X.A- 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A WORD FOR IRELAND: 
 
 >y / TJf<{. I " r I * ^ \ 
 
 l^V 2 5 JAM. 04 / 
 
 T. M./HEALY, M.P. 
 
 ' The system which cannot bear discussion is doomed." Lord Beacansfield. 
 
 DUBLIN: M. II. GILL & SON, SO O'CONNELI^STREKT, UPl'EH. 
 
 LONDON : BIMPKIN, MAHSHALL &i CO., STATION KIW HALL COUUT, K.C. 
 1 8 8 G
 
 ft'EBB & SON, PRINTERS.
 
 DA 
 
 15- 
 
 H34 
 
 u-> 
 
 In November, 1880, the representatives of the 
 
 v> 
 
 fc traversers in " The Queen versus Parnell and Others " 
 
 >- asked for a short history of the Irish question as portion 
 
 g of the brief for the defence. As compiled by me it was 
 
 * afterwards published in pamphlet form, and passed 
 
 through two editions in this country. It was also twice 
 
 republished in America, and was translated into French 
 
 under the title Le Cri de I'lrlande. Since 1881 the 
 
 pamphlet has been out of print, and being written with 
 
 3 special reference to the agrarian difficulty, then keenly 
 
 lo discussed, a mere reprint now would lack actuality. 
 
 As, however, the original edition is still frequently 
 
 Q sought for, its material, wherever possible, has been 
 
 availed of in the following pages. In the novel phase 
 
 of the Irish question created by Mr. Gladstone's great 
 
 o measure for the better government of Ireland, it is 
 
 g hoped that the present publication may be of some 
 
 S little service in the battle for Home Rule. 
 
 T. M. HEALY. 
 
 29th June, 1886.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. Elizabeth's wars " Carcasses and ashes" 
 Character of the conquest The country is " settled " The Planta- 
 tion Confiscation Ulster forfeitures The spoil is divided The 
 Cronawelliau settlement West Indian transportations Petty's sur- 
 vey State-created cannibals, ... ... ... Pages 1 to 22 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CROMWELL TO THE UNION Fate of the Loyalists The Treaty of Lime- 
 rick The Penal Laws England's "fatal gift" A parallel Swift's 
 " Modest Proposal " Tenantry ground to powder Secret societies 
 Protestant rebels Industry ruined, ... ... 23 to 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. Consequences of the Union The country 
 decays Tests of prosperity Annual Coercion Acts Eviction made 
 easy Absenteeism increases Small freeholders cleared off Land- 
 lordism historically considered Character of the landlords Euro- 
 pean and Irish wretchedness contrasted Parliamentary fiddling 
 Commissions and Select Committees Poor-law reports Mr. Disraeli 
 on Ireland The Devon Commission- Improvements confiscated 
 The London Companies in Derry The first Laud Bills, 39 to 72 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. The Famine of 1845-'48 Why the 
 people died An eviction machine The clearances Rent paid from 
 America Who lives on the exiles No evictions on Christmas Day 
 " The wild justice of revenge" The Encumbered Estates Act- The 
 Tenant League More Laud Bills Legislation refused Sisyphus- 
 work" The double dose of original sin" Opinions of a Minister 
 and a Cardinal Evictions described by a Bishop "Felonious" land- 
 lordismStuart Mill and Herbert Spencer on property in laud, 
 
 7 3 to 106
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. The Fenian Movement Statistics 
 of Eviction Gladstone's 1870 Land Act "Why the Laud Act of 
 1870 failed Amending Bills rejected A decade of dead Bills 
 Distress of 1879 denied at first Official distress reports Chinese 
 Gordon's protest Early marriages and over population theories 
 First land meetings of 1879 Mr. Lowther's provocation Scenes 
 in Parliament The Land League founded Famine funds Mr. 
 Parnell visits America Mr. Parnell becomes leader Compensation 
 for Disturbance Bill The Bessborough Commission, 1880 Land Act 
 of 1881 Mr. Forster's suspects Hocussing the Land Act The 
 Healy clause Adams v. Dunseath High-born convicts Rack-rents 
 cut down Prairie value in excelsis, ... ... 107 to 142 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOME RULE. Effect of Church Disestablishment The Orange-Fenian 
 junction Orangemen demand Home Rule History of the Orange 
 Society Parliament condemns Orangeism Orange "loyalty" 
 The minority O'Connell and a Protestant Parliament The " Ulster" 
 objection Ulster's supposed pre-eminence County Boards v. Home 
 Rule Character of National League, ... ... 145 to 163
 
 INDEX. 
 
 [To the printer of this book my friend ALFRED WEBB, one of the oldest 
 Protestant Nationalists my best thanks are due for much pains in preparing this 
 Index, and for many suggestions.] 
 
 Absenteeism, Chief-Justice Blackburne, 
 
 48. 
 
 Mr. Bryan, 47. 
 Mr. D' Alton, 47. 
 Doomsday book, 48. 
 Mr. Ensor, 48. 
 Thorn's Directory, 48. 
 increases, 46. 
 Achill, Freeman's Journal on, 140. 
 Adams v. Dunseath, 135. 
 "Agitate, Agitate," 90. 
 Agricultural populations in England and 
 
 Ireland, 63. 
 Anglesea, Marquis, advice to O'Connell, 
 
 90. 
 Arms acts, and suspension of Habeas 
 
 Corpus, 62. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, on Irish character, 99. 
 Ballinasloe fair, sales of life stock at, 43. 
 Barrow, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 53. 
 
 Belfast, Orange riots in, 150. 
 Bentick, Lord George, denies reality of 
 
 famine, 74. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, exorbitant rents, 30. 
 Bessborough Commission, 1880, 129. 
 Bicheno, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 52. 
 
 , , encroachments on tenants, 4 5 . 
 Binn, Mr., Irish wrongs, 85. 
 Blackburne, Chief -Justice, absenteeism, 
 
 48. 
 
 Blacker, Colonel, forty-shilling freehold- 
 ers, 49. 
 Boulter, Archbishop, Irish misery and 
 
 its causes, 50. 
 
 ,, Primate, " when Papist and 
 Protestant join," 151. 
 
 Boyle, Earl of Cork, his doings, 70. 
 Boyton, Rev. Charles, condition of Ire- 
 land before Union, 42. 
 Brehon laws abrogated, 2. 
 Brew, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 64. 
 Bright, Mr. , British ignorance of Irish 
 
 wrongs, 99. 
 
 ,, British neglect of legisla- 
 
 tion, 96. 
 
 clearances, 80. 
 denounces Mr. Lowther's con- 
 duct, 124. 
 ,, gallows the "great preserver," 
 
 88. 
 
 ,, Irish character, 97. 
 Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 94, 96. 
 
 land laws, 91, 92. 
 origin of outrages, 84. 
 prairie value, 133. 
 Browne, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 62. 
 
 Brownlow, Mr. 60. 
 
 Bryan, Mr. 53. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, penal code, 24. 
 Butt, Mr., Irish clearances, 77. 
 
 ,, condition of Ireland before 
 
 Union, 42. 
 Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 93. 
 
 proposed Home Rule, 146. 
 Caird, Mr. J., on Irish tenures, 141. 
 Carcasses and ashes, Ireland given 
 
 over to, 3. 
 Carew, Sir George, settlement of Ire 
 
 land, 5. 
 Carlyle, Mr., oppression in Ireland, 88.
 
 vm 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Catholics persecuted under the Common- 
 wealth, 20. 
 
 Chamberlain, Mr., position of Irish 
 Protestants, 132. 
 
 ,, and Mr. Gladstone, 158. 
 Chichester, Ulster plantation, 10. 
 Christmas Day, no evictions on, 85. 
 Church Establishment fundamental part 
 
 of Union, 143. 
 Clare, Lord, Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 51. 
 Clarendon, Lord, felonious landlordism ( 
 
 103, 135. 
 Clearances of estates, Mr. Bright, 80. 
 
 Mr Butt, 77. 
 
 Dublin Review, 80. 
 Earl Grey, 77. 
 
 Father Lavelle, 79. 
 
 John Mitchel, 77. 
 
 ., Lord J. Russell, 77. 
 
 Saturday Review, 78. 
 
 Thorn's Directory, 78. 
 
 ,, Times, 78. 
 Cobden, Richard, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 63. 
 Coercion Acts inaugurated, 1. 
 
 1800 to 1887, 44. 
 Coke, Lord Chief Justice, Irish charac- 
 ter, 38. 
 Commissioners reductions under the 
 
 Land Act, 142. 
 
 Compensation for Disturbance Bill, 127. 
 Confiscations under Cromwell, 19. 
 
 ,, Desmond estates, 6. 
 
 under James I., 10. 
 
 ,, under Long Parliament, 15. 
 
 ,, in Ulster, 8. 
 
 Condition of Ireland before Union, 41. 
 Connaught escheated by Straffbrd, 14. 
 Coote's, Sir Charles, doings, 12. 
 Cork, Earl, share of forfeitures, 6. 
 Coronation Oath, Orange lodges, 143. 
 County Court Judges, rent reductions, 
 
 141. 
 Crawford, Sharman, tenant-right bill, 71, 
 
 91. 
 
 Cromwell's massacres, 14. 
 Cromwellian settlement, 15. 
 Crops, failure of, 1877-79, 114. 
 
 Cumberland, Duke, Orange order plot 
 
 in his favour, 148. 
 Curwen, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 51. 
 
 D'Alton, Mr., absenteeism, 47. 
 Daily Telegraph, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 115. 
 Davies, Sir John, Irish character, 8. 
 
 ,, report on Ulster, 8. 
 Davitt, Mr., and others arrested, 125. 
 Davitt and Parnell, Messrs, inaugurate 
 
 effective agitation, 122. 
 Davy, Sir H., waste lands, 57. 
 De Beaumont, Gustave, Irish misery and 
 its causes, 54. 
 
 ,, Irish population, 75. 
 Deasy's Act, 93. 
 
 De Lavergne, M., fertility of Ireland, 76. 
 Density of population in Ireland, 121. 
 " Departing demons of assassination and 
 
 murder," Saturday Review, 79. 
 Derby, Lord. Fenianism, 108. 
 
 ,, Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 62, 65. 
 
 Desmond confiscations, 6. 
 Destitution, Times, 73. 
 Devon Commission Report, 66. 
 
 forty-shilling freeholders, 49. 
 Devonshire estates, rent raising over, 
 
 70. 
 Dillon and Parnell, Messrs, depart for 
 
 America, 125. 
 Disraeli, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 65. 
 
 Distress in IS SO, affirmed by Commons, 
 128. 
 
 ,, Dully Telegraph, 115. 
 
 Mansion House relief report, 
 
 116. 
 Dobbs, Arthur, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 33, 
 
 Doherty, Mr., Sol.-Gen. 60, 61. 
 Donegal, Lord, oppression on estates of, 
 
 35. 
 
 Doomsday Book, absenteeism, 48. 
 " Double dose of original sin", 97. 
 Down another Tipperary, 158. 
 Drew, Dr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 99.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 IX 
 
 Dufferin, Lord, hostile rule and destruc- 
 tion of Irish manufactures, 36. 
 ,, Irish character, 99. 
 
 ,, Irish misery and its causes, 38. 
 
 remittances from abroad, 82. 
 Duffy, C. Gavan, leaves Ireland, 92. 
 Dublin Pilot, Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 53. 
 Dublin Review, ,, 64. 
 
 ,, clearances, 80. 
 Kason's Almanack, statistics as to rent 
 
 reductions, 136. 
 Edward III., 34th of, as wielded in 
 
 Ireland, 130. 
 Egan, Mr. Patrick, and Colonel King- 
 
 Harman work together for Home 
 
 Rule, 147. 
 
 Ejectments, Lord Belmore's return, 98. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, English customs es- 
 tablished under, 2, 
 
 Encroachments on tenants' rights, Mr. 
 Bicheno, 45. 
 
 ,, Mr. Gladstone, 45. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell, 45. 
 
 ,, Baron Pennefather, 47. 
 Encumbered Estates Act, 88. 
 English ignorance of Irish wrongs, 99. 
 
 ,, laws, customs, and tenures 
 established, 2. 
 
 ,, culpably connive at iniquity, 
 
 Times, 79. 
 Evictions, 109. 
 
 ,, no, on Christmas Day, 85. 
 
 from 1849 to 1882, 108. 
 
 Kilrush, Sir Robert Peel 85. 
 
 Bishop Nulty, 100. 
 
 ,, made easy, 45, 79. 
 Eviction machines, Mr. Scully's, 79. 
 Famine of 1845-1846, 73. 
 
 ,, denied by Lord G. Bentick, 
 74. 
 
 ,, ,, Mr. Newdegate, 74. 
 
 ,, ,, Duke of Richmond, 74. 
 
 ,, ,, Lord Stanley, 74. 
 
 of 1877-1879, discredited, 114, 
 
 122. 
 Mr. Horseman, 84. 
 
 ,, Father Mathew, 74. 
 
 ,, John Mitchel, 76. 
 
 Farney, history of barony, 68. 
 Felonious landlordism, Lord Clarendon, 
 
 103, 135. 
 Fenian organization, origin and effects 
 
 of, 107, 108. 
 
 Fertility of Ireland, M. De Lavergne, 
 76. 
 
 ,, Mr. McCombie, 76. 
 Mr. McCulloch, 76. 
 
 ,, Mr. McLagan, 76. 
 
 ,, John Mitchel, 76. 
 
 Mr. Wakefield, 76. 
 
 ,, Arthur Young, 76. 
 Fitzgibbon, Attorney-General, landlord 
 
 oppression in 1787, 33. 
 Fletcher, Judtje, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 56. 
 Forster's, W. E. administration, 128. 
 
 ,, Irish secretaryship, 129. 
 Forfeiture, Ulster, 13. 
 
 ,, under Charles I., 13. 
 
 under William III., 24. 
 Fortescue, Chichester, Land Bill rejec- 
 ted, 96. 
 
 Forty-shilling freeholders, Colonel 
 Blacker, 49. 
 
 Devon Report, 49. 
 
 ,, Mr. Jephson, 49. 
 
 Mr. Law, 49. 
 Fottrell, Mr. George, solicitor Land 
 
 Commission, 130. 
 Franklin, Benjamin, Irish misery and 
 
 its causes, 50. 
 Freeman's Journal on condition of 
 
 Achill, 140. 
 Friends. Society of, patience of Irish 
 
 people, 81. 
 Froude, Mr., English tyranny, 7. 
 
 ,, gallows, preacher of righteous- 
 ness, 88. 
 
 ,, Ireland in 18th century, 27. 
 
 property in land, 27. 
 
 ,, war in Ireland, 4. 
 Gallows, "great preserver," Mr. Bright, 
 
 88. 
 Gallows, only preacher of righteousness, 
 
 Mr. Froude, 88. 
 George III., pity for Protestant tenants, 
 
 35.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 George, Henry, property in land, 104. 
 Gladstone, W. E., encroachments of 
 tenants-rights, 45. 
 
 failure of land legislation. 94. 
 
 ,, grapples with land reform, 
 108. 
 
 Irish misery and its causes, 
 94, 109. 
 
 ,, Mr., and Mr. Chamberlain, 
 158. 
 
 , , on compensation in Land Act, 
 
 134. 
 
 Godkin's, Mr., Cromwellian settlement, 
 16. 
 
 ,, Desmond forfeitures, 7. 
 
 parallel, 29. 
 
 ,, the penal code, 25. 
 
 Ulster confiscations, 8. 
 Gordon, General, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 119. 
 Gordon, Mr., 51. 
 
 Government of Ireland, present, 159. 
 Granard, Earl, land reform, 103. 
 Gray, Mr., Lord Mayor, inaugurated 
 
 relief fund, 125. 
 Grey, Earl, Ireland, 91. 
 
 ,, Irish clearances, 77. 
 Green, J. R., destruction of Irish trade 
 
 and commerce, 39. 
 Gustavus, Adolphus, Irish contingent 
 
 shipped to, 11. 
 Habeas corpus suspension and other 
 
 coercion acts, 62. 
 Hallam, Mr., the penal code, 26. 
 Hancock, Dr. W. N., losses of harvest- 
 men, 114. 
 Harman, Col. King, and Mr. Patrick 
 
 Egan help to start Home Rule, 
 
 147. 
 Hartington, Marquis of, on causes of 
 
 lawless agitation, 138. 
 Healy Clause, 133. 
 Hell or Connaught, 17. 
 Hennessy, Sir J. Pope, rapacity of 
 
 landlords, 7. 
 
 Henry VIII,, " King of Ireland," 3. 
 Heron, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 93. 
 High-born convicts, 137. 
 
 Hocussing the Land Act, 131. 
 Hollinshed on progress of English army, 
 
 4. 
 Home Rule preliminary meeting, 146. 
 
 ,, rival schemes, 158. 
 Horseman, Mr., famine, 84. 
 " Hottentot Theory " of Lord Salisbury, 
 
 160. 
 Inglis, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 53. 
 ' Ireland given over to carcasses and 
 
 ashes, 3. 
 Irish misery and its causes : 
 
 ,, Mr. Barrow, 53. 
 
 ,, Mr. Bicheno, 52. 
 
 ,, Mr. Binn, 85. 
 
 ,, Archbishop Boulter, 50. 
 
 ,, Mr. Brew, 64. 
 
 ,, Mr. Bright, 94, 96. 
 
 ,, Mr. Browne, 62. 
 
 ,, Mr. Brownlow, 60. 
 
 ,, Mr. Bryan, 53. 
 
 ,, Mr. Butt, 93. 
 
 ,, Lord Clare, 51. 
 Mr. Cobden, 63. 
 
 ,, Mr. Curwen, 51. 
 
 ,, Daily Telegraph, 115. 
 
 ,, Gustave de Beaumont, 54. 
 
 ,, Lord Derby, 62, 65. 
 
 ,, Dublin Review, 64. 
 
 ,, Mr Disraeli, 65. 
 
 ,, Arthur Dobbs, 33. 
 
 ,, Mr. Doherty, 60, 61: 
 
 ,, Dr. Drew, 99. 
 
 Dublin Pilot, 53. 
 
 ,, Lord Dufferin, 98. 
 
 ,, Judge Fletcher, 56. 
 
 ,, Benjamin Franklin, 50. 
 
 ,, Mr. Froude, 94. 
 
 ,, Mr. Gladstone, 94, 109. 
 
 ,, General Gordon, 119. 
 
 ,, Mr. Gordon, 51. 
 
 ,, Mr. Heron, 93. 
 Mr. Inglis, 53. 
 Mr. Kohl, 54. 
 
 ,, Sir F. Lewis, 58. 
 
 ,, Lord Macaulay, 56. 
 
 ,, Cardinal Manning, 99. 
 
 ,, Miss Martineau, 65.
 
 1XDEX. 
 
 XI 
 
 Irish misery and its causes : 
 
 Lord Melbourne, 62. 
 
 ,, Sir John Newport, 58. 
 
 ,, Mr. Newenham, 51. 
 
 ,, Mr. Nimmo, 59. 
 
 ,, Lord Norraanby, 65. 
 
 Mr. O'Brien, 60. 
 
 ,, Poor-law Commissioners, 63. 
 
 ,, Quarterly Review, 64. 
 
 Relief Report, 116. 
 
 ,, Reports on Ireland, 52. 
 
 Mr. Sadler, 52. 
 
 ,, Select committees, 57, 58, 61. 
 
 ,, S. Sismondi, 54. 
 
 ,, Sydney Smith, 56. 
 
 ,, Edmund Spencer, 50. 
 
 ,, Dean Swift, 50. 
 
 ,, Frederick Von Raumer, 53. 
 Mr. Wakefield, 51. 
 
 ,, Major Warburton, 62. 
 
 Mr. Wiggins, 52. 
 
 ,, Bishop Woodward, 51. 
 
 Mr. Wyse, 58. 
 
 ,, Arthur Young, 51. 
 Irish Character, Lord Bacon, 99. 
 
 Mr. Bright, 97. 
 
 ,, Lord Dufferin, 98. 
 
 English officials, 38. 
 
 ,, Sir J. C. Lewis, 98. 
 Irish and English landlordism compared, 
 
 58. 
 Irish fight hard, 3. 
 
 40,000 sent to Spain, 20. 
 
 100,000 sent to the West 
 Indies, 20. 
 
 ,, trade and commerce, destruc- 
 tion of, 39. 
 Irish National Land League founded, 
 
 125. 
 
 James I., extirpation and plantation 
 under, 10. 
 
 ,, conquest and confiscation un- 
 der, 10. 
 
 James II., Irish take up arms for, 23. 
 Jebb, Judge, condition of Ireland before 
 
 Union, 41. 
 Jephfton, Mr., forty shilling freeholders , 
 
 49. 
 Kane, Sir Robert, Irish population, 75. 
 
 " Keep a firm grip of your homesteads," 
 
 122. 
 Kerne and swordsmen shipped to Gus- 
 
 tavus Adolphus, 11. 
 
 Kinnear, Boyd, failure of land legislation, 
 95. 
 
 what Scotland would do, 96. 
 Kohl, M., 54. 
 
 Labourers' earnings in England and Ire- 
 land, 63. 
 
 Land Act of 1870, working of and im- 
 perfections of, 110. 
 
 ,, Mr. Gladstone on intentions 
 
 of, 134. 
 Land bills, first, 71. 
 
 defeated, 91. 
 
 rejected between 1871 and 
 1880. 113. 
 
 Sir W. Summerville. 83. 
 Land commissioners, proclivities of, 130. 
 Lands laws, Mr. Bright, 91. 
 Land, property in, Mr. Froude, 27. 
 
 ,, Mr. George, 104. 
 
 Mr. Mill, 105. 
 
 ,, Mr. Spencer, 106. 
 
 , , Williams' Real Property, 106. 
 
 Land legislation, failure of, Mr. Glad- 
 stone, 94. 
 
 ,, Boyd Kinnear, 95. 
 
 ,, legislation, failure of, 109. 
 
 legislation, rejected, 96-113. 
 
 ,, legislation, Earl Granard on 
 reform of, 103. 
 
 ,, the possession of, 1. 
 
 ,, question, Cardinal Manning, 
 99. 
 
 ,, reform, effectual, Mr. Glad- 
 stone grapples with, 108. 
 Landlord heartlessness, 83. 
 
 ,, rapacity, 7. 
 
 Landlordism fully established in Ireland, 
 27. 
 
 ,, historically considered. 51. 
 
 ,, Times, 91. 
 Lftvt'lle, Father, clearances, 79. 
 Law, Right Hon. Hugh, forty-shilling 
 
 freeholders, 49. 
 Lawless agitation, Marquis of Harting- 
 
 ton, 138.
 
 Xll 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lawrence, Colonel, regarding Crom- 
 wellian settlement, 21. 
 
 Lecky, W. H., establishment of secret 
 societies, 35. 
 
 Leland, Mr., Sir Charles Coote's days, 
 13. 
 
 Lewis', Sir G. C., Irish character, 98. 
 
 Lewis, Sir Franklin, Irish and English 
 
 landlords, 59. 
 
 . , Irish misery and its causes, 
 58. 
 
 Liffbrd, Lord, Healy clause, 132. 
 
 Limerick, violation of treaty ; 24. 
 
 London guilds as rent drawers, 68. 
 
 Londonderry, Lord, " Down another 
 Tipperary, " 158. 
 
 Long Parliament confiscates 2,500,000 
 acres, 15. 
 
 Lowther, Mr., discredits reality of dis- 
 tress, 122-126. 
 
 Loyalists of Ireland, fate of, 23. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, Irish misery and its 
 causes, 56. 
 
 McCarthy, Justin, Bessboro' commission, 
 129. 
 
 M'Culloch, Mr., fertility of Ireland, 76. 
 
 M'Combie, Mr. ,, 76. 
 
 M 'Lagan, Mr., ,, 76. 
 
 Magee, D'Arcy, the Cromwellian settle- 
 ment, 18. 
 
 Maguire, Mr., Land Bill rejected, 93. 
 
 Malby's report of Ireland in 1576, 4. 
 
 Manchester Guardian, National League, 
 161. 
 
 Manning's, Cardinal, Irish misery and 
 
 its causes, 99. 
 ,, land question, 99. 
 
 Mansion House Relief Report, Irish 
 misery and its causes, 116. 
 
 Mansion House Relief Fund inaugu- 
 rated, 125. 
 
 Manufactures, decay since the Union, 40. 
 ,, Irish, destruction of, Lord 
 DufTerin, 36. 
 
 Marlborough's, Duchess, Relief Fund, 
 126. 
 
 Marriages in England and Ireland, 120. 
 
 Martineau, Miss, Irish misery and its 
 causes, 55. 
 
 Massacres under Cromwell, 14. 
 Meehan, Father, planters' tyranny, 12. 
 Melbourne, Lord, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 62. 
 
 Mendicancy in Ireland, 64. 
 Mill, J. S., property in laud, 105. 
 Misgovernment, Times, 92. 
 Mitchel, John, clearances, 77. 
 
 ,, famine, 76. 
 
 ,, fertility of Ireland, 76. 
 "Moderation," Quarterly Review, 91. 
 Modest proposal of Dean Swift, 31. 
 Moore, Mr. G. H., Land Bill rejected, 
 
 93. 
 
 Moryson Fynes, devastation of Ireland, 6. 
 Mosaic law on right of producer, 77. 
 National League, Manchester Guardian, 
 
 161. 
 Neglect of Irish legislation, Mr. Bright, 
 
 96. 
 Newdegate, Mr., denies reality of famine, 
 
 74. 
 Newenham, Mr., Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 51. 
 
 Newport, Sir John, ,, 58. 
 
 Nimmo, Mr. ,, 59. 
 
 Noble rack-renters, 136. 
 Norman invaders in Ireland, 1. 
 Normanby, Lord, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 65. 
 
 , Nulty, Bishop, depicts evictions, 101. 
 O'Brien, Barry, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 60. 
 
 1 O'Connell, Mr., condition of Ireland 
 before Union, 42. 
 
 ,, Cromwellian settlement, 21. 
 
 ,, encroachments on tenants' 
 
 rights, 45. 
 O'Donovan Rossa and the Orangemen, 
 
 145. 
 O'Laverty, Father, establishment of secret 
 
 societies, 35. 
 O'Neill, Hugh, defeats Elizabeth's 
 
 generals, 3. 
 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell, flight of, 7. 
 Orange order founded, 147. 
 
 ,, coronation oath, 143. 
 
 ,, grand lodge repudiate the 
 Union, 145.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 Orange order, " loyal enactments," 151. 
 
 ,, Lord Chancellor in 1857, de- 
 nies a commission of peace 
 to members, 149. 
 
 and O'Donovan Rossa, 145. 
 
 ,, oath, 147. 
 
 ,, plot, Duke of Cumberland, 
 148. 
 
 ,, Lord Palmerston, 149. 
 
 Civil War, 147. 
 
 ,, Treasury minute against, 149. 
 
 Ultimatum, 132. 
 Outrages, origin of, Mr. Bright, 84. 
 Pall Mall Gazette, prairie value of, Times, 
 
 141. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, Orange order, 149. 
 Parallel, England and Ireland, 29. 
 Parliamentary fiddling, 57. 
 Parnell and Davitt inaugurate effective 
 
 agitation, 122. 
 Parnell and Dillon, Messrs., depart for 
 
 America, 125. 
 
 Parnell, Mr., leader of the Irish Parlia- 
 mentary party, 127. 
 Parnell, Mr. and others, arraigned in 
 
 January, 1881, 130. 
 Prairie value, Mr. Bright, 133 
 Prairie value in excelsis, 141. 
 Patience of Irish people, 64, 81. 
 Peel, Sir R., Kilrush evictions, 85. 
 Penal laws, 24. 
 
 Penal code, Edmund Burke, 24, 
 Petty 's survey, 19. 
 Plantation of Ulster, 9. 
 Planters, character of, 11. 
 Plunket, Lord, Ireland before Union, 42. 
 Poor-law commissioners, Irish misery 
 
 and its causes, 63. 
 Poor-law reports, 63. 
 Poor-relief in England and Ireland, 121. 
 Population, capacity of Ireland for : 
 ,, M. do Beaumont, 75. 
 ,, Sir Robert Kane, 75. 
 ,, Arthur Young, 75. 
 Power, O'Connor, combats Mr. Low- 
 
 ther, 121. 
 
 Prendergast, Mr. Cromwellian settle- 
 ment, 17-22. 
 Property, tests of, 43. 
 
 Property, Irish, decay of, since the Union, 
 
 41. 
 Quarterly Review, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 64. 
 
 ,, "Moderation," 91. 
 Rack-rents cut down, 139. 
 
 ,, Protestant mission, 139. 
 
 Mr. Pike, 139. 
 
 ,, Statistics of, in West of Ire- 
 land, 138, 139. 
 "Radius of a policeman's baton," Boyd 
 
 Kinnear, 96. 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, change in Irish 
 
 warfare, 3. 
 
 ,, share of forfeitures, 6. 
 Relief Act, a comical, in 1880, 126. 
 
 , , necessity for, since the Union, 
 
 40. 
 
 Religious oppression in Ireland, 154. 
 Remittances from abroad, 82. 
 j Remove Irishmen to India, Times, 78. 
 Rent raising under Encumbered Estates 
 
 Act, 90. 
 
 ,, Devonshire estates, 70. 
 ,, barony of Farney, 68. 
 ,, over Ulster, 69. 
 ,, reductions by County Court 
 
 Judges, 141. 
 ,, reductions under Land Act, 
 
 136. 
 Report on state of Ireland, Irish misery 
 
 and its causes, 52. 
 
 Restoration, fate of loyalists after, 23. 
 Ribbon conspiracy, case of, Mr. Godkin, 
 
 86. 
 
 Richmond, Duke, Irish famine, 74. 
 Rossmore, Lord, deprived of commission 
 
 of peace, 150. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, Irish clearances, 77. 
 Sadler, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 52. 
 
 Saturday Rei-inr, clearances, 78. 
 ,, departing demons, 79. 
 Salisbury, Lord, his Hottentot theory, 
 
 160. 
 
 Scully, Mr. , eviction machine, 79. 
 Secret societies spring up, 33-34. 
 Select committees, Irish misery and its 
 causes, 57.
 
 XIV 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Select committees, 1830, 61. 
 
 1853, 58. 
 Siamondi, S., 54. 
 Slate, Ireland a clean, 21. 
 Smith, Goldwin, the descent of the vul- 
 tures, 7. 
 Smith, Sydney, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 56. 
 
 Spain, Irish transported thither, 40. 
 Spencer, Edmund, share of forfeitures, 6. 
 
 ,, Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 50. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, property in land, 106. 
 Strafford's defective titles commission, 13. 
 Stanley, Lord, denies reality of famine, 
 
 74. 
 
 Starvation amidst plenty, 75. 
 Summerville, Sir W., Irish Land Bill, 
 
 83. 
 Swift's, Dean, modest proposal, 31. 
 
 ,, Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 50. 
 
 Tenants' League in 1852, 90. 
 Tenant Right Bills, 71. 
 Tenures, Irish, Sir J. Caird on, 141. 
 Thorn's Directory, Absenteeism, 48. 
 
 ,, return on clearances, 78. 
 Times, clearances, 78. 
 
 ,, Irish landlordism, 30. 
 
 ,, misgovernment, 92. 
 
 ,, English culpably connived 
 iniquity, 79. 
 
 ,, facts of destitution, 73. 
 
 ,, on irrecoverable rents and 
 
 prairie value, 141. 
 Tipperary in Down, agent of Marquis 
 
 Londonderry on, 87. 
 Trade and commerce, Irish, Lord Duf- 
 
 ferin, destruction of, 37. 
 Tyrone and Tyrconnel, flight of the 
 
 Earls of, 7. 
 Ulster, confiscation and devastation, 8. 
 
 ,, 1'lantation of, 9. 
 
 ,, Forfeitures, 13. 
 
 ,, Confiscations of tenants' im- 
 provements, 69. 
 
 ,, Rent raising in, 69. 
 Ulster thrift, prosperity, industry, cul- 
 ture, and virtue, 155. 
 
 Union, Act of, how passed, 39. 
 Union, condition of Ireland before: 
 
 ,, Rev. C. Boyton, 42. 
 
 ,, Mr. Butt, 43. 
 
 ,, Lord Clare, 41. 
 
 ,, Judge Jebb, 41. 
 
 ,, Mr. O'Connell, 42. 
 
 ,, Lord Plunkett, 42. 
 
 ,, Select Report, 41. 
 
 ,, Effect upon Irish manufac- 
 tures, 40. 
 
 ,, fundamental and essential 
 part of, 143. 
 
 ,, not to be a fundamental rule 
 in Orange lodges, 144. 
 
 ,, Mr. O'Connell prefers Penal 
 Laws to, 153. 
 
 repudiated by Grand Orange 
 
 Lodge, 145. 
 United Irishman, society of, established, 
 
 34. 
 Von Raumer, Freidrich, Irish misery 
 
 and its causes, 53. 
 Vultures descend on Ireland, 7. 
 Wakefield, Mr., fertility of Ireland, 76' 
 
 ,, Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 51. 
 
 War of 1641, 13. 
 Warburton, Major, Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 56. 
 
 Waste lands in Ireland, 57. 
 West Indies, Irish sent thither, 20. 
 Whiteboy societies spring up, 33. 
 W r hiteboy statutes, severe, 34. 
 Wiggins, Mr., Irish misery and its 
 
 causes, 52. 
 
 Wild justice of revenge, 87. 
 Williams on property in land, 106. 
 William III., forfeitures in Ireland, 
 
 under, 24. 
 Woodword, Bishop, Irish misery and it 
 
 causes, 51. 
 Workhouses, inmates in, during famine, 
 
 75. 
 Wyse, Mr., Irish misery and its causes, 
 
 58. 
 Young, Arthur, 51. 
 
 ,, fertility of Ireland, 76. 
 
 ,, population of Ireland, 75.
 
 AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Bicheno's Economy of Ireland. 
 
 1 '.inn's Miseries and Beauties of Ireland. 
 
 Boulter's Letters. 
 
 Bright's Collected Addresses. 
 
 Bryan's View of Ireland. 
 
 Burke's Works. 
 
 Butt's Plea for the Celtic Race. 
 
 Butt's Irish People and Irish Land. 
 
 Calendar of Patent Rolls in Ireland. 
 
 Carlyle's Works. 
 
 Carte's Ormond. 
 
 Coke's Institutes. 
 
 Cornwall Lewis's Letters. 
 
 Curwen's State of Ireland. 
 
 Cusack's History of Ireland. 
 
 D'Alton's History of the County Dublin. 
 
 De Lavergne, Essay on Rural Economy. 
 
 Devon Commission Report. 
 
 Dufierin's Ireland. 
 
 Dufferin's Irish Emigration and Tenure 
 
 of Land. 
 
 Eason's Almanac. 
 Franklin's Works. 
 Froude's English in Ireland. 
 Froude's History of England. 
 Froude's Romanism and the Irish Race. 
 George's Progress and Poverty. 
 Godkin'a Land War. 
 Gordon's (General) Life. 
 Gordon's History of Ireland. 
 Green's History of the English People. 
 Gregg's History of Ireland. 
 Hardwick's Reports on Irish Statistics. 
 Hansard's Debates. 
 HenneHBy's Raleigh in Ireland. 
 Healy'H Loyalty Plus Murder. 
 Healy's Land Act, 1881. 
 I I'lllin.-hcil's Chronicles. 
 Iri-li Parliament Debates. 
 Irish Problem and How to Solve it. 
 Jephson's Notes on Irish Questions. 
 Kinnear's Ireland. 
 
 Kohl's Travels in Ireland. 
 Laurence's Interest of Ireland. 
 Leadam on Coercion. 
 Lecky's England in the Eighteenth 
 
 Century. 
 
 Leland's History of Ireland. 
 London Companies in Derry. 
 McCulloch's Statistics of the British 
 
 Empire. 
 
 McGee's History of Ireland. 
 MacNeill's Grattan's Parliament. 
 MacNeill's English Interference with 
 
 Irish Industries. 
 Maclagan's Land Culture and Land 
 
 Tenure in Ireland. 
 Magazines and Newspapers. 
 Martineau's History of the Thirty Years' 
 
 Peace. 
 
 Median's Confederation of Kilkenny. 
 Mill's Political Economy. 
 Mitchel's Last Conquest of Ireland 
 
 (Perhaps). 
 
 Mitchel's History of Ireland. 
 Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics. 
 Newenham's Inquiry. 
 O'Brien's Parliamentary History of the 
 
 Irish Land Question. 
 O'Connell'.s Collected Speeches. 
 O'Connell's Memoir of Ireland. 
 O'Connor's Parnell Movement. 
 O'Laverty's History of 1 Josvu and Con- 
 nor. 
 
 O'Rourke's Great Irish Famine. 
 Pacata llibernia. 
 Parliamentary Reports. 
 Petty 's Political Anatomy of Ireland. 
 Pirn's Ireland in 1 880, 
 Prendergast'a Cromwellian Settlement. 
 Proceedings of Grand Orange Lodge of 
 
 Ireland. 
 Proceedings of Home Rule Conference, 
 
 1S73.
 
 XVI 
 
 AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Queen v. Parnell and Others. 
 Ray's Social Condition of Europe. 
 Raleigh's Miscellaneous Works. 
 Reid's History of the Presbyterian 
 
 Church. 
 
