XV.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PAST—THE DERRY OF TO-DAY—PURCHASING TENANT RIGHTS—NIBBLING AT THE TENANT RIGHT—INSTANCES OF HARDSHIP—"LIBERTY OF CONTRACT."
At Moville I heard that there were some who had become peasant proprietors by purchasing out and out their holdings, and that they had bitterly repented of so doing; for they had tied a millstone about their necks. I was advised to go to Limavady and see the Rev. Mr. Brown, who had made the purchase for these people, and knew how the bargain was turning out.
I was still at Moville. I was to return to Derry by boat, a much preferable mode of travelling to the post car. I mistook the wharf. There are two, one hid away behind some houses, one at the Coast Guard Station standing out boldly into the water. I walked over to the most conspicuous wharf and had the pleasure of hearing the starting bell ring behind me, and seeing the Derry boat glide from behind the sheltering houses and sail peacefully away up the Foyle like a black swan. Why do they paint all the steamers black in this green Erin of ours? Well, as my belongings were on board, there was no help for it but to take a special car and go after my luggage, a long, cold drive to Derry. So much for being stupid.
I have been in Derry for some time. At different times I have tried to admire it, and it is worthy of admiration; but some way it is a little difficult to think up thoughts as one ought to think them. Thoughts will not come to order. Besides, Derry "is an old tale and often told."
Still, it is an event in one's life to go round the old Derry walls. Owing to the kindness of Mr. Black, I have had that sensation. The gateways, without gates now of course, look like the arches of a bridge, and the walls like streets hung up out of the way. When one looks through a loop hole or over a parapet, there does a faint remembrance come up, like a ghost, of the stirring times that have wrapped themselves in the mist of years, and slid back into the past. I stood over the gates—this one and that one—trying to look down the Foyle toward the point where the ships lay beyond the boom, and to fancy the feelings of the stout-hearted defenders of Derry, as they watched with hungry eyes, and waited with sinking hearts but unflinching courage on the relief that the infamous Colonel Kirk kept lying, a tantalizing spectacle, inactive, making no effort of succor. But the houses are thick outside the walls, and shut up the view and choke sentiment. Of course I was in the cathedral, and looked at the rich memorial windows that let in subdued light into the religious gloom. Saw the shell which was thrown over with terms of capitulation, sitting in a socket on a pillar in the cathedral like a dove on its nest. It might tell a tale of what it saw in its flight through the air from one grim bank to the other, but it maintains a blank silence.
Of course I looked up at Walker on his monument, and went home to read Professor Witherow's book on the siege, which was kindly presented to me by Mr. Black, and to listen to people who scruple not to say that the monument, like the London monument of the great fire as described by Pope,
"Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies."
The moderns are plucking some of the feathers of glory from the wings fame gave to Walker. That is the way the fame of one generation is served by another.
Derry seems a very prosperous old maid, proud of her past, proud of her present. The great industry of Derry is shirt making. Was over the largest factory, that of Mr. Tillie, whose branch factory I saw at Carndonagh. This factory employs about twelve hundred hands. These work people were more respectably dressed than any operatives I have seen in Ireland. They all wore bonnets or hats; the mill people at Gilford and Ballymena went bareheaded or with a shawl thrown over the head. In the present woeful depression of the linen trade, it is cheering to look at this busy hive of industry. The shirts are cut out by machinery, the button holes are machine made and the machines are run by steam, a great relief to the operatives. This industry has prospered in Mr. Tillie's hands. He is also a landed proprietor. His own residence, Duncreggan, is very beautiful, and the grounds about it are laid out in fine taste.
There are now many other factories in Derry, but this is the largest.
There was an effort to begin ship-building here, but it was defeated by
the parsimony of the London companies, which are extensive landlords in
Derry, and would not give a secure title to the necessary land; so
Belfast is the gainer and Derry the loser by so much.
Was a Sunday in Derry. She has got faithful watchmen on her spiritual walls. Visited a large living Sabbath-school in connection with Mr. Rodgers' church. Had the privilege of a class, and found that the little maidens had an appreciative knowledge of their Bibles. I hear that there is considerable religious earnestness in Derry, especially among the young men.
