However, Mr. Mahony, a successful manufacturer of tweeds at Blarney, says that manufactures are reviving in Ireland. He thinks that three hundred power-looms have been established within fifteen years. There is also ship-building in the north.
I talked with another working farmer. He had a tidy place near Cork, perhaps the neatest farm-house I saw, although there was no floor and no window in the principal room. Two hearty children and a domestic were present. The wife had been confined that morning, and the husband’s breath indicated potations. “Such,” said my landlady, who accompanied me, “do not employ a physician, but a ‘knowledgable woman.’ She is not recommended for skill in her profession, but ‘she is lucky.’ Had we gone into the room where the baby was, it would have been insisted on that we should take a glass of punch or we’d take away the beauty of the baby.”
Dan Donovan, the father, said that he had sixty-five acres, all tillable, for which he paid the landlord one hundred and forty-two pounds yearly. He was also obliged to pay twelve pounds a year to the widow of the man who rented the farm before him. His taxes amounted to about twenty-five pounds, if not more, making the whole outlay in money about eight hundred and fifty dollars a year for sixty-five acres. He had been there about four years, and was only a yearly tenant, but he had manured the farm and put it in heart. That he was one of the very thriving farmers was evidenced by his stock of eight cows, eight calves, a pair of horses and a foal, a pair of donkeys, and twelve pigs. He employed more hands than an American would employ on so small a farm,—four “boys” or laborers at six shillings a week and their diet and lodging, which cost him as much more. He told us that he could not get ahead at all. “I am in debt to my master. He’s a very intelligent man and fond of me. When I paid last year’s rent the landlord promised some abatement this year.”
Donovan is a voter. To a person of experience I mentioned how many hands Donovan employed. He answered, “He cannot get along with less, as he hauls manure from the city and hand-weeds.” The speaker himself has four persons hand-weeding grain-fields, “taking out thistles and dock-roots that a previous tenant left as a boon.”
On another walk I saw two men beside the road, one of them a remarkably neat old man, a farmer. They confirmed what I had heard, that very few around there could afford to save their hay and straw and feed cattle during the winter to manure their farms. “How do they manage, then?” I asked.
“Like that man,” pointing to a handsome field opposite; “let land at five pounds an acre to those who have manure-pits.”
Such, I understand, are men who, having donkey-carts, go around Cork gathering from houses the offal and garbage to throw into these pits.
I have said that Donovan was a voter, and this brings up the most serious complaint that the Irish have against the British government,—the inequality of the suffrage. This inequality does not exist in country districts. In counties in both countries the payment of an annual rent of twelve pounds entitles a man to vote for members of Parliament. But as Ireland is much poorer, doubtless the number of these voters is less. The inequality spoken of exists in boroughs. In England those living in towns have household suffrage, and even the lodger franchise; but in Irish towns the parliamentary voter must pay four pounds rent.
I have seen an estimate that in England two men out of five are voters; and in Ireland only one out of five is a voter. As to the operation of this high property qualification, we may observe that the county of Cork, having a population in 1871 of over five hundred thousand, returns under fifteen thousand votes. The city, having within the parliamentary boundary nearly ninety-eight thousand, gives under five thousand votes! But here is an illustration of the old rotten borough system of England: The county of Cork, with over fourteen thousand voters, elects two members at large. The city of Cork, with over four thousand six hundred voters, elects two members, while four boroughs in the county elect each a member; Bandon having four hundred and thirty voters, Mallow two hundred and ninety-three, Youghal two hundred and eighty-nine, Kinsale one hundred and ninety-four.
If, now, we come to teachers as voters, I hear that of the teachers of Ireland not more than one-twentieth can vote for members. This probably refers to teachers of national schools, nearly resembling our public schools.