XXXI.
KILLALA—THE CANADIAN GRANT TO THE FAMINE FUND AND WHAT IT HAS DONE— BALLYSAKEERY—THREE LANDLORDS—A LANDLORD'S INTERESTING STATEMENT.
I had the very great pleasure of a drive to the ancient town of Killala, accompanied by the wife of the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, who superintends the orphanage and the mission schools in connection with the Presbyterian Church of Ballina. Killala is an old town with a gentle flavor of decay about it. It has a round tower in good preservation, and an ancient church. I was shown the point where the French landed at the stirring time of war and rebellion.
It makes my heart glad to hear in so many places of the benefit the Canadian grant has been to this suffering country. I heard with great pleasure of fishing boats along the coast named Montreal, Toronto and other Canadian names in affectionate remembrance of the Canadian dollars that paid for them. This grant has been a means of convincing the people that there is such a place as Canada. The peasant mind had a sort of belief that America consisted of two large towns, New York and Philadelphia. In one instance the Canadian paid nets arrived on Thursday; they were in the water on Saturday, and many boats returned laden with mackerel. So great a capture had not been remembered for many years. In one locality where the nets given were valued for less than L200, it was proved that the boats had brought in during four weeks over L1,200 worth of mackerel.
After we had taken a view of Killala we had a pleasant interview with the good minister at Ballysakeery. Here we received one of those welcomes that cheer the travellers' way and leave a warm remembrance behind. The famine pressed hard upon Mayo. Many respectable people were obliged to accept relief in the form of necessary food, seed potatoes and seed oats. It is a noticeable fact that here, as in Leitrim—that part at least of Leitrim in which I made investigations—the landlords in a body held back from giving any help to the starving people on their lands. Sir Roger Palmer gave potatoes to his tenants and sold them meal at the lowest possible figure, thus saving them from having the millstone of Gombeen tied round their neck. Sir Charles Gore, a resident landlord, has the name of generosity at this time of want, and justice at all times, which is better to be chosen than great riches. The Earl of Arran, who has drawn a large income, he and his ancestors, from this part of Mayo for which they paid nothing, not only gave nothing but gave no reply whatever to letters asking for help.
The land belonging to the Earl of Arran here—I cannot undertake to write the name of the locality by the sound—was a common waste and was let by the Earl at two shillings and sixpence per acre to Presbyterian tenants, who came here from the North I believe. Of course they had to reclaim, fence, drain, cultivate for years. They built dwellings and office houses, built their lives into the place. After they had spent the toil of years on improvement, their rents were raised to seven and sixpence per acre, five shillings at one rise; then it was raised to ten shillings; the next rise was to fifteen shillings and then to twenty. The land is not now able to bear more than fourteen shillings an acre rent and support the people who till it. These people have been paying a rack rent for years to this nobleman, the Earl of Arran, yet when starvation overtook them, he had neither helping hand nor feeling heart for them.
The distress of this last famine was so great in this corner of Mayo that people on holdings of thirty acres were starving—would have died but for the relief afforded. It takes some time—and more than one good harvest—for people who have got to starvation to recover themselves far enough to pay arrears of rent.
We visited the ruins of Moyne Abbey, which are in good preservation yet. One of the present lords of the soil had a part of it made habitable and lived there some time, but it is again unroofed and left to desolation. It has been a very extensive building, stretching over a great extent of land now cleared of ruins. What remains is still imposing.
We had a pleasant interview with the Rev. Mr. Nolan, the kind and patriotic priest of this neighborhood, and we returned to Ballina as gratified and as tired as children after a holiday excursion.
I was introduced at Ballina to a landlord, a fine, clever-looking man, with that particularly well-kept and well-fed appearance which is as characteristic of the upper classes in Ireland as a hunger-bitten, hunted look is characteristic of the poor. I would not like to employ as strong language in speaking of the wrongs of the tenantry as this gentleman used to me. He is both landlord and agent. He condemned all the policy of the Government toward Ireland in no measured terms. Spoke of the emigration that is going on now, as well as the emigration that had taken place after the last famine, as men going out to be educated for and to watch for the time of retribution. Retribution for the accumulated wrongs which mis-government had heaped upon Ireland he looked upon as inevitable, as coming down the years slowly but surely to the place of meeting and of paying to the uttermost farthing. Well, now, these are queer sentiments for a landlord to hold and to utter publicly. He acknowledged freely that a great part—a very great part—of the excessive rents extorted on pain of eviction, the eviction taking place when the unfortunate fell behind, were really premiums paid on their own labor. Furthermore, he acknowledged that he himself had raised the tenants' rents on the estates for which he was agent, compelling them to pay smartly for the work of their own hands. He spoke highly of the people as a whole, of their patience, their kindliness to one another, and their piety. He spoke of the case of one man, a peasant, who could only speak broken English, who came under his notice by coming to him to sell rye-grass to make up his rent. This man with the imperfect English was a tenant of the gentleman's brother. He held three acres, two roods of land in one place at a rent of L7 5s, where his house stood; one acre, at L1 4s. Of course he or his ancestors built the house. His poor rate and county cess is 16s, or $46.25 yearly for four acres, two roods of land. If they got it for nothing they could not live on it, say some. The best manure that can be put upon land is to salt it well with rent, say Mr. Tottenham and Mr. Corscadden. Well, this man since the famine, has no stock but one ass and a few hens. He cut and saved his rye-grass himself, sold it for L3 10s, sold his oats for L3 4s 6d; had nothing more to sell; had remaining for his wife and two little ones a little meal and potatoes. He is a year and a half behind in his rent, and likely, after all his toil and struggle, to be set on the roadside with the rest. He has no bog near, there is none nearer than over five miles, except some belonging to Miss Gardiner. Of course that mild and sober spinster that will not oblige her own tenants has nothing in the way of favor for outsiders. It took him twelve days last year to make sufficient turf to keep the hearth warm. He went to the bog in the morning on his breakfast of dry stirabout, with a bit of cold stirabout in his pocket to keep off the hungry grass, as the peasant calls famished pains, and walked home to his dry stirabout at night, having walked going and coming eleven Irish miles over and above his day's work. He drew home seventy ass loads of turf at the rate of two loads per day—twenty-two Irish miles of a walk. Let Christians imagine this man at his toil in his thin clothing, poor diet and bed of straw with scanty coverlet, toiling early and late to pay an unjust rent. Often after his hard day's work he has gone out at night with the fishers and toiled all night in hopes of adding something to his scanty stores. Said the landlord, "The vilest criminal could not have a harder life than this God-fearing uncomplaining peasant. What I tell you I drew from him, for he made no complaint." "You have a hard life of it, my man," said the landlord to him. He was not his tenant. "Well, sir, sure God is good and knows best," was the man's answer.
I was very much astonished at this gentleman's narrative and his other admissions, and I ventured to enquire for my own satisfaction had he made restitution to the tenants. "Have you, sir, restored what you have robbed?" I did not suggest the four-fold which is the rule of that Book which we acknowledge as a guide and law-giver. "I am doing so," he replied, and he handed me a printed address to the tenants, offering twenty-five percent reduction on arrears, if paid within a certain time. Now, I was very much interested in this gentleman and in his opinions, but I could not bring myself to agree with him that this was restitution. However, I state the matter and leave it to that enlightened jury, the readers of the Witness, "too large to pack at any rate," and let them give their decision. I think myself that a little of the Sermon on the Mount, applied conscientiously, would be good for those who hold the happiness of Ireland in their hands. When justice becomes loud-voiced and likely to pass into vengeance, they talk of giving a little as charity.