What an incomprehensible set of men are the Irish patriotic members! In the extracts which we have given from Lord Devon's Blue-Book, we have Mr Maher, one of the most respectable of them, swearing an oath that clauses in a lease, by means of which "all the materials for building, clearing, and fencing, are proposed to be given for nothing provided the tenantry only used them, could not be carried into effect in Tipperary because the dispositions of the people don't lead them to wish for the comforts which buildings of this kind would give." And we find the same gentleman one of the party of declaimers against the tyranny of Irish landlords, who state in the House of Commons that the peace of "Ireland can only be secured by giving the tenant 'contingent compensation,' for improvements which, he swears, they cannot be induced to make, even where the materials are furnished for nothing, and where the labour is immediately paid for."
The same man, who supports O'Connell in his assertions that exorbitant rents are the cause of Irish poverty, gave before the commissioners the following opinion under the obligation of an oath—"54. If the occupiers are not prosperous, do you attribute that more to the mismanagement of their farms, rather than to the rate of rents?—Yes, indeed I do; to their badly farming the land in many instances."
And it is undoubtedly true that it is not improvement in their condition, or their comforts, which the Irish tenantry desire, if those are to be acquired at the cost of labour and exertion; what they wish for are low rents, which they can easily discharge, without restricting their pleasures or their amusements; and the fact is, that from the exertions lately made by the landlords to better the condition of their estates, arises all the outcry which has been raised against them. Had the old system been persevered in, it would have been much more agreeable to the people. In their operations the proprietors were necessarily compelled to dispossess some, because the ground they had to dispose of could not possibly, if even given rent-free, support the numbers of inhabitants upon it; but this distressing task has been performed in almost all cases with the most extraordinary kindness; and we venture to assert, that in the whole of the evidence laid before Lord Devon's committee, five well substantiated instances cannot be adduced in the rural districts, in which rent-paying and well-conducted tenantry were evicted; and not one in which any tenant has been removed without receiving some compensation—while what is pompously denounced as consolidation of farms, amounts to having increased the holdings of the occupants, in many cases, from a rood to two acres, "and in others to the enormous extent of eight." But was not this change unavoidable? Could the old system have been longer persevered in? Let us see the opinion of the late Dr Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Carlow, a man of extraordinary talents, and perfect knowledge of the situation of Ireland. Speaking of the necessity of preventing subdivision, and of increasing the holdings to such a size as would afford employment and adequate support to the occupiers, Dr Doyle says—"Had the evil gone much further, the misery would of necessity have increased. It was, indeed, essentially necessary to the good of the country that the system should be corrected, and every wise man applauds those measures which were taken for the correction of it."
As regards the humanity of the affair, sure we are that it is more to the interest of the dispossessed to be afforded the means of going to countries where land is plenty, and labour well remunerated, than to be allowed to remain at home in squalid misery and idleness. Advantage was taken of the dispossession of the people under any circumstances by the agitators—it was found to be a good subject by means of which the passions of the sufferers could be excited; and they have made a handsome harvest of it.
But it is not enough for our purpose to show that the tenantry are averse to have improvements thrust upon them—it is necessary that we should exhibit their conduct towards those who have endeavoured to improve their condition, or to set them examples by following which they would be sure to profit; and above all we wish to place before the public, in its true light, the behaviour of the labouring classes which has called forth so fully the approbation of the Devon Commissioners, and to prove that it is principally the misconduct of those very men which tends to their own disadvantage, and to the ruin of their country; and again we have recourse to the Blue-Book.
Mr Quin, whose good conduct as a landlord was borne testimony to by his neighbours, and approved of after a public investigation by Lord Ebrington, wished to occupy some of his own lands to build a mansion, and give employment to the people; he determined not to turn off a single man, and this he told them personally. To provide for those he must dispossess of their present holdings, he purchased the good-will of another part of his own property, sold by the executors of a deceased tenant, where he purposed to locate them, and there he sent his steward (Mr Powell) down to commence improvements. The wretched man was murdered in the arms of his daughter, and the first who struck him was a monster he was forbidden to employ, but to whom he had given work from compassion. "I saw the man," said he to his master in explanation of his conduct, "living in such a wretched hovel; I had pity on him, and could not help employing him." An anonymous letter, written to the unhappy victim previous to his murder, and warning him of his fate, is characteristic of the cool barbarity with which those "patient people" undertake a murder—of the sordid calculations which retard or accelerate its commission—and of the gratitude which they evince to those who, following the recommendation of the Commissioners, "endeavour to introduce an improved system of agriculture, and thereby extend the employment of the agricultural population:"—
"Honoured Sir,—I take the liberty on myself in sending you these few lines, informing your honour that you and Mr Quin, Esq., is to be shot the first opportunity, and if you had paid the men that worked at the drain when it was done, you were killed long ago. Now they have sat on it, there are some of them that would wish to have it done at where you live at present.... They have made a collection, and the man that kills you will go to America... They have heard that you are one of the skilfullest men in Ireland for planting and making drains; and they are saying that if they had you killed, he (Mr Quin) would never come to the country. If you don't take my advice, your daughter will cry salt tears. And be God you will be killed."
