A GLIMPSE INTO THE PAST--THE DERRY OF TO-DAY--PURCHASING TENANT
RIGHTS--NIBBLING AT THE TENANT RIGHT--INSTANCES OF HARDSHIP--"LIBERTY OF
CONTRACT."
At Moville I heard that there were some who had become peasant
proprietors by purchasing out and out their holdings, and that they had
bitterly repented of so doing; for they had tied a millstone about their
necks. I was advised to go to Limavady and see the Rev. Mr. Brown, who
had made the purchase for these people, and knew how the bargain was
turning out.
I was still at Moville. I was to return to Derry by boat, a much
preferable mode of travelling to the post car. I mistook the wharf.
There are two, one hid away behind some houses, one at the Coast Guard
Station standing out boldly into the water. I walked over to the most
conspicuous wharf and had the pleasure of hearing the starting bell ring
behind me, and seeing the Derry boat glide from behind the sheltering
houses and sail peacefully away up the Foyle like a black swan. Why do
they paint all the steamers black in this green Erin of ours? Well, as
my belongings were on board, there was no help for it but to take a
special car and go after my luggage, a long, cold drive to Derry. So
much for being stupid.
I have been in Derry for some time. At different times I have tried to
admire it, and it is worthy of admiration; but some way it is a little
difficult to think up thoughts as one ought to think them. Thoughts will
not come to order. Besides, Derry "is an old tale and often told."
Still, it is an event in one's life to go round the old Derry walls.
Owing to the kindness of Mr. Black, I have had that sensation. The
gateways, without gates now of course, look like the arches of a bridge,
and the walls like streets hung up out of the way. When one looks
through a loop hole or over a parapet, there does a faint remembrance
come up, like a ghost, of the stirring times that have wrapped
themselves in the mist of years, and slid back into the past. I stood
over the gates--this one and that one--trying to look down the Foyle
toward the point where the ships lay beyond the boom, and to fancy the
feelings of the stout-hearted defenders of Derry, as they watched with
hungry eyes, and waited with sinking hearts but unflinching courage on
the relief that the infamous Colonel Kirk kept lying, a tantalizing
spectacle, inactive, making no effort of succor. But the houses are
thick outside the walls, and shut up the view and choke sentiment. Of
course I was in the cathedral, and looked at the rich memorial windows
that let in subdued light into the religious gloom. Saw the shell which
was thrown over with terms of capitulation, sitting in a socket on a
pillar in the cathedral like a dove on its nest. It might tell a tale of
what it saw in its flight through the air from one grim bank to the
other, but it maintains a blank silence.
Of course I looked up at Walker on his monument, and went home to read
Professor Witherow's book on the siege, which was kindly presented to me
by Mr. Black, and to listen to people who scruple not to say that the
monument, like the London monument of the great fire as described by
Pope,
"Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies."
The moderns are plucking some of the feathers of glory from the wings
fame gave to Walker. That is the way the fame of one generation is
served by another.
Derry seems a very prosperous old maid, proud of her past, proud of her
present. The great industry of Derry is shirt making. Was over the
largest factory, that of Mr. Tillie, whose branch factory I saw at
Carndonagh. This factory employs about twelve hundred hands. These work
people were more respectably dressed than any operatives I have seen in
Ireland. They all wore bonnets or hats; the mill people at Gilford and
Ballymena went bareheaded or with a shawl thrown over the head. In the
present woeful depression of the linen trade, it is cheering to look at
this busy hive of industry. The shirts are cut out by machinery, the
button holes are machine made and the machines are run by steam, a great
relief to the operatives. This industry has prospered in Mr. Tillie's
hands. He is also a landed proprietor. His own residence, Duncreggan, is
very beautiful, and the grounds about it are laid out in fine taste.
There are now many other factories in Derry, but this is the largest.
There was an effort to begin ship-building here, but it was defeated by
the parsimony of the London companies, which are extensive landlords in
Derry, and would not give a secure title to the necessary land; so
Belfast is the gainer and Derry the loser by so much.
Was a Sunday in Derry. She has got faithful watchmen on her spiritual
walls. Visited a large living Sabbath-school in connection with Mr.
