Chapter 12

In no part of Ireland that I have seen are class distinctions more sharply defined. The landholding gentry are with but two or three exceptions Protestants, and, with the exception of Lord Inchiquin, are of English, Scotch, or Dutch descent, as such names as Vandeleur, Crowe, Stacpoole, and Burton indicate. I am not aware of the landed possessions of The O'Gorman Mahon, but I have already stated that his nephew holds only a moderate estate, let by the way at about three times the Government valuation--but not, I must add, necessarily, rack-rented, for Griffiths is, for reasons fully explained by a score of writers beside myself, a deceptive guide in grazing counties. The gentry of the county, however, are nearly all Protestant, and it is curious to note on Sunday at Ennis how the masters and their families go to one church and their servants to another. I am not insinuating that there is any sectarian squabbling. There is not, for the simple reason that the two classes of gentry and tradesfolk are too far apart to come into collision. On one side of a broad line stand the lords of the soil, of foreign descent, of Protestant religion, of exclusive social caste; on the other stand the people, the shop-keepers, the greater farmers and the peasants, all of whom are Irish Roman Catholics, and bound to each other by the ties of common religion, common descent, and often of actual kinship. There is, excepting perhaps a dozen professional men, no middle-class at all, through which the cultivation of the superior strata could permeate to the lower.

Probably no more difficult social condition ever presented itself. To show how completely the members of what ought to be a middle-class, I mean the large tenant-farmers, are identified with the peasant class, I may add that many of them, working with a capital of many thousands of pounds, are subscribers to the Land League, and that many are not paying their rent. Lord Inchiquin enjoys a good reputation as a landlord; but his tenants refuse to pay more than Griffiths's valuation, and I hear that other great landlords in the county are not much more fortunate. What is most singular of all is that the middlemen, who are subletting and subdividing their holdings at tremendous rack-rents, are among the most prominent in refusing to pay the chief landlord. They see a great immediate advantage to themselves in the present movement, for they give but short credit to their tenants, while they enjoy the full benefit of a "hanging gale," or owing always half a year's rent, according to the custom of this county.

ENNIS, COUNTY CLARE, _November 28th._

The first news which greeted me on Friday night was, that, at a meeting of magistrates on Wednesday morning, Mr. Richard Stacpoole had been persuaded to accept police protection, and that two men living at Ballygoree, near Ballyalla, had been taken out of their houses on Thursday night and severely taken to task for having committed the atrocity of paying their rent. The poor fellows urged, in extenuation, that they had the money, that they owed it, and that their holdings were not "set" at an extravagant price. All this availed them nothing. They were compelled to kneel down in the midst of the muddy road, in the dead of the night, and to solemnly swear never to behave so wickedly again, after which six guns were fired in a volley over their heads, and they were allowed to regain their houses.

The event which had drawn me back to Ennis was a meeting of the magistrates of Clare, specially called to consider the state of the county. A large attendance was looked for, and Saturday being market day in Ennis, two more things were certain--the first, that the town would be full of people, and the second, that the people would be full of whisky. A great crowd assembled to greet the magistrates on their arrival, but, owing to the meeting taking place two hours before the published time, a grand opportunity of hooting the more unpopular justices of the peace was lost, and the "makings of a shindy" evaporated in some sporadic groaning. There was a very large attendance of magistrates. Lord Inchiquin, the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, was present, as well as Mr. Burton, of Carnelly; Mr. T. Crowe, of Dromore; Colonel Macdonell; Mr. Hall, of Cluny, who has outlived sundry attempts at assassination; Mr. Dawson, of Bunratty; Mr. Hewett; and thirty-eight other magistrates. The formal business of the day was got through without speechifying, and after some little consultation the following resolutions were adopted:--

First Resolution--That the state of lawlessness and intimidation at present existing in this county is such that the law is utterly unable to cope with it, and urgently demands the attention of her Majesty's Government.

Second Resolution--That the landowners, having hitherto shown the greatest forbearance, will doubtless now be compelled to take legal proceedings to enforce the payment of rent, in order to meet their own pressing obligations, and as this can only be done at the imminent risk of life we consider that the general peace of the county will very shortly be seriously endangered.