From Derry I ran down to Limavady to have an interview with the Rev. Mr. Brown anent the purchases made by tenants and how they were getting along afterward. Went down in the evening train. Behold, there was no room for me in the inn, and there was no other hotel in the little town. This was not so pleasant. Had a letter of introduction to a person in the town; made a voyage of discovery; found out his residence, and he was not at home. Obtained a guide and went to the Rev. Mr. Brown's—a good bittie out in the environs; found him just stepping on a car to leave for a tenant right meeting. Got a recommendation from him to a private house where I might, could, would or should get accommodation for the night, and made an appointment with Mr. Brown for the morrow.
I may here remark that the residence of the Rev. Mr. Brown is both commodious and elegant. As a rule the ministry are comfortably and even stylishly housed in the North.
The next day had an interview with Mr. Brown, a frank, able and communicative man. Under his agency the people had bargained for a part of the Waterford property from the Marquis of that ilk. "The Marquis was a good and generous landlord; all his family, the Beresfords, were good landlords." I had heard that said before. There were reasons why the Marquis was willing to sell, and the tenants were eager to buy. It was a hard pull for some of them to raise the one-third of the purchase money. They paid at the rate of thirty years' rent as purchase money. They are paying now a rent and a half yearly, but hope is in the distance and cheers them on. So if they have a millstone about their necks, as my Moville friend insinuated, it will drop off some day and leave them free for ever. Some of them have already paid the principal.
The Marquis got such a high price for his land that he only sold two- thirds of the estate, retaining the rest in his own hands, and raising the rents. Some two or three of the purchasers had a good deal of difficulty in raising their payments, but Mr. Brown has no doubt they will eventually pull through.
I heard again and again, before I met with Mr. Brown, of Limavady, that it was about thirty years since the tenants of the rich lands of the Ulster settlement began to feel the landlords nibbling at their tenant right. The needy or greedy class of landlords discovered a way to evade the Ulster custom, by raising the rents in such a way as to extinguish the tenant right in many places. For instance, a tenant wished to sell his interest in a certain place. The agent attended the sale to notify parties wishing to buy that rent would be doubled to any new tenant and there was no sale, for the place was not worth so much. The tenant's right was more than swallowed up by the increase of rent. This was done so successfully that were it not for the Act of 1870, there would be no trace of the Ulster custom left.
It has been the custom from the plantation times to let the tenants build, clear, fence, improve, drain, on lands let low because they were bare of improvement. The difference between what the land was worth when the tenant got it, and what generations of thrifty outlay of time and the means made it was the tenant's property, and the Ulster custom allowed him to sell his right to his improvements to the highest bidder. On some lands the tenant right was much more than the rent, as it should be when it was made valuable by years and years of outlay; but landlords, pinched for money, or greedy for money, naturally grudged that this should be, and set themselves by office rules to nip and pick the tenant right all away.
One great difference between the men of the lowland farms and the Donegal Celt of the hills is that they have felt and treasured up the remembrance of injustice since the settlement. Their lowland neighbors never began to sympathize with them until they knew how it felt themselves. In speaking of injustice and cruelty toward the hill tenants, I was often told, "Oh, these things are of the past," they occurred thirty years ago. How philosophically people can endure the miseries they do not feel. The sponge has not been created that will wipe off the Donegal mountains the record of deeds that are graven there.
To come back to tenant right, an office rule was made giving the out- going tenant three years' rent, in some cases five years' rent for his claim on the farm, and "out you go." Mr. McCausland, whose estate joins Limavady, gave three years' rent. Since the Land Act of 1870, and since the eyes of the world have been turned on the doings of Ireland, he has allowed something more for unexhausted manuring. He has also advanced money to some extent for improvements, adding five per cent, not to the loan, but to the rent, thus making the interest a perpetual charge on the property. Landlords in Donegal did the same with the money they got from Government to lend to the people—got it at one and a half per cent from Government, re-lent it at five per cent, making the interest a perpetual rent charge.
