The Gerrard case, of which we heard so much, ought to be a caution to

those who put faith in the statements of the Repeal press, or of the

Irish agitators. Yet the explanation given by Mr Gerrard does not seem

to satisfy the _Times_. That journal indignantly asks, "Why did he

suffer beggars to be bred upon his estate?" How could he prevent it? "He

remonstrated; but because the people held under a lease, (or a written

agreement, which was of equal value,) he could do no more." But suppose

he had power to prevent "this propagation of beggars," how could he

exercise it in the present state of Ireland? The same system of abuse

and execration would have met him at every step he took. If his tenants

were tenants-at-will, with the utmost vigilance, squatters would most

likely have been admitted on his land, and have been living under the

same roof with the holder of the farm, long before he was able to

discover it; and when he did, his only resource would have been to serve

notice to quit, and eject. He must then put out all parties; and the cry

of extermination would have been then raised as loudly as it is now, and

the Punishment of Death would, if there were but an opportunity to

execute it, as inevitably have followed. Having granted a lease, the

only power Mr Gerrard could exercise he did. If Irish landowners give

leases, they cannot prevent "the propagation of beggars;" and if they

refuse to do so, for the very purpose of guarding against this evil,

they are denounced as men who keep their tenantry in dread of being

dispossessed, and who effectually prevent the improvement of the

country, by not giving to the tillers of the soil security of tenure. To

talk of clauses against subletting is sheer nonsense. How are such

clauses to be enforced? The penalties can only be levied by distress. No

man can make distress available for the recovery of rent, much less so

for a penalty inflicted on an occupier, because he gave one-third of his

farm to a son, another to a married daughter, and thus planted three

families on that portion of his estate which the landlord designed for

the comfortable support of one.

We are told those persons have been turned out to starve. They have the

poor-house to go to, if they wish; but, if they had not this resource,

their condition should not excite much sympathy. They had the landlord's

property for _four years, without paying any rent--they took all their

crops away with them_; and if they were so improvident as to spend all

they made, they were entitled to but little of our commiseration. It so

happens that Mr Gerrard is a very rich man, and can afford this loss;

but hundreds of cases are there where poor men, with large families, and

with heavy encumbrances put on their properties by their ancestors, are

similarly treated. They are compelled, by the dishonesty of the

tenantry, _to sell_ the "homes of their fathers," and emigrate to

foreign lands. But there is no expression of sympathy for them. No;

"they belong to the upper classes;" "they can suffer nothing on such

occasions." 'Tis only the people who can feel, "only the people who

ought to be compassionated." Strange as it may appear to those who

choose to indulge in remarks on subjects with which they are perfectly

unacquainted, and who put forward their nostrums for diseases of which

they do not understand the nature, not only is it proved, that

generally, in Ireland, the tenantry without leases, and holding at fair

rents, are in better circumstances than those occupying under old

leases, and paying very low rents; but it is made manifest, by undoubted

testimony, that the possession of a farm, at an under rent, and for a

long tenure, almost universally leads to poverty and ruin; and any

person who knows the Irish character can easily account for this seeming

anomaly. The love of display and the spirit of ambition which pervade

all classes in Ireland, leads every one to assume a station, and incur

an expenditure, far beyond what his circumstances would entitle him to.

The shopkeeper styles himself a merchant, and must have a car and a

country-house; the man who has a long lease of fifty or sixty acres at

an under rent, sets up at once for what is significantly termed a "_half

sir_;" he will be quite above doing any thing for himself, and will keep

two or three servant-maids, while he has four or five "_young ladies_"

walking about doing nothing. The time which should be devoted to

business, is by all classes consumed in pleasure or in politics; and the

consequences are to be seen in the embarrassments of the gentry, the

bankruptcy of the tradesmen, and the poverty of the people.

"I have found by experience," says Mr Wilson--a large proprietor and

most painstaking landlord of the county Clare, who was examined before

the commission--"that leases are positive bars to improvement, _however

low the rent_; and I hand in several cases as proving my assertion."

Amongst them was one statement furnished by Mr Fitzgerald, the agent of

Mr Vandeleur, of the condition of the tenantry on a large farm of that

gentleman's estate which had lately fallen out of lease. "This tract of

land was divided into seven parts, six of which were originally let to

persons who under-let at very _considerable profit-rents to others; on

those divisions the occupying tenantry were, in general, in comfortable

circumstances_." The seventh portion had been leased to persons in the

rank of cotters or small farmers, "and their families are still in

possession, _all of them in a state of poverty_, although there were

only eight holdings on a hundred and seventeen plantation acres, and

they paid but £27: 10s: 2 for that extent of land, which was valued

under the poor-law valuation at £68, and in addition to which they had a

considerable extent of mountain and bog." Mr Lambert, an extensive

farmer in Mayo, declares--"I see among the poor people having land, that

those who have leases are much less inclined to make improvements than

those who have not." Mr Kelly of Galway, a large proprietor, is

asked--"What effect has tenure at will upon the tenants, or the

improvement of their farms?" and he answers--"I think it makes exactly

this difference: The man who has a fixed tenure considers that he cannot

be put out; he immediately mismanages the farm--he sublets, divides, and

the whole thing is lost." Mr Fetherston of Westmeath states the

particulars of a farm of which he holds a division at £2 an acre, and

small tenants hold the other parts on _lease at eighteen shillings_ an

acre, in divisions of from ten to twelve acres, "and they are in want.

Those men will work ten hours a-day for him at tenpence, yet they won't

till their own lands; and when they do any thing, they never commence to

work before nine o'clock in the morning." And he gives an instance of a

labourer of his own to whom he gave two and a half acres of the same

land, which was a perfect waste, at his own rent, (two pounds an acre;)

and by his industry this man supports a large family on this small and

dear spot, while those about him who have good-sized farms of better

land, at less than half rent on lease, "are starving."

Mr Spottiswood, who holds many extensive agencies, including Lord

Londonderry's and Sir Robert Bateson's, states that part of the

properties with which he is connected have been leased in perpetuity in

small quantities; and he adds, that such mode of letting "has not a good

effect at all." He is asked--"Do you find that the tenants are less

industrious?" "Yes, they are paying the present proprietor, in many

instances, not more than two-and-sixpence or five shillings an acre;

they are quite independent of their landlords, who have no control over

them."--"How do you suppose that their poverty arose?" "I think it

arose from the subdivision of the properties; and the parties feeling a

sort of independence, they do not think it necessary to become

industrious, depending upon their farms for their support, and paying

these very small rents;" and Mr Fagoe says--"I must admit that there are

tenants who hold old leases, whose farms are very badly cultivated."

We have now quoted authorities from all quarters of Ireland, to show

that the want of tenure cannot be the cause of the poverty of the

people, or the bad cultivation of the land; but that, in point of fact,

it has directly the contrary effect. Almost the whole of Earl

Fitzwilliam's tenantry hold at will; and Mr Furlong, the agent, swears

that _two-thirds_ of the Devon estate "is set from year to year;" if

this be a bad system, why do those noblemen practise it?--if a good one,

why condemn others for acting as they do themselves?

By the agitators, the deplorable state of the Irish people is, on all

occasions, attributed to the want of security in possession, and to the

exorbitance of the rents. We have already, we trust, disposed of the

former, more particularly as regards the disturbed counties. We shall

now apply ourselves to ascertain the truth of the latter assertion; and

the evidence taken before Lord Devon's Committee, strange as it may

appear from the nature of the report, proves to a demonstration, that in

those parts of the country _where the land is worst and highest rented,

the people live in contentment and affluence; and that those parts in

which the rents are lowest, and the soil richest, are stained with the

commission of the most abominable atrocities_; and yet, with those facts

staring them in the face, we find the government ready to adopt the

suggestions of men who live by levying tribute on the people whose

wretchedness they affect to deplore, because the opinions of those

persons happen to be backed by a report _utterly at variance with the

evidence on which it purports to be founded_.

