landholders registered their votes; and that, from the value of the
holdings of a few, it would be unfair to draw a conclusion as to the
terms on which the land was held by the bulk of the people. This
objection could only be urged by a person unacquainted with Ireland; for
any man who attended the quarter-sessions there, must know that, if all
the persons for whom the priests and liberal clubs served notice, and
whose qualifications they were prepared to support, had come forward to
claim and establish their rights to the franchise, the number on the
register would have been quite as great as (if it did not exceed) that
of the old forty-shilling freeholders. If the claims of those who did
apply, and who, although rejected, were most vigorously sustained by the
agitators, had been substantiated, the constituency would have been
quite as numerous as the most ardent patriot could desire.
From whatever causes the wretched condition of Ireland may arise, want
of tenure cannot be included amongst them; for if length of tenure
secured prosperity, Ireland should have been prosperous indeed. In no
country were such long leases heretofore given: from three lives and
thirty-one years to three lives and sixty-one years, were the terms
usually granted; and at this moment there are many leases still in
existence, in all parts of the country, made towards the close of the
last century, and held directly from the owners. And although the lands
held under these are at a rent very much below even the present
depressed value, and of course greatly under what they would have
fetched in the time of the war, still we do not find their possessors
generally comfortable or independent; but, on the contrary, they are in
most instances in a worse condition than those tenants whose rent has
varied with the times, and been influenced by the rise or fall in the
value of agricultural produce. Seeing, then, that men placed in the most
favourable circumstances, both as regards the moderation of their rents
and the length of their tenures, are generally more wretched in the
appearance of their dwellings, and more neglectful of the cultivation of
their farms, than those at the mercy of landlords, represented to be the
most tyrannical on earth--we must seek the cause of the degraded state
of the people elsewhere than at the door of the owners of the soil.
Until within the last few years, (and those are the years in which the
landlords have most exerted themselves, and in which the tenantry, who
would be influenced by them, have most improved,) leases of _at least_
twenty-one years, and one life, were always given, which not
unfrequently prolonged the tenure to sixty or seventy years. And nothing
can be more erroneous than to suppose that the refusal to grant leases,
latterly practised by some Irish landlords, has been the cause of any
hardship or suffering to the people. The contrary is the fact; and no
men know this better than those who so loudly exclaim against the
practice. It is a great mistake to imagine that leases are in no
instance granted: the truth is, that they are still very generally
given; and that in a great majority of those instances where they are
withheld, they are so withheld, not with the intention of taking
advantage of the tenant's improvements, or depriving him of his
political rights, (as the English people are led to believe,) but for
the purpose of compelling him to improve and to live comfortably, in
spite of his own predilections. On the best managed estates in Ireland,
and those where green-cropping has been most generally brought into
operation, there are no leases; yet on those properties the tenantry are
invariably the most independent and contented. On the estates of the
Earl of Gosford, and other proprietors in the north, under the able
superintendence of Mr Blacker, (whose conduct is the theme of universal
approbation,) no leases are given until the tenant shows, by his
industry and his exertions, that he deserves one; and then, after he has
for some years cultivated his farm in a proper manner, and is taught to
estimate the value of an improved system, he gets his lease as the
reward of his industry, without the slightest advance in his rent. From
the bad feelings implanted in the minds of the peasantry, they generally
prefer living in comparative misery, and allowing their land to remain
in a state of nature, whether they have leases or not, rather than make
any improvements which might tend to the landlords' ultimate advantage,
even though these improvements would produce immediate benefit to
themselves; and this bad feeling is actually supported by the
undisguised enmity, which unfortunately, of late years, subsists
between the gentry and the priests. We are far from saying that acts of
oppression and injustice may not sometimes be perpetrated by landlords
and agents. Amongst so numerous a body, there must be bad men: and if an
instance, lately mentioned by Mr O'Connell, be true--namely, that of an
agent who set a farm occupied by an industrious and well-behaved
tenantry, who owed no rent, to an extensive grazier, at a rent of four
pounds a year _less_ than the resident tenants offered to secure--we
must at once admit that nothing could be more heartless or cruel. But
then we are bound in justice to state, that the agent so accused was the
bosom friend of the great agitator himself, and a leading member of the
Repeal Association, which has constituted itself the protector, _par
excellence_, of the Irish people. May we not fairly suppose that, when
Mr O'Connell denounces his friends, he would not hesitate to drag his
political opponents to the bar of public opinion; and that the paucity
of _facts_ which he is able to adduce against the landed gentry, is a
proof that they have not neglected the duties of their station, in so
flagrant a manner as his wholesale denunciations would lead us to
expect?
How can we be surprised at Irish absenteeism? Can we expect that any man
who can avoid it, will willingly expose the lives of himself and his
family, by taking up his residence amongst the "Thugs" of Tipperary? If
an absentee comes to reside personally to superintend the improvement of
his property, and takes part of his own estate to make a demesne and
build a mansion, he must dispossess someone--_and, like Lord Norbury, he
is shot_. Should he escape his fate, his motives are misrepresented, and
his anxious endeavours to give occupation and employment to the people,
are converted into the worst crimes; because they can only be carried
into effect by changing the condition of men from pauper and idle
tenants to that of regularly worked and well paid labourers. And what
object can he have, in risking death in the cause of those who suffer
themselves to be so misdirected and misled? Local influence he can have
none--that will be monopolized by the priest; political importance he
cannot expect, in a country where the representation is placed
exclusively in the hands of the Roman Catholic bishops.[37]
Mr Waller resided, and employed the labourers in his neighbourhood; but
he took a part of his own land into his own hands--he ejected tenants
who were unable or unwilling to pay their rents, and he gave them
compensation, and to such as remained employment. What of that? He dared
to occupy his own property, and for this he suffered years of
persecution. His own expenditure, and his wife's charities, were no
protection; and at length, while enjoying the comforts of his home, he
and the amiable and unoffending females of his family, were cruelly
butchered on his own hearth: and though, in the conflict, their
assailants must have been wounded and marked, they have not as yet been
discovered. May we not ask why is this? How comes it that, in a
Christian country, murder is tolerated, nay openly approved? that the
assassin is protected and concealed, instead of being delivered up, and
made amenable to the offended laws of his country?[38] Can the ministers
of that religion professed by the vast majority of the people, have
faithfully discharged their sacred obligations, if men be found,
professing the religion of Christ and understanding its precepts,
willing to enrol themselves as the hired bravoes of a "Black Sheep
Society," and to butcher their neighbours for a petty reward? The Roman
Catholic religion condemns murder as strongly as the Protestant
religion; yet how happens it, that a whole community professing that
faith winks at the crimes of the guilty? This total demoralization we
look on as the worst feature of the case. There are, and always must be,
bad men in every society; but how the great mass of the people could be
brought to tolerate the commission of crimes amongst them, which cry
aloud to Heaven for vengeance, is more than we can comprehend. Had the
priests devoted that time which they spent in exciting the passions and
misleading the judgment of their flocks, in the inculcation of the
divine precept of brotherly love--had they exercised that influence
which they undoubtedly possess in calming the passions and enlightening
the minds of their people--the condition of their country would now be
widely different from what it is; and surely their bishops might have
been better employed in remedying the neglect of their subordinates,
than in attending political meetings, and delivering postprandial
orations, savouring more of the braggart boastings of a drunken drumboy,
than of the deliberate opinions of a dignified ecclesiastic. In their
zeal as politicians, the Roman Catholic clergy have forgotten their
duties as priests; and they are now beginning to get a foretaste of the
consequences: they became mob leaders at elections and popular
meetings--they rode the whirlwind, "can they direct the storm?" The
ruffian tasting blood in beating the electors, soon undertook business
on his own account. The step from savage assault to actual murder, is
but ideal. The man who encouraged, or connived at, the lesser crime,
could scarcely expect to prevent the perpetration of the greater and the
"boy" who commenced by applying "gentle force" to a reluctant voter,
became in the fulness of his crimes the avowed assassin. The priest used
him as "the bully"--he may repudiate, but he dare not denounce, him as
"the murderer."
