XIX.
LANDLORD AND TENANT—THE LAND QUESTION FROM BOTH SIDES.
As far as I have travelled yet, in the mountains of Donegal, through Derry, Antrim, Tyrone and Down, I have seen no trace of what Dr. Hepworth lays to the charge of the Irish—laziness, never cultivating a holding up to the line or into the corners. What excited my wonder again and again, is the fact that up to the boundary ditch or hedge, into the corners, up to the very edge of the rocks the tillage extended. I saw men dig up little fields entirely with the spade among the sudden rocks of Port-a-dorus. Some of the patches a horse with a plough attached could not turn in, yet they were tilled; there was not a spade's breadth left in any corner. And they paid high rent for this ground, rocks and all. They fell behind in famine time—not so very far—and humbly grateful were they for the help that came from outside in that time, and a mercy that forgave a little of the rent. I saw men digging on the mountain-side on the Leitrim estate, and wondered how they could keep their footing. As far as I have seen, it is a slander on the people to say they are averse to labor. On the contrary, they are very laborious, and singularly uncareful for their personal comfort. I heard a fellow- countryman at Moville talk of Paddy's laziness. I pointed out to him how carefully mountain-side and rough bog were cultivated. He admitted it, but spoke of want of rotation of crops and absence in many instances of fall-ploughing. This, I humbly consider, is want of skill, or maybe want of means—not laziness.
Every one says that the country depends almost solely on agriculture; agriculture rests on farm labor; farm labor pays rents high enough to produce periodical famine. The L90,000 rental of one estate, the L40,000 of another, is all produced by these lazy people. If there were any spot so rocky, so wild, that it was under no rent, one might think them lazy if they failed to make a living out of it, but they make a living and help to support a landlord, too, out of these rocks and morasses. I hope to see life farther south, and see if these lazy people exist there. They do not exist in the north so far as I have seen.
It seems to me that the tenant-farmers have been out of sight altogether. Now they have waked up, and there is no power to put them to sleep again. I am more than astonished to find not one intelligent person to defend the Land laws. There is no possibility of understanding previous apathy from an American standpoint unless we think of the thoughtlessness with which the Indians have been treated. The thoughtless landlord has looked upon his own needs according to the requirements of his station, not thinking whether the tenant could pay so much or not, and, whether, if the rent was raised, it left the means of existence behind. I met with very estimable people, who were taking a very high rent; higher than any man could honestly pay, and at the same time laughing at the poverty-stricken devices of their tenants. They did not think.
It must be borne in mind that there was a famine in the land but a short time ago, that these thousands and thousands of people who are under eviction now have no money and no place to go to but the ditch-back, or the workhouse. The workhouse means the parting with wife and children. These things must be taken into consideration, to understand the exasperation of mind which is seething through the whole country.
I do not think the people here, generally speaking, have any idea of the amount or intensity of hidden feeling. I confess it frightens me. I stayed in a country place for a week. I boarded with a family who were much better off than their neighbors. They were favorites at the office of the landlord, and paid him their rent punctually. I often sat at the kitchen hearth as neighbor after neighbor came in in the evening and told in Irish the tale of some hard occurrence that had taken place. I understood enough to guess the drift of the story. I understood well the language of eye and clinched hand with which my host listened. The people who suffered were his people; their woe was his; he felt for them a sympathy of which the landlord never dreamed; but he never said a word. I thought as I sat there—silent too—that I would not like to be that landlord and, in any time of upheaval, lie at the mercy of this favorite tenant of his.
They talk of agitators moving the people! Agitators could not move them were it not that they gave voice to what is in the universal heart of the tenantry.
A gentleman connected with the press said to me to-day: "The fact is that any outrage, no matter how heart-rending, committed by a landlord upon his tenantry is taken little notice of—none by Government—but when a tenant commits an outrage, no matter how great the provocation, then the whole power of the Government is up to punish."
One great trouble among the people is, they cannot read much, and they feel intensely; reading matter is too dear, and they are too poor to educate themselves by reading. What they read is passed from hand to hand; it is all one-sided, and "who peppers the highest is surest to please."
The ignorance of one class, consequent upon their poverty, the insensibility of another class, are the two most dangerous elements that I notice. It is easy to see how public sympathy runs, in the most educated classes. There is great sympathy, publicly expressed, for Captain Boycott and his potatoes; for Miss Bence-Jones, driven to the degrading necessity of milking the cows; but I have watched the papers in vain for one word of sympathy with that pale mother of a family, with her new-born infant in her arms, set upon the roadside the day I was at Carndonagh. Policemen have been known to shed tears executing the law; bailiffs have been known to refuse to do their duty, because the mother's milk was too strong in them; but the public prints express no word of sympathy.