As if there must be blunders in every thing connected with Ireland, Mr

Griffith, the government engineer, was sent forth to make his valuation,

according to a scale of prices furnished him, of the principal

agricultural productions of the country, from which two of the most

important--namely, flax and wool--were altogether omitted; and by this

means he found himself obliged to exclude from his consideration the

staple crop of the country when he was valuing the land in the north,

and the clip of the grazier when he was estimating the rich pastures of

the west. "Previous to commencing the valuation of the counties of Derry

and Antrim, in the year 1830," (says Mr Griffith in his examination,) "I

ascertained that the general average prices for agricultural produce

throughout the principal markets of Ireland, for the preceding five

years, _were one-eighth, or two-and-sixpence in the pound, higher than

those contained in the Act_; and, consequently, the amount of valuation,

according to the Act prices, should be in each case _one-eighth less

than if the valuation were made according to the then prices_." Now, we

beg to impress upon the minds of our readers, that this valuation, by

which the fairness of the rents in Ireland is to be tested, was made

when the ascertained value of those productions on which it was to be

based were 12-1/2 per cent _above_ the prices according to which Mr

Griffith _was compelled by Act of Parliament to make it_; and that the

prices of butter, pigs, and cattle, are now, and have been, at least 20

per cent higher since 1830 than before that period; while corn has

varied but little, if any thing, from the price it then bore: in short,

that almost all the productions on which Mr Griffith's valuation is

founded, are now at least 33 per cent higher than they were taken to be

in the schedule by which he was guided. We must submit, then, that if

the rents paid come within 30 per cent of the government valuation, the

amount is less than the circumstances would warrant. And such is the

view Mr Griffith himself has taken; for he says--"I have uniformly

replied to applications from the guardians of Poor-law Unions, in

different parts of the country, respecting the addition that should be

made to the amount contained in the printed schedules of the general

valuation, to bring it to a rent value, that _if one-third be added_,

the result will give very nearly the full rent-value of the land under

ordinary proprietors." But if, on the other hand, we ascertain that the

actual rents paid assimilate in a great majority of instances to the

government valuation, in those parts of the country where destitution

and lawless violence prevail, we must acquit the landlords in those

districts of inhumanity and extortion; and this, too, on proofs adduced

by an individual whose competency and whose impartiality are alike

unimpeachable. "In regard to the difference between the valuation of

land adopted by me," (continues Mr Griffith,) "I have to observe, that

our valuation is about _twenty-five_ per cent under the full rent-value,

_but very near that of many of the principal landed proprietors in the

country_. * * * The foregoing observations will apply to all lands to

the eastward of the Shannon; _but within the last year, in comparing the

valuation made in the county Roscommon with the average letting prices

of land in that county, I find that our valuation is not more than 2s.

6d. in the pound, or 12-1/2 per cent, under the letting rents_. This

does not arise from any change in the relative scale of valuation, but

is owing to the poverty of the people, and the injurious system which

prevails of burning the upland soils for the purpose of raising crops

without the aid of ordinary manure, or new lime, which is abundant in

the country; hence the land, though intrinsically of equal value with

similar land in the counties of Longford and Westmeath, on the east side

of the Shannon, does not bring so high a rent, and yet the people, on an

average, are not nearly so well off as those of Westmeath or

Longford--their houses, as well as their food and clothing, being

inferior. * * * * * _On going into the west of Ireland, I found my

valuation nearer to the rents than it was near the east coast. I

consider that the circumstance arose from want of industry in the

people, and their ignorance of the ordinary principles of agriculture,

as practised in the districts to the eastward of the Shannon._ For these

reasons, the small farmers of Roscommon, Mayo, and Galway, do not, on an

average, raise the same quantity of produce from land of similar quality

and circumstances as do the farmers to the eastward; and hence the rents

are necessarily lower, and at the same time the people are not so well

off." And on being asked to account for the vast difference between the

rents paid in the county Down and his valuation, in answer to the

question--"You have stated that the rental in parts of Down is _fifty

per cent higher than your valuation_: is it your opinion that rents in

that county are high according to the ability of the people to pay

them?" "I think the rentals of the county Down, in proportion to the

_industry of the people_, are not higher than they are in other

counties. The people are better off."

"_So that the people in the county of Down, paying fifty per cent higher

than your valuation, are able to pay that, and yet be comfortable?_"

"Certainly; they are amongst the most comfortable tenantry in Ireland."

Mr James Clapperton, a Scotchman, agriculturist to the Ballinasloe

Farming Society, being asked--"What is the rent here compared with the

rent in Berwickshire?" replies, "It is not one-third what some are

there." "What would the lands you have described as let here for

twenty-one shillings be let for?" "_They would be considered cheap at

four pounds the acre. The land that lets at one pound an acre here,

would give three pounds an acre in the county of Antrim and the north of

Ireland._"

Mr Andrew Muir and Mr William Milne, Scotch farmers employed by Lord

Erne in Fermanagh, after describing the bad cultivation, say:--"They

think the land of the same quality in Scotland would fetch £4 the Irish

acre." "You think the Scotch farmer could afford to pay £4 an acre,

corresponding with this, under the Scotch system?"[7] "Yes, and if he

had the advantage of the Scotch markets here."

We have thus proved, we trust, to the satisfaction of our readers, and

solely by the evidence of _impartial and most competent witnesses_, that

the exorbitance of the rent cannot possibly be the cause of Irish

discontent, because, as we before stated, the most respectable and

comfortable tenantry are to be found on the worst and highest-priced

lands; and we shall conclude our remarks upon this subject by a

quotation from "the _Times_ commissioner" as to the quality of the soil

thus moderately rented:--"In no part," says that gentleman, writing from

Enniskillen, "have I seen the natural capabilities of the soil and

climate surpass those of Ireland, and in no part have I seen those

natural capabilities more neglected, more uncultivated, more wasted,

than in Ireland. It is now the middle of the hay harvest in Ireland--the

meadows, for the most part, are wholly unmanured, and yield simply a

natural crop of grass. I speak with confidence when I say, that the

quantity of hay cut appears to the eye to be, in proportion to the land,

_nearly double the amount which ordinary land in England well manured

produces; and it is certainly one-fourth more than the best land in

England yields_; but this is the produce of the unassisted soil and

climate. I have seen such crops of potatoes growing as I never saw

before."

Security of tenure is amply attained in every part amongst the lower

classes, and in their favour--where leases do not exist, the

tenant-right, and the system of terror, protects the occupier; and this

tenant-right, or "good-will," is admitted to exist in every part of the

country--the only difference being found in the persons by whom it is

paid, and the purposes to which it is appropriated. In the north, the

incoming tenant invariably pays, and the arrears are deducted from the

purchase-money, for the benefit of the landlord; while in the west and

south it comes direct from the purse of the landlord himself, who never

dreams of being allowed what is due him, and is swelled in amount by the

conditions of the succeeding holder, who pays for liberty "to occupy and

live." Mr O'Connell himself bears testimony to the fact; for although he

on all other occasions absolutely denied the existence of any such

compact, yet when writhing under the exposures of the "_Times_

commissioner," he claimed merit for having "introduced and extended all

over the south the benefit of the tenant-right."[8]

But if the northern tenantry can and do thrive under the double

infliction of much higher rents than are paid in other provinces, and of

a money outlay for merely getting into the possession of land which

would purchase the fee-simple elsewhere, surely this fact furnishes the

strongest argument against the truth of the assertion, that the misery

and distress which we are told prevail in the west and south, may be

attributed to the exactions of the owners of the soil.

Does not the condition of Mr O'Connell's own tenantry bear out our

assertions, that indolence, inattention, and want of industry, are the

real blights of Irish prosperity? _They_ have no dread of being

dispossessed or deprived of the benefit of their improvements; _they_

don't, we are told, pay rack-rents; yet the security which he must feel

upon living under the protection of "the Liberator" cannot induce Mr

Sullivan, of whose cabin we have given the description, to remove the

filth "which has percolated from the cess-pool before his door, and

which is trodden into a glutinous substance by the feet and hooves of

the semi-naked children and animals who occupy his floor;" nor "to

devote so much of his _unoccupied time_ as would be necessary to render

waterproof his cabin, which was falling into pieces." Surely, if

security of tenure and moderation of rent were alone necessary to ensure

happiness, among the tenantry of Mr O'Connell, if any where, comfort and

respectability ought to be visible; yet, if we are to credit "the

_Times_ commissioner," "_on the estates of Daniel O'Connell are to be

found the most wretched tenants that are to be seen in all Ireland_."

Not only are the southern tenantry averse to taking out leases, as Mr

Maher and others state, but they are unwilling to receive, at the hands

of their landlords, those comforts of which gentlemen here so feelingly

deplore the want; for when a proprietor attempts to give them domestic

conveniences or suitable homesteads, he finds that, instead of

conferring a favour, he inflicts what is considered a hardship. Mr

Maher, M.P., (from whose evidence we have before quoted,) having had the

covenants of a lease granted by the Grocers' Company read over to him,

in which it is stipulated, "That the tenant shall have slates, tiles,

bricks, timber, and lime, delivered _free of expense_, on condition that

he makes use of such materials as are furnished him within a certain

period, and under the advice of an appointed agent, and that fences, and

quicks, and hay-seed, necessary to complete them, and drains, should be

allowed for at a certain rate,"--is asked, "What is your opinion of such

a clause as that applied to Tipperary? _I apprehend that much in a

clause of this kind could not be carried into effect in

Tipperary._"--"In what do you think it deficient?--what is there which

would prevent its being carried into practice? _The dispositions of the

people do not lead them to look for the comfort which buildings of this

kind would give._"

"Do you know of any estates in Tipperary in which there are such

covenants in leases?--No, I do not. I have heard from the agent of Baron

Pennefather, with whom I am intimate, that he has succeeded in some

measure in getting slated houses built by the tenants: he advanced the

money to the tenants for the houses, charging as rent five per cent upon

the money so expended in building." "That is in the case of a

lease?--Yes."

