TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN.
If there are sermons in stones I ought to have learned something from
the ruins of the castle built by Sir Arthur Hill, the founder of the
house of Downshire, in which they show the chamber occupied by William
III. while his army was encamped at Blaris Moor. This was once a royal
fort, and among the most interesting memorials of the past are the
primitive gates, long laid aside from duty, the timber gradually
mouldering away from the huge nails, which once added to their massive
strength. Hillsborough was incorporated by Charles II., and sent two
members to parliament. The Hills rose rapidly in rank and influence.
In 1717, Trevor Hill, Esq., was created Viscount of Hillsborough and
Baron Hill. In 1756, Wills, the second viscount, was made Earl of
Hillsborough, and in 1789 he became Marquis of Downshire.
Hillsborough is the most perfect picture of a feudal establishment
that I know. On one side of the little, quiet, tradeless town are the
ruins of the old castle, with its park and its fine ancestral trees,
through the thick foliage of which pierces the spire of the church,
lofty and beautiful. On the other side, and quite close to the town,
is 'the new castle'--an immense building of cut stone, in the Greek
style, two storeys high, shut in by high walls from the view of the
townsfolk. Then there is the small market-square, with the court-house
in the centre, the hotel at the top, and other buildings of a better
class on the opposite side. From the hill, which is crowned by these
buildings, descend small streets, in which dwell the inhabitants, all
more or less dependent on the lord of the manor, all cared for by him,
and many of them pensioned when disabled by age or infirmity.
There is a monument erected to the memory of the late marquis's
father on a hill to the south of the town. The view from this point is
glorious. Belfast lies a little beyond, enveloped in the smoke emitted
from its numerous tall chimneys. To the left is the range of the
Antrim highlands, continued along the coast of the Lough towards
Carrickfergus, and from which the Cave Hill stands out in bold relief,
looking down on the numerous pretty villas with which the taste
of wealthy manufacturers and merchants has adorned those pleasant
suburbs. Westward towards Lough Neagh, swelling gradually--southward
towards Armagh, and round to Newry, the whole surface of the country
gently undulating, presents a vast picture of quiet beauty, fertility,
and plenty that can be rivalled only in England. The tall crowded
stocks along the ridges of the corn-fields attested the abundance of
the crops--the rich greenness and warmth of the landscape showing how
well the ground has been drained, manured, and cultivated. The neat,
white-walled houses gleaming amidst the verdure of sheltering trees
and trimmed hedges tell the thoughtful observer that the people who
dwell in this land belong to it, are rooted in it, and ply their
industry under the happy feeling that, so far as their old landlords
are concerned, their lot is one of 'quietness and assurance for ever.'
Nowhere--even on the high ranges about Newry, where the population is
far too dense, where the patchwork cultivation creeps up the mountain
side, and the hand of industry snatches a precarious return from a
poor, cold, ungrateful soil, amidst desolating tempests and blighting
fogs--not even there did I notice the least trace of evictions or
clearances. No black remnant of a wall tells that where sheep now
browze and lambs frisk there was once a fireside, where the family
affections were cherished, and a home where happy children played in
the sunshine. This is the field of capital and enterprise; here
we have an aristocracy of wealth, chiefs of industry, each of whom
maintains an army of 'hands' more numerous than the swordsmen of Shane
O'Neill when he reigned in his castle yonder on the banks of Lough
Neagh. But here also is the aristocracy of rank--lords of ancient
lineage, descended from heroes--men who have left magnificent
monuments of their creative genius. They have not only founded great
houses, but they have laid deep and broad the foundations of a
social system to whose strength and beauty every age has been adding
something, and which now wants only one topmost stone to make it
perfect.