 Sadler's Ireland and its Evil. 
 Spencer's Social Statics. 
 Statutes at Large. 
 Statesman's Year Book. 
 Sullivan's New Ireland. 
 Swift's Works. 
 Thorn's Directory. 
 Tori-en's Life of Lord Melbourne. 
 
 Transactions of the Statistical Society 
 
 of Ireland. 
 Transactions during the Famine in 
 
 Ireland, Society of Friends. 
 Wakefield's Account of Ireland. 
 Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography. 
 Webb's Why I Desire Home Rule. 
 Wiggin's Hints to Landlords. 
 Wilkinson's Eve of Home Rule. 
 Williams on Real Property. 
 Woodward's Argument for the Poor. 
 Young's Tour in Ireland.
 
 A WORD FOE IRELAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 THE earliest records of all countries relate to disputes 
 concerning land ; of a less important character, between 
 individual members of the same community; on a larger 
 and grander scale, when opposing nations came into 
 conflict. All the great invasions of history, from those 
 which closed the wanderings of the Jewish tribes towards 
 the Promised Land, to the latest British annexation 
 the incursions of the Vandals, Goths, and Huns, the 
 invasions of the Saracens, the Moors, and, nearer home, 
 those of the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans had 
 as a motive not merely a lust for conquest or the desire 
 for extended sovereignty ; their direct and principal 
 object was to gain possession of the land of the con- 
 quered country. In Ireland, the original Norman in- 
 vaders, their earth-hunger once satisfied by the plunder 
 of large estates, did not seek to perpetuate the distinc- 
 tion between conquered and conqueror by isolating 
 themselves from the native race. On the contrary, they 
 speedily fused with the conquered inhabitants, adopted 
 their customs, their language, and their dress, and after 
 a time the English Parliament, in a vain attempt to 
 check this process of assimilation, began the long and 
 dreary series of Irish Coercion Acts, by a penal statute
 
 2 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 directed at the descendants of the original invaders, now 
 become "more Irish than the Irish themselves." 
 
 It was not until the reign of Elizabeth that any 
 general attempt was made, as a matter of state policy, 
 by the English executive, to establish in Ireland Eng- 
 lish laws, English customs, and English tenures, in 
 place of those existing from time immemorial through- 
 out the island. Before the introduction of the Eng- 
 lish feudal system, the lands of Ireland belonged to 
 the clans of Ireland. The chief of the clan, subject 
 to certain privileges appurtenant to his chieftaincy, 
 held only as trustee, and if by his misfeasance he 
 became personally dispossessed, the rights of his people 
 were in nowise affected. When, however, the coun- 
 cillors of Elizabeth determined to subjugate the entire 
 island, and to substitute British for Brehon law through- 
 out its whole extent, prince and people alike suffered 
 when defeated. Victory for the invaders resulted 
 in the dispossession and spoliation of the clansmen 
 as well as of the chiefs who led them to battle ; English 
 adventurers, by the Queen's patent, obtained lordship 
 and dominion over the conquered territory ; and clan- 
 ownership gave place to private property in land. 
 Enormous rents were then exacted from the tillers of 
 the soil by their new masters, and the consequent risings 
 and disturbances thereupon were suppressed with a high 
 hand. Landlordism in Ireland, planted in blood, has 
 filled the country with suffering and misery for the 
 last three centuries ; and in the following pages a view 
 is presented of its workings from the days of Elizabeth 
 to Victoria, by means principally of extracts from the 
 writings and speeches of English historians and states- 
 men. 
 
 At the death of Henry VIII. only three or four Irish
 
 M CARCASSES AND ASHES. 3 
 
 counties owned British sway, although on this slender 
 sovereignty Henry was bold enough to assume the title 
 of King of Ireland, thitherto unclaimed by English 
 monarchs ; but the savage raids of his daughter's sol- 
 diers, in the course of her long reign, converted the 
 entire island into English " shire-ground. " Saffron- 
 shirted, spear-armed kern, in faction-torn clans, were 
 no match for the mail-clad veterans of a united army, 
 equipped with all the requisites of war, and directed by 
 a central power. Still they fought hard for land and 
 life ; and in the later years of Elizabeth, as the war- 
 worn clansmen became trained to resistance, the for- 
 midable Hugh O'Neill defeated her ablest generals in 
 pitched battles. Sir Walter Raleigh (Miscellaneous 
 Works, vol. viii. pp. 304-5) thus describes the change 
 which no longer enabled her Majesty's forces to confront 
 their enemies in unequal fight : " I myself remember 
 that, within these thirty years, . . . when I was a 
 captain in Ireland, 100 foot and 100 horse would have 
 beaten all the forces of the strongest province. But of 
 late I have known an Easterling fight hand to hand with 
 one of her majesty's ships ; and the Irish in this last war 
 have been victorious with an equal, or even an inferior 
 force. And what is the reason ? The Netherlands in 
 those days had wooden guns and the Irish had darts ; 
 but the one is now furnished with as great a number of 
 English ordnance as ourselves, and the other with as 
 good pikes and muskets as England hath." 
 
 Before the date of this significant letter of Raleigh's, 
 however, the whole country, outside Ulster, had been 
 " pacified;" and while Shakespeare, Jonson, and Spencer 
 were singing their sweetest at the court of the Virgin 
 Queen, Ireland was being given over by her cultured 
 soldiers to " carcasses and ashes." Mr. Froude gives a
 
 4 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 sample of the art of war of that period, by quoting the re- 
 port made in the year 1576 by Malby, the President of 
 Connaught : " At Christmas I marched into their terri- 
 tory [Shan Burke's], and finding courteous dealing with 
 them had like to have cut my throat, I thought good to 
 take another course, and so, with determination to consume 
 them with fire and sword, sparing neither old nor young, 
 I entered their mountains. I burnt all their corn and 
 houses, and committed to the sword all that could be 
 found, where were slain at that time above sixty of 
 their best men, and among them the best leaders they 
 had. This was Shan Burke's country. Then I burnt 
 Ulick Burke's country. In like manner I assaulted a 
 castle where the garrison surrendered. I put them to 
 the misericordia of my soldiers. They were all slain. 
 Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my way, 
 which cruelty did so amaze their followers, that they 
 could not tell where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke 
 made means to me to pardon him, and forbear killing of 
 his people. I would not hearken, but went on my way. 
 The gentlemen of Clanrickard came to me. I found it 
 was but dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little 
 corn and as few houses standing as I left his brother, 
 and what people was found had as little favour as the 
 other had. It was all done in rain, and frost, and 
 storm, journeys in such weather bringing them the 
 sooner to submission. They are humble enough now, 
 and will yield to any terms we like to offer them." 
 
 HolHnshed thus describes the progress of the English 
 army : " As they went, they drove the whole country 
 before them into the Ventrie, and by that means they 
 preyed and took all the cattle in the country, to the 
 number of 8,000 kine, besides horses, garrons, sheep, 
 and goats ; and all such people as they met they did
 
 THE COUNTRY IS " SETTLED. 5 
 
 without mercy put to the sword; by these means, the 
 whole country having no cattle nor kine left, they were 
 driven to such extremities that for want of victuals they 
 were either to die and perish for famine or die under 
 the sword. . . . By reason of the continuall 
 persecuting of the rebells, who could have no breath 
 nor rest to releeve themselves, but were alwaies by 
 one garrison or other hurt or pursued ; and by 
 reason the harvest was taken from them, their cattells 
 in great numbers preied from them, and the whole 
 countrie spoiled and preied : the poore people, who 
 lived onlie upon their labors, and fed by their milch 
 cowes, were so distressed, that they would follow after 
 the goods which were taken from them, and offer 
 themselves, their wives and children, rather to be slaine 
 by the armie, than to suffer the famine wherewith they 
 were now pinched." Hollinshed, vi. 33 and 427 ; also 
 Leland, book iv. chap. ii. 
 
 Again, take the following from Sir George Carew : 
 " The President having received certaine information, 
 that the Mounster fugitives were harboured in those 
 parts, having before burned all the houses and corne, 
 and taken great preyes in Owny Onubrian and Kilquig, 
 a strong and fast countrey, not farre from Limerick, 
 diverted his forces into East Clanwilliam and Muskery- 
 quirke, where Pierce Lacy had lately been succoured ; 
 and harassing the country, killed all mankind that were 
 found therein, for a terrour to those as should give 
 releefe to the runagate traitors. Thence wee came to 
 Arleaghe woods, where wee did the like, not leaving 
 behind us man or beast, corne or cattle, except such 
 as had been conveyed into castles. . . . They 
 wasted and forraged the country, so as in a small time 
 it was not able to give the rebells any reliefe ; having
 
 6 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 spoiled and brought into their garrisons the most part 
 of their corne, being newly reaped." Pacata Hibernia, 
 pp. 189, 584. 
 
 The English Protestant historian, Moryson, says : 
 " No spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of 
 the towns, and especially in wasted countries, than to 
 see multitudes of these poor people, the Irish, dead, 
 with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, 
 docks, and all things they could rend above ground." 
 
 By the extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, 570,000 
 acres belonging to the Earl of Desmond were vested 
 in the Queen : " Proclamation was accordingly made 
 throughout England, inviting ' younger brothers of good 
 families ' to undertake the plantation of Desmond each 
 planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition 
 of settling thereupon so many families ' none of the 
 native Irish to be admitted.' Under these conditions, 
 Sir Christopher Hatton took up 10,000 acres in Water- 
 ford; Sir Walter Raleigh, 12,000* acres, partly in 
 Waterford and partly in Cork ; Sir William Harbart, or 
 Herbert, 13,000 acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny, 
 6,000 in the same county ; Sir Warren St. Leger, and 
 Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork ; Sir 
 William Courtney, 10,000 acres in Limerick ; Sir 
 Edward Fitton, 11,500 acres in Tipperary and Water- 
 ford ; and Edmund Spenser, 3,000 acres in Cork, on 
 the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable under- 
 takers were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, 
 Trenchards, Thorntons, Billingsleys, etc. Some of these 
 grants, especially Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to 
 Richard Boyle, the so-called ' Great Earl of Cork '- 
 
 * Sir Walter really had 42,000 acres granted to him, i.e., three seignories 
 and a half, each containing 12,000 acres. See Calendar of Patent Rolls in 
 Ireland, temp. Eliz. p. 323, and Carte's Ormond, vol. i. p. 07.
 
 THE VULTURES DESCEND. 7 
 
 probably the most pious hypocrite to be found in the 
 long roll of the ' Munster Undertakers.' " Godkin's 
 Land War* 
 
 The agrarian legislation of the Victorian era, with its 
 Land Acts and Arrears Act, took, it appears, three 
 centuries to ripen ; for in the volume (107-5) of the 
 State Papers for 1577 (as quoted by Sir J. Pope 
 Hennessy in his Raleigh in Ireland), there is a report 
 from the Irish Chancellor to Walsingham, denouncing 
 the " cruelty of the landlords " reducing the " tenants 
 to be starved beggars ;" and a despatch from the Lord 
 Deputy to Elizabeth recommending " Commissioners to 
 settle the rent " landlords should take of their tenants, 
 and also " a Commission to compound for arrears." 
 
 " The eagles took wing for the Spanish main ; the 
 vultures descended upon Ireland," says Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith (Oxford Lectures). At this time England was 
 ringing with the cruelties committed in the Nether- 
 lands by the Duke of Alva ; but contrasting them with 
 those of the English in Ireland, Elizabeth's Prime 
 Minister, Lord Burghley, felt obliged to declare " the 
 Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the op- 
 pression of the Spaniards, as the Irish against the 
 tyranny of England." (Letter to Sir Henry Wallop, 
 War Treasurer for Ireland, 10th June, 1582, quoted in 
 Froude's History of England, vol. x. p. 604.) 
 
 After the close of the reign of Elizabeth and the 
 Flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell (O'Neill 
 and O'Donnell), the work of extirpation and plantation 
 was vigorously carried on by James I. ; and in the early 
 
 * Mr. Godkin, from whose valuable work quotations are freely taken, 
 was ordained an Independent Minister. He was afterwards editor of the 
 Conservative Dublin Daily Express, and was for many years the Irish 
 Correspondent of The Times.
 
 8 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 part of his reign, Sir John Davies, one of the Irish 
 Attorney-Generals of that monarch, was able to report 
 that "Before Michaelmas he would be ready to present 
 to his majesty a perfect survey of six whole counties 
 which he now hath in actual possession in the province 
 of Ulster, of greater extent of land than any Prince in 
 Europe hath in his own hands to dispose of." 
 
 A sort of commission was appointed for parcelling out 
 the land. It sat at Limavady, and as a sample of its 
 proceedings, it may be mentioned that a sub-chief, 
 O'Cahan, who held under O'Neill, had his lands con- 
 fiscated simply because of the flight of that Earl. 
 " Although sundry royal and vice-regal proclamations 
 had assured the tenants that they would not be dis- 
 turbed in their possessions, on account of the offences 
 of their chiefs, it was proclaimed that neither O'Cahan, 
 nor those who lived under him, had any estate what- 
 ever in the lands." Godkin's Land War. 
 
 A quotation from a letter written by the Lord- 
 Deputy, about the year 1607 (given in Mr. Godkin's 
 work), will show the spirit in which the inhabitants 
 of Ireland were regarded by their English rulers : 
 " I have often said and written, it is famine that 
 must consume the Irish, as our swords and other 
 endeavours worked not that speedy effect which is ex- 
 pected ; hunger would be a better, because a speedier, 
 weapon to employ against them than the sword. . . . 
 I burned all along the Lough [Neagh] within four miles 
 of Dungannon, and killed 100 people, sparing none, of 
 what quality, age, or sex soever, besides many burned 
 to death. We killed man, woman, and child, horse, 
 beast, and whatsoever we could find." The province 
 of Ulster having by this time been pretty well 
 cleared of its native inhabitants, "On July 21, 1609,
 
 THE PLANTATION. 9 
 
 a commission was issued by the Crown to make in- 
 quisition concerning the forfeited lands in Ulster, 
 after the flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyr- 
 connell. The commissioners included the Lord-Deputy 
 Chichester, the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, Sir 
 John Davies, Attorney-General ; Sir William Parsons, 
 Surveyor-General, and several other public function- 
 aries. This work done, King James, acting on the 
 advice of his Prime Minister, the Earl of Salisbury, 
 took measures for the plantation. . . . The city 
 of London was thought to be the best quarter to look 
 to for funds to carry on the plantation. Accordingly, 
 Lord Salisbury had a conference with the lord-mayor, 
 Humphrey Weld, Sir John Jolles, and Sir W. Cockaine, 
 who were well acquainted with Irish affairs. The result 
 was the publication of ' Motives and Reasons to induce 
 the City of London to undertake the Plantation in the 
 North of Ireland.' The corporation were willing to 
 undertake the work of plantation if the account given 
 of its advantages should prove to be correct. . 
 So they sent over ' four wise, grave, and discreet citi- 
 zens, to view the situation proposed for the new colony.' 
 On their return they presented a report to the 
 Court of Common Council, which was openly read. 
 The report was favourable. . . . With respect to 
 the disposal of such of the natives as remained, it was 
 arranged that some were to be planted on two of the 
 small allotments, and upon the glebes ; others upon the 
 land of Sir Art O'Neill's sons and Sir Ileury Oge 
 O'Neill's sons, ' and of such other Irish as shall be 
 thought fit to have any freeholds ; some others upon 
 the portions of such servitors as are not able to inhabit 
 these lauds with English or Scotch tenants, especially 
 of such as best know how to rule and order the Irish.
 
 10 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 But the swordsmen (that is, the armed retainers or 
 soldiers of the chiefs) are to be transplanted into such 
 other parts of the kingdom as, by reasons of the wastes 
 therein, are fittest to receive them namely, into Con- 
 naught and some parts of Munster, where they are to 
 be dispersed, and not planted together in one place ; 
 and such swordsmen who have not followers or cattle 
 of their own, to be disposed of in his majesty's service." 
 
 The character of the plantation made under Elizabeth 
 differed materially from that of James's reign. Gigantic 
 grants were made in Munster by Elizabeth to her 
 favourites, whereas we find that the allotments made by 
 James to each individual were of comparatively moderate 
 extent. Thus we have the Prime Minister, writing to 
 Chichester about the year 1607, complaining: "That 
 was an oversight in the plantation of Munster, where 
 12,000 acres were commonly allotted to bankrupts and 
 country gentlemen, that never knew the disposition of 
 the Irish ; so as God forbid that those who have spent 
 their blood in the service should not of all others be 
 preferred." 
 
 All through the reign of James the work of conquest 
 and confiscation went steadily on. Eebellion was 
 promoted, and then, when the chiefs were routed, we 
 find the record running somewhat in this fashion: 
 " O'Dogherty's country being confiscated, the Lord- 
 Deputy, Chichester, was rewarded with the greatest por- 
 tion of his lands. But what was to be done with the 
 people ? In the first instance they were driven from the 
 rich lowlands along the borders of Lough Foylc and 
 Lough Swilly, and compelled to take refuge in the 
 mountain fastnesses which stretched to a vast extent 
 from Moville westward along the Atlantic Coast. But 
 could those ' idle kerne and swordsmen,' thus punished
 
 CONQUEST AND CONFISCATION. , 11 
 
 with loss of lands and home for the crimes of their chief, 
 be safely trusted to remain anywhere in the neighbour- 
 hood of the new English settlers ? Sir John Davis and 
 Sir Toby Caulfield thought of a plan by which they 
 could get rid of the danger. Gustavus AdoJphus was 
 then fighting the battles of Protestantism against the 
 house of Austria. ... To what better use, then, 
 could the ' loose Irish kerne and swordsmen ' of Donegal 
 be turned than to send them to fight in the army of the 
 King of Sweden ? Accordingly 6,000 of the able-bodied 
 peasantry of Inishowen were shipped off for this 
 service." 
 
 A fighting adventurer named St. Lawrence, himself a 
 Catholic, and the ancestor of the present Earl of Howth, 
 obtained large grants of confiscated lands as a considera- 
 tion for his giving perjured testimony as to the existence 
 of a conspiracy on the part of O'Neill. Sir Fulke 
 Con way, a Welsh officer, obtained similar grants, and 
 at his death in 1626, his brother, who was a favourite 
 of Charles I., succeeded to the estate, to which his royal 
 patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him 
 lord of nearly 70,000 statute acres of the broad lands 
 of Down and Antrim. 
 
 When Crown grants of land were made to the planters 
 or adventurers, it was expressly stipulated that their 
 tenants were to be English or Scotch, and Protestants. 
 A Presbyterian minister, whose father was one of the 
 planters, thus describes the men who came over to 
 regenerate Ireland : " From Scotland came many, and 
 from England not a few ; yet all of them generally 
 the scum of both nations, who from debt, or mocking 
 and fleeing from justice, or seeking shelter, came 
 hither, hoping to be without fear of man's justice, in 
 a land where there was nothing, or but little as yet,
 
 12 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 of the fear of God. . . . Most of the people 
 were all void of godliness. . . . On all hands 
 atheism increased, and disregard of God : iniquity 
 abounds with contention, fighting, murder, and adul- 
 tery." MS. History by Rev. A. Stuart, quoted in 
 Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church, vol. i. 
 p. 96. 
 
 As for the miserable remnant of the native popula- 
 tion, Father Meehan, in his Confederation of Kilkenny, 
 p. 53, says: "The tyranny of such men as Sir Frederick 
 Hamilton of Manorhamilton, and Sir Charles Coote, 
 drove the unfortunate peasantry to madness. The 
 cruelties inflicted on the Christians of Spain by Aben 
 Humeya and his Morisco captains pale before the atro- 
 cities perpetrated by Hamilton on the inhabitants of 
 Leitrim and Longford. His bawri or castle was the 
 rendezvous of a ferocious banditti, who spread death and 
 desolation around them. By day and night he sent from 
 within its walls a savage soldiery, who robbed and mur- 
 dered with impunity. When they returned to their 
 leader, the most acceptable gifts they could offer were 
 the heads of the wretched people, which they brutally 
 severed from the bodies ; women and tender girls were 
 not exempt from the horrors which this fanatic inflicted 
 in the holy name of God. Upon a hill near his castle, 
 he erected a gallows, from which every day a fresh 
 victim was suspended." In the same work, p. 18, Sir 
 Charles Coote is thus spoken of : " Coote's thirst for 
 blood was insatiable. He threatened not to leave a 
 Catholic in Ireland." In Wicklow he put many innocent 
 persons to the sword without distinction of age or sex. 
 On one occasion when he met a soldier carrying an infant 
 on the point of his pike, he was charged with saying 
 that " he liked such frolics." Lord Castlehaven gives a
 
 ULSTER FORFEITURES. 13 
 
 fearful account of the conduct of the troops under 
 Coote's command, " who killed men, women, and 
 children promiscuously." Leland speaks of " his ruth- 
 less and indiscriminate carnage." Warner says "he 
 was a stranger to mercy." Miss Cusack's History of 
 Ireland, p. 482. 
 
 By the end of the reign of James I. , Ulster began to 
 be pretty thickly populated by Scotch colonists, and 
 the foundations of important towns, like Deny, Lurgan, 
 and Belfast, with special privileges, had been laid. A 
 remnant of native Irish, groaning under the exactions 
 of the invaders, of course only waited an opportunity to 
 throw off the foreign yoke ; and the exactions of the 
 "undertakers" at last produced the Kising of 1641. 
 On the outbreak of this rebellion, before it had extended 
 beyond the borders of Ulster, the English Parliament 
 passed the Act 17th Charles I., whereby 2,500,000 acres 
 of land were declared forfeited in Ireland, and which 
 enacted that these acres should be offered for sale at 
 fixed rates in London and the surrounding districts. 
 One of the notable clauses in the Act provides that the 
 lands are to be taken from the four provinces in equal 
 proportions, that is, one-fourth from each, though at 
 the time when it received the royal assent there was 
 no rebel outside Ulster, and, there, not one convicted. 
 Again, there cannot be a doubt but that Parsons and 
 Borlase, who were Lords-Justices at the opening of the 
 rebellion, goaded the Catholics of the Pale into insurrec- 
 tion, and refused all terms of accommodation, in view of 
 the splendid forfeitures which awaited suppression by 
 the sword. 
 
 Throughout the reign of Charles I. the Irish proprie- 
 tors were harassed by Strafford, who imagined the device 
 of a Defective Titles' Commission, and plotted the
 
 14 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 escheatal of the entire province of Connaught to the 
 Crown by legal chicane. The Irish House of Commons 
 was induced to vote large supplies to Charles, on a 
 promise that these schemes should not be persisted in, 
 but the promise was shamefully broken, and Strafford 
 had juries which would not " find " estates for the King, 
 amerced in thousands of pounds, tortured and im- 
 prisoned. O'Connell's Memoir of Ireland, chap. iii. 
 
 When the Commonwealth was proclaimed in England, 
 the Irish, fondly imagining that by espousing the cause 
 of Charles I. against the Parliament they were strik- 
 ing for their property and religion, as well as for the 
 King, a rally was everywhere made to the Royalist side 
 over all the island, and for some years the loyalist, or 
 popular cause, was in the ascendant. But Cromwell, 
 fresh from his victories in England, appears on the 
 scene, and once more the work of savage subjugation 
 and wholesale confiscation commences. The massacres 
 at Drogheda and Wexford, for which in his despatches to 
 Parliament he gave God thanks, set an example to lieu- 
 tenants not more merciful than himself. Mr. Godkin 
 says: " Sir William Cole, ancestor of the Earl of En- 
 niskillen, proudly boasted of his achievement in having 
 7,000 of the rebels famished to death within a circuit 
 of a few miles of his garrison : the descendants of the 
 remnant of the natives on his estate do not forget how 
 the family obtained its wealth and honours. Lord 
 Cork prepared 1,100 indictments against men of pro- 
 perty in his province, which he sent to the Speaker of 
 the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that they 
 might be returned to him, with authority to proceed 
 against the parties named as outlaws. In Leinster, 
 4,000 similar indictments were found in the course of 
 two days by the free use of the rack with witnesses.
 
 THE SPOIL IS DIVIDED. 15 
 
 Sir John Reid, an officer of the King's bed-chamber, 
 and Mr. Barn wall of Kilbme, a gentleman of three 
 score and six, were among those who underwent the 
 torture." Similar proceedings, which it is needless to 
 describe, went on over the entire country. " The 
 Long Parliament having confiscated 2,500,000 acres, 
 offered it as security to ' adventurers ' who would 
 advance money to meet the cost of the war. In Febru- 
 ary, 1642, the House of Commons received a petition 
 * of divers well affected ' to it, offering to raise and 
 maintain forces at their own charge ' against the rebels 
 of Ireland, and afterwards to receive their recompense 
 out of the rebels' estates.' Under the Act ' for the 
 speedy reducing of the rebels/ the adventurers were to 
 carry over a brigade of 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and 
 to have the right of appointing their own officers. And 
 they were to have estates given to them at the following 
 rates : 1,000 acres for 200 in Ulster, for 300 in Con- 
 naught, for 450 in Munster, and 600 in Leinster. 
 The rates per acre were 4s., 6s., 8s., and 12s. in those 
 provinces respectively. 
 
 " At the end of 1653, the Parliament made a division 
 of the spoil among the conquerors and the adventurers ; 
 and on September 26th, an Act was passed for the new 
 planting of Ireland by English. The Government re- 
 served for itself the towns, the church lands, and the 
 tithes, the Established Church, hierarchy and all, having 
 been utterly abolished. The four counties of Dublin, 
 Kildare, Carlo w, and Cork were also reserved. The 
 amount due to the adventurers was 360,000. This 
 they divided into three lots, of which 110,000 was to 
 be satisfied in Munster, 205,000 in Leinster, and 
 45,000 in Ulster, and the moiety of ten counties 
 were charged with their payment Waterford, Limerick,
 
 16 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 and Tipperary in Minister ; Meath, Westmeath, King's 
 and Queen's Counties, in Leinster ; and Antrim, Down, 
 and Armagh, in Ulster. But as all was required by 
 the Adventurers' Act to be done by lot, a lottery was 
 appointed, to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for July 
 20th, 1653, to begin at 8 o'clock in the morning, when 
 lots should be first drawn in which province each 
 adventurer was to be satisfied, not exceeding the speci- 
 fied amounts in any province ; lots were to be drawn, 
 secondly, to ascertain in which of the ten counties each 
 adventurer was to receive his land the lots not to 
 exceed, in Westmeath 70,000, in Tipperary 60,000, 
 in Meath 55,000, in King's and Queen's Counties 
 40,000 each, in Limerick, 30,000, in Waterford 
 20,000, in Antrim, Down, and Armagh, 15,000 
 each." Later on, " The English Parliament resolved to 
 clear out the population of all the principal cities and 
 seaport towns, though nearly all founded and inhabited 
 by Danes or English, and men of English descent. In 
 order to raise funds for the war, the following towns 
 were offered to English merchants for sale at the prices 
 annexed : Limerick, with 12,000 acres contiguous, for 
 30,000, and a rent of 625, payable to the state ; 
 Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous at the same 
 rate ; Galway, with 10,000 acres, for 7,500, and a 
 rent of 520 ; Wexford, with 6,000 acres, for 5,000, 
 and a rent of 156 4s. 
 
 " On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were 
 commanded to quit the town for ever by the 1st Novem- 
 ber following, the owners of houses getting compensation 
 at eight years' purchase. 
 
 " On October 30, this order was executed. All the 
 inhabitants, except the sick and bed-rid, were at once 
 banished, to provide accommodation for English Pro-
 
 THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT. 17 
 
 testants, whose integrity to the state should entitle them 
 to be trusted in a place of such importance ; and Sir 
 Charles Coote, on November 7, received the thanks of 
 the Government for clearing the town, with a request 
 that he would remove the sick and bed-rid as soon as 
 the season might permit, and take care that the houses 
 while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. The 
 town was thus made ready for the English." Godkin's 
 Land War. 
 
 All the Irish population, including many of the Anglo- 
 Irish planted by Elizabeth, were driven across the 
 Shannon into Connaught. "Hell or Counaught" was 
 their alternative, and so sweeping were the clearances 
 effected, that in Tipperary and other places, according 
 to Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement, the soldiery 
 who came to settle upon the lands allotted to them, 
 when they could not agree as to the boundaries of their 
 estates, were compelled to obtain a special permission 
 from the authorities to bring back for a short time from 
 Connaught some of the dispossessed owners to point out 
 their lands. That this to-day might be shown to be 
 something more than a mere " historic " grievance, is 
 perhaps evident from the manner in which the people 
 are found crowded on the wastes and mountains of the 
 West, 
 
 With the exception of some minor incidents of a 
 similar character, which followed the Irish victories of 
 William, the Cromwellian settlement just described was 
 the last considerable unsettlement in the ownership of 
 landed property in Ireland. It was the successful con- 
 summation of work begun by Elizabeth the wresting 
 of the soil of Ireland from the Irish people. 
 
 Cromwell's administration effected a revolution un- 
 paralleled in history. Its proceedings have been well
 
 18 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 summarized by Mr. D'Arcy McGee in his History of 
 Ireland : " The Long Parliament, still dragging out 
 its days under the shadow of Cromwell's great name, 
 declared in its session of 1652 the rebellion in Ireland 
 'subdued and ended/ and proceeded to legislate for 
 that kingdom as a conquered country. On August 12 
 they passed their Act of Settlement, the authorship of 
 which was attributed to Lord Orrery, in this respect 
 the worthy son of the first Earl of Cork. Under this 
 Act there were four chief descriptions of persons whose 
 status was thus settled : 1. All ecclesiastics and royalist 
 proprietors were exempted from pardon of life or estate. 
 2. All royalist commissioned officers were condemned 
 to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of their 
 property, one-third being retained for the support of 
 their wives and children. 3. Those who had not been 
 in arms, but could be shown, by a parliamentary com- 
 mission, to have manifested ' a constant good affection ' 
 to the war, were to forfeit one-third of their estates, 
 and receive ' an equivalent ' for the remaining two- 
 thirds west of the Shannon. 4. All husbandmen and 
 others of the inferior sort, ' not possessed of lands or 
 goods exceeding the value of 10,' were to have a free 
 pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves 
 across the Shannon. 
 
 " This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement 
 distinguished it, in our annals, from every other pro- 
 scription of the native population formerly attempted. 
 The great river of Ireland, rising in the mountains of 
 Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the 
 rest of the kingdom. The province thus set apart, 
 though one of the largest in superficial extent, had also 
 the largest proportion of waste and water, mountain 
 and moorland. The new inhabitants were there to con-
 
 PETTY'S SURVEY. 19 
 
 gregate from all the other provinces before the first day 
 of May, 1654, under penalty of outlawry and all its 
 consequences ; and when there, they were not to ap- 
 pear within two miles of the Shannon, or four miles 
 of the sea. A rigorous passport system, to evade 
 which was death without form of trial, completed this 
 settlement, the design of which was to shut up the 
 remaining Catholic inhabitants from all intercourse 
 with mankind, and all communion with the other 
 inhabitants of their own country. 
 
 " A new survey of the whole kingdom was also 
 ordered, under the direction of Sir William Petty, the 
 fortunate economist who founded the house of Lans- 
 downe. By him the surface of the kingdom was esti- 
 mated at 10,500,000 plantation acres, 3,000,000 of which 
 were deducted for water and waste. Of the remainder, 
 above 5,000,000 were in Catholic hands in 1641 ; 
 300,000 were church and college lands ; and 2,000,000 
 were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the 
 reigns of James and Elizabeth. Under the Protecto- 
 rate, 5,000,000 acres were confiscated. This enormous 
 spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went to the 
 soldiers and adventurers who had served against the 
 Irish, or had contributed to the military chest since 
 1641 except 700,000 acres given in 'exchange' to 
 the banished in Clare and Con naught ; and 1,200,000 
 confirmed to ' innocent Papists.' 
 
 ' The government of Ireland was vested in the 
 Deputy, the Commander-in-chief, and four commis- 
 sioners Ludlow, Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There 
 was, moreover, a high court of justice, which peram- 
 bulated the kingdom, and exercised an absolute au- 
 thority over life and property, greater than even 
 Stratford's court of Star Chamber had pretended to.
 
 20 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 Over this court presided Lord Lowther, assisted by Mr. 
 Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the Parlia- 
 ment on the trial of King Charles, and the regicide 
 Reynolds. By this court, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Viscount 
 Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole and Bagnall were con- 
 demned and executed ; children of both sexes were 
 captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the 
 tobacco-planters of Virginia and the West Indies. Sir 
 William Petty states that 6,000 boys and girls were 
 sent to those islands. The number of all ages thus 
 transported was estimated at 100,000 souls. As to 
 the ' swordsmen ' who had been trained to fighting, 
 Petty, in his Political Anatomy, records that ' the 
 chiefest and most eminentest of the nobility, and many 
 of the gentry, had taken conditions from the King of 
 Spain, and had transported 40,000 of the most active 
 spirited men, most acquainted with the dangers and 
 discipline of war.' The chief commissioners in Dublin 
 had despatched assistant commissioners to the pro- 
 vinces. The distribution which they made of the soil 
 was nearly as complete as that of Canaan among the 
 Israelites ; and this was the model which the Puritans 
 had always before their minds. Where a miserable 
 residue of the population was required to till the land 
 for its new owners, they were tolerated, as the Gibeon- 
 ites had been by Joshua, Irish gentlemen who had 
 obtained pardons were obliged to wear a distinctive 
 mark on their dress on pain of death. Persons of in- 
 ferior rank were distinguished by a black spot on the 
 right cheek. Wanting this, their punishment was the 
 branding-iron or the gallows. 
 
 "No vestige of the Catholic religion was allowed to 
 exist. Catholic lawyers and schoolmasters were silenced. 
 All ecclesiastics were slain like the priests of Baal.
 
 STATE-CREATED CANNIBALS. 21 
 
 Three bishops and 300 of the inferior clergy thus 
 perished. The bedridden Bishop of Kilraore was the 
 only native clergyman permitted to survive. If, in 
 mountain recesses or caves, a few peasants were de- 
 tected at mass, they were smoked out and shot." 
 
 Writing of this period, Daniel O'Connell, in his 
 valuable Memoir on Ireland, chap, iii., exclaims : 
 "The natural result of the promiscuous slaughter of 
 the unarmed peasantry wherever the English soldiers 
 could lay hold on them, was, as a matter of course, an 
 appalling famine. The ploughman was killed in the 
 half-ploughed field. The labourer met his death at 
 the spade. The haymaker was himself mowed down. 
 A universal famine, and its necessary concomitant, 
 pestilence, covered the land. An eye-witness (Colonel 
 Laurence's Interest of Ireland, part ii., pp. 86, 87) 
 himself employed in hunting to death the Irish, has left 
 the description which follows: 'About the year 1652 
 and 1653, the plague and famine had so swept away 
 whole countries, that a man might travel twenty or thirty 
 miles, and not see a living creature either man, beast, 
 or bird ; they being either all dead, or had quit those 
 desolate places ; our soldiers would tell stories of the 
 place where they saw a smoak ; it was so rare to see 
 either smoak by day, or fire or candle by night. And 
 when we did meet with two or three poor cabins, none 
 but very aged men, with women and children, and 
 those, like the prophet, might have complained, 'We 
 are become as a bottle in the smoak, our skin is black 
 like an oven because of the terrible famine.' 1 have 
 seen those miserable creatures plucking stinking carrion 
 out of a ditch, black and rotten, and been credibly 
 informed that they digged corpses out of the grave to 
 eat : but the most tragical story I ever heard was from
 
 22 ELIZABETH TO CROMWELL. 
 
 an officer commanding a party of horse, who, hunting 
 fortories [i.e., human beings] in a dark night, discovered 
 a light, which they supposed to be a fire, which the tories 
 usually made in those waste countries to dress their pro- 
 visions and warm themselves ; but drawing near, they 
 found it a ruined cabin, and besetting it round, some did 
 alight, and peeping at the window, where they saw a 
 great fire of wood, and a company of miserable old 
 women and children sitting round about it, and be- 
 twixt them and the fire, a dead corpse lay broiling, 
 which, as the fire roasted, they cut off collops and eat.' " 
 Thus England got rid (pro tern. ) of a race concerning 
 which Mr. Prendergast (Cromwellian Settlement] found 
 this contemporary testimony in an English MS. in 
 Trinity College Library, Dublin, dated 1615: "There 
 lives not a people more hardy, active, and painful ; 
 neither is there any will endure the miseries of 
 warre, as famine, watching, heat, cold, wet, travel, and 
 the like, so naturally and with such facility and courage 
 that they do. The Prince of Orange's Excellency uses 
 often publiquely to deliver that the Irish are souldiers 
 the first day of their birth. The famous Henry IV., 
 late King of France, said they would prove no nation 
 so resolute martial men as they, would they be ruly 
 and not too headstrong. And Sir John Norris was 
 wont to ascribe this particular to that nation above 
 others, that he never beheld so few of any country 
 as of Irish that were idiots and cownrds, which is very 
 notable."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 WHEN upon the death of Cromwell the Restoration 
 brought reparation and reward to the Royalists of 
 Britain, no relief came to the race which had fought 
 so stoutly for the king in the sister country. The 
 Scotch sold their king, the English killed him, the Irish 
 fought for him ; but the Irish alone suffered alike by 
 Revolution and Restoration. Many of the families 
 exiled in Connaught hastened across the Shannon 
 when the monarchy was restored, only to find that 
 their lands were held by Cromwellian troopers, who had 
 by that time become firmly established on them ; 
 and in but very few cases did the original owner 
 succeed in recovering his estate. 
 
