THE CONDITION OF IRELAND.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 262, 14 March 1874, Page 4

THE CONDITION OF IRELAND.

Out of a host of pamphlets recently published regarding the state of Ireland, we select one for republication of more than ordinary originality : " Forty years ago I paid a short visit to Ireland before going out to India in the Bengal Oi'vil Service. For the last ten years I have been studying the condition of the poor in England, and during the last eight years I have been in the occupation of a farm in Sussex, taken with a view to understanding the position of landlord, tenant, and laborer. I have just returned home after a trip to Galway, Limerick, Cork and back through Maryborough to Dublin, and I should feel ashamed of my country at the condition of the land ('improving though it be in some places) and the homes of the poor I have seen, if I did not reflect that the British Government up to the present time is, and has been, simply a Government of the rich, and that, in a Parliament of rich men, laws just in regard to all classes will never be passed. " I have always had an affection for the Irish people, because the poor men, not hardened by the corrupting influence of wealth, are the most generous, and the women the purest in the world, and I am

satisfied that nothing but strict justice, > and laws suited to the condition and past habits and customs of the people, are , needed to. turn Ireland into a garden, and make, it the happy home often millions of contented .people. " I am not surprised at the murders which have been perpetrated in past years, because the law, as construed against the tenants, is so thoroughly unjust. Adverse possession for twenty years gives a man right df property in the soil against another claiming to be proprietor. Why should two hundred years' occupation as tenants, with frequent performance of work done in England by landlords, such as building, draining and bringing waste land into cultivation, not give poor Irish farmers a right of occupation at fair rents ? Kverywhero one hears of poor creatures having been ejected from their farms, who have occupied them for generations, and, in some cases, put up their own dwellings, and who, under such circumstances, ought •to •have.been held to have acquired a right to occupation at fair rents so long as they paid them. .' ."Ireland must not be cleared of the Irish in order that the land may be turned into pasture fields and shooting grounds ■for the rich. It may be very pleasant for an Irish landlord to clear his estates of his tenants, to have sheep instead of human being's on his land, and to spend his rents abroad without much trouble in collecting them ; but the conversion of Ireland into a pasture field will be Death to the Nation, and fatal in the long run to the prosperity of England, and must be prevented by such measures as will secure homes to those desirous of remaining in the land of their birth, and compel the landlords either to cultivate their lands fully, or pay for them as though they were highly cultivated, if they prefer keeping them in a.less productive condition. ''•The land question must be thoroughly taken in hand, and it will not be sufficient 'merely to simplify the transfer of land, because land is now bought up by the rich, not for the purpose of cultivating it properly, but for political purposes. Eights in the soil must be given to all British . subjects, and all .real property must be made to bear the charges ol its own protection, and the owners will then speedily discover that by just arrangements with those occupying their houses and lands, there will be no necessity for keeping up an immense standing army, which, though the men composing it are just as moral as the same number of single men in civil life, is yet necessarily a curse to the neigh- ' borhood in which the regiments are station ed. " A high minimum rateable value—say one pound per acre—should-be at once imposed on every acre of land. After a , time—say five years hence-—it should be increased to'two pounds per acre, and then, after another term, to three pounds, and so on, to- five pounds per acre; and so long as there-remains in a parish any land rated, at/less than five pounds per acre, any. person born in the parish should be entitled to claim an acre at a fair price, to be fixed , by- arbitration, for his home and garden. ,-,•'■' ' . '' I say the rateable valuation should run tip to five pounds per acre because I know' from experience that half the land in the country now not rated above one pound .per acre may be.made worth five poinds per acre by a poor.man cpnverting 'it into a garden.; I ;.and-'this rule wo\ild .enable..aH 'm'dn.;in.:\possession- of parks ar\d _ .-> ..'gardens'; tb. retain them in'their' ;.; '?. pbrfae'riting"' to have ■ them \ated\ ''. \. up'-jtqjty.e' p"odnds p^t ; , aire value";, and in '';,^'tirr^."-ne'ai : ly [ all.'ithe land now'> waste \ ov : to '., desire, lp '\ ',fce|p ifjVlh'e'.ir:,;hands; thousands ~of' acres\ -'>' ,pjtJ3ucfrig , '^'ej;y i l 1 tittleV.-wi'th the- certainty.' v. _-. i th^t^theV^blej,value would'!, be;' periodi- '; 'Realty''increased, .and;tneir.,iii'c6i;ne-tax cal-~, •'..>.- culated'on,that 'valued- { ;."'.-; j- '-' • y '■' ••'■'' ''-.''l^ati'd^rtot,thWgh't\vorth;re"tainirig at ' •■; the'aboyd vfll'tfatVn rates,-should'be-:taken ■ at a fair- -price, \' .' ■by;:...tFi;e/-.G'oveVrrm'eiit J 'purveyed,-;.cW;, up .' i nto'^tfitah'leV-allotrrierfts -; when -. a;i3. sold-' t'o^'pr,jyettl^d.:'jtft , ''fashion, with' 'jth'ose-.wjlflng tq./hrild -"'trteirrj' subject-to, the rates' declined by" trie.-fdprfipfi -■prjjfji'ieto'rii.'f tenants-in 'occupation,. having -the- firsi-.offer. :i- % ".<. V'<■ ; --- ;",, '•/■ "-.."■■• ' . ''..Our ctAtiigerln'wßXfyfiWrbi'.o? iSn'g-' ' "iri . f st'titagrjlceful'j.t;diirHtion r but r there are few *(\ch, w'McHe&hwjiti as>afe'' '' every in.tr'efand,', arjd.'for' which ■' there-is ruli-eXf'use,- becausjeit costs little to • '.raise'fhe'fl!%i\ ohh«'room one foot above '. -■ £ f the 'ground outside. ; and to ntiik^th'^'m'of"',water-tight, while a few planks under" the poor occupants would s;jvc many in rolrl weather from suffering. I hnve nowhere observed nortr the cottages tbo»e conveniences which common decency

