Ireland's disease

by Philippe Daryl

			£	s.
Sold:	1800	lbs. Potatoes	3	8
	2200	” Wheat	9	0
	1750	” Oats	6	4
	38	” Wool	1	15
	116	” Butter	5	7
	1000	” Straw;	1	5
	25	dozen Eggs	1	2
	3	Pigs	5	10
	2	Calves	6	15
	3	Lambs	3	5
		Total	43	11

When Denis O’Leary had deducted from his revenue of £43 11s. the yearly expenditure of £31 10s., he had still £12 1s. left. He was able, accordingly, to pay £8 7s. rent (or even £11 6s. before the judicial reduction), and the rent duly paid, he was still the proud nett gainer of four shillings under the old régime, of £3 14s. under the new.

Unhappily, prices fell down in 1885, 1886, and 1887, to the tune of 25 or 30 per cent. on nearly all agricultural produce, with the exception perhaps of oats and eggs, so that the revenue of the O’Leary family (all things otherwise equal) has come to be as under:—

Revenue (at present).

			£	s.
Sold:	1800	lbs. Potatoes	2	8
	2200	” Wheat	7	0
	1750	” Oats	6	2
	38	” Wool	1	5
	116	” Butter	3	12
	1000	” Straw	0	15
	25	dozen Eggs	1	5
	3	Pigs	3	4
	2	Calves	4	8
	3	Lambs	2	10
		Total	32	9

Thus, the revenue and expenditure are nearly equal, with a slight balance of nineteen shillings, that could hardly be proffered for rent. Local usurers are not wanting, of course, who will advance to Denis O’Leary the necessary funds, at 10 or 15 per cent., if he wants to pay the landlord, all the same. But then his budget is no more in a state of equilibrium: deficit enters it, to widen every year up to the final catastrophe. In other words, Denis O’Leary cannot pay the rent, unless he draws on his capital. One may well understand that he should not relish the idea, considering especially that the landlord’s rack-rent has been reduced three years ago in the Land Court, and that the same landlord demurs to a fresh reduction, so obviously just and necessary that all landlords in England have granted it of their own free will these last three years.

And Denis O’Leary is a wonder in his class: he is an industrious, hard-working, wise man, without a penny of previous debt. He has precisely the area of land adequate to his means, and the live-stock indispensable to manure the soil. He does not drink, he does not gamble, he is never ill, he has no old people to support, he has not experienced failures or mishaps of any kind, and his crops are fairly up to the average.

Let us come back, however, to the world as it is, and see Man with his foibles, his usual neglects, errors, and mishaps. Let us suppose that he has more land on his hands than he can well manage to till, or that his holding, on the contrary, is too small for his wants. Let us suppose that instead of selling three pigs and two calves, he was not able to rear them, or lost them from disease; that instead of bringing to market 1,800 lbs. of potatoes he had to buy some hundred-weight of the same for domestic consumption—the man is lost, irretrievably lost. Not only will he never be able to pay the landlord one farthing, but it will be enough that the crops should be slightly under the average to make a hopeless beggar of him—a case of outdoor or indoor relief for the parish.