I read on the monument to Lord Downshire the expressive motto of the
Downshire family--_Per Deum et ferrum obtinui._ No family ever made
better use of the power thus obtained. The inscription states that the
third marquis was 'alike distinguished for patriotism, rectitude of
principle, and honesty of purpose. Upholding his station with becoming
dignity, he was also mindful of the wants of others, and practised his
duties with benevolence and humility, which won the regard of every
virtuous mind, adding lustre to his exalted rank.' Although these
words were engraved upon a monument by the friends and admirers of
their object, they are perfectly true, and they would be equally true
of the late marquis.
Lord Downshire is esteemed as the best of landlords. He charges 33 per
cent. less for his land than it is worth--than the tenants would
be able to pay. Tenant-right on his property sells for an enormous
amount. He never evicts a tenant, nor even threatens to evict those
who vote against him. What he has done for the contentment and
prosperity of his tenants, with so much honour and happiness to
himself, other landlords may do with like results. The late lord, his
father, and his grandfather pursued the same course. They let their
lands at a low valuation. They encouraged improvements--they allowed
the free enjoyment of tenant-right; but they refused to allow
sub-letting or subdivision of the land. They consolidated farms only
when tenants, unable to retain small, worn-out holdings, wished to
sell their tenant-right and depart. The consequence is that there is
great competition for land on the Downshire estates. The tenant-right
sells easily for 30 l. to 40 l. an Irish acre, the rent being on an
average about 28 s. If a tenant is not able to pay his way, he is let
run on in arrears perhaps for two or three years. Then he feels the
necessity of selling; but the arrears are deducted, and also debts
that he may owe to his neighbours, before he departs with the proceeds
in his pocket.
The late marquis seems to have been almost idolised by the tenants. On
or off the estate, in town or country, I have heard nothing of him
but praise of the warmest and most unqualified kind; and, what is more
remarkable, his late agent, Mr. Filgate, was universally respected for
his fairness in the discharge of his duties. The way in which I heard
this spoken of by the people convinces me that there is nothing that
wins their confidence so much as strict impartiality, and justice,
calmly, kindly, but firmly administered. The people to whom I spoke
laid stress on the fact that Mr. Filgate listened quietly to the
statements of both sides, carefully enquired into the merits of each,
and decided accordingly. There was no favouritism, they said, no
partiality; no hasty decision in a fit of anger, or passion, or
impatience; no refusal to listen to reason.
I observed to one of the tenants, 'You admit that the rents are much
lower than on other estates, much lower than the value of the lands,
and that during the last twenty years the tenant-right has increased
in value. Suppose, then, that the marquis should raise the rents, say
twenty-five per cent., what would be the consequence? Would they pay
the increase willingly?' 'Willingly!' he exclaimed, 'no, there would
be rebellion! The late lord could do anything with the people; he
could raise the country. But you see when they bought the tenant-right
they believed they could never be robbed of the value for which they
paid by raising the rent.'
What can be better than the social picture which Harris presents of
the state of society here 130 years ago? 'The inhabitants are warm
and well clad at church, fairs, and markets. Tillage and the linen
manufacture keep them in constant employment; a busy and laborious
life prevents excess and breaches of the laws, which in no part of
the kingdom are more reverenced. The people are regular in their
attendance on public worship. Few breaches of the peace, felonies,
burglaries, or murders come before the judges at the assizes;
convictions for capital offences seldom happen. Men travel securely
by day, and are afraid of little disturbance at night to keep them
on their guard. Every man sits down securely under his vine and his
figtree, and enjoys with comfort the fruit of his honest labours.' He
ascribes in the main this prosperity to what he calls '_the spirit of
tillage_.' Until that spirit arose in Ulster, the Irish had to send to
America for their daily bread, 'which,' he says, 'to the astonishment
of all Europe, has been often our weakness.' Viewing the whole social
condition of the county, he exclaims, 'Such are the happy effects of
a well-peopled country, _extensive tillage, the linen manufacture, and
the Protestant religion_.'