Mr Armstrong, the history of whose persecutions is well worth the trouble of reading, says—"In the same summer I was fallowing and preparing at considerable expense a field for wheat. Every one exclaimed at the folly of sowing wheat in that country; but finding that this would not dissuade me from my plan, one of the most respectable men in the neighbourhood told me, that 'the country' thought it a bad example to bring in new plans, and that he had himself 'declined to sow wheat, rather than get the ill-will of the people.' I said I really could not see 'what offence this could give to any man.' 'Oh,' said he, 'you know if the landlords saw the ground producing wheat and good crops, they would raise the rent.' Determined, however, that nothing less than a failure after trial should convince me of 'the folly of sowing wheat,' I ventured to do so, and it turned out very fine, producing thirteen barrels to the acre; but I was obliged to keep a guard watching for two months, as a man who lived close to the spot told me, that it would 'be mowed down in the shot-blade; bekase the country did not like whate there at all at all.'"
Many similar instances could we adduce from the same source, did our limits permit; but we have only to refer to what is daily occurring in Ireland, to show the utter impossibility of the gentry making any efforts to improve their own estates, or the condition of the tenantry, under existing circumstances. Men here talk flippantly of the evils of absenteeism, while they are the very first to object to measures which would render it possible for landlords to reside at home. A coercion act is opposed, while Sir Francis Hopkins, a resident and admirable landlord, is fired at at his own hall door, and for what? because, six years ago, he dispossessed an insolvent tenant, "forgiving his arrears, and paying him his own valuation for his interest;" while the life of Sir David Roche is attempted, because "he refused to assist a tenant to turn out his brother's widow while her husband lay on his bed of death, hardly allowing the body to get cold, when he insisted that he should help him to add the widow's holding to his own."[9]
Mr Wilson of Clare, a gentleman whose exertions to improve the condition of his tenantry are fully detailed in the Devon Blue-Book; who allowed the entire cost for subsoiling and fencing; who provided all the materials for his tenants' houses, requiring only that they should perform the labour, for which they were subsequently to be allowed on their rents; who founded an agricultural school and benevolent fund, and visited and inspected the improvements which he paid for; while, we say, Mr Wilson, (a Roman Catholic, too,) who performed all his duties as well as we could wish them performed, is threatened with death, and obliged to desert his property, and fly his country, and for what? why, simply because he dared, in the distribution of a farm containing one hundred and forty acres, to reserve four for the use of a faithful servant, whose honesty and attachment he wished to reward; and because, as we are told by the member for Ennis, "he was fond of a draining and subsoiling system, which he wished to have practised, but which his tenants did not like." "The fact was," (the candid, if not discreet, Mr Bridgeman is reported to have said,) "the people who sent those notices had no intention to assassinate Mr Wilson at all—they sent the notices, thinking to frighten him out of his subsoiling." Now, we have the admission of this favourite "Joint off the Tail," that the people are not anxious for those improvements, which we are told here they so much long for; that they do not wish to improve the condition of their land or their homesteads, even when they are paid for doing so; and that the recompense which those men meet with who endeavour to induce them to be industrious, by paying them for doing their own business, and who seek to procure them employment at home, instead of sending them to England or Scotland to seek it, is notice of assassination to frighten them from giving employment, and, no doubt, death if they persevere. But is Mr Bridgeman reported to have expressed any condemnation of the conduct of those men?—Not a bit of it; and yet he is one of the set of brawlers against the evils of absenteeism, one of the persons who attribute the poverty of the peasantry to the neglect of their landlords, and one of those who will strenuously oppose the enactment of laws which would give security to the gentry and protection to the farmer, and, by restraining the violence of the labouring classes, lead to the pacification and prosperity of the country. But such a condition of things is just what Mr Bridgeman, and those like him, wish to avoid. In a wholesome state of society, men of his station in life could never have been pitchforked into Parliament. If agitation ceased they must again betake themselves to the tillage of their farms, according to ministerial doctrine, and be compelled to become industrious when they ceased to be PROTECTED.