Third Resolution--That with a view to the maintenance of law and order we respectfully call on her Majesty's Government immediately to summon Parliament, in order to obtain such extraordinary powers as shall enable them to deal effectively with a conspiracy unprecedented in character, which aims at the total disorganization of society.

It is quite possible that these resolutions may produce some astonishment in England, especially now that it is well known that nothing beyond a special emergency will induce the Government to adopt coercive measures. But things said and done in the West of Ireland are apt to be somewhat after date. Still the resolutions of the Clare magistrates have their value as giving a tolerably clear idea of what may be designated the landlord mind. Minute subdivisions set aside, there are at least four ways of looking at the subject of the day in this part of Ireland. There is the view of a great landlord who, because he helped his people with food during the potato famine and with money to emigrate with afterwards, and has spent a little money here and there out of a huge income, thinks he has amply discharged his duty to his tenants. It is true that he began by charging them 4 and 5 per cent, respectively on building and drainage improvements, a tolerably round percentage; but it is fair to admit that for several years past he has not charged more than 2½ per cent, for such improvements as he has made. The great landlords of this county are less attacked than others by popular orators, mainly because their rents are not exorbitantly high in the first place. The land is let on lease for terms as long sometimes as sixty-four years, and is sometimes underlet at greatly increased prices to the ultimate tenants, whose precarious condition brings the "head" landlord into undeserved odium. The great landholders and their agents maintain that to quote Griffiths against a landlord who has spent money in improvements since that valuation was made, and let his farms so low that other people can relet them at a profit, is a manifest absurdity.

Another practical view of the landlord mind is that it is foolish to go on borrowing money under the Act of 1879 during the present uncertain condition of tenure and impossibility of getting in rents. Hence the Scariff drainage works, for which 34,000l. was to be borrowed by the owners of the property affected by the scheme, have been suddenly abandoned, and will not be carried any further, at least during the present winter. One consequence of this decision will be to throw a large number of people out of employ, who must either leave Clare or ask for relief.

The first order of the landlord mind, however, is, to do it justice, not affected very seriously by the present crisis. The great landholders of Clare and Limerick are not in a heavily mortgaged or downright insolvent condition. Like the wealthy manufacturer during a strike, they do not care either to employ or to threaten harsh measures against their tenants. There is time enough for the present agitation to subside, as others have subsided, and if the Government should wish to acquire their land and disestablish "landlordism," as Mr. Parnell suggests, so much the better, especially since it has become manifest by the example of the Marquis of Conyngham's estate that purchasers, other than tenants, are hardly to be found for Irish property. And--as the agent of a great absentee landholder observed to me--of what avail would it be to proceed to ulterior measures against the tenants? Granted that all the weary delays of the local courts were got rid of by a Dublin writ, what would be the consequence? The tenant would, unless he chose to spend his own ready money to defend his case in Dublin, be swiftly ejected--that is, if sufficient police were requisitioned to make any attempt at resistance absurd. The landlord would get his own after a fashion; but unless he chose to keep a force of police on his farms the dispossessed tenants would be reinstated and their houses rebuilt by the mob; and nothing would be got in the shape of rent. As no person in the possession of his senses would take any farm from which a tenant had been evicted, the landlord would have only one course to pursue. He must farm his land himself, and then he would be "isolated" or "Boycotted." Nobody would work for him; nobody would buy anything from his farms.

Everybody in Ennis knows the case of Littleton, whose farm is now under "taboo," and whose oats no man dare buy, and the similar case of a draper who had sold some material to a man working on the "Boycotted" farm, and was compelled to take it back. "There is nothing now," added another informant, "but to touch your hat to tenants, for they have left off doing so to you. And it is folly to talk of reprisals, or of persevering in hunting and going armed to the meet. Suppose an affray occurred and I shot a tenant, I should be most assuredly identified, tried, convicted, and severely punished, if not hanged. But if a tenant shot me it would be difficult to identify him, more difficult to arrest him, and downright impossible to convict him. Since Lord O'Hagan's Jury Act it is quite impossible to get convictions against the lower orders--witness the memorable instance of Mr. Creagh, when the assassin's gun burst and blew his finger off. The prisoner and his finger were both in court, there was no manner of doubt, and yet the jury acquitted him."

