till the land they hold from +me, so as to make it yield their own livelihood and that profit over +which is my inheritance, nor suffer others to do what they will not? +If we are prepared to endorse the famous saying: "La propriété c'est +le vol," well and good. Meanwhile to spend all our sympathy on men who +reduce themselves and others to poverty by idleness <a class='pagenum' name='Page041' id='Page041' title='041'></a>and unthrift, +seems rather a bad investment of emotion. The old-fashioned saying +about workers and eaters had a different ring; and once on a time +birds who could sing, and would not, were somehow made.</p> + +<p>Co-incident with these conditions of no rent at all—reduction of rent +all round—and the free purchase of land by those who yesterday +professed pauperism, is the startling fact that the increase in Bank +deposits for the half-year of 1889 was £89,000—in Post Office Savings +Bank deposits £244,000—in Trustee Savings Banks, £16,000.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mitchell Henry, writing to the <i>Times</i>, says:—"If any one will +tell the exact truth as to Irish matters at this moment, he must +confess that landlords are utterly powerless to coerce their tenants; +that the pockets of the tenants themselves are full of money formerly +paid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely; +that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the +banks—savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks—are +richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of +whisky—that sure barometer of Irish prosperity—is increasing beyond +all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, +with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed +than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation +and long to be let alone; but they are a people of extraordinary +clannishness, and take an intellectual delight in intrigue, especially +where the Saxon is concerned. British simplicity is wonderful, and the +very people who have put on this cupboard love for Mr. Gladstone and +his lieutenants, whom they formerly abused beyond <a class='pagenum' name='Page042' id='Page042' title='042'></a>all decent license +of abuse, laugh at them as soon as their backs are turned."</p> + +<p>These savings do not come from the landlords, so many of whom are +hopelessly ruined by the combined action of our own legislature and +the Plan of Campaign. Of this ruin Colonel Lloyd has given a very +graphic account. Alluding to Mr. Balfour's answer in the House on the +21st of June, to the question put by Mr. Macartney on Colonel Lloyd's +letter to the <i>Times</i> (10th of June), the Colonel repeats his +assertions, or rather his accusations against the Court. These +are:—"First, that the percentage of reductions now being given is the +very highest yet made, notwithstanding that prices of agricultural +produce and cattle have considerably increased; secondly, that the +Sub-Commissioners have no fixed rule to guide them save one—viz., +that existing rents, be they high or low, must be cut down, although +they may not have been altered for half a century; thirdly that it was +reported the Commissioners had instructions to give all-round +reductions of 33 per cent.; fourthly, that in the Land Court the most +skilled evidence of value is disregarded, as also the Poor Law +valuation; fifthly, that the Sub-Commissioners assign no reasons for +their decisions; and, sixthly, that the machinery of the Court is +faulty and unfair in the following instances:—<i>(a)</i> If a landlord +appeals and fails, he must pay costs, but if he appeals and succeeds +he will not get costs; <i>(b)</i> tenants' costs are taxed by the Court +behind the landlord's back; <i>(c)</i> their rules are constantly changing +without any proper notice to the public; and <i>(d)</i> appeals are +accumulating with no prospect of their being disposed of in any +reasonable time."</p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page043' id='Page043' title='043'></a>Colonel Lloyd disposes of Mr. Balfour's denials to these statements, +but at too great length to copy. It may be taken for granted here that +they are disposed of, and that he proves up to the hilt his case of +crying injustice to the landlords—as indeed every fair-minded person +who looks honestly into the question, must acknowledge. As one slight +corroboration of what he says he adduces the following instances:—</p> + +<p>"The following judicial rents were fixed by the +Assistant-Commissioners in the West of Ireland:—</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 15.5em;'>Poor Law Judicial</span><br /> +Tenants' Names. Old Rent. Valuation. Rent<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 9em;'>£ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d.</span><br /> +Tom Regan 9 9 10 12 0 0 5 15 0<br /> +J. Manlon 9 2 6 11 10 0 5 15 0<br /> +C. Kelly 9 12 10 11 5 0 6 0 0<br /> +J. Kenny 4 11 4 6 5 0 2 15 0<br /> +<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 8em;'>£32 16 6 £41 0 0 £20 5 0</span><br /> + +<p>"The landlord appealed, and the appeals were heard a few days ago by +the Chief Commissioners in Roscommon. Two skilled valuers were +employed, who valued within a few shillings of the Government +valuation, and in the face of this evidence the decisions of the +Assistant-Commissioners were confirmed. These are not by any means +isolated instances. In fact they are the rule in the Land Court."</p> + +<p>And he ends by this remarkable assertion:—</p> + +<p>"The whole machinery of the Court must be remodelled if it is to +possess the confidence of the public. As it is at present composed, it +is too much subject to political influence and to the clamour of one +set of litigants to be independent. There are few of your readers, I +<a class='pagenum' name='Page044' id='Page044' title='044'></a>believe, who will not admit that it is a very alarming thing to find +a Court so constituted having the control of millions. The only +officials ever connected with the Court in which there was any degree +of confidence were the Court valuers attached to the Appeal Court. +They were men of independence and impartiality, but they were +dispensed with in a vain attempt to satisfy Mr. Parnell. I see by Mr. +Balfour's statement in the House of Commons on the 25th ult. that the +Chief Commissioners are again engaged in framing new rules with regard +to appeals. One would think that at the end of eight years they would +have had their rules complete, and that an alteration every three +months during that period ought to have brought them to perfection. +How long is this farce to continue? These are serious complaints +against a public body intrusted with the administration of justice. +They do not deserve to be lightly passed over, and I am confident +that, even should it suit the convenience of the present Government to +follow the example of their predecessors and ignore them, the English +people, with their strong sense of justice, will eventually insist on +the unfair treatment and glaring injustice and abuses complained of +being set right, and that those who have from political motives and +influence been placed in honourable and responsible judicial positions +shall give place to impartial men, who will deal out even-handed +justice to the landlord as well as to the tenant.—I remain your +obedient servant,</p> + +<p>"JESSE LLOYD, Lieutenant-Colonel and J.P.,</p> + +<p>"Agent for Lord Rossmore.</p> + +<p>"Rossmore Agency Office, Monaghan."</p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page045' id='Page045' title='045'></a>Here, then, is the reverse of the medal. Hitherto the outcry has been +all for the tenant, and I do not say for a moment that this outcry was +not just. It was. The Irish peasant has had his wrongs, deep and +shameful; but now justice has been done to him so amply that the +overflow has gone to the other side. It is time to look at things as +they are, and to let well alone. Justice to the one has broadened out +into persecution of the other, and an Irish landlord is for the moment +the favourite cock-shy for aggressive legislation. But, as I have said +before, prejudice dies hard, and sentimental pity is often only +prejudice in a satin cloak. The Irish peasant is still assumed to be a +helpless victim, the Irish landlord a ruffianly tyrant; and a state of +things as obsolete as the Ogham language itself still rouses active +passion as against a living wrong. I go back to that statement in the +<i>Pall Matt Gazette,</i> to which I have before alluded, as an instance of +the way in which the very froth of prejudice and falsehood is whipped +up into active poison by the short and easy way of imagination and +assertion. It is a fair sample of all the rest; but these are the +things which find credit with those who do not know and do not +enquire.</p> + +<p>Advocating the making of blackberry wine as the short cut from poverty +to prosperity in Ireland, the scheme being parallel to Mr. Gladstone's +famous remedy of jam, this sapient "B.O.N." says:—</p> + +<p>"The blackberry harvest would be over in the sunny Rhine country +before it began in Ireland. Why should not some practical native, go +over from home and see how it is all done? I quite know that any plan +for <a class='pagenum' name='Page046' id='Page046' title='046'></a>bettering the physical condition of our people is open to the +objection that as soon as they seem a little 'comfortable' the +landlord would raise the rent in many a case; but perhaps in a still +larger number of cases he would now be afraid to do so. And I know, +too, that even a blackberry wine industry will not be quite safe till +we have Home Rule; but is not that coming fast?"</p> + +<p>This mischievous little word is in the very teeth of the fact that +rents cannot be raised on any plea whatsoever—certainly not because +the tenant makes himself better off by an industry other than his +farming—and that the whole machinery of Government had been put in +motion to protect the land tiller from the land-owner. Yet the <i>Pall +Mall Gazette</i> is not ashamed to lend itself to this lie on the chance +of catching a few fluttering minds and nailing them to the mast of +Home Rule on the false supposition that this means justice to the +oppressed tenant and wholesome restraint of the brutal proprietor. +Professor Mahaffy, in a long letter to the <i>New York Independent,</i> +speaks of the same kind of thing still going on in America—this +bolstering up a delusion by statements as far removed from the truth +as that of "B.O'N.'s," to which the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> gives sanction +and circulation. That part of the American press which is under the +influence or control of the Irish Home Rulers still goes on talking of +the oppression to which the Irish tenant is subjected, just as the +speeches of the Agitators (<i>vide</i> the astounding lies, as well as the +appalling nonsense talked, when Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld were +made citizens of Dublin, and it was asserted that the Government +<a class='pagenum' name='Page047' id='Page047' title='047'></a>turned tail and fled before these "delegates") teem with analogous +assertions wherein not so much as one grain of truth is to be found. +Let it be again repeated in answer to all these falsehoods:—No tenant +can be evicted except for non-payment of one year's rent; that rent +can be settled by the courts, and if he has signed an agreement for an +excessive payment, his agreement can be broken; and he must be +compensated for all the improvements he has made or will swear that he +has made. Also, he can borrow money from the Government at the lowest +possible interest, and become the owner of his farm for less yearly +payment than his former rent. He, the Irish tenant, is the most +protected, the most favoured of all leaseholders in Europe or America, +but the old cries are raised, the old watch-words are repeated, just +as if nothing had been done since the days when he was as badly off as +the Egyptian fellah, and was, in truth, between the devil and the deep +sea. Let me repeat the legal and actual condition of things as +summarized by Mr. Montagu Crackanthorpe, Q.C. These six propositions +ought to be learned by heart before anyone allows himself to talk of +Home Rule or the Irish question:—</p> + +<p>1. That every yearly tenant of agricultural land valued at less than +£50 a year can have his rent judicially fixed, and that the existence +of arrears of rent creates no statutory obstacle whatever, nor any +difficulty in procedure, if he is desirous of availing himself of the +Acts.</p> + +<p>2. That every such agricultural tenant, whether he has had a fair rent +fixed or not, may sell his tenancy to the highest bidder whenever he +desires to leave; <a class='pagenum' name='Page048' id='Page048' title='048'></a>and that, if he be evicted, he has the right either +to redeem within six months, or to sell his tenancy within the same +period to a purchaser, who can likewise redeem, and thus acquire all +the privileges of the tenant.</p> + +<p>3. That in view of the fall in agricultural produce, the Land +Commission is empowered and directed to vary the rents fixed by the +Land Court during the years 1881 to 1885, in accordance with the +difference in prices of produce between those years and the years 1887 +to 1889.</p> + +<p>4. That no tenant in Ireland can be evicted by his landlord unless his +rent is twelve months in arrear, and that the yearly tenant who is so +evicted must be paid full compensation for all improvements not +already compensated for by enjoyment, such, for instance, as +unexhausted manure, permanent buildings, and reclamation of waste +land. He may, it is true, be evicted on title after judgment obtained +against him for his rent, and in that case his goods and interest +(including his improvements) may be put up to auction by the Sheriff. +This is a matter which seems to require amendment; but it is to be +observed that the same consequences would follow if the judgment +creditor were a shopkeeper who had given the tenant credit or the +local money-lender or gombeen man. A compulsory sale under these +circumstances is not peculiar to landlordism, and it is a method to +which landlords seldom resort.</p> + +<p>5. That if a tenant falls into arrear for rent, and becomes liable to +eviction, whether on title or not, the Court can stay process, if +satisfied that his difficulty <a class='pagenum' name='Page049' id='Page049' title='049'></a>arises from no fault of his own, and +can give him time to pay by instalments.</p> + +<p>6. That if a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and comes to terms with +his landlord, he can borrow money from the Government at 4 per cent., +by the help of which he may change his rent into an annuity, the +amount of the annuity being less than the rent, and the burden of the +annuity altogether ceasing at the end of forty-nine years.</p> + +<p>The result by the way of this peasant proprietorship will be twofold. +On the one side it will create a greater uniformity of comfort and a +larger class of peaceable, self-respecting, law-abiding citizens. On +the other it will lower the general standard by doing away with that +better class of resident gentry and capitalized landowners, who in +their way are guides, teachers and helps to the peasantry. The absence +of this better class of resident gentry is one of the misfortunes of +French agricultural life and the justification of M. Zola; their +presence is one of the blessings of England. How will it be in Ireland +when the exodus is more complete than it is even now, and when the +villages and rural districts are left solely to peasant proprietors +and a celibate clergy? The Romish Church has never been famous for +teaching those things which make for intellectual enlightenment and +social improvement. The difference between the Protestant north and +the rest of Roman Catholic Ireland, as between the Protestant and +Romish cantons in Switzerland; is a truism almost proverbial. And +without the little leaven of such influence as the better educated and +more enlightened gentry may possess, the Irish peasant will be even +more super<a class='pagenum' name='Page050' id='Page050' title='050'></a>stitious, more blinded by prejudice and ignorance than he +is now. As it is, the old landlords are sincerely deplored, and the +good they did is as sincerely regretted. Those grand old hunting days, +now things of the past, still linger in the memory of the men who +participated in the fun and had their full share of the crumbs—and +the times when a grand seigneur paid a hundred pounds a week in wages +alone seem something like glimpses into a railed and fenced off El +Dorado, which the Plan of Campaign has closed for ever. So that the +sunshine has its shadow, for all the good to be had from the light.</p> + +<p>It ought to be that peasant proprietorship will make the holder more +industrious and a better farmer than he has been as tenant. Whether it +will or not remains to be seen. As things are—always excepting Ulster +and the North generally—farming could scarcely be more shameful in +its neglect than it is—domestic life could scarcely be more squalid, +more savage, more filthy. Even rich farmers live like pigs and with +their pigs, and the stone house is no better kept than the mud +cabin—the forty-acre field no better tilled than the miserable little +potato patch. Had the farming been better, there would never have been +the poverty, the discontent, the agitation by which Ireland had been +tortured and convulsed. Had the men been more industrious, the women +cleaner and more deft, the Plan of Campaign would have failed for want +of social nutriment, where now it has been so disastrously triumphant. +Physical well-being is a great incentive to quiet living—productive +industry checks political unrest. Those who have something to lose are +careful to keep it; and we may <a class='pagenum' name='Page051' id='Page051' title='051'></a>be sure that Captain Moonlight would +not risk his skin if he had a good coat to cover it.</p> + +<p>Also there is another aspect in which this land question may be +viewed, and ought to be viewed—in reference to the manner in which +the Irish farmer treats the property by which he lives:—that is the +aspect of his duty to the community in his quality of producer for the +community. We must all come down to the land as the common property of +the human race. Parcelled out as it may be—by the mile or the square +yard—it is the common mother of all men. We can do without everything +else, from lace to marble—from statues to carriages—but food we must +have; and the holders of land all the world over are really and +rightfully trustees for the race. The Irish peasant has no more right +to neglect the possibilities of produce than had William Rufus, or his +modern representative in Scotland, to evict villages for the making of +a deer forest. The principle of trusteeship in the land holds good +with small holders and great alike; but imagine what would be the +effect of a law which required so much produce from a given area on an +average for so long a period! The principle is of course conceded in +the rent, rates and taxes; but a direct application to produce would +set the kingdom in a blaze.</p> + +<p>But in Ireland fields of thistles and acres of ragwort, with tall +purple spikes of loose strife everywhere, seem to be held as valid +crops, fit for food and good at rent-paying. These are to be found at +every step from Dublin to Kerry, and the most unpractised eye can see +the waste and neglect and unnecessary squalor of both <a class='pagenum' name='Page052' id='Page052' title='052'></a>land and +people. As an English farmer said, with indignation: "The land is +brutally treated." So it is—idleness, unthrift, and bad farming +generally, degrading it far below its possibilities and natural +standard of production. Cross the Channel, and Wales looks like a trim +garden. Go over to France, and you find every yard of soil carefully +tilled and cultivated. Even in comparatively ramshackle Sicily, among +the old lava beds of Etna, the peasants raise a handful of grain on +the top of a rock no bigger than a lady's work-table. In Ireland the +cultivated portion of a holding is often no bigger relatively than +that work-table on an acre of waste. Will the tiller, now the owner +and no longer only the leaseholder, go back from his evil ways of +thriftlessness and neglect, and instead of being content to live just +above the line of starvation, will he educate himself up to those +artificial wants which only industry can supply? Will the women learn +to love cleanliness, to regard their men's rags and their children's +dirt as their own dishonour, and to understand that womanhood has its +share of duties in social and domestic life? Will the sense of beauty +grow with the sense of proprietorship, and the filth of the present +surroundings be replaced by a flower garden before the cottage—a +creeper against the wall—a few pots of more delicate blooms in the +window? Will the taste for variety in garden produce be enlarged, and +plots of peas, beans, carrots, artichokes, pot-herbs, and the like, be +added to the one monotonous potato-patch, with a few cabbages and +roots for the baste, and a strip of oats as the sole cereal attempted? +Who knows? At present there is not a flower to be seen in the whole of +the West, save those <a class='pagenum' name='Page053' id='Page053' title='053'></a>which a luxuriant Nature herself has sown and +planted; and the immediate surroundings of the substantial farm-house, +like those of the mud cabin, are filth unmentionable, savage squalor, +and bestial neglect.</p> + +<p>These things are signs of a mental and moral condition that goes +deeper than the manifestation. They do not show only want of the sense +of beauty—want of the sense even of cleanliness; they show the +absence of all the civilizing influences—all the humanizing +tendencies of modern society. By this want Ireland is made miserable +and kept low in the scale of nations. Had the race been +self-respecting, sturdy, upright, stubbornly industrious, all this +savage neglect would have mended itself. Being what it is—excitable, +imaginative, spasmodic, given over to ideas rather than to facts, and +trusting to Hercules in the clouds rather than to its own brawny +shoulders—this squalor continues and is not dependent on poverty. +Time alone will show whether changed agrarian conditions will alter +it. So far as his power goes, the priest does nothing to touch it. The +Church uses up its influence for everything but the practical purposes +of work-a-day-life. It teaches obediences to its ordinances, but not +civic virtues. It encourages boys and girls to marry at an age when +they neither understand the responsibilities of life nor can support a +family; but in its regard for the Sacrament it forgets the +pauperization of the nation. It enforces chastity, but it winks at +murder; it demands money for masses for the souls of the dead, but it +leaves on one side the homes and bodies of the living; it breeds a +race of paupers to drag the country lower and lower into the depths of +poverty, <a class='pagenum' name='Page054' id='Page054' title='054'></a>and thinks it has done a meritorious work, and one that +calls for praise because of the paucity of numbers in the percentage +of illegitimate births. Thus in Ireland, where everything is set +askew, even morality has its drawbacks, and less individual virtue +would be a distinct national gain.