requires, and which are always seen in England; and I am told by all I have spoken to.on the subject that not one cottage in the country in one hundred is provided with theiu. Formerly, landlords, as well as tenants and laborers, lived in a very rough way, and where all fare alike hardships are little thought of; but of late years the landlords have enjoyed all domestic luxuries and conveniences, and how they, and particularly how their wives, can live year after year among those depending on them, and allow women and young girls possessed of as much natural delicacy as themselves, to be subjected to such discomfort, would be incomprehensible to me if long experience had not taught me that people brought up amidst (scenes of suffering get accustomed i to anything

" I hold that a Christian landlord is bound in honor to provide decent accommodation for the laborers and farmers cul-

tivating his lands, for it is obvious that with no right of permanent occupation they cannot provide dwellings for themselves. This, the first step, in social im - provement, has been made, I understand by a few ' proprietors, but not enough has yet been done to give the- people hope that better times are coming. " The first thing to be done for the improvement of Ireland and the United Kingdom generally, is to pass a good Homestead Law, and there will then be little difficulty in raising.the poor to a higher level. With the hope of acquiring a home of their own; working men of all classes will, as do working men in other countries, save their money instead of spending much of it in drink, and, possessed of property themselves, they will learn to respect the property of others. " It should never be forgotten that the

true measure of the condition and security of a country is the. comfort of the vast mass constituting the working population. Englishmen must remember that fat bullocks are not safe in a field with hungry wolves, and the rich will learn this lesson thoroughly if dear food, and dear coal and cold combine, with restricted employment, to make the residents of our great cities seriously ask why they should starve while there are millions of acres of land in the United Kingdom capable of producing

food for man now either waste or only half cultivated. Politicians may congratulate themselves that our working men drink us out of the penalties resulting from our stupidity, but a day of reckoning is sure to come for our selfish folly. The highlands of Scotland have been cleared of the peasantry, and not a soldier will soon be procurable in Ireland from the healthy agricultural population, while, if emigration continues at the rate it is going on, it will "soon be impossible to hire laborers at paying rates to make farming profitable. With only half supplies of food for our population, foreign enemies, who