In the late debate, two publications on the state of Ireland were
recommended to special attention; the one, "A Cry from Ireland," by Lord
John Russell--the other, Mr Wiggins's book, by the Marquis of Normanby.
The first we should scarcely have noticed, (the noble lord mentioned it
with so much diffidence,) but for the impression it seems subsequently
to have made on the mind of Sir R. Peel; but when we found a noble
ex-lord-lieutenant recommending, as trustworthy and instructive, a book
written on a subject which engrosses much of the public attention, we
felt it our duty at once to apply to his "fountain of knowledge."
We cannot say that we have "read with attention" the whole of this
whimsical production: few there are, we believe, who could command
patience enough to wade through such a mass of contradictory absurdity;
but we have selected such parts as we could find at all bearing on the
subject Mr Wiggins professes to write upon; and we shall transcribe some
few passages, if not for the benefit, at least for the amusement, of our
readers; merely premising, that this gentleman gives us no data on which
to found our opinions, and no guarantee for the truth of his statements
but his own assertion. First, as regards the amount of rent charged in
the north and south, Mr Wiggins says--
"In accordance with this view of the case, we find, in practice,
that the rents are far higher in proportion to the produce of the
land in those parts of Ireland where Romanism prevails, than in
other parts, where Protestantism is professed by a considerable
portion of the population."
We refer to our previous statements, founded on unquestionable
authority, to show how perfectly erroneous this "view of the case" is.
The direct contrary is the fact; land is set for at least one third more
in the Protestant and peaceable north, than in the Roman Catholic and
turbulent south. As a specimen of our author's style when he becomes
jocose, and of his veracity when he describes the conduct of Irish
landlords, we give a graphic sketch, representing the mode of letting
land in the sister country--
"Fancy a 'lord of the soil' (a petty one 'tis true) walking with a
bevy of bidders _humbly_ following him, after obtaining a bid of
money far beyond the value from one, exciting the others to outbid
in duty rent, thus:--'Well, Mich, you hear what Pat bids; now, what
will _you_ advance?'--'Why, yer honer, God knows it's more than
the value, but I'll give yer honer three days
turf-drawing.'--'Three days is it, my lad, when you know well
enough that my turf-stack takes a month's fine weather to get
in?'--'Och! then,' says Denis, 'but I'll not grudge your honer a
week.'--'By the powers now,' says Larry, 'I'd give yer honer two
weeks, if the place and the rint would kape a horse, or a mule, or
a donkey, in the way of drawing; but I'll bring yer honer a fat pig
any how, and pay the rint of four pounds an acre as punctually as
_any other_ man.'--'Larry, the land is yours, my boy, and a mighty
chape bargain too! Ted Sullivan promised me five pounds an acre
plantation; but I was rather doubtful of his manes--I'll only ask
ye to cut and save me a few slane, according to times, as you
cannot draw it.'"
L4 the acre!!! this certainly beats any thing we ever heard of before;
and until now we thought it a service of danger for any man to bid for
another's holding, or even to take an unoccupied one; but Mr Wiggins has
made many discoveries which are new to us, and not the least
extraordinary is, that "_Lycurgus gave laws to the Athenians._"!!!
One of the great panaceas of Lord Normanby's _protege_ is, that the land
should be "set at full rents, on _sensible leases_"--which he proceeds
to describe as leases for not less than twenty-one years. We have heard
of many _longer_ leases than those of twenty-one years, we never heard
of any _shorter_ being granted; and as the usual course is also to add a
life--which may, and not unfrequently does, prolong the tenure to sixty
or seventy years--we think that, if "sensible" leases had any effect,
Ireland would have been long since contented.
Lord Normanby is reported to have stated as facts, on the authority of
Mr Wiggins, "that in Ireland, where the saleable produce of a farm was
L150, the share of the landlord in rent was L100; while on the other
hand, in England, if the produce was L300, the share of the landlord was
still L100." Mr Wiggins, in his "_able work_," also shows, that in the
shape of county cess the charge was nearly double in Ireland what it was
in England. It is difficult to form any accurate idea of the relative
amount of the county cess paid in Ireland, and of the local taxes in
England, as in both countries they vary in each different locality. In
Ireland, the exact amount of county cess levied in each barony, can be
easily ascertained by reference to the respective county books; but in
England, as the local taxation is in a great measure put on by vestry,
it would be an arduous task to strike an average.