"Can you state from your own knowledge, whether in those cases the

tenants seem to feel the advantage of having money lent to them on those

terms?--_I am told that they feel it a hardship, that they look upon it

as a hardship to pay this charge_, and that they do it with great

reluctance." "Does that arise from their inability to pay, or from not

appreciating the advantages?--_My own opinion is, that it arises not so

much from their inability to pay, as their not appreciating the

advantages._"

"Are the farmers of a respectable class?--Yes, they are a very

comfortable class of farmers. I have passed through the estate, and they

appeared to me to be so."

"From your knowledge of the state of farming in Tipperary, do you

conceive that the produce of the land might be considerably improved by

a better system of farming?--I have no doubt of it."

"Would not a better system of farming in some degree be promoted by an

improvement in the farm buildings as one means?--Yes, I think so; _but I

do not think that those men wish for it. In fact, they have not in

reality a desire for it--even those that can afford it. I know farmers

who could afford to build or make their houses comfortable, and they

have no disposition to do it._"

Mr Collis, the superintendent of the Trinity College estates, says,

"When I spoke to them (the tenants) about improvements, they said as

much as that _they did not want any, if they would only let them remain

as they were_."

And Mr Walker, an extensive agent, says--"I have induced some of Mr

Stafford O'Brien's tenantry to engage in raising green crops, but, when

left to themselves, they have invariably gone back to their old system,

even although satisfied that it was remunerating while they followed it,

_but it gave them too much trouble_." Yet these are the people who are

said to want employment while they refuse to cultivate their own

farms--"are so loudly compassionated on account of the huts in which

they live"--and who consider it a hardship "to be compelled to have

better."

What an incomprehensible set of men are the Irish patriotic members! In

the extracts which we have given from Lord Devon's _Blue-Book_, we have

Mr Maher, one of the most respectable of them, _swearing an oath_ that

clauses in a lease, by means of which "_all the materials for building,

clearing, and fencing, are proposed to be given for nothing provided the

tenantry only used them, could not be carried into effect in Tipperary

because the dispositions of the people don't lead them to wish for the

comforts which buildings of this kind would give_." And we find the same

gentleman one of the party of declaimers against the tyranny of Irish

landlords, who state in the House of Commons that the peace of "Ireland

can only be secured by giving the tenant '_contingent compensation_,'

for improvements which, _he swears, they cannot be induced to make, even

where the materials are furnished for nothing, and where the labour is

immediately paid for_."

The same man, who supports O'Connell in his assertions that exorbitant

rents are the cause of Irish poverty, gave before the commissioners the

following opinion under the obligation of an oath--"54. If the occupiers

are not prosperous, do you attribute that more to the mismanagement of

their farms, rather than to the rate of rents?--Yes, indeed I do; to

their badly farming the land in many instances."

And it is undoubtedly true that it is not improvement in their

condition, or their comforts, which the Irish tenantry desire, if those

are to be acquired at the cost of labour and exertion; what they wish

for are low rents, which they can easily discharge, without restricting

their pleasures or their amusements; _and the fact is, that from the

exertions lately made by the landlords to better the condition of their

estates, arises all the outcry_ which has been _raised against them_.

Had the old system been persevered in, it would have been much more

agreeable to the people. In their operations the proprietors were

necessarily compelled to dispossess some, because the ground they had to

dispose of could not possibly, if even given rent-free, support the

numbers of inhabitants upon it; but this distressing task has been

performed in almost all cases with the most extraordinary kindness; and

we venture to assert, that in the whole of the evidence laid before Lord

Devon's committee, _five_ well substantiated instances cannot be adduced

in the rural districts, in which rent-paying and well-conducted tenantry

were evicted; and _not one_ in which any tenant has been removed without

receiving some compensation--while what is pompously denounced as

consolidation of farms, amounts to having increased the holdings of the

occupants, in many cases, from a rood to two acres, "and in others to

the enormous extent of eight." But was not this change unavoidable?

Could the old system have been longer persevered in? Let us see the

opinion of the late Dr Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Carlow, a man of

extraordinary talents, and perfect knowledge of the situation of

Ireland. Speaking of the necessity of preventing subdivision, and of

increasing the holdings to such a size as would afford employment and

adequate support to the occupiers, Dr Doyle says--"Had the evil gone

much further, the misery would of necessity have increased. It was,

indeed, essentially necessary to the good of the country that the system

should be corrected, and every wise man applauds those measures which

were taken for the correction of it."

As regards the humanity of the affair, sure we are that it is more to

the interest of the dispossessed to be afforded the means of going to

countries where land is plenty, and labour well remunerated, than to be

allowed to remain at home in squalid misery and idleness. Advantage was

taken of the dispossession of the people _under any circumstances_ by

the agitators--it was found to be a good subject by means of which the

passions of the sufferers could be excited; and they have made a

handsome harvest of it.

But it is not enough for our purpose to show that the tenantry are

averse to have improvements thrust upon them--it is necessary that we

should exhibit their conduct towards those who have endeavoured to

improve their condition, or to set them examples by following which they

would be sure to profit; and above all we wish to place before the

public, in its true light, the behaviour of the labouring classes which

has called forth so fully the approbation of the Devon Commissioners,

and to prove that it is principally the misconduct of those very men

which tends to their own disadvantage, and to the ruin of their country;

and again we have recourse to the _Blue-Book_.

Mr Quin, whose good conduct as a landlord was borne testimony to by his

neighbours, and _approved of after a public investigation by Lord

Ebrington_, wished to occupy some of his own lands to build a mansion,

and give employment to the people; _he determined not to turn off a

single man, and this he told them personally_. To provide for those he

must dispossess of their present holdings, he purchased the good-will of

another part of his own property, sold by the executors of a deceased

tenant, where he purposed to locate them, and there he sent his steward

(Mr Powell) down to commence improvements. The wretched man was murdered

in the arms of his daughter, and the first who struck him was a monster

he was forbidden to employ, but to whom he had given work from

compassion. "I saw the man," said he to his master in explanation of his

conduct, "living in such a wretched hovel; I had pity on him, and could

not help employing him." An anonymous letter, written to the unhappy

victim previous to his murder, and warning him of his fate, is

characteristic of the cool barbarity with which _those "patient people"_

undertake a murder--of the sordid calculations which retard or

accelerate its commission--and of the gratitude which they evince to

those who, following the recommendation of the Commissioners, "endeavour

to introduce an improved system of agriculture, and thereby extend the

employment of the agricultural population:"--

"Honoured Sir,--I take the liberty on myself in sending you these few

lines, informing your honour that you and Mr Quin, Esq., is to be shot

the first opportunity, _and if you had paid the men that worked at the

drain when it was done, you were killed long ago_. Now they have sat on

it, there are some of them that would wish to have it done at where you

live at present.... They have made a collection, and the man that kills

you will go to America... They have heard that you are one of the

skilfullest men in Ireland for planting and making drains; and they are

saying _that if they had you killed, he (Mr Quin) would never come to

the country_. If you don't take my advice, your daughter will cry salt

tears. And be God you will be killed."

Mr Armstrong, the history of whose persecutions is well worth the

trouble of reading, says--"In the same summer I was fallowing and

preparing at considerable expense a field for wheat. Every one exclaimed

at the folly of sowing wheat in that country; but finding that this

would not dissuade me from my plan, one of the most respectable men in

the neighbourhood told me, that 'the country' thought it a bad example

to bring in new plans, and that he had himself 'declined to sow wheat,

rather than get the ill-will of the people.' I said I really could not

see 'what offence this could give to any man.' 'Oh,' said he, 'you know

if the landlords saw the ground producing wheat and good crops, they

would raise the rent.' Determined, however, that nothing less than a

failure after trial should convince me of 'the folly of sowing wheat,' I

ventured to do so, and it turned out very fine, producing thirteen

barrels to the acre; but I was obliged to keep a guard watching for two

months, as a man who lived close to the spot told me, that it would 'be

mowed down in the shot-blade; bekase the country did not like whate

there at all at all.'"