</p> + +<p>The Home Rule enthusiasts say all that is wanted to remedy these +ingrained defects is a Parliament; all that is wanted to make Irishmen +perfect and Ireland a paradise is a Parliament chosen by the people +and sitting in College Green. Human nature will then be changed, and +the lion and the lamb will lie down together. The Papist will love the +Protestant, and the moral of the story about those two Scotch +Presbyterian boys, whose presence at the Barrow House National School +so seriously disturbed both priest and people, is one that will read +quite the other way. All the bitter hatred poured out against England, +against Protestants, against the law and its administrators, will +cease so soon as Catholics come to the place of power and the +supremacy of England is at an end. The Church which burned Giordano +Bruno and is affronted because his memory has been honoured—which +placed the Quirinale under the ban of the lesser excommunication, and +withstood the national impulse towards freedom and unity as +represented by Garibaldi—the Church which has ever been on the side +of intolerance and tyranny will suddenly, in Ireland under Home Rule, +become beneficent, just, and liberal, and heretics will no longer herd +with the goats but will take their place among the sheep. If, as Mr. +Redmond says, it is the duty of Irishmen to make the Government of +England an impossibility, it <a class='pagenum' name='Page055' id='Page055' title='055'></a>will then be their pleasure to make her +alliance both close and easy. Ulster and Kerry will march shoulder to +shoulder, and Leaguers and Orangemen will form an unbroken phalanx of +orderly and law-abiding citizens. In a word the old Dragon will be +chained and the Millenium will come.</p> + +<p>The prospect seems too good to be true. Were we to follow after it and +put the loyal Protestant minority into the power of the anti-imperial +Catholic majority in the hope of seeking peace and ensuing it, we +might perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat from +between his teeth—losing the substance for shadow. We do better, all +things considered, with our present arrangements—trusting to the +imperfect operations of human law rather than shooting Niagara for the +chance of the clear stream at the bottom.</p> + +<p>The whirligig of Time has changed the relative positions of the two +great parties in Ireland. Formerly it was the Catholics who desired +the abolition of Home Rule, and the Protestants who held by the +National Parliament. That Parliament was exclusively Protestant, and +the powerful minority ground the helpless majority to the very ground. +Catholics were persecuted from shore to shore, and all sorts and +conditions of Protestant bullies and tyrants sent up petitions to +forbid the iniquity of Catholic trade rivalry. What was then would be +now—changing the venue and putting the Catholics where the +Protestants used to be. We do not believe that the "principle of +Nationality" is the working power of this desire for Home Rule, as Mr. +Stansfeld asserts—unless indeed the principle of Nationality can be +stretched so as to cover the self-<a class='pagenum' name='Page056' id='Page056' title='056'></a>aggrandizement of a party, the +bitterness of religious hatred, and the tyranny of a cruel and +coercive combination. The grand and noble name of Nationality can +scarcely be made so elastic as this. Respect for law lies at the very +heart of the principle, and the Irish Home Rulers are of all men the +most conspicuous for their contempt of law and their bold infraction +of the very elementary ordinances of civilized society.</p> + +<p>As for tyranny, no coercion established by Government—not even that +proclaimed by Mr. Gladstone—has been more stringent than the coercion +exercised by the Plan of Campaign. What happened in Tipperary only +the other day when certain rent-paying tenants, who had been +boycotted, did public penance in the following propositions? They +offered:—"Firstly, to come forward to the subsequent public meeting +and express public contrition for having violated their resolution to +hold out with the other tenants; secondly, not to pay the next +half-year's rent, due on the 10th of December, but to in future act +with the general body of the tenantry; and thirdly, to pay each a +pecuniary sum, to be halved between the Ponsonby tenants and the +Smith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on." +Surely no humiliation was ever greater than this!—no decree of secret +council or pitiless Vehmgericht were ever more ruthlessly imposed, +more servilely obeyed! Can we say that the Irish are fit to be called +freemen, or able to exercise the real functions of Nationality, when +they can suffer themselves to be hounded like sheep and rated like +dogs for the exercise of their own judgment and the performance of +their duties as honest men and good citizens?</p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page057' id='Page057' title='057'></a>If the mere presence in Ireland of Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld +dismayed Mr. Balfour and scattered his myrmidons as the forces of the +Evil One fly before the advent of the angels, could they not have used +their semi-divine power for these humiliated rent-payers? Instead of +complacently listening to bunkum—which, if they had had any sense of +humour would have made them laugh; any of modesty would have made them +blush—could they not have brought their inherited principles of +commercial honesty and manly fidelity to an engagement to bear on +these irate Campaigners, and have reminded them that the very core of +Liberalism is the right of each man to unrestricted action, provided +he does not hurt his neighbour? But Home Rulers are essentially +one-sided in their estimate of tyranny, and things change their names +according to the side on which they are ranged. To boycott a man, to +mutilate his cattle,<a name='FNanchor_F_6'></a><a href='#Footnote_F_6'><sup>[F]</sup></a> to commit outrages on his family, and finally +to murder him outright for paying his rent or taking an evicted farm, +are all justifiable proceedings of righteous severity. But for a +landlord to evict a tenant from the farm for which he will not pay the +covenanted rent—will not, but yet could, twice over—is a cowardly, a +brutal, a damnable act, for which those slugs from behind a stone-wall +are the well-deserved reward.</p> + +<p>Here is an instance of the vengeance sought to <a class='pagenum' name='Page058' id='Page058' title='058'></a>be taken by wealthy +tenants evicted for non-payment of rent.</p> + +<p>"Lord Clanricarde writes to the <i>Times</i> to corroborate the statement +that an infernal explosive machine had been found in a cottage at +Woodford, in Ireland. His lordship quotes as follows from the account +of an eye-witness:—</p> + +<p>'When possession was taken of the sub-tenant's house, No. 1, there was +the usual crowd crowding as close to our party as the police would +allow; but it was remarked that on our approach to houses Nos. 2 and +3, close together, and which concealed the infernal machine, the crowd +kept well away out of hearing, while the Woodford leaders were on a +car on the road, but out of danger like the others; but all well in +sight of any destruction that might befall the officers of the law. +This house, No. 3, when last examined in June, was found vacant, door +not locked, but open, and used as a shelter for cattle. Finding it +locked now, X. detached the lock, pushed the door open, and he and I +and others went inside. The house was empty, but a pile of stones was +heaped up in the doorway, some of them had been displaced by the door +when opened, and the top of a box 6 in. square was seen embedded in a +barrel containing 25 lbs. of 'excellent gunpowder,' a bottle full of +sulphuric acid, and other explosives, as well as a number of +detonators, and the blade of a knife (apparently) with a spring +attached by a coil of string to the door, the machine being so +arranged as to be liable to explode in two ways. The expert who +examined the machine said that had the sulphuric acid been liberated, +as meant, all our party, twenty in all, <a class='pagenum' name='Page059' id='Page059' title='059'></a>must have been destroyed, as +there were enough explosives to destroy any living thing within 100 +yards. Neither on that day, nor on the 22nd (date of sale) did either +the tenant or the Woodford leaders—R. and K.—utter one word of +surprise, much less of abhorrence!'</p> + +<p>The tenant proceeded against (says Lord Clanricarde, owed four and +a-half years' rent, at £47 8s. per annum) much below the taxation +valuation of £67 19s., for a mill, with the sole use of the +water-power, a valuable privilege, and 440 statute acres, a +considerable part of them arable land. He had ten sub-tenants, was +reported to make £500 per annum from mill and farm, and though he had +removed part of his stock, there were still cattle on the land on the +day of eviction enough to cover two years' arrears. If he had paid +even those two years on account he would have received an abatement, +and saved his farm. The judge in Dublin who gave the decree against +him, gave also costs against him to mark his sense of the tenant's bad +conduct."</p> + +<p>And to think that good, honest, noble-hearted, and sincere Englishmen, +who in their own persons are law-abiding, just, honourable, and +faithful, should uphold a state of things which strikes at the root of +all law, all commercial honesty—blinded as they are by the glamour of +a generous, unreal, and unworkable sentiment! If only they would go +over to Ireland to judge for themselves on the basis of facts, not +fancies—and to be informed by truths not lies!</p> + +<p>I know that we cannot all see alike, and that every shield has its two +sides. In this matter, on the one <a class='pagenum' name='Page060' id='Page060' title='060'></a>side stand Earl Spencer, now +converted to Home Rule, since his Viceroyalty; on the other is the +example of Mr. Forster, who went to Ireland an ardent Home Ruler and +came back as strong a Unionist. The Quaker became a fighting man, and +the idealist a practical man, believing in facts as he had seen them +and no longer in sentiments he could not realise—in measures grounded +on the necessities of good government, and not like so many epiphytes +with their roots in the air. Let Lord Spencer bring to this test his +late utterances. He goes in now for Home Rule, and the right of +Ireland to appoint her own police and judges. He is out of the wood +and can hallo; but where would he have been if the Irish had appointed +their police when he was at the Castle?—with Lord Frederick and Mr. +Burke! And if the judges were appointed by the Irish, we should have, +in all probability, Mr. Tim Harrington, barrister-at-law, on the +bench; and a few years ago Mr. Tim Harrington crumpled up the Queen's +writ and flung it out of the Court House window. And what power over +the fortunes of others can be given to men who boycott a railway for +political spite?<a name='FNanchor_G_7'></a><a href='#Footnote_G_7'><sup>[G]</sup></a></p> + +<p><a class='pagenum' name='Page061' id='Page061' title='061'></a>So many things have conspired to make this Irish question a +Gordian-knot which no man can untie, and but few would dare to cut. +The past extravagance of the landlords, absenteeism, rack-renting, +injustice of all kinds; the past jealousy of England and her +over-shadowing all native industries and productions; difference of +religion, racial temperament, and the irreconcilable enmity of the +conquered towards the conquerors; ignorance and idleness; the morality +which marries too early, when the land, which was just enough to +support one family, is expected to keep three or four; want of +self-respect in the dirt and <a class='pagenum' name='Page062' id='Page062' title='062'></a>disorder of domestic life; want of all +communal life or amusement, save in heated politics and drink; bogs +here, unthrift there, small holdings everywhere—all these things help +to complicate a question which passion has already made too difficult +for even the most radical kind of statesmanship to adjust. All the +panaceas hitherto tried have been found ineffectual. The repeal of +Catholic disabilities, the establishment of national schools, the +disestablishment of the Protestant Church, the Maynooth grant, the +various Land Acts—all have done but little towards the settlement of +the question, which, like certain fabulous creatures, has increased in +strength and the extensions of its demands by every concession made. +The best chance yet offered seems to be in the quiet working of Lord +Ashbourne's Act, by which the tenant becomes the owner and the +landlord is not despoiled. And certainly the crying need of the moment +is legislative finality and political rest. Existing machinery is +sufficient for all the agrarian ameliorations demanded. To do much +more would be to act like children who pluck up their seeds to see how +they are growing, leaving nothing sufficient time for development or +reproduction.</p> + +<p>No one would deny such a measure of Home Rule to Ireland as should +give her the management of her own internal affairs, in the same +manner and degree as our County Councils are to manage ours. But this +is not the Home Rule demanded by the leaders of the party. That for +which they have taken off their coats means the loss of the country as +an integral part of the Empire; the oppression and practical +annihilation of <a class='pagenum' name='Page063' id='Page063' title='063'></a>the Protestant section; the opening of the Irish +ports to all the enemies of England; or the breaking out of civil war +in Ireland and its reconquest by England. The alternative scheme of +federation is for the moment unworkable. But to hand over the whole +conduct of Irish affairs to the Roman Catholic majority would be one +of those ineffaceable political crimes the greatness of which would be +equalled only by the magnitude of its mistake. The language of the +indigenous Home Rulers and their Transatlantic sympathisers—as well +as the things they have done and are still doing—ought to be warnings +sufficiently strong to prevent such an act of folly and wickedness on +our part. Even our men—men of light and leading like Mr. John +Morley—seem to lose their heads when they approach the Irish question +and to become as rabid in their accusations as the paid political +agitators themselves. I will give these two short extracts, the one +from Mr. Morley's speech at Glasgow, and the other from Lord +Powerscourt's temperate and rational commentary:—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Morley says," quotes Lord Powerscourt, "that the Irish people are +more backward than the Scotch or English, which I venture to doubt, at +least as regards intelligence, and gives as the reason:—</p> + +<p>"'It is because the landlords, who have been their masters, have +rack-rented them, have sunk them in poverty, have plundered their own +improvements, have confiscated the fruits of their own industry, have +done all that they could to degrade their manhood. That is why they +are backward. (Cheers.) Will anybody deny that the Irish landlords are +open to this great accusation and indictment? If anybody here is +inclined <a class='pagenum' name='Page064' id='Page064' title='064'></a>to deny it, let him look at the reductions in rent that have +been made since 1881 in the Land Court.'</p> + +<p>"Well, have not rents in England and Scotland been reduced quite as +much, nay, more, than Irish rents since 1881? And have not the +economic causes which have lowered the prices of all farm produce all +over Europe caused the same depreciation in the value of land in +Germany or France, for instance, in the same ratio as in Ireland? And +has not the importation of dead meat from America, Australia, or New +Zealand had something to do with it?</p> + +<p>"These facts are well known. But to return to the Irish landlords. +Does not every one who is resident in Ireland, and therefore +conversant with the state of affairs there for the last twenty or +thirty years, know that the discontent and uprising against the land +system is due to the action of a very few unjust persons, now mostly +dead, but whose names are well known to any one who really knows +Ireland, as I venture to maintain Mr. Morley does not? The principal +actors in the drama could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And +Mr. Morley, <i>ex uno disce omnes</i>, accuses the whole of the Irish +proprietors of these cruel and unjust practices which we should scorn +to be guilty of. And he is an ex-Cabinet Minister, and late Chief +Secretary for Ireland for a few months, and a very popular one he was!</p> + +<p>"He says, again: 'Public opinion would have checked the Irish +landlords in their infatuated policy towards their tenants,' &c. He +challenges denial of these charges. Well, I deny them most +emphatically, and am quite willing to abide by the verdict of the +respectable tenants. I throw back in his face the <a class='pagenum' name='Page065' id='Page065' title='065'></a>accusation that the +Irish landlords as a body have rack-rented or plundered their tenants +or confiscated their improvements.</p> + +<p>"Far be it from me to taunt the Irish population. No, they have been +tempted very sorely by prospects being held out to them of getting the +land for nothing, and, all things considered, it is wonderful how they +have behaved. But Mr. Morley is like many another politician who comes +to Ireland for a few months or a few weeks, and goes about the few +disturbed districts and listens to all the tales told him by +cardrivers and those very clever people who delight in gulling the +Saxon, and goes back to England, full of all sorts of horrors and +crimes alleged to have been perpetrated by landlords, and takes it all +as gospel, making no allowance for the great intelligence and +inventive genius of his informers, and says, 'Oh! I went to the place, +and saw it all.' And this he takes to represent the normal state of +the whole of Ireland, and makes it a justification of the Plan of +Campaign!"</p> + +<p>Take too the Irish Home Rule press, and read the floods of abuse—some +spreading out into absolute obscenity—published by the principal +papers day after day against all their political opponents, and we can +judge of the temper with which the Irish Home Rulers would administer +affairs. Of their statesmanlike provision—of their patriotism and +care for the well-being of the country at large—the local war now +ruining Tipperary is the negative proof—the damnatory evidence that +they are utterly unfit for practical power. Governed by hysterical +passion, by mad hatred and the desire for revenge, not one of the +modern leaders, save Mr. <a class='pagenum' name='Page066' id='Page066' title='066'></a>Parnell, shows the faintest trace of politic +self-control or the just estimate of proportions. To spite their +opponents they will ruin themselves and their friends, as they have +done scores of times, and are doing now in Tipperary. History holds up +its hands in horror at the French Terror—was that worse than the +system of murder and boycotting and outrage and terrorism in the +disturbed districts in Ireland? And would it be a right thing for +England to give the supreme power to these masked Couthons and +Robespierres and Marats, that they might extend their operations into +the now peaceable north, and reproduce in Ulster the tragedies of the +south and west? Mr. Parnell puts aside the tyrannous part of the +business, and cleverly throws the whole weight of his argument at +Nottingham into the passionless economic scales. All that the +Nationalist party desires, he says, "is to be allowed to develope the +resources of their own country at their own expense," "without any +harm to you (English), without any diminution of your resources, +without any risk to your credit, or call upon you," all to be done "at +our own expense and out of our own resources." Yet Mr. Parnell in +another breath describes Ireland as "a Lazarus by the wayside"—a +country "where unfortunately there is no manufacturing industry." "Ex +nihilo nihil fit," was a lesson we all learned in our school days. Mr. +Parnell has evidently forgotten his.</p> + +<p>I will give a commentary on these brave words which is better put than +I could put it.</p> +<br /> + +<p>TO THE EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD."</p> + +<p>"Sir,—People in England, whatever political party they belong to, +should glance at what is now going on <a class='pagenum' name='Page067' id='Page067' title='067'></a>in the town of Tipperary before +finally making up their minds to hand over Ireland body and soul to +the National League. No country town in Ireland—I think I may add or +in England either—was more prosperous three months ago than +Tipperary. The centre of a rich and prosperous part of the country, +surrounded by splendid land, it had an enormous trade in butter and +all agricultural produce, and a large monthly pig and cattle fair was +held there. It possessed (I use the past tense advisedly) a number of +excellent shops, doing a splendid business, and to the eyes of those +who could look back a few years it was making rapid progress in +prosperity every year.