1

I PUT forward the following statements on Irish matters, like those in two former papers, as the result of my own personal experience during forty years' residence in Ireland as a landlord. In discussing the proposed remedies for our difficulties, it is needful to bear clearly in mind the facts established in the papers just alluded to. No one can wish to avoid harsh words more than I do, yet the truth must be told truly. The falsehood and scheming that prevail in Ireland are the causes of the chief part of the difficulty.

The real state of the country is one of great backwardness in civilisation. Education, habits, and ideas are those of a semi-barbarous people. They have both the virtues and vices of that state. Read the daily account in the papers of outrages committed. To say nothing of shocking murders, consider what such facts as these mean. A few weeks ago the house of a poor man in County Limerick who had given offence was beset. They tied him down in bed and cut off his ears. Of course this is better than burning him and his wife and children alive in their house, as was done in the same district within the memory of many. To cut off only the man's ears shows progress. But what a progress! It is still grievous barbarism, if less horrible than formerly. Since then other poor fellows' ears were cut off in other places. It is becoming an institution. Yet there are a large number of Irish M.P.'s who feel no shame in stirring up an agitation of which such acts are the sure fruit, and when these cruelties have been done, palliate and excuse them, denying that they are answerable for such wickedness, and asserting

1 "Ireland, 1840-1880"; and "Irelandits Social State. - Macmillan for April and July.

that it is the fault of the Government or the landlords.

The country being in this state of semi-barbarism, with parts on the eastern side more advanced, and parts on the western side more backward, the first fact to be observed is, that the average Irish peasant has no desire for progress and civilisation. His view is that he ought to be left with all the rough advantages of his uncivilised condition, and that concession ought also to be made to him (at whose cost he cares not) to compensate him for all the disadvantages of that condition. The strongest ground on which he asks for such concessions is his poverty, and he and his M.P.s urge the extreme poverty of the poorest part of Connaught as a reason why concessions should be extended over the more advanced districts. He has no thought that such concessions, not being founded on strict right, must be ruinous to the country, and in the end even to himself. The present moment and his personal gain are all he can think of, and by this importunity of poverty, like the clamour of the sturdy beggar, he does influence those who act on sentiment rather than on facts. Nearly all the fine sentiments of patriotism and the rest, that are put forward, are the merest shams, invented for the occasion, and having no foundation in fact. The strongest feeling of patriotism is jealousy of England. The legislation of 1870 proceeded on the view that most Irish tenants are good and worthy men, and most Irish landlords the reverse; the truth being, that the proportion of bad tenants in Ireland, indolent, drinking, and useless, is grievously large, and that though some landlords neglect their duties by not laying out money on their land, the proportion of

harshness is very small.

The Devon Commission in 1844 visited every corner of Ireland and investigated every case of hardship that could be heard of. The result was so trifling that for a generation complaints of hardship ceased. Lately such complaints have again begun, it is believed with even less foundation than in 1844. Whenever definite complaints have been made, they have been shown to be untrue. One good of the new Commission is, that it will test all such complaints. This is one reason why it was objected to by the Land League.

We who live in the country know the men and the details of the cases that are brought forward in our own districts. I know the facts about two such cases that have been the pretence for neighbouring land meetings, and assert that, from first to last, they rest on mere untruth. It is upon men in this social and moral state that the franchise has been conferred.

1.—ULSTER TENANT-RIGHT. The extension of the Ulster Tenantright customs to the rest of Ireland is often spoken of as a remedy for all the evils of the country. I assert that except those who hope to gain by it, no one advocates Tenant-right, but men ignorant of land and farming. Such an extension would be contrary to all principles of honest dealing towards the owners of land. By the Ulster Tenant-right, whenever the tenant leaves his farm from any cause, he is usually entitled to sell (what is called) his interest in it to the best bidder, provided he is not a bad character. The transaction is wholly between the outgoing and incoming tenants, the landlord having nothing to do with it, except that any arrears of rent due are paid out of the purchase-money. The landlord may object to the purchaser if he is of bad character. But the faults that would justify such an objection are not of the kind that are common among those who have money enough to buy a farm.