In the first year of the present century, the Dublin Society (not yet
'Royal') employed 'land commissioners' to enquire into the condition
of agriculture in the several counties of Ireland. The Rev. John
Dubourdieu, rector of Annahilt, in this county, was their commissioner
for Down and Antrim. He states that the rent was then on an average
20 s. the _Irish_ acre (three equal to five English), allowing for the
mountains and bogs, which he computed at 44,658 acres. The rental of
the county he sets down at 300,000 l. The net annual value of property
assessed under the Tenement Valuation Act is now 743,869 l. This is
considerably under the letting value, it is supposed, 25 per cent. If
this be so, the county yields to the proprietors a revenue of about
1,000,000 l. a year. If we add the value of the tenant-right, and of
the fixtures of all sorts--houses, mills, roads, bridges--as well as
the movable property and stock, we may get some idea of the enormous
aggregate of wealth which the labour of man has created on this strip
of wild wooded hills, swampy plains, and bogs.
Now, what has effected this marvellous change? The tenants, with one
voice, exclaim, 'our labour, our capital, our skill, our care, and
self-denial. It was we that cleared away the woods which it was
so difficult to eradicate. It was we who drained away the bogs and
morasses, and by the help of lime and marl converted them into rich
land. It was we that built the dwelling-houses and offices. It was we
that made the fences, and planted the hedge-rows and orchards. It was
we that paid for the making of the roads and bridges. The landlords
gave us the wild country to work upon; we have done the rest. Our
industry enabled them to build their stately mansions, and we have
continued to pay to them their princely revenues. Our forefathers
came with them as settlers, that they might "plant" the country with
a loyal and industrious race of people, and they came on the assurance
that they and their children's children were to remain for ever rooted
where they were planted. They did their duty faithfully and well by
the land, by the landlords, and by the Government. Where the children
that inherited their rights failed, their interest in their farms has
been purchased dearly by others of the same race who have taken their
places. By what right, then, can they be turned out?'
It is not possible, if it were desirable, to introduce the 'high
farming system' in this county. But if possible, would it be
desirable? In the eye of a scientific agriculturist it might be better
that all those comfortable farm-houses, with the innumerable fences
crossing the landscape in every possible form, making all sorts
of mathematical figures, presenting the appearance of an immense
variegated patchwork--were levelled and removed so that the plough and
all the modern machinery might range unobstructed over hill and vale.
But assuredly it would not seem better to the philanthropist, the
Christian, or the statesman. To the chancellor of the exchequer it
would make the most serious difference; for a few herds and ploughmen
would consume but a very small portion indeed of the excisable
articles now used by the tenant farmers of this county. I have taken
some notes on the diet of this people which may be instructive.
At the beginning of the present century the small farmers were
generally weavers. There was an obvious incompatibility in the two
occupations, and the farms were neglected. Gradually this evil has
been corrected, especially since the famine. The weavers have
become cottiers, and the farmers have devoted themselves to their
agricultural operations exclusively with the more energy since
railroads have so facilitated the quick sale of produce, particularly
that sort of produce which enables the occupiers to supply the markets
with the smaller necessaries of life, and with which large farmers
would not trouble themselves. Daily labourers working from 6 A.M., to
6 P.M. in large fields with machinery cannot do the hundreds of little
matters which the family of the small holder attends to every hour of
the day, often in the night--and which give work to women and children
as well as the men--work of the most healthful character and most free
from demoralizing influences.
On a farm of fifteen to thirty acres there is constant employment of
a profitable kind for the members of a household, including women and
children. The effect of good drainage is that farming operations can
be carried on through winter, in preparing the ground and putting in
wheat and other crops early to supply the markets, when prices are
high. Oats, barley, potatoes, flax, turnips claim attention in
turn, and then come the weeding and thinning, the turf-making, the
hay-making, and all the harvest operations. It is by the ceaseless
activity of small farmers in watching over their pigs, poultry, lambs,
&c., that the markets are kept so regularly supplied, and that towns
grow up and prosper. If Down and Antrim had been divided into farms
of thousands of acres each, like Lincolnshire, what would Belfast
have become? Little more than a port for the shipping of live stock
to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the famine, the food of the small
farmers was generally potatoes and milk three times a day, with a bit
of meat occasionally. But salt herrings were the main reliance for
giving a flavour to the potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure
of the potatoes, their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form
of 'stirabout.' Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more
wholesome. But of late years the diet of the farmers in these parts
has undergone a complete revolution. There is such brisk demand for
butter, eggs, potatoes, and other things that used to be consumed
by the family, that they have got into the habit of taking tea, with
cakes and other home-made bread twice, or even three times, a day.