In the papers where sympathy with the people is conspicuous by its absence, there will be paragraph after paragraph about prevention of cruelty to animals. I had the honor of a conversation with a lady of high birth and long descent, and, as I happen to know, of great kindness of heart, a landlady much beloved by a grateful and cared-for tenantry. I remarked to her that justice seemed to me to be rather one-sided: "There is much difference unavoidably between one class and another, but there are three places where all classes should stand on an equality— on a school room floor, in a court of justice, in the house of God." "I would agree with you so far," said the lady, "that they should be on a level when they come before God." I am sure there would be no agitation nor need of coercion if all the landladies and landlords were like this kind-hearted lady in practice.
Another instance of kindly thought on the part of another landlady. The famine left many a poor tenant without any stock at all; every creature was sacrificed to keep in life. This lady bought cows for her tenants who were in this sad plight. She left the cows with them until a calf grew up into a milking cow; then the cow was sold to pay the landlady the money invested. If the cow sold for more than was paid for it the balance was the tenant's, and he had the cow besides. "Thus," said the lady to me, "I benefitted them materially at no expense of money, only a little." This lady, who claims and receives the homage of her tenants for the ould blood and the ould name, has by these acts of inexpensive kindness, chained her tenants to her by their hearts. "It's easy to see," said one to me, "that the ould kindly blood is in her."
There have been many humble petitions for reduction of rent; many have been granted, more have been refused. The reasons given in one case were, a ground-rent, a heavy mortgage, an annuity, and legacies. The question whether one set of tenants was able to meet all these burdens, not laid on by themselves mind, and live, never was taken into consideration for a moment.
When I arrived in Ireland, I met with an English gentleman who took a lively interest in the purpose for which I crossed the sea, namely, to see what I could see for myself and to hear what I could hear for myself on the Land Question. He volunteered a piece of advice. "There are two different parties connected with the Land Question, the landlords and the tenants. They are widely separated, you cannot pass from one to the other and receive confidence from both. If you wait upon the landlords you will get their side of the story; but, then, the tenants will distrust you and shut their thoughts up from you. If you go among the tenants you will not find much favor with the landlords. You must choose which side you will investigate."
Considering this advice good, I determined to go among the people and from that standpoint to write my opinions of what I saw and heard. I made up my mind to tell all I could gather of the opinions and grievances of the poor, knowing that the great are able to defend themselves if wrongfully accused, and can lay the land question, as they see it, before the world's readers.
I hear many take the part of the landlords in this manner: "You are sorry for the tenants, who certainly have some cause of complaint; can you not spare some sympathy for the landlords who bought these lands at a high figure, often borrowing the money to buy them and are getting no return for the money invested?"
Land hunger is a disease that does not attack the tenants alone. The poor man hungers for land to have the means of living; the rich man hungers for land because it confers rank, power and position. As soon as men have realized fortunes in trade they hasten to invest in land. That is the door by which they hope to enter into the privileged classes. Men accustomed to "cut things fine," in a mercantile way, are not likely to except a land purchase from the list of things which are to pay cent. per cent. The tenant has created a certain amount of prosperity, the new landlord looks at the present letting value of the land and raises the rent. This proceeding extinguishes or rather appropriates the Tenant Right. The landlord thinks he is doing no wrong, for, is he not actually charging less than Lord So-and-so, or Sir Somebody or other? which is perhaps very true. All this time the tenant knows he has been robbed of the result of years, perhaps of generations of hard and continuous labor. It is impossible to make such a landlord and such a tenant see eye to eye.
A gentleman asked a lady of Donegal if she would shut out the landlord from all participation in profits arising from improvements and consequent increase in the value of the land. I listened for the answer. "I would give the landlord the profits of all improvements he actually made by his own outlay; I would not give him the profits arising from the tenant's labor and means." Now I thought this fair, but the gentleman did not. He thought that all profit arising from improvements made by the tenant, should revert to the landlord after a certain time. I could not think that just.
As a case in point, a brother of Sir Augustus Stewart said to a Ramelton tenant:
"My brother does not get much profit from the town of Ramelton."
"He gets all he is entitled to, his ground rent, we built the houses ourselves," was the answer.
These people are safe, having a secure title, not trusting to the Ulster
Custom or the landlords' sense of justice.
I have not been much among landlords. I did sit in the library of a landlord, and his lady told me of the excessively picturesque poverty prevailing in some parts, citing as an instance that a baby was nursed on potatoes bruised in water, the mother having hired out as wet-nurse to help to pay the rent. There was no cow and no milk. I had a graphic description of this family, their cabin, their manner of eating. The mother cannot earn the rent any longer and they are to be evicted. I was told they were quite able to pay, but trusting to the Land League had refused.
Naturally what I have seen and heard among the poor of my people, has influenced my mind. I could not see what I did see and hear what I did hear of the tyranny wrought by the late Earl of Leitrim, and the present Captain Dobbing, or walk through the desolation created by Mr. Adair, without feeling sad, sorry and indignant.