So that this

But

The

sequence. In theory, too, the landlord is at liberty to raise the rent. the practical difficulties in his way, unless the rise be very trifling or the rent unduly low, are so great, that it is very seldom he can accomplish it. The rate of purchase is sometimes as high as twenty years of the rent and over. Ten years' purchase is thought an ordinary and moderate rate. price depends upon the acreable rent, and all the other incidents that affect the letting value of land, especially the demand for farms at the moment. Whether the times are good or bad makes a great difference in the price of Tenant - right. It has been asserted that tenant-right existed in Ulster more than 200 years ago. The proof of this, however, is very indifferent. Whether it existed or not, it is certain its great extension occurred at the latter part of the last century, when the large improvement of the linen trade took place. Hand-spinning of linen thread and hand-loom-weaving were then universal in many parts of Ireland. They went on in every farmer and labourer's house.

The

land in Ulster had already been very much subdivided. When the linen

trade flourished, it enabled industrious families to make money and pay great sums for the Tenant-right of the small lots of their neighbours, willing to sell from any cause.

The spinning-wheel and the loom afterwards earned the means of stocking and manuring the land bought. Tenant-right can only live when the rent is under the true value of the land. If the land is let at the full value the tenant has nothing to sell. Very little thought will show the impossibility that men should go on, from generation to generation, paying the full value of the land in rent, and a great sum of money besides on entry. In those days, and long after, rents were very ill paid in Ireland; the landlords lost in this way very largely. As under Tenant-right all arrears of rent due were paid out of the purchase

It

money, most Ulster landlords acquiesced in the system, and sanctioned it. The purchaser paid his money into the landlord's office; the arrears were taken out of it, and the balance handed to the out-going tenant. is well known that incoming tenants thus often paid away not only all their own money, but also all they were able to borrow from their friends besides, in order to buy Tenant-right. It suits best too for small lots of land. When thus stripped of capital it is impossible for a mere farming tenant to farm the land well. If a few bad years chance to come he is ruined, and has to sell his interest again for whatever it will fetch, submitting to the loss. Any arrears of rent, then, that he may have accumulated are stopped out of the money that is payable to him, and thus he often becomes a pauper, or near it. The immense effect of bad or good years upon Tenant-right has never been duly observed. It is much greater than upon tenants holding in the common way. Further, Tenant-right is a chattel. It may be sold by a creditor for debt, and it may be left by will, or settled independently of the farm itself. Sales by creditors are common; they are in effect just the same as ejectments. Tenant-right, too, is often left to wife and younger children as a provision, and so has to be paid over again by the son who gets the farm, thus pumping the farm dry of capital every generation, at the very time when a young, energetic man entering on it could do much good if he had the capital. Tenant-right rested wholly upon custom; and the custom is said to vary in nearly every county in Ulster. It had no legal authority, but the customs were so undoubted that hardly any one thought of disregarding them. The Land Act gave the customs legal right. Having been acted on by landlord and tenant alike, there was a clear equity in favour of the customs, and it was right that any legal doubt about them should be removed.

There have been disputes under the Land Act, but they have been about small accessories of the customs. These have been decided on appeal by the Judges of the Superior Court named for that purpose. It has been established that a limitation of the custom on estates to four years' purchase is good. This was settled as to Lord Erne's estate, where the tenants are very flourishing. Four years was insisted on, as still leaving the tenant some of his capital needful for farming the land. There have been other like minor points. The decisions, it should be observed, wholly turn on the question, What was the custom of the estate? The tenants had bought their several rights in their farms expressly under the custom of the estate, well known to them and the landlord. What they had bought and paid for, the same, and no other, they had a just claim to sell. The tenants' efforts of course have been to claim and get the utmost custom that prevails anywhere. Whenever a decision was made contrary to their interest, of course a howl and clamour rose up about it. question has not been one of Law, but of fact. Several small attempts have been made in Parliament to get an Act passed reversing the Judges' decisions. All have failed. The custom is the universal rule of right everywhere.