</p> + +<p>"All is changed now. Many of the shops are closed and deserted, others +will follow their example shortly; the butter market has been removed +from the town, the cattle fairs have fallen to half their former size. +One sees shopkeepers, but a short time back doing capital business, +walking about idle in the streets, with their shops closed; armed +policemen at every corner are necessary to prevent a savage rabble +from committing outrages, and many people avoid going near the town at +all. All this is the result of William O'Brien's speech in Tipperary +and the subsequent action of the National League. The town and whole +neighbourhood were perfectly quiet till one day Mr. O'Brien descends +on it like an evil spirit, and tells the shopkeepers and surrounding +farmers that they are to dictate to their landlords how to act in a +case not affecting them at all. For fear, however, of not sufficiently +arousing them for the cause of others, he suggests that, in addition +to dictating to the landlord what his conduct shall be <a class='pagenum' name='Page068' id='Page068' title='068'></a>elsewhere, all +his tenants, farmers and shopkeepers alike, shall demand a reduction +of 25 per cent, on their own rents. As to the farmers' reduction I +will say nothing; if they wished it, they could go into the Land +Court, and if rented too high could get a reduction, retrospectively +from the day their application was lodged. The reduction, however, +that the shopkeepers were advised—nay, ordered—to ask for must have +surprised them more than their landlord. Many of them, at their +existing rents, had piled up considerable fortunes in a few years; +others had enlarged their premises, doubled their business, and +thriven in every way; nevertheless, they had to obey. The landlord +naturally refused to be dictated to by his tenants in matters not +affecting them; he also refused to reduce the rents of men who in a +few years had made fortunes, and some of whom were commonly reputed to +be worth thousands. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and the +tenants' interests were put up to auction. Some of the most thriving +shopkeepers declined to let their tenancies, out of which they had +done so well, be sold; others, in fear of personal violence and +outrage, not unusual results of disobeying the League, did allow them +to be knocked down for nominal sums to the landlord's representative. +Let lovers of liberty and fair-play watch what followed. All the +shopkeepers who bought in their interests were rigorously boycotted; +men who had had a large weekly turnover now saw their shops absolutely +deserted. Plate-glass windows that would not have shamed Regent +Street, were smashed to atoms by hired ruffians of the League, and +<a class='pagenum' name='Page069' id='Page069' title='069'></a>the shopkeepers themselves and their families had to be protected +from the mob by armed police, placed round their houses night and day. +All this because they desired to keep their flourishing businesses, +instead of sacrificing them in a quarrel not their own.</p> + +<p>"Let us follow still further what happened. The shopkeepers, finding +their trade quite gone, for it was almost worth a person's life to go +into their shops, watched as they were by paid spies, had to +capitulate to the League. An abject apology and a promise to let +themselves be evicted next time were the price they had to pay to be +allowed in a free country to carry on their trade. Ruin faced them +both ways. After having the ban of boycotting taken off them, with +eviction not far distant, most of them held clearance sales, at +tremendous sacrifices, so as to be prepared for moving. One man is +reputed to have got rid of seven thousand pounds' worth of goods under +these circumstances. Of the other division, who allowed their places +to be sold, most of them are now evicted. Dozens of shop assistants, +needlewomen, and others connected with the trade of a thriving town, +are thrown out of employment, and a peaceful neighbourhood has been +changed into a scene of bloodshed and violence.</p> + +<p>"I appeal to the English people not to encourage or support a vile +system of intimidation and violence, a system which not only pursues +and ruins its enemies, but refuses to allow peaceably-inclined people +to remain neutral. A case like this should not be one of Party +politics, but should be looked upon as the <a class='pagenum' name='Page070' id='Page070' title='070'></a>cause of all who wish to +pursue their lawful vocations peaceably against those who wish to +tyrannise by terror over the community at large.</p> + +<p>"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,</p> + +<p>"FOEDI FOEDERIS ADVERSARIUS."</p> + +<p>"December 12."</p> +<br /> + +<p>My private letters strengthen and confirm every word of this account; +and the following letter is again a proof of personal tyranny and +political malevolence not reassuring as qualities in the governing +power:—</p> +<br /> + +<p>"TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.'</p> + +<p>"Sir,—I have received a letter from my friend Mr. Edward Phillips, of +Thurlesbeg House, Cashel, and the round, unvarnished tale that he +delivers throws more light upon Ireland than any amount of the windy +rhetoric which is so plentifully displayed on Parnellite and +Gladstonian platforms. Mr. Phillips writes as follows:—</p> + +<p>"'I hold 270 acres from Mr. Smith-Barry at a rent of £340 under lease +and tenant-right, which, with my improvements, I valued at £1,000. The +Land League have decided, thinking to hurt Mr. Smith-Barry, that all +tenants must prepare to give up their farms by allowing themselves to +be evicted. They are clearing off everything, and because I refuse to +do this, and forfeit my £1,000, I am boycotted in the most determined +manner. I am refused the commonest necessaries of life, even medicine, +and have to get all from a distance. <a class='pagenum' name='Page071' id='Page071' title='071'></a>Blacksmiths, &c., refuse to +work, and labourers have notice to leave, but have not yet done so.</p> + +<p>"'Heretofore people were boycotted for taking farms; I am boycotted +for not giving up mine, which I have held for 25 years. A neighbour of +mine, an Englishman, is undergoing the same treatment, and we alone. +We are the only Protestant tenants on the Cashel estate. The remainder +of the tenants, about 30, are clearing everything off their land, and +say they will allow themselves to be evicted.'</p> + +<p>"I think this requires no comment. Public opinion is the best +protection against tyranny, and your readers can judge how far the +above narrative is consistent with the opinions expressed by Mr. +Parnell and others as to the liberty and toleration which will be +accorded to the loyal minority when the Land-National League becomes +the undisputed Government of Ireland.</p> + +<p>"Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p>"R. BAGWELL."</p> +<br /> + +<p>"Clonmell, December 27th."</p> + +<p>Again an important extract:—</p> + +<p>"This is Mr. Parnell's language at Nottingham, but would he venture to +use the same arguments in this country? Would he enumerate clearly to +an Irish audience the countless advantages they derive from Imperial +funds and Imperial credit, and tell them that the first step to Home +Rule is the sacrifice of all these <a class='pagenum' name='Page072' id='Page072' title='072'></a>advantages? Our great system of +national education is provided out of Imperial funds to the extent of +about a million a year; so are the various institutions for the +encouragement of science and art which adorn Dublin and our other +large towns. The Baltimore School of Fishery and other technical +training places, the piers and harbours on the Irish Coast, the system +of light railways, and the draining of rivers and reclamation of waste +lands, are all supported out of the Imperial Exchequer. The Board of +Works alone has been the medium of lending almost five millions of +money on easy terms under the Land Improvement Acts in the country. +Nor have the agricultural interests been neglected. For erecting +farmhouses alone over £700,000 has been given, while immense sums have +been spent in working the Land Acts. For drainage over two millions +have been lent, and a sum of over one million has been remitted from +the debt. A debt of eight and a-half millions appears in the last +return as outstanding from the Board of Irish Public Works, besides +three millions and a-half from the corresponding board in England. In +fact, there is not a project enumerated by Mr. Parnell as necessary, +under a new <i>régime</i>, to promote the 'Nationality of Ireland,' which +is not at present being helped on by the funds or the credit of the +'alien Government.' All these national advantages the supporter of a +shadowy Home Rule bids us give up."</p> + +<p>If ever there was a case of the spider and the fly in human affairs +this mild and perfectly equitable reasoning of Mr. Parnell is the +illustration. How about the djinn crying inside the sealed jar, and +the fate of the <a class='pagenum' name='Page073' id='Page073' title='073'></a>credulous fisherman who obeys that voice and breaks +the seal which Solomon the Wise set against him?</p> + +<p>In writing this pamphlet I have not cared for graces of literary style +or dramatic strength of composition; and I have largely supported +myself by quotations as a proof that I am not a mere impressionist, +but have a solid back-ground and a firm foothold for all that I have +said. Judged by these extracts it would seem that, outside the right +of full communal self-government, the cry for Home Rule is either +interested and fictitious—or when sincere—save in certain splendid +exceptions, of whom Mr. Laing is the honoured chief, and the only Home +Ruler who makes me doubt the rightness of my own conversion—it is a +mere sentimental impulse shorn of practical power and working +capacity. In any case it is a one-sided thing, leaving out of court +Ulster, the integrity of the Empire, and the obligations of historic +continuity. It is a cry that has been echoed by violence and murder, +by outrage and ruin, and that has in it one overwhelming element of +weakness—exaggeration. It is the cry at its best of enthusiasts whose +ideas of human life and governmental potentialities are too generous +for every-day practice—at its worst but another word for self. For +the men who raise it and hound on these poor dupes to their own +destruction are men who would be rulers of the country in their own +persons, or members of a Gladstonian ministry, were the Home Rule +party to come to the front. With neither section does the strength, +the glory, the integrity, and the continuance of the Empire count; +<a class='pagenum' name='Page074' id='Page074' title='074'></a>and the honour of England, like the true well-being of Ireland, is +the last thing thought of by either party. The motto of the one is: +"<i>Fiat justitia ruat caelum</i>"—of the other: "<i>Après moi le déluge.</i>" +The one abjures the necessities of statesmanship, the other the +self-restraints of patriotism. Surely the good, wholesome, working +principles of sound government lie with neither, but rather with the +steady continuance of things as they are—modified as occasion arises +and the needs of the case demand.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='FOOTNOTES'></a><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<a name='Footnote_A_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_A_1'>[A]</a><div class='note'><p> Lord Hartington's statistics—and Lord Hartington is a +man whose word not his bitterest enemies have dared to question or to +doubt—are these: +</p> +<p><br /> +1880 (No coercion) 2,585 agrarian crimes.<br /> +1881 (Partial and weak coercion) 4,439 " "<br /> +1883 (Vigorous coercion) 834 " "<br /> +1888 (Vigorous coercion) 660 " "<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<a name='Footnote_B_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_B_2'>[B]</a><div class='note'><p> Mr. Hurlbert, a Roman Catholic, an American, and a +personal friend of Mr. Davitt—all which circumstances give a special +weight to his testimony, now borne after frequent and lengthened and +recent visits to Ireland, and after close converse with men of all +classes and of all political and religious views, says in his <i>Ireland +under Coercion:</i> "An Irish gentleman from St. Louis brought over a +considerable sum of money for the relief of distress in the north-west +of Ireland, but was induced to entrust it to the League, on the +express ground that, the more people were made to feel the pinch of +the existing order of things, the better it would be for the +revolutionary movement." —<i>The Irish Question</i>, I., 193. By Dr. +Bryce.</p></div> + +<a name='Footnote_C_3'></a><a href='#FNanchor_C_3'>[C]</a><div class='note'><p> Some time after the Great Famine, the Government brought +in an Act called the Encumbered Estates Act. A judge was appointed to +act as auctioneer. The income of the estate was set out in schedule +form, and a man purchased that income by competition in open court. He +got with his purchase what was supposed to be the best title then +known, commonly called "A Parliamentary title." If he wanted to sell +again, that was enough. Many years after the bargain was made by the +court, Mr. Gladstone dropped in and upset it. A friend of mind +purchased a guaranteed rental of £600 a year, subject to £300 annuity, +as well as other charges, head rent, &c., &c. Now the Government may +have been said to have pledged its honour to him, speaking by the +mouth of a judge in open court, that it was selling him £600 a year. +Surely it was a distinct breach of faith to swoop down on the +purchaser, years after, and reduce the £600 to £500 without reducing +the charges also in due proportion, or giving back one-sixth of the +purchase money. Mr. Gladstone and his party say the land was rented +too high. Does that (if true) get over the dishonesty of selling for +£600 a year what was really worth only 500? Such a transaction as that +between man and man would be actionable as a fraud. But this excuse is +not true, for when any tenant wants to sell his tenant-right he gets a +large price for it, far larger than the normal proportion to his rent. +When a nation sanctions such absolute dishonesty as this on the part +of its Prime Minister, it is not surprising that the shrewd Irish +peasant profits by the lesson and improves the example.</p></div> + +<a name='Footnote_D_4'></a><a href='#FNanchor_D_4'>[D]</a><div class='note'><p> The following in reference to the Olphert estate +evictions under the Plan of Campaign is from the <i>Freeman's Journal</i>. +Will Mr. Spencer when exhibiting his photos, state the facts about +this case—which reason and common-sense show to be altogether in the +landlord's favour? +</p><p> +"Mr. Spencer, Trowbridge, England, arrived in Falcarragh to-day, +visited the scenes of the late evictions, and took photographs of +several of the demolished houses in the townland of Drumnatinny. Mr. +Spencer intends, on his return to England, to bring home to the minds +of the English people by a series of illustrative lectures, the misery +and hardships to which the Irish peasantry are subjected."</p></div> + +<a name='Footnote_E_5'></a><a href='#FNanchor_E_5'>[E]</a><div class='note'><p> On this question of further legislation I will quote part +of a letter from a correspondent which shows the views of a singularly +able, impartial, and fair-minded Irishman. "The breaking of leases was +another risky thing to do, for it shook all faith in the sovereignty +of the law and the finality of its <i>dicta</i>. Till Mr. Gladstone made +himself the champion of the tenants and the oppressor of the +landlords, Parliament never dreamed of revising rents paid under +leases. Mr. Gladstone began by breaking these leases when held for a +certain term defined by him. But we cannot stop there now. If another +Land Bill is to be brought in by the present Government it must, to +really and finally settle matters, <i>break all leases</i>. If it stops +short of this the trouble will crop up again. If a man now with a +thirty-nine years' lease can go into the Land Court, the man with a +lease of a hundred years, or a hundred and fifty, or two hundred, +should not be shut out. This point cannot be put too strongly to this +Government. If the thing is to be done let it be done thoroughly, and +let every man who holds a lease—no matter for what term—go into the +Land Court, and also purchase under Lord Ashbourne's Act. Lord +Ashbourne's Act is the real cure if made to apply all round."</p></div> + +<a name='Footnote_F_6'></a><a href='#FNanchor_F_6'>[F]</a><div class='note'><p> The Irish have always been cruel to animals. It is a +curious fact that most Roman Catholic peasants are. In the time of +Charles I. an Act was passed to prevent the Irish farmers from +ploughing by their oxens' tails. Even now they pluck their geese +alive.</p></div> + +<a name='Footnote_G_7'></a><a href='#FNanchor_G_7'>[G]</a><div class='note'><p> The boycott against the Great Northern Railway line +between Carrickmacross and Dundalk is now in full swing. It was begun +at Friday's fair in the former town, intimation having been given to +all dealers in cattle and pigs that not an animal was to leave by the +Great Northern line. Not a hackney car was permitted to attend the +railway station, and commercial travellers had to leave their samples +at the station. Many of the cattle and pigs purchased at the fair were +driven by road to Kingscourt, where there is a station of the Midland +Great Western Company, a local National League branch having published +a resolution recommending all goods to be sent and received <i>viâ</i> +Kingscourt. It has also been resolved to do no business with +commercial travellers from Belfast, or other parts of the North of +Ireland, whose goods had been carried over the Great Northern system. +Travellers from Scotland, England, and Dublin are only to be dealt +with under guarantees that they do not use the Great Northern line. +</p> +<p> +BOYCOTTING IN COUNTY WATERFORD. +</p><p> +THE LEAGUE'S BLACK LIST. +</p><p> +There has been issued by the National League in the county Waterford a +"list of objectionable persons, with whom it is expected that no true +man will have any dealings whatever"—cattle dealers, butter +merchants, grain and hay merchants, brokers, and farmers being +specially enjoined to refrain from any dealings with them, the farmers +being told that they "must carefully avoid" the sale of milk or stock +to agents of objectionable persons, and evicted tenants that they +"must deem it their strict and imperative duty to follow to the +markets all stock and produce reared upon their farms." +</p><p> +Look, too, at the abuse poured out on all the Government leaders and +officials. In the <i>Freeman's Journal</i>, of December 5th, is one of the +most disgraceful attacks on Mr. Balfour ever made by journalism. It +reads like a filthy outpour of a Yahoo rather than the utterance of a +sane and responsible man. Are these the minds to govern a great and +honest country?</p></div> + + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of About Ireland, by E. 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Lynn Linton + +Release Date: August 3, 2004 [EBook #13109] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABOUT IRELAND *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Michael Ciesielski and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +ABOUT IRELAND + +BY + +_E. LYNN LINTON._ + +LONDON: +METHUEN & CO., +18, BURY STREET, W.C. + +1890. + + + + +EXPLANATORY. + + +I am conscious that I ought to make some kind of apology for rushing +into print on a subject which I do not half know. But I do know just a +little more than I did when I was an ardent Home Ruler, influenced by +the seductive charm of sentiment and abstract principle only; and I +think that perhaps the process by which my own blindness has been +couched may help to clear the vision of others who see as I did. All +of us lay-folk are obliged to follow the leaders of those schools in +politics, science, or religion, to which our temperament and mental +idiosyncracies affiliate us. Life is not long enough for us to examine +from the beginning upwards all the questions in which we are +interested; and it is only by chance that we find ourselves set face +to face with the first principles and elemental facts of a cause to +which, perhaps, as blind and believing followers of our leaders, we +have committed ourselves with the ardour of conviction and the +intemperance of ignorance. In this matter of Ireland I believed in the +accusations of brutality, injustice, and general insolence of tyranny +from modern landlords to existing tenants, so constantly made by the +Home Rulers and their organs; and, shocking though the undeniable +crimes committed by the Campaigners were, they seemed to me the tragic +results of that kind of despair which seizes on men who, goaded to +madness by oppression, are reduced to masked murder as their sole +means of defence--and as, after all, but a sadly natural retaliation. +I knew nothing really of Lord Ashbourne's Act; and what I thought I +knew was, that it was more a blind than honest legislation, and did no +vital good. I thought that Home Rule would set all things straight, +and that the National Sentiment was one which ought to find practical +expression. I rejoiced over every election that took away one seat +from the Unionists and added another vote to the Home Rulers; and I +shut my eyes to the dismemberment of our glorious Empire and the +certainty of civil war in Ireland, should the Home Rule demanded by +the Parnellites and advocated by the Gladstonians become an +accomplished fact. In a word I committed the mistakes inevitable to +all who take feeling and conviction rather than fact and knowledge for +their guides. + +Then I went to Ireland; and the scales fell from my eyes. I saw for +myself; heard facts I had never known before; and was consequently +enlightened as to the true meaning of the agitation and the real +condition of the people in their relation to politics, their +landlords, and the Plan of Campaign. + +The outcome of this visit was two papers which were written for the +_New Review_--with the editor of whom, however, I stood somewhat in +the position of Balaam with Balak, when, called on to curse the +Israelites, he was forced by a superior power to bless them. So I with +the Unionists. The first paper was sent and passed, but it was delayed +by editorial difficulties through the critical months of the +bye-elections. When published in the December number, owing to the +exigencies of space, the backbone--namely the extracts from the Land +Acts, now included in this re-publication--was taken out of it, and my +own unsupported statements alone were left. I was sorry for this, as +it cut the ground from under my feet and left me in the position of +one of those mere impressionists who have already sufficiently +darkened counsel and obscured the truth of things. As the same +editorial