Many similar instances could we adduce from the same source, did our

limits permit; but we have only to refer to what is daily occurring in

Ireland, to show the utter impossibility of the gentry making any

efforts to improve their own estates, or the condition of the tenantry,

under existing circumstances. Men here talk flippantly of the evils of

absenteeism, while they are the very first to object to measures which

would render it possible for landlords to reside at home. A coercion act

is opposed, while Sir Francis Hopkins, a resident and admirable

landlord, is fired at at his own hall door, and for what? because, six

years ago, he dispossessed an insolvent tenant, "_forgiving his arrears,

and paying him his own valuation for his interest_;" while the life of

Sir David Roche is attempted, _because "he refused to assist a tenant to

turn out his brother's widow while her husband lay on his bed of death,

hardly allowing the body to get cold, when he insisted that he should

help him to add the widow's holding to his own."_[9]

Mr Wilson of Clare, a gentleman whose exertions to improve the

condition of his tenantry are fully detailed in the Devon _Blue-Book_;

who allowed the entire cost for subsoiling and fencing; who provided all

the materials for his tenants' houses, requiring only that they should

perform the labour, for which they were subsequently to be allowed on

their rents; who founded an agricultural school and benevolent fund, and

visited and inspected the improvements which he paid for; while, we say,

Mr Wilson, (a Roman Catholic, too,) who performed all his duties as well

as we could wish them performed, is threatened with death, and obliged

to desert his property, and fly his country, and for what? why, simply

because he dared, in the distribution of a farm containing one hundred

and forty acres, to reserve four for the use of a faithful servant,

whose honesty and attachment he wished to reward; and because, as we are

told by the member for Ennis, "_he was fond of a draining and subsoiling

system, which he wished to have practised, but which his tenants did not

like_." "The fact was," (the candid, if not discreet, Mr Bridgeman is

reported to have said,) "_the people who sent those notices had no

intention to assassinate Mr Wilson at all--they sent the notices,

thinking to frighten him out of his subsoiling_." Now, we have the

admission of this favourite "Joint off the Tail," that the people are

not anxious for those improvements, which we are told here they so much

long for; that they do not wish to improve the condition of their land

or their homesteads, even when they are paid for doing so; and that the

recompense which those men meet with who endeavour to induce them to be

industrious, by paying them for doing their own business, and who seek

to procure them employment at home, instead of sending them to England

or Scotland to seek it, is notice of assassination to frighten them from

giving employment, and, no doubt, death if they persevere. But is Mr

Bridgeman reported to have expressed any condemnation of the conduct of

those men?--Not a bit of it; and yet he is one of the set of brawlers

against the evils of absenteeism, one of the persons who attribute the

poverty of the peasantry to the neglect of their landlords, and one of

those who will strenuously oppose the enactment of laws which would give

security to the gentry and protection to the farmer, and, by restraining

the violence of the labouring classes, lead to the pacification and

prosperity of the country. But such a condition of things is just what

Mr Bridgeman, and those like him, wish to avoid. In a wholesome state of

society, men of his station in life could never have been pitchforked

into Parliament. If agitation ceased they must again betake themselves

to the tillage of their farms, according to ministerial doctrine, and

_be compelled to become industrious when they ceased to be_ PROTECTED.

Mr Clarke is shot in Tipperary, because he came to reside on his land;

and his murder was plotted and executed, not because he did harm or

injustice to any one, but because he ventured to do what Lord Grey and

others, who "pick their teeth" in safety here, insist that Irish

gentlemen should do--he dared to live on his own land. The approver--in

whose house the assassination was planned, and in which the assassins

resided while waiting an opportunity to destroy their victim--declared,

in his examination on their trial, "that he was a good friend to him,"

and that he never knew him to distrain any man for rent, and yet he gave

him no notice; and the intended murder was openly spoken of before a

numerous family of children--ay, _girls_ of fifteen years of age were

privy to it; and yet no compunctious feelings touched their hearts. One

of them, in giving her testimony, admitted that she knew what the men

meant to do when they were leaving the house; and that, when she heard

the shot, she was convinced that her landlord had been murdered.

In passing sentence on two of the persons convicted of this dreadful

outrage at Nenagh, on the 3d, Judge Ball said--"With regard to you,

Patrick Rice, I have searched in vain through the evidence for something

that might suggest a motive for joining in the conspiracy. There was no

evidence that you had any dealing or transaction with the unfortunate

murdered man. There was no connexion between you in any way, and not the

slightest ground for resentment or provocation that could be traced. As

for you, Hayes, (the other prisoner,) your case is much the same. You

were a tenant of Mr Clarke's; there is evidence that he expressed some

wish that you or your mother should give up a house; and he offered you

every facility to build a house elsewhere, and to supply you with

materials, and the means of removing them, with his own horses and

drags. It has been said that this desire of his might have suggested a

motive for the murder; but when the evidence comes to be given, I find

that you and your mother, instead of expressing displeasure, expressed a

readiness to give up the house after harvest." Here is a man murdered

for merely proposing change of locality, which must be accompanied, as a

matter of course, by better accommodation. This is his only crime, and

yet it is sufficient to secure his destruction. What a grateful people

are the Irish!--how patiently they endure wrong!--and what a picture of

their morality do the details of this horrid assassination afford!

But it is not alone the landlords who become obnoxious to the peasantry,

when they seek to do them good by giving them profitable employment. The

same hostility is extended to others who attempt the same object, if

they endeavour to get "a fair day's work for a fair day's wages." Mr

M'Donald, the superintendent of the Killaloe Slate Quarries, was shot at

and desperately wounded in the presence of three men, who refused to

arrest the assassin, for no other reason than because he endeavoured to

have justice done his employers; and the following extract from the

report of the Irish Mining Company of Ireland, contains the particulars

of as wanton an outrage as can well be conceived:--

"At Earlshill Colliery, possession of which was recovered on 4th of

April last, considerable progress had been made in sinking two

engine-pits, one of which was sunk forty-four yards, the other

twenty-six yards, on the 20th October, when the steward in charge

of the works, Martin Morris, was shot at and severely wounded on

his return from the colliery to his house; and although large

rewards have been offered for information that might lead to the

conviction of the authors and perpetrators of the outrage, they

have not been made amenable to justice. And your board having

reason to believe that the outrage was contemplated with a view to

impede free action by your agents in the proper management of the

works, and having been satisfied, on minute inquiry, that there was

no cause of complaint on the part of the men employed against the

steward or manager of the works; and some of the men employed on

contract, subsequent to the outrage committed on Martin Morris,

having received threatening notices to resign their contracts on

pain of death, your board deemed it advisable, means not having

been yet devised for affording due protection to the men employed,

to order that the works should be suspended on the 20th December;

and the works have been suspended accordingly. The working of South

Balinaslick Colliery has been suspended for the same reason--Martin

Morris having had charge of the underground works in both

collieries. If your board and its agents in the management of those

works had neglected the moral duties of such an establishment as

yours in this important district, some excuse might be offered by

the Guild for the outrage committed--the first, however, your board

has had to complain of during twenty years that your works have

been in operation; but the following facts prove that the company's

duties have been duly and literally attended to. The men are

promptly paid weekly--contractors as well as daily labourers. The

contractors at Earlshill, at the period in which the outrage was

committed, earned on an average 2s. 6d. per day, some so much as

3s. The average rate earned at the entire of the company's works at

the same period was 2s. 1d. per day, whilst the customary rate of

wages paid to farm labourers in the district is but from 8d. to

10d. per day. When circumstances admitted, houses of a better

description than usual in the district have been erected for the

men; schools have been provided at the principal works, and several

of the children and adults educated. They are now employed as

stewards and clerks. When it has been necessary to levy fines for

inattention, the amount has been uniformly applied, at this season

of the year, in providing comforts for the deserving men's

families. In times of scarcity, good and cheap food has been

provided, and distributed at low prices; and at all times the men

and their families have the advantage of good medical aid when

required. Under those circumstances your board feel confident that

the perpetrators of the outrage on Martin Morris--a man deservedly

raised from the ranks to a place of trust in his native

village--will not be permitted to remain unpunished; and that the

projected extension of the works will soon be resumed, with

advantage to the well-disposed workmen, and through them to the

company and the country."

Neither is this a solitary instance. The contractors on the Shannon

improvements and many of the railroads, where the labourers earned 9s.

a-week, were compelled to suspend their operations because those

turbulent people turned out for wages so exorbitant that no contractor

could afford to pay them; and not only stopped working themselves, but

forced those who were anxious to earn a livelihood to give up also. We

are told that the Irish peasantry wish for employment on any terms; yet,

when it is offered them at their very doors, and when they can earn

wages such as never before were paid them, they shoot the stewards, and

compel the abandonment of the undertakings.