The

About 1840 I went to Ulster to inform myself on the management of land there. Previous to that time the difficulties in the management of land in Ulster were as great as in other provinces. Tenants were usually as badly off and unsatisfactory there as elsewhere. The linen trade had led to great subdivision of farms. The arrears of rent on many estates were grievous. The intermixing of fields of different occupiers caused a great loss to them. How is it possible to farm to advantage when the farmer has several fields, an acre or two each, in different parts of the estate, that he must go a quarter or half a mile round to get into?

I happened to know Mr. W. Blacker,

of Armagh, who, besides having property of his own, was agent to Lord Gosford and other large proprietors. He had started the plan of getting over a Scotch grieve and fixing him on an estate, whose whole business it should be to go amongst the tenants teaching them better farming, and especially how to grow clover and turnips, before quite unknown. This answered well. The increased food for stock soon produced more and better manure; this gave better crops, and a wonderful change was effected. I stayed some time with Mr. Blacker, and remember going over an estate with him which he had bought for a friend, with a large arrear of rent upon it, every shilling of which by this plan was paid up in a few years, and the purchase money thus largely reduced, whilst the tenants prospered much.

Nothing could be more interesting or instructive than the results Mr. Blacker showed. His example had been followed by many other landlords, sometimes by getting Scotch grieves, sometimes by transplanting one of Mr. Blacker's good tenants into one of their farms as an example. He took me a tour in the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, to see what was going on there among his pupils.

I remember at one place we went to visit one of Mr. Blacker's transplanted tenants, and found that he had given up all the good ways in which he had been instructed, and had relapsed into barbarous native habits. Whilst Blacker was reproving his erring sheep, an old neighbouring tenant who had joined himself to us in our walk, as the way is in Ireland, came up to his landlord and me and said, "Whisha, your honour, ye brought that fellow to be a parable to us, and sure he is as bad as any of us." It was too true.

(1) It will thus be seen that though the looms were at that time in almost every house in a large part of Ulster, Tenant-right did not save the country from the common troubles of Irish bad farming and subdividing land, nor

raise the condition of the people. It never could do so. Still less can it do so in the other provinces, where very few are able to pay large sums to get possession of farms, except shopkeepers who have made money in business. What is the gain from having such men as farmers? A great trade in Ulster has enriched many of the people, and Scotch blood and habits have helped to make Ulster more prosperous. That is all. After the Land Act passed in 1870 we had several very prosperous years for farmers. The prices paid for Tenant-right rose higher and higher; and the years being good, and Hope, as usual, telling a flattering tale, all were sure that prosperity would be eternal, only it would be greater still. Sellers and buyers both could not praise Tenant-right enough. But those of us who remembered, that after the famine in 1846, the price of Tenant-right fell to almost nothing, and knew its unsoundness in principle, always predicted what would happen in the changes and chances of time. The last three years the tall talk in Ulster in favour of Tenantright has greatly come down. course there are many who still praise it, and the interests of all who now occupy land are involved in it to the extent of hoping to be able to sell out of their farms well. But let the account of Donegal in Mr. Tuke's pamphlet on Irish Distress and its Remedies, p. 8 et seq. be read. Tuke gives the most instructive view of Tenant-right that I have ever seen. He proves that it in no way meets the farmer's troubles and difficulties. It will be seen there that Tenant-right is no security even against starvation. Tenant-right is as strong in Donegal as in any other part of Ulster; yet, as Mr. Tuke tells us, whole parishes were starving last winter, though every man had this valuable Tenant-right, as it is supposed to be, which he could have sold not long before for ten to twenty years purchase. A few with better or larger lots, that could still find purchasers,

Of

Mr.