 After the restoration of Charles II., as before, the 
 native Irish were repressed with a stern hand, and when, 
 at his death, upon the accession of James II. , they began 
 to breathe freely once more, the Williamite Revolution 
 quickly put an end to their hopes, and again 
 Ireland became the battle-ground of rival English com- 
 batants. Untaught by the way in which their fidelity 
 to Charles I. had been rewarded, the Irish once more took 
 the loyalist side, and with similar results. Even after 
 the flight of James from the Boyne, and his embarka- 
 tion to France, they kept up the fight for the legitimate 
 king, years after his English and Scotch supporters had 
 ceased to succour him. From that time, unto the pre- 
 sent generation, the loyalists of Ireland and their children 
 have endured the vengeance of the successful rebels and
 
 24 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 their descendants, who took sides against their legiti- 
 mate king. 
 
 After the violation of the Treaty of Limerick, which 
 guaranteed the Catholics in the enjoyment of their 
 religious liberties and their lands, William's faith-break- 
 ing advisers appointed a commission to inquire into the 
 forfeited estates; and 1,060,792 Irish acres (equal to 
 1,918,307 English acres) were declared escheated to 
 the Crown. There are altogether in Ireland 20,819,928 
 acres, and every acre of these had (sometimes more than 
 once) changed hands in the confiscations of the preceding 
 century. (Stephenson Gregg's History of Ireland.} 
 
 In 1695 William, in his speech read to the Irish 
 Parliament, assured them, in the teeth of the pact of 
 Limerick, that he was intent upon the firm settlement of 
 Ireland upon a Protestant basis, and so well did he 
 keep his word that when he died there did not remain 
 in the hands of Catholics one-sixth of the lands which 
 their grandfathers held, even after the passing of the Act 
 of Settlement. 
 
 The Acts for securing the Protestant interest formed 
 the series known as the Penal Code, which was in 
 force for nearly the whole of the eighteenth century. 
 Edmund Burke, in a letter to Sir H. Langrishe ( Works, 
 vol. vi. page 375), says of this dreadful code : 
 " It was a complete system, full of coherence and 
 consistency ; well digested and well composed in all its 
 parts. It was a machine of wise and deliberate contri- 
 vance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverish- 
 ment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement 
 in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from 
 the perverted ingenuity of man." 
 
 These Penal Laws, which appeared to be directed solely 
 to secure the extirpation of one form of worship and
 
 THE PENAL LAWS. 25 
 
 the ascendancy of another, formed at the same time a 
 tremendous political engine for securing their estates 
 to the men of the plantations and the undertakings 
 of the preceding reigns. It was not merely religious 
 bigotry which was at the root of these ferocious enact- 
 ments, there was also the consciousness that the men 
 who made the laws rendering the possession of property 
 value above 5 illegal for Catholics, and only legal for 
 Protestants, were wrongfully and unjustly in possession 
 of the lands and goods of those whose religion they 
 were proscribing. 
 
 For example : " When the last Duke of Ormond ar- 
 rived as Lord-Lieutenant in 1703, the Commons waited 
 on him with a Bill ' for discouraging the further growth 
 of Popery,' which became law, having met his decided 
 approval. This Act provided that if the son of a 
 Catholic became a Protestant, the father should be in- 
 capable of selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing 
 of any portion of it by will. If a child ever so young 
 professed to be a Protestant, it was to be taken from its 
 parents, and placed under the guardianship of the 
 nearest Protestant relation. The sixth clause renders 
 Papists incapable of purchasing any manors, tenements, 
 hereditaments, or any rents or profits arising out of the 
 same, or of holding any lease of lives, or other lease 
 whatever, for any term exceeding thirty-one years. 
 And with respect even to such limited leases, it further 
 enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm producing a 
 profit greater than one-third of the amount of the rent, 
 his right to such should immediately cease, and pass 
 over entirely to the first Protestant who should discover 
 the rate of profit. The seventh clause prohibits Papists 
 from succeeding to the properties or estates of their 
 Protestant relations. By the tentli clause, the estate of
 
 26 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is ordered to be 
 gavelled, or divided in equal shares between all his 
 children. The sixteenth and twenty-fourth clauses im- 
 pose the oath of abjuration and the sacramental test as 
 a qualification for office, and for voting at elections. 
 The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of 
 Limerick and Galway of the protection secured to them 
 by the articles of the Treaty of Limerick. The twenty- 
 fifth clause vests in the Crown all advowsons possessed 
 by Papists. "A further Act was passed, in 1709, impos- 
 ing additional penalties. The first clause declares that 
 no Papist shall be capable of holding an annuity for life. 
 The third provides that the child of a Papist, on conform- 
 ing, shall at once receive an annuity from his father, and 
 that the Chancellor shall compel the father to discover, 
 upon oath, the full value of his estate, real and personal, 
 and thereupon make an order for the support of such 
 conforming child or children, and for securino- such share 
 
 o 7 O 
 
 of the property, after the father's death, as the court 
 shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses 
 secure jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. 
 The sixteenth prohibits a Papist from teaching, even as 
 assistant to a Protestant master. The eighteenth gives 
 a salary of 30 per annum to Popish priests who shall 
 conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the dis- 
 covery of Popish prelates, priests and teachers. "- 
 Godkin's Land War. This was done in defiance of 
 treaty, and Ilallam, speaking of these statutes, says : 
 " To have exterminated the Catholics by the sword, or 
 expelled them like the Moriscos of Spain, would have 
 been little more repugnant to justice and humanity, 
 but incomparably more politic." If for " Papist " 
 property, Irish property is understood, and for 
 "Protestant," Englishman (or person of English descent),
 
 ENGLAND'S " FATAL onr." 27 
 
 the purport of these Acts will be better understood. 
 " Religion " of course gave zest to the plundering, but 
 if the Irish too had been Protestants, their rulers would 
 have robbed them all the same. 
 
 The English conquest, with its planters and under- 
 takers, had thus artificially created a landlord class in 
 Ireland. That class was of course purely Protestant, 
 and backed by English power, its members w r ere now 
 engaged in making laws for the enemies they had 
 spoiled. Land, and the greed for its possession, 
 was at the bottom of it all. Writing of this dreary 
 eighteenth century, Mr. Froude says : " The English 
 deliberately determined to keep Ireland poor and 
 miserable, as the readiest means to prevent it being 
 troublesome. They destroyed Irish trade and ship- 
 ping by navigation laws. They extinguished Irish 
 manufactures by differential duties. They laid disabili- 
 ties even on its wretched agriculture, for fear that Irish 
 importations might injure the English farmers." And 
 speaking of the state of things which British domina- 
 tion thus established, he exclaims : " Of all the fatal 
 gifts which we bestowed on our unhappy possession 
 [Ireland], the greatest was the English system of 
 owning land. Land, properly speaking, cannot be 
 owned by any man it belongs to all the human 
 race. Laws have to be made to secure the profits 
 of their industry to those who cultivate it ; but 
 the private property of this or that person, which he is 
 entitled to deal with as he pleases, land never ought to 
 be and never strictly is. In Ireland, as in all primitive 
 civilizations, the soil was divided among the tribes. 
 Each tribe collectively owned its own district. Under 
 the feudal system the proprietor was the Crown, as 
 representing the nation ; while the subordinate tenures
 
 28 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 were held with duties attached to them, and were liable 
 on non-fulfilment to forfeiture. In England the burden 
 of defence was on the land. Every gentleman, accord- 
 ing to his estate, was bound to bring so many men into 
 the field properly armed and accoutred. When a stand- 
 ing army was substituted for the old levies, the country 
 squires served as unpaid magistrates on the commission 
 of the peace. The country squire system was, in fact, a 
 development of the feudal system, and, as we gave the 
 feudal system to Ireland, so we tried long and earnestly 
 to give them our landowners. The intention, doubtless, 
 was as good as possible in both cases, but we had taken 
 no trouble to understand Ireland, and we failed as com- 
 pletely as before. The duties attached to landed pro- 
 perty died away, or were forgotten the ownership only 
 remained. The people, retaining their tribal traditions, 
 believed that they had rights upon the land on which 
 they lived. The owner believed that there were no 
 rights but his own. In England the rights of landlords 
 have similarly survived their duties, but they have been 
 modified by custom or public opinion. In Ireland, the 
 proprietor was an alien, with the fortunes of the resi- 
 dents upon his estates in his hands and at his mercy. 
 Pie was divided from them in creed and language ; he 
 despised them, as of an inferior race, and he acknow- 
 ledged no interest in common with them. Had he been 
 allowed to trample on them, and make them his slaves, 
 he would have cared for them, perhaps, as lie (tared for 
 his horses. But their persons were free, while their 
 farms and houses were his ; and thus his only object was 
 to wring out of them the last penny which they could 
 pay, leaving them and their children to a life scarcely 
 raised above the level of their own pigs." -Romanism, 
 and the Irish Race, p. 36.
 
 A PARALLEL. 29 
 
 A striking parallel, founded on the state of things 
 thus produced, is drawn by Mr. Godkin : " Let us 
 imagine that the Norman King had lived in Paris, 
 and kept a viceroy in London that the English par- 
 liament were subordinate to the French parliament 
 composed exclusively of Normans and governed by 
 Norman undertakers for the benefit of the dominant 
 state that the whole of the English land was held by 
 ten thousand Norman proprietors, many of them absen- 
 tees that all the offices of the government, in every 
 department, were in the hands of Normans that, differ- 
 ing in religion with the English nation, the French, 
 being only a tenth of the population , had got possession 
 of all the national churches and church property, while 
 the poor natives supported a numerous hierarchy by 
 voluntary contributions that the Anglo-Norman par- 
 liament was bribed and coerced to abolish itself, forming 
 a union of England with France, in which the English 
 members were as one to six. Imagine that in conse- 
 quence of rebellions the land of England had been 
 confiscated three or four times, after desolating wars 
 and famines, so that all the native proprietors were 
 expelled, and the land was parcelled out to French 
 soldiers and adventurers on condition that the foreign 
 ' planters ' should assist in keeping down ' the mere 
 English ' by force of arms. Imagine that the English, 
 being crushed by a cruel penal code for a century, were 
 allowed to re-occupy the soil as mere tenants-at-will, 
 under the absolute power of the French landlords. If 
 all this be imagined by English legislators and English 
 writers, they will be better able to understand the Irish 
 land question, and to comprehend the nature of ' Irish 
 difficulties,' as well as the justice of feeble, insincere, 
 and baffled statesmen in casting the blame of Irish
 
 30 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 misery and disorder on ' the unruly and barbarous 
 nature of Irishmen !' ' 
 
 The condition of the great mass of the people during 
 the period just spoken of was one of the greatest misery. 
 Exorbitant rents were wrung by the landlords from 
 their unfortunate tenants. Bishop Berkeley gives his 
 opinion on the subject of high rents, by describing 
 Irish landlords as " Men of vult urine beaks with bowels 
 of iron ; " much as The Times, forty years ago, said 
 that the same class were " exercising their right with 
 hands of iron and fronts of brass." Chronic starvation 
 prevailed. Every penny made by the tenant was seized 
 by his lord ; Dean Swift, in his Maxims Controlled, 
 says : " At least five children in six who are born, lie a 
 dead weight for want of employment : . above 
 
 one-half of the souls of this kingdom supported them- 
 selves by beggary and thieving, two-thirds whereof 
 would be able to get their bread in any other country 
 in the world." Writing in 1729, he says there were 
 " a round million (half the entire population) of crea- 
 tures in human figure, whose sole subsistence, put into 
 a common stock, would leave them in debt two million 
 pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by pro- 
 fession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and labourers, 
 who are beggars in effect. ... In the list of 
 beggars," he says, " I reckon all cottagers, labourers, 
 and four-fifths of the farmers." 
 
 The very state of things that suggested Swift's Modest 
 Proposal for Preventing the Children of the Poor 
 People from beiny a Ihirdeti to their Parents, will 
 give an idea of the extent of Irish misery at the 
 time it was written. "The number of souls," writes 
 Swift, " in this kingdom being usually reckoned 
 one million and a half, of these I calculate there may
 
 SWIFT'S " MODEST PROPOSAL." 31 
 
 be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are 
 breeders ; from which number I subtract thirty thousand 
 couple who are able to maintain their own children 
 (although I apprehend there cannot be so many under 
 the present distresses of the kingdom). . . . The 
 question, therefore, is how this number (one hundred 
 and twenty thousand children annually born) shall be 
 reared and provided for ? which, as I have already 
 said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly 
 impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. 
 I do therefore offer it to the publick consideration, that, 
 of the one hundred and twenty thousand children already 
 computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed. 
 That the remaining one hundred thousand 
 may, at a year old, be offered in sale to persons of 
 quality and fortune through the kingdom ; always ad- 
 vising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the 
 last month, so as to render them plump and fat for 
 a good table. ... I have reckoned, upon a 
 medium, that a child just born will weigh twelve 
 pounds, and, in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, will 
 increase to twenty-eight pounds. I grant this food 
 will be somewhat dear, and, therefore, very proper for 
 landlords, who as they have already devoured most of 
 the parents, have the best title to the children." After 
 dilating on the succulent properties of infant flesh for 
 nurses : " I have already computed the charge of nurs- 
 ing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cot- 
 tagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be 
 about two shillings per annum, rags included ; and I 
 believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings 
 for the carcass of a good fat child, which, I have said, 
 will make four dishes of excellent, nutritive meat, when 
 he has only some particular friend or his own family
 
 32 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be 
 a good landlord and grow popular among the tenants ; 
 the mother will have eight shillings neat profit, and be 
 fit for work till she produces another child." He then 
 suggests to the " more thrifty (such as the times re- 
 quire) to flay the carcass, the skin of which, artificially 
 dressed, would make admirable gloves for ladies and 
 summer boots for fine gentlemen ;" " the establishment 
 of shambles, butchers being sure not to be wanting," 
 and the " buying the children alive, and dressing them 
 hot from the knife as we do roasting pigs." Having 
 thus disposed of the infants, he came to the grown-up 
 portion of the " beggars, " and at the suggestion of 
 " a very worthy person, a true lover of his country," 
 recommends that " the want of venison might be well 
 supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, 
 not exceeding fourteen years, nor under twelve 
 so great a number of both sexes being ready to starve 
 in every county for want of work and service. 
 Neither, indeed, could he deny that if the same use 
 were made of several plump, young girls in this town 
 [Dublin], who, without one single groat to their for- 
 tunes, cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear 
 at a play-house and assemblies in foreign fineries which 
 they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the 
 worse." And lastly, as to "these vast number of poor 
 people who are aged, diseased, and maimed/' he was 
 " not in the least pained upon that matter, because it 
 was very well known that they were every day dying 
 and rotting by cold, famine, and filth, and vermin, as 
 fast as could be reasonably expected." 
 
 Such is the picture of Irish wretchedness when our 
 population was only one million and a-half, and before 
 the phrase " congested districts " was invented.
 
 TENANTRY GROUND TO POWDER. 33 
 
 Arthur Dobbs, afterwards Governor of Carolina, writ- 
 ing at this period, says : " What was it induced so 
 many of the commonalty lately to go to America, 
 but high rents, bad seasons, and want of good tenures, 
 or a permanent property in their land ? This kept 
 them poor and low, that they scarce had sufficient 
 credit to procure necessaries to subsist or till their 
 ground. They never had anything in store ; all was 
 from hand to mouth, so one or two bad crops broke 
 them." Arthur Dobbs, it may be added, in 1732 
 carried a Bill for the Reclamation of Irish Waste Lands 
 through both Houses of the Irish Parliament, but the 
 indispensable sanction of the Crown was refused. 
 
 The misery of the country naturally led, as it always 
 leads, to crime and outrage ; and various illegal secret 
 combinations, such as the Whiteboy and kindred organ- 
 izations, spread amongst the people. Speaking of the 
 rising of the " Right Boys" in Cork and Kerry, in 1787, 
 the Attorney-General, Mr. Fitzgibbon, declared, in a 
 debate in the Irish House of Commons in 1787, it was 
 owing solely to the cruelty of the landlords, and that 
 " the peasantry of Munster, bound to pay 6 an acre 
 rent, and to work for their landlords at 5d. a day, could 
 no longer exist under the wretchedness they endured." 
 On the debate on the Bill to suppress these disturb- 
 ances, he said : " I am well acquainted with the pro- 
 vince of Munster, and I know that it is impossible for 
 human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable 
 peasantry of that province. I know that the unhappy 
 tenantry are ground to powder by relentless landlords. 
 I know that far from being able to give the clergy their 
 just dues [Protestant tithes], they had not food or 
 raiment for themselves ; the landlord grasps the whole. 
 The poor people of Munster live in a more abject state
 
 34 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 of poverty than human nature can be supposed able to 
 bear ; their miseries are intolerable." 
 
 From this period we read of " The Whiteboys," " The 
 Whitefeet," "The Terryalts," "The Rockites," "The 
 Defenders," " The Levellers," " The Peep-of-Day Boys," 
 "The Hearts of Oak," "The Hearts of Steel," "The 
 Ribbomnen," and other secret combinations formed by 
 the tenants. These societies rudely maintained on the 
 part of the common people, the hereditary struggle for 
 the lands from which their fathers had been dispossessed 
 by Elizabeth, by James, by Cromwell, or by William, to 
 make room for the stranger. Landlordism, however, 
 was upheld by the law, and the Statute Book of the 
 eighteenth century is blotted by ferocious and barbarous 
 enactments, made by the landlords in the interest of 
 their class, to uphold them in the possession of their ill- 
 gotten estates, and to prevent the people from winning 
 back their own. It may be added, that in the nine- 
 teenth century they still keep these laws in force, and 
 that for trivial charges arising out of the land agitation 
 of 1880, the Government indicted sundry "agitators" 
 under the Whiteboy statutes, which prescribe a penalty 
 of penal servitude for life, with the addition of being, 
 " if a male, once, twice, or thrice, publicly or privately 
 whipped." 1 & 2 William IV. cap. 44, amending an Act 
 of George III.* 
 
 Some of the older secret societies were wholly com- 
 posed of Protestants, and this, long before the Protestant 
 party in Ulster founded the formidable United Irish 
 organization, which headed the Rebellion of 1798. 
 The aims of the United Irishmen were political rather 
 than agrarian; but years before their day the descendants 
 
 * See Queen v. Ifaaly and Walsh, etc., Cork Assi/es, 15th December, 
 1880, and many subsequent trials.
 
 PROTESTANT REBELS. 35 
 
 of the Planters of the North found themselves oppressed 
 by the territorialists, quite as grievously as the most 
 " superstitious " Papists elsewhere ; and it is not much 
 more than a century ago since one of these Protestant 
 organizations the Hearts of Steel formed in 1772 to 
 resist oppression on Lord DonegalTs vast estates- 
 marched into Belfast in armed defiance of the autho- 
 rities, and rescued from the city jail several of their 
 number who had been captured in some criminal under- 
 taking of the " moonlight " order. The historian also 
 relates, that when the marauders were brought to justice, 
 no Belfast jury could be found to convict them, and 
 the venue had to be changed to Dublin. See Lecky's 
 England in the Eighteenth Century, and Father 
 O'Laverty's History of Down and Connor. 
 
 These criminals being, however, Protestant, George 
 III. was moved to pity on their behalf, as appears from 
 a letter preserved in State Paper Office, London, and 
 addressed from St. James's Palace, to the Viceroy of 
 Ireland, on April 6th, 1772 : "It has given the King 
 great pleasure to hear that the disturbances in the North 
 of Ireland are likely to be quelled without danger or 
 further effusion of blood ; but his Majesty's humanity 
 was, at the same time, greatly affected by hearing your 
 Excellency's opinion, that they owe their rise to private 
 oppression, and that the over-greediness and harshness 
 of landlords may be a means of depriving the kingdom 
 of a number of his Majesty's most industrious and valu- 
 able subjects. The King does not doubt but that your 
 Excellency will endeavour, by every means in your 
 power, to convince persons of property of their infatu- 
 ation in this respect, and to instil into them principles 
 of equity and moderation, which, it is to be feared, can 
 only apply an effectual remedy to the evil."
 
 36 CROMWELL TO THE UNION. 
 
 How much good would have been effected elsewhere 
 in Ireland, had clement intercession been made from 
 high places on behalf of the general body of the pea- 
 santry ! 
 
 In a pamphlet published in 1867, Lord Dufferin 
 sums up the evils of hostile rule in Ireland for two 
 centuries, both to trade and to agriculture: "From 
 Queen Elizabeth's reign until the Union, the various 
 commercial confraternities of Great Britain never for a, 
 moment relaxed their relentless grip of the trades of 
 Ireland. One by one each of our nascent industries 
 was either strangled in its birth, or handed over, gagged 
 and bound, to the jealous custody of the rival interest 
 in England, until at last every fountain of wealth was 
 hermetically sealed, and even the traditions of com- 
 mercial enterprize have perished through disuetude. 
 
 " The owners of England's pastures had the honour 
 of opening the campaign. As early as the commence- 
 ment of the sixteenth century, the beeves of Roscommon, 
 Tipperary, and Queen's County, undersold the produce 
 of the English grass counties in their own market. By 
 an Act of the 20th Elizabeth Irish cattle was declared a 
 ' nuisance,' and their importation prohibited. Forbidden 
 to send our beasts alive across the Channel, we killed 
 them at home, and began to supply the sister country 
 with cured provisions. A second Act of Parliament 
 imposed prohibitory duties on salted meats. The hides 
 of the animals still remained ; but the same influence 
 put a stop to the importation of leather. Our cattle 
 trade abolished, we tried sheep-farming. The sheep- 
 breeders of England immediately took alarm, and the 
 Irish wool was declared contraband by Charles II. 
 Headed in this direction, we tried to work up the raw 
 material at home ; but this created the greatest outcry
 
 INDUSTRY RUINED. 37 
 
 of all. Every maker of fustian, flannel, and broadcloth 
 in the couutiy rose up in arms, and by an Act of 
 William III. the woollen industry of Ireland was ex- 
 tincniished, and 20,000 manufacturers left the island. 
 
 o 
 
 The easiness of the Irish labour market and the cheap- 
 ness of provisions still giving us an advantage, even 
 though we had to import our materials, we next made a 
 dash at the silk business; but the silk manufacturer, the 
 sugar refiner, the soap and candle maker (who especially 
 dreaded the abundance of our kelp), and every other 
 trade or interest that thought it worth its while to 
 petition, was received by Parliament with the same 
 partial cordiality, until the most searching scrutiny 
 failed to detect a single vent through which it was 
 possible for the hated industry of Ireland to respire. 
 But although excluded from the markets of Great 
 Britain, a hundred harbours gave her access to the 
 universal sea. Alas ! a rival commerce on her own 
 element was still less welcome to England, and as 
 early as the reign of Charles II., the Levant, the 
 ports of Europe, and the oceans beyond the Cape of 
 Good Hope were forbidden to the flag of Ireland. The 
 Colonial trade alone was in any manner open, if that 
 can be called an open trade which for a long time pre- 
 cluded all exports whatever, and excluded from direct 
 importation to Ireland such important articles as sugar, 
 cotton, and tobacco. What has been the consequence 
 of such a system, pursued with relentless pertinacity 
 for two hundred and fifty years ? This that debarred 
 from every other trade and industry, the entire nation 
 flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse 
 as when a river whose current is suddenly impeded, 
 rolls back and drowns the valley it once fertilized." 
 The native lawlessness and "turbulence" of the Irish 
 
 .'J84H43
 
 38 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 being frequently alleged as a cause of their misfortunes, 
 the opinion of two English jurists is worth quoting. Sir 
 John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland in the reign 
 of James I., and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons 
 in 1613, said: There is no nation of people under the 
 sun that doth love equal and indifferent justice better 
 than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the 
 execution thereof, although it be against themselves, so 
 that they may have the protection of the law when upon 
 just cause they do desire it." Lord Chief Justice Coke, 
 a contemporary of Sir John Davies, wrote : " Of the 
 kingdom of Ireland I have been informed by many that 
 have had judicial places there, and partly of my own 
 knowledge, that there is no nation in the Christian world 
 that are greater lovers of justice than they are ; which 
 virtue must be accompanied by many others." Institutes, 
 iv. c. 75.
 
 [ 39 ] 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 IN 1800 the Act of Union between England and Ireland 
 was passed, by bribing the nominees of rotten baroughs 
 and pocket seats, and dragooning the country into an 
 abortive rebellion, which left the masses cowed and 
 demoralized. All kinds of golden promises were 
 made as to its effect, but everyone of them have been 
 falsified. 
 
 Mr. J. R. Green, in his Short History of the English 
 People, says : " Pitt saw that much at least of the 
 misery and disloyalty of Ireland sprang from its poverty. 
 And of this poverty much was the direct result of unjust 
 law. Ireland was a grazing country ; but to protect the 
 interest of English graziers the import of its cattle into 
 England was forbidden. To protect the interest of Eng- 
 lish clothiers and weavers, its manufactures were loaded 
 with duties." The same historian, writing on Ireland 
 under the Georges, says that " for more than a century 
 Ireland was the worst governed country in Europe. 
 England did her best to annihilate Irish commerce and to 
 ruin Irish agriculture. Statutes passed by the jealousy 
 of English landowners forbade the export of Irish cattle 
 or sheep to English ports. The export of wool was for- 
 bidden, lest it might interfere with the profits of the 
 English wool growers. Poverty was thus added to the 
 curse of misgoverument ; and poverty, deepened with 
 the rapid growth of the native population, turned the 
 country into a hell."
 
 ;s 
 / 
 
 40 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 Let us see what was the effect of Pitt's measure 
 ou manufactures. In 1800 there were in 
 
 Dublin, 90 Woollen manufacturers, employing 
 
 4,918 hands, 
 ,, 30 Wool-combers, employing 230 
 
 hands, 
 13 Carpet-combers, employing 230 
 
 hands, 
 
 ,, - 2,500 Silk-loom weavers ; 
 
 Cork, - 1,000 Braid weavers, 
 
 2,000 Worsted weavers, 
 
 3,000 Hosiers, 
 
 ,, 700 Wool-combers, 
 
 - 2,000 Cotton weavers, 
 
 600 Linen-check weavers ; 
 
 Wicklow, 1,000 Hand-loom weavers ; 
 Kilkenny, - 56 Blanket manufacturers ; 
 Balbriggan, 2,500 Calico looms at work. 
 
 To-day not a vestige of these industries remain, with 
 the exception perhaps of a single tweed factory in Dublin, 
 while of new works to take their place there are practi- 
 cally none. These are but sample instances of decline, 
 for all over the country may be seen roofless factories, 
 idle mill-wheels, and empty storehouses. "I shall do all 
 that in me lies to discourage Irish woollen manufactures" 
 said William III. to his parliament (1698); but the dis- 
 couragements of restrictive laws in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury operated less fatally to Irish trade than the indirect 
 blight brought on every Irish industry by the Legisla- 
 tive Union. In the 86 years it has been in force there 
 have been 1 1 Acts for the direct relief, otherwise than 
 by the ordinary poor law, of exceptional distress; 10 
 for the indirect relief of poverty by public works ; 4 for
 
 THE COUNTRY DECAYS. 41 
 
 giving the poor employment at the public expense ; 4 feu- 
 con tending with famine fever ; 4 for saving from star- 
 vation the thousands of children deserted through the 
 poverty of their parents ; 3 for the relief of railway 
 companies unable to proceed with their works ; 4 for the 
 artificial assistance of banks, and for sustaining com- 
 mercial credit ; and 4 affecting encumbered estates- 
 making in all 43 Acts in fulfilment of Pitt's prophecies 
 of boundless prosperity as the result of his measure. 
 The Irish Problem and How to Solve it, 1883. 
 
 The following statistics are from a Eeport of the 
 Select Committee on Dublin Local Taxation in 1825 : 
 " Prior to the Union, 98 Peers and a proportionate 
 number of wealthy Commoners inhabited the City [of 
 Dublin]. The number of resident Peers at present does 
 not exceed 12. The effect of the Union has been to 
 withdraw from Dublin many of those who were likely 
 to contribute most effectually to its operation and im- 
 portance. A house which in 1797 paid 6 4s. is now 
 subject to 30, whilst the value of property has been 
 reduced 20 per cent. The number of inhabited houses 
 has diminished from 15,104 to 14,949. The number of 
 insolvent houses augmented, from the year 1815 to 
 1822, from 880 to 4,719. In 1799 there were only 7 
 bankrupts in Dublin ; in 1810 there were 152." Were 
 a report on the city to be called for now, it would 
 tell a still more woeful tale. On the other hand, 
 Lord Clare, the chief Irish advocate of the Union, 
 said in 1798 : "There is not a nation on the face of 
 the habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation, 
 in manufactures, with the same rapidity in the same 
 period as Ireland," viz. : during the years of Gnittan's 
 parliament. Judge Jebb, in a pamphlet published in 
 1798, wrote : " In the course of fifteen years our com-
 
 42 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 merce, our agriculture, and our manufactures have 
 swelled to an amount that the most sanguine friends of 
 Ireland could not have dared to prognosticate." 
 
 Lord Plunket, in the English House of Lords, after 
 the Union, said : " Ireland's revenue, her trade, her 
 manufactures, had thriven beyond the hope or the 
 example of every other country of her extent within 
 the few years before the Union, with a rapidity astonish- 
 ing even to herself." 
 
 Daniel O'Connell, when on his trial in 1844, quoted 
 a parliamentary return, showing that from 1785 to 1800 
 the consumption of luxuries increased in Ireland even to 
 a greater extent than in England. Thus : 
 
 Increase per cent. 
 in Ireland. in England. 
 
 Tea, 84 45 
 
 Cotfee, GOO 75 
 
 Tobacco, 100 64 
 
 Wine, 74 52 
 
 Sugar, 57 53 
 
 The Rev. Charles Boyton, in 1832, speaking at the 
 Protestant Conservative Society of Ireland, gave the 
 number of sheep and cattle sold at Ballinasloe Fair in 
 1799 and the number exported to England (quoted by 
 Isaac, Butt at Home Rule Conference, 18th November, 
 1873, see also Thorn's Directory for 1886, pp. 595 and 
 692.) This fair is the great annual Irish fair, and sales 
 at it give a comparative test of the number of cattle and 
 sheep reared in the entire country. 
 
 F^et us therefore compare the sales at Ballinasloe in 
 1799 with 1884, and then contrast the exports of live 
 stock to England from all Ireland in the same years :
 
 TESTS OF PROSPERITY. 43 
 
 1799. 
 
 Cattle. Sheep. 
 
 Sold at Ballinasloe, 9,900 77,900 
 
 Exported to England, - 14,000 800 
 
 1884. 
 
 Cattle. Sheep. 
 
 Sold at Ballinasloe, 12,101 37,318 
 
 Exported to England, - 715,843 533,285 
 
 There was nearly the same population in the country in 
 both years, and Mr. Butt asks, If the same number of 
 live stock were raised in 1799, what became of the beef 
 and mutton ? " There was then an Irish population," 
 he says, " eating meat and paying for it. Now it goes 
 to England. It is only the market that has changed." 
 Some persons quote these increased exports as a proof 
 of prosperity; but the character of the exports makes all 
 the difference, especially when they go to pay for 
 imports of articles which were then all made at home, 
 by the very artizans and merchants who ate the beef 
 and mutton that is now shipped out of the country. 
 Mr. Butt argued that " the very exportations which are 
 the result and proof of our poverty, are paraded as the 
 evidence of that Irish prosperity of which English 
 ministers and Irish placemen arc so proud." 
 
 But the best tests of the failure of the Union are 
 the repressive laws by which it has been found necess- 
 ary to coerce the population. For scarcely a single 
 complete year since 1800 has Ireland enjoyed the bless- 
 ings of the British Constitution. Law and order has 
 been maintained by the following measures. (See J. 
 S. Lcadam's pamphlet on Coercion, 1881, and T. P. 
 O'Connor's Parnell Movement, 1880.)
 
 44 
 
 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 1800 
 
 to 
 
 1805 
 
 1807 
 
 1808- 
 1814 
 
 to 
 1816 
 
 1817 
 
 1822 
 
 to 
 1830 
 
 1830 
 1831 
 1831 
 1832 
 1833 
 1833 
 1834 
 
 1834 
 1335 
 1836 
 1838 
 1839 
 1840 
 1841 
 1841 
 1843 
 1848 
 
 1844 
 1845 
 
 1845 
 
 \ Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
 | Seven Coercion Acts. 
 
 {1st February, Coercion Act. 
 Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
 2nd August, Insurrection Act. 
 9 Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
 
 j Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
 ) Insurrection Act. 
 
 ( Habeas Corpus Suspension, 
 i One Coercion Act. 
 
 i Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
 Two Coercion Acts in 1822, 
 and one in 1823. 
 Importation of Arms Act. 
 Whiteboy Act. 
 Stanley's Arms Act. 
 Arms and Gunpowder Act. 
 Suppression of Disturbance. 
 Change of Venue Act. 
 Disturbances Amendment and 
 
 Continuance. 
 
 Arms and Gunpowder Act. 
 Public Peace Act. 
 Another Arms Act. 
 Another Arms Act. 
 Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 Another Arms Act. 
 Outrages Act. 
 Another Arms Act. 
 Another Arms Act. 
 Act Consolidating all Previous 
 
 Coercion Acts. 
 Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 Additional Constables near 
 
 Public Works Act. 
 Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 
 1846 
 1847 
 1848 
 1848 
 1848 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1853 
 1854 
 1855 
 1856 
 1858 
 1860 
 1862 
 1862 
 1865 
 1866 
 
 1866 
 1867 
 1868 
 1870 
 1871 
 1871 
 1873 
 1875 
 1875 
 1881 
 
 to 
 
 1882 
 1881 
 
 to 
 
 1886 
 1882 
 1886 
 
 Constabulary Enlargement. 
 Crime and Outrage Act. 
 Treason Amendment Act. 
 Removal of Arms Act. 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 
 Another Oaths Act. 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 
 Crime and Outrage Act. 
 Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 Crime and Outrage Act. 
 Crime and Outrage Act. 
 Crime and Outrage Act. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus 
 
 Act (August). 
 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Protection of Life and Property 
 Peace Preservation Con. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Peace Preservation Act. 
 Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 
 ) Peace Preservation Act (sus- 
 ( pending Habeas Corpus). 
 
 > Arms Act. 
 
 to 1885 Crimes Ac-t. 
 to 1887 Arms Act. 
 
 Hand iii hand with these Coercion Acts, Parliament 
 passed a number of others far more hurtful to the daily 
 life of the people, under the pretence of "simplify- 
 ing the law." For seventy years after the Union 
 the Legislature steadily encroached on the common 
 law rights of the tenants, in a way that the landlord
 
 EVICTION MADE EASY. 45 
 
 parliament of Ireland never dreamt of doing. Mr. 
 Gladstone, referring to this in his speech on the day 
 of the rejection of his Home Rule Bill (7th June, 1886), 
 said : " The old and intertangled usages of Irish law, 
 replaced in an imperfect manner the tribal usages on 
 which landed tenures in Ireland were founded. Parlia- 
 ment swept them away, and exposed the tenant to the 
 action of the landlord, but did nothing to relieve the 
 terrible distress which was finally disclosed by the 
 Devon Commission." 
 
 In 1829, W. Bicheno, in his Economy of Ireland, 
 p. 64, said : " The laws in the landlord's favour are 
 already more summary and stronger than they are in 
 England, and he is yet calling for additional assistance. 
 The condition of the peasantry is reduced to a 
 lower scale by every new power that is created. Every 
 fresh law exonerates the proprietors more and more 
 from cultivating the good opinion of their dependants, 
 and, moreover, removes the odium of any oppression 
 from the individual who ought to bear it, to the 
 State." Since O'Connell's time ejectments have been 
 made still more easy. 
 