difficulties and exigencies of space would doubtless delay +the second paper, like the first, I resolved, by the courteous +permission of the editor, to enlarge and publish both in a pamphlet +for which I alone should be responsible, and which would bind no +editor to even the semblance of endorsement. + +I, only half-enlightened, write, as has been said, for the wholly +blind and ignorantly ardent who, as I did, accept sentiment for fact +and feeling for demonstration; who do not look at the solid legal +basis on which the present Government is dealing with the Irish +question; who believe all that the Home Rulers say, and nothing that +the Unionists demonstrate. I want them to study the plain and +indisputable facts of legislation as I have done, when I think they +must come to the same conclusions as those which have forced +themselves on my own mind--namely, that the Home Rule desired by the +Parnellites is not only a delusive impossibility, but is also high +treason against the integrity of the Empire, and would be a base +surrender of our obligations to the Irish Loyalists; that, whatever +the landlords were, they are now more sinned against than sinning; +and that in the orderly operation of the Land Acts now in force, with +the stern repression of outrages[A] and punishment of crimes, for +which peaceable folk are so largely indebted to Mr. Balfour, lies the +true pacification of this distressed and troubled country. + + +E. LYNN LINTON. + + + + + +ABOUT IRELAND. + + + + +I. + + +Nothing dies so hard as prejudice, unless it be sentiment. Indeed, +prejudice and sentiment are but different manifestations of the same +principle by which men pronounce on things according to individual +feeling, independent of facts and free from the restraint of positive +knowledge. And on nothing in modern times has so much sentiment been +lavished as on the Irish question; nowhere has so much passionately +generous, but at the same time so much absolutely ignorant, +partisanship been displayed as by English sympathisers with the Irish +peasant. This is scarcely to be wondered at. The picture of a gallant +nation ground under the heel of an iron despotism--of an industrious +and virtuous peasantry rackrented, despoiled, brutalised, and scarce +able to live by their labour that they may supply the vicious wants of +oppressive landlords--of unarmed men, together with women and little +children, ruthlessly bludgeoned by a brutal police, or shot by a +bloodthirsty soldiery for no greater offence than verbal protests +against illegal evictions--of a handful of ardent patriots ready to +undergo imprisonment and contumely in their struggle against one of +the strongest nations in the world for only so much political freedom +as is granted to-day by despots themselves--such a picture as this is +calculated to excite the sympathies of all generous souls. And it has +done so in England, where "Home Rule" and "Justice to Ireland" have +become the rallying cries of one section of the Liberal party, to the +disruption and political suicide of the whole body; and where the less +knowledge imported into the question the more fervid the advocacy and +the louder the demand. + +It is worth while to state quite quietly and quite plainly how things +stand at this present moment. There is no need for hysterics on the +one side or the other; and to amend one's views by the testimony of +facts is not a dishonest turning of one's coat--if confession of that +amendment is a little like the white sheet and lighted taper of a +penitent. Things are, or they are not. If they are, as will be set +down, the inference is plain to anyone not hopelessly blinded by +preconceived prejudice. If they are not, let them be authoritatively +contradicted on the basis of fact, not sentiment--demonstration, not +assertion. In any case it is a gain to obtain material for a truer +judgment than heretofore, and thus to be rid of certain mental films +by which colours are blurred and perspective is distorted. + +No one wishes to palliate the crimes of which England has been guilty +in Ireland. Her hand has been heavy, her whip one of braided +scorpions, her rule emphatically of blood and iron. But all this is of +the past, and the pendulum, not only of public feeling but of legal +enactment, threatens to swing too far on the other side. What has been +done cannot be undone, but it will not be repeated. We shall never +send over another Cromwell nor yet another Castlereagh; and there is +as little good to be got from chafing over past wrongs as there is in +lamenting past glories. Malachi and his collar of gold--the ancient +kings who led forth the Red Branch Knights--State persecution of the +Catholics--rack-rents and unjust evictions, are all alike swept away +into the limbo of things dead and done with. What Ireland has to deal +with now are the enactments and facts of the day, and to shake off the +incubus of retrospection, as a strong man awaking would get rid of a +nightmare. + +Nowhere in Europe, nor yet in the United States, are tenant-farmers so +well protected by law as in Ireland; nor is it the fault of England if +the Acts passed for their benefit have been rendered ineffectual by +the agitators who have preferred fighting to orderly development. So +long ago as 1860 a Bill was passed providing that no tenant should be +evicted for non-payment of rent unless one year's rent in arrear. +(Landlord and Tenant Act, 1860, sec. 52.) Even then, when evicted, he +could recover possession within six months by payment of the amount +due; when the landlord had to pay him the amount of any profit he had +made out of the lands in the interim. The landlord had to pay half the +poor rate of the Government Valuation if a holding was L4 or upward, +and all the poor rate if it was under L4. By the Act of 1870 "a yearly +tenant disturbed in his holding by the act of the landlord, for causes +other than non-payment of rent, and the Government Valuation of whose +holding does not exceed L100 per annum, must be paid by his landlord +not only full compensation for all improvements made by himself or his +predecessors, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, and +reclamation of waste lands, but also as compensation for disturbance, +a sum of money which may amount to seven years' rent." (Land Act of +1870, secs. 1, 2, and 3.) Under the Act of 1881 the landlord's power +of disturbance was practically abolished--but I think I have read +somewhere that even of late years, and with the ballot, certain +landlords in England have threatened their tenants with "disturbance" +without compensation if their votes were not given to the right +colour--while in Ireland, even when evicted for non-payment of rent, a +yearly tenant must be paid by his landlord "compensation for all +improvements, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, and +reclamation of waste land." (Sec. 4.) And when his rent does not +exceed L15 he must be paid in addition "a sum of money which may +amount to seven years' rent if the court decides that the rent is +exorbitant." (Secs. 3 and 9.) (_a_) Until the contrary is proved, the +improvements are presumed to have been made by the tenants. (Sec. 5.) +(_b_) The tenant can make his claim for compensation immediately on +notice to quit being served, and cannot be evicted until the +compensation is paid. (Secs. 16 and 21.) A yearly tenant when +voluntarily surrendering his farm must either be paid by the landlord +(_a_) compensation for all his improvements, or (_b_) be permitted to +sell his improvements to an incoming tenant. (Sec. 4.) In all new +tenancies the landlord must pay half the county or Grand Jury Cess if +the valuation is L4 or upward and the whole of the same Cess if the +value does not exceed L4. (Secs. 65 and 66.) Thus we have under the +Land Act of 1870 (i) Full payment for all improvements; (2) +Compensation for disturbance. + +The famous Land Act of 1881 gave three additional privileges, (1) +Fixity of tenure, by which the tenant remains in possession of the +land for ever, subject to periodic revision of the rent. (Land Act, +1881, sec. 8.) If the tenant has not had a fair rent fixed, and his +landlord proceeds to evict him for non-payment of rent, he can apply +to the court to fix the fair rent, and meantime the eviction +proceedings will be restrained by the court. (Sec. 13.) (2) Fair rent, +by which any yearly tenant may apply to the Land Commission Court (the +judges of which were appointed under Mr. Gladstone's Administration) +to fix the fair rent of his holding. The application is referred to +three persons, one of whom is a lawyer, and the other two inspect and +value the farm. _This rent can never again_ be raised by the landlord. +(Sec. 8.) (3) Free sale, by which every yearly tenant may, whether he +has had a fair rent fixed or not, sell his tenancy to the highest +bidder whenever he desires to leave. (Sec. 1.) (_a_) There is no +practical limit to the price he may sell for, and twenty times the +amount of the annual rent has frequently been obtained in every +province of Ireland. (_b_) Even if a tenant be evicted, he has the +right either to redeem at any time within three months, _or to sell +his tenancy within the same period to a purchaser who can likewise +redeem_ and thus acquire all the privileges of a tenant. (Sec. 13.) + +Even more important than this is the Land Purchase Act of 1885, +commonly called Lord Ashbourne's Act, by which the whole land in +Ireland is potentially put into the hands of the farmers, and of the +working of which much will have to be said before these papers end. +This Act, in its sections 2, 3, and 4, sets forth this position, +briefly stated: If a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and arranges +with his landlord as to terms, he can change his position from that of +a perpetual rent-payer into that of the payer of an annuity, +terminable at the end of forty-nine years--the Government supplying +him with the entire purchase-money, to be repaid during those +forty-nine years at 4 per cent. This annual payment of L4 for every +L100 borrowed covers both principal and interest. Thus, if a tenant, +already paying a statutory rent of L50, agrees to buy from his +landlord at twenty years' purchase (or L1,000) the Government will +lend him the money, his rent will at once cease, and he will not pay +L50, but L40, yearly for forty-nine years, and then become the owner +of his holding, free of rent. It is hardly necessary to point out +that, as these forty-nine years of payment roll by, the interest of +the tenant in his holding increases rapidly in value. (Land Purchase +Act, 1885, secs. 2, 3, and 4.) + +Under the Land Act of 1887, the tenants received the following still +greater and always one-sided privileges, (i) By this Act leases are +allowed to be broken by the tenant, but not by the landlord. All +leaseholders whose leases would expire within ninety-nine years after +the passing of the Act have the option of going into court and getting +their contracts broken and a judicial rent fixed. No equivalent power +is given to the landlords. (Land Act of 1887, secs, 1 and 2.) (2) The +Act varies rent already judicially fixed for fifteen years by the +Land Courts in the years 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, and 1885. (Sec. 29.) +(3) It stays evictions, and allows rent to be paid by instalments. In +the case of tenants whose valuation does not exceed L50, the court +before which proceedings are being taken for the recovery of _any_ +debt due by the tenant is empowered to stay his eviction, and may give +him liberty to pay his creditors by instalments, and can extend the +time for such payment as it thinks proper. (Land Act of 1887, sec. +30.) + +By these extracts, which do not exhaust the whole of the privileges +granted to the Irish tenant, it may be seen how exceptionally he has +been favoured. Nowhere else has such wholesale interference with the +obligations of contract, such lavish protection of the tenant, such +practical persecution of the landlord been as yet demanded by the +one-half of the nation; nor, if demanded, would such partiality have +been conceded by the other half. Yet, in the face of these various +Acts, and all they embody, provide for, and deny, our hysterical +journal _par excellence_ is not ashamed to publish a wild letter from +one of those ramping political women who screech like peacocks before +rain, setting forth how Ireland could be redeemed by the manufacture +of blackberry jam, were it not for the infamous landlords who would at +once raise the rent on those tenants who, by industry, had improved +their condition. And a Dublin paper asserts that anything will be +fiction which demonstrates that "Ireland is not the home of +rackrenters, brutal batonmen, and heartless evictors"; while political +agitation is still being carried on by any means that come handiest, +and the eviction of tenants who owe five or six years' rent, and will +not pay even one to clear off old scores, is treated as an act of +brutality for which no quarter should be given. If we were to transfer +the whole method of procedure to our own lands and houses in England, +perhaps the thing would wear a different aspect from that which it +wears now, when surrounded by a halo of false sentiment and convenient +forgetfulness. + +The total want of honesty, of desire for the right thing in this +no-rent agitation, is exemplified by the following fact:--When Colonel +Vandeleur's tenants--owing several years' rent, refused to pay +anything, and joined the Plan of Campaign, arbitration was suggested, +and Sir Charles Russell was accepted by the landlord as arbitrator. As +every one knows, Sir Charles is an Irishman, a Catholic, and the +"tenants' friend." His award was, as might have been expected, most +liberal towards them. Here is the result:--"We learn that the +non-fulfilment by a number of the tenants of the terms of the award +made by Sir C. Russell is likely to lead to serious difficulties. They +refuse to carry out the undertaking which was given on their behalf, +having so much bettered the instruction given to them that they insist +upon holding a grip of the rent, and not yielding to even the advice +of their friends. About thirty of them have not paid the year's rent, +which all the Plan of Campaign tenants were to have paid when the +award was made known to them. This is the most conspicuous instance in +which arbitration has been tried, and the result is not encouraging, +although landlords have been denounced for not at once accepting it +instead of seeking to enforce their legal rights by the tribunal +appointed by the Legislature." + +With a legal machinery of relief so comprehensive and so favourable to +the tenant, it would seem that the Plan of Campaign, with its cruel +and murderous accompaniments, was scarcely needed. If anyone was +aggrieved, the courts were open to him; and we have only to read the +list of reduced rents to see how those courts protected the tenant and +bore heavily on the landlord. Also, it would seem to persons of +ordinary morality that it would have been more manly and more honest +to pay the rents due to the proprietor than to cast the money into the +chest of the Plan of Campaign--that _boite a Pierrette_ which, like +the sieve of the Danaides, can never be filled. The Home Rule +agitators have known how to make it appear that they, and they alone, +stand between the people and oppression. They have ignored all this +orderly legal machinery; and their English sympathisers have not +remembered it. Nor have those English sympathisers considered the +significant fact that this agitation is literally the bread of life to +those who have created and still maintain it. Many of the Home Rule +Irish Members of Parliament have risen from the lowest ranks of +society--from the barefooted peasantry, where their nearest relations +are still to be found--into the outward condition of gentlemen living +in comparative affluence. It is not being uncharitable, nor going +behind motives, to ask, _Cui bono?_ For whose advantage is a certain +movement carried on?--especially for whose advantage is this anti-rent +movement in Ireland? For the good of the tenants who, under the +pressure put on them by those whom they have agreed to follow, refuse +to pay even a fraction of rent hitherto paid to the full, and who are, +in consequence, evicted from their farms and deprived of their means +of subsistence?--or is it for the good of a handful of men who live by +and on the agitation they created and still keep up? Do the leaders of +any movement whatsoever give a thought to the individual lives +sacrificed to the success of the cause? As little as the general +regrets the individuals of the rank and file in the battalions he +hurls against the enemy. The ruined homes and blighted lives of the +thousands who have listened, believed, been coerced to their own +despair, have been no more than the numbers of the rank and file to +the general who hoped to gain the day by his battalions.[B] The good +in this no-rent movement is reaped by the agitators alone; and for +them alone have the chestnuts been pulled out of the fire. +Furthermore, whose hands among the prominent leaders are free from the +reflected stain of blood-money? These leaders have counselled a course +of action which has been marked all along the line by outrage and +murder; and they have lived well and amassed wealth by the course they +have counselled. + +From proletariats in their own persons they have become men of +substance and property. These assertions are facts to which names and +amounts can be given; and that question, _Cui bono_? answers itself. +The inference to be drawn is too grave to be set aside; and to plead +"charitable judgment" is to plead imbecility. + +The plain and simple truth is--the protective legislation that was so +sorely needed for the peasantry is fast degenerating into injustice +and oppression against the landlords. Thousands of the smaller +landowners have been absolutely beggared; the larger holders have been +as ruthlessly ruined. For, while the rents were lowered, the charges +on the land, made on the larger basis, were kept to their same value; +and the fate of the landlord was sealed. Between the hammer and the +anvil as he was and is placed, his times have not been pleasant. +Families who have bought their estates on the faith of Government +sales and Government contracts, and families who have owned theirs for +centuries and lived on them, winter and summer--who have been neither +absentees nor rack-renters, but have been friendly, hospitable, +open-handed after their kind, always ready to give comforts and +medicine to the sick and a good-natured measure of relief to the hard +pressed--they have now been brought to the ground; and between our own +fluid and unstable legislation and the reckless cruelty of the Plan of +Campaign their destruction has been complete. Wherever one goes one +finds great houses shut up or let for a few summer months to strangers +who care nothing for the place and less than nothing for the people. +One cannot call this a gain, look at it as one will. Nor do the +tenantry themselves feel it to be a gain. Get their confidence and you +will find that they all regret the loss of their own--those jovial, +frank, and kindly proprietors who did the best they knew, though +perhaps, judged by present scientific knowledge that best was not very +good, but who at least knew more than themselves. Carrying the thing +home to England, we should scarcely say that our country places would +be the better for the exodus of all the educated and refined and +well-to-do families, with the peasantry and an unmarried clergyman +left sole masters of the situation. + +In the desire of Parliament to do justice to the Irish peasant, whose +condition did once so loudly demand amelioration, justice to the +landlord has gone by the board. For we cannot call it justice to make +him alone suffer. His rents have been reduced from 25 to 30 per cent. +and over, but all the rent charges, mortgages, debts and dues have +been retained at their full value. The scheme of reduction does not +pass beyond the tiller of the soil, and the landlord is the sole +loser.[C] + +Beyond this he suffers from the want of finality in legislation. +Nothing is left to prove itself, and the tinkering never ends. A +fifteen years' bargain under the first Land Act is broken up under the +next as if Governmental pledges were lovers' vows. When, on the faith +of those pledges, a landlord borrowed money from the Board of Works +for the improvement of his estate, for stone cottages for his +tenantry, for fences, drainage, and the like, suddenly his income is +still further reduced; but the interest he has to pay for the loan +contracted on the broader basis remains the same. Which is a kind of +thing on all fours with the plan of locking up a debtor so that he +cannot work at his trade, while ordering him to pay so much weekly +from earnings which the law itself prevents his making. + +If the sum of misery remains constant in Ireland, its distribution has +changed hands. The small deposits in the savings-banks have increased +to an enormous extent, and in many places where the tenants have for +some years refused to pay their rents, but have still kept the land, +the women have learned to dress. But the owners of the land--say that +they are ladies with no man in the family--have wanted bread, and have +been kept from starvation only by surreptitious supplies delivered in +the dead darkness of the night. These supplies have of necessity been +rare and scanty, for the most honest tenant dared not face the +vengeance of the League by openly paying his just due. Did not Mr. +Dillon, on August 23rd, 1887, say, "If there is a man in Ireland base +enough to back down, to turn his back on the fight now that Coercion +has passed, I pledge myself in the face of this meeting, that I will +denounce him from public platform by name, and I pledge myself to the +Government that, let that man be whom he may, his life will not be a +happy one, either in Ireland or across the seas." With such a +formidable organisation as this, what individual would have the +courage to stand out for abstract justice to a landlord? It would have +been, and it has been, standing out for his own destruction. Hence, +for no fault, no rack-renting, have proprietors--and especially +ladies--been treated as mortal enemies by those whom they had always +befriended--for no reason whatever but that it was an easy victory for +the Campaigners to obtain. Women, with never a man to defend them, +could be more easily manipulated than if they were so many stalwart +young fellows, handy in their turn with guns and revolvers, and man +for man a match even for Captain Moonlight. If these ladies dared to +evict their non-paying tenants they would be either boycotted or +"visited," or perhaps both. Besides, who would venture to take the +vacant land? And how could a couple of delicate ladies, say, till the +ground with their own hands? The old fable of the dog in the manger +holds good with these Campaigners. Those who will not pay prevent +others who would; and the hated "landgrabber," denounced from altar +and platform alike, is simply an honest and industrious worker, who +would make his own living and the landlord's rent out of a bit of land +which is lying idle and going to waste. + +All through the disturbed districts we come upon facts like this--upon +the ruin and humiliation of kindly and delicately-nurtured ladies, of +which the English public knows nothing; and while it hysterically +pities the poor down-trodden peasant and goes in for Home Rule as the +panacea, the wife of a tenant owing five years' rent and refusing to +pay one, dresses in costly attire--and the lady proprietor knows +penury and hunger; not to speak of the agonies of personal terror +endured for months at a stretch. Let us, who live in a well-ordered +country, realize for a moment the mental condition of those who dwell +in the shadow of assassination--women to whom every unusual noise is +as the sentence of death, and whose days are days of trembling, and +their nights of anguish for the fear of death that encompasses them. +Is this according to the law of elemental justice? Are our sympathies +to be confined wholly to one class, and are the sorrows and the wrongs +done to another not to count? Surely it is time for some of the +sentimental fog in which so many of us have been living to be +dispelled in favour of the light of truth! + +Here is an instructive little bit on which we would do well to +ponder:-- + +A certain authority gives the following anecdote:--He says that he +"has just had a long conversation with one of the leading Galway +merchants. 