In Ireland, the county cess varies in every barony, according to the
amount of public works executed in each, or according to the state of
crime in each district. In _peaceable_ counties, and those which do not
border on the Shannon, the county cess will vary from tenpence to one
shilling an acre, half-yearly; while in disturbed districts, and in
those counties adjoining the Shannon, it will amount to much more. In
the first, because of the large sums obliged to be levied off them, as
compensation to those whose cattle were maliciously houghed, or whose
houses were burned; and in the latter, because of the great boon (the
grant to improve the river) bestowed on Ireland by that government of
which Lord Normanby was a prominent member. In the former case, those
who pay highly have only themselves to blame; if they were well
conducted, and discouraged the commission of crime, as all well-disposed
men ought to do, they would not have to bear those additional burdens.
In the latter, the grand-juries have no control; they must assess to
repay the principal of the money advanced to them, and discharge the
interest. Here we may be permitted to remark, that we believe, since
publicity was given to their adjudications on fiscal matters, there is
quite as little jobbing in Ireland as in this country. As a proof of the
disposition of the gentry to reduce the expenditure to the lowest
possible amount, we will state, what every gentleman serving on
grand-juries in Ireland must be cognisant of--namely, _that not more
than one-third of the presentments approved of by the rate-payers, are
ever passed by the grand-juries_; and yet road sessions, at which the
principal rate-payers have power to vote, were instituted to check the
extravagance of the proprietors.
The difficulty in ascertaining the proportion of the produce of the soil
taken as rent by the landlords in either country, exists principally as
regards the large holdings; because in England a great proportion of the
farms are under tillage, while in Ireland, if not the whole, by far the
greater part of all the extensive farms are under grass; and the profits
of the grazier vary so much, that it is hard to form any correct
estimate of the proportion of the produce taken by the landlord as rent,
and that left to the tenant as interest for the money employed in the
purchase of stock. But in the smaller class of holdings, we can have no
difficulty in coming pretty near the truth; and as it is the grievances
of the class of men by whom those small farms are held which require
examination, the amount taken from them as rent, and left to then as
remuneration for their labours, is what is most requisite to be
ascertained. Let us, then, take a farm of twelve Irish acres, at 30s. an
acre.
According to the Irish mode of cultivating, it will be cropped and
stocked as follows:--
Saleable
Acres. R. P. produce
Landlord's rent, L18 0 0 1 2 0 Potatoes, at L18 per acre, L27 0 0
County cess, 1 4 0 3 0 0 Oats, at L7 per do. 21 0 0
Poor-rates, 0 7 0 1 2 0 Meadow, at L4 per do. 6 0 0
--------- 6 0 0 Under pasture, feeds four cows
Rent and taxes, L19 11 O which produce 8 firkins of
butter, at L2, 10s. each, 20 0 0
Profit on calves, 6 0 0
Probable profit on pigs, 10 0 0
--------
L90 0 0
Amount of rent and taxes paid by tenant, 19 11 0
--------
Surplus left to tenant as remuneration
for labor L70 9 0
This is but a rough calculation, and an underrated one as regards the
profits of the tenant; but it serves our purpose sufficiently, and shows
that, instead of taking two-thirds of the produce, the landlord takes
not one-fourth--much less than the amount assumed to be taken in
England. But when we consider the additional imposts which the English
farmer has to pay in tithes, poor-rates, turnpikes, &c., we must at once
perceive how very much less the Irish tenant is charged in comparison to
what he is subject to. But if the farm, stocked and cropped as we have
above described it, (and it is the usual mode,) were cultivated as it
ought to be--if, instead of having one-half under natural pasture, it
were tilled after the Scotch or English system, and one-half or
two-thirds of what is now comparatively unproductive pasture, were under
green crops--we need not say how much the saleable produce would be
increased; and consequently, how much the tenant's profits would be
augmented. Yet surely that it is not so cultivated, is not the
landlord's fault. If he has given a lease, he has no control further
than to exact his rent; if he supply instruction, it may not be
received; if he set a good example, it may not be followed. If the
tenant will not consult his own interests, the landlord is not to be
held as responsible for the consequences of his neglect. The fair way to
calculate in this particular would be, not to take the saleable produce
_at what it is_, raised under a deficient system and negligent
cultivation; but _at what it might be_, if the tenant had but industry,
and would but do his duty.
In an article on the Irish fisheries, in the _Quarterly Review_ for
September last, (page 475,) we find it stated, that "the agricultural
produce of Ireland was, in 1832, estimated at L36,000,000 per annum,
issuing out of 14,603,473 acres of land--_a return nearly one-half less
than that rendered by an equal number of English acres; and this with
five labourers employed in Ireland, where two only are required in
England_." The rental of Ireland is ascertained to be above
L12,000,000; and thus we see that in fact the Irish landlord only
receives the one-third of the saleable produce, raised by his slothful
and negligent tenant, as rent. Let the produce be made equal to that of
England, (and with common industry this might be made to exceed it,) and
the share of the produce extracted as rent would only be about
one-sixth. Yet Lord Normanby "burkes" this correct information, and
clutches on the vague and unfounded assertions of Mr Wiggins, merely for
the purpose of damaging the character of a body of men, who had already
been sufficiently injured by the consequences of his misgovernment.
We shall briefly advert to a few more of the items in the catalogue of
Irish tenants' grievances.
"In England, the markets are near, and the cost of conveyance
thereto seldom exceeds five per cent on value. In Ireland, the cost
of preparing for and marketing, is ten and fifteen to twenty per
cent on the value of the produce, and often more."
In Ireland the saleable produce consists almost generally of oats,
butter, potatoes, and pigs; for which there is a ready market in every
village and town. As those markets are very seldom more than four or
five miles apart; and as, moreover, horse-hire and human labour are at
least fifty per cent cheaper in Ireland than in England--we are at a
loss to discover how "the cost of preparing, and taking to market," can
be fifteen per cent _more in the cheaper than in the dearer_ country.
Mr Wiggins makes _one_ statement founded on truth, and we willingly give
Lord Normanby the benefit of it. "In England, labour is effectual, and
men skilful: in Ireland, three men are required for one in England." And
we would respectfully ask his lordship who is to be blamed for this. Is
it the landowner?--who, though he nominally pay _less_, in reality pays
_more wages_ than the Englishman for the cultivation of a given quantity
of ground, and who would, if he could, for his own sake remedy the evil.