 O'Connell denounced these parliamentary encroach- 
 ments on the tenants' rights, in a speech delivered in the 
 House of Commons, on the 3rd April, 1846 (Collected 
 Speeches, edited by Miss Cusack, vol. ii. p. 201) : 
 " Although there had been some murders committed in 
 Ireland that were not directly traceable to evictions from 
 land, yet in sum and substance the whole form and state 
 of society showed it was from evictions from land, from 
 the insecurity of land holdings, from the difficulties 
 arising through the want of laud, that we must seek for 
 the great and primary cause of all these crimes. Tins 
 great fault was the land question. The fact was, that
 
 46 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 the House had done too much for the landlord, and too 
 little for the occupier. What had been the first measure 
 for the benefit of the landlords ? The first statute 
 passed after the Union in favour of the landlords was 
 the Act 56 George III. c. 88, which gave them addi- 
 tional powers to work out ejectments. Up to that time 
 they had not the power to distrain. The statutes of 
 England were not enacted in Ireland towards landlords, 
 but the Act 56 George III. c. 88, gave them powers 
 which were no part of the bargain at the time of the 
 Union. Many parties had taken leases and made con- 
 tracts without those new powers being in the hands of 
 the landlords. The statute gave them the power of dis- 
 training growing crops, keeping them till ripe, saving 
 and selling them when ripe, charging upon the tenant 
 the accumulation of expense. All these powers were 
 first introduced by this statute and conferred upon the 
 Irish landlord. He did not believe there had ever been 
 a more fertile source of murder and outrage than these 
 powers. Thus the source of crime was directly trace- 
 able to the legislation of that house, and it was the 
 imperative duty of that house, and every member in it, 
 immediately, or as speedily as possible, to repeal that 
 Act. Then there came the Act 58 George III. c. 39, for 
 civil bill ejectment. First, the power was given upon 
 the growing crop, enabling the landlord to ruin the 
 tenant, and then there came the further power to the 
 landlord of turning out the tenant from his holding. 
 The Act 1 George IV. c.. 41 extended the power of civil 
 bill ejectment, and the Act 1 William IV. c. 87 enabled 
 the landlords to get security for costs from defendants 
 in ejectments. Then the Act 1 & 2 William IV. c. 31, 
 gave the landlords the right of immediate execution 
 in ejectment ; and the Act 6 & 7 William IV. gave
 
 ABSENTEEISM INCREASES. 47 
 
 further facilities for civil bill ejectments. All these were 
 additional powers to the landlord. And it was to these 
 statutes that the late Lord Chief Justice Pennefather 
 referred when he said their object was to forward the 
 interests of the landlord." 
 
 Baron Pennefather's words were : " The entire land- 
 lord and tenant code goes to give increased facilities to 
 the landlord. It never entered the head of the legisla- 
 ture to make provision for the tenant ; and all these 
 enactments, at least thirty-two, are invasions of the 
 common law, without any declared intention to invade." 
 (Charge to a jury in an ejectment case, Hilary Term, 
 1843.) 
 
 Before the Union we had rack-renting. After it we 
 got rack-renting, evictions, absenteeism, and emigration. 
 The Lords and Commons of Ireland, who were the great 
 landed proprietors of the country had up to this, to a 
 considerable extent, resided in the Irish capital ; but 
 after 1800 their business and their pleasures took them 
 across to London, and permanent residence in Ireland 
 was no longer fashionable. 
 
 D' Alton, in his History of the County Dublin, p. 85, 
 gives a comparative table, compiled from the most 
 approved authorities, of the amount of the annual 
 absentee rental. 
 
 1691 136,018 
 
 1729 627,799 
 
 1782 2,223,222 
 
 1783 1,608,932 
 1804 3,000,000 
 1830 4,000,000 
 1838 5,000,000 
 
 In 1830, Mr. Butler Bryan estimated, before a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons, the absentee drain at
 
 48 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 .3,000,000. Mr. Eusor, " after a minute calculation," 
 at 4,000,000. The total rental of Ireland is estimated 
 at about 16,000,000; and on 23rd April, 1872, a 
 return of Irish Landed Proprietors was presented to 
 the House of Commons (Thorn's Directory for 1884, 
 p. 743), from which it appears : 5,589 persons, owning 
 8,880,549 acres, valued for rating at 4,718,497, then 
 resided "on or near their property;" 4,842 proprietors, 
 owning 5,215,264 acres, valued for rating at 2,499,343, 
 lived " usually elsewhere in Ireland, and occasionally on 
 the property;" 821,200 acres, valued at 491,778, were 
 held by public institutions and persons (unclassed as to 
 absenteeism) owning under 100 acres. The remaining 
 2,973 proprietors, owning 5,129,169 acres, valued for 
 rating at 2,470,816, are set down as "absentees." 
 The return does not include absentee house-owners, such 
 as Lord Pembroke, who draws over half a million from 
 Dublin alone. The Irish Doomsday Book shows that 
 of the 20,000,000 acres in Ireland, 1,942 persons own 
 two-thirds, 744 own one-half, 292 persons own one- 
 third, 14 persons own 50,000 acres each, 12 persons 
 own 1,297,888 acres, 3 persons own 3,000,000 acres, 
 and one person owns 170,119 acres. 
 
 Mr. (afterwards Chief-Justice) Blackburne, Commis- 
 sioner of the Insurrection Act during several years in 
 the south of Ireland, deposed before a Committee of 
 the Lords : " As to the state of Ireland, any view 
 I suggest would be incomplete without stating the 
 efiects of absenteeship. My opinion is that, indepen- 
 dent of its abstraction from the country of so much 
 wealth, it produces great mischief to the whole 
 frame of society : in Ireland, I may say, there is the 
 destitution, the want of a distinct class. In ordinary 
 times, the loss of influence and authority, and the
 
 SMALL FREEHOLDERS CLEARED OFF. 49 
 
 control which belongs to education, to rank, and to 
 property, must be deeply felt in any country ; but 
 when it becomes disturbed, I need not say that that 
 which would form the barrier for the protection of the 
 peace is lost in Ireland : and I have now been admin- 
 istering the Insurrection Act in counties where the 
 property of absentees is extensive." 
 
 Even measures of political amelioration were wrested 
 to the destruction of the people. An Act had been 
 passed in 1793, giving to every person possessed of a 
 forty-shilling freehold the right to vote for members of 
 Parliament, and this statute exercised indirectly a con- 
 siderable influence in lowering the social condition of 
 the peasantry ; as the great proprietors, by simply 
 leasing for lives the smallest patch of land, were enabled 
 to multiply almost indefinitely the number of their 
 voters, and consequently to increase their political 
 power. " Landlords and middlemen," says the Report of 
 the Devon Commission in 1845, "found the importance 
 of a numerous following of tenantry, and sub-division 
 and subletting being indirectly encouraged, greatly in- 
 creased." " Landlords," corroborates Mr. Jephsou, in 
 his Notes on Irish Questions, " considering that every 
 freehold they created added much to their personal and 
 political interest in the country, often, on the expiration 
 of a lease, cut up their farms into several smaller hold- 
 ings, for the purpose of multiplying voters, and en- 
 couraged their leaseholders to divide their lands for the 
 same purpose." " The landlords cut up their estates 
 into ribbons for the purpose of manufacturing free- 
 holders," said Colonel Blacker, quoted by Right Hon. 
 Hugh Law, in debate on Ulster Tenant-right Bill, 2nd 
 June, 1875. Population of course grew denser, and 
 large numbers of the peasantry lived from year to year
 
 50 THE UNIOX TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 on a single acre or two of land sown only with potatoes. 
 Then came the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, 
 which, on the "judicious mixture" principle of a boon 
 and a blow, abolished the forty-shilling freeholders ; and 
 forthwith the landlords, to whom this class of tenant 
 had, except for political purposes, scarcely been profit- 
 able, ruthlessly began to clear them off. Emancipation 
 had only been granted, as the Duke of Wellington told 
 the King, " to prevent civil war," and the landlords 
 imitated Parliament in being avenged upon the voters, 
 who at the polls defied both themselves and the 
 Government. By the thousand their hovels were razed, 
 and the Popish vermin sent adrift without a farthing 
 compensation. There being no poor-law in Ireland at 
 the time, even the shelter of the workhouse was not 
 available for the homeless wretches. 
 
 To afford a historical view of the conduct of the ruling 
 classes in Ireland, the following testimonials to their 
 general course of action have been collated from un- 
 prejudiced authorities : - 
 
 Edmund Spencer. (1552-1559) " The landlords 
 there most shamefully rack their tenants." 
 
 Dean Swift. (1667-1745) "Rents squeezed out of 
 the blood, and vitals, and clothes, and dwellings of the 
 tenants, who live worse than English beggars." 
 
 Archbishop Boulter. (1671-1742) "Here the tenant, 
 I fear, has hardly ever more than one-third for his share ; 
 too often but a fourth or a fifth part." Letters, vol. i. 
 p. 292. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin (1772) in a letter written after 
 a tour of Ireland, said : " The bulk of the people are 
 tenants, extremely poor, living in the most sordid 
 wretchedness, in dirty hovels of mud and straw, and 
 clothed only in rags. . . . Had I never been in the
 
 LANDLORDISM HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 51 
 
 American colonies, but were to form my judgment of 
 civil society by what I have lately seen, I should never 
 advise a nation of savages to admit of civilization, for I 
 assure you that in the possession and enjoyment of the 
 various comforts of life, compared to these people, every 
 Indian is a gentleman, and the effect of this kind of civil 
 society seems to be the depressing multitudes below the 
 savage state that a few may be raised above it." 
 
 Arthur Young, F.R.S. (1779) wrote : " It must 
 be very apparent to every traveller through that country 
 that the labouring poor are treated with harshness, and 
 are in all respects so little considered that their want of 
 importance seems a perfect contrast to their situation in 
 England. A long series of oppressions, aided by many 
 very ill-judged laws, have brought landlords into a habit 
 of exerting a very lofty superiority, and their vassals into 
 that of an almost unlimited submission ; speaking a 
 language that is despised, professing a religion that is 
 abhorred, and being disarmed, the poor find themselves 
 in many cases slaves even in the bosom of ivntten 
 liberty." 
 
 Lord Clare (when Attorney-General in 1787). " The 
 peasantry are ground down to powder by enormous 
 rents." 
 
 " Exorbitant rents" (1791) Argument for the Sup- 
 port of the Poor, Bishop Woodward, p. 15. 
 
 " Exorbitant rents." (1805) Newenham's Inquiry, 
 etc., p. 15. 
 
 "Exorbitant rents." (1806) Gordon's History of 
 Ireland, vol. ii. p. 241, Dublin. 
 
 " It is an undoubted fact that, as landlords, they 
 exact more from their tenants than the same class of 
 men in any other country" (1812) Wakefield's 
 Account of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 795, London.
 
 52 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 "Exorbitant rents." (1818) Curwen, Observations 
 on the State of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 32. 
 
 "Exorbitant rents." (1825) First Report on the 
 State of Ireland, p. 38 ; see pp. 59, 307, 413, 414, 
 638, etc. 
 
 " The Irish landlords, as a class, are needy, exacting, 
 unremitting, harsh, and without sympathy for their 
 tenantry." (1829) Bicheno's Economy of Ireland. 
 
 In 1822, Mr. Wiggins (agent to the Marquis of Hert- 
 ford) said in his Hints to Landlords : " Irritated by 
 rents too high, even for war prices, by the fallen prices of 
 produce without corresponding reduction of rents and 
 tithes, and by severities which have increased with the 
 difficulties of their collection, the peasantry of Munster 
 yielded to the influence of these and probably of other 
 less apparent causes, and in the winter of 1822 insur- 
 rection and outrage became so extended as to require a 
 large army to check their progress." 
 
 An English Tory, Mr. Sadler, M.P. for Newark, in a 
 work, Ireland and Its Evil (1829), asks: " Is a system 
 which can only be supported by brute force, and is kept 
 up by constant blood-shedding, to be perpetuated for 
 ever ? Are we still to garrison a defenceless country in 
 behalf of those whose property was, generally speaking, 
 originally conferred on the special condition of resi- 
 dence, but whose desertion occasions all the evils under 
 which she has groaned for centuries property so treated 
 that it would not be worth a day's purchase were the 
 proprietors its sole protectors. But they are aware that 
 their absence is balanced by the presence of a body of 
 military and police, which enables them to conduct 
 themselves with as little apprehension as remorse. The 
 possessions of the entire empire would be lost were such 
 conduct general ; and are these so meritorious a class,
 
 CHARACTER OF THE LANDLORDS. 53 
 
 that their utmost demands are to be extorted from a 
 distant and suffering country, and themselves protected 
 in the open neglect, or rather audacious outrage, of all 
 those duties, on the due and reciprocal discharge of 
 which the whole frame of the social system is founded ? 
 If they persist in this course, let them do so, but let it 
 be at their own proper peril." 
 
 " Landlords in Ireland, among the lesser orders, extort 
 exorbitant rents out of the bowels, sweat, and rags of 
 the poor, and then turn them adrift ; they are corrupt 
 magistrates, and jobbing grand jurors, oppressing and 
 plundering the miserable people."- 1832 Bryan's View 
 of Ireland. 
 
 " The Irish country gentleman," says the Dublin Pilot 
 of 2nd January, 1833, "is, we are sorry to say, the 
 most incorrigible being that infests the face of the globe. 
 In the name of law, he tramples on justice ; boasting of 
 superiority of Christian creed, he violates Christian 
 charity is mischievous in the name of the Lord. Were 
 the Irish government inclined to govern the country 
 with good policy (which, bless its heart ! it is not) the 
 greatest impediment it would find would be in the 
 arrogant, besotted, grasping, rack-renting, spendthrift, 
 poor, proud, and profligate country gentleman." 
 
 Freidrich Von Raumer, Professor of History at Berlin, 
 who visited Ireland in 1835 and 1841, found it impos- 
 sible to describe the misery he saw there. It convinced 
 him that " Europe, too, has its pariahs yet not Europe, 
 but Ireland alone." 
 
 Inglis, un English tourist of 1834, said: "It is 
 undeniable that the condition of the Irish poor is im- 
 measurably worse than that of the West Indian slave." 
 
 His countryman, Barrow, the next year said : " No 
 picture drawn by the pencil, done by the pen, can
 
 54 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 possibly convey an idea of the sad reality. 
 
 There is no other country on the face of the earth where 
 
 such extreme misery exists as in Ireland." 
 
 Gustave De Beaumont, the celebrated French publicist, 
 who was in Ireland in 1835 and 1837, says : " I have 
 seen the Indian in his forest and the negro in his chains, 
 and I thought that I beheld the lowest term of human 
 misery, but I did not then know the lot of Ireland. 
 Irish misery forms a type by itself, of which 
 there exists nowhere else either model or imitation. In 
 seeing it, one recognizes that no theoretical limits can be 
 assigned to the misfortunes of nations." 
 
 Kohl, a famous German (Travels in Ireland, 1844), 
 says : " He had pitied the Letts of Livonia for living 
 in huts built of unhewn logs of trees, with the crevices 
 stopped up with moss ; but having seen the West of 
 Ireland, he regarded the Letts, Esthonians, and Fin- 
 landers as living in a state of comparative comfort. He 
 doubted whether in the whole world a nation could be 
 found subjected to the physical privations of the peasan- 
 try in some parts of Ireland. A Kussian peasant was a 
 slave, but he was housed and fed to his contentment ; 
 the Hungarians were not the best used people in the 
 world ; but even the humblest had good wheaten bread 
 and wine for his daily fare ; in Servia and Bosnia, if the 
 people were badly housed, they were well clad ; the 
 Tartars of the Crimea were poor and barbarous, but they 
 looked at least like human beings ; in short, nowhere 
 but in Ireland could be found human creatures living 
 from year's end to year's end on the same root, berry, or 
 weed. There were animals, indeed, that did so, but 
 human beings nowhere save in Ireland." 
 
 Sismondi, the Italian political economist, after a 
 thorough investigation of the subject some fifty years
 
 EUROPEAN WRETCHEDNESS CONTRASTED. 55 
 
 ago, thought that the government should address these 
 words to the Irish landlords : " You have endangered 
 the whole British empire, in driving more than a quarter 
 of its population to a distress which but for our inter- 
 vention could only have finished by a rebellion. You 
 have shaken the foundation of society itself, by render- 
 ing the laws of property hateful. . . . The first right 
 of property is that of the cultivator to live on the fruit 
 of his labour, and that right you have violated ; we shall 
 interfere henceforth without fear or scruple to guarantee 
 it to him in its entirety. We demand that upon the 
 rich soil of Ireland, in the midst of all its luxuriant 
 vegetation, the Irish peasants shall live at least as well 
 as the peasant of the Prussian sands or of the frozen 
 climate of Russia ; that he shall not be worse off than 
 they are for lodging, clothing, food or firing ; that he 
 shall enjoy as much rest and as much security for the 
 future as they do. It is only after having insured to him 
 his share that we shall recognize your right to what 
 remains and shall trouble you to insure it also." 
 
 Miss Martineau, in her History of the Thirty Year's 
 of Peace, says : " The greater part of Irish landed 
 property had been granted three times over at least 
 during the long sequence of troubles in that unhappy 
 country. As for those in actual possession, too many of 
 them conducted themselves and their property in the 
 way which has made the Irish landlord a bye-word and 
 reproach. The virtuous administration of their estates 
 was not to such the great duty and object in life, that it 
 is usually seen to be in countries where the property is 
 secure as a matter of course, where the tenantry and 
 labourers are regarded by the proprietor as persons to 
 whom he owes serious duties, and where the improve- 
 ment of the estate for the benefit of heirs is the first
 
 56 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 consideration in connection with it. The opposite state 
 of affairs was that which naturally appeared in Ireland." 
 "What," said Judge Fletcher, in his charge to the 
 Grand Jury of the County of Waterford, in July, 1814, 
 " is the wretched peasant to do 1 Hunted from the spot 
 where he had first drawn his breath where he had first 
 seen the light of heaven incapable of procuring any 
 other means of subsistence can we be surprised that, 
 being; of unenlightened and uneducated habits, he should 
 
 o o 
 
 rush upon the perpetration of crimes followed by the 
 punishment of the rope and the gibbet "? Nothing 
 remains for them thus harassed, thus destitute, but with 
 a strong hand to deter the stranger from intruding upon 
 their farms, and to extort from the weakness of their 
 landlords from whose gratitude and good feelings they 
 have failed to win it a sort of preference for the ancient 
 tenantry." 
 
 Lord Macaulay, speaking of the relations between 
 misery and crime, says : " We deplore the outrages 
 which accompany revolutions. But the more violent 
 the outrages the more assured we feel that a revolution 
 was necessary. The violence of these outrages will 
 always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance 
 of the people, and the ferocity and ignorance of the 
 people will be proportioned to the oppression and de- 
 gradation under which they have been accustomed to 
 
 T " 
 
 live. 
 
 Said Sydney Smith, sixty years ago : " The mild 
 and the long-suffering may suffer for ever in this world. 
 If the Catholics had stood with their hands before them, 
 simpering at the Earls of Liverpool and the Lords 
 Bathurst of the time, they would not have been emanci- 
 pated until the year of our Lord four thousand. As long 
 as the patient will suffer the cruel will kick.
 
 PARLIAMENTARY FIDDLING. 57 
 
 If the Irish go cm withholding and forbearing, and 
 hesitating whether this is the time for discussion or that 
 is the time, they will be laughed at for another century 
 as fools, and kicked for another century as slaves." 
 
 After every outbreak of distress or outrage, Parlia- 
 ment relieved itself by appointing numerous Commis- 
 sions and Select Committees to inquire into the con- 
 dition of the agricultural population ; but when they 
 reported, there the matter ended. There were always 
 insuperable difficulties in the way of legislation for 
 the benefit of the people. To instance one subject. 
 Between 1810 an.d 1814 a commission reported four 
 times on the condition of Irish bogs. They expressed 
 their entire conviction of the practicability of cultivat- 
 ing with profit an immense extent of land lying waste. 
 The reclamation of waste lands forms an important 
 branch of the Irish land question. The Kegistrar-Gene- 
 ral estimates the total agricultural area of Ireland at 
 20,327,764 acres. Of this total he reports 4,661,938 
 acres to be absolutely waste ; and Professor Baldwin, 
 a Land Commissioner under the Land Act of 1881, 
 declares that, exclusive of absolute waste, we have 
 4,000,000 acres more, rendered nearly valueless by the 
 want of arterial drainage. Sir Humphrey Davy says 
 that Irish marshes cover some of the richest alluvial 
 soil in these kingdoms." In 1819, in 1823, in 1826, 
 and in 1830, Select Committees inquired into and 
 reported on drainage, reclamation of bogs and marshes, 
 on roads, fisheries, emigration, and other schemes for 
 giving employment to a population, that had been 
 encouraged to increase and multiply, while the votes 
 of the forty-shilling freeholders were wanted by the 
 landlords, and " war prices " were obtainable for agri- 
 cultural produce.
 
 58 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 The report of that of 1819, under the presidency of 
 Sir John Newport, to inquire into the state of disease 
 and the condition of the labouring poor, opens by stating 
 that the general distress and deficiency of employment 
 " are so notorious, as to render the production of any 
 particular evidence to establish the extent and variety of 
 the evil unnecessary." The committee suggested the 
 adoption of measures for facilitating the development 
 of Irish agricultural resources, and stated that there 
 were 2,000,000 acres of waste bog-land reclaimable. 
 
 The report of the Select Committee of 1823 tells 
 the usual tale of misery and want. The condition 
 of the people is described as "wretched and calamitous 
 to the last degree." We are told that they lived in a 
 state of the utmost destitution, with scarcely an article 
 of furniture in their miserable cabins, using as bed 
 covering a " little fern and a quantity of straw thrown 
 over it." 
 
 Mr. Wyse, in his evidence before the House of Lords 
 and Commons, 1824, says: " Landlords take advantage 
 of the dreadful necessity, and exact rent out of all pro- 
 portion with the value of the land." 
 
 In 1825 another crisis arose, and another Select Com- 
 mittee was appointed. Before this committee, the 
 peculiar characteristics and incidents which distin- 
 guished the relation of landlord and tenant in Ireland 
 from that relation in England were well pointed 
 out by an English landlord, who was also the pro- 
 prietor of estates in Ireland Sir Franklin Lewis, 
 who said : " Nothing is more striking in Ireland 
 than that a number of burdens which English land- 
 lords are willing to take upon themselves, the Irish 
 landlords do not find it necessary to take upon them- 
 selves. In the maintenance of a farm in England all
 
 MR. NIMMO'S EVIDENCE. 59 
 
 the expensive part of the capital employed upon a farm 
 is provided by the landlord ; the houses, the gates, the 
 fences, and the drains, are all provided by the landlords. 
 Everybody knows that in Ireland that is not the 
 practice ; at the same time that the landlord obtains as 
 rent in Ireland a much larger proportion of the value of 
 the produce of the land than he obtains in England, and 
 in parts of Ireland it appears to me that the landlord 
 sometimes obtains for rent more than is produced by 
 the land." 
 
 Mr. Nimmo, the eminent engineer, was asked by this 
 committee to state his opinion of the condition of the 
 peasantry. He replied: "I conceive the peasantry of 
 Ireland to be in general in the lowest possible state of 
 existence. Their cabins are in the most miserable con- 
 dition, and their food potatoes, with water, without 
 even salt. I have frequently met persons, who begged 
 of me on their knees to give them some promise of 
 employment, that from the credit of that, they might 
 get the means of support." " To what cause do 
 you attribute this state of things ?" Mr. Nimmo was 
 further asked. He replied : " It is unquestionable 
 that the great cause of the miserable condition [of 
 the people] and of the [prevailing] disturbances is 
 the management of land. There is no means of 
 employment, and no certainty that the peasant has 
 of existence for another year, but by getting poss- 
 ession of a portion of land, on whicli he can plant 
 potatoes. The landlord has, in the eyes of the peasant, 
 the right to take from him in a summary way every- 
 thing he has, if he is unable to execute those covenants 
 into which he has been obliged to enter from the dread 
 of starvation." " Do you attribute the distressed state 
 of Ireland to the power which resided in the landlord,
 
 60 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 and to its abuse ?" " I conceive that there is no check 
 to that power. It appears to me that, under the cover 
 of law, the landlord may convert that power to any 
 purpose he pleases. The consequence is, that when he 
 wishes he can extract from the peasant every shilling, 
 beyond bare existence, which can be produced by him 
 from the land. The lower order of peasantry can thus 
 never acquire anything like property ; and the landlord, 
 at the least reverse of prices, has it in his power to 
 seize, and does seize, his cow, bed, potatoes in ground, 
 and everything he has, and can dispose of the property 
 at any price." Select Committee, House of Lords, 1825. 
 Minutes of Evidence, pp. 165, 179, and Hansard, vol. 
 xxxii. SEE. in. p. 185. 
 
 At the commencement of the session of 1829, Mr. 
 Brownlow brought the condition of the tenant-farmers 
 and labouring classes in Ireland under the notice of the 
 Government. His speech, says Mr. Barry O'Brien (Par- 
 liamentary History of the Irish Land Question, 1880) 
 was nothing more nor less than a reproduction of much 
 of the matter contained in the Reports and Evidence of 
 the various Select Committees to which reference has 
 been made. He dwelt upon the inactivity of former 
 Governments, and now urged that to save them from 
 starvation, employment should be given to the people, 
 whose condition was " past description and past endur- 
 ance." " If," said he, " there are millions of unemployed 
 men in Ireland, there are millions of waste land capable 
 of profitable cultivation." 
 
 A few months later (on the 16th February, 1830), the 
 Irish Solicitor-General, Mr. Doherty, stated in the 
 House of Commons that a great part of the tenantry of 
 Ireland were " worse off than the beasts which browsed 
 upon the land ;" adding that it was " high time" to
 
 MORE SELECT COMMITTEES. 61 
 
 make an effort to ameliorate their condition. (Han- 
 sard, vol. xxii. N. s. p. 541). Mr. Brownlow passed 
 through the Commons a Bill dealing with waste lands 
 and bogs, but it did not pass the Lords. 
 
 A Select Committee appointed in 1830 repeats the 
 old story. A considerable portion of the population, 
 nearly one-fifth, it was said, were out of employment, 
 and a condition of poverty and suffering which " no 
 language can possibly describe, and which it is necessary 
 to witness in order fully to estimate," was laid bare. 
 The report dwells at much length on "the law and 
 practice of landlord and tenant," and directs attention 
 to the various suggestions such as emigration, the 
 prosecution of public works, and the reclamation of 
 waste lands which had been made from time to time 
 for remedying the existing disorders. " Your Com- 
 mittee conceives," says the report, " that it is the 
 imperative duty of individuals, of the legislature, and of 
 the Government, to consider what means can be devised 
 to diminish the mass of sufferings, and, at the same 
 time, to secure for the country a better economic con- 
 dition, promoting the better management of estates, and 
 regulating the relation of landlord and tenant on 
 rational and useful principles." 
 
 As usual, nothing was done, although, in addressing 
 the House of Commons on the llth of November, 1830, 
 the Irish Solicitor-General, Mr. Doherty, said, that 
 " there was then in Ireland the existence of a condition 
 of things which the lower animals in England would 
 scarcely endure, and which, in fact, they did not 
 endure." In this year riots occurred in many parts of 
 the country, and serious collisions had taken place 
 between the peasantry and the police. A very grave 
 state of affairs had, in fact, arisen. It was apparently
 
 62 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 the opinion of the Duke of AVellington in 1830, that 
 the landlords were much to blame for the poverty 
 and distress of the people. " If/' said he, " persons 
 of estate and property in Ireland would live there, 
 and spend their incomes in it, they would do more to 
 tranquillize the country than all the measures which 
 his Majesty's Government could adopt." 
 
 On the 18th of February, Mr. Browne stated in Par- 
 liament, that the parish priest of Kilmore, in the Barony 
 of Erris, in the County Mayo, had written him to say 
 that before the end of the month there would be 30,000 
 people in that district without food. This statement of 
 Mr. Browne was, in its substantial features, corroborated 
 by the Irish Secretary, Mr. Stanley, afterwards Earl 
 Derby. The only remedies, however, which the Govern- 
 ment cared to apply were those with which we are so 
 familiar Arms Acts, Coercion Acts, and Suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus ; and accordingly, while remedial 
 Bills, recommended by the Select Committees, were not 
 passed by Parliament, on the plea of want of time, 
 abundance of time was found to run coercive measures 
 through both Houses. Yet Lord Melbourne declared on 
 the 18th March, 1831, that all the witnesses, Catholic 
 and Protestant, magistrates and others, who were 
 examined before the various Select Committees with 
 reference to Ireland, had with one voice ascribed the 
 disturbed state of the country to the relations subsist- 
 ing between landlord and tenant. 
 
 In giving evidence before one of those Select Com- 
 mittees, a stipendiary magistrate, Major Warburton, 
 said: "The destitution produced by the turning persons 
 out of their land, when they have no other means of 
 existence, is a very great source of crime, as such a state 
 of things must naturally involve the people in criminal
 
 POOR-LAW REPORTS. 63 
 
 endeavours to procure the means of maintaining their 
 families." He added that " the causes which produce 
 crime and outrage at present, are the same causes which 
 for many years back have produced the same result." 
 
 In 1835, Richard Cobden declared " that no part of 
 England or Scotland is exempt from its share in the 
 natural consequences of the terrible state of degradation 
 to which the Irish people are reduced. There is not a 
 village or parish of the kingdom into which its famine- 
 impelled natives do not, at certain periods of the year, 
 penetrate, to share the scanty wages of our peasantry, 
 thus dragging them down to their own level." 
 
 In 1836, the Poor-law Commissioners reported : " It 
 appeared that in Great Britain the agricultural fami- 
 lies constituted little more than a fourth, whilst in 
 Ireland they constituted about two-thirds of the whole 
 population ; that there were in Great Britain, in 1831, 
 1,055,982 agricultural labourers ; in Ireland, 1,131,715 
 although the cultivated land of Great Britain amounted 
 to about 34,250,000 acres, and that of Ireland only to 
 about 14,600,000. So that there were in Ireland about 
 five agricultural labourers for every two that there were 
 for the same quantity of land in Great Britain. It 
 further appeared that the agricultural progress of Great 
 Britain was more than four times that of Ireland, in 
 which agricultural wages varied from sixpence to one 
 shilling a day ; the average of the country being about 
 eightperice-halfpenny ; and that the earnings of the 
 labourers came, on an average of the whole class, to from 
 two shillings to two and sixpence a week or thereabouts 
 for the year round." 
 
 The Secretary to the Poor-law Inquiry Commission, 
 reported that " every family which lias not sufficient 
 land to yield its food has one or more of its members
 
 64 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 supported by begging. It will therefore be easily con- 
 ceived that every endeavour is made by the peasantry to 
 obtain small holdings, and that they are not influenced 
 in their biddings by the fertility of the land, or by their 
 ability to pay the rent, but solely by the offer which is 
 most likely to gain them possession. They give up in 
 the shape of rent the whole produce of the soil, with the 
 exception of a sufficiency of potatoes for a subsistence ; 
 but as this is rarely equal to the promised rent, 
 they constantly have against them an increasing 
 balance." 
 
 " In comparison," says a writer in the Dublin Review, 
 July, 1836, "to the mass of suffering which is un- 
 sparingly inflicted, the state of popular feeling and action 
 in Ireland is quiescence itself. No ; compared to the 
 provocations they receive, we say that the blood of 
 Irishmen is tame is humble ; nor is there any other 
 people in Europe wiio would have so long brooked the 
 wrongs they have endured, and not risen up in a simul- 
 taneous effort to shake off the annoyance of such heavy 
 and contemptible oppressors." 
 
 Mr. Tomkins Brew says : " The cause of Terryaltism 
 in Clare was the tenants receiving ' notice to quit ; ' that 
 the people of Clare are, in many districts, in a state of 
 great destitution, and likely to be worse next year ; that 
 the attacks on houses in Clare in 1837 proceeded from 
 the scarcity of provisions when a supply came, the out- 
 rages all ceased." 
 
 " The peasantry are ground down to powder by enor- 
 mous rents," wrote the Quarterly Review, of December, 
 1840, " which are only paid by the exportation of the 
 great bulk of the food raised in the country, leaving 
 those who grow it a bare subsistence upon potatoes eked 
 out with weeds."
 
 MR. DISRAELI ON IRELAND. 65 
 
 In the debate on the Irish Registration Bill, February, 
 1841, the late Lord Derby stated, that "persons 
 having from fifteen to twenty acres of land are generally 
 from April to September in a state of the greatest desti- 
 tution, living on potatoes, without either milk or meat, 
 and considering themselves very happy if they have dry 
 potatoes enough men who during a great part of the 
 year lived on dry potatoes men whom the landlords, 
 letting their lands at a rack rent, may upon any day turn 
 loose upon the world, to starve in the last degree of 
 misery." 
 
 Lord Normanby, in the House of Lords, 17th Feb- 
 ruary, 1844, declared: "In Ireland the landlord has 
 a monopoly of the means of existence, and has a power 
 for enforcing his bargains which does not exist elsewhere 
 the power of starvation." 
 
 Discussing, on 16th February, 1844, some of the eter- 
 nal coercive " remedies," Mr. Disraeli said: "He wished 
 to see a public man come forward and say what the Irish 
 question was. Let them consider Ireland as they would 
 any other country similarly circumstanced. They had 
 a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien 
 Church, and the weakest executive in the world. This 
 was the Irish question. Gentlemen would say at once 
 on reading of a country in such a position, the remedy 
 is revolution not the suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 Act. But the connection with England prevented revo- 
 lution. Therefore England was logically in the position 
 of being the cause of all the misery of Ireland. What, 
 then, was the duty of an English Minister ? To effect 
 by his policy all the changes which a revolution would 
 do by force!" Hansard, SEII. in., vol. Ixxii. p. 1016. 
 When reminded of this speech a quarter of a century 
 afterwards, Mr. Disraeli (16th March, 1868) made the
 
 66 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 celebrated reply : " With reference, however, to that 
 passage, which has been quoted from a speech made by 
 me, I may remark that it appeared to me at the time I 
 made it that nobody listened to it. It seemed to me 
 that I was pouring water upon sand; but it seems now 
 that the water came from a golden goblet. With re- 
 gard to the passage from that speech, there are many 
 remarks which, if I wanted to vindicate or defend my- 
 self, I might legitimately make. . . . But I do not 
 care to say it, and I do not wish to say it, because in 
 my conscience the sentiment of that speech was right. 
 It may have been expressed with the heedless rhetoric 
 which I suppose is the appanage of all who sit below 
 the gangway ; but in my historical conscience the sen- 
 timent of that speech was right." 
 
 Yielding to the instances of Mr. Sharman Crawford, 
 Sir Robert Peel was induced in 1843 to appoint what is 
 known as the "Devon Commission" to enquire into 
 the Laud Question. This Commission was entirely 
 composed of landlords, and sat for two years. It ex- 
 amined an enormous number of witnesses landlords, 
 agents, middlemen, tenants, and others ; but except 
 that it provided a valuable body of evidence, it might 
 as well never have sat. Said Lord John Russell, 
 speaking of its Report, which was issued in 1845 : 
 " However ignorant many of us may be of the state 
 of Ireland, we have here the best evidence that can 
 be procured the evidence of persons best acquainted 
 with that country of magistrates of many years' 
 standing, of farmers, of those who have been employed 
 by the Crown; and all tell you that the possession of 
 land is that which makes the difference between ex- 
 isting and starving amongst the peasantry, and that 
 therefore ejections out of their holdings are the cause
 
 THE DEVON COMMISSION. 67 
 
 of violence and crime in Ireland. In fact, it is no 
 other than the cause which the great master of human 
 nature describes when he makes a tempter suggest it 
 as a reason to violate the law : ' Famine is in thy 
 cheeks, need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, 
 upon thy back hangs ragged misery. The world is 
 not thy friend, nor the world's law ; the world affords 
 no law to make thee rich. Then be not poor, but 
 break it." Hansard, 1846, SER. in. v. Ixxxvii. p. 
 507. The Devon Report says : " A reference to 
 the evidence of most of the witnesses will show 
 that the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues 
 to suffer the greatest privations and hardships ; that 
 he continues to depend upon casual and precarious 
 employment for subsistence ; that he is badly housed, 
 badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his 
 labour. Our personal experience and observations 
 during our inquiry have afforded us a melancholy con- 
 firmation of these statements ; and we cannot forbear 
 expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance 
 which the labouring classes have generally exhibited, 
 under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of 
 any other country in Europe have to sustain." 
 
 The Devon Report elsewhere says: "It is admitted 
 on all hands that according to the general practice in 
 Ireland, the landlord neither builds dwelling-houses, 
 nor farm ofh'ces, nor puts fences, gates, etc., in good 
 order, before he lets his land to a tenant. The cases 
 where a landlord does any of these things are the 
 exceptions. In most cases, whatever is done in the way 
 of building or fencing is done by the tenant; and in the 
 ordinary language of the country, dwelling-houses, farm- 
 buildings, and even the making of fences, are described 
 by the general word ' improvement,' which is thus
 
 68 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 employed to denote the necessary adjuncts to a farm, 
 without which in England or Scotland no tenant would 
 be found to rent it." 
 