'A farmer of this county,' said he, 'told me yesterday that +he had let his meadowing at L8 an acre. I bought all his barley, and +he confessed that on this crop too he had made L8 an acre. Now the +judicial rent of this man's holding is 10s. the acre. He said, "I have +nothing to complain of."' This man was a tenant of Lord Clanricarde; +one of those people who decline to pay a farthing in the way of rent +to the lawful owner of the soil. The case we have cited may be an +extreme one, but it is generally admitted by those who are acquainted +with the facts, and who speak the truth that the rents on the +Clanricarde property, speaking generally, are low rents, and yet not +only is it impossible to collect these rents, but the agent who +represents Lord Clanricarde, and whose only fault is that he tries to +do his duty to his employer without unnecessary harshness to the +tenantry, dare not go outside his house without an escort of police, +and every time he leaves his house, he risks his life. Referring to +this agent, Mr. Tener, the correspondent says:-- + +"No one would think from looking at him that he literally carries his +life in his hand, and that if he were not guarded as closely as he is +he would be shot in twenty-four hours. He never goes outside the walls +of the Portumna demesne without an escort of seven policemen--two +mounted men in front, two behind, and three upon his car. He, too, as +well as the driver, is armed, so the would-be assassins must reckon +with nine armed men. In the opinion of those who know the +neighbourhood his escort is barely strong enough. He was fired at a +few weeks ago, and the horse which he was driving shot dead. The +police who were with him on the car were rolled out upon the road, and +before they could recover themselves and pursue the Moonlighters had +escaped.' And this is supposed to be a civilised country, and is a +part of the United Kingdom! + +"Whereas it seems to us Lord Clanricarde is to blame is in not living, +at any rate for some part of the year, upon his Irish property. This +nobleman represents one of the most ancient families in Ireland. He is +the representative of the Clanricarde Burkes, who have been settled +upon this property for 700 years. He draws, or rather drew, a very +large income from it, and there can be little question that his +presence would encourage and sustain smaller proprietors who are +fighting a losing battle in defence of their rights. These proprietors +may fairly claim that the leading men of their order should stand by +them in the time of trial. Unfortunately, this assistance has not been +invariably, or even as a rule, rendered by the great Irish landowners. +It is, indeed, largely because they have failed in their duty that the +present troubles have come upon Irish landlords as a body. If only in +the past the great landowners had lived in Ireland and spent at least +a portion of the incomes they derived from Ireland upon their estates, +the present agitation against landlordism would never have reached the +point at which it has arrived. The absence of the landlords, and in +many cases their refusal to recognise the legitimate claims of their +districts upon them, has made it possible for the agitators who have +now the ear of the people to bring about that severance of classes, +and that embittered feeling of class against class, which is doing +Ireland more injury at the present time than all the rack-renters put +together." + +Those who plead for the landlords who have been so cruelly robbed and +ruined are weak-voiced and reticent compared to the loudly crying +advocates for the peasantry. English tourists run over for a fortnight +to Ireland, talk to the jarvies, listen to the peasants themselves, +forbear to go near any educated or responsible person with knowledge +of the facts and a character to lose, and accept as gospel everything +they hear. There is no check and no verification. Pat and Tim and Mike +give their accounts of this and that, bedad! and tell their piteous +tales of want and oppression. The English tourist swallows it all +whole as it comes to him, and writes his account to the sympathetic +Press, which publishes as gospel stories which have not one word of +truth in them. In fact, the term "English tourist" has come to mean +the same as _gobemouche_ in France; and clever Pat knows well enough +that there is not a fly in the whole region of fable which is too +large for the brutal Saxon to swallow. Abject poverty without shoes to +its feet, with only a few rags to cover its unwashed nakedness, and an +unfurnished mud cabin shared with the pigs and poultry for its sole +dwelling-place--abject poverty begs a copper from "his honour" for the +love of God and the glory of the Blessed Virgin, telling meantime a +heartrending story of privation and oppression. Abject poverty points +to all the outward signs and circumstances of its woe; but it forgets +the good stone house in which live the son and the son's wife--the +dozen or more of cattle grazing free on the mountain side--that bit of +fertile land where the very weeds grow into beauty by their +luxuriance--and those quiet hundreds hidden away for the sole pleasure +of hoarding. And the English tourist takes it all in, and blazes out +into wrath against the tyrannous landlord who has reduced an honest +citizen to this fearful state of misery; knowing nothing of the craft +which is known to all the residents round about, and not willing to +believe it were he even told. For the dramatic instinct is strong in +human nature, and in these later days there is an ebullient surplusage +of sympathy which only desires to find an object. Across the Bristol +Channel, the English tourist finds these objects ready-made to his +hand; and the question is still further embroiled, and the light of +truth still more obscured, that a few impulsive, credulous, and +non-judicially-minded young people may find something whereon to +excite their emotions, and give vent to them in letters to the +newspapers when excited. + +Only the other day a young Irishman who has to do with the land +question was mistaken for a brutal but credulous Saxon by the jarvey +who had him in tow. Consequently, Pat plied his fancied victim with +the wildest stories of this man's wrongs and that lone widow's +sufferings. When he found out his mistake he laughed and said: +"Begorra, I thought your honour was an English tourist!" And at a +certain trial which took place in Cork, the judge put by some absurd +statement by saying, half-indignant, half amused: "Do you take me for +an English tourist?" Nevertheless the race will continue so long as +there are excitable young persons of either sex whose capacity for +swallowing flies is practically unlimited, and an hysterical Press to +which they can betake themselves. + +The following authoritative instance of this misplaced sympathy may +suffice. The _Westminster Review_ published a certain article on the +Olphert estate, among other things. Those who have read it know its +sensational character. At Cork the other day the priest concerned had +to confess on oath that only three of the Olphert tenants had received +relief.[D] + +In the famous Luggacurren evictions the poor dispossessed dupes lost +their all at the bidding of the Campaigners, on the plea of inability +to pay rents voluntarily offered by Lord Lansdowne to be reduced 20 +per cent. After these evictions the lands were let to the "Land +Corporation," which had some short time ago four hundred head of +cattle over and above the full rent paid honestly down; but the former +holders are living on charity doled out to them by the Campaigners, +and in huts built for them by the Campaigners on the edge of the rich +and kindly land which once gave them home and sustenance. How bitterly +they curse the evil counsels which led to their destruction only they +and the few they dare trust know. Take, too, these two authoritative +stories. They are of the things one blindly believes and rages +against--with what justice the denouement of the sorry farce, best +shows:-- + + +"The correspondents of the _Freeman's Journal_, in response to the +circular some time ago addressed to them continue to supply fictitious +and exaggerated statements of events alleged to have happened 'in the +country,' nearly every day some example is afforded. One of the latest +is a pathetic tale of the 'suicide of a tenant.' It represents that +Andrew Kelly, of Cloonlaugh, 'one of the three tenants against whom +A.W. Sampey, J.P., landlord, obtained ejectments,' became demented +from the fear of eviction, and drowned himself in a bog hole in +consequence. The account is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. +Andrew Kelly was not a tenant of Mr. Sampey's, nor had he been for the +last five years. His son, it is true, is one of the tenants against +whom a decree was obtained, but this did not apparently trouble the +father much, as he had been living away from his son for a long time, +although he had come to see him a few days before he was drowned. +There was no suspicion either of foul play or suicide, and the +coroner's jury returned no such verdict as that given in the +_Freeman_. The veracious correspondent of that journal stated that the +jury found that 'Andrew Kelly came by his death through drowning on +the 22nd October while suffering under temporary insanity brought +about by fear of eviction.' The following is the verdict which the +coroner's jury actually arrived at:--'We find that Andrew Kelly's +death was caused by suffocation; that he was found dead in the +townland of Clooncriur, on the 24th day of October, 1889.' This is the +way in which sensational news is manufactured for the purpose of +promoting an anti-landlord crusade and prejudicing the owners of +property in the eyes of the country." + +"Speaking at Newmarch, near Barnsley, last month, Mr. Waddy drew a +heartrending picture of the tyranny practised in Ireland, and +illustrated his theme and moved his audience to the execration of Mr. +Balfour by the artistic recital of a horrible tale. He declared that a +little child had been barbarously sentenced by resident magistrates to +a month's imprisonment for throwing a stone at a policeman. Some +hard-headed or hard-hearted Yorkshireman, however, would not believe +Mr. Waddy offhand, and challenged him to declare names, place, and +date. On the 15th of November, Mr. Waddy gave the following +particulars in writing. He stated that the magistrates who had imposed +the brutal punishment were Mr. Hill and Colonel Bowlby, that the case +was tried at Keenagh on the 23rd of April, 1888, that the child's name +was Thomas Quin, aged nine, and that the charge was throwing stones at +the police. + +"The clue thus afforded has been followed up. It is grievous that cool +and calculating investigation should spoil a pretty story, but here is +the truth. + +"On the 20th of April, before Colonel Stewart and Colonel Bowlby, +resident magistrates, Thomas Quin, aged 19 years, was convicted of +using intimidation towards William Nutley, in consequence of his +having done an act which he had a legal right to do--viz., to evict a +labourer, Michael Fegan, of Clearis, who refused to work for him. +Thomas Quin was sentenced to one month's imprisonment. + +"I am quite sure that Mr. Waddy will publicly acknowledge that he +played upon the feelings of his hearers with a trumped-up tale of woe, +but I wonder whether anything will teach the British political tourist +that a great number of my countrymen unfortunately feel a genuine +delight in hoaxing them. + +"Your obedient servant, + +"AN IRISH LIBERAL." + + +As for the assertion of poverty and inability to pay, so invariably +made to excuse defaulting tenants, I will give these two instances to +the contrary. + +"Writing on behalf of Mr. Balfour to Mr. E. Bannister, of Hyde, +Cheshire, Mr. George Wyndham, M.P., recounts a somewhat remarkable +circumstance in connection with the position and circumstances of a +tenant on Lord Kenmare's estate who declined to pay his rent on the +plea of poverty:--'Irish Office, Nov. 28, 1889. Dear Sir,--In reply to +your letter of the 22nd inst., I beg to inform you that I have made +careful inquiries into the case of Molloy, a tenant on Lord Kenmare's +estate. I find that so far from exaggerating the scope of this +incident, you somewhat understate the case. The full particulars were +as follow:--The estate bailiffs visited the house of Molloy, a tenant +who owed L30 rent and arrears. They seized his cows, and then called +at his home to ask him if he would redeem them by paying the debt. +Molloy stated that he was willing to pay, but that he had only L7 +altogether. He handed seven notes to the bailiff, who found that one +of them was a L5 note, so that the amount was L11 instead of L7. On +being pressed to pay the balance he admitted that he had a small +deposit of L20 in the bank, and produced a document which he said was +the deposit receipt for this sum. On the bailiff examining this +receipt he found it was for L100 and not for L20. On being informed of +his mistake, Molloy took back the L100 receipt and produced another, +which turned out to be for L40. A further search on his part led to +the production of the receipt for L20, with which and L10 in notes he +paid the rent. You will observe that this tenant, refusing to pay L30, +and obliging his landlord to take steps against him, possessed at the +time L171, besides having stock on his land.--Yours faithfully, GEORGE +WYNDHAM.'" + +And I have it on the word of honour of one whose word is his bond, +that certain defaulting tenants lately confessed to him that they had +in their pockets as much as the value of three years' rent for the two +they owed, but that they dared not, for their lives, pay it. They +would if they dared, but they dared not. The plea of inability to pay +the reduced scale of rent is for the most part simple moonshine; and +the terrorism imported into this question comes from the Campaigners, +not from the landlords, nor yet from the police. If these paid +political agitators were silenced, and if the laws already passed were +suffered to work by themselves according to their intent, things would +speedily settle. But then the agitators would lose their means of +subsistence, their social status, and their political importance. As +things are these men are ruining the country they affect to defend; +while the worst enemies of the peasant are those who call themselves +his friends, and the blind-eyed sympathisers who bewail the wrongs he +does not suffer and the misery he himself might prevent. All that +Ireland wants now is rest from political agitation, the orderly +development of its resources;--and especially finality in +legislation;[E]--so that the one side may know to what it has to +trust, and the other may be freed from those illusive dreams and +demoralising hopes which destroy the manlier efforts after self-help +in the present for that universal amelioration to be found in the +coming of the cocklicranes in the future. + +There is, however, a good work quietly going on which will touch the +evil root of things in time, but not in the sense of the Home Rulers +and Campaigners. This good work will render it unnecessary to follow +the advice of that rough and ready politician who saw no way out of +the wood save to "send to Hell for Oliver Cromwell"; also that of the +facetious Dove who winked as he offered his olive branch:--"Shure the +best way to pacify Oireland is for the Queen to marry Parnell." A more +practicable method than either is silently making headway against the +elements of disorder; and in spite of the upsetters and their +opposition the rough things will be made smooth, and, the troubled +waters will run clear, if only the Government of order may be allowed +time to do its beneficent work of repression and re-establishment +thoroughly and to the roots. + + + + +II. + + +In politics, as in nature, beneficent powers work quietly, while +destructive agencies sweep across the world with noise and tumult. The +fruit tree grows in silence; the tempest which uproots it shakes the +earth to its centre. The gradual evolution of society in the +development of art, the softening of manners, the equalization of +justice, the respect for law, the purity of morals, which are its +results and correlatives, comes about as silently as the growth of the +tree; but the wars which desolate nations, and the revolutions which +destroy in a few months the work of many centuries, are as tumultuous +as the tempest and as boisterous as the storm. + +In Ireland at the present moment this rule holds good with surprising +accuracy. Where the tranquilizing effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act +attracts but little attention outside its own immediate sphere, the +Plan of Campaign has everywhere been accompanied with murder, +boycotting, outrage, and the loud cries of those who, playing at +bowls, have to put up with rubbers. Where men who have retained their +sense of manly honesty and commercial justice, buy their lands in +peace, without asking the world to witness the transaction--those +tenants who, having for years refused to pay a reduced rent or any +portion of arrears, are at last evicted from the land they do not care +to hold as honest men should, make the political welkin ring with +their complaints, and call on the nation at large to avenge their +wrongs. And the analogy holds good all through. The Irish tenant +yearns to possess the land he farms. Lord Ashbourne's Act enables him +to do this by the benign way of peace, fairness, and self-respect. The +Plan of Campaign, on the other hand, teaches him the destructive +methods of dishonesty and violence. The one is a legal, quiet, and +equitable arrangement, without personal bitterness, without hysterical +shrieking, without wrong-doing to any one. The other is an offence +against the common interests of society, and a breach of the law +accompanied by crimes against humanity. The one is silent and +beneficent; the other noisy, uprooting, and malevolent. But as the +powers of growth and development are, in the long run, superior to +those of destruction--else all would have gone by the board ages +ago--the good done by Lord Ashbourne's Act will be a living force in +the national history when the evil wrought by the Plan of Campaign is +dead and done with. + +By Lord Ashbourne's Act the Irish tenant can buy his farm at (an +average of) seventeen years' purchase. He borrows the purchase money +from the Government, paying it back on easy terms, so that in +forty-nine years he becomes the absolute owner of the property--paying +meantime in interest and gradual diminution of the principal, less +than the present rent. The landlord has about L68 for every L100 he +used to have in rent. This Act is quietly revolutionizing Ireland, +redeeming it from agrarian anarchy, and saving the farmer from himself +and his friends. Thousands and thousands of acres are being constantly +sold in all parts of the country, and good prices are freely given for +farms whereof the turbulent and discontented tenants professed +themselves unable to pay the most moderate rents. Large holdings and +small alike are bought as gladly as they are sold. Those who buy know +the capabilities of the land when worked with a will; those who sell +prefer a reduced certainty to the greater nominal value, which might +vanish altogether under the fiat of the Campaigners and the visits of +Captain Moonlight. + +The Irish loyal papers, which no English Home Ruler ever sees--facts +being so inimical to sentiment--these Irish papers are full of details +respecting these sales. On one estate thirty-seven farmers buy their +holdings at prices varying from L18 to L520, the average being L80. On +another, six farms bring L5,603, one fetching L2,250. In the west, +small farmers are buying where they can. In Sligo the MacDermott, +Q.C., has sold farms to forty-two of his tenants for L3,096, the +prices varying from L32 to L70 and L130; and the O'Connor Don has sold +farms in the same county to fifteen tenants for L1,934. The number of +acres purchased under this Act for the three years ending August, +1888, are a trifle over 293,556. + +The Government valuation is L171,774,000. The net rent is L190,181 +12s. 9d. The purchase-money is L3,350,933. The average number of +years' purchase is 17.6. + +Perhaps the most important of all these sales are those on the Egmont +estate in the very heart of one of the gravely-disturbed districts. +The rent-roll of this estate was L16,000 a year; and it was estimated +that successive landlords had laid out about L250,000 in +improvements--which was just the sum