The demand for tea is, therefore, enormous. There is one grocer's
establishment in Belfast which has been able to produce a mixture that
suits the taste of the people, and the quantity of tea sold by it is
a ton a day. This is the business of but one out of many houses in
Belfast. Then there is the brisk trade in such towns as Newtownards,
Lisburn, Ballymena, &c. In pastoral districts the towns languish, the
people pine in poverty, and the workhouses are in request.
In a financial point of view, therefore, it is manifestly the interest
of the state to encourage 'the spirit of tillage.' It is thus that
most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue will be raised,
and that the other elements of national power will be most fully
developed. How can this encouragement be most effectually given?
Security for the farmer is essential--of what nature should the
security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used.
But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the
exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that
his remedy is to retrograde--to undo what he has done--to take out
of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the
comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first
received it? Should not the policy of the legislature rather be to
keep up improvements of the soil, and its productive power at the
highest possible point, and make it the interest of the occupier
never to relax in his exertions? The rower will not put forth all his
strength unless he believes he will win. In other races, though
many start, only one or two can receive the prize. In this race of
agricultural improvement all competitors might win ample rewards. But
will they put forth all their energies--is it in human nature that
they should--was it ever done by any people, if the prizes are to be
seized, enjoyed, and flaunted before their eyes by others, who may
be strangers, and who never helped them by their sympathy in their
toilsome course of training and self-denial? It is because the
landlords of the county Down have been so often in the same boat with
their tenants, and with so much good faith, generous feeling, and
cordial sympathy encouraged their exertions, and secured to them their
just rewards, that this great county presents to the world such a
splendid example of what industry, skill, and capital can accomplish.
Is it not possible to extend the same advantages through the whole
island without wronging the landlord or degrading the tenant?
The stranger is at first surprised to see so large a town as
Newtownards, with its handsome square, its town-hall, its wide,
regular streets, its numerous places of worship, and a population of
9,500, in a place without visible factories, and without communication
with the sea, within eight miles of Belfast, and three miles of
Bangor, which, though a seaport, is but one-fourth of the size. But
although there are no great mills sending forth volumes of smoke,
Newtownards is really a manufacturing town. Those clean, regular
streets, with their two-storey houses, uniform as a district in the
east of London, are inhabited by weavers. In each house there is one
loom at least, in most two or three, and in some as many as six. The
manufacture of woollen and cotton goods of finer qualities than can
be produced by the power-loom is carried on extensively. I saw one man
working at a piece of plaid of six colours, a colour on every shuttle,
With the help of his wife, who assisted in winding, he was able to
earn only 8 s. a week by very diligent work from early morning till
night. There is a general complaint of the depression of trade at
present. Agents, chiefly from Glasgow houses, living in the town,
supply the yarn and pay the wages. I was struck with the number of
public-houses in all the leading streets. How far they are supported
by the weavers I cannot say, but whether or not they can dispense
with the glass, they must have their tobacco, and when this luxury
is deducted, and a shilling a week for the rent of the cottage, it is
hard to understand how a family of six or eight can be supported on
the weekly wages. The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished here,
and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but it has so
fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle unceasingly
during the long, long day, can earn only three or four shillings
a week. Before the invention of machinery for flax-spinning, the
manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was a most profitable
employment. Wonders were wrought in this way by female fingers. The
author of 'Our Staple Manufactures' states that in 1799, out of a
pound and a half of flax, costing 10 s., a woman produced yarn of the
value of 5 l. 2 s. 6 d. Miss M'Quillan, of Comber, spun 94 hanks out
of one pound of flax, splitting the fibre with her needles to give
this degree of fineness.