 A good example of the manner in which tenants are 
 rented on their improvements is furnished by the re- 
 cords of the Barony of Farney, County Monaghan, of 
 which the history is given by Mr. Godkin : About 
 the year 1606, Lord Essex, who had obtained a grant 
 of the Barony of Farney, leased it to Evar McMahon 
 at a yearly rent of 250. After fourteen years 
 the same territory was let to Brian McMahon for 
 1,500. In the year 1636, the property yielded a 
 yearly rent of 2,022 18s. 4d., paid by thirty-eight 
 tenants. A map then taken gives the several townlands 
 and denominations nearly as they are at present. 
 Robert Earl of Essex dying in 1646, his estates de- 
 volved on his sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy 
 Devereux, the former of whom married Sir W. Seymour, 
 afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter Sir Henry 
 Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half 
 the barony. Ultimately the other half became the pro- 
 perty of the Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1600, 
 each moiety was valued at 1,313 14s. 4^d. Gradually, 
 as the lands were reclaimed by the tenants, the rental 
 rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000, and 
 the Shirley estate 5,000. The total of 8,000 per 
 annum from this once wild and barren tract was paid 
 by middlemen. The natives had not been rooted out, 
 and during the eighteenth century these sub-tenants 
 multiplied rapidly. It should be observed here, that 
 in all crown grants, the patentees were charged crown 
 rents only for the arable lands conveyed by their title 
 deeds bogs, wastes, mountains, and unreclaimed lands 
 of every description being thrown in gratuitously,
 
 IMPROVEMENTS CONFISCATED. 69 
 
 amounting probably to ten or fifteen times the quantity 
 of demised ground set down in acres. Lord Lurgan's 
 agent, Mr. Hancock, at the commencement of his evi- 
 dence before the Devon Commission, stated that " Lord 
 Lurgan is owner of about 24,000 acres, with a popula- 
 tion of 23,800, under the census of 1841;" that is, by 
 means of original reclamation, drainage, and other works 
 of agricultural improvement, Mr. Brownlow's 2,500 
 acres of the year 1619, had silently grown up to 24,600 
 acres, and his hundred swordsmen, or pikemen, the 
 representatives of 57 families, with a few subordinates, 
 had multiplied to 23,800 souls. Now, Mr. Hancock 
 founds the tenant-right custom on the fact that few, if 
 any, of the " patentees were wealthy ;" we may there- 
 fore fairly presume that the settlers built their own 
 houses, and made their own improvements at their own 
 expense, contrary to the English practice. As the popu- 
 lation increased, and " arable " land became valuable, 
 bogs, wastes, and barren land were gradually reclaimed 
 and cultivated, through the hard labour and at the cost 
 of the occupying tenantry, until the possession of his 
 descendants have spread over ten times the area nomi- 
 nally demised by the Crown to their progenitor. 
 
 This process went on all over the province of Ulster, 
 so that it would appear that property which in the year 
 1006 was let for 250, has now been made worth 
 .00,000, solely by the labour of the tenants ; in other 
 words that the difference between 250 and 60,000 
 of tenants' improvements is yearly confiscated by the 
 landlords. 
 
 The London Guilds and Irish Society of London, 
 annually draw in rent from County Deny a sum esti- 
 mated at 200,000 a year, although 26,611 was the 
 entire money expended on the " plantation " in Deny
 
 70 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 by them between 1609 and 1629 inclusive, as ascer- 
 tained by a Royal Commission in 1642. (See The 
 Twelve London Companies in Derry, published in 1869 
 at the Belfast Northern Whig office.) 
 
 For a sample of similar enhancement in the value of 
 confiscated land at the other end of Ireland, the case of 
 the Devonshire Estates in Munster may be cited. It is 
 mentioned at page 6, that Sir W. Raleigh got some 
 42,000 acres (exclusive, as usual, of waste, bog, and 
 mountain), out of the plunder of the Earl of Desmond's 
 territories. A London judge's clerk, named Richard 
 Boyle, who had graduated in Ireland as a forger, a 
 horse-thief, and conniver of murder, was raised to the 
 Deputy Escheatorship of Munster, about 1590. Raleigh 
 being in prison and straitened, Boyle offered him 5,010 
 for his 42,000 acres, which being accepted, he paid 
 Raleigh 500 on account, and swindled him out of the 
 balance. Later on, Boyle having now become Earl of 
 Cork, got from James I. patents for all his plunder the 
 parchments of which, his historian mentions covered a 
 hall forty-eight feet long by three feet wide.* He mar- 
 ried all his children into English aristocratic families, 
 and the Duke of Devonshire in this way got his County 
 Cork and Waterford estates, out of which he draws some 
 30,000 a year, for land which cost his ancestor Boyle 
 500. His Grace also now claims the fishery rights of 
 the Blackwatcr, from the town of Lismore to the sea at 
 Youghal (twenty miles), by virtue of James I.'s patent 
 to the horse-thief, and of patents from King John to the 
 monks of Lismore, whose confiscated lands Raleigh got ; 
 and in the course of eleven years' litigation, and a dozen 
 trials, has put the unfortunate fishermen of the district 
 
 * See an interesting account in The Monitor, for November and Decem- 
 ber, 1879, by the late Thomas Gal way, M.A., Agent to Lord Kenmare.
 
 THE FIRST LAND BILLS. 71 
 
 to thousands of pounds expense to assert his right to the 
 river, which is most valuable for salmon fishing. This, 
 unfortunately, by the decision of the House of Lords in 
 1881, he has now succeeded in doing Kino; John's 
 
 o o 
 
 grant to the monks being a very sacred matter to the 
 hereditary chamber. 
 
 Consequent on the representations of the Devon 
 Commission, Lord Stanley made the first attempt to 
 give something like security to the tillers of the 
 soil, and on 9th June, 1845, introduced a Bill "for 
 the purpose of providing compensation to tenants 
 in Ireland, in certain cases, on being dispossessed 
 of their holdings, for such improvements as they may 
 have made during their tenancy." " The remedy for 
 Irish evils," he said, " is not emigration, but a system 
 under which the tenant would be induced to invest his 
 labour and capital in the land." The Bill being opposed 
 by the landlords, could not be passed through the Lords, 
 and thus commenced that succession of abortive legisla- 
 tive proposals, dealing with the position of landlord and 
 tenant in Ireland, which from 1845 until 1886 have 
 been introduced into Parliament. 
 
 Immediately after the failure of this measure, Mr. 
 Sharman Crawford moved for leave to bring in a Tenant 
 Right Bill ; but with no better success. 
 
 The next year 1846 Earl Lincoln, then Chief Sec- 
 retary for Ireland, introduced a " Bill providing com- 
 pensation in certain cases for tenants in Ireland who 
 .shall build on or drain farms, and to secure to the parties 
 respectively entitled thereto due payment for such im- 
 provements." This Bill was substantially the same as 
 Lord Stanley's of the previous year and it shared the 
 same fate. 
 
 The following session, on the '25th February, 1847,
 
 72 THE UNION TO THE FAMINE. 
 
 Mr. Sharman Crawford brought in a Bill " to secure the 
 rights of occupying tenants in Ireland, and thereby 
 promote the improvement of the soil and the employ- 
 ment of the labouring classes." On this day Lord John 
 .Russell, then Premier, said, " Their [the Irish labourers] 
 habitations are wretched hovels ; several of a family 
 sleep together upon straw or upon the bare ground- 
 sometimes with a blanket, sometimes without even so 
 much to cover them ; their food commonly consists of 
 dry potatoes, and with these they are at times so scantily 
 supplied as to be obliged to stint themselves to one 
 spare meal a day. . . . The wives and children of 
 many are occasionally obliged to beg ; they do so reluc- 
 tantly and with shame, and in general go to a distance 
 from home in order that they may not be known." 
 Famine was now stalking through the laud, but 
 Parliament would do nothing for the tenants, and the 
 Bill was lost.
 
 [73] 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 FOR years before the existence of the famine was 
 acknowledged by the Government, it had been warned 
 of what was coming by English and Irish publicists ; 
 but the Executive refused to take any steps until 
 it was too late to prevent the deaths of hundreds 
 of thousands. The Times, on 26th June, 1845, 
 wrote : " The facts of Irish destitution are ridi- 
 culously simple. They are almost too commonplace 
 to be told. The people have not enough to eat. 
 They are suffering a real, though an artificial famine. 
 Nature does her duty. The land is fruitful enough. 
 Nor can it be fairly said that man is wanting. 
 The Irishman is disposed to work. In fact, man and 
 nature together do produce abundantly. The island is 
 full and overflowing with human food. But something 
 ever interposes between the hungry mouth and the 
 ample banquet. The famished victim of a mysterious 
 sentence stretches out his hand to the viands which his 
 own industry has placed before his eyes, but no sooner 
 are they touched than they fly. A perpetual decree of 
 .y/f vos non vobis condemns him to toil without enjoy- 
 ment. Social atrophy drains off the vital juices of 
 the nation." 
 
 In October, 1845, the Dublin Mansion House Relief 
 Committee besought the ministry to allow the ports 
 to be opened for food free of duty ; but the Free 
 Trade agitation was then in full swing in England, 
 and it would have embarrassed the Tories if the,
 
 74 THE FAMINE TO FENIANTSM. 
 
 Corn Laws were suspended. Accordingly (as hap- 
 pened afterwards in 1879) it became a party maxim, 
 for party men to swear by, that there was no dis- 
 tress in Ireland. On 9th December, 1845, the Duke 
 of Eichmond told the Agricultural Protection Society, 
 " With respect to the cry of famine, he believed 
 that it was perfectly illusory, and no man of respect- 
 ability could have put it in good faith, if he had been 
 acquainted with the facts within the knowledge of their 
 society." On 31st December, 1845, Mr. Newdegate, 
 M.P., carried a resolution at Warwick, protesting against 
 the fallacy and mischief of the reports of a deficient 
 harvest, and declaring " there was no reasonable ground 
 for apprehending a scarcity of food." Later on Lord 
 George Bentinck said : " The potato famine in Ireland 
 was a gross delusion. . . . The cry of famine was a 
 mere pretence for a party object." Lord Stanley de- 
 clared " famine in Ireland was a vision a baseless 
 vision." (A. M. Sullivan's New Ireland, p. 60, and 
 ftev. J. O'Rourke's Great Irish Famine, p. 104.) Very 
 soon, however, corpses in sufficient number lay by the 
 wayside to convince all whom it might concern that the 
 people were famishing. 
 
 In December, 184G, the well-known temperance re- 
 former, Father Mat hew, wrote to Mr. Trevelyan, then 
 Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury, that hunger was 
 abroad, and men, women, and children were gradually 
 wasting away. They filled their stomachs with cabbage- 
 leaves, turnip-tops, etc., to appease the cravings of 
 nature. There were more than 5,000 half-starved 
 wretches from the country begging in the streets of 
 Cork. When utterly exhausted, they crawled to the 
 workhouse to die. The average of deaths in that union 
 was over a hundred a week. In the four months from
 
 FAMINE ABROAD. 75 
 
 27th December, in 1846, to the middle of April, in 
 1847, the number of human beings that died in the 
 Cork workhouse was 2,130 ! And in the third week 
 of the following month the free interments in the 
 Ma the w Cemetery had risen to 277 as many as sixty- 
 seven having been buried in one day. The destruction 
 of human life in other workhouses of Ireland kept pace 
 with the appalling mortality in the Cork workhouse. 
 According to official returns, it had reached in April the 
 weekly average of twenty-five per 1,000 inmates ; the 
 actual number of deaths being 2,706 for the week 
 ending 3rd April, and 2,613 in the following week. 
 Yet the number of inmates in the Irish workhouses 
 was but 104,455 on 10th April. 
 
 It was only the potato that rotted, and there was 
 plenty of other produce in the country if the people 
 had only eaten it ; but they paid their rents and died. 
 From a revenue return presented to Parliament on 
 18th July, 1849, it appears that Ireland paid, during 
 the three famine years, 1847, 1848, and 1849, ending 
 5th January, (altogether) in taxes to the British 
 Exchequer 13,293,681, while her starving people 
 exported to England for rent to absentees 595,926 
 cattle, 839,118 sheep, 698,021 pigs, 959,640 quarters 
 wheat flour, and 3,658,875 quarters oats and meal; 
 while the return states this estimate of exports " is of 
 necessity defective." 
 
 The population was only 8,000,000, and the soil of 
 Ireland, according to Sir Robert Kane, in his Industrial 
 Resources, is capable, under proper management, 
 of supporting in comfort 20,000,000 souls ; M. do 
 Beaumont says 25,000,000 ; and Arthur Young in his 
 Tour in Ireland, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 24, 100,000,000 ! ! 
 
 Indeed, the fertility of Ireland has evoked the
 
 76 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 continual surprise of English and foreign writers. 
 Arthur Young, who travelled through it in 1776-8, says 
 of Limerick and Tipperary "It is the richest soil I ever 
 saw." Wakefield, in his Statistical Account of Ireland 
 (1812) says : " Ireland may be considered as affording 
 land of excellent quality. Some places (throughout 
 Meath in particular) exhibit the richest loam I ever 
 saw turned up by a plough." " Superior to England as 
 a soil." De Lavergne (Essay on Rural Economy]. 
 Mr. McCulloch (Statistics of the British Empire] : 
 " The luxuriance of the pastures, and the heavy crops 
 of oats that are everywhere raised, even with the most 
 wretched cultivation, attest its extraordinary fertility." 
 " In the elements of natural fertility," says Mr. 
 McCombie, late M.P. for Aberdeenshire, " only the 
 richer parts of England and very exceptional parts of 
 Scotland approach to it." Mr. MacLagan, M.P., says : 
 
 " The tillage lands of the south of Ireland, though not 
 so rich as the pasture lands of Tipperary, Limerick, and 
 the Meaths, are also of great fertility. I join heartily 
 in the eulogium pronounced by Arthur Young and 
 other judges of the richness of the soils of Ireland." 
 
 Land Culture and Land Tenure in Ireland, 1869. 
 
 On 4th March, 1848, commenting upon an inquest 
 held on a family named Boland, who tilled a farm of 
 twenty acres, and died of starvation, John Mitchel 
 exclaims in his United Irishman (for editing which he 
 was transported two months later) " Now, what became 
 of poor Boland's twenty acres of crop ? Part of it went 
 to Gibraltar, to victual the garrison ; part to South 
 Africa, to provision the robber army ; part went to Spain, 
 to pay for the landlord's wine ; part to London, to pay 
 the interest of his honour's mortgage to the Jews. The 
 English ate some of it the Chinese had their share ; the
 
 WHY THE PEOPLE DIED. 77 
 
 Jews and the Gentiles divided it amongst them ; and 
 there was none for Boland." 
 
 The Hebrew lawgiver ordained, " Thou shalt not 
 muzzle the ox nor the ass that treadeth out the corn ;" 
 but in Ireland the human beings who produced it were 
 denied their portion. 
 
 Throughout the famine, the work of clearance by evic- 
 tions kept pace with the decimation wrought by hunger 
 and pestilence. Speaking in the House of Lords, on the 
 23rd March, 1846, Earl Grey thus expressed himself on 
 the evictions : " It was undeniable that the clearance 
 system prevailed to a great extent in Ireland ; and that- 
 such things could take place he cared not how large a 
 population might be suffered to grow up in a particular 
 district was a disgrace to a civilized country." Lord 
 John Russell spoke in terms no less strong. " More than 
 50,000 families were in that year (1849), turned out 
 of their wretched dwellings without pity and without 
 refuge. . . . We have made Ireland I speak it 
 deliberately we have made it the most degraded and 
 the most miserable country in the world. . . . All 
 the world is crying shame upon us ; but we are equally 
 callous to our ignominy and to the results of our mis- 
 government." 
 
 Mr. Butt in his speech on the Land Bill of 187G, 
 quotes the statement of Mr. Ray in his Social Condition 
 of Europe, that in 1849 no fewer than 500,000 civil bill 
 ejectments were served in Ireland. 
 
 John Mitchcl, in his Last Conquest of Ireland 
 (Perhaps) wrote : " At the end of six years I can 
 set down these things calmly ; but to see them might 
 have driven a wise man mad. There is no need 
 to recount how the assistant barristers and sheriffs, 
 aided by the police, tore down the roof-trees and
 
 78 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 ploughed up the hearths of village after village ; . 
 how in some hamlets by the seaside, most of the inhabi- 
 tants being already dead, an adventurous traveller 
 would come upon some family eating a famished ass ; 
 how maniac mothers stowed away their dead children 
 to be devoured at midnight ; how families 
 
 when all was eaten, and no hope left, took their last look 
 at the sun, built up their cottage doors that none might 
 see them die or hear their groans, and w r ere found weeks 
 afterwards skeletons on their own hearth." 
 
 The " consolidation " of farms, through the wiping out 
 of small holdings, is well shown by the following statistics 
 from Thorn's Official Directory : "Between 1841 and 
 1861, the number of holdings not exceeding 15 acres 
 declined 55 per cent., while those above 15 acres increased 
 133 per cent.; between 1841 and 1861, the farms from 15 
 to 30 acres nearly doubled in number, and in the same 
 period the farms above 30 acres increased from 48,625 
 to 157,833. Between 1861 and 1871 farms under 15 
 acres decreased 12,548 ; and in the same period farms 
 above 30 acres increased 1,470." 
 
 What became of the homeless people? Nobody cared. 
 From 1849 to 1881, 3,200,000 Irish-born persons emi- 
 grated. The emigrants, be it understood, are (75 
 per cent, of them) men and women in their prime the 
 marriageable population. The old and the young, the 
 weak, the poor and the burdensome, must stay behind 
 and further impoverish the island. " Remove Irish- 
 men," said The Times of 22nd February, 1847, "to 
 the banks of the Ganges or the Indus, to Delhi, Ben- 
 ares or Trincomalee, and they would be far more in 
 their clement there than in a country to which an inex- 
 orable fate has confined them." 
 
 The Saturday Review, 28th November, 1863, spoke
 
 EVICTION MADE EASY. 79 
 
 of the emigrants as ''the departing demons of assassina- 
 tion and murder " (quoted in T. P. O'Connor's Parncll 
 Movement). 
 
 According to Father Lavelle, in his exhaustive work, 
 Tlie Irish Landlord Since the Revolution, published in 
 1870, p. 266, the number of houses levelled between 
 1841 and 1861 was 270,000, representing at least a 
 population of 1,300,000 human souls all driven to the 
 workhouse, exile, or death. In the parish of Augha- 
 gower, he writes, Captain Houston occupies two hun- 
 dred square miles, out of which every living soul, 
 except a few herds, were banished by the Marquis of 
 Sligo. 
 
 An eviction machine of ropes and pulleys was in- 
 vented by Mr. Scully, a Tipperary landlord of a mecha- 
 nical turn, for the speedier unroofing and demolition 
 of homesteads, which enabled the crowbar brigades 
 to do their business with much greater surety and des- 
 patch. New Ireland, by A. M. Sullivan, p. 122. 
 
 Said TJie Times of 25th February, 1847: "The 
 people of England have most culpably connived at a 
 
 national iniquity Property ruled with 
 
 savage and tyrannical sway. It exercised its rights 
 with a hand of iron, and renounced its duties with a 
 front of brass. The ' fat of the land, the flower of its 
 wheat,' its ' milk and its honey,' flowed from its shores, 
 in tribute to the ruthless absentee, or his less guilty 
 cousin, the usurious lender. It was all drain and no 
 return. But if strength and industry fared but ill in a 
 land where capital was in perpetual flux and decay, 
 how much more poverty and weakness ? In an integral 
 part of the British Empire, on the soil trodden by a 
 British sovereign, the landowner was allowed to sweep 
 away the produce of the earth without leaving even a
 
 80 THE FAMINE TO FENIAXISM. 
 
 gleaning for them that were ready to perish. And they 
 did perish year by year continually by sheer destitution. 
 The whole Irish people were debased by the spectacle 
 and contact of licensed mendicancy and recognized star- 
 vation. England stupidly winked at this tyranny. 
 Ready enough to vindicate political rights, it did not 
 avenge the poor. It is now paying for that conniv- 
 ance." 
 
 Mr. Bright said in the House of Commons, on 25th 
 August, 1848 : "Let us think of the half-million who 
 within two years past have perished miserably in the 
 workhouses, on the highways, and in their hovels- 
 more far more than ever fell by the sword in any war 
 this country ever waged ; let us think of the crop of 
 nameless horrors which is even now growing up in Ire- 
 land, and whose disastrous fruit may be gathered in 
 years and generations to come." 
 
 Speaking of the wholesale evictions of starving fami- 
 lies in that time, the Dublin Review (vol i. p. 479) 
 exclaims : " Let any parent make the case his own. 
 When we are assembled at the domestic hearth with our 
 family about us, let us bring home to our bosom the 
 bare apprehension, that for exercising an undoubted 
 privilege [voting], not only recognized but actually en- 
 joined by the constitution, it were in the power of some 
 brutal tyrant, some abortive, stunted upstart of yester- 
 day, of whom gold, amassed by peculation and public 
 plunder, is the sole nobility, to put out our fire, and 
 drive us away far from that pleasant home ; let us sup- 
 pose him, by the word of his power, destroying our only 
 means of providing for that bright and joyous circle, and 
 turning our children and ourselves adrift, to lead a 
 vagrant, hopeless, scrambling life disowned, rejected, 
 persecuted, and maligned could we bear it ? Where is
 
 EXTERMINATION. 81 
 
 the father's heart that could endure it ? What reverence 
 for the law, what sacredness of private property, what 
 abstract right of men to do as they please with their 
 own, would be of force to restrain our thoughts from 
 dark imaginings, and our hands from giving them effect? 
 We frankly avow that we would not submit to such 
 treatment, but would take the law into our own hands, 
 and, if possible, redress ourselves. Our children have a 
 right divine to claim from us that protection which may 
 be denied to them elsewhere ; and we cannot recognize 
 any human obligation which should or could constrain 
 us to reject such an appeal. No man owes a moral 
 obligation to an exterminating decree. No man pre- 
 tending or deserving to be free, would pay it an outward 
 homage, one moment longer than superior force com- 
 pelled him to bow his neck under its intolerable yoke. 
 These are our deliberate sentiments the decisions of a 
 mind tutored, perhaps, by some small share of philo- 
 sophy, and, at all events, not provoked to a passionate 
 or hasty judgment of the sense of personal wrong." 
 And again : " The persecutors and slanderers of this 
 people talk of their untamable, fierce, and vindictive 
 nature. But, if they believed what they say, would 
 they dare to oppress and to harass them as they do ? 
 Would they expel fathers, mothers, infants at the breast, 
 and tottering age, if they really thought that blood 
 alone could slake the burning heart of a ruined Irish 
 peasant ? No !" 
 
 And how did the people endure their sufferings ? In 
 the Transactions daring the Famine in Ireland, by the 
 Society of Friends, pp. 7-8, this passage occurs: "We 
 cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient 
 endurance which the labouring classes have generally 
 exhibited, under sufferings greater, we believe, than
 
 82 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 the people of any other country in Europe have to 
 sustain." 
 
 During the famine, the exiled Irish in America 
 sent over large sums to their friends at home, most of 
 which went into the landlords' pockets to pay the rent. 
 The following statement of sums remitted by emigrants 
 in America to their families in Ireland, through Bankers 
 alone, exclusive of money sent privately, was printed 
 by order of Parliament : 
 
 1848 .460,180 
 
 1849 540,619 
 
 1850 957,087 
 
 1851 990,811 
 
 Lord Dufferin, in his Irish Emigration and Tenure of 
 Land in Ireland, p. 3, states that between 1848 and 
 1864 the Irish emigrants had sent back to Ireland 
 upwards of 13,000,000. Sergeant Heron, Q.C., in 
 1862, in a paper read before the Statistical Society, 
 said : " A sum equal to one-fourteenth of the rental of 
 Ireland is annually received from foreign charitable per- 
 sons. From 1851 to 1861 11,000,000 were sent in 
 charity to Ireland from North America by the emi- 
 grants. In 1852 Ireland received a larger sum in 
 charity from America than was realized by the profits of 
 the trade of exporting horned cattle to England." 
 From that time to the present it would be reasonable 
 to estimate the exiles' remittances at two millions a 
 year. But the recipients of this bounty benefit little 
 by it. " The jaws of ' landlordism ' do devour it up," 
 and thus, to meet their exactions and maintain their 
 state, the landlords, profiting in a double way by emi- 
 gration, lay the toilers of two hemispheres under 
 tribute, and have the energies of the Irish race on
 
 WHO LIVES OX THE EXILES? 83 
 
 both sides the Atlantic employed for their behoof. 
 When, however, the race they have expatriated con- 
 tribute to political organizations founded to relieve 
 their brethren at home from their age-old tyranny, 
 the money is always described in the landlord press 
 as " wrung from the servant girls of New York." Yet 
 it is veiy doubtful if since the tide of emigration 
 began, the victims of landlordism in America and 
 Australia have in two generations subscribed as much 
 towards agitation, as in a single year they send in 
 payment of rack-rents. 
 
 On the other hand, in the depth of the famine, 
 many landlords would not even subscribe to the 
 relief funds to keep their tenants from starving ; 
 and as an instance, it is related by Mr. Godkin, 
 that while Lord Hertfort, an absentee, who draws 
 .60,000 per annum from his Antrim estates, for 
 which he or his family never paid a shilling, was deaf to 
 the cries of famishing Christians, whom he was bound 
 by every tie to commiserate and relieve, an American 
 citizen, who owed nothing to Ireland but his birth Mr. 
 A. T. Stewart, of New York sent a ship loaded with 
 provisions, which cost him 5,000 of his own money, 
 to l)e distributed amongst Lord Hertfort 's starving ten- 
 ants ; and on the return of the ship he took out as many 
 emigrants as he could accommodate free of charge. 
 In the famine of 1879-'80 the landlords behaved in 
 much the same way, and only admitted the distress 
 when half the world had subscribed to relieve it. 
 
 In 1848, Sir William Somerville, then Irish Secretary, 
 brought in another land measure, which was largely a 
 copy of that of Earl Lincoln in 1846, and of course like 
 it was rejected. 
 
 On the 23rd July, 1849, Mr. Horsmau (afterwards
 
 84 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland), moved " that an humble 
 address be presented to her Majesty, praying her to 
 take into her consideration the condition of Ireland." 
 "What have we done for Ireland ?" he asked. " Ire- 
 land has been truly described as one adjourned debate. 
 We found her prostrate in February; have we raised her 
 in July? Ireland is now entering on the fourth year of 
 famine ; sixty per cent, of her population are receiving 
 relief. What are the causes which have produced such 
 results ? Bad legislation, careless legislation, criminal 
 legislation, have been the cause of all the disasters we 
 
 o 
 
 are now deploring." 
 
 Speaking in 1849 of the "outrages" to which the 
 people were driven, Mr. Bright thus spoke : " The first 
 thing that ever called my attention to the state of Ire- 
 land was the reading an account of one of these outrages. 
 I thought of it for a moment ; but the truth struck me 
 at once, and all I have ever seen since confirms it. When 
 law refuses its duty when government denies the right 
 of the people when competition is so fierce for the little 
 land which the monopolists grant to cultivation in 
 Ireland, when, in fact, millions are scrambling for the 
 potato these people are driven back from law, and 
 from the usages of civilization, to that which is termed 
 the law of nature, and if not of the strongest, the laws 
 of the vindictive ; and in this case the people of Ireland 
 believe, to my certain knowledge, that it is only by 
 these acts of vengeance periodically committed, that they 
 can hold in suspense the arm of the proprietor, of the 
 landlord, and the agent, who, in too many cases would, 
 if he dared, exterminate them. Don't let us disguise it 
 from ourselves, there is a war between landlord and 
 tenant a war as fierce and relentless as though it were 
 carried on by force of arms/'
 
 NO EVICTIONS ON CHRISTMAS DAY. 85 
 
 Mr. Binn, an English Assistant-Commissioner of 
 Agriculture, in his Miseries and Beauties of Ireland, 
 vol. ii. p. 414, declared that " The wrongs which the 
 Irish tenants have endured would have justified a course 
 of conduct incomparably more violent than any which 
 Ireland, in her wildest moments, in her fiercest 
 paroxysms of excitement, has displayed." 
 
 Crime and outrage were the inevitable attendant upon 
 famine artificially created; and, as before, Parliament, 
 which would do nothing to amend the Land Laws 
 which produced the evil, was busy with Arms Acts, 
 Coercion Acts, and repressive legislation. 
 
 One " sweet boon " of the Legislature to the Irish 
 tenant in the famine time deserves, however, to be 
 mentioned. In 1848 a considerate Parliament passed an 
 Act prohibiting evictions on Christmas Day or Good 
 Friday ! It was further thoughtfully enacted that the 
 roof must not be pulled off a tenant's home until the 
 inmates had left ! What manner of landlords were 
 these who require such restraints to be solemnly im- 
 posed by statute ? 
 
 Sir Robert Peel said, respecting the official report of 
 Captain Kennedy on the Kilrush evictions : " I must 
 say that I do not think that the records of any country, 
 civil or barbarous, present materials for such a picture. 
 Three such tragical instances I do not 
 believe were ever presented, either in point of fact or as 
 conjured up even in the imagination of any human 
 being." And he stated further that they were " heard 
 with the expression of the deepest abhorrence by the 
 House of Commons." The "deepest abhorrence" of 
 the House of Commons, however, did not induce it to 
 take steps to prevent the recurrence of the barbarities. 
 
 What may be called the case for the agents of the
 
 86 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 Ribbon conspiracy has been well put by Mr. Godkin : 
 " In this self-defensive war, they cannot cope 
 with the armed power of England in the open field ; 
 and they are driven upon the criminal resource of 
 the oppressed in all ages and all lands secret com- 
 bination and assassination. For this crime they feel 
 no remorse ; first, because it is war just as the sol- 
 dier feels no remorse for killing the enemy in a 
 battle ; and, secondly, because their conquerors, and the 
 successors of those conquerors, have taught them too well 
 by repeated examples the terrible lesson of making light 
 of human life. Poor ignorant creatures, they cannot see 
 that, while the most illustrious noblemen in England won 
 applause and honours by shooting down Irish women 
 and children like seals or otters, the survivors of the 
 murdered people should be execrated as cruel, barbarous, 
 and infamous, for shooting the men that pull down the 
 roof- trees over the heads of their helpless families, and 
 trample upon their household gods. These convictions 
 of theirs are very revolting to our feelings ; but they are 
 facts, and as facts the legislature must deal with them. 
 If there be a people otherwise singularly free from crime, 
 who regard the assassination of the members of a certain 
 class with indifference or approbation, the phenomenon is 
 one which political philosophy ought to be able to explain, 
 and one which cannot be got rid of by suspending the 
 constitution and bringing railing accusations against 
 the nation. The land war rages at every board of 
 guardians, in every dispensary, in every grand jury 
 room, at every petty sessions, in every county court, in 
 every public institution throughout the kingdom. The 
 land-agent is the commanding officer; his office is a 
 garrison, dominating the surrounding district. He is 
 able, in most cases, to defy the confessional and the altar;
 
 "THE WILD JUSTICE OF REVENGE." 87 
 
 because he wields an engiue of terror generally more 
 powerful over the minds of the peasantry than the terrors 
 of the world to come. Armed with ' the rules of the 
 estate ' and with a notice to quit, the agent may have 
 almost anything he demands, short of the possession of 
 the farm and the home of the tenant. The notice to quit 
 is like a death-warrant to the family. [Mr. Gladstone, 
 in the debate on the Disturbance Bill, 5th July, 1880, 
 called it " a sentence of starvation."] It makes every 
 member of it tremble and agonize, from the grey-headed 
 grandfather and grandmother, to the bright little children, 
 who read the advent of some impending calamity in the 
 gloomy countenances and bitter words of their parents. 
 The passion for the possession of land is the chord on 
 which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates with 
 * the deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an 'improving' 
 landlord, it is generally touched so cunningly, that its 
 most exquisite torture cannot easily be proved to be a 
 grievance. He presents an alternative to the tenant ; he 
 does less than the law allows. He could strike a mortal 
 blow ; but he lends a helping hand. Resistance entails 
 ruin ; compliance secures friendship. Give up the old 
 status, and accept a new one : cease to stand upon right y 
 consent to stand upon mercy, and all may be well ! " 
 
 It was this fear of " the wild justice of revenge," which 
 largely operated in preserving to the northern teuaut 
 the security of the Ulster custom, before the Laud Act 
 of 1870 gave it something of the sanction of law. 
 " You would have a Tipperary in Down," said the agent 
 of the Marquis of Londonderry, when giving evidence 
 before the Devon Commission of 1843-5, "if you 
 attempted to carry out a curtailment of tenant-right." 
 
 Writing about this time, Thomas Carlyle said : 
 "The woes of Ireland or injustice to Ireland
 
 88 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 is a deep matter, an abyssmal one, which no plumb 
 of ours will sound. For the oppression has gone 
 far further than into the economies of Ireland, inward to 
 her very heart and soul. The Irish national character 
 is degraded ; disordered ; till that recovers itself nothing 
 is yet recovered. . . . We English pay, even now, 
 the bitter smart of long centuries of injustice to our 
 neighbour Ireland. Injustice, doubt it not, abounds, 
 or Ireland would not be miserable. The earth is good, 
 bountifully sends food and increase ; if man's unwisdom 
 did not intervene and forbid. England is guilty towards 
 Ireland, and reaps at last, in full measure, the fruit of 
 fifteen generations of wrong-doing." 
 
 " The gallows," said Mr. Bright, in a speech at Roch- 
 dale (Collected Addresses,^. 51) "has been the great 
 preserver in Ireland." And Mr. Froude, in the same 
 spirit, has well remarked in his English in Ireland, 
 that with the Government in Ireland " the gallows is the 
 only preacher of righteousness." 
 
 In the midst of the famine the Government passed 
 the Encumbered Estates Act of 1848, a crude, desperate 
 and ill-timed measure. The moment selected for this 
 piece of legislation was the one in which the country 
 was prostrated and beggared by famine, and when, 
 owing to the universal failure of crops, most landlords 
 were obliged to defer the collection of rents. Laud- 
 lord and tenant alike being bankrupted, and credit 
 reduced to its lowest ebb, the creditors of the territorial 
 classes were enabled for the first time to put up to 
 auction the estates of their debtors. In the course of 
 eight years it led to the forced sales of property to the 
 extent of 20,476,000. No provision whatever was 
 made in the Act for securing the rights of the ten- 
 antry to the improvements they had effected, or for
 
 THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES' ACT. 89 
 
 guaranteeing them, against the new buyers from the 
 imposition of increased rents on these improvements; 
 nor was any effort made, in spite of the urgent re- 
 presentations of the Irish popular leaders, to create 
 machinery for the establishment of a peasant proprie- 
 tary. No ! Lock, stock, and barrel the land was 
 given over to a horde of speculators, who bought 
 with the deliberate intention of raising the rents, and 
 who were even encouraged in this by the tempting 
 addendum to so many advertisements of sale : " The 
 lands are lowly rented and the tenants can bear a sub- 
 stantial increase."* Very often, too, the creditors of the 
 bankrupt landlord connived with him to return an inflated 
 rent-roll, and purchasers bid higher under the honest idea 
 that they were buying on the normal rental obtained from 
 the tenants. Then when they tried to exact the rents 
 on the faith of which they invested, they were met by 
 angered peasants, who protested that they were already 
 paying the highest penny the land would yield, and 
 could only be reduced to submission by service of the 
 all-potent notice to quit. The Act has proved a bane to 
 
 * An instance taken at random from the daily papers will illustrate the 
 effect of this. In 1883, as reported in the Freeman's Journal, an appeal 
 from a fair rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners under the Land Act of 
 1881, came before the Laud Commission, from Mr. Arthur Blennerhasset's 
 estate in Kerry. The report states : " Terence O'Donnell holds 37a. ; 
 valuation, 19 ; old rent, 48 ; judicial rent, 28. About fifteen years 
 ago the late Mr. Thomas Blermerhasset purchased the estate, and iu one 
 rise raised the land from 28 to 48. In the Landed Estates Court 
 Rental it was stated, ' The tenants are respectable and most comfortable, 
 the rents are -extremely moderate, and may be readily increased.' The 
 same tenant holds a second farm of 85a. ; valuation, 1!) 10s.; old rent, 
 4.3 ICs. 9d. ; judicial rent, 24 l()s. When Mr. Thomas Blennerhasset 
 bought the property, he raised the rent from 23 to 48, but three or four 
 years afterwards took away 2a. 3r. of meadow, and reduced the rent to 
 43 l(Js. 9d. Timothy Foley holds 30:i. 3r. 3Gp. ; valuation, 16 10s. ; old 
 rent, 43 OH. 8d. ; judicial rent, 23 17s. Gd. The landlord raised the 
 rent from 24 to 43."
 
 90 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 Ireland from that time to the present. Chicane, bitter- 
 ness, exaction, and outrage followed in its train. In the 
 panic it created, estates were sold for a tithe of their 
 value, a proceeding which of course confiscated the pro- 
 perty of the landlords, while the property of the tenant 
 in his improvements was also sacrificed, by the raising 
 of rents which invariably followed the dominion of 
 " the new men." It is not too much to say, that most 
 of the purchasers under the Act, in the great rush from 
 1849 to 1857, have since then screwed the original 
 price of their bargains twice over out of the unpro- 
 tected tenantry. It may be noted also that out of the 
 20,476,000 paid as purchase money up to August, 
 1857, only 2,836,000 was paid by Englishmen or 
 foreigners. Of the 7,489 purchasers to that date, 7,110 
 were Irish. (Sullivan's New Ireland, 142.) 
 
 The starvation, eviction, and depopulation of the famine, 
 and the refinements of the "new men" of the Encumbered 
 Estates Act, created such a sense of national alarm and 
 insecurity, that the tenants, in the teeth of their laud- 
 lords, resorted to public combination, and for the first 
 time put forward a platform for the redress of their 
 grievances. "Agitate, agitate, and you will succeed," 
 was the advice once given by the Marquis of Auglesea 
 to Daniel O'Conuell (McCullagh Tori-ens' Life of Lord 
 Melbourne, vol. i. p. 320), and five years after the Ke- 
 peal movement had been killed by the Liberator's death 
 and the famine, a great agrarian agitation was set on 
 foot. In 1852 a majority of the Irish representatives 
 was returned to Parliament to support the cry of the 
 " Tenant League." 
 