"When self the wavering balance shakes
'Tis rarely right adjusted."
The tenants, I think, are naturally averse to borrowing money which brings interest in perpetuity over them, and enables the landlord to say, "I made the improvements myself." Into these improvements enters the tenant's labor, as well as the perpetual interest.
A good man, a minister, not Mr. Brown, reasoned with me that the landlord was sleeping partner with the tenant, that he gave the land, the tenant the labor, and both should share the profit of improvement. If the land was rent free I could see that partnership just, but as long as a man paid the rent value of the land as he got it, the improvement made by his labor and means through the slow years should be his own. I might think differently if I had an estate with daughters to portion, sons to establish in life, a castle to build, a fine demesne to create, or even a gambling wife or horse-racing sons tugging at my purse strings.
Whatever good and sufficient reasons may be found for skinning eels alive, nothing will ever reconcile the eels to it.
The companies of Derry, who are great landlords there, the Fishmonger's company, the Mercers, &c., are following suit with the rest in evading the Ulster Custom. It is thought, as these companies never observed the conditions upon which these grants were made to them, but held them merely to make money of them, they should be compelled to sell to the tenants. I agree with this. Still, if the same rule of non-fulfilment of obligation were laid to private landlords there would be compulsion of sale there too. The companies on the whole get the name of being better landlords than private individuals, and are more liberal to their tenants. In cases of hardship the managers for the companies, not the companies themselves, get the blame.
The great complaint is the landlord's power to raise the rents as often as he pleases. When a landlord appoints a valuator, the latter understands what he is to do and why he was appointed. The tenant has no say in this matter. Where is the freedom of contract of which so much is said? This arbitrary power of raising the rent at will irresponsibly and thus confiscating the tenant's rights, the people who are affected by the wrong with one voice declare must cease to exist.
Instances were given me by Mr. Brown, who, by the way, had just come home from giving his testimony before the Bessborough Commission. A man named Hamilton Stewart was put out of his place, receiving three years' rent as compensation. His predecessors had bought the tenant right of the place; he had improved it after it fell into his hands. All his rights, including the purchase money paid, except the three years' rent, were confiscated.
Another case he mentioned as happening on the estate of one Major Scott. A tenant, one John Loughrey, was lost in the river. His widow died in a few months afterward, leaving two little boys absolutely orphans. Their uncle, who lived near, offered to manage the place for the boys and to pay the rent till one of them came of age. Answer—"No, we cannot allow minors to hold land on our estate." Very much against the wishes of the uncle he was obliged to fall in with this landlord's arrangement, and five years' rent were laid down as a settlement of the case by Mr. King, the agent. The boys' uncle thought it a great hardship to have to give up the place the boys' father had improved, for he was a thrifty man, had some money, and was able to improve. When the five years' rent was counted out on the table, Mr. King said to the boys' uncle, "That is the money coming to the boys, count it." He counted it and said, "This is five years' rent certainly." "Now," said Mr. King, "there is a bad house upon the farm; it is not in as good repair as I would like and I would like a good house upon it. I will take L100 of this money and with it I will build a house upon the place." He took L100 of the five years' rent and built a house that was never inhabited. The children never got this money back. This case was referred to again and again in public meetings and other places till Mr. King was obliged to make an effort to explain it away. The children's uncle was rich, and they thought that, therefore, the orphans need not get all the money. Mr. Brown knew this case intimately, as the drowned man, his widow, and orphans were members of his congregation. This is liberty of contract.
The argument that the children had relatives comparatively rich was the same argument as Captain Dopping used as a reason for not restoring what was robbed from the Buchanan children—their relatives were rich and therefore they did not need it. Now, what person who was touched with a trial like this would not consider this freedom of contract absolute robbery. In the case of the Loughrey children there had been no agreement or shadow of an agreement with the drowned man to keep up the house, and the house was as good as any of the neighboring houses—a good substantial farm house. This case was brought before the Bessborough Commission.