must be looked for in the future as in thepast, will laugh at our iron -clads, knowing that they have only to cut off or greatly raise the cost of supplies to bring about a revolution in our great cities, in which Republican institutions are now openly advocated. "As an Englishman, I shall rejoice to see money advanced to Irish landlords, if it be spent in improving the condition of the people generally, and in providing the laborers with decent dwellings ; but they ought not to get'a shilling from the public funds just to enable them to prepare' their lands for sheep, and then to get rid of the people. Every person must be entitled to claim land for a homestead when able to pay for it, and so long as there may be room for him; and efforts must be made to induce mechanics and others working in towns to save their money and return to their native place in their old age; and now that Mr. Bright has again become a member of the Government, we may hope that an attempt will be made to do justice to the poor, for hitherto the changes in the land' laws have only benefitted those above the laborer, and eviction being still possible, they have failed to satisfy the farmers. " Considering the natural virtues of the Irish peasantry, nothing but the determination to enforce unjust land laws, without , any attempt to compel the landlords to , provide decent homes for the poor on their estates, and either to cultivate, their lands properly alldw others to occupy them on jusfcvterms, has, since religious ufttfecution ceased, caused the country to be.in its present condition. It is most herniating to see troops quartered all over thefyjjuntry, and a splendid police force employe'Sto keep in order men who only need just W'atment to be as obedient to the laws as Englishmen, for they are given to no other crimes than those resulting from ejectment, which in a country without manufactures, often meant starvation or expatriation. ■*. "The/ poor are becoming; daily■ more •.intelligent; and are rapidly taking themselves off .'to America, for they can't stop at home aritl;bc content, even with rapidly increasing wfa'ges. without decent homes to live,in, but satisfied that they heed .not emigrate 'Hinder a just system of land Maw, and that millions might be profitably invested in erecting plain, water-tight .d'iVellin&s, and the.Vequired farm-buildings ■janfo sheds, and in.. improving the lands ■rtowV cultivated, arid; cultivating what is , ripw \,unproductive. \;Tf the people now -scattered over the country leave Ireland, 'and don't return with money • in th'eir:';po^Sets—as tft'dllsands return to '; inland towns must of neces'sjty speedily decay, for "there will be no ' .customers to purchase the goods in the -'shops of thls\trc'idesmen, whose ruin will .. be. haste Vied 'by. the :old and helpless, and' resorting to the towns for sup- ' port, and who by the law of the land, .can claim to be kept alive out of the rates to be levied on property. The town rates are already high, and are seriously felt by the small tradesmen, who suffer from the diminishing population. " Twenty years ago a relative of mine went to Ireland, intending to purchase land, but he was so shocked by the wretched condition of the countrv that he ¥

gave up the idea, as he felt he . could not live amidst such misery. I have no spare - money to invest in the purchase of land, but I have' had'experience, which'is worth something, and that experience has taught j me that a real ruler of men should take . j care that the laws are based on the broad principles ot justice, and suited to the t habits and condition of the people, and I that he should then come down, in the j rare cases in which he will be called on to J exercise his authority, with an iron hand | on those who wilfully break them. This ' ' sort of rule has never yet been tried in Ireland, but no other will answer. I ■ have a strong conviction that Ireland may be, and' will yet be saved, and that peace may "be secured without the land being cleared of its people, for * nations, it has been truly said, perish only by their vices, and the faults of the Irish are such as are always found among people brought up in similar conditions of society, and which are only to be cured by strict justice in all matters. The poor—- | the mass of the people—are virtuous, and possess the very virtues which, with proper training, will form a noble nation—viz., courage, generosity, ,love of country, and strong religious sentiment. Love of truth will come with true freedom of mind and body, which education and a homestead law will secure. We should cease to reproach the Irish people with disregard of truth, when lying, in its worst forms, is now constantly manifested by the English and Scotch in the pursuit ot wealth, and cheating, swindling, and rascality in trade are common among those who have not ■ the excuse of poverty and a semi-slavish condition to make for their failings. {To be Continued?) . -