Mr Collis, a gentleman who entertains very strong opinions in favour of

the peasantry, is obliged to admit, in his evidence before Lord Devon's

Committee, what is borne testimony to by many others, the existence of a

reign of terror exercised by the labourers over their employers.

Alluding to a visit which he paid to the College estates, and an

interview he had with the people, he says--"I must also mention that I

heard that day from respectable occupying tenants, one in particular in

the lower class of life, and also from his wife when he was absent, that

she was dread of her life; that her husband was in distress, and set

part of his farm, and that he could not with safety take it into his

hands again; that the labourers he employed could not be

controlled--they would work as they pleased; and if a new man was

engaged, he might do well at first, but would soon fall into their ways;

and that if he, or the farmers generally, were to dismiss the parties,

they would be revenged in some way or other."

To show the state of intimacy which subsists between this gentleman and

the peasantry, and how implicitly they confide their feelings and

intentions to him, and how competent he must be to speak to both, and

how unlikely to misrepresent them, we copy the following passage, which

to our countrymen may exhibit a rather extraordinary state of society.

Mr Collis and the neighbours had been discussing the conduct of a

certain gentleman, and the question is put--"Did they say any thing

about the landlord?" "They did; from the statements made _I said

something about his being shot. They said he had been fired at three

times; and when I said I thought Tipperary boys were better marksmen,

some person in the crowd said, 'he would get it yet.'_" We should be

glad to know if this gentleman did afterwards "get it," or if Mr Collis

thought it necessary to communicate his own charitable suggestion, or

the benevolent intentions of his tenantry. How coolly they answer and

talk over those _little_ matters in "virtuous and religious Ireland!"

All the witnesses who have spoken to the point bear proof to the

idleness of the labourers, and their desire to work as little as they

can. Even Mr Balfe, the chairman of O'Connell's "Grievance Committee,"

acknowledges "that they expect to give labour for it (con-acre rent),

and they do not think they are bound to work well when that labour goes

to pay for their potato rent." While Mr Beere, after stating that

poverty is not the cause of crime in Tipperary, as respectable persons

are engaged in it, answers to the question--"What do you think is the

reason for those farmers having to do with every thing that is bad?" "I

think that many of them are driven to that line of conduct in order to

protect their property."--"Do you think that those farmers you speak of,

holding fifty or sixty acres, are compelled to encourage those

proceedings for fear of damage to their own property?" "I do,

positively."--"Does that lead them to give protection frequently to

known offenders?" "Yes, it does; they dare not refuse them."--"By what

class of persons are those outrages generally committed?" "They are

generally committed by the servant boys." And the Irish papers present

every day repeated instances of the same spirit:--

"On Tuesday evening last, a large armed party came to the house of

a farmer named Connolly on the lands of Ballinderry, county

Westmeath, within _a mile of the town of Moats_, and demanded why

he had turned away two servant boys he had, and directed him to

send off the two boys he had since. They then ordered the two men

in his employment to be off, or it would be worse for them--an

order, such is the state of the country, which was promptly

obeyed."

"On Wednesday night last, a threatening notice was posted on the

gate of a respectable farmer named Egan, ordering him at once to

dismiss two Connaught men he had employed, and to take back his

former labourers, whom he was obliged to dismiss for idleness."

"On the morning of the 16th, an armed party attacked the house of

Pat Leray, of Stratlanstoun, and beat Leray and his son in a severe

manner. The only reason assigned for this is, that Leray went to

plough some land for his landlord, Captain Robinson of Rossmead."

"The same morning, the house of Pat Woods was attacked by the same

party, and for the same cause of offence. Woods and _his mother_

were severely beaten."

* * * * *

Now, those outrages have been perpetrated, not in any of the five

condemned counties, but in Westmeath, where almost every proprietor is

resident. What a state of society do they exhibit? Ruffians assailing

men because they dared to change their servants, and beating _old women_

solely because their sons were on good terms with their landlords. And

those daring violations of the law were enacted in the open day by a

party of thirty men, well armed with both pistols and bludgeons. A tithe

of the outrages committed in Ireland are not only never heard of in this

country, but never even reported to the police. Such is the power of

those banded assassins--such the terror which they inspire--that their

victims submit to their decrees in silence rather than bring further

misfortunes upon their families. Sir James Graham, in his statement,

mentioned the case of a man dying of his wounds, who refused to identify

his murderers out of regard for the safety of his relatives and friends.

A person of the name of Gleeson, who came into his land twenty years

ago, was dreadfully beaten, and ordered to give up his farm; and,

although five of his sons were present, not one of them informed the

police. "Had they done so," says Sir James, "there is but little doubt

the perpetrators would have been arrested. I have heard it said, and I

do believe," (continued the most moderate of exponents,) "that, in the

five counties, the great body of the people are tainted. I believe the

bands are small, though perfectly organized; but the number of persons

comprising these lawless bands is small compared with the great body of

the people. But still evidence cannot be obtained, and the law is by

reason of this inoperative. And if these small bands prevent the

exercise of the law, these outrages remaining unchecked, the bulk of the

population will not heed the law." And whose fault is it that those

counties are tainted, and that the law in Ireland has ceased to be

respected? Why, chiefly the fault of the government, of which the right

honourable gentleman is so prominent a member. Had they acted as they

should have done when they were placed in power, the state of that

wretched country would be now widely different from what it is. Lord

Normanby's jail deliveries, and the arrangements of his law-officers in

regard to the formation of the juries, laid the foundation of the system

of terror. Convicted malefactors were enlarged by "the gracious

Viceroy," and the guilty received effectual protection from their

accomplices in crime, who were admitted to the jury-box by his patriotic

officials--the laws were rendered inoperative, and combination spread,

and outrages multiplied. When the Conservative government were placed in

power, the well-disposed expected that crime would have received a

check; and the turbulent and seditious were prepared to submit to the

blow, had it been immediately and fearlessly dealt them; but the

opportunity was allowed to pass. The disaffected recovered from their

temporary panic--atrocities became again the order of the day, and the

assailed submitted in silence, because they saw no hope of obtaining

redress. The Ministers permitted monster processions, after they had

suppressed monster meetings. The friends of order and of the British

constitution were disheartened and discountenanced; and, as a necessary

consequence, the opinions of the agitators gained ground. Their

organization became complete, and their power irresistible.

The uncalled-for contest in which the Peel administration have chosen to

engage with the agricultural interest of England, has added to the

mischief. Their unexampled political tergiversation has deprived them of

the support of almost all their former adherents; and now, when they see

the evil consequences of the vacillating policy which they have pursued

with regard to Ireland, and are desirous of repressing the enormities

which they have permitted to accumulate around them, their mouthpiece is

obliged to recount a mass of horrors sufficient to curdle the blood of

the most unfeeling, without daring to give utterance to one burst of

honest indignation, lest by doing so he should deprive his government of

the only assistance by means of which they can hope to accomplish their

free-trade projects; and with a full knowledge that neither life nor

property are secure in Ireland, they are compelled to succumb to the

threats of their temporary allies, and virtually to abandon even the

emasculated measure which they dared to introduce, by consenting to

postponements which must deprive it of all moral weight, and still

further encourage vexatious opposition. But can the ministers suppose

that the Irish liberals support them for any other purpose than that of

attaining their own ends? Whatever may be their ultimate effects upon

the condition of this country, it is clear that the repeal of the

corn-laws, and the alterations in the tariff, must be most hurtful to

Ireland.

No one can entertain a doubt but that pork will be raised, and bacon

cured, to such an extent in America, as to deprive the Irish cotter of

the assistance he has heretofore derived from his pig, and that foreign

butter will supplant his in the English market: and that, in

consequence, Irish lands must greatly fall in value, unless they be

applied to the rearing and fattening of cattle; and such being the case,

what a prospect have both the Irish gentry and the Irish people before

them,--ruin, if the small farmers are allowed to continue in occupation;

and desolation and insurrection if they be removed. The government

express an anxiety to secure the employment of the people on the

reclamation of waste lands, and they propose to advance the money to

enable the proprietors to pay them; but, at the same moment, by removing

protection, they render it certain that such proceedings must be

attended with a total loss. Whatever may be said by theorists, the

profit to be derived from reclamation of waste lands in Ireland is at

least but problematical. The repeal of the corn-laws must render any

such attempt ruinous; and, as if it were not enough to expose the Irish

farmer to foreign competition, the ministry are now trying, and "they

hope with success," to destroy the home market; by substituting Indian

corn, which can never be raised in the country, in place of oats and

potatoes, which have hitherto constituted the food of the people. Now,

putting out of consideration the interest of the gentry, what, we may

ask, is to become of the Irish farmer and of the Irish labourer, if the

crops which yield profit to the one, and employment to the other, were

to be superseded by a species of grain which their climate cannot

produce.