 The claims of the new organization were embodied 
 in a Bill which was entrusted to Mr. Sharman Crawford. 
 Viewed in the light of later events, these demands seem
 
 THE TENANT LEAGUE. 91 
 
 very moderate, being, roughly speaking, the extension 
 of the Ulster custom (which entitled an outgoing tenant 
 to sell his good-will) to the whole of Ireland ; and had 
 they been accepted by the landlords, the land question 
 might have been set at rest for our time. 
 
 In March, 1852, Mr. Crawford's Bill came on for 
 second reading ; but it was defeated by a majority of 
 167 to 57. Six months later Mr. Napier, the Irish 
 Attorney-General, obtained leave to present to the 
 House a new code for regulating the relations of landlord 
 and tenant in Ireland. This passed the Commons, but 
 was afterwards rejected by the Lords. The Lords would 
 not have one Bill, and the Commons would not have 
 another. Between " both their houses " the farmers of 
 Ireland were prettily bestowed ! 
 
 Evictions were going on nearly as rapidly as ever, so 
 that The Times declared, somewhere in 1852, that " the 
 name of an Irish landlord stinkcd in the nostrils of Chris- 
 tendom." Alluding to the prevailing agitation, the 
 existence of agrarian outrages, and the disturbed condi- 
 tion of Ireland generally in 1852, Mr. Bright said: 
 " It was in the eternal decrees of Providence that so long 
 as the population of a country were prevented from the 
 possibility of possessing any portion of their native soil 
 by legal enactments and legal chicanery, these outrages 
 should be committed, were they but as beacons and 
 warnings to call the legislature to a sense of the duties 
 it owed to the country which it governed." 
 
 It was said about this date, by Earl Grey : " Ireland 
 is the one deep blot upon the brightness of British 
 'honour ; " " Ireland is our disgrace ; " " the evils of 
 Ireland could only be produced by misgovernment." 
 
 Writing in March, 1854, the Quarterly Review 
 exclaims : " Moderation," indeed ! when one witnesses
 
 92 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 " the cabins of the peasantry pulled down in such 
 numbers as to give the appearance, throughout whole 
 regions of the south, and still more of the west, of a 
 country devastated and desolated by the passage of a 
 hostile army." 
 
 In a speech on the Regium Donum, House of Commons, 
 6th July, 1854, Mr. Bright speaks of "those western 
 counties, in which no man can travel without feeling that 
 some enormous crime has been committed by the govern- 
 ment under which that people live/' 
 
 Alluding to this state of things, The Times said : 
 " We must gird our loins to encounter the nemesis of 
 seven centuries of misgovernment. To the end of time, 
 100,000,000 of people, spread over the largest habitable 
 area in the world, and confronting us everywhere by 
 sea and land, will remember that their forefathers paid 
 tithes to the Protestant clergy, rent to absentee land- 
 lords, and a forced obedience to the laws which these 
 had made." 
 
 The organization formed by the Tenant League in 1852 
 did not hold together long. In 1855 the Government 
 broke up its parliamentary party of "Independent 
 Opposition," by purchasing or corrupting several of its 
 leaders, and thereupon Mr. Gavan Duffy, M.P., who 
 thirteen years before had founded The Nation, and 
 made it famous, quitted Ireland in disgust. In a fare- 
 well address to his countrymen he declared that until 
 purer days returned " there was no more hope for Ire- 
 land than for a corpse on the dissecting table." From 
 time . to time afterwards efforts continued to be made 
 by various Irish Members to promote a legislative settle- 
 ment of the land question ; but they ended in continual 
 failure. Even in those good old days of meek and
 
 MORE LAND BILLS. 93 
 
 hum-drum parliamentary action your Irish Member 
 was always "too extreme." 
 
 On 28th of May, 1857, Mr. G. H. Moore asked for 
 leave to bring in what was practically the rejected 
 Tenants' Compensation Bill of the Napier Code, but he 
 found it impossible to obtain time for its discussion. 
 
 Next year Mr. Maguire reintroduced the same Bill ; 
 and it was defeated by a majority of 200 to 65. 
 " Tenant-right," said Lord Palmerston, " is landlord 
 wrong." 
 
 In 1860 the Government passed an Act which rather 
 worsened the tenant's position. It facilitated eject- 
 ments, and rendered any right of the tenant, either as 
 to duration of tenancy or compensation, dependent on 
 an expressed or implied contract. Yet at the time 
 " Deasy's Act " was spoken of (by the landlords) as 
 a settlement of the question ! 
 
 Addressing the Statistical Society, May, 1864, Mr. 
 Sergeant Heron (who became, in 1881, a prosecuting 
 counsel in The Queen v. Parnell and Others), said : 
 " Under the present laws, no Irish peasant able to read 
 and write ought to remain in Ireland. If Ireland were 
 an independent country, in the present state of things, 
 there would be a bloody insurrection in every county, 
 and the peasantry would ultimately obtain the property 
 in land, as they have obtained it in Switzerland and in 
 France." Commenting on these words, Isaac Butt, in his 
 Irish People and Irish Land, p. 261, properly points 
 out, that " they were not spoken at any excited popular 
 meeting, carrying away the speaker by the passions of a 
 crowd : they were read at a meeting of a scientific body, 
 presided over by grave eminent personages, and in the 
 Transactions of that body they first saw the light of 
 publication."
 
 94 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 No later than 1869, Mr Bright declared to his consti- 
 tuents, that were Ireland removed one thousand miles 
 westward into the Atlantic, the Irish proprietors would, 
 almost one and all, be hurled into the ocean in a day. 
 Collected Addresses. 
 
 Mr. Froude said in 1872, lecturing in America, that 
 " he would not yield to the most irreconcilable Fenian 
 of them all in his determination to promote the entire, 
 the final emancipation of the Irish peasant from the 
 yoke of landlordism." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, speaking on the state of Ireland, 16th 
 March, 1868, said : " It is impossible to express the 
 satisfaction with which we may now say that it was 
 nothing but the extremity of want and misery which led 
 to those outrages, prompted by what Mr. O'Connell 
 called ' the wild justice of revenge/ which so long formed 
 the scandal of Ireland. Immediately the sharp sting of 
 want is either removed or rendered less pungent in its 
 application, the Irish people, by their immunity from 
 vice, attract the admiration of this country. 
 That fact, which if it be a fact, is one of immeasurable 
 gravity that the mass of human beings who inhabit that 
 country and are dependent on their industry, had not due 
 security for the fruits of their industry in the tenure of 
 the land that fact was brought again and again from 
 the most authoritative and unsuspected sources under the 
 notice of Parliament ; Bill after Bill was produced, and 
 Bill after Bill was rejected or evaded, and to this hour 
 the account of the Irish nation with England in respect 
 of the tenure of land remains an unsettled question. 
 The only Bill that was passed was that of Mr. Card well, 
 in which an attempt was made, in terms the most 
 restricted, to obtain some concession to the tenant on 
 account of improvements to which the landlord was not
 
 SISYPHUS-WORK. 95 
 
 an objecting party. That Bill was as much as by any 
 magic could be extracted at the time from the will of 
 Parliament. That Bill remains a dead letter, and the 
 whole subject remains for us to face, with the painful 
 reflection, that for twenty-four or twenty-five years the 
 Irish people in their little plots and farms have thus been 
 conducting the daily battle of life, without the shelter 
 which the Devon Commission, and the Peel Government, 
 and the Derby Government, and every other administra- 
 tion declared ought to be vouchsafed to them ; and we 
 have to make the sad confession of our impotence to 
 discharge a primary debt of justice to that country." 
 
 Mr. J. Boyd Kinnear, M.P., who on 7th June, 1886, 
 voted against Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, in a 
 leaflet published in June, 1884, thus sums up the 
 case against the Union Parliament: "From 1800 to 
 1870 there were some forty coercion bills passed for 
 Ireland. Between 1819 and 1830 five Royal Commis- 
 sions and Select Committees took evidence (and the 
 evidence would break your hearts); and between 1829 
 and 1869 there were twenty-seven Bills and Resolutions 
 offered by Irish Members on the Land Question, and 
 every one was rejected. Yet all these Bills were of the 
 most moderate character. No matter what they pro- 
 posed, the Irish Members could not obtain a hearing in 
 the English Parliament. Yet the Land Question in- 
 volved the life and deatli of 6,000,000 of Irish human 
 beings. Of these 6,000,000, about one-half have per- 
 ished or been driven into exile by evictions since 1845. 
 Think of it ! And all this by laws which you, the 
 people of England and Scotland, have enforced upon 
 Ireland." In a pamphlet on Ireland (p. 5), published 
 in 1881 the same Mr. Kinnear, after alluding to the 
 
 o 
 
 way in which Ireland has always been ruled by
 
 96 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 foreigners, according to their foreign ideas, exclaims : 
 " Would Scotland be contented with such a system ? 
 Assuredly not. Before ten years were out, there would 
 be a smouldering rebellion from one end of the country 
 to the other, and an English official's life would not be 
 safe beyond the radius of a policeman's baton." 
 
 In the height of the Fenian scare in 1866, another 
 attempt was made to settle the land question. On the 
 30th April in that year Mr. Chichester. Forteseue (now 
 Lord Carlingford) brought in a Bill to amend the Act of 
 1860. The effect of that Act, he said, was that the 
 tenant, before improving, had to ask the landlord's 
 consent ; and this he described as " an invitation to the 
 landlord to dissent." He now proposed that in the 
 absence of any written contract to the contrary, the 
 tenant should, by the general rule of law, have a limited 
 beneficial interest in the permanent improvement execu- 
 ted at his own cost. The Bill fell through. 
 
 Mr. Bright said in the House of Commons, on 17th 
 February, 1866 : "Except on two emergencies Parlia- 
 ment has done nothing for the people of Ireland ; and, 
 more than that, their complaints have been met com- 
 plaints of their sufferings have been met often by 
 denial, often by insult, often by contempt." The same 
 year the Government proposed the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, and Mr. Bright said : 
 "You may pass this Bill, you may put the Home 
 Secretary's five hundred men into gaol you may do 
 more than this, you may suppress the conspiracy and 
 put down the insurrection ; but the moment it is sup- 
 pressed there will still remain the germs of this malady, 
 and from those germs, as heretofore, there will spring 
 another crop of insurrection and another harvest of 
 misfortune. And it may be that those who sit here
 
 "THE DOUBLE DOSE OF ORIGINAL SIN." 97 
 
 eighteen years after this moment will find another 
 Ministry and another Secretary of State ready to pro- 
 pose to you another administration of the same ever- 
 failing and ever-poisonous medicine." How sadly this 
 recalls the votes and speeches of the great tribune in 
 1881, 1882, and 1886. 
 
 Mr. Bright, speaking in Dublin, 2nd November, 
 1866, said : " I have thought, if I could be in all other 
 things the same but by birth an Irishman, there is not 
 a town in this island I would not visit for the purpose of 
 discussing the great Irish question, and of rousing my 
 countrymen to some great and united action. I do not 
 believe in the necessity of widespread and perpetual 
 misery. I do not believe that we are placed on this 
 island and on this earth, that one man may be great and 
 wealthy, and revel in every profuse indulgence, and five, 
 six, nine, or ten men shall suffer the abject misery which 
 we see so commonly in the world. With your soil, your 
 climate, and your active and spirited race, I know not 
 what you might not do." 
 
 A few days before (October 30th), Mr. Bright 
 alluded to that supposed inherent depravity of the 
 Irish character, which Mr. Gladstone, on the night 
 of the first reading of his Home Rule Bill (13th 
 April, 1886), humorously ascribed to "a double dose 
 of original sin." Mr. Bright then said : " Some say 
 that there is some radical defect in the Irish charac- 
 ter which prevents the condition of Ireland being so 
 satisfactory as the condition of England and Scotland. 
 Now, I am inclined to believe that whatever there is 
 that is defective in any portion of the Irish people, 
 comes, riot from their race but from their history, and 
 from the conditions to which they have been subjected. 
 . . . I say that it would be much more probable
 
 98 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 that the defect lies in the Government and in the 
 law." 
 
 On the same subject, Sir George Cornwall Lewis 
 said : " Before I went to Ireland I had very strong 
 opinions as to the influence of race on the Irish charac- 
 ter. But when I came to look at things more nearly, 
 and to see all the demoralizing influences to which they 
 have been and are subjected, I asked myself whether a 
 people of Germanic race would have turned out much 
 better ; and I really could not answer in the affirmative. 
 Cceteris paribus, I would sooner have a Ger- 
 man than a Celt, and a Protestant than a Catholic ; but 
 I have no doubt that a peasantry of Catholic Celts may 
 be so governed, and placed under such moral influences, 
 as to be peaceable, industrious, and contented ; and I 
 have no doubt that a peasantry of Protestant Germans 
 might, if properly oppressed and brutalized, be made as 
 bad as the Irish." Letters, pp. 49-50. 
 
 On 18th February, 18 67, another Land Bill was brought 
 in, this time by the Tories, which proposed that, instead 
 of obtaining the landlord's consent before making im- 
 provements, the tenants should obtain the consent of a 
 "commissioner of improvements." This was simply 
 going back to Lord Stanley's Bill of 1845. The pro- 
 posal was abandoned. A return moved for in this ses- 
 sion by Lord Belmore showed that in the preceding six 
 years there had been 37,164 ejectments. 
 
 In January and February, 1867, Lord Dufferin wrote 
 three letters to The Time*, in one of which he says : 
 "Some human agency or other must be accountable for 
 the perennial desolation of a lovely and fertile island, 
 watered by the fairest streams, caressed by a clement 
 atmosphere, held in the embrace of a sea whose affluence 
 fills the richest harbours of the world, and inhabited 1)}'
 
 A MINISTER AND A CARDINAL. 99 
 
 a race valiant, tender, generous, gifted beyond measure 
 with the power of physical endurance, and graced with 
 the liveliest intelligence." 
 
 Glowing as is this description, it is not more so than 
 that of Lord Bacon, two and a half centuries before : 
 " For this island, it is endowed with so many dowries of 
 nature, considering the fruitfulness of the soil, the ports, 
 the rivers, the fishings, the quarries, the woods, and 
 other materials, and especially the race and generation 
 of men valiant, hard and active, as it is not easy, no 
 not upon the continent, to find such confluence of 
 commodities, if the hand of men did join with the hand 
 of nature." Bacon's Works, vol. iii. p. 321. 
 
 Dr. Drew, the well-known Presbyterian minister, in 
 a letter to Isaac Butt in 1868, sadly wrote: "I wish my 
 lot had never been cast in rural places. As a clergyman 
 I hear what neither landlords nor agents ever hear. I 
 see the depression of the people ; their sighs and groans 
 are before me. They are brought so low as often to 
 praise and glorify those who in their secret hearts are 
 the objects of abhorrence. All this came out gradually 
 before me. Nor did I feel as I ought to feel in their 
 behalf until, in my own person and purse, I became the 
 victim of a system of tyranny which cries from earth to 
 heaven for relief. Were I to narrate my own story it 
 would startle many." On 27th January, 18G8, John 
 Bright wrote : " The English people are in complete 
 ignorance of Irish wrongs, and know little or nothing 
 of the real condition of Ireland. This is a sad picture, 
 but it is not coloured too darkly." 
 
 Cardinal Manning, in a letter to Earl Grey in 1808 
 (republished in 1881) said : "The land question means 
 hunger, thirst, nakedness, notice to quit, labour spent in 
 vain, the toil of years seized upon, the breaking up of
 
 100 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 houses, the misery, sicknesses, deaths of parents, children, 
 wives, the despair and wildness which spring up in the 
 hearts of the poor, when legal force, like a sharp harrow, 
 goes over the most sensitive and vital rights of mankind. 
 All this is contained in the land question." 
 
 In a pastoral dated 20th February, 1871, the Most 
 Rev. Dr. Nulty, Bishop of Meath, in a pastoral bitterly 
 denouncing the outrages of the Eibbon Society, went on 
 to allude to the outrages of the landlords in County 
 Westmeath : " In the very first year of our ministry, 
 as a Missionary Priest in this diocese, we were an eye- 
 witness of a cruel and inhuman eviction, which even 
 still makes our heart bleed as often as we allow our- 
 selves to think of it. Seven hundred human beings 
 were driven from their homes in one day, and set 
 adrift on the world, to gratify the caprice of one, 
 who before God and man, probably deserved less 
 consideration than the last and least of them. And 
 we remember well that there was not a single shilling 
 of rent due on the estate at the time, except by one 
 man ; and the character and acts of that man made 
 it perfectly clear that the agent and himself quite 
 understood each other. The crowbar brigade, em- 
 ployed on the occasion to extinguish the hearths 
 and demolish the homes of honest, industrious men, 
 worked away with a will at their awful calling 
 until evening. At length an incident occurred that 
 varied the monotony of the grim, ghastly ruin which 
 they were spreading all around. They stopped sud- 
 denly, and recoiled panic-stricken with terror from two 
 dwellings which they were directed to destroy with the 
 rest. They had just learned that a frightful typhus- 
 fever held those houses in its grasp, and had already 
 brought pestilence and death to their inmates. They
 
 EVICTIONS DESCRIBED BY A BISHOP. 101 
 
 therefore supplicated the agent to spare these houses 
 a little longer but the agent was inexorable, and 
 
 O 7 O ' 
 
 insisted that the houses should come down. The 
 ingenuity with which he extricated himself from the 
 difficulties of the situation, was characteristic alike of the 
 heartlessness of the man and of the cruel necessities 
 of the work in which he was engaged. He ordered a 
 large winnowing-sheet to be secured over the beds in 
 which the fever victims lay fortunately they happened 
 to be perfectly delirious at the time and then directed 
 the house to be unroofed cautiously and slowly, ' be- 
 cause/ he said, ' he very much disliked the bother and 
 discomfort of a coroner's inquest.' I administered the 
 last sacrament of the Church to four of these fever 
 victims next day ; and, save the above-mentioned win- 
 nowing sheet, there was not then a roof nearer to me 
 than the canopy of heaven. 
 
 " The horrid scenes I then witnessed I must remem- 
 ber all my life long. The wailing of women the 
 screams, the terror, the consternation of children the 
 speechless agony of honest, industrious men wrung 
 tears of grief from all who saw them. I saw the officers 
 and men of a large police force, who were obliged to 
 attend on the occasion, cry like children, at beholding 
 the cruel sufferings of the very people whom they would 
 be obliged to butcher had they offered the least resist- 
 ance. The heavy rains that usually attend the autum- 
 nal equinoxes descended in cold, copious torrents 
 throughout the night, and at once revealed to those 
 houseless sufferers the awful realities of their condition. 
 I visited them next morning, and rode from place to 
 l>l;ice administering to them all the comfort and con- 
 
 i O 
 
 solatiori I could. The appearance of men, women, and 
 children, as they emerged from the ruins of their former
 
 102 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 homes saturated with rain, blackened and besmeared 
 with soot, shivering in every member from cold and 
 misery presented positively the most appalling spec- 
 tacle I ever looked at. The landed proprietors in a 
 circle all around and for many miles in every direc- 
 tion warned their tenantry, with threats of their direst 
 vengeance, against the humanity of extending to any of 
 them the hospitality of a single night's shelter. Many 
 of these poor people were unable to emigrate with their 
 families ; while at home the hand of every man was 
 thus raised against them. They were driven from the 
 land on which Providence had placed them ; and, in the 
 state of society surrounding them, every other walk of 
 life was rigidly closed against them. AVhat was the 
 result ? After battling in vain with privation and pesti- 
 lence, they at last graduated from the workhouse to the 
 tomb ; and in a little more than three years nearly a 
 fourth of them lay quiet in their graves. 
 
 " The eviction which I have thus described, and of 
 which I was an eye-witness, must not be considered an 
 isolated exceptional event which could occur only in a 
 remote locality, where public opinion could not reach 
 and expose it. The fact is quite the reverse. Every 
 county, barony, poor-law union, and indeed every 
 parish in the diocese, is perfectly familiar with evictions 
 that are oftentimes surrounded by circumstances, and 
 distinguished by traits of darker and more disgusting 
 atrocity. Quite near the town in which I write [Mul- 
 lingar], and in the parish in which I live, 1 lately passed 
 through what might be characterized as a wilderness, in 
 which, as far as the eye could reach, not a single 
 human being, not the vestige of a human habi- 
 tation, was anywhere discernible, it was only with 
 great difficulty, and much uncertainty too, that 1 was
 
 OPINIONS OF TWO PEERS. 103 
 
 able to distinguish the spot on which, till lately, stood 
 one of the most respectable houses of this parish. A 
 few miles farther on I fell in with the scene of another 
 extensive clearance, in which the houses that had shel- 
 tered three hundred human beings were razed to the 
 ground some few years ago. That same proprietor 
 desolated, in an adjoining parish, a densely-populated 
 district, by batches of so many families in each of a 
 series of successive clearances. Seventeen families 
 formed the first batch." 
 
 Speaking in the County Longford, in 1869, the Earl 
 of Granard said : " The necessity for reform [of the 
 land laws] has been urged upon Parliament since the 
 days of O'Connell up to the present time. The want of 
 reform upon the most vital question which affects the 
 prosperity of Ireland has been the fruitful source of 
 agrarian disturbance, of poverty, and of misfortune in 
 every county in Ireland. ... I say it advisedly, 
 that to the system of land laws which we hope to alter 
 which, at least, we are here to protest against are to 
 be attributed those fearful agrarian outrages which dis- 
 grace the fair fame of our country. A celebrated minis- 
 ter of police in France, whenever he heard of a con- 
 spiracy, used to ask, ' Who was the woman ?' believing 
 that there was always one mixed up with such organ- 
 izations ; and in a similar spirit, whenever I hear of an 
 outrage in Ireland, I am always inclined to inquire, 
 ' Who is the landlord ?' For I do not hear of such 
 things occurring on estates where justice and fair play 
 are the rule and riot the exception." 
 
 Lord Clarendon, in a speech at the West Herts Agri- 
 cultural Society, on the 2Gth of September, 1809, said: 
 "If he were to take a farm at will upon which the landed 
 proprietor never did and never intended to do anything,
 
 104 THE FAMINE TO FENIANISM. 
 
 and were to build upon the farm a house and homestead, 
 and effectually drain the land, and then be turned out 
 on a six months' notice by his landlord, would any 
 language be strong enough, not forgetting the language 
 made use of at the public meetings and in the press 
 recently in this country, to condemn such a felonious 
 act as that ?" 
 
 In the preface to his work, Progress and Poverty, 
 Henry George, speaking of the present system of 
 land tenure, says : " It is a toll levied upon labour, 
 constantly and continuously. Every blow of the ham- 
 mer, every stroke of the pick, every thrust of the 
 shuttle, every throb of the steam-engine, pays it tribute. 
 It levies upon the earnings of men who, deep under 
 ground, risk their lives, and of those who, over white 
 surges, hang to reeling masts ; it claims the just reward 
 of the thrifty, and the fruits of the inventor's patient 
 effort ; it takes little children from play and from 
 school, and compels them to work before their bones are 
 hard or their muscles firm ; it robs the shivering of 
 warmth, the hungry of food, the sick of medicine, the 
 anxious of peace. It debases, and embrutes, and em- 
 bitters." 
 
 " The land of Ireland "writes Mr. Mill" the land 
 of any country, belongs to the people of that country. 
 The individuals called landowners have no right, in 
 morality and justice, to anything but the rent or com- 
 pensation for its saleable value. When the inhabitants 
 of a country quit the country en masse, because its 
 government will not make it a place fit for them to live 
 in, the government is judged and condemned. It is the 
 duty of Parliament to reform the land tenure in Ireland. 
 There is no necessity for depriving the landlords of one 
 farthing of the pecuniar}' value of their legal rights ; but
 
 STUART MILL'S VIEWS. 105 
 
 justice requires that the actual cultivators should be 
 enabled to become in Ireland what they will become in 
 America proprietors of the soil which they cultivate."- 
 Political Economy, c. x. p. 201, ed. 1880. 
 
 " The Irish circumstances and the Irish ideas as to 
 social and agricultural economy," says Mr. Mill elsewhere, 
 " are the general ideas and circumstances of the human 
 race. It is the English ideas and circumstances that 
 are peculiar. Ireland is in the main stream of human 
 existence, and human feeling and opinion. It is England 
 that is in one of the lateral channels." (Hansard, 17th 
 May, 1866.) 
 
 Mill further says : " What has been epigrammati- 
 cally said in the discussion on ' peculiar burthens ' is 
 literally true when applied to them ; that the greatest 
 ' burthen on land ' is the landlords. Returning nothing 
 to the soil, they consume its whole produce, minus the 
 potatoes strictly necessary to keep the inhabitants from 
 dying of famine : and when they have any purpose of 
 improvement, the preparatory step usually consists in not 
 leaving even this pittance, but turning out the people to 
 beggary, if not to starvation. When landed property 
 has placed itself on this footing it ceases to be defensible, 
 and the time has come for making some new arrangement 
 of the matter. When the * sacredness of property ' is 
 talked of, it should always be remembered that any 
 such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to 
 landed property. No MAN MADE THE LAND. It is 
 the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appro- 
 priation is a question of general expediency. When 
 private property in land is not expedient it is unjust. 
 It is no hardship to any man to be excluded from what 
 others have produced : they were not bound to produce 
 it for his use ; and he loses nothing by not sharing in
 
 106 THE FAMINE TO FENIAXISM. 
 
 what otherwise would not have existed at all. But it is 
 some hardship to be born into the world, and to find all 
 nature's gifts previously engrossed and no place left for 
 the new comer. To reconcile people to this, after they 
 have once admitted into their minds the idea that any 
 moral rights belong to them as human beings, it will 
 
 O O O ' 
 
 always be necessary to convince them that the exclusive 
 appropriation is good for mankind on the whole, them- 
 selves included. But this is what no sane human being 
 
 O 
 
 could be persuaded of, if the relation between the land- 
 owner and the cultivator were the same everywhere as it 
 has been in Ireland." 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in his Social Statics, chap. ix. sec. 2, 
 says : " Equity does not permit property in land. For 
 if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become 
 the possession of an individual, held for his sole use and 
 benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, 
 then other portions of its surface may be so held, and 
 our planet may thus lapse into private hands. It fol- 
 lows that if the landowners have a valid right to its 
 surface, all who are not landowners have no right at all 
 to its surface. Hence such can exist on the earth by 
 .sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save by 
 permission of the landlords they can have no room for 
 the soles of their feet nay, these landless men may be 
 equitably expelled from the earth altogether." 
 
 According to a recognized legal text-book, " The first 
 thing the student has to do is to get rid of the idea of 
 absolute ownership [of land]. Such an idea is quite 
 unknown to the English law. No man is in law the 
 
 O 
 
 absolute owner of lands. lie can only hold an estate in 
 them."- -William* on Real Property, p. 1G. "All 
 landowners are merely tenants in the eye of the law."- 
 Ibid. p. 55.
 
 [ '07 ] 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FENIANTSM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 THE foundation of the Fenian organization in America 
 was the first penalty England had to pay for the crimes 
 of Irish landlordism during the famine ; the creation of 
 the Land League was the second. Millions of Celts had 
 been swept off to the United States, hunted like rats 
 out of their dwellings, and there the exiles planned and 
 plotted vengeance against the power that drove them 
 out. Yet Englishmen are asked for gratitude by the 
 " loyal minority," for their good offices to the empire in 
 turning against it the hearts and minds of these millions 
 of men. For twenty years Fenianism has been a source 
 of anxiety to British statesmen. To its " intensity " 
 Mr. Gladstone attributed the Disestablishment of the 
 Irish Church and the attention at length arrested in 
 Parliament for Irish grievances. When the chain and 
 gibbet had broken the strength and destroyed the 
 leaders of the organization, a desperate residuum of the 
 conspirators fomented fresh disorders, and invested 
 London itself with a horrid terror. For all this Eng- 
 land owes grateful thanks to the handful of " loyal 
 subjects" who, relying on Acts of Parliament and 
 defying the laws of God, were enabled to rob and 
 torture, and expel by the hundred thousand, a defence- 
 less and disarmed peasantry. 
 
 Mulliall's Dictionary of Statistics gives the following 
 statistics of evictions of families in Ireland :
 
 Families 
 Evicted. 
 
 Ee-admitted. 
 as Caretakers. 
 
 263,000 
 
 73,000 
 
 110,000 
 
 28,000 
 
 47,000 
 
 8,000 
 
 41,000 
 
 6,000 
 
 21,000 
 
 4,000 
 
 108 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 1849-51, 
 1852-60, 
 
 1861-70, 
 1871-80, 
 1881-82, 
 
 Total 33 years, - 482,000 - 119,000 
 
 Thus the number of persons actually evicted (on an 
 average of 5 per family) was over 2,000,000 (say 70,000 
 per annum), about 35 per cent, of the population. 
 
 Lord Derby, addressing the House of Lords on the 
 second reading of the Land Act of 1870, said : " I ask 
 you whether the Irish Church would not now have 
 probably been standing upon its legs but for the Fenian 
 agitation ? I will also ask whether this Bill in its present 
 form would have been likely to pass through both Houses 
 of Parliament, if it had not been for long-continued 
 agitation, supported by many most unjustifiable acts of 
 violence r ( " 
 
 After a delay of generations, a statesman at length 
 arose with both will and courage to grapple with the 
 Irish Land Question. Mr. Gladstone, at the head of a 
 great Liberal majority, disestablished the Irish Church 
 in 1809, and on the 14th March, 1870, his first attempt 
 to " Amend the Law of Landlord and Tenant in Ire- 
 land " came on for second reading. In the debates on 
 this Bill, Mr. Gladstone, speaking of the difference be- 
 tween England and Ireland, said : " It is only the 
 skeletons of the laws of the two countries that bear 
 any resemblance to each other. The flesh and the blood 
 with which the figures are invested are wholly different. 
 All the circumstances, all the associations, and all the
 
 GLADSTONE'S FIKST LAND ACT. 109 
 
 accretions that have grown around the native ideas, are 
 different in the one country from what they are in the 
 other. We cannot name a point in which the relation 
 of landlord and tenant in Ireland and in Great Britain 
 are the same, except only in what may be called the 
 abstract and general idea." Speaking of the many pre- 
 vious attempts to grapple with the subject, its author 
 said: "Having witnessed the disorder and difficulty 
 which have arisen from this long procrastination, we 
 shall resolve in mind and heart, by a manful effort, to 
 close and seal up for ever, if it may be, this great 
 question, which so intimately concerns the welfare and 
 happiness of the people of Ireland." (Hansard, in. 
 cxcix. p. 335.) The Bill was as much as Parliament at 
 the time would allow Mr. Gladstone to grant. It was 
 read a second time by 442 to 11. But this 11 con- 
 sisted almost entirely of Irish Members, w r ho regarded 
 it as unsatisfactory, and because they who understood 
 the question believed that the Bill would not " close 
 and seal it up for ever." 
 
 Their opinion was not heeded, their advice was re- 
 jected, the smallness of their vote was ridiculed ; and 
 the House of Lords, true to its mission, still further 
 maimed and restricted the already wholly inadequate 
 measure. 
 
 What happened ? As plainly foretold by them, the 
 Land Act of 1870 worked little benefit to the Irish 
 occupier. Evictions actually increased ! In the three 
 years before its passing, the ejectments on notice to 
 quit were 4,253 ; in the three subsequent years, they 
 readied 5,641, showing an increase of 1,388. In the 
 next three years they were 8,439 ! These figures repre- 
 sent only the capricious evictions, and do not include 
 ejectment for non-payment of rent or non-title. While
 
 110 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 it recognized the grievous wrong done to the victim of a 
 capricious eviction, the Act left full power to perpetrate 
 what it thus admitted to be unjust. It still left the 
 tenant at the mercy of the cupidity, the malice, or the 
 whim of his landlord. Instead of oivmo- security of 
 
 ~ O J 
 
 tenure, it gave the County Court Judge, at his discre- 
 tion, the power of imposing on the evicting landlord 
 a limited pecuniary fine. In other words, as has been 
 well said, it gave the homeless, and perhaps penni- 
 less tenant, " the right to a law-suit." While it 
 carefully fixed a maximum on the amount of com- 
 pensation which could be awarded to a tenant for 
 disturbance by the landlord, it left to the judge too 
 often a landlord himself an absolute discretion as to 
 what amount under that limit he might choose to award. 
 As the result, a different standard of compensation was 
 set up in every County Court each chairman necessarily 
 availing of the discretion allowed him, and administering 
 the Act in accordance with his peculiar training or pre- 
 judices. Thus Mr. De Moleyns, Chairman of Kilkenny, 
 in his evidence before the Bessborough Royal Commis- 
 sion of 1880 (to inquire into the working of the Act), 
 stated that he had never given the maximum compensa- 
 tion which sec. 3 permitted ; while Mr. Ferguson, Chair- 
 man of the West Riding, Cork, said not only had lie 
 frequently done so, but in many cases he had thought it 
 too little, and would have increased the amount if he 
 had the power. Moreover, Mr. Ferguson declared that 
 cases had come before him where he had been thus 
 hampered by the law, in which he knew that notwith- 
 standing the money penalty which the Act empowered 
 him to inflict on the landlord, the latter would actually 
 make a profit out of the transaction, and receive as a 
 fine for the vacant farm considerably more than the
 
 WHY THE FIRST LAND ACT FAILED. Ill 
 
 amount awarded to the evicted tenant. Small wonder 
 then that an agitation arose later on to make the greed 
 of the " landgrabber " odious. 
 
 The fatal imperfection in the Act of 1870, however, 
 was that, in the vital matter of rack-renting, it pro- 
 vided no remedy. Landlords could still continue to 
 rob their tenantry as freely as before. That "silent 
 system " of rent-raising, which has choked the Irish 
 Court of Bankruptcy with tenant-farmers, could flourish 
 as malignantly as ever. It afforded no protection when 
 a grasping proprietor demanded an increase under a 
 threat of eviction. Before the farmer could derive 
 any benefit from the " protective " clauses of the 
 Act, he must have left his holding for ever. And to 
 the struggling tenant who for long years had been 
 paying a rack-rent, the protection was a mockery. The 
 impossible rent broke him down, and the fact that he 
 was evicted for non-payment of it, alone excluded any 
 claim for compensation for disturbance, while the paltry 
 sum which might be awarded him for improvements 
 was but a poor viaticum to face the world upon. 
 Non-payment of one year's rent defeated the right to 
 compensation for disturbance, though under the scale 
 provided in sec. 3, compensation amounting to several 
 years' rent might otherwi.se be awarded. In estimating 
 the compensation for improvements made before the 
 passing of the Act, the judge is directed (sec. 4) to 
 " take into consideration the time during which such 
 tenant may have enjoyed the advantages of such 
 improvement ... in reduction of the claim of 
 the tenant." This clause contains a principle which, 
 when the State is considering how much the landlords 
 should themselves get on being " disturbed," may prove 
 somewhat awkward for them.
 
 112 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 The machinery of the County Court, which the tenant 
 was obliged to invoke against his landlord, naturally 
 came more readily to the hand of the educated and 
 monied landlord than to that of the unlettered and possi- 
 bly bankrupt tenant. The County Court Judges, whose 
 decisions sealed the peasant's fate, are not drawn from 
 the tenants' class, but from that of their oppressors. 
 From the prejudices of that class these judges are not 
 always able to free themselves, and law is not a cheap 
 commodity for the farmer to indulge in, if he wishes to 
 impugn their decisions. Every practising barrister or 
 solicitor can instance decisions showing a most unfair 
 bias towards the landlord on the part of County Court 
 Judges. 
 
 Knowing the urgency of the land question for their 
 country, the Irish Members, accepting no rebuff, kept 
 pressing upon the legislature every year since 1870 the 
 necessity for action. The question was constantly raised 
 by Bill, by Resolution, by motions for Commissions, 
 Select Committees, inquiry into working of Land Act, 
 etc., but all to no purpose. 
 
 The table on opposite page shows the constant rejec- 
 tion of Land Bills, thirty-one in all, during the ten years 
 from the passing of the Act of 1870 to the introduc- 
 tion of Mr. Gladstone's second measure in 1881. 
 
 It is remarkable to notice, though it is not remarkable 
 in itself, that a Land Bill is scarcely ever introduced in 
 the landlord chamber by any member of the Upper 
 House. The landlords make no sign and originate no 
 proposals.
 
 A DECADE OF DEAD BILLS. 
 
 113 
 
 Date. 
 
 Bill. 
 
 Introduced by 
 
 Fate 
 
 1871 
 
 Landed Property Act, 1847, 
 
 Sergt Sherlock, 
 
 Withdrawn. 
 
 
 Amendment, 
 
 
 
 1872 
 
 Ulster Tenant Right, 
 
 Mr. Butt, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 1873 
 
 Ulster Tenant Right, 
 
 Mr. Butt, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amendment, 
 
 Mr. Butt, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amudmt. No. 2, 
 
 Mr. Heron, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 1874 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amudmt. 
 
 Mr. Butt, Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Laud Act, 1870, Amudmt. No. 2, 
 
 Sir J. Gray, Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Ulster Tenant Right, 
 
 Mr. Butt, Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Irish Laud Act Extension, 
 
 The O'Douoghue, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 1875 
 
 ; Lauded Proprietors', Mr. Smyth, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amendment, Mr. Crawford, 
 
 Rejected. 
 