Thus far the greater landowner or his agents. The tone is one of patient, if not amused, endurance, mingled, of course, with profound contempt for the _personnel_ of the Land League. But the smaller and resident landlord is of much more inflammable stuff. A strike against rent-paying signifies to him an end of all supplies. Whether he have two thousand or five thousand a year in land--for I omit the little "squireen" class as of no importance on either side of the question--he has almost certainly settlements and probably mortgages on his estate. Now, mortgagees in Dublin or London are not at all ready to take into account the difficulty of collecting rents in Connaught, and insist on being paid.

Even their rancour, however, has moderated slightly just of late, for they are as afraid to foreclose on unsaleable property as the mortgagor is of losing his claim on it for ever. But the settlements must be paid, and as no rents are coming in, dowagers are obdurate, and the landlord lives well up to his means, times are hard just now in county Clare.

It is not exactly "tyranny" which inclines the lesser landlord to get the rent out of his tenant, but his own need, which drives him to extreme measures. In bitterness of spirit he bewails his dulness in not following the example of some of his peers in getting rid of their tenantry and farming their land themselves, like Colonel Barnard in King's County. He also envies the lot of Mr. "Tom" Crowe, of Dromore, who, without acquiring the name of an "exterminator" or a "tyrant," has succeeded in shaking off the load of teeming population and the abomination of "duty work" by degrees, and has now a magnificent farm of his own which might bear the inspection of Mr. Clare Read himself, and of all Norfolk to boot. Mr. Crowe, too, has not gone through the ordeal of being shot at like Colonel Barnard, and if not specially loved by the people, has no kind of quarrel with them. Mr. Burton, of Carnelly, who owns 9,669 acres in Clare, has been fortunate in getting some rent, mainly in consequence of his tact in driving round one day to collect it himself and taking his tenants by surprise. But Mr. Burton is an exception, both in tact and fortune, to the majority of landlords of the second rank. Colonel Vandeleur has been very unfortunate, like all landholders encumbered with what would be called small farmers in England. The few really large farmers in Clare, as a rule, have paid up either openly or privately, and in sentiment are quite with the landlord class. The lesser landlords are talking of nothing but Dublin writs, and declare that the so-called peace of the county is only unbroken because no attempt is made to execute the law.

The farmers are of course peaceful enough so long as they are permitted to send a rich harvest to market, to pocket the proceeds, and to pay no rent. "But," said a small landholder to me, "is this law and order? Because I know it is hopeless at this moment to recover my rent, and therefore abstain from proceedings, does it follow that the peace would not be broken were I to put the law into operation?" I am sorry for this gentleman, for I know that he is what is called in commerce a "weak holder," or one who can afford neither to conduct his business with a firm hand nor to throw it aside till better times. He must go on, for he has mortgages and settlements on his estates; and, admitted that his tenants would go away to-morrow without any trouble, he could not spare what they owe him, and assuredly would not find new tenants for his farms. He of course is for the immediate suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and declares that to be the most merciful solution of the immediate difficulty. To him the "Three F's" appear altogether diabolical, and he proposes the substitution of "Three D's"--Disarmament, Disfranchisement, and a Dictator, the more military the better.

From the medium and smaller farmers, who with the whisky dealers and the majority of the other tradespeople form the opposite camp, I hear that no measure that the Government can pass before the present Parliament will be acceptable to what is called the Irish people. It is now averred that the extension of the borough franchise to counties must be carried before a Parliament adequate to deal with the Irish question is formed. This appears a strong demand, and one likely to protract the present distracted state of the country. But I hear, on the best authority, that the Land League and the associated farmers can wait. They are in no hurry. England can take her own time and they will wait patiently, meanwhile of course paying no rent, nor any other debts which may prove inconvenient.

Having passed their resolutions, the magistrates drive off quietly enough--but by daylight. Within the last three weeks the County Club sittings have been earlier than usual, the members thinking it at least as well to get home before dark. The valedictory wish expressed here just now is of itself ominous. It is not "Good-bye" or "Good-night," but "Safe home."

X.

PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS.

LIMERICK.