Or does the blame lie at the door of Lord Normanby's own _proteges_, the
priests and agitators?--those men who held the reins of power, and the
keys of prisons, during his administration; and who, by their pestilent
conduct, have raised the minds of the peasantry from their natural
occupation, and taught them to hope for affluence and independence from
other sources than industry and employment. Those labourers, when
working on task in England or Scotland, are found to be quite equal to
English or Scotch labourers: why are they not so when at home? Lord
Normanby's "unquestionable authority" is so very contradictory in his
assertions, that, had he not received the sanction of his lordship's
approbation, his own conflicting statements must have effectually
destroyed his credibility, but for the encomiums passed on it. In one
passage he condemns the landlords for the exorbitance of their rents;
while in the next he makes it a matter of pride and gratification that
he has _himself_, during his management, _raised_ the rental of the
property under his control _at least one-third_--while the adjoining
estate is much more favourably circumstanced, and much more cheaply let,
though by no means so prosperous.
When a nobleman, so long and so intimately connected with the country
whose interests are under discussion, as Lord Normanby was with Ireland,
and who, from the position which he occupied and the opportunities which
he possessed, ought to be particularly well informed on the question at
issue, solemnly assures us, from his place in Parliament, and in a
debate which he himself has originated, that the landlord and tenant
question is one on which the most profound ignorance exists in this
country, and that there never was a government which had so little local
knowledge as the present, and which, consequently, was so ill fitted to
legislate on the subject--when he laments other men's ignorance, and
glorifies himself on his own particular knowledge--when, we say, a
nobleman so circumstanced as the Marquis of Normanby, does all this, and
at the same time recommends a guide, by whom the ignorant may be
enlightened and the blind led, we are bound to believe that he has
accurately ascertained the trustworthiness of the person under whose
guidance he now would place us; and that he has maturely considered, and
carefully proved, the correctness of those statements on which he would
found legislation, by the test of his own experience. We are bound to
believe (and we do) that the noble lord is firmly convinced of the
accuracy of Mr Wiggins's views and principles, because they are exactly
similar to those on which, during his government, he always acted.
During his rule, the cause of the mob was every thing, and the cause of
the gentry was nothing. Can we, then, be surprised at the state in which
we find Ireland, and the difficulty experienced in hitting off the
measures requisite for the emergency--when we see "the most beloved and
popular viceroy that ever administered the government," and the one "who
was said, beyond all others, to be best acquainted with the wants and
wishes of that country," so profoundly ignorant of its most simple
statistics--simple, it is true, but still bearing most importantly on a
great and momentous question?
We fear that, in his viceregal "progresses," the noble marquis was too
much excited by the hearty cheers which greeted him, and too much
engaged by the brilliant eyes that beamed upon him, to attend to the
more ostensible and more serious duties of his office; and that he
devoted the time which, if properly employed, might have enabled him to
arrive at the truth, in chucking the chins and patting the heads of the
pretty frail ones, to whom he addressed valedictory admonitions as he
released them from those dungeons to which the over-strict laws of their
country had (no doubt unjustly) consigned them.
In the observations which we shall make on the pamphlet entitled "A Cry
from Ireland," we wish to be distinctly understood--we do not undertake
the task of showing up its glaring and wilful falsehoods for the purpose
of exculpating Mr Shee, the principal person whose conduct is arraigned
in it. He is openly, and boldly assailed; and if he be either unable or
unwilling to defend his character, he is unworthy of sympathy or
support. We undertake this duty, from higher and more important motives
than the exculpation of any individual. The conduct of the Irish gentry
is assailed through Mr Shee; and we wish to show that no landlord,
however ill inclined he may be, _could_ practise such legal tyranny as
is imputed to this man. The administration of justice has been
impugned--we wish to show how unjustly; and this we shall be able to do,
even from the statements made by this wholesale libeller himself. The
conduct of the government has been vilified, because they are accused of
supplying Mr Shee with a police force, under whose protection, and _by
whose assistance_, he is said to perpetrate the most glaring felonies in
the open day--we leave the defence of their participation in Mr Shee's
enormities to her Majesty's ministers, when they are called to account,
as no doubt they will be, for allowing a force, paid for the protection
of her Majesty's subjects, to be employed as the author of this pamphlet
states them to be, in the following instance:--
"In one case, that of a tenant named Bushe, of whom with many other
sufferers I have not yet spoken, the landlord resolved on an
ejectment; but Bushe owing no rent, he could only proceed as he had
done against Pat Ring, or by some other process of a like kind. He
took a shorter one. It so happened that, though Bushe had paid his
rent in order to keep the house above his head--a very good house
it was, to judge from the size and worth of the substantial walls
which, in most parts, were still standing when I was there--he had
not paid every man in the county to whom he was indebted. He owed
one person, residing at a distance, a sum of money more, as it soon
appeared, than he could pay at once. This man the landlord found
out, through some of his agents appointed for such purposes, and
purchased from him the debt which Bushe owed him. This account
being legally conveyed to the landlord, he at once proceeded
against his tenant the debtor, threw him into prison, and as soon
as he got him there, went and took the roof off his house, turning
out his wife and six young children upon the open highway. There
they remained without shelter and without food, until some of the
people of the adjoining village assisted them. The father was in
prison, and could neither resist the spoliation of the house which
he himself had built nor could he do any thing, by work or
otherwise, for his family's subsistence. In every respect, the
proceeding was illegal on the part of the landlord, but, though the
lawyers urged Bushe to prosecute, and assured him of ultimate
success, he was too far gone to listen to them. He was heartbroken.
He had no confidence in any redress the law might give: he had seen
a rich man set the law at defiance; and the ruin of his roofless
house--_every piece of timber from which, and every handful of
thatch, as also the doors and windows, had been carried away by
orders of the landlord, and b the assistance of the constabulary,
who are located on the estate at the express request of the
landlord, and by sanction of the government_."
Here we have it asserted that an undoubted and most audacious felony has
been committed, and that the police force not only protected the
aggressors, _but actually assisted_ in the perpetration of the crime.