expected to be realized by the +sales. All this land has passed into the hands of farmers who, from +agitators and No Renters have now become proprietors on their own +account, with a direct interest in maintaining law and order, and in +opposing violence and disorder all round. Other important sales have +been effected. A hundred and fifty tenants on the Drapers' estate in +county Derry have bought their farms from the London Company at a +total of L57,980. These, with others (197 in all), reached a sum total +of purchase-money of L63,305, as set forth in the _Dublin Gazette_, of +November 5th, 1889. + +Lord Spencer, whose political _volte face_ is one of the wonders of +the hour, does not hesitate to say that this Act has not been a +success. Can he give counter figures to those quoted above? And Mr. +Michael Davitt does not approve of the sales in general and of those +on the Egmont estates in especial, "He hates the Ashbourne Act worse +than he hates the idea of an endowed Roman Catholic University, which +is saying a great deal. He hates it because it renders impossible his +visionary scheme of land nationalization, but more because it wrests +from his hands the weapons of Separatist rebellion. And what he openly +says, all the more cautious members of his party think. Every +purchaser under the Ashbourne Act is a soldier lost to the cause of +sedition. More than one of the ringleaders have indeed said this +formerly, but of late they have grown more reticent. The Parnellite, +it has been said, is essentially an Opportunist. Mr. Davitt is hardly +a Parnellite, but the real Parnellite items have discovered that their +seats in Parliament and their future hopes would be endangered, if +they openly fell foul of the Act under which so many Irish tenants are +becoming freeholders. They do not bless the Act, but they leave it +alone." + +There is another misstatement that had better be frankly met. The +objectors to the Land Courts say that the applicants are so many and +the process is so slow, it is almost useless and worse than +heartbreaking to apply for relief. One thing, however, must be +remembered--during the interim of application and hearing, a tenant +cannot be disturbed in his holding, and if he refuses to pay his rent +the landlord cannot evict him. The following correspondence is +instructive:-- + + "Braintree, Nov. 14. + + "Sir,--Will you be good enough to inform me whether the statement I + give below is correct? It was made by an Irish lecturer (going + about with magic-lantern views) for the purpose of showing how + unjustly the Irish tenants are treated. The lecturer was Mr. J. + O'Brady, and he was delivering the lecture at Braintree on + Saturday, November 9:--'There are now 90,000 cases awaiting the + decision of the Land Courts to fix a "fair rent" on their holdings, + and as only 15,000 cases can be heard in one year, do you wonder at + the tenants refusing to pay their present rent?' + + "Your faithful servant, + + "G. THORPE BARTRAM." + + "The Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P." + + "Irish Office, Great Queen Street, Nov. 22. + + "Dear Sir,--I have made special inquiry into the subject of your + letter of the 14th inst., and find that on the 31st of the last + month the number of outstanding applications to have fair rents + fixed was 44,295, and that the number of cases disposed of in the + months of July and August (the latest month for which the figures + are made up) was 5,380. You will see, therefore, that the arrear is + less than one-half of the amount stated by the Separatist lecturer + to whom you refer, and the rate of progression in disposing of it + is considerably higher than that alleged by him. It may reasonably + be hoped also (though the statistics are not yet available) that + this rate has since been increased, as several additional + Sub-Commissioners have been appointed to hear the cases. I would + observe also that under the provisions of the Land Act, passed by + the present Government in 1887, the tenant gets the benefit of the + judicial rent from the date of his application, an advantage which + he did not possess under Mr. Gladstone's Act. Such unavoidable + delay as may occur, therefore, does not, under the existing law, + involve the serious injury to the tenant implied by the lecturer. I + enclose a printed paper, which will give you further information on + this subject. In conclusion, I would point out that the suggestion + that the agrarian trouble in Ireland arises from the difficulty + experienced by the tenants in getting judicial rents fixed is not + warranted by the facts. Take as illustrations the cases of two + estates which have lately been prominently before the + public--namely, the Ponsonby and the Olphert. In the former case + the landlord is anxious, I believe, to get the tenants to go into + Court, and offers to give retrospective effect to the decisions, + though not bound by law to do so, but under the influence of the + agitators the tenants refuse to go into Court. In the latter + instance judicial rents have long since been fixed in the great + majority of cases. + + "Yours faithfully, + + "ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR." + +Together with this easy mode of purchase by which the quiet and +industrious are profiting, rents are reduced all over the country, +though still the Home Rulers reiterate the old charge of +"rack-renting," as if such a thing were the rule. These unscrupulous +misstatements, indeed, make half the difficulties of the Irish +question; for lies stick fast, where disclaimers, proofs, facts, and +figures, pass by like dry leaves on the wind. But for all the fact of +past extortion the present reductions are not always a proof of +over-renting. What Mr. Buxton says has common sense on the face of +it:-- + +"Very serious reductions of rents are being made all through Ireland +by the Land Sub-Commissioners, who are supposed to be in some extent +guided by the appearance of the farms. Now it should be remembered +that at the interview that took place in London on July 3rd, between +Mr. Smith-Barry and some of his tenants, in reference to that +gentleman's support of the evictions on the Ponsonby estate, one of +the arguments for forgiveness of arrears was that when eviction was +threatened 'the tenants gave up their industry,' and 'how could they +get the rents out of the land when they were absolutely idle?' To +admit such a plea for granting a reduction of rent is most dangerous. +Tenants have but to neglect their land, get into arrears of rent, and +claim large reductions because their farms do not pay. An ignorant, or +slovenly, or idle farmer, under such circumstances, is likely to have +a lower rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners than his more industrious +neighbour, and thus a great injustice may be done to both the good +farmer and the landlord, the--perhaps cunningly--idle farmer receiving +a premium for neglecting his farm. A comparison of the judicial rents +with the former rents and the Poor Law valuation is truly startling, +and must lead one to imagine that the system by which so much valuable +property is dealt with is most unjust." + +Thus, the famous reductions in County Clare, where the abatements +granted averaged over 30 per cent., and in some cases exceeded 50 per +cent., were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, but +also may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference. +Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believe +in the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes from +idleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others to +relieve--these others having to suffer for sins not their own--how +about that as a righteous obligation? Must I and my children go +foodless because my tenants will neither till the land they hold from +me, so as to make it yield their own livelihood and that profit over +which is my inheritance, nor suffer others to do what they will not? +If we are prepared to endorse the famous saying: "La propriete c'est +le vol," well and good. Meanwhile to spend all our sympathy on men who +reduce themselves and others to poverty by idleness and unthrift, +seems rather a bad investment of emotion. The old-fashioned saying +about workers and eaters had a different ring; and once on a time +birds who could sing, and would not, were somehow made. + +Co-incident with these conditions of no rent at all--reduction of rent +all round--and the free purchase of land by those who yesterday +professed pauperism, is the startling fact that the increase in Bank +deposits for the half-year of 1889 was L89,000--in Post Office Savings +Bank deposits L244,000--in Trustee Savings Banks, L16,000. + +Mr. Mitchell Henry, writing to the _Times_, says:--"If any one will +tell the exact truth as to Irish matters at this moment, he must +confess that landlords are utterly powerless to coerce their tenants; +that the pockets of the tenants themselves are full of money formerly +paid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely; +that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the +banks--savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks--are +richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of +whisky--that sure barometer of Irish prosperity--is increasing beyond +all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, +with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed +than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation +and long to be let alone; but they are a people of extraordinary +clannishness, and take an intellectual delight in intrigue, especially +where the Saxon is concerned. British simplicity is wonderful, and the +very people who have put on this cupboard love for Mr. Gladstone and +his lieutenants, whom they formerly abused beyond all decent license +of abuse, laugh at them as soon as their backs are turned." + +These savings do not come from the landlords, so many of whom are +hopelessly ruined by the combined action of our own legislature and +the Plan of Campaign. Of this ruin Colonel Lloyd has given a very +graphic account. Alluding to Mr. Balfour's answer in the House on the +21st of June, to the question put by Mr. Macartney on Colonel Lloyd's +letter to the _Times_ (10th of June), the Colonel repeats his +assertions, or rather his accusations against the Court. These +are:--"First, that the percentage of reductions now being given is the +very highest yet made, notwithstanding that prices of agricultural +produce and cattle have considerably increased; secondly, that the +Sub-Commissioners have no fixed rule to guide them save one--viz., +that existing rents, be they high or low, must be cut down, although +they may not have been altered for half a century; thirdly that it was +reported the Commissioners had instructions to give all-round +reductions of 33 per cent.; fourthly, that in the Land Court the most +skilled evidence of value is disregarded, as also the Poor Law +valuation; fifthly, that the Sub-Commissioners assign no reasons for +their decisions; and, sixthly, that the machinery of the Court is +faulty and unfair in the following instances:--_(a)_ If a landlord +appeals and fails, he must pay costs, but if he appeals and succeeds +he will not get costs; _(b)_ tenants' costs are taxed by the Court +behind the landlord's back; _(c)_ their rules are constantly changing +without any proper notice to the public; and _(d)_ appeals are +accumulating with no prospect of their being disposed of in any +reasonable time." + +Colonel Lloyd disposes of Mr. Balfour's denials to these statements, +but at too great length to copy. It may be taken for granted here that +they are disposed of, and that he proves up to the hilt his case of +crying injustice to the landlords--as indeed every fair-minded person +who looks honestly into the question, must acknowledge. As one slight +corroboration of what he says he adduces the following instances:-- + +"The following judicial rents were fixed by the +Assistant-Commissioners in the West of Ireland:-- + + Poor Law Judicial +Tenants' Names. Old Rent. Valuation. Rent + L s. d. L s. d. L s. d. +Tom Regan 9 9 10 12 0 0 5 15 0 +J. Manlon 9 2 6 11 10 0 5 15 0 +C. Kelly 9 12 10 11 5 0 6 0 0 +J. Kenny 4 11 4 6 5 0 2 15 0 + + L32 16 6 L41 0 0 L20 5 0 + +"The landlord appealed, and the appeals were heard a few days ago by +the Chief Commissioners in Roscommon. Two skilled valuers were +employed, who valued within a few shillings of the Government +valuation, and in the face of this evidence the decisions of the +Assistant-Commissioners were confirmed. These are not by any means +isolated instances. In fact they are the rule in the Land Court." + +And he ends by this remarkable assertion:-- + +"The whole machinery of the Court must be remodelled if it is to +possess the confidence of the public. As it is at present composed, it +is too much subject to political influence and to the clamour of one +set of litigants to be independent. There are few of your readers, I +believe, who will not admit that it is a very alarming thing to find +a Court so constituted having the control of millions. The only +officials ever connected with the Court in which there was any degree +of confidence were the Court valuers attached to the Appeal Court. +They were men of independence and impartiality, but they were +dispensed with in a vain attempt to satisfy Mr. Parnell. I see by Mr. +Balfour's statement in the House of Commons on the 25th ult. that the +Chief Commissioners are again engaged in framing new rules with regard +to appeals. One would think that at the end of eight years they would +have had their rules complete, and that an alteration every three +months during that period ought to have brought them to perfection. +How long is this farce to continue? These are serious complaints +against a public body intrusted with the administration of justice. +They do not deserve to be lightly passed over, and I am confident +that, even should it suit the convenience of the present Government to +follow the example of their predecessors and ignore them, the English +people, with their strong sense of justice, will eventually insist on +the unfair treatment and glaring injustice and abuses complained of +being set right, and that those who have from political motives and +influence been placed in honourable and responsible judicial positions +shall give place to impartial men, who will deal out even-handed +justice to the landlord as well as to the tenant.--I remain your +obedient servant, + +"JESSE LLOYD, Lieutenant-Colonel and J.P., + +"Agent for Lord Rossmore. + +"Rossmore Agency Office, Monaghan." + +Here, then, is the reverse of the medal. Hitherto the outcry has been +all for the tenant, and I do not say for a moment that this outcry was +not just. It was. The Irish peasant has had his wrongs, deep and +shameful; but now justice has been done to him so amply that the +overflow has gone to the other side. It is time to look at things as +they are, and to let well alone. Justice to the one has broadened out +into persecution of the other, and an Irish landlord is for the moment +the favourite cock-shy for aggressive legislation. But, as I have said +before, prejudice dies hard, and sentimental pity is often only +prejudice in a satin cloak. The Irish peasant is still assumed to be a +helpless victim, the Irish landlord a ruffianly tyrant; and a state of +things as obsolete as the Ogham language itself still rouses active +passion as against a living wrong. I go back to that statement in the +_Pall Matt Gazette,_ to which I have before alluded, as an instance of +the way in which the very froth of prejudice and falsehood is whipped +up into active poison by the short and easy way of imagination and +assertion. It is a fair sample of all the rest; but these are the +things which find credit with those who do not know and do not +enquire. + +Advocating the making of blackberry wine as the short cut from poverty +to prosperity in Ireland, the scheme being parallel to Mr. Gladstone's +famous remedy of jam, this sapient "B.O.N." says:-- + +"The blackberry harvest would be over in the sunny Rhine country +before it began in Ireland. Why should not some practical native, go +over from home and see how it is all done? I quite know that any plan +for bettering the physical condition of our people is open to the +objection that as soon as they seem a little 'comfortable' the +landlord would raise the rent in many a case; but perhaps in a still +larger number of cases he would now be afraid to do so. And I know, +too, that even a blackberry wine industry will not be quite safe till +we have Home Rule; but is not that coming fast?" + +This mischievous little word is in the very teeth of the fact that +rents cannot be raised on any plea whatsoever--certainly not because +the tenant makes himself better off by an industry other than his +farming--and that the whole machinery of Government had been put in +motion to protect the land tiller from the land-owner. Yet the _Pall +Mall Gazette_ is not ashamed to lend itself to this lie on the chance +of catching a few fluttering minds and nailing them to the mast of +Home Rule on the false supposition that this means justice to the +oppressed tenant and wholesome restraint of the brutal proprietor. +Professor Mahaffy, in a long letter to the _New York Independent,_ +speaks of the same kind of thing still going on in America--this +bolstering up a delusion by statements as far removed from the truth +as that of "B.O'N.'s," to which the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gives sanction +and circulation. That part of the American press which is under the +influence or control of the Irish Home Rulers still goes on talking of +the oppression to which the Irish tenant is subjected, just as the +speeches of the Agitators (_vide_ the astounding lies, as well as the +appalling nonsense talked, when Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld were +made citizens of Dublin, and it was asserted that the Government +turned tail and fled before these "delegates") teem with analogous +assertions wherein not so much as one grain of truth is to be found. +Let it be again repeated in answer to all these falsehoods:--No tenant +can be evicted except for non-payment of one year's rent; that rent +can be settled by the courts, and if he has signed an agreement for an +excessive payment, his agreement can be broken; and he must be +compensated for all the improvements he has made or will swear that he +has made. Also, he can borrow money from the Government at the lowest +possible interest, and become the owner of his farm for less yearly +payment than his former rent. He, the Irish tenant, is the most +protected, the most favoured of all leaseholders in Europe or America, +but the old cries are raised, the old watch-words are repeated, just +as if nothing had been done since the days when he was as badly off as +the Egyptian fellah, and was, in truth, between the devil and the deep +sea. Let me repeat the legal and actual condition of things as +summarized by Mr. Montagu Crackanthorpe, Q.C. These six propositions +ought to be learned by heart before anyone allows himself to talk of +Home Rule or the Irish question:-- + +1. That every yearly tenant of agricultural land valued at less than +L50 a year can have his rent judicially fixed, and that the existence +of arrears of rent creates no statutory obstacle whatever, nor any +difficulty in procedure, if he is desirous of availing himself of the +Acts. + +2. That every such agricultural tenant, whether he has had a fair rent +fixed or not, may sell his tenancy to the highest bidder whenever he +desires to leave; and that, if he be evicted, he has the right either +to redeem within six months, or to sell his tenancy within the same +period to a purchaser, who can likewise redeem, and thus acquire all +the privileges of the tenant. + +3. That in view of the fall in agricultural produce, the Land +Commission is empowered and directed to vary the rents fixed by the +Land Court during the years 1881 to 1885, in accordance with the +difference in prices of produce between those years and the years 1887 +to 1889. + +4. That no tenant in Ireland can be evicted by his landlord unless his +rent is twelve months in arrear, and that the yearly tenant who is so +evicted must be paid full compensation for all improvements not +already compensated for by enjoyment, such, for instance, as +unexhausted manure, permanent buildings, and reclamation of waste +land. He may, it is true, be evicted on title after judgment obtained +against him for his rent, and in that case his goods and interest +(including his improvements) may be put up to auction by the Sheriff. +This is a matter which seems to require amendment; but it is to be +observed that the same consequences would follow if the judgment +creditor were a shopkeeper who had given the tenant credit or the +local money-lender or gombeen man. A compulsory sale under these +circumstances is not peculiar to landlordism, and it is a method to +which landlords seldom resort. + +5. That if a tenant falls into arrear for rent, and becomes liable to +eviction, whether on title or not, the Court can stay process, if +satisfied that his difficulty arises from no fault of his own, and +can give him time to pay by instalments. + +6. That if a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and comes to terms with +his landlord, he can borrow money from the Government at 4 per cent., +by the help of which he may change his rent into an annuity, the +amount of the annuity being less than the rent, and the burden of the +annuity altogether ceasing at the end of forty-nine years. + +The result by the way of this peasant proprietorship will be twofold. +On the one side it will create a greater uniformity of comfort and a +larger class of peaceable, self-respecting, law-abiding citizens. On +the other it will lower the general standard by doing away with that +better class of resident gentry and capitalized landowners, who in +their way are guides, teachers and helps to the peasantry. The absence +of this better class of resident gentry is one of the misfortunes of +French agricultural life and the justification of M. Zola; their +presence is one of the blessings of England. How will it be in Ireland +when the exodus is more complete than it is even now, and when the +villages and rural districts are left solely to peasant proprietors +and a celibate clergy? The Romish Church has never been famous for +teaching those things which make for intellectual enlightenment and +social improvement. The difference between the Protestant north and +the rest of Roman Catholic