In a previous letter I hinted that the well-to-do farmers of the West were not a whit more prompt in paying their rent than the starveling peasants of Mayo and Connemara, who, at the best, are barely able to keep body and soul together. Trusting far more to what I see than to what I hear, I become aware that in these troubled districts of Ireland, it is precisely the most favoured spots which are the most mutinous. Ballina, the most prosperous town in Mayo, is a stronghold of the anti-landlord party; and the Ballinrobe, Claremorris, and Cong country, full of good land and comparatively large farmers, is the district which has isolated Mr. Boycott, whose turnips and potatoes will probably cost the country and the county at least a guinea a piece. In no part of Mayo or Galway is the Land League more perfectly organised than in Clare, yet the farmers in that county are confessedly well off. There are some of course towards the sea, in the direction of Loop Head, who are poorly off, but the great majority are by no means in evil case. Ocular demonstration of this fact is supplied by the numerous farmhouses of the better class with which the country is studded. These are not merely large cabins, but houses, some of which are whitewashed. The haggards are full of corn-stacks, the rich pastures are full of kine. There is every visible evidence of material prosperity. It is true that when one has driven up the private road, be the same a mere "boreen" or a "shplendid avenue," the bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the householder is prosperous nevertheless. His larder is well supplied with poultry and wild fowl, his cellar contains "lashings," not only of "Parliament and pot," or "John Jamieson" and illicit "potheen," but of port and sherry, claret and champagne. His daughters are at the costly training schools of the Sacré Coeur, his lads are studying law in Dublin. Yet this man is a subscriber to the Land League either by sympathy or, as is quite as probable, by terror. Farmers of not quite such large acreage live in almost equally luxurious style. Their houses, that is the "show" rooms, are solidly if tastelessly furnished. Their horses and jaunting cars carry them to chapel; they live in the midst of rude plenty. If further demonstration be needed, I will point to the groceries and wine stores of Ennis. There are at least three of these almost on the scale of Fortnum and Mason's or Hedges and Butler's. Now Ennis is what an American traveller might be tempted to call a "one-horse" town of some six or seven thousand inhabitants, yet its grocery and drapery stores would hardly be beaten in York or Chester. Every imaginable eatable or drinkable can be obtained always for ready money, and very often on credit, and I am informed that all articles of feminine adornment, including cosmetics, are also to be had. Passing still farther from the domain of things seen to that of things heard of, I am assured on the best authority that for years past the banks have not held so much money on deposit as at the present moment. Yet nobody pays his rent. The form of offering Griffith's valuation is gone through, albeit it is known that that calculation is absolutely untrustworthy so far as a pasture county like Clare is concerned.

My remarks concerning county Clare will apply, almost with greater force, to county Limerick. The city is of course a very different place from Ennis; but it is impossible to avoid noticing from the window at which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people of the West seem to have accepted Charles Lamb's humorous quibble in good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people, they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from the contemplation of the Shannon at the Thomond Bridge. Of the groggeries of Limerick and of the poison vended in them, I will forbear to discourse, for my business just now is with the country rather than with the town.

Having heard much of the outrages at Pallas on the Tipperary border, I determined to drive over and visit the scene of action. For this country the journey was a short one; fifteen or sixteen miles out and in on an outside car is thought a mere trifle in Limerick. The trip occupied the entire day nevertheless. As we drove out of Limerick past the great pig-slaughtering and curing houses, we soon became aware that an immense convergence of the farming interest on Limerick was taking place. Car-load after car-load of well-dressed people passed us, and then came horsemen riding in couples or by half-dozens. For the most part the cavaliers were very well mounted, and also well and warmly dressed in the fashion of the day. Neither Connemara nor Claddagh cloaks were seen in the cars, nor were the blue or grey frieze swallow-tailed coats of Mayo and Galway seen on the powerful horses pounding along townward through the heavy road. All was sleek, prosperous, and quite modern, and was as refreshing to look upon after the frieze and flannel aforesaid as the green hills of Limerick and Clare after the brown mountains of Joyce's country. I naturally asked the meaning of such an important meeting of well-to-do folk. It was a funeral. An old lady was to be buried, and the whole country-side for twenty miles around had turned out to do honour to the deceased, and to enjoy a holiday on the principle that "a wake is better than a wedding." Not one in a hundred of those who rode by had paid his rent, nor was he prepared to pay more than Griffith's valuation, although he might have a deposit note for one, two, or more thousands of pounds in his cash-box.