 1876 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amendment, Mr. Crawford, 
 
 Withdrawn. 
 
 
 
 Tenant Right on Expiration of Mr. Mulholland, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 
 Leases, 
 
 
 ,. 
 
 Land Tenure, Ireland, ( Mr. Butt, 
 
 Rejected. 
 
 1877 
 
 Land Tenure, Ireland, 
 
 Mr. Butt, 
 
 Rejected. 
 
 
 
 Laud Act, 1870, Amendment, 
 
 Mr. Crawford, 
 
 Withdrawn. 
 
 1878 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amendment, 
 
 Mr. Herbert, 
 
 Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Tenant Right, 
 
 Lord A. Hill, 
 
 Rjctd Lords. 
 
 
 
 Tenant Right, Ulster, 
 
 Mr. Macartney, 
 
 Withdrawn. 
 
 
 t Tenants' Improvements, 
 
 Mr. Martin, Rejected. 
 
 
 
 Tenants' Protection, 
 
 Mr. Moore, Dropped. 
 
 1879 
 
 Ulster Tenant Right, Mr. Macartney, Recjeted. 
 
 
 
 TTlster Tenant Right, No. 2, 
 
 Lord A. Hill, 
 
 W ithdrawu. 
 
 
 
 Landlord and Tenant, 
 
 Mr. Herbert, Dropped. 
 
 
 
 Laud Act, 1870, Amendment, 
 
 Mr. Taylor, Dropped. 
 
 
 Land Act, 1870, Amndmt. No. 2, 
 
 Mr. Downing, Rejected. 
 
 1880 g 
 
 (Land Act, 1870, Amendment, 
 
 Mr. Taylor, Dropped. 
 
 00 
 
 " 
 
 < Ulster Tenant Right, 
 
 Mr. Macartney, Dropped. 
 
 
 
 /Fixity of Tenure, | Mr. Litton, Rejected. 
 
 1 
 
 jLaiul Act, 1870, Amudmt, Mr. OV. Power, Dropped. 
 
 " r 
 
 jCompensation for Disturb- Mr.W.E. Forster Rjctd Lords. 
 
 c, 
 
 f ance,
 
 114 FEXIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 For a few years after 1870, owing to the prosperous 
 state of British trade, Irish produce fetched a high 
 price, rent rose, and land acquired almost a fictitious 
 value. Trade then declined, and America poured in a 
 supply of all that class of produce upon which the farmer 
 relies to pay his rent. A bad season occurred in 1877 ; 
 another followed in 1878 ; that of 1879 was still worse. 
 In 1879, the potato crop, the chief sustenance of the 
 Irish people, was almost a total failure. The official 
 estimate of the crop (Thorn's Director!/, 1881, p. 687), 
 was : 
 
 1876, 4,154,784 tons (@ 60s. per ton) 12,464,382 
 
 1877, 1,757,274 5,271,822 
 1878,2,526,504 ;, 7,579,512 
 1879, 1,113,676 3,341,028 
 
 In proportion to the badness of the harvest, the number 
 of evictions increased. In 1876 they were 1,269 ; in 
 1877, 1,323; in 1878, 1,749; and in 1879, 2,667. 
 Added to the failure of the potato, there came upon 
 the cottier of Connaught another calamity. The rent 
 for the patch he tills is annually brought over in wages 
 from England, and this resource was also cut off by the 
 scarcity of employment, caused by the bad state of 
 English trade. In a paper read by Dr. Hancock, the 
 Irish official statistician, before the Statistical Society, 
 in February, 1880, he estimated the losses of the Con- 
 naught harvest-men in 1879, from the failure of English 
 wages alone, at 250,000. 
 
 During the autumn of 1879 the landlords treated the 
 distress as a pretence got up by dishonest peasants 
 unwilling to fulfil their contracts. If anyone will turn 
 to the Irish correspondence of The Times for that 
 period, he will find the utter scorn with which the
 
 DISTRESS DENIED IN ENGLAND. 115 
 
 chief instructor of the British public on Irish affairs 
 scoffs at the idea that there had been any serious failure 
 of crops, or that want existed anywhere. All the 
 London papers howled in mockery at the pretence of 
 famine in Ireland, and called out as usual for the 
 stern maintenance of the law. The popular leaders 
 were described as dishonest agitators, organizing a 
 sham cry of distress, in order to defraud the landlords 
 of their rents, while the general body of the popula- 
 tion, being notoriously composed of rogues and rappa- 
 rees, no government worthy of the name could allow 
 itself to be imposed on by their ceaseless professional 
 whine. 
 
 A year later, when a Tory as well as a Liberal Par- 
 liament had recognized the famine by two Relief Acts, 
 a Seeds Act, and a Disturbance Bill, and Viceregal 
 appeals made subscriptions to Irish distress fashionable, 
 the very same papers opened their columns for " The 
 Irish Famine Fund," and the Daily Telegraph had as a 
 standing heading letters from "The distressful country." 
 In the Telegraph of the 14th November, 1880, its special 
 correspondent wrote of the state of Mayo : "The cabins 
 of the peasantry seemed to be about the very worst 
 dwellings for human beings I had ever viewed. I 
 noted that many of the cottages I passed boasted 
 no windows, that they all had mud floors, and most 
 of them mud walls ; that many were insufficiently 
 thatched ; nearly all were shared by the family pig, as 
 well as by the family children ; that in the majority of 
 cases a very slough of mud faced the door, and that the 
 utmost misery of appearance characterized every dwell- 
 ing. I have been in many lands, and have seen many 
 so-called oppressed people at home, but I declare that 
 neither in the Ilussian steppes, nor in the most neglected
 
 116 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 Bulgarian villages, still less in the very poorest Hindoo 
 hamlets, have I ever seen such squalid kraals as the 
 farmers of this part of Mayo inhabit. Here they are not 
 hidden away from public view, but front the high road 
 a dreadful testimony to mismanagement and unclean- 
 liness, such as can be met with nowhere else. An 
 officer of one of her Majesty's regiments, who lately 
 served with honour in Zululand, declared to me that not 
 even in the worst parts of Cetewayo's dominions did he 
 come across anything so bad as here ; and I am inclined 
 to believe that he was not exaggerating in the slightest," 
 
 Writing of the rents of Western tenants, the same 
 gentleman said : " Their rents seem immoderately 
 high, taking the Poor-law valuation as a standard. John 
 Grady, for example, occupies land valued at 3 10s. and 
 pays 9 ; while Tom Ball has a still smaller holding- 
 rated at 30s., for which he pays 5 and taxes. It is 
 manifestly impossible that these men can make a living 
 off poor land so heavily burdened land brought under 
 cultivation by themselves or their predecessors, without 
 the owner stirring a finger or investing a sixpence in its 
 improvement. The rent, in point of fact, has to be 
 made up by labour in England, and it is just this state 
 of things which should be borne in mind by people who 
 are disposed to complain of the Irish tenant's revolt. 
 His life is often one of slavery, for the benefit of the 
 men who own the soil of a country where agriculture is 
 the only industry." 
 
 In the vivid report officially addressed to the Dublin 
 Mansion House Relief Committee, on the condition 
 of the North Mayo peasantry in 1880, pp. 1 1-13, and 
 34-35 Mr. J. A. Fox s;iys : " I have taken the 
 precaution of seeing with my own eyes many of the 
 recipients of relief in their miserable hovels, which
 
 OFFICIAL DISTRESS-REPORTS. 117 
 
 so far as I have yet observed are a shocking reproach 
 to the civilization of the nineteenth century. 
 I do not believe that tongue, or pen, however elo- 
 quent, could truly depict the awful destitution of 
 some of those hovels. The children are often nearly 
 naked. Bedding there is none, everything of that 
 kind having long since gone to the pawn-office, as 
 proved to me by numerous tickets placed in my hands 
 for inspection in well nigh every hovel. A layer of old 
 straw, covered by the dirty sacks which conveyed the 
 seed potatoes and artificial manure in the spring, is the 
 sole provision of thousands with this exception, that 
 little babies sleeping in wooden boxes are occasionally 
 indulged with a bit of thin, old flannel stitched on to the 
 sacking. Men, women, and children sleep under a roof 
 and within walls dripping with wet. while the floor is 
 saturated with damp, not uncommonly oozing out of it 
 in little pools. In one case I asked a gaunt, starved 
 looking man, whom I found literally endeavouring to 
 sleep away the hunger, where his little children slept, 
 when he pointed to a corner in the moist room, in which 
 I could see no sign of bedding. ' Do they wear their 
 clothes at night?' 'No.' 'How then do they keep 
 warm ? ' ' There is,' he replied, with the most amazing 
 simplicity and composure, ' a deal of warmth in children/ 
 signifying that they obtained warmth by huddling 
 together like little animals. This occurred at Carry- 
 castle. . . . I invariably found them on the occasion 
 of my visit crouching around the semblance of a fire 
 lighted on the open hearth. And this at midsummer, 
 showing how terribly low must be the vitality amongst 
 them. ... It was only when 1 was accompanied 
 by a Catholic priest I could get an insight into the 
 appalling want. Alone, some of the most destitute tried
 
 118 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 to screen from me the poverty of their truckle beds, upon 
 which the straw was often so thin that I could touch the 
 bare boards with my hand. These received me with a 
 dull, passive surprise, wondering what might be the 
 object of my curiosity in so wretched a country. And 
 even the priest himself had occasionally to use no little 
 persuasion to overcome this modest feeling, by assuring 
 them that I was present in the capacity of a friend. 
 Everywhere the condition of the children was otherwise 
 dreadful, besides, there being for them nothing but the 
 indian-meal, badly cooked, to live upon, and the parents 
 only too glad if the charitable funds provided the family 
 with half enough even of that. Sometimes there was a 
 miserable cow about the premises for in every case I 
 am referring to the class of small farmers, mostly residing 
 on three to five acres of land, which in North Mayo is 
 generally found to be reclaimed bog or mountain slope ; 
 and this cow was supplying milk, principally gratis, to 
 a small number of children other than the owner's, to 
 mix with the indian-meal. Occasionally people appealed 
 privately to my companion on no account to cut off the 
 charitable supplies from the possessor of the cow, seldom 
 worth more than a few pounds, and just then unsaleable 
 in any market, as the animal was the hope of so many 
 little ones. At other times cooked cabbage, without a 
 morsel of condiment save salt, was found where there 
 was no meal, and in some instances one was found mixed 
 with the other. But in numerous cases there was 
 neither milk, meal, nor cabbage, about the premises, and 
 in those I gave some temporary relief, to iill up the 
 interval till the next general distribution of the local 
 committee. Sometimes even charity itself had failed, 
 and the mother of the tender young family was found 
 absent, begging for the loan of some indian-meal from
 
 CHINESE GORDON'S PROTEST. 119 
 
 other recipients of charitable relief the father being in 
 almost every instance away in England, labouring to 
 make out some provision for the coming winter. Yet 
 in the most destitute cases hardly a word of complaint 
 was uttered on the subject, it being a habit with, if not 
 the nature of, the Mayo peasant submissively to ascribe 
 his lot in times of scarcity as well as plenty to the ' will 
 of Providence.' We visited more than thirty hovels of 
 the poor, principally in the townlands of Culmore and 
 Cashel, in which I beheld scenes of wretchedness and 
 misery wholly indescribable. In some of those hovels 
 evicted families had lately taken refuge, so that the over- 
 crowding added to the other horrors of the situation. 
 In one hovel, in the townland of Cashel, we found a 
 little child three years old one of a family of six, ap- 
 parently very ill, with no person more competent to 
 watch it than an idiot sister of eighteen, while the 
 mother was absent begging committee relief, the father 
 being in England ; in another an aged mother, also 
 very ill, lying alone and unattended, with nothing to eat 
 save long-cooked indian-meal, which she was unable to 
 swallow ; in another, in the townland of Culmore, there 
 were four young children, one of whom was in a 
 desperate condition for want of its natural food milk 
 without which it was no longer capable of eating the 
 indian-meal stirabout, or even retaining anything what- 
 ever on its stomach." 
 
 In the south of Ireland things were little better, and 
 the late General Gordon, the hero of Khartoum, writing 
 from Roche's Hotel, Glengariff, County Cork, in No- 
 vember, 1880 (published in The Times) said: "I 
 must say, from all accounts and from my own observa- 
 tion, that the state of our fellow-countrymen in the 
 parts I have named is worse than that of any people in
 
 120 FENIAXISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people 
 are made as we are that they are patient beyond belief, 
 loyal, but at the same time broken-spirited and desperate, 
 living on the verge of starvation in places which we 
 would not keep our cattle. The Bulgarians, Anatolians, 
 Chinese, and Indians are better off than many of them 
 are. . . I am not well off, but I would offer Lord 
 [Bantiy] or his agent [Mr. J. W. Payne, J.P.] 1,000 if 
 either of them would live one week in one of these poor 
 devil's places, and feed as these people do." (The letter 
 will be found in extenso in The Life of General Gordon, 
 by his brother.) 
 
 The perennial misery and famines of Ireland are fre- 
 quently set down to its over-population and to the evil 
 of early marriages. The Census Returns prove that the 
 proportion of the population who are married is smaller 
 in Ireland than in either England or Scotland ; that the 
 Irish do not marry at so early an age as the English and 
 Scotch do ; and that the percentage of natural increase 
 of population in the ten years ending in 1871 was only 
 half as great in Ireland as in England. The following 
 table is taken from Mr. Joseph T. Pirn's Ireland in 
 1880. There is no reason to suppose that the propor- 
 tions have altered since. 
 
 PROPORTION' OF POPULATION UNMARRIED AND MARRIED 
 (PERCENTAGE) 1871. 
 
 Unmurried. Marridl. Widowed. 
 
 England and Wales, ... 37'22 53-9S 8'80 
 
 Scotland, ... ... 43'77 46-78 9 -45 
 
 Ireland, 44'99 44-74 10'27
 
 A COMMON ERROR EXPLODED. 
 
 121 
 
 PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION BETWEEN THE AGES OF 15 AND 25 
 
 UNMARRIED, 1871. 
 
 
 England and Wales. 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 Males. 
 
 Females. 
 
 Male?. 
 
 Females. 
 
 Males. Females. 
 
 15 and under 20 ... 
 
 9944 
 
 96-82 
 
 99-66 
 
 97-82 
 
 99-77 98-08 
 
 20 25 ... 
 
 76-71 
 
 65-16 
 
 84-16 
 
 73-79 
 
 91-28 78-12 
 
 The Statesman* Year Book for 1886 shows that the 
 marriages per 1,000 of population are in England, 
 8'1 ; Scotland, 7'2 ; and Ireland, 4 '8 ; while the births 
 respectively are, 35*1, 34'7, and 26'4. The same work 
 gives the density of population per square mile in the 
 following European countries : 
 
 Belgium, 
 Netherlands, 
 
 G. Britain with Ireland, 300 
 Italy, 25G 
 
 Ireland, 
 
 510 Germany, 
 
 338 France, 
 
 Switzerland, 
 Austria, 
 151 
 
 213 
 184 
 181 
 161 
 
 With all the poverty of Ireland, the percentage of 
 pauperism is much smaller than in England. In 1884, 
 109,000 persons were relieved in Ireland at a cost 
 1,202,000; whilst in England and Wales, 779,000 
 were relieved at a cost of 8,350,000. The proportion 
 of paupers to population stood as follows : 
 
 In 1884:- England, 1 in 33.3 
 
 Ireland, 1 in 47.5 
 In 1878 (before the distress) :- 
 
 England, 1 in 29.3 
 
 Ireland, 1 in 67.2 
 
 When on the approach of the famine of 1879 timely
 
 122 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 relief would have been golden, and kindly sympathy 
 would have calmed and encouraged the suffering people, 
 the chief Irish official of the Government seemed to be 
 possessed by a spirit of infatuated malevolence. In 
 the debate on the distress, on 27th May, 1879, the 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Lowther, said : " He 
 was glad to think that that depression, although un- 
 doubted, was neither so prevalent nor so acute as the 
 depression at present existing in other parts of the 
 United Kingdom." (Hansard, SER. in. vol. ccxlvi. p. 
 1399.) A month before (on 28th April, 1879), the 
 first meeting of the farmers to ask reductions of rent 
 had been held in Irishtown, County Mayo; but it 
 attracted little attention, and no report of the pro- 
 ceedings was published in any of the Irish daily papers. 
 The Irish Members, however, were well apprised of the 
 crisis that w T as at hand, and Mr. Lowther's jaunty 
 levity appalled every serious person in Ireland. Seeing 
 that hope from the Government was vain, Mr. Parnell, 
 himself a landlord, on the 8th June, 1879 (with Mr. 
 Davitt), appeared for the first time on the agrarian 
 platform, at a meeting at Westport (Mayo). Here Mr. 
 Parnell gave the threatened peasantry, whose desperate 
 situation had been vainly brought before the House of 
 Commons, the famous watchword, " Keep a firm grip 
 of your homesteads," for the popular leaders keenly 
 remembered '48, when the starving tenants paid their 
 rents and died. 
 
 Mr. Lowther, however, had nothing but jibes, sar- 
 casms, and threats for the hungry people, and he 
 dubbed their assemblies " the anti-rent movement." 
 Eeplying to an Ulster Tory landlord, as to the 
 steps the Government were taking to punish sedi- 
 tious speakers at these meetings (of which only three
 
 MR. LOWTHER'S PROVOCATIONS. 123 
 
 had then been held), he replied, on June 22nd, 1879 : 
 " With reference to the state of affairs in certain parts 
 of the West of Ireland, brought about by what is 
 known as the anti-rent movement, the Government is 
 fully alive to the necessity of dealing promptly with it. 
 Colonel Bruce, Deputy Inspector-General of Constabu- 
 lary has been despatched on a special mission to the 
 districts concerned. His duty will be to consult with 
 the resident magistrates and the local constabulary, and 
 report to the Government as to what additional police 
 force and special police stations may be required, to 
 enable full protection to be afforded to all persons in the 
 exercise of their legal rights. Special police protection 
 will be afforded to process-servers or others requiring it. 
 Considerable reinforcements are beino; drafted into these 
 
 o 
 
 districts, and it has been notified to the inhabitants that 
 in the event of any attempt at outrage, the cost of these 
 measures will be levied off the neighbourhood in which 
 it occurs." Hansard, SER. in. vol. ccxlvii. p. 433. 
 
 On 26th June, 1879, the Irish Secretary, being 
 challenged by the Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor 
 Power) as to his sneer at the promoters of one 
 of the meetings that at Mill town, Mayo (Han- 
 sard, SER. in. vol. ccxlvii. p. 194), Mr. Lowther 
 said : " A great proportion of the speakers were in 
 no respect fairly representative of the tenant farmers 
 of the district. I find, for instance, that the first 
 resolution was moved by a clerk in a commercial 
 house in Dublin, arid seconded by a person who 
 is stated to be a discharged schoolmaster. Another 
 
 o 
 
 resolution was moved by a convict at large on a ticket- 
 of-leave, and seconded by a person who is described as 
 the representative of a local newspaper." This brutal 
 attack on Mr. Davitt and his friends led to a motion
 
 124 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 by Mr. Power to adjourn the House, for the pur- 
 pose of calling attention to the real character of the 
 movement and the distress that prevailed in his consti- 
 tuency. But Hansard dryly narrates that " From the 
 time it appeared probable a debate was about to be 
 raised, hon. members ceased to pay attention to the 
 lion, member's remarks, and the conversation became 
 so general and so loud that the hon. member could with 
 difficulty be heard." He was half-a-dozen times inter- 
 rupted by the Speaker, and by the Tory Members, 
 including the leader of the House, Sir S. Northcote. A 
 disgraceful scene ensued, and for merely remarking in 
 protest against interruptions "Until the highest autho- 
 rity in this House commands me to be silent, I shall not 
 be silent until I have made my speech," Mr. Speaker 
 told him " he was not entitled to use language of 
 menace to this House," and that he should be " more 
 measured in his language." So unfair did these pro- 
 ceedings appear to Mr. John Bright, that he thus 
 alluded to the Chief Secretary's conduct : " I think 
 Irish Members have good reason to complain, and 
 frequently to complain, of the manner and tone, and 
 sometimes even of the language of the answers of 
 the right hon. gentleman. When the hon. member 
 for Mayo rose for the purpose of making an expla- 
 nation, and said that the answer of the right lion, 
 gentleman was absolutely inaccurate, what was he met 
 with ? Not with the slightest patience from hon. mem- 
 bers opposite. Immediately arose on purpose obviously 
 a hum and buzz of conversation from this end of 
 the House and that, and the object was to drown the 
 voice of the hon. member for Mayo, and to make it im- 
 possible lie should give any answer to the statements 
 of the Chief Secretary. This conduct, of refusing to
 
 THE LAND LEAGUE FOUNDED. 125 
 
 hear in a case of this kind, when an hon. member thinks 
 the conduct and character of his constituents are 
 attacked by the Chief Secretary for Ireland this con- 
 duct which was pursued by lion, gentlemen opposite 
 was exactly that which led, and which necessarily led, 
 to the unpleasantness which has occurred." 
 
 The indifference of the House of Commons and Mr. 
 Lowther's callous levity were met in Ireland by a 
 spirit of resolute defiance. Meetings multiplied ; and 
 on the 21st October, 1879, as a protest against the 
 heartless neglect of the Government and a shield to 
 the menaced people, the organization known as the 
 Irish National Land League was founded in Dublin, 
 with Mr. Parnell as its president. " Vigour " and 
 " firmness " were now demanded by the landlords, 
 and in two or three weeks Mr. Davitt, Mr. Brennan, 
 and others, were arrested on a charge of sedition. 
 Absolute starvation and famine-fever had set in in 
 Connaught ; but if the real state of affairs had been 
 admitted by the Tory administration, it would have 
 been to justify the agitation and to have "betrayed" the 
 landlords who were resisting the demands for a reduc- 
 tion of rent. Evictions were carried out by immense 
 bodies of police ; but the starving women at Carraroc 
 and elsewhere bared their bosoms to the bayonets. 
 Hunger defied " the majesty of the law," and Dublin 
 Castle showed serious signs of alarm. 
 
 In December, 1879, Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon set out 
 on a mission to America, where on 1st January, 1880, 
 they landed, and in two months sent home .70,000 to 
 the Land League, of which 50,000 was distributed in 
 charity. The incoming Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr. 
 Gray, M.I*., started a fund in the Mansion House, 
 which in the course of the year distributed 181,000
 
 126 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 (largely Australian) for food and seed. The New York 
 Herald alone raised 50,000 ; the Canadian Govern- 
 ment sent a large grant, and at length the " Castle " 
 itself was driven to make official acknowledgment of the 
 famine which its mouthpieces so long denied. This 
 took the shape of a letter from the Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, appealing for 
 help in The Times (which resulted in 135,000 being 
 administered in charity from Dublin Castle); and then 
 the Government, when Parliament met two months 
 later, was moved to pass a comical Eelief Act, which 
 resulted in the Irish landlords being allowed to borrow 
 out of the Irish Church Surplus 1,100,000. This 
 money was lent without interest for two years, and 
 afterwards bore only one per cent., and was ostensibly 
 granted to enable employment to be given by the 
 proprietors in improving their estates. The measure 
 of course was a flagrant job, and brought little 
 benefit to any deserving person, while the most serious 
 allegations have been made as to the manner in which 
 the bulk of the money was spent. 
 
 On the introduction of this " Relief " Bill, the Irish 
 Members besought the Government to recognize that 
 the only permanent cure for these recurring famines 
 was an amendment of the land laws. To their appeals 
 Mr. Lowther cheerily replied on Gth February, 1880 : 
 -" The hon. member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) spoke 
 of the extension to the whole of Ireland of what is 
 commonly known as the Ulster tenant custom, and he 
 says that on a former occasion 1 spoke of that suggestion 
 of his as pure, undiluted communism. That, sir, is a 
 statement I did make, and which I am quite ready to 
 repeat now. . . . Much has been said of the present 
 state of the land laws, but I have no hesitation in saying
 
 MR. PARNELL BECOMES LEADER. 127 
 
 that they have nothing to do with the present state of 
 Ireland." To no man more than the Eight Hon. James 
 Lowther should the title " Father of the Land League " 
 be given. 
 
 The dissolution of 1880 brought Mr. Parnell back 
 from America, and on 21st March he landed at Queens- 
 town. After a surprising series of victories at the polls, 
 he was chosen by the newly elected Irish Members 
 Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, at their first 
 meeting, on 17th May, 1880. On the 20th May 
 Parliament met under Mr. Gladstone's second admin- 
 istration ; but the Government announced no measure 
 to deal with the distress (then at its worst) or with 
 the Land Question. After some pressure, however, a 
 Relief Act was passed, and the Compensation for Dis- 
 turbance Bill was carried through the Lower House. 
 This Bill was only to remain in force until 1881, and 
 applied merely to the districts scheduled as " distressed " 
 under the Relief Act. It simply provided a temporary 
 remedy for one of the glaring defects of the Land Act 
 of 1870, referred to on page 111. Tenants in the dis- 
 tress-scheduled area, who could prove to the County 
 Court, on being evicted for non-payment of rent, that 
 such non-payment was due to then existing distress, 
 were to be allowed compensation for improvements and 
 disturbance, provided the value of these, as estimated 
 by the court, exceeded the amount of rent owing. In 
 other words, the tenant's saleable good-will was not to 
 be entirely confiscated by unpunctuality in paying a 
 year's rent. This provision, which was adopted by the 
 Government from the Bill of the Irish Party, would 
 have almost entirely stopped eviction during the con- 
 tinuance of the distress ; and although obviously 
 founded both on justice and policy, it was rejected
 
 128 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 in the House of Lords by a vote of 282 to 51. Their 
 lordships a few days before also threw out the Limita- 
 tion of Costs (Ireland) Bill, sent up by the Commons, 
 which would have lessened the tenants' costs in eject- 
 ment. A third feat of the hereditary chamber in the 
 session of 1880, was to reject a Bill to assimilate the 
 Irish law as to the registration of voters to that in force 
 in England 
 
 At the close of the session of 1880, so desperate was 
 the condition of the people of the West, that on 13th 
 August the House of Commons unanimously agreed to 
 Mr. Power's resolution : " That in the opinion of this 
 House, the present condition of the agricultural popu- 
 lation in Mayo, Sligo, Galway, and other parts of the 
 West of Ireland, demands the serious and immediate 
 attention of Her Majesty's Government." 
 
 Ireland had up to this remained in a state of such 
 profound peace, in spite of the distress which prevailed, 
 that the Government declined to renew, as being 
 unnecessary, the Coercion Act which expired in June, 
 1880, and which had been in force for seven or eight 
 years previously. 
 
 High hopes had been raised in the hearts of many 
 poor tenants by the introduction of the Disturbance Bill; 
 and its rejection threw the country into a ferment. 
 The Government failed to give any sort of reassuring 
 pledge to the sorely harassed peasants, who were 
 left to face a dreary winter unprotected from a law, 
 which the Chief-Secretary himself, Mr. W. E. Forster, 
 admitted must " oblige him to administer injustice." 
 That gentleman simply allowed the House of Commons, 
 to be prorogued, and went away on his holidays, leaving 
 Ireland to feast off the barren resolution of August 1 3. 
 His last act, before the recess, was to refuse to place a
 
 THE BESSBOROUGH COMMISSION, 1880. 129 
 
 representative of the tenants on the Royal Commission 
 of Enquiry into the Land Act of 1870, which was 
 appointed to consider the agrarian situation. It seems 
 now almost incredible, that he should have been able 
 to induce the Government to constitute this Commission 
 of four landlords and a judge two of the former, The 
 O'Conor Don and Mr. Kavanagh being defeated can- 
 didates at the then recent elections, the third, Lord 
 Bessboro', being an unpopular peer, and the fourth, Mr. 
 William Shaw, (since a bankrupt and ex-M.P.), being 
 the defeated opponent of Mr. Parnell for the leadership 
 of the Irish Party. The judge, Baron Dowse, was 
 the most valuable and popular member of the Com- 
 mission. The Government were warned of the im- 
 pression that would get abroad, respecting their bona 
 fides of intention really to grapple with the land question, 
 and Mr. Justin McCarthy proposed a motion of dissatis- 
 faction in the House of Commons on the composition of 
 the Commission ; but it was defeated, and no heed, as 
 usual, was paid to the representations of Irish Members. 
 The Land League, therefore, by special resolution, refused 
 to recognize or give evidence before this Commission; 
 but, misled by its whitewashing report, Mr. Gladstone, 
 in introducing the Land Act of 1881, stated (7th April, 
 1881) that "the landlords of Ireland had stood their 
 trial, and as a rule they had been acquitted." 
 
 It is not too much to say that Mr. Forster's Irish 
 secretaryship proved as great a misfortune for the Liberal 
 party as that of Mr. Lowther for the Tories. His Com- 
 mission of Enquiry was ordered to sit in secret, and 
 there being no kind of hope held out for the safety of 
 the tenants whom the Disturbance Bill was to have 
 protected, the agitation proceeded more fiercely than 
 before. In December, 1880, he caused Mr. Parnell
 
 130 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 and a number of his colleagues to be arraigned in the 
 Queen's Bench on a charge of " conspiracy to impo- 
 verish landlords," and when this failed, Parliament was 
 summoned on 6th January, 1881, to suspend the 
 Habeas Corpus. One thousand men were arrested by 
 him in 1881-'2, including Mr. Parnell, several Members 
 of Parliament, priests, solicitors, barristers, mayors, town- 
 councillors, and poor-law guardians. Many ladies were 
 also imprisoned on the most frivolous charges under 
 an Act (the 34th of Edward III.), passed A.D. 1360, 
 and the fury of the people against the Government 
 became such, that there was little recognition of Mr. 
 Gladstone's second great measure of land reform, 
 which received the Royal assent on 22nd August, 
 1881. The consequence was, that Mr. Forster made 
 no attempt to work the new Act in consonance with 
 Irish opinion. Of the seventy or eighty commissioners 
 appointed to fix fair rents, not more than two or three 
 w r ere tenant-farmers. The rest were landlords, agents, 
 and lawyers, most of them in bitter antagonism to 
 popular feeling ; and the moment they began to cut 
 down the rents, they were instantly intimidated by 
 the protests of their own class, and by a Committee 
 of Enquiry set on foot by the House of Lords in 
 1882. 
 
 As an instance of the spirit that prevailed, it may be 
 mentioned that Mr. George Fottrell, Solicitor to the 
 Laud Commission (now Clerk to the Crown for Dublin) 
 was called on to resign, for publishing a leaflet 
 encouraging the people to use the purchase clauses of 
 the Act, and citing the names of Mr. Parnell and Mr. 
 Davitt as advocates of peasant proprietary. This high- 
 handed proceeding completed the terrorism of the 
 officials. Those who remained took their cue from the
 
 HOCUSSING THE LAND ACT. 131 
 
 Kilmainham-regime at the Castle ; and to clinch the 
 influence of the administration over the Sub-Commis- 
 sioners, a number were appointed for brief periods, not 
 exceeding a year, so that when the list of quarterly 
 dismissals was conned over by the trembling rent- 
 fixers, they might judge from the character of the dis- 
 employed, what line of conduct in themselves was 
 best calculated to secure the continuance of their 
 salaries. A few of them had originally been appointed 
 for longer terms, and whenever these showed any in- 
 dependence they were hunted from pillar to post, 
 their circuits broken up, and themselves " transported " 
 into distant counties, beyond the wrath of the 
 aggrieved landlords, upon whose rack-rents they had 
 been operating. During the most important period 
 connected with the working of the Act the popular 
 leaders were in prison, the Land League was suppressed, 
 Parliament was occupied discussing the cloture, and 
 every protest made to Mr. Forster by the unimpri- 
 soned remnant of the Irish party was derided and 
 set at naught. 
 
 A week after the Act became law, the chief Commis- 
 sioners themselves struck a heavy blow at public con- 
 fidence, by issuing broadcast a circular purporting to ex- 
 plain the " benefits" of the measure, but in reality 
 directed against its most vital provision that affecting 
 tenants' improvements. One of the main controversies 
 of the Irish land question for generations, lias centred 
 round the claim of the occupiers to legal protection 
 for their improvements, and the fiercest portion of the 
 battle had been waged to secure this ; but now that 
 Parliament appeared at last to have recognized the 
 tenants' rights in this respect, they read with dismay 
 of the interpretation which the Land Commissioners
 
 132 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 put upon the provision which dealt with improvements. 
 Sub-section 9, section 8 (known as the Healy Clause), 
 provides that "no rent shall be allowed or made pay- 
 able in any proceedings under this Act, in respect of 
 improvements made by the tenant or his predecessors 
 in title, and for which, in the opinion of the court, the 
 tenant or his predecessors in title shall not have been 
 paid or otherwise compensated by the landlord or his 
 predecessors in title." 
 
 Nothing seemed plainer to the public than this. 
 Lord LifFord, in objecting to the clause in the House of 
 Lords, declared that "its effect went back to Adam;" 
 but the Land Commissioners, by their circular (officially 
 communicated to the Freeman's Journal, 1st September, 
 1881), alleged it meant that "no tenant can have his 
 rent increased by reason of any improvements he or his 
 predecessors may have made." The Commission con- 
 sisted of a landlord, an agent, and a judge, and this 
 interpretation was denounced on the spot by the popular 
 leaders, for what they charged to be an inexcusable 
 perversion of the statute. Resentment was bitterer 
 because the Commissioner who was believed to be 
 responsible for the wording of the circular (Mr. Litton) 
 had been a member of the House of Commons during 
 the entire progress of the measure, and was therefore 
 supposed to be fully acquainted with the intentions of 
 Parliament. It was during the controversy thus pro- 
 voked as to the real meaning of the " Healy Clause," 
 that Mr. Parnell, in Tyrone, put forward the doctrine 
 of " prairie value," as the one which logically sprang 
 from its effective interpretation ; and in this he founded 
 himself on a declaration of Mr. John Bright's (upon 
 the second reading of the Act) that if the land of Ire- 
 land were stripped of the improvements made upon it
 
 THE HEALY CLAUSE. 133 
 
 by the labour of the occupier, the face of the country 
 " would be as bare and naked as an American prairie." 
 
 Rooted as was the mistrust implanted in the popular 
 mind by the unhappy circular of the Land Commis- 
 sioners, the judgment of the ultimate tribunal on the 
 interpretation of the disputed clause completed the mis- 
 chief. The tenants regarded as their sheet-anchor the 
 provision which protected their improvements from 
 the imposition of rent ; but when the decision of the 
 Court of Appeal was made known, it finally shattered 
 what lurking remains of faith they had in the tribunals 
 to which the Act compelled them to resort. It 
 had not been law six months before the Lords-Justices 
 of Appeal, in the famous case of Adams v. Dunseath, 
 held 1st, that "enjoyment" of improvements made 
 before the Land Act of 1870, was a "compensation" 
 for them, i.e., that they practically became the landlord's 
 by process of time; 2nd, that the improvability of the 
 soil belongs to the landlord ; and, 3rd, that the improve- 
 ments, to come within the protection of the Act, must 
 be " suitable to the holding," i.e., that if the tenant 
 built thereon a corn-mill or a mansion he might be 
 rack-rented for these " unsuitable " structures without 
 mercy. 
 
 This decision transferred millions worth of the occu- 
 piers' property back into the landlords' pockets, from 
 which it was believed Parliament had rescued it. The 
 late Lord Chancellor, Mr. Law, who presided over the 
 court, dissented generally from its findings. He had 
 been Attorney-General in the House of Commons in the 
 previous year during the passage of the measure, and 
 it owed much to his zealous ability and upright regard 
 for the rights of the cultivator. But he must have 
 mournfully reflected that on the chief point on which
 
 134 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 he differed from the majority of the court (as to " en- 
 joyment" constituting "compensation"), the Govern- 
 ment vehemently refused, as superfluous, an amendment 
 of Mr. Parnell, which would have prevented the very 
 mischief that occurred. Three times the question was 
 raised on the Bill, and Mr. Gladstone's words on each 
 occasion (Hansard, SER. in. vol. cclxiv. pp. 1393, 1489, 
 and 1975) were : 
 
 On August 9th : " I am obliged to decline the 
 proposed addition of the words of the hon. member for 
 the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) on this ground. In the 
 Act of 1870 we did in respect to the tenant recognize 
 the principle, that he might be compensated by a reason- 
 able lapse of time in respect of improvements he had 
 made. . . . We do not recognize that principle in 
 the present Act. ... It is much better that those 
 who make the improvements should have the whole 
 benefit of the improvements." 
 
 On August 10th: "The doctrine accepted at the 
 time of the Land Act of 1870, and which he cer- 
 tainly declined to accept the night before, was the 
 doctrine, that the enjoyment by the tenant for a certain 
 time of his own improvements might have reimbursed 
 him for the cost of these improvements, and by a natural 
 process they passed over to the landlord. . . . The 
 tenant's improvements were the tenant's own property, 
 and he would not admit the principle that the time 
 during which he enjoyed those was any reason for their 
 passing away from him." 
 