Surely this is a case in which immediate punishment must have followed,
if an appeal lad been made to the law. It admitted of no excuse. A man,
without a shadow of right, destroys and carries of the materials of
another man's house. The police force not only do not prevent, _but they
assist him_. There is a stipendiary magistrate, but he does not
interfere; a petty sessions court, but no recourse is had to it; and,
strange to say, there is Daniel O'Connell, to whom every thing is known,
and he is silent; the two Messrs Butler, the members for the county, and
they are mute; Lord J. Russell assails the conduct of the ministry
towards Ireland--here was a case more flagrant than any he brought
forward; he knows it, for he recommends the book in which it is
stated--he dares not bring it forward, for no doubt he enquired, and
found it was untrue. To have it refuted, would not answer his purposes
or those of O'Connell, his ally. He recommends the book as an authority
to those who wish to see how the Irish are treated by their landlords;
and, receiving his sanction, it gets into circulation, and obtaius
belief for, others in addition to the many calumnies already propagated
against the Irish gentry. The author tells us--
"The writer of the following pages has personally visited many of
the towns and rural districts of Ireland; and, _in obedience to
those who instructed him to perform the task_, has drawn up a plain
statement of facts, for the benefit of persons interested in the
welfare of Ireland, and who cannot visit that country personally to
judge for themselves."
And right clumsily has he performed the duty assigned to him. Had his
cunning been equal to his malignity, he would have acted with more
prudence. He would not have recklessly asserted in one place what his
own admissions refute in another. He would not have charged the most
talented, distinguished, and impartial law-officers of the crown with
having strained the law to protect a delinquent because he was a
Protestant--and afterwards shown that the conduct of this man was
condemned by those very persons accused of partiality towards him; and
that his illegal acts were punished by those very tribunals to which (he
asserts) no poor man need think of applying for redress. He, however,
does his best to cover those glaring inconsistencies. He breaks the
thread of his narrative, and intersperses his stories in such a manner,
that a casual reader, who has not time or inclination to examine or
compare them, may easily be deceived and misled. For the purpose of
showing the reliance to be placed on Lord John Russell's authority, we
shall take up one case, (that of Patrick Ring,) and follow it out to its
conclusion.
"The first proceeding was against Patrick Ring, a tenant, who held
on a lease of thirty-one years and a life, and who owed no arrears
up to 1842; the proceedings against him began in March 1841, and
have given rise to a complicated variety of actions at law, ending
with his ejectment and utter beggary.
"As he owed no rent, and as no possible reason for getting rid of
him as a tenant could be assigned, nor was ever offered until long
after proceedings had begun, a bold stroke to make a beginning was
absolutely requisite, and it was struck. The lease specified a
certain day in May and in November, as that on which the
half-yearly rent would fall due. Those days had been strictly
adhered to, and no one knew this better than the landlord. But in
1841 he obtained a warrant of distraint,[39] and seized on Ring on
the 26th of March, for rent alleged to be due on the 25th. It might
have been a hard enough misfortune to be distrained on the day
following that of the rent being due in any case, especially in
spring, when the cattle and implements of labour, as also the
seed-corn, and potatoes, the articles distrained, are required for
the peculiar duties of that most important season, seed-time. But
when such a distraint was made on such articles, so indispensable
in their uses even for a day, to say nothing of weeks, and no rent
nor debt of any kind owing, the case is peculiarly a hard one on
the tenant.
"Patrick Ring caused a replevin to be entered with the
sheriff--that is, he gave security that he would pay the rent, if
rent was due, as soon as a trial at quarter-sessions or assizes
could be had--that he might in the mean time get the use of the
property upon which the distraint lay. He accordingly proved by his
lease that he owed nothing--that no rent was due until May. But
before that was done, May had come, and the rent was due. He paid
it punctually, and proceeded against the landlord for damages, or
rather for the costs to which he had been exposed. This being
opposed, occupied much time; and before it was settled, the
landlord once more distrained for rent alleged to be due on the
29th of September. Again Patrick Ring replevined, and proved his
rent-days to be in November and May, and not in September and
March. The case of costs and trespass came to trial in respect of
both seizures, and was decided in Ring's favour. Thus a jury and a
judge certified by their decision that the tenant was right, and
the landlord wrong. The damages awarded were very moderate, only
L12 and costs; but the tenant looked on the verdict as most
important, in respect of its setting, as he thought, the validity
of his lease and the period of his rent-days at rest. But that the
damages were too moderate as regarded the landlord was manifest
from the fact, that he again distrained in March for rent not due
until May.
"He now, it being again seed-time, took a more effectual way of
crippling the tenant than before. He seized on the farm implements
and stock, of which the dunghill was in his eyes the most important.
He had it, without a legal sale, carried away to his own farm-yard,
even to the very rakings and sweepings of the road and the yard near
which it lay. This he did that Ring might have no manure for his
potato ground, knowing that crops so planted would not easily afford
the rent; and that, when no rent was forthcoming, an ejectment would
soon follow. Other things--a plough, and a horse, and some
furniture--were sold, and Ring was once more involved in litigation.
These things were bought in with his own money, save the dung-heap,
which the landlord would not give him a chance of buying in; and
thus Ring was obliged to pay his rent before it was due, with all
the expenses of a distraint and sale--the most expensively conducted
of any distraints and sales under the British crown. He thought to
recover damages for all this loss; but he was not able to pay his
rent in addition to all this, when it became due; and thus, by some
hocus-pocus of the law, the two cases became so mingled together as
to be inextricable."
From this statement it would appear that this Mr Shee distrained
illegally, that the tenant sought the protection of the law, and that he
obtained damages to the amount of L12. This may appear an inconsiderable
sum; but when it is considered that an officer entitled a "replevinger,"
resides in almost every town, that the stock or implements were not
removed from the premises, and that Ring, if he exerted himself, could
not be deprived of their use for a _second day_--we must admit it was a
fair remuneration for his trouble. Well--but this Mr Shee, with the
knowledge of his former misconduct, and its punishment before him, again
seizes: and this time he commits a _felony_, as well as an illegal act;
for he carries off the tenant's manure, and appropriates it to his own
use, without going through any legal form whatever. The tenant obtained
justice before; but now (with a still stronger case) he refuses to bring
his action, which, in the quarter-sessions court, would have cost him
2s. 6d. He is quite aware of his rights, for he defended them
successfully before; yet for some reason or another, _studiously
concealed_, he now remains inactive.[40]
* * * * *
Is every person so silly as to believe that this Mr Shee, who was more
than once successfully prosecuted for assaults and illegal acts, would
not again be brought to justice for such a serious breach of the law as
that of forcibly carrying off another man's property. The criminal
prosecution would only have cost one shilling; and can we believe he
would a _third_ time subject himself to an action for illegal distress,
with the rent-days specified in the lease well known to him?
