Disturbed Ireland

by Bernard H. Becker

Cork, Friday, Dec. 17th.

The present condition of Mr. W. Bence Jones, of Lisselan, whom I called upon to-day, illustrates most vividly the advance made in the art of "Boycotting" since its invention. Early attempts in any artistic direction are apt to be crude, and when "Boycotting" was first practised at Lough Mask it put on the guise of a general strike of the country side against an individual, but its effect was purely local. Since that time great progress has been made in shaping and finishing what one of my informants defined as "a strictly constitutional weapon." At this moment the arm of the skilful "Boycotter" is long. It can stop the sale of the original victim's potatoes in a northern town; it can keep Mr. Stacpoole from getting rid of his horses in Limerick; and can actually prevent Mr. Bence Jones from sending his cattle from Cork to England. The latter gentleman is isolated on his estate at Lisselan, a place near Ballinascarthy, between Bandon and Clonakilty, in this county, but his isolation has not yet gone, in some respects, to the same brutal length as that of Mr. Boycott. He is still permitted to receive and to despatch his letters; and car-drivers have, perhaps by some oversight of the "Boycotters," not yet been warned to avoid his house as if it were a lazaretto, and to refuse to carry his visitors within miles of his door. Perhaps he is considered by the mysterious persons who alone exercise authority in Ireland just now as only a "tyrant" of the second or third degree, and not as a first-class malefactor.

But, however this may be, I found none of the difficulty in reaching Lisselan which accompanied my second visit to Lough Mask House. When I started from Bandon this morning, that thriving town was wrapped in slumber, although the sun was shining brightly out of a deep blue sky, just flecked at the horizon with pearly-hued clouds. The ground was hard and crisp, and the hoofs of the horses rang out merrily as I sped in the direction of Clonakilty, through an undulating country mainly devoted to pasture, some of which was rough and sedgy. As I approached Ballinascarthy the quality of the land was visibly better.

Lisselan House lies in the midst of a charming pastoral scene. Beyond the clean-cut lawn flows the silvery flood of the Arrigadeen, its opposite bank is clothed with the bright green tops of white turnips in the midst of which is penned a flock of sheep (Shropshire Downs), and in the distance are green meadows and browsing kine. All would be soft, peaceful, and Arcadian, were it not for the helmets of the 3rd Dragoon Guards glittering in the sun as the patrol turns the corner of the wood, and the tall, dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary guarding the gate and doorstep. At present the house, the farm, and the neighbouring village are occupied by the police, and it has been thought necessary to increase the strength of the garrison in order to assure the safety of the servants who, to their infinite credit in such times as these, remain true to their master.

It is not pretended for an instant that either Mr. W. Bence Jones or his son, who are as gigantic of stature as they are resolute of mind, need fear personal attack. They are known to be armed to the teeth, and the chances are that the weak-minded labourers who have deserted them are far more afraid of "the masters" than they are of them. The household of Lisselan consists for the time being of the Messrs. Bence Jones, father and son. Miss Bence Jones, their English house servants, two labourers—whereof one is English and the other Irish—Mr. Law, the Scotch bailiff, and an Irish housemaid, who has remained faithful, and helps Miss Bence Jones to milk the cows and to attend to the dairy. The road is slippery on the high ground hard by, and it is debated at Lisselan House whether the farrier of the Dragoon Guards shall not be asked to "sharpen" the shoes of the animals employed there, for no local workman will touch them.

As I pass by the dairy, one of those in which collectively Mr. Bence Jones makes 1,000l. worth of butter yearly, I see the trim housemaid, dressed in cotton print, milking a cow, and am presently aware of "the master's" son and daughter, who have been up since the dawn feeding and penning cattle and sheep, and milking the cows. Since Monday the strike among the Irish employed on the house and the farm has, with the exceptions already mentioned, been rigidly maintained. The men, about forty in number, were "noticed" on Friday; on Saturday they announced their intention of working no more for Mr. Bence Jones, and on Monday deserted the place as if it were plague-stricken.

