Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 142, 28 May 1892, Page 2

Correspondence

the land question. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, — In my last letter I mentioned the causes which led to the release of the estate holders from the obligations which. had formerly been imposed upon them. I will now show how they applied those exemptions to their own benefit and the poverty and misery they wrought, to thousands. Divested of the responsibility of providing for the poor, and no longer called upon to maintain the defence of the country, it_became^gs§^gsary for them to retain i iofarge a population upon their lands as they had previously been compelled to do, anjcl;as unfrer/ the altered circumstances they could no\r deal with their lands in a manner that under the feodal laws was in^ractic36Te those lands became in consequence more; valuable to them.; Independent now of the yeomanry they changed 'the' tenure of those who held farms under them from that of esojuage, i.e., Wryice of armS, to», one of money consideration, acconipa\ii6i/ by terminable periods of- holding such-, farms: As these periods expired and renewals applied for by the tenants they were almost invariably granted only upon, the condition of paying an increased ren-| tal, and as with each succeeding lease* more and more was wrung from the pieo^ ; pie they became more and more impover-; ished until at length they were unable to satisfy the demands of their rapacious, masters, who then in innumerable cases, both in Scotland and Ireland, seized upbh ' their goods and chattels, and after iaa- :i denng them thus destitute ejected thefe i —cleared the land of its people as: though they had been vermin, and,^consolidating-; their farms, converted them into <aheep>, and cattle runs. The devastation , and' misery this cruelty occasioned is graphically described in a report of a committee of the House of Commons printed" by an order of the House, dated July'l6tl^" 1830 It says: « The situation of thai e]ected tenantry, or of those who are obt3 hge&toffive: up their small .holdings ,in order to promote the consolidation 0f,., farms, is necessarily most deplorable. It would be impossible for language 'to con-, vey an idea of the state ;bi" distress idwhich the ejected tenantry have Been' "' reduced, or of the disease, 1 nuseryi i 6r>V even vice which they have propagated in the towns whenn they have settied^so that not only they whohave been ejected have been rendered miserable, -hut they haye earned with, them and propagated that misery,. ' They hay6i; onbreajed the stock of labour, they have' rendered the habitations of .those who received them more crowded; they have given occasion to the .dissemination of disease ; they have been obliged toVeaort to theft and all 'mariner of vicelwid mi-,, qnity to procure subsistence ; ;but whatf -Or perhaps more painful than' all, a vast number of them have perished of 'ltaant l" It is related that in the clearings of a larger fcract^-e was resorted to, so tenaoiou§« did the poor creatures Acting to the spot pf; their birth, and .that not ' less, than^a:, thousand women in- child; birth ' I through its cobsequVnqesyi^niie so "complete was that clearing, /so. unsparing,- tb,e work of depopulation practised, thja^there is not now one single human being t in tbafc^ district who' can look backup grandparents.," who wereborn on the spot. /'su<&;sep! ;, is the true reason of the deplorable con-''' ' dition of Ireland both past and' present. ?v Not on account of the smallness ojt'tlie 1 ' holdings, but on account , of Che, Insatiable greed of the great landlords: and their .unceasing drain upon the peopie's)]labpjus and the produce' arising $erefVqm : ; that they left the people at. last: mtnbii^the means of satisfying.' the, demamw^pf nature ;, when animal ;fpqd ' became: unknown to them, and roots^jiaa,^ to be resorted to for . 1 ' * When the pig became a- aac'redlßeWf 'aiiid occupied the same apartment aer'they and their children, than whom to" be; mprp gently nurtured and to have more solicitous regard bestowed upon it, not because, of the delicacy of its meat, for that they ynever taste, , but because it' is:their bnjy/ means of appeasing the inexorable* agenfc, r and their hope of being- granted a'cori- f - > tinuance of the shelter of the' hdyel, air! I though they have to share it in company, re with swine. It is to this, despoiling of the^, people of Ireland of. their" substance, ,fo.' this extorting the result him, is due the pauper condition' of |hhre >r Irish, peasant, and not to the smalltifess of 1 ' his holding as has been attributed;- jThe^i most specious arguments ever brought to- 'X bear upon the subject fail toic6nyince;nie that it is better for a laborer wh;en oufc, of yj work to live in some tenement without a' rood of ground attached to it- in an ot>i soure part of a town, the reutbf it rigjidly ' ;1 enforced by the owner; and to pay 'for every requisite of life", than to possess a : > holding of twenty acres on which to em- f - ploy his idle hours. ; :: lam, etc., '. ' !S. Kmem;. „,