But all the assertions of this paid maligner sink into insignificance
compared with what follows. We know not which to be most amazed at--the
recklessness, or the stupid ignorance of the man.
"It would be too tedious to give a detailed account of every
lawsuit that now followed; but from that time, _the summer of 1842,
up to the summer assizes of 1843_, the landlord proceeded in the
courts for a warrant of ejectment against Ring _nine times_. On the
first eight cases he was defeated; but he succeeded on the ninth.
He had thirteen other lawsuits of various kinds with the same
defendant, during which he sold his furniture five times and his
horse twice. In all, _he had twenty auctions of sale previous to
midsummer of this year_. Part of the furniture was in several of
these instances only bought back by the agent, Mr James Coyne,
handing money privately to Ring to pay for it. This is the agent
formerly spoken of, who at last gave up his situation out of sheer
disgust at the odious work he was called on to perform.
"The crop of 1842 was seized on and sold at seven different times.
It was much more than sufficient to pay the rent, even though the
manure was carried away in the spring by the landlord; but those
seven different seizures, with seven different sales, with a number
of men receiving at each of the seven seizures 2s. 4d. a-day, as
keepers to watch the crop from the day of distraint to the day of
sale--those seven seizures on a crop which might have been all
seized and sold at one time, with only one set of
expenses--resulted, as they were intended to do, in nearly doubling
the rent. Moreover, the crop being distrained on while growing, was
cut down by people whom the landlord employed, although the tenant
and his family were standing unemployed; and to such work-people the
landlord can give any wages he chooses, to be deducted from the
tenant, up to 2s. 6d. a-day! even though the harvest wages of the
district be 8d. or 10d. a-day![41]--even though the tenant, who is
thus not allowed to give his own labour to his own farm, may, to
avoid starvation, be compelled to work to another employer for the
fourth part, to wit, 7-1/2d. a-day, of what the law obliges him to
pay for workmen on his own farm.
"It will give some proof of the exertions made by the tenant to pay
his way when I state, that, notwithstanding all the extraordinary
expenses of the seizures, and of the protracted and complicated
litigation, _the rent was paid by the autumn of 1842_. There as
nothing owing by Ring save a sum of L1 and odds, connected with the
expenses of a summons which had been decided against him on some
technical point of law."
Here it is stated, in the first place, _that from the summer assizes
1842, to the same period in 1843, Ring was nine times proceeded against
by ejectment_. Now the landlord could only proceed by ejectment in the
quarter-sessions' court, or in the superior courts. The
quarter-sessions' courts are held but _four times_ in the year, namely,
in January, April, July, and October. The sessions were only held _three
times_ within the period during which Ring is said to have been _nine
times_ sued by ejectment; and consequently, if Mr Shee were even
inclined, it would be impossible for him to have proceeded more than
_three times_ against him in the sessions court. But if he instituted
his suit in the superior courts, (if defence were taken, as clearly was
the case,) he could only have proceeded twice, "for the ejectment served
at November should be tried at the spring assizes, and the one served
subsequently at the summer assizes;" and the production of any process
from the superior courts, or the proof that such was had recourse to,
would effectually bar the landlord from proceeding in the inferior
courts. He could not proceed in both at the same time; and thus we see
that it would be impossible for any landlord, however oppressive, _to
have proceeded by ejectment more than three times within the period in
which this veracious compiler of grievances positively asserts Shee
proceeded nine times_. Next, he says, "the crop of 1842 was sold seven
different times," and "altogether he had _twenty auctions of sale_
before midsummer of 1843." Now, any proceeding by distress, pending the
progress of the ejectment, would have vitiated it and upset it; for the
law does not allow two different modes of proceeding for the same debt
at the same time; and in no courts is such scrupulous regard paid to the
rights of the tenant as in the quarter-sessions courts. But no decree
can be granted in ejectment cases until _a clear year's rent_ shall have
been proved to be due; and yet we find this man, Patrick Ring, who, it
is asserted, _owed no arrears of rent up to 1842, and the sale of whose
crops and stock paid his rent up to autumn 1842_, evicted in summer
1843, when only _half a year's rent could have accrued due_; and this,
too, by a Roman Catholic assistant barrister, (Mr O'Gorman,) a judge
above any suspicion, and who, if we are to believe the statement
contained in Ring's own letter, was not at all partial to his
persecutor.
To show how tyrannically men may act with impunity, (if they be
landlords,) he quotes the case of O'Driscoll, who struck a boy with his
horsewhip; yet he is obliged to admit, that for doing so he was fined
L3 by his brother magistrates, and dismissed from the commission of the
peace by the lord-chancellor. To create the desired degree of prejudice
against the Irish landlords, it is necessary to impugn the
administration of justice; for people here would naturally enough say,
when they read of such atrocities, "why don't those men so injured have
recourse to the law?" Therefore it must be shown (at any risk) that the
law is no impediment in the way of a tyrannical landlord. The falsehoods
may not be immediately detected; and in the mean time the object may be
achieved. Accordingly we find that a landlord can thus summarily dispose
of an obnoxious tenant. This Mr Shee was fired at: our author has his
doubts--although it appears, by his own account of the trial, that slugs
were lodged in his hand, and that his hat was perforated--and he adds--
"But, if really fired at, and therefore much frightened, as he
doubtless would be, _it was not a loss to him_. With the facility
which the law in Ireland gives him as a landlord, he at once threw
those tenants into jail with whom he had been involved in
litigation. Consequently, before they could prosecute him for
damages, or before they could be witnesses in another case, they
had themselves to be tried for attempted murder!
"Patrick Ring was one of those arrested; and though several
hundreds of people, some of them gentlemen of rank and property,
knew that he had been in the Catholic chapel for an hour before and
an hour after the time the shot was alleged to have been fired, and
that at the distance of two miles, yet he was kept in prison, in
solitary confinement, not allowed to see any friend, nor even a
lawyer, for several weeks. He was not even examined before a
magistrate. This last fact in the administration of the law is, I
believe, peculiar to Ireland only. Whether it is consistent with,
or contrary to law, I cannot say. In England we consider it but
justice to the accused and the accuser, to bring them face to face
before a magistrate at the earliest opportunity. But in this case,
the landlord (_and I am told such a thing is quite common in all
such cases_) put Pat Ring in prison, kept him there three weeks in
close confinement, apart even from a legal adviser, and then
allowed him to go out without even taking him before a magistrate,
or offering any evidence against him.