On Monday morning Mr. Law stood aghast at the sight of a farm of a thousand acres with nobody to work it; but he soon recovered himself, and with the help of his own work, that of a couple of labourers left, and the co-operation of the master's son and daughter, matters went on despite the strike. Mr. Law is, of course, as a good Scotch bailiff should be, greatly distressed at the state of his cow-houses, feeding-stalls, and stockyard, now ankle-deep in "muck"; but the fine shorthorned bull seems none the worse, and the pigs have taken kindly to the new and disorderly condition of affairs. But things are not brought to a deadlock yet. Of the animals "Boycotted" in Dublin the sheep have since been shipped, and it is thought here that at the moment of writing the cattle will be on their way to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, to whom they are consigned.

Byron wrote that "nought so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion;" but this dictum is hardly confirmed in the case of Mr. Bence Jones's assailants, who number among them a minister of religion, as well as the irrepressible grogshop-keeper. I am informed that last Sunday the mutinous labourers—or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say the labourers who have been coerced by threats into mutiny—were addressed in the vestry by Father Mulcahy, and that either he or some other person assured them that they would receive their wages as if they were still employed. However this may be, the unfortunate families, about thirty in number, who have struck at the bidding of the anti-landlord party, are making a sorry bargain; for many of the men are getting on in years, and will have to seek work and house-room elsewhere when they are turned out of their cottages to make room for the strange hands who are coming to do the work they refuse to do. The neat little dwellings of stone and slate that I observed to-day on the Lisselan estate are not let to the labourers, but are, with as much potato land as they can manure, thrown in with their wages, 11s. per week. They must now make way for people who will work, and are not afraid of "Rory of the Hills." Offers of help pour in upon Mr. Bence Jones, and the first detachment of labourers is expected forthwith. One friend offers a phalanx of English navvies; but temperate counsels prevail, and it is thought better to get the really small number of men required brought in quietly. With police everywhere at Lisselan and Ballinascarthy, and cavalry patrols always at hand, it is hardly likely that violence will be attempted towards the newcomers or the present slender garrison.

There are, as in all such cases, conflicting reports as to the cause of the quarrel, if such it can be designated, between landlord and labourer at Lisselan. In his forthcoming book, A Life's Work in Ireland, by a Landlord who tried to do his duty, Mr. Bence Jones will doubtless describe with characteristic accuracy the objects he had in view, and the means he took to accomplish them. He has also already made known his difficulties and disappointments through the medium of the Press. He has undoubtedly, had abundant opportunity of weighing the possibilities of Irish country life during the long period of his residence in Ireland. It is also clear to any unprejudiced person that he has striven, not only to do his duty by the land, but by the tenants occupying one part of it and the labourers employed on the other. In round numbers he owns about 4,000 acres, of which he farms 1,000 himself. Besides 1,000l. worth of butter annually made, he sells 1,000l. worth more of cattle, and 1,000l. worth of sheep and wool, besides oats and various other produce.

While this one-thousand-acre farm was let to tenants, it yielded its proprietor an average rental of 17s. an acre. No person acquainted with farming would for an instant assume that a small tenant could make nearly as much out of his land as the farmer of a thousand acres; but allowing for all this, 14s. 3d. per acre appeared a very low rate to the landlord of the farm of fifty-eight acres occupied for the last half-century by the Walsh family. I gather that the grandfather of D. Walsh held the farm from the grandfather of the present landlord; that the original occupant was succeeded by his son; that on the son's death his widow retained undisturbed possession until her son was old enough to assume the management, and that then the landlord required 20s. per acre from him. To the landlord it seemed that the Walsh family had had a good bargain. He was informed, with what degree of accuracy I cannot at this moment ascertain, that the widow had given her four daughters respectively 140l., 130l., 130l., and the stock of a farm, probably of equal value "to their fortune," and that she had also helped one of her sons to make a start in the world on an independent farm. From these circumstances he concluded that he was entitled to more rent than he had been receiving, and demanded 20s. from her son for a lease of thirty-one years.