Rodgers' church. Had the privilege of a class, and found that the little
maidens had an appreciative knowledge of their Bibles. I hear that there
is considerable religious earnestness in Derry, especially among the
young men.
From Derry I ran down to Limavady to have an interview with the Rev. Mr.
Brown anent the purchases made by tenants and how they were getting
along afterward. Went down in the evening train. Behold, there was no
room for me in the inn, and there was no other hotel in the little town.
This was not so pleasant. Had a letter of introduction to a person in
the town; made a voyage of discovery; found out his residence, and he
was not at home. Obtained a guide and went to the Rev. Mr. Brown's--a
good _bittie_ out in the environs; found him just stepping on a car
to leave for a tenant right meeting. Got a recommendation from him to a
private house where I might, could, would or should get accommodation
for the night, and made an appointment with Mr. Brown for the morrow.
I may here remark that the residence of the Rev. Mr. Brown is both
commodious and elegant. As a rule the ministry are comfortably and even
stylishly housed in the North.
The next day had an interview with Mr. Brown, a frank, able and
communicative man. Under his agency the people had bargained for a part
of the Waterford property from the Marquis of that ilk. "The Marquis was
a good and generous landlord; all his family, the Beresfords, were good
landlords." I had heard that said before. There were reasons why the
Marquis was willing to sell, and the tenants were eager to buy. It was a
hard pull for some of them to raise the one-third of the purchase money.
They paid at the rate of thirty years' rent as purchase money. They are
paying now a rent and a half yearly, but hope is in the distance and
cheers them on. So if they have a millstone about their necks, as my
Moville friend insinuated, it will drop off some day and leave them free
for ever. Some of them have already paid the principal.
The Marquis got such a high price for his land that he only sold two-
thirds of the estate, retaining the rest in his own hands, and raising
the rents. Some two or three of the purchasers had a good deal of
difficulty in raising their payments, but Mr. Brown has no doubt they
will eventually pull through.
I heard again and again, before I met with Mr. Brown, of Limavady, that
it was about thirty years since the tenants of the rich lands of the
Ulster settlement began to feel the landlords nibbling at their tenant
right. The needy or greedy class of landlords discovered a way to evade
the Ulster custom, by raising the rents in such a way as to extinguish
the tenant right in many places. For instance, a tenant wished to sell
his interest in a certain place. The agent attended the sale to notify
parties wishing to buy that rent would be doubled to any new tenant and
there was no sale, for the place was not worth so much. The tenant's
right was more than swallowed up by the increase of rent. This was done
so successfully that were it not for the Act of 1870, there would be no
trace of the Ulster custom left.
It has been the custom from the plantation times to let the tenants
build, clear, fence, improve, drain, on lands let low because they were
bare of improvement. The difference between what the land was worth when
the tenant got it, and what generations of thrifty outlay of time and
the means made it was the tenant's property, and the Ulster custom
allowed him to sell his right to his improvements to the highest bidder.
On some lands the tenant right was much more than the rent, as it should
be when it was made valuable by years and years of outlay; but
landlords, pinched for money, or greedy for money, naturally grudged
that this should be, and set themselves by office rules to nip and pick
the tenant right all away.
One great difference between the men of the lowland farms and the
Donegal Celt of the hills is that they have felt and treasured up the
remembrance of injustice since the settlement. Their lowland neighbors
never began to sympathize with them until they knew how it felt
themselves. In speaking of injustice and cruelty toward the hill
tenants, I was often told, "Oh, these things are of the past," they
occurred thirty years ago. How philosophically people can endure the
miseries they do not feel. The sponge has not been created that will
wipe off the Donegal mountains the record of deeds that are graven
there.
To come back to tenant right, an office rule was made giving the out-
going tenant three years' rent, in some cases five years' rent for his
claim on the farm, and "out you go." Mr. McCausland, whose estate joins
Limavady, gave three years' rent. Since the Land Act of 1870, and since
the eyes of the world have been turned on the doings of Ireland, he has
allowed something more for unexhausted manuring. He has also advanced
money to some extent for improvements, adding five per cent, not to the
loan, but to the rent, thus making the interest a perpetual charge on
the property. Landlords in Donegal did the same with the money they got
from Government to lend to the people--got it at one and a half per cent
from Government, re-lent it at five per cent, making the interest a
perpetual rent charge.