Ireland, as between the Protestant and +Romish cantons in Switzerland; is a truism almost proverbial. And +without the little leaven of such influence as the better educated and +more enlightened gentry may possess, the Irish peasant will be even +more superstitious, more blinded by prejudice and ignorance than he +is now. As it is, the old landlords are sincerely deplored, and the +good they did is as sincerely regretted. Those grand old hunting days, +now things of the past, still linger in the memory of the men who +participated in the fun and had their full share of the crumbs--and +the times when a grand seigneur paid a hundred pounds a week in wages +alone seem something like glimpses into a railed and fenced off El +Dorado, which the Plan of Campaign has closed for ever. So that the +sunshine has its shadow, for all the good to be had from the light. + +It ought to be that peasant proprietorship will make the holder more +industrious and a better farmer than he has been as tenant. Whether it +will or not remains to be seen. As things are--always excepting Ulster +and the North generally--farming could scarcely be more shameful in +its neglect than it is--domestic life could scarcely be more squalid, +more savage, more filthy. Even rich farmers live like pigs and with +their pigs, and the stone house is no better kept than the mud +cabin--the forty-acre field no better tilled than the miserable little +potato patch. Had the farming been better, there would never have been +the poverty, the discontent, the agitation by which Ireland had been +tortured and convulsed. Had the men been more industrious, the women +cleaner and more deft, the Plan of Campaign would have failed for want +of social nutriment, where now it has been so disastrously triumphant. +Physical well-being is a great incentive to quiet living--productive +industry checks political unrest. Those who have something to lose are +careful to keep it; and we may be sure that Captain Moonlight would +not risk his skin if he had a good coat to cover it. + +Also there is another aspect in which this land question may be +viewed, and ought to be viewed--in reference to the manner in which +the Irish farmer treats the property by which he lives:--that is the +aspect of his duty to the community in his quality of producer for the +community. We must all come down to the land as the common property of +the human race. Parcelled out as it may be--by the mile or the square +yard--it is the common mother of all men. We can do without everything +else, from lace to marble--from statues to carriages--but food we must +have; and the holders of land all the world over are really and +rightfully trustees for the race. The Irish peasant has no more right +to neglect the possibilities of produce than had William Rufus, or his +modern representative in Scotland, to evict villages for the making of +a deer forest. The principle of trusteeship in the land holds good +with small holders and great alike; but imagine what would be the +effect of a law which required so much produce from a given area on an +average for so long a period! The principle is of course conceded in +the rent, rates and taxes; but a direct application to produce would +set the kingdom in a blaze. + +But in Ireland fields of thistles and acres of ragwort, with tall +purple spikes of loose strife everywhere, seem to be held as valid +crops, fit for food and good at rent-paying. These are to be found at +every step from Dublin to Kerry, and the most unpractised eye can see +the waste and neglect and unnecessary squalor of both land and +people. As an English farmer said, with indignation: "The land is +brutally treated." So it is--idleness, unthrift, and bad farming +generally, degrading it far below its possibilities and natural +standard of production. Cross the Channel, and Wales looks like a trim +garden. Go over to France, and you find every yard of soil carefully +tilled and cultivated. Even in comparatively ramshackle Sicily, among +the old lava beds of Etna, the peasants raise a handful of grain on +the top of a rock no bigger than a lady's work-table. In Ireland the +cultivated portion of a holding is often no bigger relatively than +that work-table on an acre of waste. Will the tiller, now the owner +and no longer only the leaseholder, go back from his evil ways of +thriftlessness and neglect, and instead of being content to live just +above the line of starvation, will he educate himself up to those +artificial wants which only industry can supply? Will the women learn +to love cleanliness, to regard their men's rags and their children's +dirt as their own dishonour, and to understand that womanhood has its +share of duties in social and domestic life? Will the sense of beauty +grow with the sense of proprietorship, and the filth of the present +surroundings be replaced by a flower garden before the cottage--a +creeper against the wall--a few pots of more delicate blooms in the +window? Will the taste for variety in garden produce be enlarged, and +plots of peas, beans, carrots, artichokes, pot-herbs, and the like, be +added to the one monotonous potato-patch, with a few cabbages and +roots for the baste, and a strip of oats as the sole cereal attempted? +Who knows? At present there is not a flower to be seen in the whole of +the West, save those which a luxuriant Nature herself has sown and +planted; and the immediate surroundings of the substantial farm-house, +like those of the mud cabin, are filth unmentionable, savage squalor, +and bestial neglect. + +These things are signs of a mental and moral condition that goes +deeper than the manifestation. They do not show only want of the sense +of beauty--want of the sense even of cleanliness; they show the +absence of all the civilizing influences--all the humanizing +tendencies of modern society. By this want Ireland is made miserable +and kept low in the scale of nations. Had the race been +self-respecting, sturdy, upright, stubbornly industrious, all this +savage neglect would have mended itself. Being what it is--excitable, +imaginative, spasmodic, given over to ideas rather than to facts, and +trusting to Hercules in the clouds rather than to its own brawny +shoulders--this squalor continues and is not dependent on poverty. +Time alone will show whether changed agrarian conditions will alter +it. So far as his power goes, the priest does nothing to touch it. The +Church uses up its influence for everything but the practical purposes +of work-a-day-life. It teaches obediences to its ordinances, but not +civic virtues. It encourages boys and girls to marry at an age when +they neither understand the responsibilities of life nor can support a +family; but in its regard for the Sacrament it forgets the +pauperization of the nation. It enforces chastity, but it winks at +murder; it demands money for masses for the souls of the dead, but it +leaves on one side the homes and bodies of the living; it breeds a +race of paupers to drag the country lower and lower into the depths of +poverty, and thinks it has done a meritorious work, and one that +calls for praise because of the paucity of numbers in the percentage +of illegitimate births. Thus in Ireland, where everything is set +askew, even morality has its drawbacks, and less individual virtue +would be a distinct national gain. + +The Home Rule enthusiasts say all that is wanted to remedy these +ingrained defects is a Parliament; all that is wanted to make Irishmen +perfect and Ireland a paradise is a Parliament chosen by the people +and sitting in College Green. Human nature will then be changed, and +the lion and the lamb will lie down together. The Papist will love the +Protestant, and the moral of the story about those two Scotch +Presbyterian boys, whose presence at the Barrow House National School +so seriously disturbed both priest and people, is one that will read +quite the other way. All the bitter hatred poured out against England, +against Protestants, against the law and its administrators, will +cease so soon as Catholics come to the place of power and the +supremacy of England is at an end. The Church which burned Giordano +Bruno and is affronted because his memory has been honoured--which +placed the Quirinale under the ban of the lesser excommunication, and +withstood the national impulse towards freedom and unity as +represented by Garibaldi--the Church which has ever been on the side +of intolerance and tyranny will suddenly, in Ireland under Home Rule, +become beneficent, just, and liberal, and heretics will no longer herd +with the goats but will take their place among the sheep. If, as Mr. +Redmond says, it is the duty of Irishmen to make the Government of +England an impossibility, it will then be their pleasure to make her +alliance both close and easy. Ulster and Kerry will march shoulder to +shoulder, and Leaguers and Orangemen will form an unbroken phalanx of +orderly and law-abiding citizens. In a word the old Dragon will be +chained and the Millenium will come. + +The prospect seems too good to be true. Were we to follow after it and +put the loyal Protestant minority into the power of the anti-imperial +Catholic majority in the hope of seeking peace and ensuing it, we +might perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat from +between his teeth--losing the substance for shadow. We do better, all +things considered, with our present arrangements--trusting to the +imperfect operations of human law rather than shooting Niagara for the +chance of the clear stream at the bottom. + +The whirligig of Time has changed the relative positions of the two +great parties in Ireland. Formerly it was the Catholics who desired +the abolition of Home Rule, and the Protestants who held by the +National Parliament. That Parliament was exclusively Protestant, and +the powerful minority ground the helpless majority to the very ground. +Catholics were persecuted from shore to shore, and all sorts and +conditions of Protestant bullies and tyrants sent up petitions to +forbid the iniquity of Catholic trade rivalry. What was then would be +now--changing the venue and putting the Catholics where the +Protestants used to be. We do not believe that the "principle of +Nationality" is the working power of this desire for Home Rule, as Mr. +Stansfeld asserts--unless indeed the principle of Nationality can be +stretched so as to cover the self-aggrandizement of a party, the +bitterness of religious hatred, and the tyranny of a cruel and +coercive combination. The grand and noble name of Nationality can +scarcely be made so elastic as this. Respect for law lies at the very +heart of the principle, and the Irish Home Rulers are of all men the +most conspicuous for their contempt of law and their bold infraction +of the very elementary ordinances of civilized society. + +As for tyranny, no coercion established by Government--not even that +proclaimed by Mr. Gladstone--has been more stringent than the coercion +exercised by the Plan of Campaign. What happened in Tipperary only +the other day when certain rent-paying tenants, who had been +boycotted, did public penance in the following propositions? They +offered:--"Firstly, to come forward to the subsequent public meeting +and express public contrition for having violated their resolution to +hold out with the other tenants; secondly, not to pay the next +half-year's rent, due on the 10th of December, but to in future act +with the general body of the tenantry; and thirdly, to pay each a +pecuniary sum, to be halved between the Ponsonby tenants and the +Smith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on." +Surely no humiliation was ever greater than this!--no decree of secret +council or pitiless Vehmgericht were ever more ruthlessly imposed, +more servilely obeyed! Can we say that the Irish are fit to be called +freemen, or able to exercise the real functions of Nationality, when +they can suffer themselves to be hounded like sheep and rated like +dogs for the exercise of their own judgment and the performance of +their duties as honest men and good citizens? + +If the mere presence in Ireland of Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld +dismayed Mr. Balfour and scattered his myrmidons as the forces of the +Evil One fly before the advent of the angels, could they not have used +their semi-divine power for these humiliated rent-payers? Instead of +complacently listening to bunkum--which, if they had had any sense of +humour would have made them laugh; any of modesty would have made them +blush--could they not have brought their inherited principles of +commercial honesty and manly fidelity to an engagement to bear on +these irate Campaigners, and have reminded them that the very core of +Liberalism is the right of each man to unrestricted action, provided +he does not hurt his neighbour? But Home Rulers are essentially +one-sided in their estimate of tyranny, and things change their names +according to the side on which they are ranged. To boycott a man, to +mutilate his cattle,[F] to commit outrages on his family, and finally +to murder him outright for paying his rent or taking an evicted farm, +are all justifiable proceedings of righteous severity. But for a +landlord to evict a tenant from the farm for which he will not pay the +covenanted rent--will not, but yet could, twice over--is a cowardly, a +brutal, a damnable act, for which those slugs from behind a stone-wall +are the well-deserved reward. + +Here is an instance of the vengeance sought to be taken by wealthy +tenants evicted for non-payment of rent. + +"Lord Clanricarde writes to the _Times_ to corroborate the statement +that an infernal explosive machine had been found in a cottage at +Woodford, in Ireland. His lordship quotes as follows from the account +of an eye-witness:-- + +'When possession was taken of the sub-tenant's house, No. 1, there was +the usual crowd crowding as close to our party as the police would +allow; but it was remarked that on our approach to houses Nos. 2 and +3, close together, and which concealed the infernal machine, the crowd +kept well away out of hearing, while the Woodford leaders were on a +car on the road, but out of danger like the others; but all well in +sight of any destruction that might befall the officers of the law. +This house, No. 3, when last examined in June, was found vacant, door +not locked, but open, and used as a shelter for cattle. Finding it +locked now, X. detached the lock, pushed the door open, and he and I +and others went inside. The house was empty, but a pile of stones was +heaped up in the doorway, some of them had been displaced by the door +when opened, and the top of a box 6 in. square was seen embedded in a +barrel containing 25 lbs. of 'excellent gunpowder,' a bottle full of +sulphuric acid, and other explosives, as well as a number of +detonators, and the blade of a knife (apparently) with a spring +attached by a coil of string to the door, the machine being so +arranged as to be liable to explode in two ways. The expert who +examined the machine said that had the sulphuric acid been liberated, +as meant, all our party, twenty in all, must have been destroyed, as +there were enough explosives to destroy any living thing within 100 +yards. Neither on that day, nor on the 22nd (date of sale) did either +the tenant or the Woodford leaders--R. and K.--utter one word of +surprise, much less of abhorrence!' + +The tenant proceeded against (says Lord Clanricarde, owed four and +a-half years' rent, at L47 8s. per annum) much below the taxation +valuation of L67 19s., for a mill, with the sole use of the +water-power, a valuable privilege, and 440 statute acres, a +considerable part of them arable land. He had ten sub-tenants, was +reported to make L500 per annum from mill and farm, and though he had +removed part of his stock, there were still cattle on the land on the +day of eviction enough to cover two years' arrears. If he had paid +even those two years on account he would have received an abatement, +and saved his farm. The judge in Dublin who gave the decree against +him, gave also costs against him to mark his sense of the tenant's bad +conduct." + +And to think that good, honest, noble-hearted, and sincere Englishmen, +who in their own persons are law-abiding, just, honourable, and +faithful, should uphold a state of things which strikes at the root of +all law, all commercial honesty--blinded as they are by the glamour of +a generous, unreal, and unworkable sentiment! If only they would go +over to Ireland to judge for themselves on the basis of facts, not +fancies--and to be informed by truths not lies! + +I know that we cannot all see alike, and that every shield has its two +sides. In this matter, on the one side stand Earl Spencer, now +converted to Home Rule, since his Viceroyalty; on the other is the +example of Mr. Forster, who went to Ireland an ardent Home Ruler and +came back as strong a Unionist. The Quaker became a fighting man, and +the idealist a practical man, believing in facts as he had seen them +and no longer in sentiments he could not realise--in measures grounded +on the necessities of good government, and not like so many epiphytes +with their roots in the air. Let Lord Spencer bring to this test his +late utterances. He goes in now for Home Rule, and the right of +Ireland to appoint her own police and judges. He is out of the wood +and can hallo; but where would he have been if the Irish had appointed +their police when he was at the Castle?--with Lord Frederick and Mr. +Burke! And if the judges were appointed by the Irish, we should have, +in all probability, Mr. Tim Harrington, barrister-at-law, on the +bench; and a few years ago Mr. Tim Harrington crumpled up the Queen's +writ and flung it out of the Court House window. And what power over +the fortunes of others can be given to men who boycott a railway for +political spite?[G] + +So many things have conspired to make this Irish question a +Gordian-knot which no man can untie, and but few would dare to cut. +The past extravagance of the landlords, absenteeism, rack-renting, +injustice of all kinds; the past jealousy of England and her +over-shadowing all native industries and productions; difference of +religion, racial temperament, and the irreconcilable enmity of the +conquered towards the conquerors; ignorance and idleness; the morality +which marries too early, when the land, which was just enough to +support one family, is expected to keep three or four; want of +self-respect in the dirt and disorder of domestic life; want of all +communal life or amusement, save in heated politics and drink; bogs +here, unthrift there, small holdings everywhere--all these things help +to complicate a question which passion has already made too difficult +for even the most radical kind of statesmanship to adjust. All the +panaceas hitherto tried have been found ineffectual. The repeal of +Catholic disabilities, the establishment of national schools, the +disestablishment of the Protestant Church, the Maynooth grant, the +various Land Acts--all have done but little towards the settlement of +the question, which, like certain fabulous creatures, has increased in +strength and the extensions of its demands by every concession made. +The best chance yet offered seems to be in the quiet working of Lord +Ashbourne's Act, by which the tenant becomes the owner and the +landlord is not despoiled. And certainly the crying need of the moment +is legislative finality and political rest. Existing machinery is +sufficient for all the agrarian ameliorations demanded. To do much +more would be to act like children who pluck up their seeds to see how +they are growing, leaving nothing sufficient time for development or +reproduction. + +No one would deny such a measure of Home Rule to Ireland as should +give her the management of her own internal affairs, in the same +manner and degree as our County Councils are to manage ours. But this +is not the Home Rule demanded by the leaders of the party. That for +which they have taken off their coats means the loss of the country as +an integral part of the Empire; the oppression and practical +annihilation of the Protestant section; the opening of the Irish +ports to all the enemies of England; or the breaking out of civil war +in Ireland and its reconquest by England. The alternative scheme of +federation is for the moment unworkable. But to hand over the whole +conduct of Irish affairs to the Roman Catholic majority would be one +of those ineffaceable political crimes the greatness of which would be +equalled only by the magnitude of its mistake. The language of the +indigenous Home Rulers and their Transatlantic sympathisers--as well +as the things they have done and are still doing--ought to be warnings +sufficiently strong to prevent such an act of folly and wickedness on +our part. Even our men--men of light and leading like Mr. John +Morley--seem to lose their heads when they approach the Irish question +and to become as rabid in their accusations as the paid political +agitators themselves. I will give these two short extracts, the one +from Mr. Morley's speech at Glasgow, and the other from Lord +Powerscourt's temperate and rational commentary:-- + +"Mr. Morley says," quotes Lord Powerscourt, "that the Irish people are +more backward than the Scotch or English, which I venture to doubt, at +least as regards intelligence, and gives as the reason:-- + +"'It is because the landlords, who have been their masters, have +rack-rented them, have sunk them in poverty, have plundered their own +improvements, have confiscated the fruits of their own industry, have +done all that they could to degrade their manhood. That is why they +are backward. (Cheers.) Will anybody deny that the Irish landlords are +open to this great accusation and indictment? If anybody here is +inclined to deny it, let him look at the reductions in rent that have +been made since 1881 in the Land Court.' + +"Well, have not rents in England and Scotland been reduced quite as +much, nay, more, than Irish rents since 1881? And have not the +economic causes which have lowered the prices of all farm produce all +over Europe caused the same depreciation in the value of land in +Germany or France, for instance, in the same ratio as in Ireland? And +has not the importation of dead meat from America, Australia, or New +Zealand had something to do with it? + +"These facts are well known. But to return to the Irish landlords. +Does not every one who is resident in Ireland, and therefore +conversant with the state of affairs there for the last twenty or +thirty years, know that the discontent and uprising against the land +system is due to the action of a very few unjust persons, now mostly +dead, but whose