The Irish Radicals are quite aware of the misfortunes which the

ministerial measures will inflict upon their country; yet they urge the

government to their adoption, in the hope of being able to profit by

means of the discontent and ruin which they must effect.

But if we are surprised at the conduct of the government in complacently

witnessing, for four years, the existence of a state of things in a

portion of the United Kingdom itself, which was a "serious disgrace to

the age, and to the government, and the country in which we live,"

without endeavouring, by the enactment of more stringent laws, to

correct it, the evasions, by means of which they now seek to palliate

their neglect, and the strange want of perspicacity which they display

in not being able to discover the real source of mischief, or their

timidity in not daring to denounce it, must naturally excite our

astonishment. Let any man read the reported speech of the Home

Secretary, and from it he would never be able to discover that there

existed at this moment, in that portion of the empire, so disgraced by

crime and distracted by dissensions, an Association whose whole

occupation is to disseminate falsehood and preach sedition--an organized

band of men who levy tribute on their dupes, and who, in return for

their pence, administer political poison to the minds of their

victims--a political body, whose interest it is that acrimony, and

ill-will, and civil strife, should prevail; because in the storm of

passions which they evoke, they reap the harvest of pelf on which they

live--whose acts have been pronounced by the tribunals of their country

to be illegal, and whose leaders have been denounced by this individual

minister as "convicted conspirators"--an Association whose doctrines,

preached by a political priesthood and enforced by a sanguinary mob,

have rendered life and property insecure, and the quiet existence of

independence and industry impossible.

The ministry admitted the extent of this evil, when they prosecuted "the

political martyrs;" yet now, when the power of the Conciliation Hall

conspirators is more dangerous, because more time has been given them to

consolidate their strength--in laying before Parliament the condition of

Ireland, and in referring to the causes by which it has been produced,

her Majesty's servants affect an utter ignorance of the existence of a

body which they heretofore thought it necessary to arraign, and by their

silence tacitly exculpate from all blame those men at whose doors they

formerly, and with justice, laid all the blood which has been shed, and

all the crime which has been committed in Ireland.

See the quibbles by which the Home Secretary seeks to make the coercion

measure which he advocates a sort of collateral support to the corn-law

question, which he desires to pass:--"Now, sir, in reference to this

measure which I am about to propose, painful as it is, and

unconstitutional as I admit it to be, I must say that I, for one,

foreseeing some time ago that the necessity for some such measure would

shortly arrive, felt that I could not reconcile it to my conscience and

sense of duty to be a party to it, when, at the same time, with the

great increase of crime, I saw the extreme physical distress of the

people of Ireland, arising from a deficiency of that which they had been

accustomed to make their principal food. I felt, I say, that it was of

vital importance that provision should first be made, by an effort on

the part of the government, to relieve the physical wants of the people

before this measure should be brought forward; and I resolved that I

could not be a party to the measure unless I had the sanction of my

colleagues to a bill which would have the effect of opening the corn

trade, and placing articles of the first necessity within the reach of

the people of Ireland." But this cannot avail the right honourable

gentleman; for his own returns show that the amount of crime was

_infinitely greater up to the month of August 1845_, when provisions

were most abundant, and the prospects of the new harvest most cheering,

than now, when _it suits his convenience to notice its existence_, or to

sustain the potato panic. "When the greatest increase of crime existed,"

he could not possibly have anticipated "the extreme physical distress of

the people," because no such distress was then heard of. But because his

object was to make the suppression of crime auxiliary to other measures

of the government, he takes no step to accomplish it until he comes

backed by the exaggerations of political knaves, and the reports of

philosophical quacks, to prove his case, in order that the humanity of

his auditory may be excited; and that, before he is called upon to

coerce, he may be permitted to repeal the corn-laws, on the pretence of

relieving "the physical wants of the people."

We are far from denying that a great loss has been sustained in the

potato crop; but that loss does not in reality affect the food of the

people so much as would appear at first sight; for the cattle and pigs

which used to get sound potatoes in other years, were exclusively fed on

diseased ones in this: neither has the rot been attended with pecuniary

loss to any considerable extent; for the diseased part being removed,

the remainder was as fit to use as the soundest potato; and more pigs

were reared and fatted than usual on the rotted portions, and they never

fatted better or bore a higher price. But, (and this fact has been

studiously suppressed by Sir Robert Peel,) even admitting that the loss

has been great, there could be no famine. The crop of oats exceeded by

_a third_ any crop known in the memory of man, and the price of oats in

October last exceeded the average price at that season for many years

past by nearly _one-half_. Consequently rather more than _half the

quantity_ which the tenantry required to sell in other years to make up

a given sum, answered the same purpose on this; and even such of the

tenantry as paid their rents had an unusual quantity left after

disposing of what enabled them to meet their engagements; and this has

been converted into meal and stored in their houses, or remains in stack

in their haggards. Now, oatmeal always constitutes a principal

ingredient in the food of _every Irish peasant_ from this season

forward; and yet the ministers never once alluded to the great quantity

of oats which they must know to be in the country, nor to the fact that

there has been, as the season advanced, _a steady and progressive

decline in its price_. In the Dublin market, on the 18th November 1845,

oats brought from fourteen to sixteen and sixpence the barrel; on the

28th of March 1846, it sold from _twelve to fifteen_ shillings; while at

the same period in the last year, when no famine was anticipated, it

fetched twelve shillings; and there can be no doubt but it will

experience a still further fall as the season advances, for potatoes now

are, on the whole, lower than they were a month ago; and the holders of

meal will soon begin to perceive that they cannot realize the prices

which the exaggerations of the government led them to expect, and they

will supply the markets more freely.

It is extraordinary to see how people here can be humbugged. Mr

O'Connell, some time since, produced in the House a return from a

priest, which professed to give the state of his parishioners, as

regarded the amount of food each family possessed. In this document it

was stated, (and the announcement was received with loud cries of "hear,

hear,") that a certain number of families had not a week's provisions;

and no doubt this was true; and the same reverend gentleman, or any

other in any part of Ireland, might make just the same report at the

same period in any year, even when potatoes sold for eightpence the

cwt.:--All the class of small cotters have generally used the produce of

their con-acres at this season, and they commence to buy--the work which

they always have in abundance in the spring enabling them to pay. They

purchase weekly; and the fact that a certain number of them had not a

week's provisions, at the time this return was made, in their

possession, no more implies the presence of famine in that particular

locality, than the fact, that the labourers in London have generally no

greater supply proves the existence of a scarcity in the metropolis.

Both parties purchase weekly, and consequently have never more than a

week's provisions by them.

No doubt, there is a deficiency of provisions in particular

neighbourhoods; but, take the kingdom all over, there is a sufficiency;

and if the government had not, for their own purposes, magnified the

danger, the pressure on the people would now be less than it is.

We express surprise that the assertions of Mr O'Connell and the

agitators continue to be credited by the people, although they have been

a thousand times rejected and belied; but her Majesty's ministers

exhibit a still greater extent of gullibility, _if they really, as they

affect to do_, believe in the statements made by the Radical members and

their organs of the press, after the repeated instances in which those

statements have been proved to be erroneous. On the 20th November, the

Mansion-house Committee proclaimed to all the inhabitants of the British

empire, and in the presence of an all-seeing Providence, "That in

Ireland famine of a most hideous description _must be immediate and

pressing, and pestilence of the most frightfull kind, and not remote_,

unless immediately prevented." And on the 17th of December, Mr O'Connell

announced, that "Some say the crop will last till April. Even those most

sanguine admit that _we will have a famine in April_--others say the

crop will last till March--others that it will not last beyond

February--others that a famine will come on before the month of January

is over--_for my own part, I believe the last_;" yet, here we are,

thanks to a beneficent Providence, now approaching the 1st of May,

neither suffering from famine nor from pestilence, with almost all the

crops sown, and with well-supplied and steadily-falling markets; and yet

the Premier eagerly grasps at any new exaggeration of those men, for the

purpose of supporting his own overdrawn pictures of fresh distress.

But there is, in reality, neither that distress nor that scarcity in

Ireland which we are taught to believe exist there. The people are fond

of coarse food, which we think unfit for men, but they prefer

it--witness the various insinuations of the paupers against the use of

Indian corn flour.