But alas! what a change to the cottage hearth!
The song of the wheel's no more--
The song that gladdened with guileless mirth
The hearths and homes of the poor!
But here, and in all the small towns about, they have still the
weaving, and it is carried on to a considerable extent by persons who
hold a few acres of land, throwing aside the shuttle while putting in
the crops and doing the harvest work. Thus combining the two pursuits,
these poor people are able, by extraordinary industry, to earn their
daily bread; but they can do little more. The weavers, as a class,
appear to be feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet,
intelligent, and well-disposed--a law-abiding people, who shrink from
violence and outrage, no matter what may be their grievances. It is
cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens of life, and yet I am
afraid it is sometimes done, even in this county, unnecessarily and
wantonly. What I have said of the Downshire and Londonderry estates,
holds good with respect to the estates of the other large proprietors,
such as Lord Roden, the kindest of landlords, almost idolised, even by
his Catholic tenants; Lord Annesley; the trustees of Lord Kilmurray;
Sir Thomas Bateson, and others. But I am sorry to learn that even
the great county Down has a share of the two classes which supply the
worst species of Irish landlords--absentees who live extravagantly in
England, and merchants who have purchased estates to make as large a
percentage as possible out of the investment. It is chiefly, but not
wholly, on the estates of these proprietors that cases of injustice
and oppression are found. In the first class it is the agent that the
tenants have to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters
little to them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny
must be exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the
landlord in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt
incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere. Every transaction of
the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be not
unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the money
at all hazards. I have been assured that it is quite usual, on such
estates, to find the tenantry paying the highest rent compatible with
the maintenance of bare life. There is in the county of Down a great
number of small holders thus struggling for existence. As a specimen
let us take the following case:--A man holds a dozen acres of land,
for which he pays 2 l. 10 s. per acre. He labours as no slave could be
made to work, in the summer time from five o'clock in the morning till
six in the evening. He can hardly scrape together a pound beyond the
rent and taxes. If a bad season comes, he is at starvation point: he
falls into arrears with the landlord, and he is forced by the bailiff
to sell off his small stock to pay the rent.
Without the excuse of pecuniary difficulties, the merchant landlord is
not a whit less exacting, or more merciful. He looks upon the tenants
as he would on so many head of cattle, and his sole consideration
is what is the highest penny he can make out of them. Not far from
Belfast lived a farmer who cultivated a few acres. Sickness and the
support of a widowed sister's family forced him into arrears of rent.
Ejectment proceedings were taken, and one day when he returned to his
house, he found his furniture thrown out on the road, the sister and
family evicted, and the door locked. He was offered as much money as
would take him to America, but he would not be allowed to sell the
tenant-right. Here is another case illustrative of the manner in which
that right is sometimes dealt with:--A respectable man purchased a
farm at 10 l. an acre. It was very poor land, much of it unfit for
cultivation. Immediately on getting possession a surveyor came and
added two acres to the former measurement. The incoming tenant was
at the same time informed that the rent was raised to an extent that
caused the possession to be a dead loss. On threatening to throw up
the concern, some reduction was made, which brought the rent as close
as possible to the full letting value.