"We may easily conceive circumstances which would warrant the
landlord to suspect this man, so as to have him taken up, and which
might ultimately turn out to be so weak as to prevent the
production of any evidence whatever. Had the landlord merely put
Pat Ring in prison, and let him out again after finding, through a
period of three weeks, that he could get no evidence against him,
there would be little to complain of, save that the law should not
compel the magistrates to bring the accused up for examination, or
that the prison authorities should not let the prisoner have an
interview with a legal adviser; but the landlord did much more.
_While Pat Ring was in jail, the landlord sent and made a wreck of
his house and farm; took the roof, thatch, and wood off the barn,
stable, and dwelling-house, save in one small portion of the
latter; and every handful of the thatch and wood so pulled down
was carried away to the landlord's own premises._ The doors and
windows he also carried away; pulled down the gates of the
farm-yard and the garden, and the garden-wall. These gates were
iron, and had been erected by the tenant a few years before at
considerable expense. The houses were also all of his own erection;
the thatch and timber of the roof, carried away by the landlord,
was Pat Ring's own property; _and all was taken away, and the whole
place wrecked, without any warrant whatever for so doing; without
any right whatever, save the right which, by the laxity of the law
and the dominancy of a faction, a landlord, belonging to that
dominant faction, may create for himself; without any authority
whatever, save the power of his own high hand, against which the
law is powerless_.
"Pat Ring, after being kept in prison for three weeks, apart from
every friend and adviser, and apart from every human creature, save
the spies with which every prison in Ireland abounds--(persons who
are kept there at the public expense, and who are put to sleep with
such men as Pat Ring; and who, pretending to make a confidant of
the fresh prisoner, tell tales of the assaults and murders which,
as a trap, they profess to have been concerned in--they urging the
new prisoner to confess all, to split on his accomplices, and take
the reward of L100 at once,--except such companions as these, some
of whom I saw produced as witnesses for the Crown at the Kilkenny
assizes, thus learning from their own mouths the nature of their
diabolical employment)--excepting these, to whom, as Pat Ring
declares, he indignantly answered again and again that he had
nothing to confess, he saw no human being during his
incarceration--was liberated, and went joyfully home; but when he
went there, alas! his home was a ruin."
We suppose we need scarcely point out the absurdity of such a statement
as this. Some magistrate _must_ have committed this man; the jailer
could not receive him without a committal, nor set him at large[42]
without a discharge; although, from the account given, the inference may
be easily drawn that, on his own will, Shee had thrown Ring into prison.
If falsely imprisoned, he had his action against the magistrate who
committed him. The committal, which the jailer holds for his own
security, would discover the person who had acted so illegally. If any
man acted as Shee is said to have done in this instance, the law is not
to be blamed--for it forbids such conduct: the government officers who
permitted it to be violated, are the really guilty parties. And here
again we may ask--why were not the government called on to explain the
conduct of their officials, by Lord John Russell, who read and
recommended the book to the attention of Sir Robert Peel? But in
addition to the necessity of having Ring thrown into jail, to exhibit
the power of the landlords, it was necessary, for our author's purposes,
that he should be put out of the way, in order to account for an apology
given by the editor of a local newspaper to this Mr Shee.
"An action was brought against the proprietor of the journal for a
malicious libel, in calling this gentleman a 'notorious landlord.'
A man who had, in two years and a half, had above two hundred
disputes with his peasantry, not half of which I have yet even
alluded to, but all of which, alluded to and related, had occurred
previous to that time--such a man, to prosecute for being called
'notorious,' had good confidence.
"But he had also a good case. It would be scouted out of
Westminster Hall, but it was a good case in _Ireland_. An English
judge, after hearing evidence for the defence in such a
case--evidence in justification--would not sum up to the jury, or,
if he began his summary, the jury would stop him with an intimation
that their minds were made up! _But to the Irish jury--the special
jury of landlords before whom this case was about to be
brought_--the proprietor of the Irish newspaper looked forward with
a certainty of being convicted on a criminal charge, the punishment
of which would have probably been one or two years' imprisonment
and a heavy fine.
"He might have hoped for a verdict in his favour had the case stood
for a common jury, or for a special jury in any of the counties
where he was known, or where his paper circulated. When it was
intimated to him that the trial would not take place in Kilkenny,
he urged that the venue might be laid in Waterford, or Tipperary,
or Wexford, or Carlow, or in the Queen's County, where something
was known of each of the parties; but no, the venue was laid in the
county of Dublin, where the gentlemen who would form the special
jury were all of the landlord class, and nearly all belonging to
the dominant church-and-state party. _In that county nothing was
known of either plaintiff or defendant_, save that the first was a
distinguished Protestant partisan and that the other was a
Catholic, and proprietor of a liberal newspaper. Of their private
characters nothing was known.
"Still the defendant resolved to go to trial, and justify the
epithet 'notorious' as applied to the landlord. He intended taking
several of the worst-used tenants up as witnesses; and he also
obtained the official records of the petty sessions, quarter
sessions, and assize courts, to put in as evidence to show the
overwhelming amount of litigation carried on by the landlord with
his tenantry. He resolved on doing all this, _though sure of being
condemned to imprisonment and a fine by the special jury_; he
judged, from the well-known reputation of that class of men, and
from what he had seen other newspaper proprietors receive at their
hands for publishing the oppressive conduct of landlords; but he
resolved on justifying by evidence, in the hope that a public
trial, at which such witnesses as the persecuted tenants of
plaintiff would appear, would draw public attention to their
unfortunate condition. _He had chosen Patrick Ring and John Ryan,
the worst-used of the tenants, and one or two others_, as
witnesses; but what was his dismay when he found Patrick Ring once
more thrown into jail, as also the
others, at the instance of the landlord, on the charge of
attempting to shoot him!
"Thus, without his witnesses, the defendant, after incurring the
expense of about L100 in preparing his defence, was glad to get out
of the case in any shape. He made a public and most humble apology,
paid all expenses, and the prosecution was dropped. As soon as this
was effected, Patrick Ring, but for whose imprisonment on an
accusation of murder the trial would have gone on, 'was again
allowed to walk out of jail, without having undergone any
examination--without having had any evidence produced against
him.'"