That the Irish consider the constant use of "bread and meat" as an

infliction, is proved by a rather ludicrous account given of their

feelings on this head in his evidence before Lord Devon's Committee, by

Mr Thomas Glennon, No. 418, part second. After telling the Commissioners

that many persons had emigrated from his neighbourhood to South America,

"that they had succeeded there, and sent large remittances to their

friends through his hands," he is asked--"Have they sent any statement

how the climate agrees with them?" "It agrees very well with them, _and

the only difficulty they find is, that they have not potatoes to eat;

the bread and meat, and constant eating, is what disagrees with them_."

Now, surely, if we ought to consult the political prejudices of the

Irish people when legislating for them, as the Premier says we should

do, we ought not altogether to disregard their culinary tastes, or force

them to eat a diet which they dislike, only because we prize it

ourselves.

The extraordinary blunders which some of those enthusiastic men who

undertake to legislate on Irish subjects so frequently commit, would

excite feelings of ridicule, if the observations in which they see fit

to indulge were not calculated to produce mischief in quarters where

their insignificance is not known, and where their flippant fallacies

may be mistaken for facts. Thus, Mr Poulett Scrope exclaims,--"What! are

130 work-houses, capable of containing 100,000 people, to be considered

sufficient to supply accommodation for 2,800,000 destitute paupers?" If

the honourable gentleman took the trouble of consulting documentary

evidence, he would have found that they were much more than sufficient.

It is true that the commissioners _reported_ that there were in a

population of 8,000,000, 2,800,000 in a state of destitution, and they

proposed that 100, subsequently they suggested that 130 houses, capable

of containing 100,000 persons, should be built for their accommodation.

In the 9th report of those gentlemen, we find that, in the quarter

ending December 1842, eighty-six houses, built to contain 73,960

paupers, were in operation in Ireland, and that on the average, only

_27,000 persons availed themselves of the relief they afforded_, "_about

one-third the number they were capable of accommodating_." In the report

for 1843, we see that in _ninety-two houses, built to contain 78,160_,

in which relief had been administered from the 10th January 1844, the

average number of inmates _was_ 31,578, and the gross number to whom

relief had been afforded during the year, was 53,582. And in the 11th

report, the last published, "in 105 houses which were open from January

1844 to January 1845, the gross number relieved was 68,371, _and the

average number of inmates 37,780, although those 105 houses were capable

of accommodating 84,000 individuals_."[10] Thus we have it clearly

proved, that those houses never at any time contained _one-half, and

very seldom more than one-third of the numbers they were constructed to

accommodate_--and yet Mr Scrope waxes furious because more houses are

not built, while those already erected are not half occupied.

Lord George Bentinck, to whose opinions and to whose statements great

weight is deservedly attached, expresses his dissatisfaction at the

working of the Irish Poor-law, because while £5,000,000 is expended

annually in this country in succouring 16,000,000, only £250,000 is

spent in Ireland in giving relief to 8,000,000 of the people. But if his

lordship took time to consider, he would see that the disproportionate

expenditure was not caused by any restrictions which the Irish law

imposed, but _by the unwillingness of the Irish people to take advantage

of its enactments_. If he had recourse to the returns of the

commissioners, he would have found, that while in the year ending

January 1844 the gross number of those who received parochial relief in

Ireland was 53,582, the number of those who received similar relief in

England amounted to 4,279,565, considerably more than one-fourth of the

population, of whom 958,057 _actually entered the Bastiles_. Thus we

have _nearly the sixteenth part of the population seeking in-door relief

in England and Wales, and not the one hundred and twentieth part in

Ireland_. But the small numbers admitted in Ireland, and the small

expenditure incurred in succouring the poor in that country, is not the

fault of the law. It sets no limit to the benevolence of the guardians.

Neither is it the fault of those who administer it; for the guardians

being almost all thorough-paced patriots, of whom the great majority pay

under ten shillings annually to the tax, never reject applicants, and

frequently solicit persons to become candidates for admission. And when

we consider that those who, we are told, "dwell in ditches and live on

weeds," and to whom "beds and blankets are rare luxuries," have only to

apply for shelter where they can have good beds and better diet than the

commissioners assure us they are even accustomed to at home, we cannot

but express surprise at the taste of our neighbours, who prefer dirt and

starvation to cleanliness and abundance; and our sympathy for persons

who bewail their sufferings, and yet will not accept the proffered

relief, must be greatly diminished.

The truth is, and facts such as those prove it, that though there is

more squalid filth and raggedness in Ireland, (for those are national

tastes,) there is much less of real misery or distress in that country

than exists in England.

To make their coercive policy palatable to their present supporters, the

ministry announce the immediate introduction of a bill to regulate the

arrangements between landlord and tenant, and to secure the latter

adequate compensation for any improvements he may have effected. It is

always better for governments to leave the adjustment of private rights

to the parties concerned in them. But if they are to be guided in their

legislation by _the evidence_ given before the land-commissioners, _and

not by the report which it pleased those gentlemen to adopt_, there

never was a case in which such interference was less called for. We do

not find in the whole mass a solitary well substantiated instance in

which an improving and rent-paying tenant was dispossessed by the

landlord for the purpose of availing himself of the additional value

which had been given to his land. And Mr Stewart, an extensive agent and

land-valuator, declared in his examination, "that he considered

improving tenants had, at the expiration of their tenures, a just claim

upon the consideration of their landlords--_a claim_," he continues,

"_which, in a great number of instances coming under my own observation,

I never yet knew to be disregarded._" Can the government believe that

contingent and trifling rewards for levelling old ditches, and for

building ill-constructed houses, will be sufficient to satisfy men who,

according to Mr Maher's sworn testimony, "_desire no such improvements,

even when they are paid promptly for their execution_;" or that drainage

will be effected, in the hope of their being allowed a paltry

consideration in case they are dispossessed, "_by persons who threaten

with death those who are willing to give them at once the full value of

their labour_?" Not a bit of it. Any attempt to legislate on the subject

will only increase the present difficulties. If you give the tenant a

right to execute such improvements as he pleases, and guarantee him

remuneration, who is to be the umpire between the occupier and the

landlord?--"a commissioner." Well, where are you to get respectable men

to act in such a capacity, with the certainty that if they decided

honestly, they would become unpopular, and secure the reward of death?

And if you take those commissioners from the class of small farmers, and

pay them by the business they transact, why, then, there will be no

limit to jobbing and dishonesty--each of them will bid for popularity

and increase of income, by deciding in favour of the tenant, and against

the landlord, in all instances--and litigation and confusion without end

will be the consequence. As to Mr O'Connell's other remedies--extension

of municipal reform, and increase of representation--grant them, and

what could the change effect? No extension of municipal reform can

possibly make the corporations more revolutionary than they are--with

one solitary exception (Belfast), his influence and his principles

prevail in all. They are all at his beck, "good men and true." What more

would he have? What more could any alteration in the law effect for him?

And as to the increase in the Irish representation, what benefit could

that be to the country, when, admitting that the number of members were

increased, the additional ones would only swell the amount of those who

altogether, and purposely, absent themselves from their duties, under

the sanction of their constituents, and by the express dictation of

their leader.

With the facts which we have laid before them--with the proofs which we

have adduced from their own authorities, to show that there is neither

injustice nor oppression practised on the Irish people, that their

distress is to a great extent simulated, and their poverty the fruits of

their own misconduct--we ask the government, will they continue to allow

themselves to be misled by the mistatements of interested and designing

men, who, while accounting for the state of Ireland, _assert_ one thing

and _swear_ another; will they legislate for that country on the

suggestions of persons who make a boast of their hatred of England, and

openly express their desire for her humiliation--who, with loyalty on

their lips, seek Repeal because they know it must produce separation;

and who hesitate not to advocate measures which they feel must be

ruinous to all classes of their fellow-countrymen, because they hope to

accomplish, through the agency of the British ministry, what they have

hitherto been unable to effect by flattery or by force--the alienation

of the loyal and well-disposed from the British connexion?

There is a remedy for the ills of Ireland, and a simple and an

efficacious remedy it will be found to be, if adopted. Enforce obedience

to the laws, and establish security of life and property, no matter at

what sacrifices or by what means. The more severe and uncompromising the

measure by which those objects shall be sought to be effected, the more

prompt will be the success, and the more merciful the operation. Freedom

of action once attained, you may safely leave the gentry and the people

to make their own arrangements, and count with certainty on the rapid

improvement of the country, and the full development of its resources,

provided only you maintain that fair degree of protection which can

alone enable Ireland to compete with more favoured countries.