I have been told by a well-informed gentleman, whose veracity I cannot
doubt, that it is quite common in the county of Down (and indeed
I have been told the same thing in other counties) to find an
_improving_ tenant paying 2 l. to 3 l. an acre for land, which he has
at his own expense brought up to a good state of cultivation,
while the adjoining land of his lazy neighbour--originally of equal
value--yields only 20 s. to 35 s. an acre. The obvious tendency of
this unjust and impolitic course on the part of landlords and agents,
is to discourage improvements, to dishearten the industrious, and to
fill the country with thriftless, desponding, and miserable occupiers,
living from hand to mouth. There are circumstances under which even
selfish men will toil hard, though others should share with them the
benefit of their labours; but if they feel that this partnership in
the profits of their industry is the result of a system of legalised
injustice, which enables unscrupulous men to appropriate at will the
whole of the profits, their moral sense so revolts against that system
that they resolve to do as little as they possibly can.
The consequence of these painful relations of landlord and tenant,
even in this comparatively happy county, is a perceptible degeneracy
in the manhood of the people. Talk to an old inhabitant, who has been
an attentive observer of his times, and he will tell you that
the vigorous and energetic, the intelligent and enterprising, are
departing to more favoured lands, and that this process has produced
a marked deterioration in the population within his memory. He can
distinctly recollect when there were more than double the present
number of strong farmers in the country about Belfast. He declares
that, with many exceptions of course, the land is getting into the
hands of a second or third class of farmers, who are little more than
servants to the small landlords. Even where there are leases, such
intelligent observers affirm that they are so over-ridden with
conditions that the farmer has no liberty or security to make any
great improvements. Were it otherwise he would not think a thirty-one
years' lease sufficient for the building of a stone house, that would
be as good at the end of a hundred years as at the end of thirty. All
the information that I can gather from thoughtful men, who are really
anxious for a change that would benefit the landlords as well as
themselves, points to the remedy which Lord Granard has suggested,
as the most simple, feasible, and satisfactory--the legalisation and
extension of the tenant-right custom. They rejoice that such landlords
now proclaim the injustice which the tenant class have so long
bitterly felt--namely, the presumption of law that all the
improvements and buildings on the farm belong to the lord of the
soil, although the notorious fact is that they are all the work of the
tenant.
And here I will take the opportunity of remarking that the legislature
were guilty of strange oversight, or deliberate injustice, in
the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act. Taking advantage of an
overwhelming national calamity, they forced numbers of gentlemen into
a ruinous sale of their patrimonial estates, in order that men of
capital might get possession of them. But they made no provision
whatever for the protection of the tenants, or of the property which
those tenants had created on these estates. Many of those were tenants
at will, who built and planted in perfect and well-grounded reliance
on the honour and integrity of their old landlords. But in the
advertisements for the sale of property under the Landed Estates
Court, it was regularly mentioned as an inducement to purchasers of
the Scully type that the tenants had no leases. The result of this
combination of circumstances bearing against the cultivators of the
soil--the chief producers of national wealth--is a deep, resentful
sense of injustice pervading this class, and having for its immediate
objects the landlords and their agents. The tenants don't speak out
their feelings, because they dare not. They fear that to offend the
_office_ in word or deed is to expose themselves and their children
to the infliction of a fine in the shape of increased rent, perhaps at
the rate of five or ten shillings an acre in perpetuity.
One unfortunate effect of the distrust thus generated, is that when
enlightened landlords, full of the spirit of improvement, like Lord
Dufferin and Lord Lurgan, endeavour, from the most unselfish and
patriotic motives, to make changes in the tenures and customs on their
estates, they have to encounter an adverse current of popular opinion
and feeling, which is really too strong to be effectually resisted.
For example: In order to correct the evils resulting from the undue
competition for land among the tenants, they limit the amount per acre
which the outgoing tenant is permitted to receive; but the limitation
is futile, because the tenants understand one another, and do what
they believe to be right behind the landlord's back. The market price
is, say, 20 l. an acre. The landlord allows 10 l.; the balance finds
its way secretly into the pocket of the outgoing tenant before he
gives up possession. As a gentleman expressed it to me emphatically,
'The outgoing tenant _must_ be satisfied, and he _is_ satisfied.'
Public opinion in his own class demands it; and on no other terms
would it be considered lucky to take possession of the vacant farm.