"When self the wavering balance shakes
'Tis rarely right adjusted."
The tenants, I think, are naturally averse to borrowing money which
brings interest in perpetuity over them, and enables the landlord to
say, "I made the improvements myself." Into these improvements enters
the tenant's labor, as well as the perpetual interest.
A good man, a minister, not Mr. Brown, reasoned with me that the
landlord was sleeping partner with the tenant, that he gave the land,
the tenant the labor, and both should share the profit of improvement.
If the land was rent free I could see that partnership just, but as long
as a man paid the rent value of the land as he got it, the improvement
made by his labor and means through the slow years should be his own. I
might think differently if I had an estate with daughters to portion,
sons to establish in life, a castle to build, a fine demesne to create,
or even a gambling wife or horse-racing sons tugging at my purse
strings.
Whatever good and sufficient reasons may be found for skinning eels
alive, nothing will ever reconcile the eels to it.
The companies of Derry, who are great landlords there, the Fishmonger's
company, the Mercers, &c., are following suit with the rest in evading
the Ulster Custom. It is thought, as these companies never observed the
conditions upon which these grants were made to them, but held them
merely to make money of them, they should be compelled to sell to the
tenants. I agree with this. Still, if the same rule of non-fulfilment of
obligation were laid to private landlords there would be compulsion of
sale there too. The companies on the whole get the name of being better
landlords than private individuals, and are more liberal to their
tenants. In cases of hardship the managers for the companies, not the
companies themselves, get the blame.
The great complaint is the landlord's power to raise the rents as often
as he pleases. When a landlord appoints a valuator, the latter
understands what he is to do and why he was appointed. The tenant has no
say in this matter. Where is the freedom of contract of which so much is
said? This arbitrary power of raising the rent at will irresponsibly and
thus confiscating the tenant's rights, the people who are affected by
the wrong with one voice declare must cease to exist.
Instances were given me by Mr. Brown, who, by the way, had just come
home from giving his testimony before the Bessborough Commission. A man
named Hamilton Stewart was put out of his place, receiving three years'
rent as compensation. His predecessors had bought the tenant right of
the place; he had improved it after it fell into his hands. All his
rights, including the purchase money paid, except the three years' rent,
were confiscated.
Another case he mentioned as happening on the estate of one Major Scott.
A tenant, one John Loughrey, was lost in the river. His widow died in a
few months afterward, leaving two little boys absolutely orphans. Their
uncle, who lived near, offered to manage the place for the boys and to
pay the rent till one of them came of age. Answer--"No, we cannot allow
minors to hold land on our estate." Very much against the wishes of the
uncle he was obliged to fall in with this landlord's arrangement, and
five years' rent were laid down as a settlement of the case by Mr. King,
the agent. The boys' uncle thought it a great hardship to have to give
up the place the boys' father had improved, for he was a thrifty man,
had some money, and was able to improve. When the five years' rent was
counted out on the table, Mr. King said to the boys' uncle, "That is the
money coming to the boys, count it." He counted it and said, "This is
five years' rent certainly." "Now," said Mr. King, "there is a bad house
upon the farm; it is not in as good repair as I would like and I would
like a good house upon it. I will take L100 of this money and with it I
will build a house upon the place." He took L100 of the five years' rent
and built a house that was never inhabited. The children never got this
money back. This case was referred to again and again in public meetings
and other places till Mr. King was obliged to make an effort to explain
it away. The children's uncle was rich, and they thought that,
therefore, the orphans need not get all the money. Mr. Brown knew this
case intimately, as the drowned man, his widow, and orphans were members
of his congregation. This is liberty of contract.
The argument that the children had relatives comparatively rich was the
same argument as Captain Dopping used as a reason for not restoring what
was robbed from the Buchanan children--their relatives were rich and
therefore they did not need it. Now, what person who was touched with a
trial like this would not consider this freedom of contract absolute
robbery. In the case of the Loughrey children there had been no
agreement or shadow of an agreement with the drowned man to keep up the
house, and the house was as good as any of the neighboring houses--a
good substantial farm house. This case was brought before the
Bessborough Commission.