The Association must be suppressed: it will be folly to expect peace or

tranquillity while that pestilent body is in existence; smite it "hip

and thigh," and you at once cut off the fruitful sources of discontent

and crime. Stop the rent, and at one blow you annihilate the profligate

press, which turns the minds of the people from their legitimate

avocations, which panders to their prejudices, and excites them to

outrage. Of what use will it be to confine the peasant to his house by

night, if you allow him to be beset during the day by the noxious

publications which contain the treason of the Conciliation Hall?

Will it be just to tax the unfortunate farmers when they are compelled

to become participators in crime, and to shelter the guilty for the

purpose of obtaining that protection from outrages which the government

are too negligent or too impotent to afford them? The plan which it is

proposed to adopt, of recompensing those who suffer in person or

property by a tax levied on the locality in which the crime was

committed, _has been long in operation,[11] and found to be utterly

inefficacious_. What is the use of an additional police force, when all

the exertions of those men will be rendered ineffectual by the

insufficiency of the laws which you refuse to strengthen? The guilty

cannot be affected by taxation, for they hold no land; they cannot be

punished by the ordinary laws, for they have established a system which

baffles their operation; but once enact effective Law, and proclaim down

the Association--show the people that you are determined to maintain

social order and to suppress insubordination--then, _but not till then_,

will you rally the good in defence of justice, and deter the guilty from

the commission of crime.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _Times_, December 25, 1845.

[4] It is a curious fact, that the only witnesses whose

testimony the Earl of Devon ventured to use in support of Lord Stanley's

bill, were those of Mr Balfe, chairman of the "committee of grievances;"

a _discharged dragoon_, who was contradicted in almost every statement

he made by the most respectable persons on their oaths, and who was

obliged to retract some voluntarily; and of Mr Byrne, of the value of

whose opinion, or whose statements, we can form some estimate, from the

following extract from the evidence of Nicholas Maher, Esq.

Appendix B., No. 1097.

He is asked, has he read a particular statement of Mr Byrne's? And his

answer is:--"I _have_ read the evidence, and I must just state that Mr

Byrne is a person to whose evidence I would not give any weight."

[5]

IRELAND--LAND IS EXEMPT FROM

Assessed taxes, £4,204,855

Income tax, 5,158,470

Malt tax, 4,998,130

----------

£14,361,455

This is the _net_ amount of those taxes. The _gross_ amount which is

levied off the people will be about fifteen millions and a half, or

nearly one third of the total amount of the income of the country,

towards which Ireland does not contribute a single shilling.

[6] According to the Government survey, Leitrim contains

375,992 acres; the valuation, including the houses of the gentry and

shopkeepers, is L.120,000: add 25 per cent, or L.30,000, and we have the

fair rent at L.150,000, or under eight shillings an acre.

[7] Mr Reade, an extensive landowner, and a gentleman who

appears to be perfectly competent to form a correct opinion on the

subject, laid before the commissioners, as the result of his own

experience, the following statement:--

Comparative Valuation of the Barony of Carberry, co. Kildare, all

situated between twenty and thirty miles of Dublin; with two canals

passing through it, and consisting of 45,000 acres of good feeding

and tillage land, with a similar quantity of equally good land, or

nearly so, in England, Scotland, France, and Belgium, originally

made in 1828, and since corrected:--

------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------

| England. | Scotland. | Belgium. | France. | Ireland.

+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------

| £ s. d.| £ s. d.| £ s. d.| £ s. d.| £ s. d.

Gross contents, 48,278 acres,}| | | | |

rent calculated on 42,000 }|55,650 0 0 |75,600 0 0 |55,650 0 0|41,938 0 0 |31,500 0 0

acres, }| | (Taxation | | |

| | included.) | | |

Tithe and direct taxation, |17,955 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 7,481 0 0 | 5,962 0 0 | 0 0 0

Poor-rate, one half, | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 325 7 6

County Cess. 1s. 8d. in the } | | | | |

pound, on Mr Griffth's } | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 2,266 13 4

valuation, } | | | | |

+------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------

Total, | 73,605 0 0 | 75,600 0 0 | 63,131 0 0 | 47,900 0 0 |34,092 0 10

------------------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------

Total to landlord, L.31,500 0 0

Deduct landlord's half, poor-rate, L.325 7 6

Rent-charge, 4d. in the pound, 563 6 0

--------- 888 13 6

-----------

Total to landlord in Ireland, net, L.30,611 6 6

-----------

OBSERVATIONS.

The rent in Ireland was _averaged_, from _personal_ knowledge and

inquiry, at 25s. the Irish acre, equal to 15s. the statute acre. It

has not varied essentially since 1828.

In Scotland, the rent was calculated at L.2, 5s. the Scotch acre,

equal to L.1, 16s. the statute acre.

In England, the rent was calculated at L.1:6:6 per statute acre.

In Belgium, the rent-value of land is taken as equal to England.

The taxation being considerably less than half that of England.

In France, the land is valued at one-fourth less than Belgium. The

taxation bearing a near proportion in both countries.

The taxation in Ireland and Scotland is nearly on a par: rather

heavier in Ireland.

Taxation in England, including tithes, 8s. 7d. per acre. I believe

below the reality.

Government valuation of same land, exclusive of houses, L.25,843 0 0

-- -- -- with houses, 27,208 0 0

[8] Speech at the Conciliation Hall, in reply to the charges of

the _Times_ Commissioner.

[9] The following letter, written by Sir David Roche to a Cork

agitator of the name of Denny Lane, who accused him of having turned out

three hundred families, and said his life had been _five_ times

attempted, will show the value which should be set on the assertions of

such people, and the treatment which the very best Irish landlords

receive:--

"I have bought out a few who were tenants-at-will, forgiving them large

arrears of rent, and making them in every instance a present of their

year's crop, stock, &c., and either finding them other farms, or giving

them money to enable them to enter into other pursuits: such, sir, have

been my transactions with the small number who have left my land, none

of whom, I dare say, every charged me with harshness or injustice. As

you have thought proper to turn public accuser, I beg to refer you to Mr

Charles Seegrue, the only gentleman in Cork with whom I have had any

transactions regarding tenants, and he will inform you on the

determination of his interest in a large farm, how many of his

under-tenants I dismissed, and what arrangements were made on that

occasion. If I don't mistake, he will state that all were continued on

their farms, and that the arrears _of rent due, to have been compromised

by me, and the tenants forgiven the amount, and a reduction of one-third

made on their respective rents, besides building houses for all that

required them, and for which no charge was made_; and in every other

place where I had any arrangements to make with tenants, that similar

consideration had been shown; and although I have had large transactions

connected with land in the counties of Limerick, Clare, and Kerry, in

all of which counties the Devon Commission sat, you will not find a

single instance of oppression, or any complaint having been made, much

less to the extent of turning out three hundred families, which you have

thought proper to charge me with. As to your assertion, that my life has

been attempted five times within the last year, I can assure you that no

attempt was ever made on my life before the last assizes, and then not

for turning out a tenant, _but because I refused to assist a tenant to

turn out his brother's widow while her husband lay on his bed of death,

hardly allowing the body to get cold, when he insisted that I should

help him to add the widow's holding to his own_."

[10] The Appendix to the 10th Report affords some curious and

important information as to the classes in which destitution is to be

found. The commissioners directed the clerks of the unions to furnish

them with lists of the severest cases of destitution which were relieved

in the different houses, and the occupations which they had previously

followed, and accordingly 870 cases are given in the Appendix by them.

It appears the number of males above fifteen years of age relieved in

the quarter ending 9th April 1844, was _only_ 11,224.

Of Peasants. Of Servants. Of Mendicants.

Male labourers, 4599 Male servants, 585 Male, 1473

Female, 924 Female, 4653 Female, 3745

---- ---- ----

Total, 5523 Total, 5238 Total, 5218

_Of farmers who had held, or were still in occupation of land, 79_

Thus we see, that the number of servants and vagrants requiring relief,

amounted to within three hundred of the numbers of the agricultural

labourers, and that the number of those _connected with the possession

of land, and who had sought relief on account of termination of leases,

non-payment of rent, expulsion because they were tenants-at-will, or

temporary distress, amounted to the incredibly small number of

seventy-nine_.

We ought also to add, that in every instance in which a labouring man is

stated in those reports to have entered the houses in a state of ill

health, he was discharged _at his own request_ when his health had been

re-established. How are the _assertions_ which we hear made every day to

be reconciled with _facts_ such as those?

[11] The only difference is that the power heretofore vested in

and exercised by the Grand Juries, will, by this bill, be transferred to

the Lord-Lieutenant.

THE MODERN PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

THE FRAGMENT OF A DREAM.