The juries of the county Dublin are certainly the most independent, and
least likely to be prejudiced in favour of a landlord, that can be
found. They are in a great measure composed of wealthy merchants, who
reside in the neighbourhood of the city; and every one knows that a
judge's summons would have procured the attendance of Ring at the trial;
but it was necessary to find an excuse for this abject apology.
We cannot, in the present instance, impute the conduct of this
truth-telling authority to ignorance; we must attribute it to his wish
to make the British public believe that all those civil bill processes
were at the suit of landlords against tenants--to the desire or the
necessity he felt himself under of sacrificing all principle to the
objects for the accomplishment of which he was employed. He _must know_
that nineteen-twentieths of those civil bills are actions for debts
brought by shopkeepers against their customers, or by one peasant
against another--for money lent, or for the price of provisions sold
them: he _must know_ (if he knows any thing) that perhaps not fifty, out
of the whole 4318, are for rent; and that, where rent is at all sued for
by process, it is only in cases where the landlord takes the tenant's I
O U, in order to give him more time for what was long since due. The
landlord _can at any time distrain_ for his rent; what object, then,
would he have in incurring expense, and encountering delay, to procure a
decree, which, when obtained, would _only restrict his former power_?
All this does he know; and yet he quotes the number of processes issued
by the most litigious people on earth against each other, as a proof of
the tyranny of the landlords, and as the fruitful source of poverty and
crime.
We have to apologise for the length of our remarks on those two
productions. The one contains, we doubt not, the sincere opinions of a
well-meaning, but very silly gentleman; while the other bears upon its
unprincipled statements the stamp of premeditated dishonesty. Yet it is
upon authorities such as these that the Irish gentry are to be
condemned, and their estates confiscated; upon authorities such as these
that the interests of men, whose greatest crime is attachment to British
connexion, are to be sacrificed to greedy agitators, and a ferocious and
idle people. Sir Robert Peel may, _perhaps_, without danger, give an
extension of the franchise--the corporations are all, with one solitary
exception, (Belfast,) as revolutionary as they can be made; and the
Roman Catholic bishops may not be able to obtain political ascendancy
over any more counties than those already subject to their sway; but we
would call on him to pause and consider well before he disgusts the best
friends of England, by lending attention to the unfounded statements of
revolutionary priests, promulgated by mercenary writers; or the
legislative quackeries of a disappointed, dishonest, and despicable
faction.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Ireland--The Landlord and Tenant Question--Lord Normanby's
Speech--Mr Wiggins's Book, "A Cry from Ireland."
[30] One would think there were no poor-houses.
[31] Scotland has been more favoured in this respect. Ample details on
the point mentioned, and on every other relating to its physical, moral,
and economical state, may be found in the New Statistical Account--a
work which places the country under great obligations to the clergy of
the Established Church, who have furnished the accounts of their
parishes, and which display, in general, a range of intelligence in the
highest degree creditable to their order.
[32] Taken from the last census. Average rent of land per acre[32] in
each county of Ireland.
_Ulster._
Antrim L0 16 0
Armagh 0 11 8
Cavan 0 13 7-1/2
Donegal 0 6 0
Down 0 16 0
Fermanagh 0 13 7
Londonderry 0 12 2-1/2
Monaghan 0 13 3-1/2
Tyrone 0 14 6
_Leinster._
Carlow L0 15 0
Dublin 0 18 0
Kildare 0 13 0
Kilkenny 0 17 0
King's County 0 12 0
Longford 0 12 3
Louth 0 16 0
Meath 0 18 0
Queen's County 0 14 0
Westmeath 0 13 7
Wexford 0 14 0
Wicklow 0 12 0
_Munster._
Clare L0 11 0
Cork 0 13 7
Kerry 0 6 1
Limerick 0 18 8
Tipperary 0 17 8-1/2
Waterford 0 12 0
_Connaught._
Galway L0 12 1
Leitrim 0 10 7-1/2
Mayo 0 8 6
Roscommon 0 13 0
Sligo 0 10 8
[33] The plantation acre, containing more than 1:3:0 statute.
[34] In a letter, signed "an Irishman," published by the _Times_, the
writer adduces as a proof of the _extortion_ of Irish landlords, that he
has known a tenant in the north, whose lease was about to expire,
receive L270 for his interest in fourteen acres of land.
[35] We read in the _Times_ a few days since, that the men employed in
opening the navigation of the Shannon at Rooskey had struck for an
advance in wages--they had 1s. a-day, and demanded 2s. Those who were
willing to continue were forced by armed men to abandon their work, and
threatening notices were served on the contractors; yet in this very
neighbourhood it is stated in the poor-law report that able-bodied men
were willing to work for 6d. a-day, but could not procure employment. It
is always thus:--when there is no employment, it is an excuse for their
idleness, when there is, they won't work but at the most extravagant
wages. To show that 1s. a-day was fair wages, we shall give an account
of the quantity of provisions which can be purchased at Rooskey for one
shilling.
14 lbs. of potatoes, 0 1-1/2
2 do. oatmeal, 0 2
2 do. bacon, 0 7-1/2
3 quarts of milk, 0 1
-------
Total, 1 0
[36] _Irish Landlords, Rents, and Tenures, &c._ Published by Murray,
Albemarle Street.
[37] Doctor M'Hale declared publicly, that, if it so pleased him, he
would place two _cow-boys_ in the representation of Mayo.
[38] At the trial of the men for the murder of Mr Brian the other day,
at the Wexford assizes, the people cheered so loudly when the witnesses
hesitated or doubted, that a woman, the principal evidence, declared
"she would tell nothing more." The judge was obliged to order the
court-house to be cleared, and the accused were acquitted.
[39] A landlord requires no such warrant--he can distrain without any
authority.
[40] In case of replevin, the valuation of the stock or crop seized is
left to the _tenant himself_, so that sometimes he may value stock worth
50s. at only 20s., and they _must_ be restored to him, on giving
security for what he sets them down as worth. The landlord cannot
interfere.
[41] The law never allows the landlord _more_ than the wages paid in the
neighbourhood, in case he is obliged to employ men to save the crop.
[42] A man committed can only be discharged on bail, or by the bills
being ignored by the grand jury.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MAP _of_ AFRICA from the Equator to 13. deg. North Lat: and
from 31. deg. to 51 E. Longitude _Constructed from the latest and best
authorities_ by James Macqueen Esq.
_London, March 15th, 1844_]
_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._