names are well known to any one who really knows +Ireland, as I venture to maintain Mr. Morley does not? The principal +actors in the drama could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And +Mr. Morley, _ex uno disce omnes_, accuses the whole of the Irish +proprietors of these cruel and unjust practices which we should scorn +to be guilty of. And he is an ex-Cabinet Minister, and late Chief +Secretary for Ireland for a few months, and a very popular one he was! + +"He says, again: 'Public opinion would have checked the Irish +landlords in their infatuated policy towards their tenants,' &c. He +challenges denial of these charges. Well, I deny them most +emphatically, and am quite willing to abide by the verdict of the +respectable tenants. I throw back in his face the accusation that the +Irish landlords as a body have rack-rented or plundered their tenants +or confiscated their improvements. + +"Far be it from me to taunt the Irish population. No, they have been +tempted very sorely by prospects being held out to them of getting the +land for nothing, and, all things considered, it is wonderful how they +have behaved. But Mr. Morley is like many another politician who comes +to Ireland for a few months or a few weeks, and goes about the few +disturbed districts and listens to all the tales told him by +cardrivers and those very clever people who delight in gulling the +Saxon, and goes back to England, full of all sorts of horrors and +crimes alleged to have been perpetrated by landlords, and takes it all +as gospel, making no allowance for the great intelligence and +inventive genius of his informers, and says, 'Oh! I went to the place, +and saw it all.' And this he takes to represent the normal state of +the whole of Ireland, and makes it a justification of the Plan of +Campaign!" + +Take too the Irish Home Rule press, and read the floods of abuse--some +spreading out into absolute obscenity--published by the principal +papers day after day against all their political opponents, and we can +judge of the temper with which the Irish Home Rulers would administer +affairs. Of their statesmanlike provision--of their patriotism and +care for the well-being of the country at large--the local war now +ruining Tipperary is the negative proof--the damnatory evidence that +they are utterly unfit for practical power. Governed by hysterical +passion, by mad hatred and the desire for revenge, not one of the +modern leaders, save Mr. Parnell, shows the faintest trace of politic +self-control or the just estimate of proportions. To spite their +opponents they will ruin themselves and their friends, as they have +done scores of times, and are doing now in Tipperary. History holds up +its hands in horror at the French Terror--was that worse than the +system of murder and boycotting and outrage and terrorism in the +disturbed districts in Ireland? And would it be a right thing for +England to give the supreme power to these masked Couthons and +Robespierres and Marats, that they might extend their operations into +the now peaceable north, and reproduce in Ulster the tragedies of the +south and west? Mr. Parnell puts aside the tyrannous part of the +business, and cleverly throws the whole weight of his argument at +Nottingham into the passionless economic scales. All that the +Nationalist party desires, he says, "is to be allowed to develope the +resources of their own country at their own expense," "without any +harm to you (English), without any diminution of your resources, +without any risk to your credit, or call upon you," all to be done "at +our own expense and out of our own resources." Yet Mr. Parnell in +another breath describes Ireland as "a Lazarus by the wayside"--a +country "where unfortunately there is no manufacturing industry." "Ex +nihilo nihil fit," was a lesson we all learned in our school days. Mr. +Parnell has evidently forgotten his. + +I will give a commentary on these brave words which is better put than +I could put it. + + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD." + +"Sir,--People in England, whatever political party they belong to, +should glance at what is now going on in the town of Tipperary before +finally making up their minds to hand over Ireland body and soul to +the National League. No country town in Ireland--I think I may add or +in England either--was more prosperous three months ago than +Tipperary. The centre of a rich and prosperous part of the country, +surrounded by splendid land, it had an enormous trade in butter and +all agricultural produce, and a large monthly pig and cattle fair was +held there. It possessed (I use the past tense advisedly) a number of +excellent shops, doing a splendid business, and to the eyes of those +who could look back a few years it was making rapid progress in +prosperity every year. + +"All is changed now. Many of the shops are closed and deserted, others +will follow their example shortly; the butter market has been removed +from the town, the cattle fairs have fallen to half their former size. +One sees shopkeepers, but a short time back doing capital business, +walking about idle in the streets, with their shops closed; armed +policemen at every corner are necessary to prevent a savage rabble +from committing outrages, and many people avoid going near the town at +all. All this is the result of William O'Brien's speech in Tipperary +and the subsequent action of the National League. The town and whole +neighbourhood were perfectly quiet till one day Mr. O'Brien descends +on it like an evil spirit, and tells the shopkeepers and surrounding +farmers that they are to dictate to their landlords how to act in a +case not affecting them at all. For fear, however, of not sufficiently +arousing them for the cause of others, he suggests that, in addition +to dictating to the landlord what his conduct shall be elsewhere, all +his tenants, farmers and shopkeepers alike, shall demand a reduction +of 25 per cent, on their own rents. As to the farmers' reduction I +will say nothing; if they wished it, they could go into the Land +Court, and if rented too high could get a reduction, retrospectively +from the day their application was lodged. The reduction, however, +that the shopkeepers were advised--nay, ordered--to ask for must have +surprised them more than their landlord. Many of them, at their +existing rents, had piled up considerable fortunes in a few years; +others had enlarged their premises, doubled their business, and +thriven in every way; nevertheless, they had to obey. The landlord +naturally refused to be dictated to by his tenants in matters not +affecting them; he also refused to reduce the rents of men who in a +few years had made fortunes, and some of whom were commonly reputed to +be worth thousands. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and the +tenants' interests were put up to auction. Some of the most thriving +shopkeepers declined to let their tenancies, out of which they had +done so well, be sold; others, in fear of personal violence and +outrage, not unusual results of disobeying the League, did allow them +to be knocked down for nominal sums to the landlord's representative. +Let lovers of liberty and fair-play watch what followed. All the +shopkeepers who bought in their interests were rigorously boycotted; +men who had had a large weekly turnover now saw their shops absolutely +deserted. Plate-glass windows that would not have shamed Regent +Street, were smashed to atoms by hired ruffians of the League, and +the shopkeepers themselves and their families had to be protected +from the mob by armed police, placed round their houses night and day. +All this because they desired to keep their flourishing businesses, +instead of sacrificing them in a quarrel not their own. + +"Let us follow still further what happened. The shopkeepers, finding +their trade quite gone, for it was almost worth a person's life to go +into their shops, watched as they were by paid spies, had to +capitulate to the League. An abject apology and a promise to let +themselves be evicted next time were the price they had to pay to be +allowed in a free country to carry on their trade. Ruin faced them +both ways. After having the ban of boycotting taken off them, with +eviction not far distant, most of them held clearance sales, at +tremendous sacrifices, so as to be prepared for moving. One man is +reputed to have got rid of seven thousand pounds' worth of goods under +these circumstances. Of the other division, who allowed their places +to be sold, most of them are now evicted. Dozens of shop assistants, +needlewomen, and others connected with the trade of a thriving town, +are thrown out of employment, and a peaceful neighbourhood has been +changed into a scene of bloodshed and violence. + +"I appeal to the English people not to encourage or support a vile +system of intimidation and violence, a system which not only pursues +and ruins its enemies, but refuses to allow peaceably-inclined people +to remain neutral. A case like this should not be one of Party +politics, but should be looked upon as the cause of all who wish to +pursue their lawful vocations peaceably against those who wish to +tyrannise by terror over the community at large. + +"I am, Sir, your obedient servant, + +"FOEDI FOEDERIS ADVERSARIUS." + +"December 12." + + +My private letters strengthen and confirm every word of this account; +and the following letter is again a proof of personal tyranny and +political malevolence not reassuring as qualities in the governing +power:-- + + +"TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.' + +"Sir,--I have received a letter from my friend Mr. Edward Phillips, of +Thurlesbeg House, Cashel, and the round, unvarnished tale that he +delivers throws more light upon Ireland than any amount of the windy +rhetoric which is so plentifully displayed on Parnellite and +Gladstonian platforms. Mr. Phillips writes as follows:-- + +"'I hold 270 acres from Mr. Smith-Barry at a rent of L340 under lease +and tenant-right, which, with my improvements, I valued at L1,000. The +Land League have decided, thinking to hurt Mr. Smith-Barry, that all +tenants must prepare to give up their farms by allowing themselves to +be evicted. They are clearing off everything, and because I refuse to +do this, and forfeit my L1,000, I am boycotted in the most determined +manner. I am refused the commonest necessaries of life, even medicine, +and have to get all from a distance. Blacksmiths, &c., refuse to +work, and labourers have notice to leave, but have not yet done so. + +"'Heretofore people were boycotted for taking farms; I am boycotted +for not giving up mine, which I have held for 25 years. A neighbour of +mine, an Englishman, is undergoing the same treatment, and we alone. +We are the only Protestant tenants on the Cashel estate. The remainder +of the tenants, about 30, are clearing everything off their land, and +say they will allow themselves to be evicted.' + +"I think this requires no comment. Public opinion is the best +protection against tyranny, and your readers can judge how far the +above narrative is consistent with the opinions expressed by Mr. +Parnell and others as to the liberty and toleration which will be +accorded to the loyal minority when the Land-National League becomes +the undisputed Government of Ireland. + +"Your obedient servant, + +"R. BAGWELL." + + +"Clonmell, December 27th." + +Again an important extract:-- + +"This is Mr. Parnell's language at Nottingham, but would he venture to +use the same arguments in this country? Would he enumerate clearly to +an Irish audience the countless advantages they derive from Imperial +funds and Imperial credit, and tell them that the first step to Home +Rule is the sacrifice of all these advantages? Our great system of +national education is provided out of Imperial funds to the extent of +about a million a year; so are the various institutions for the +encouragement of science and art which adorn Dublin and our other +large towns. The Baltimore School of Fishery and other technical +training places, the piers and harbours on the Irish Coast, the system +of light railways, and the draining of rivers and reclamation of waste +lands, are all supported out of the Imperial Exchequer. The Board of +Works alone has been the medium of lending almost five millions of +money on easy terms under the Land Improvement Acts in the country. +Nor have the agricultural interests been neglected. For erecting +farmhouses alone over L700,000 has been given, while immense sums have +been spent in working the Land Acts. For drainage over two millions +have been lent, and a sum of over one million has been remitted from +the debt. A debt of eight and a-half millions appears in the last +return as outstanding from the Board of Irish Public Works, besides +three millions and a-half from the corresponding board in England. In +fact, there is not a project enumerated by Mr. Parnell as necessary, +under a new _regime_, to promote the 'Nationality of Ireland,' which +is not at present being helped on by the funds or the credit of the +'alien Government.' All these national advantages the supporter of a +shadowy Home Rule bids us give up." + +If ever there was a case of the spider and the fly in human affairs +this mild and perfectly equitable reasoning of Mr. Parnell is the +illustration. How about the djinn crying inside the sealed jar, and +the fate of the credulous fisherman who obeys that voice and breaks +the seal which Solomon the Wise set against him? + +In writing this pamphlet I have not cared for graces of literary style +or dramatic strength of composition; and I have largely supported +myself by quotations as a proof that I am not a mere impressionist, +but have a solid back-ground and a firm foothold for all that I have +said. Judged by these extracts it would seem that, outside the right +of full communal self-government, the cry for Home Rule is either +interested and fictitious--or when sincere--save in certain splendid +exceptions, of whom Mr. Laing is the honoured chief, and the only Home +Ruler who makes me doubt the rightness of my own conversion--it is a +mere sentimental impulse shorn of practical power and working +capacity. In any case it is a one-sided thing, leaving out of court +Ulster, the integrity of the Empire, and the obligations of historic +continuity. It is a cry that has been echoed by violence and murder, +by outrage and ruin, and that has in it one overwhelming element of +weakness--exaggeration. It is the cry at its best of enthusiasts whose +ideas of human life and governmental potentialities are too generous +for every-day practice--at its worst but another word for self. For +the men who raise it and hound on these poor dupes to their own +destruction are men who would be rulers of the country in their own +persons, or members of a Gladstonian ministry, were the Home Rule +party to come to the front. With neither section does the strength, +the glory, the integrity, and the continuance of the Empire count; +and the honour of England, like the true well-being of Ireland, is +the last thing thought of by either party. The motto of the one is: +"_Fiat justitia ruat caelum_"--of the other: "_Apres moi le deluge._" +The one abjures the necessities of statesmanship, the other the +self-restraints of patriotism. Surely the good, wholesome, working +principles of sound government lie with neither, but rather with the +steady continuance of things as they are--modified as occasion arises +and the needs of the case demand. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote A: Lord Hartington's statistics--and Lord Hartington is a +man whose word not his bitterest enemies have dared to question or to +doubt--are these: + +1880 (No coercion) 2,585 agrarian crimes. +1881 (Partial and weak coercion) 4,439 " " +1883 (Vigorous coercion) 834 " " +1888 (Vigorous coercion) 660 " " + +] + +[Footnote B: Mr. Hurlbert, a Roman Catholic, an American, and a +personal friend of Mr. Davitt--all which circumstances give a special +weight to his testimony, now borne after frequent and lengthened and +recent visits to Ireland, and after close converse with men of all +classes and of all political and religious views, says in his _Ireland +under Coercion_: "An Irish gentleman from St. Louis brought over a +considerable sum of money for the relief of distress in the north-west +of Ireland, but was induced to entrust it to the League, on the +express ground that, the more people were made to feel the pinch of +the existing order of things, the better it would be for the +revolutionary movement."--_The Irish Question_, I., 193. By Dr. +Bryce.] + +[Footnote C: Some time after the Great Famine, the Government brought +in an Act called the Encumbered Estates Act. A judge was appointed to +act as auctioneer. The income of the estate was set out in schedule +form, and a man purchased that income by competition in open court. He +got with his purchase what was supposed to be the best title then +known, commonly called "A Parliamentary title." If he wanted to sell +again, that was enough. Many years after the bargain was made by the +court, Mr. Gladstone dropped in and upset it. A friend of mind +purchased a guaranteed rental of L600 a year, subject to L300 annuity, +as well as other charges, head rent, &c., &c. Now the Government may +have been said to have pledged its honour to him, speaking by the +mouth of a judge in open court, that it was selling him L600 a year. +Surely it was a distinct breach of faith to swoop down on the +purchaser, years after, and reduce the L600 to L500 without reducing +the charges also in due proportion, or giving back one-sixth of the +purchase money. Mr. Gladstone and his party say the land was rented +too high. Does that (if true) get over the dishonesty of selling for +L600 a year what was really worth only 500? Such a transaction as that +between man and man would be actionable as a fraud. But this excuse is +not true, for when any tenant wants to sell his tenant-right he gets a +large price for it, far larger than the normal proportion to his rent. +When a nation sanctions such absolute dishonesty as this on the part +of its Prime Minister, it is not surprising that the shrewd Irish +peasant profits by the lesson and improves the example.] + +[Footnote D: The following in reference to the Olphert estate +evictions under the Plan of Campaign is from the _Freeman's Journal_. +Will Mr. Spencer when exhibiting his photos, state the facts about +this case--which reason and common-sense show to be altogether in the +landlord's favour? + +"Mr. Spencer, Trowbridge, England, arrived in Falcarragh to-day, +visited the scenes of the late evictions, and took photographs of +several of the demolished houses in the townland of Drumnatinny. Mr. +Spencer intends, on his return to England, to bring home to the minds +of the English people by a series of illustrative lectures, the misery +and hardships to which the Irish peasantry are subjected."] + +[Footnote E: On this question of further legislation I will quote part +of a letter from a correspondent which shows the views of a singularly +able, impartial, and fair-minded Irishman. "The breaking of leases was +another risky thing to do, for it shook all faith in the sovereignty +of the law and the finality of its _dicta_. Till Mr. Gladstone made +himself the champion of the tenants and the oppressor of the +landlords, Parliament never dreamed of revising rents paid under +leases. Mr. Gladstone began by breaking these leases when held for a +certain term defined by him. But we cannot stop there now. If another +Land Bill is to be brought in by the present Government it must, to +really and finally settle matters, _break all leases_. If it stops +short of this the trouble will crop up again. If a man now with a +thirty-nine years' lease can go into the Land Court, the man with a +lease of a hundred years, or a hundred and fifty, or two hundred, +should not be shut out. This point cannot be put too strongly to this +Government. If the thing is to be done let it be done thoroughly, and +let every man who holds a lease--no matter for what term--go into the +Land Court, and also purchase under Lord Ashbourne's Act. Lord +Ashbourne's Act is the real cure if made to apply all round."] + +[Footnote F: The Irish have always been cruel to animals. It is a +curious fact that most Roman Catholic peasants are. In the time of +Charles I. an Act was passed to prevent the Irish farmers from +ploughing by their oxens' tails. Even now they pluck their geese +alive.] + +[Footnote G: The boycott against the Great Northern Railway line +between Carrickmacross and Dundalk is now in full swing. It was begun +at Friday's fair in the former town, intimation having been given to +all dealers in cattle and pigs that not an animal was to leave by the +Great Northern line. Not a hackney car was permitted to attend the +railway station, and commercial travellers had to leave their samples +at the station. Many of the cattle and pigs purchased at the fair were +driven by road to Kingscourt, where there is a station of the Midland +Great Western Company, a local National League branch having published +a resolution recommending all goods to be sent and received _via_ +Kingscourt. It has also been resolved to do no business with +commercial travellers from Belfast, or other parts of the North of +Ireland, whose goods had been carried over the Great Northern system. +Travellers from Scotland, England, and Dublin are only to be dealt +with under guarantees that they do not use the Great Northern line. + + + +BOYCOTTING IN COUNTY WATERFORD. + +THE LEAGUE'S BLACK LIST. + +There has been issued by the National League in the county Waterford a +"list of objectionable persons, with whom it is expected that no true +man will have any dealings whatever"--cattle dealers, butter +merchants, grain and hay merchants, brokers, and farmers being +specially enjoined to refrain from any dealings with them, the farmers +being told that they "must carefully avoid" the sale of milk or stock +to agents of objectionable persons, and evicted tenants that they +"must deem it their strict and imperative duty to follow to the +markets all stock and produce reared upon their farms." + +Look, too, at the abuse poured out on all the Government leaders and +officials. In the _Freeman's Journal_, of December 5th, is one of the +most disgraceful attacks on Mr. Balfour ever made by journalism. It +reads like a filthy outpour of a Yahoo rather than the utterance of a +sane and responsible man. Are these the minds to govern a great and +honest country?] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of About Ireland, by E. 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