 On August 15th : " It was nothing short of impos- 
 sible that the court should imagine or adjudge that to 
 be compensation by the landlord which had never cost 
 the landlord in any shape, in money or money's worth
 
 ADAMS V. DUNSEATH. 135 
 
 a single farthing. Consequently the Government could 
 not accede to the amendment." 
 
 One of the curiosities of the decision in Adams v. 
 Dunseath was that : " Three members of the court 
 dissented from the decision come to [on one point], 
 and three of the majority of four judges whose judg- 
 ments prevailed, based their decision on a construction 
 of the phrase ' predecessors in title/ which the majority 
 of the court, in deciding another point, declared to be 
 incorrect ; while the fourth judge, whose voice turned 
 the scale on this question, based his decision on a view 
 of the law which three other members of the court had 
 previously dissented from." (Healy's Land Act, p. 
 xix.) 
 
 Although the confiscation of the tenants' improve- 
 ments, which resulted from this judgment, was contrary 
 to the declared intentions of Mr. Gladstone, the Govern- 
 ment, with the terror of the House of Lords before their 
 minds, while admitting the injustice, have never been 
 able to accept the Bills brought in by the Irish party to 
 remedy it. As a rule, the reductions given under the 
 Act average twenty per cent., much less than has been 
 voluntarily given in England by thousands of landlords 
 (see evidence of Sir James Caird before Royal Com- 
 mission into Depression of Trade, Blue Book for 1886) ; 
 although in that country all the improvements arc not 
 made, as in Ireland, by the occupier. Still the effect 
 of the judgments in the Land Courts is, that the 
 pharasaical girders at a dishonest peasantry noble 
 kmls and gentlemen of high degree have been judi- 
 cially found guilty of that "felonious conduct," which 
 Lord Clarendon, an ex-Irish Viceroy, charged them with 
 (see p. 103-4). Each of the 150,000 tenants whose rent 
 has been reduced holds a certificate from a legal tribu-
 
 136 
 
 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 nal, of the injustice of his landlord. As soon as the Act 
 passed, many owners, to avoid the exposure of the 
 court, at once gave permanent abatements. The follow- 
 ing are a few of those who figure in Eason's Almanac 
 for 1883 (p. 179) as having "consented" to reductions 
 out of court : 
 
 Landlord. 
 
 Lord 
 
 Annesley, 
 
 Arran, 
 
 Belmore, 
 
 Carew, 
 
 Courtown, ,, 
 
 Dartrey, 
 
 De Clifford, 
 Dowushire, Marquis of 
 
 Dunally, Lord 
 Ely, 
 
 Erne, 
 
 Faruham, 
 
 Fitzwilliam, 
 
 Fortescue, 
 
 Gough, 
 
 Langford, 
 Leinster, Duke of 
 
 Londonderry, Lord 
 
 and 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of 
 
 Lurgau, Lord 
 O'Neill, 
 
 Ormathwaite, 
 
 Powerscourt, 
 Skinners Company, 
 
 Sligo, Lord 
 
 Templemore, ,, 
 
 Ventry, ,, 
 
 Waterford, ,, 
 
 County. 
 
 Cavan, 
 
 Donegal, 
 
 Tyrone, 
 
 Waterford, 
 
 Car low, 
 
 Waterford, 
 
 Mayo, 
 
 Down, 
 
 Tipperary, 
 
 Fermanagh, 
 
 Mayo, 
 
 Cavan, 
 
 Wicklow, 
 
 Waterford, 
 
 Gal way, 
 
 Dublin, 
 
 Kildare, 
 
 Antrim, 
 
 Armagh, 
 
 Antrim, 
 
 Cork, 
 
 Wicklow, 
 
 Deny, 
 
 Mayo, 
 
 Donegal, 
 
 Kerry, 
 
 Waterford, 
 
 Percentage of reduction. 
 14.8 
 22.2 
 12.7 
 16.3 
 22.8 
 16.7 
 14.2 
 16.2 
 24.4 
 20.2 
 14.0 
 15.3 
 15.3 
 16.9 
 17.3 
 18.7 
 16.6 
 
 13.5 
 
 23.6 
 12.9 
 21.2 
 21.5 
 11.4 
 16.5 
 15.8 
 13.0 
 16.7 
 
 Why the abatements (if just) were not given before 
 the gentle pressure of the statute law came to be 
 applied, no noble lord has risen to explain. 
 
 The following landlords are amongst those given in 
 Eaxon as having fought their tenants in court :
 
 HIGH-BORN CONVICTS. 
 
 13.7 
 
 Landlord. 
 
 Aberconi, Duke of 
 
 Annally, 
 
 Arran, , 
 
 Ash brook, , 
 
 Bandon, , 
 
 Ban try, , 
 Bruce, Sir H. 
 
 Clanricarde, , 
 
 Courtown, , 
 
 Deremore, , 
 
 Donoughmore, , 
 
 Egmont , 
 
 Gormanston, , 
 
 Gosford, , 
 
 Hawarden, , 
 
 Huntingdon, , 
 
 Inchiquin, , 
 Jones, Bence, J.P. 
 Kenmare, Lord 
 Leinster, Duke of 
 
 Lord 
 
 Lecon field, 
 
 Londonderry, 
 
 Massareene, 
 
 Massey, 
 
 Normanton, 
 
 Wallscourt, 
 
 Lord 
 
 County. 
 
 Tyrone, 
 
 Longford, 
 
 Donegal, 
 
 Queen's Co. 
 
 Cork, 
 
 Cork, 
 
 Derry, 
 
 Gal way, 
 
 Wexford, 
 
 Down, 
 
 Tipperary, 
 
 Cork, 
 
 Heath, 
 
 Armagh, 
 
 Tipperary, 
 
 Waterford, 
 
 Clare, 
 
 Cork, 
 
 Kerry, 
 
 Kildare, 
 
 Limerick, 
 
 Fermanagh, 
 
 Antrim, 
 
 Dublin, 
 
 Tipperary, 
 
 Gal way, 
 
 reraKe per cent. Reduction 
 awarded by Court. 
 
 11.8 
 23.5 
 30.2 
 36.6 
 14.5 
 14.1 
 22.7 
 10.8 
 13.3 
 13.6 
 16.3 
 28.0 
 26.1 
 
 16.9 
 21.0 
 15.1 
 32.3 
 13.6 
 17.1 
 19.0 
 8.8 
 17.8 
 16.0 
 15.3 
 21.2 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that reductions 
 thus given were in all cases final. Appeals are the 
 commonest method of oppression resorted to by wealthy 
 landlords, and the costs awarded to a successful suitor 
 by the Land Commissioners have been conveniently 
 fixed, so that the landlords, who are most commonly the 
 appellants, risk little by listing appeals, and the dread of 
 further litigation frequently reduces a tenant to 
 " reason." Where all fails, the landlord frequently 
 imposes a rent on the bogs (required for fuel) equal to 
 the reduction obtained in the Land Court. Well might 
 the Marquis of Hartingtou say at Accrington (1st De- 
 cember, 1883) :
 
 138 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 " Lawless agitation was brought prominently forward, 
 but had there been nothing in Ireland in the past two or 
 three years but lawless agitation 1 Were there no griev- 
 ances, no confiscation of the tenants' improvements, no 
 evictions for impossible rents'? Was there no general 
 opinion, not only amongst the disaffected as well as the 
 most respectable classes in Ireland, that judicial inter- 
 ference in some shape was required to settle the 
 relations between the landlords and tenants 1 The 
 evidence of this opinion did not rest only on the report 
 of Lord Bessborough's Commission, but on the report of 
 the Agricultural Commission, the Duke of Richmond's 
 Commission, and on the opinion of almost every person 
 entitled to speak with authority on the affairs of 
 Ireland." 
 
 The manner in which rack-renting went on in the 
 West of Ireland, where the tenants mostly live by 
 working as harvesters during the summer in England, 
 will be seen from the following table. It gives a few 
 samples of the reductions enforced by the Sub-Commis- 
 sioners in the Island of Achill, where in 1886 distress 
 again became so keen, that a new Relief Act had to be 
 passed, and where nearly every peasant man, woman, 
 and child has this year been saved from hunger by 
 American charity, and from nakedness by a clothing 
 committee of charitable Dublin ladies. Economists tell 
 these people they could not exist were they rent free, 
 and therefore they were probably supposed to be in- 
 different to the mere details of extortion, which after all 
 made only a difference of 200 or 300 per cent, in their 
 payments. The figures are taken from the Blue Book 
 C. 3827, p. 145 to 152, for July, 1883, and represent 
 reductions on the estate of two proprietors, who own 
 nearly the whole island.
 
 RACK-RENTS CUT DOWN. 139 
 
 Estate of the A.chill Protestant Mission to Catholics. 
 
 Oovt. Valuation (for rating). Old Rent. 
 
 Fair Rent. 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 (1 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 nil. 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 Estate of Richard Pike. 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 
 nil. 
 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 

 
 140 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 Many of the wretched cottiers of Achill, who were 
 too poor to fee lawyers to conduct their cases before 
 the Sub- Commissioners, were forced to surrender their 
 "fair rents," and pay a higher amount, in consequence 
 of a threat by the landlord to appeal and subject 
 them to further law costs, which they could not 
 pay. On the 20th November, 1885, the special cor- 
 respondent of the Freeman's Journal (Mr. -Michael 
 MacDonough), who visited the island to report on 
 the distress, stated that in some places the natives, 
 who use seaweed for manure, "brought huge stones 
 from the mountain tops down to the seashore, in several 
 cases many miles distant, and thence transported them 
 in boats a long way out to sea, where they were de- 
 posited. In course of time the stones become covered 
 with sea-weed, and the crop thus produced is collected 
 by the tenants every year. These stones are called 
 ' carrigeens,' and on some of the properties of the island 
 a yearly rate is charged for their use, although it cannot 
 be denied nor is it attempted to be denied by the 
 landlords, that the tenants alone underwent the trouble 
 and expense of putting them in position." 
 
 Had the Land Act of 1881 been honestly adminis- 
 tered, and worked in the spirit which animated its great 
 author, it would have gone far to appease the agrarian 
 difficulty in this generation. The exclusion of 120,000 
 lease-holders from its benefits, however, would, in any 
 case, have kept the sore open, even if the Land Com- 
 missioners had not shown themselves determined to keep 
 the question alive by farcical reductions. Sir James 
 Caird (The Times, 20th March, 1886) shows the chief 
 reason for the failure of the Act : 
 
 " The land in Ireland is held by two distinct classes 
 of tenants the small farmers who pay rent from 1 to
 
 PRAIRIE VALUE IN EXCELSIS. 141 
 
 20, and the comparatively large fanners who pay rent 
 from 20 upwards. Of the first class there are 538,000 
 holdings, averaging 6 each; of the second class, 121,000 
 holdings, averaging 56 each. The rent payable by the 
 first class is 3,572,000, and by the second class 
 6,845,000. Five-sixths of the Irish tenants thus pay 
 about one-third of the total rental, and one-sixth pay 
 nearly two-thirds. ... If the present price of 
 agricultural produce continue, I should fear that from the 
 land held by the large body of poor farmers in Ireland 
 any economical rent has for the present disappeared." 
 
 Upon this The Times, after describing Sir James 
 Caird as a man " whose authority on agricultural ques- 
 tions is universally recognized," declared: " It is not too 
 much to say that the rental of the 538,000 holdings is 
 practically irrecoverable by anybody, whether landlord, 
 English Government, or Irish Government." 
 
 Whereupon the Pall Mall Gazette exclaimed: 
 " Nothing that Mr. Parnell in his worst moments ever 
 said approaches in gravity to this momentous declaration. 
 For the doctrine of no rent for holders under 20 is now 
 formally advanced on the authority of the leading Eng- 
 lish economist and endorsed by the chief advocates of 
 the Irish landlords. Here is ' prairie value ' with a 
 vengeance. . . . The conclusions of the Laud 
 League are now endorsed as far as five-sixths of the 
 Irish holdings go by Sir James Caird and The Times" 
 
 The Blue Books prove that the reductions given by the 
 County Court Judges are two or three per cent, higher 
 than those of the Sub-Commissioners, yet it was in 
 the County Courts the Laud Act of 1870 was nullified ; 
 and on this account, when, on the introduction of the 
 Act of 1881, it 'was seen that the Government pro- 
 posed solely to entrust to the same tribunals the power
 
 142 FENIANISM TO THE LAND LEAGUE. 
 
 of fixing the rents, so great was the outcry that Sub- 
 Commissioners were called into existence, with leave to 
 the litigant to proceed before either tribunal. Yet these 
 County Court Judges, being independent in their posi- 
 tions, gave greater reductions than the "impartial" Sub- 
 Commissioners ; and so notorious did this become that 
 the Chief Commissioners calmly promulgated a rule, 
 enabling landlords, wherever a tenant listed his case in 
 the County Court, to apply to them to transfer it to the 
 Sub-Commissioners. As the fair rent dates from the 
 gale-day after it is fixed, the delay occasioned by this 
 rule, at a time when the Sub-Commissions were 
 blocked with business, assisted the landlords to enforce 
 their rack-rents for a longer period, and it was not until 
 attention was called to the operation of the rule in this 
 respect, by a question in Parliament, that it was modified. 
 To obtain redress under the Act, an unlettered and im- 
 poverished tenantry have had to pit themselves in a legal 
 duel with trained agents, landlords, and valuers, skilled 
 in every technicality, and armed with proofs at all points, 
 from the evidence of battalions of bailiffs, down to the 
 ledgers and letters of the last century. During a Nisi 
 Prius suit, reported in the Freeman's Journal of 18th 
 January, 1884, Baron Dowse remarked us follows : 
 " In order to show how business was transacted by Sub- 
 Commissions, he might mention that it was proved before 
 him in a jury trial last sittings, that while the legal 
 Sub-Commissioner, Mr. M'Devitt, had recorded in his 
 book a certain rent as fixed, his registrar had given a 
 certificate that the case had been withdrawn, and nothing 
 at all done in it." 
 
 The total cost of working the Act up to the present 
 exceeds the entire sum granted in annual reductions 
 since it became law.
 
 [ 143] 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOME RULE. 
 
 THE framers of the Act of Union in 1800 seemed to 
 have regarded its fifth article as the backbone of the 
 agreement between the English and Irish Parliaments. 
 It recites the establishment of the Protestant Church of 
 Ireland, its unity with the English Church, and provides 
 that " the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government 
 of the said united church, shall be and shall remain in 
 force for ever, as the same are now by law established 
 for the Church of England, and the continuance and 
 preservation of the said united church, as the Established 
 Church of England and Ireland, shall be deemed and 
 taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the 
 Union." This fifth article is the only one in which 
 solemn words italicized occur ; and therefore, when in 
 1869 Mr. Gladstone pulled down the church whose 
 establishment was to have remained "for ever" as an 
 " essential and fundamental part of the Union," Irish 
 Episcopalians regarded the treaty as broken and nullified. 
 On 3rd June, 1809, a petition to the House of Lords, 
 from five thousand Orangemen and other Protestants, 
 was adopted at a public meeting in Dublin, convened 
 by the Grand Orange Lodge, which declared that 
 the passing of the Church Bill would be " a violation of 
 the constitution," and that its sanction by Her Majesty 
 would cause her " to forswear her coronation oath." 
 The Grand Lodge met afterwards on the same day, and 
 the Deputy-Grand Secretary, Brother John II. Nimn, 
 gave the following notice : " That in the event of the
 
 144 HOME RULE. 
 
 Bill to disestablish and disendow the Church of Ireland 
 receiving the royal assent, he will move that the words 
 ' the Legislative Union,' in the statement of the basis 
 of the institution, be expunged therefrom, and conse- 
 quently that the members of the institution shall not 
 thenceforth be bound, as Orangemen, to maintain that 
 Union." 
 
 The Bill having become law, the Grand Lodge met on 
 the 8th December, 1869, and Brother Nunn, in pur- 
 suance of notice, moved the following resolution, which 
 was seconded by Brother Arthur H. Foster, D.G.M. : 
 
 " That the statement of the basis of our institution 
 containing the following obligation : ' The institution 
 is composed of Protestants, united and resolved to the 
 utmost of their power to support (amongst other things) 
 the Legislative Union' (sic), and this Grand Lodge having 
 expressed its conviction that the passing of the Irish 
 Church Act was a direct violation of the Act of Union, 
 and adhering to that determination, it is now resolved 
 that the obligation to maintain the Legislative Union 
 should no longer be continued as binding upon the 
 members of the institution, and that the statement con- 
 tained in the ' basis of the institution,' and all provision 
 in the rules and rituals, and other forms of the in- 
 stitution, imposing or recognizing such obligation be 
 expunged therefrom." 
 
 This resolution was not carried, and therefore Brother 
 Nunn resigned ; whereupon, as appears from a Report of 
 the Proceedings of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 
 printed by Brother James Forrest, Capel-street, Dublin, 
 1870, he was induced to hold over his resignation on 
 the understanding that a special meeting of the Grand 
 Lodge be called " to consider the subject of omitting 
 the obligation to maintain the Legislative Union."
 
 THE ORANGE-FENIAN JUNCTION. 145 
 
 The loyal spirit of the governing body of the order 
 at the time is proved from the fact, that at the same 
 meeting the election of O'Donovan Rossa as M.P. for 
 Tipperary was considered, and in the proceedings of 
 the Grand Lodge it is recorded that they sanctioned 
 a resolution, passed by the County Monaghan Grand 
 Lodge, and amended it into the following form : 
 Proposed by the Worshipful Master, and seconded by 
 Brother the Rev. J. Flanagan (the parson who wanted 
 to " kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne ") and 
 resolved : " That although we utterly disclaim any 
 sympathy with the Fenian society or its objects, that 
 the best thanks of this Grand Lodge are due, and hereby 
 given to the gallant gentlemen and Conservative electors 
 of Tipperary, in standing aloof on the recent election, 
 and allowing the Fenians and other opponents of the 
 Government to scout the Government candidate, and 
 assert their right to return the man of their choice, 
 thereby expressing their disgust at the general conduct 
 of their rulers, and the failure of concession to the 
 disloyal of the land in bringing about peace in Ireland." 
 The Tory sheriff of Tipperary at the time made no 
 charge for election expenses to O'Donovan Rossa's victo- 
 rious supporters. 
 
 Having thus established an entente cordiale witli the 
 Fenians, the special meeting of the Grand Lodge, sum- 
 moned to consider the Legislative Union, assembled, and 
 by twenty-two votes to eighteen carried the following 
 resolution : " That all statements and provisions in the 
 objects, rules, and formularies of the Orange Institution, 
 which impose any obligations upon its members to 
 maintain the Legislative Union between Great Britain 
 and Ireland, be expunged therefrom." But as the bye- 
 laws of the society provide that no change can be made 
 
 10
 
 146 HOME RULE. 
 
 in its constitution except by a two-thirds majority, Lord 
 Enniskillen, the Imperial Grand Master, wrote to the 
 press to say the resolution was defeated. 
 
 The " forward" section of the brethren, however, were 
 not only ripe for revolt, but keen for an understanding 
 with the Nationalists; and accordingly, on the 19th 
 May, 1870, they mustered in great strength, in response 
 to the following circular, signed by Protestants and 
 Orangemen, to meet a number of the leading National- 
 ists and Fenians in Dublin : 
 
 [PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.] 
 
 Bilto.i Hotel, l~th May, 1870. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 You are requested to attend a Preliminary Meeting of some of 
 the leading Citizens, at The Bilton Hotel, on Thursday evening next, at 
 8 o'clock, for the purpose of devising the best plan (to be laid before her 
 Majesty), for promoting the future interests and welfare of Ireland. 
 
 Yours very truly,' 
 
 JAMES YOKES MACKEY, J.P. 
 
 GRAHAM LEMON, 
 
 W. H. KERR, 
 
 W. LEDGER ERSON, J.P. 
 
 Hon. Secretaries. 
 
 N.B. The Meeting loill be strictly private. 
 
 When the strange gathering convoked by this secret 
 circular assembled, the Nationalists were in a small 
 minority ; but after some hours discussion the follow- 
 ing motion, proposed by Isaac Butt, was unanimously 
 carried : " That it is the opinion of this meeting, that 
 the true remedy for the evils of Ireland is the estab- 
 lishment of an Irish Parliament, with full control over 
 our own domestic affairs." A committee on resolutions 
 was then appointed, on which the Orangemen and Pro- 
 testants numbered thirty-five, and the Catholics twenty- 
 six (the names and religions will be found in A. M.
 
 ORANGEMEN DEMAND HOME RULE. 147 
 
 Sullivan's New Ireland, p. 341). It comprised elements 
 as divergent as the Rt. Hon. Colonel King Harman, 
 M.P., who subsequently became one of the Queen's 
 Privy Council, and Mr. Patrick Egan, who was after- 
 wards honourably distinguished as Treasurer of the Land 
 League of Ireland, and President of the National League 
 of America. At a subsequent meeting of this com- 
 mittee the constitution of the Home Government Asso- 
 ciation of Ireland was given to the world. This was 
 the birth of the Home Rule movement, and to its 
 initiative we, in the year 1886, owe Mr. Gladstone's 
 " Bill for the Better Government of Ireland." 
 
 The Orangemen who now threaten " civil war," if a 
 Home Rule measure passes, are members of the very 
 organization, whose governing body declared that the 
 maintenance of the Union should no longer remain 
 one of its articles of faith. But the resentment of 
 the conditional-loyalists of sixteen years ago having had 
 time to evaporate, they now return to their traditional 
 antagonism to Papists. As, however, it is Orangeism 
 that supplies the motive power of the opposition shown 
 in the north-east corner of Ulster to Mr. Gladstone's 
 proposals, some account of its record in the past may be 
 instructive. 
 
 The Orange order was founded in 1795, when George 
 III. recalled the popular Viceroy of conciliation, 
 Lord Fitzwilliam ; and the supporters of " English 
 policy" determined to prevent the union of Irishmen 
 for political objects, by the spread of religious rancour. 
 It had existed previously as a secret society under the 
 name of "The Peep <>' Day Boys" (see Plowden's and 
 .John Mitchel's History of Ireland], which was one of 
 those Protestant agrarian organizations referred to at 
 page 34. The original oath taken by Orangemen was : 
 
 10*
 
 148 HOME RULE. 
 
 "In the awful presence of Almighty God, I, A. B., 
 do solemnly swear that I will, to the utmost of my 
 power, support the King and the present Government ; 
 and I do further swear that I will use my utmost ex- 
 ertions to exterminate all the Catholics of the kingdom 
 of Ireland." 
 
 From the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam and the founda- 
 tion of Orangeism, the Irish Parliament made no 
 attempt to further repeal the Penal Laws against 
 Catholics; and in 1800, as Protestant ascendancy was 
 firmly established, the Orange lodges everywhere 
 energetically protested against Pitt's proposal. The 
 directors of "English policy," however, had cunningly 
 used them to oppress and torture the Catholics ; and 
 with a divided nation, Pitt succeeded in corrupting a 
 majority of the Protestant Parliament, the reform of 
 which Orange bigotry had prevented, by perpetuating 
 the exclusion of Catholics and Nonconformists. The 
 brethren therefore found themselves powerless to hinder 
 the Union, and were, in fact, caught in their own trap. 
 
 In 1820 the rules of Orangeism were revised, in pur- 
 suance of a resolution, which stated that practices had 
 been adopted in the order " offensive even to common 
 decency." The Duke of Cumberland later on was made 
 Grand Master, and plotted, with the help of the organi- 
 zation, to secure his accession to the throne, first instead 
 of his brother, William IV., and afterwards instead of 
 her present Majesty. When the Princess Victoria was 
 born, Daniel O'Connell, with a sigh of relief, cried out : 
 " Thank God, there is another life between us and the 
 hoary tyrant of Hanover." 
 
 So active were the Orange plotters against the present 
 Queen before her accession, that the King and Parlia- 
 ment interfered, and in September, 1835, a Committee
 
 PARLIAMENT CONDEMNS ORA^fGEISM. 149 
 
 of tlie House of Commons asked that legal proceedings 
 should be instituted without delay against the grand 
 officers of all Orange lodges. On 23rd February, 1836, 
 a resolution of Lord John Russell was unanimously 
 agreed to by Parliament, praying the King to take 
 effectual measures for the discouragement of Orange 
 lodges, to which William IV. sent a reply cordially as- 
 senting. On 15th March, 1836, a Treasury minute was 
 issued, forbidding any member of the Civil Service from 
 belonging to an Orange lodge ; and soon after these 
 measures the Duke of Cumberland, baffled in his con- 
 spiracies with the brethren, dissolved the English 
 lodges. The Irish Orangemen thereupon took steps to 
 " legalize " the constitution of the society, and new rules 
 were issued, after being submitted to Mr. Napier, Q.C. 
 Vehement protestations of ardent loyalty caused their 
 misconducts in time to be forgotten, but in Ulster the 
 nuisance they locally create has always been regarded 
 by the Government as a danger. 
 
 In 1857, during Lord Carlisle's viceroyalty, the Lord 
 Chancellor (Maziere Brady) declared, in a letter to the 
 Lieutenant of Down, published in the Northern Whig, 
 6th October, 1857, that no person should be allowed to 
 hold the commission of the peace who was an Orange- 
 man, and expressed doubts as to the legality of the 
 .society, which, he said, was mainly responsible for 
 the dangerous breaches of the peace then constantly 
 occurring. On 18th February, 1858, Lord Palmerston 
 backed up Chancellor Brady, in replying to a protesting 
 deputation, and asked, "Is it an organization which 
 belongs to the age in which we live ? Is it not rather 
 one that is suited to the middle ages to those periods 
 of society when anarchy prevailed? "and he recom- 
 mended the dissolution of the order.
 
 150 HOME KULE. 
 
 In 1864 Belfast was kept in a state of siege for weeks 
 by Orange riots, many lives being lost ; and from the 
 foundation of the society till the present time few of its 
 July anniversaries pass over without bloodshed. (See a 
 History of Orangeism, Dublin 1882.) In 1882 the 
 Canadian courts declared the society illegal, and the 
 Dominion Parliament rejected a Bill to legalize it. In 
 1884, Lord Spencer, when Irish viceroy, had to dismiss 
 the Orange leader, Lord Rossmore, from the commission 
 of the peace, for his riotous conduct in leading bodies 
 of armed brethren to attack the Nationalists ; and the 
 language used by their chief spokesmen, in deliberately- 
 written manifestoes, as well as in speeches, during the 
 entire of the agitation for the extension of the franchise 
 in 1883-4, was that of murderous ferocity. (Healy's 
 Loyalty Plus Murder, Dublin, 1884.) 
 
 In 1886 the cruel drowning of a Catholic lad in Bel- 
 fast, and the wrecking and pillage of Catholic houses, 
 which went on for days after the rejection of the Home 
 Rule Bill, kept up the traditions of the order. All 
 through the rest of Ireland the millions of Nationalists, 
 to whom the defeat of Mr. Gladstone was a keen and 
 unparalleled disappointment, gave no offence to any 
 opponent. It was only the victorious minority that 
 inaugurated a saturnalia of disorder and plunder. 
 
 It is a body with a history like this whose abettors 
 and sympathizers call out for the suppression of the 
 National League a League which, embracing practi- 
 cally three-fourths of the people of Ireland, was created 
 on the spur of self-defence, to defend a, writ-ridden 
 peasantry from the cruellest forms of oppression. Ad- 
 mittedly the Orangemen have no grievances ; they boast 
 of their loyalty, and therefore they must be comfortably 
 off under the existing laws ; yet it is where they are
 
 ORANGE "LOYALTY." 151 
 
 predominant, and there alone, that we hear of murder, 
 pillage, and wreckings, perpetrated against the minority 
 who live amongst them. The peasant criminal, at any 
 rate, can plead a terrible past and a miserable present 
 in mitigation of his sins ; but the Orangemen boast that 
 they are contented, prosperous, educated, and loyal. 
 Why, then, does not happy Belfast show the example 
 to benighted Dublin and priest-ridden Cork, where 
 the majority tolerate all sorts of opposition to their 
 patriotic convictions ? 
 
 But the palliators of Orange infamies plead, that what- 
 ever may be urged against the brethren, the brethren 
 at any rate love England, adore the Queen, and 
 are loyal to the backbone. Is this so ? True, they are 
 for ever flaunting their virtues, their fidelity, and their 
 valour before the world ; but is there nothing suspicious 
 in a superfluity of protestation ? " Methinks the lady 
 doth protest too much." The mass of them shout their 
 shibboleths of loyalty in the teeth of Nationalists, simply 
 for partizan gratification, thinking it gives offence ; and 
 with this species of loyalists the object is equally the 
 same, whether they cry, " God save the Queen," or 
 "To h - with the Pope." This spurious devotion to 
 the throne is simply a survival of the epoch when the 
 occupant of the throne was an ascendancy partizan, 
 and would be turned to instant disaffection by a demon- 
 stration of impartiality on the part of her Majesty's 
 Government. 
 
 The landlords are chiefly responsible as the promoters 
 of the evil spirit which pervades two or three of the 
 north-eastern counties. They provide Orange halls, and 
 patronize the brethren, the better to rack-rent tenants of 
 all religions. In the last century, Primate Boulter 
 declared : " When Papist and Protestant join, good-bye
 
 152 HOME KULE. 
 
 to the English interest in Ireland;" and these gentlemen 
 always assert that their interest is the English interest. 
 But is there anything particularly lofty in being loyal to 
 one's bread and butter ? If certain persons have been 
 kept well off at the expense of the bulk of the population, 
 is it so very surprising that they should deprecate a 
 change ? And when so great an argument is made of 
 the loyalty of less than half a million of Ulstermen, 
 surely if their affections are so precious, those of some 
 four millions of Irishmen in the other provinces, 
 and three times as many abroad, are worth some 
 effort to win. 
 
 The ultimatum of the Orange faction seems to be : 
 " Choose between the minority and the majority ; for 
 if you content the rest of the population, we, the loyal 
 and true, will immediately fly to arms." Were it real 
 patriotism, and not a narrow malignity which embued 
 their leaders, should they not be prepared to make some 
 concession for the common good? They are after all but 
 a fraction of the people ; and it seems the highest politi- 
 cal egotism and selfishness in a minority to demand that 
 the aspirations and desires of the rest of Ireland should 
 be doomed to eternal disappointment, because of a 
 sectarian distrust of the bulk of their fellow-country- 
 men. 
 
 But it is said by Radicals like Mr. Chamberlain that 
 the Protestants must not be handed over " bound hand 
 and foot to the yoke of a Dublin Parliament." Well, 
 the Catholics were handed over for some centuries 
 bound hand and foot to the yoke of a Dublin Parlia- 
 ment, wholly Protestant, and the grievance did not 
 weigh very heavily on the conscience of the British 
 Government. Every atrocity and infamy that the mind 
 of fiends could devise was perpetrated against the
 
 O'CONNELL AND A PROTESTANT PARLIAMENT. 153 
 
 happiness, the liberty, and the property of the majo- 
 rity ; yet the Catholics of Ireland declined to give up 
 this Protestant Parliament, or assent to the Union in 
 1800, in spite of the promised bribe of immediate Eman- 
 cipation. Daniel O'Connell, while yet this Protes- 
 tant Parliament survived, thus spoke at a meeting of 
 Catholics in Dublin in 1799, held to protest against the 
 Union : " It is my sentiment, and I am satisfied it is 
 the sentiment not only of every gentleman who now 
 hears me, but of the Catholic people of Ireland, that if 
 our opposition to this inglorious, insulting, and hated 
 measure of Union were to draw down upon us the 
 revival of the Penal Laws, we would boldly meet a 
 proscription and oppression which would be the testi- 
 mony of our virtue, and sooner throw ourselves once 
 more on the mercy of our Protestant brethren, than give 
 our consent to the political murder of our country. Yes, 
 I know I do know that, although exclusive advan- 
 tages may be ambiguously held forth to the Irish 
 Catholic to seduce him from the sacred duty which he 
 owes his country I know that the Catholics of Ire- 
 land still remember that they have a country, and that 
 they will never accept of any advantages as a sect, 
 which would debase and destroy them as a people." 
 
 After the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1829, 
 O'Connell declared in the same spirit, that he would 
 consent to the re-enactment of the Penal Laws against 
 his co-religionists, provided he could get back the 
 Protestant Parliament of Ireland. The breadth 
 and loftiness of such declarations contrast strangely with 
 the petty apprehensions of the persecutors. O'ConnelTs 
 solicitude for the welfare and dignity of all Ireland, as 
 compared with the pseudo-Radical cry for a cordon sani- 
 taire round the Belfast district, to separate it from the
 
 154 HOME RULE. 
 
 rest of the country, recalls the story of the women who 
 pleaded before Solomon, and the answer the true mother 
 gave to the judgment which would have severed her 
 child in two. 
 
 But the Catholics forsooth would oppress the Pro- 
 testants ! Where is the evidence for this ? Living 
 at a time when every paltry outrage is magnified by 
 telegraph for the English market, has there been any 
 attempt made even by the purveyors of London sensa- 
 tion, to show that the half million Protestants outside 
 Ulster haA 7 e anywhere been constrained or assailed on 
 account of their religion? Is there a board of guardians 
 in the most Catholic districts that does not pay a Pro- 
 testant chaplain a salary to minister to the spiritual 
 wants of the handful of Protestant paupers in their 
 workhouses sometimes hardly numbering half a dozen, 
 unmindful of the example given in places like Donegal 
 where in spite of constant protests in Parliament, and 
 official reproofs from the Local Government Board, not 
 only will no priest be paid to take spiritual charge of the 
 Catholics, who form the vast majority of the paupers, 
 but the " loyalists " refuse to give three or four 
 pounds a year to a Catholic catechist to teach the child- 
 ren the Christian doctrine. (See Hansard, passim, 
 1883 to 1880.) In Belfast or in Deny there is no 
 Catholic in the Corporation, or employed by it, although 
 the Catholics of Belfast number 60,000, and they are 
 the majority of the population in Deny. Wherever 
 religious oppression is practised in Ireland, there the 
 Catholics are the minority, and the religious bogey will 
 be buried the moment the landlords have no longer 
 any interest in keeping the people divided. 
 
 But do not the loyalists of Ulster excel all Ireland in 
 their thrift, prosperity, industry, and culture ? They do
 
 THE "ULSTER" OBJECTION. 155 
 
 not. It is quite true that exceptional advantages were 
 possessed for generations by Ulster in its special tenant- 
 right, which prevented the robbery of the cultivator, 
 who was rack-rented elsewhere ; and the rise of Belfast 
 may be traced to the privileges originally conferred on 
 the borough of Carrickfergtis, and sold by the corpora- 
 tion of that borough to Belfast. But granting pros- 
 perity to the Protestant districts, are they prosperous 
 because they are loyal, or loyal because they are pros- 
 perous I Can any one who has read the history of the 
 last three centuries wonder if the Catholics were neither 
 wealthy nor contented ? Let us examine, however, 
 what substance there is in this boast of the superiority 
 of Ulster, remembering, of course, that the first use 
 "Ulster" made of the Franchise Act of 1884 was to 
 return a majority of Nationalist representatives, to give 
 the lie to the pretence that the North is opposed to 
 Home Rule. 
 
 The following tables are taken from the Income-tax 
 assessment return issued by the Home Office, and pre- 
 sented to Parliament in 1882 : 
 
 Income-tax Income-tax 
 
 Population 
 
 per head of assessment 
 
 population. in 17'J-80. 
 
 Leinater, ... 10 6 9 13,272,202 1,282,881 
 
 Munster, ... 607 7,980,276 1,323,910 
 
 Ulster, ... 5 14 5 9,052.289 1,789,542 
 
 Counaught,... 3 13 7 2,995,438 813,506 
 
 The comparison between Belfast and Dublin is equally 
 unfavourable : 
 
 Income-tax Population 
 
 cliaiwcU. K'SSS' i'8*>- 
 
 Dublin, ... 102,609 5,368,758 273,064 
 
 Belfast, ... 40,730 2,200,842 207,671 
 
 The contrast between what the Orangemen call " the 
 progressive commercial capital of Ireland" and de- 
 caying Dublin, they explain by saying that Dublin's
 
 156 HOME RULE. 
 
 income chiefly comes from the Imperial Civil Service 
 establishments, which are supposed to enrich that city. 
 Take, therefore, an Ulster and a Munster city of equal 
 populations, where no such considerations can arise : 
 
 Income-tax Income-tax Population 
 
 charged. assessment 1879-'8(). in 1881. 
 
 Londonderry, - .3,981 - 223,775 - 28,947 
 
 Waterford, - 6,253 - 336,272 - 28,952 
 
 Schedule D of the Income Tax Assessments shows 
 the payments made on profits in professions and 
 trades. It should naturally demonstrate Ulster's manu- 
 facturing superiority ; but here are the figures : 
 
 Schedule 1) Assessment 
 
 assessment. per inhabitant. 
 
 Leinster, - - - - 5,291,461 4 2 6 
 
 Ulster, 2,527,344 191 
 
 Munster,- 1,811,343 174 
 
 Connaught, - 249,088 061 
 
 The tests of valuation and contribution to local rates, 
 as shown by Return No. 164, presented to Parliament 
 in 1884, are also remarkable : 
 
 Valuation of Valuation per 
 
 rateable property. inhabitant. 
 
 Leinster, .... 4,711,193 3 13 5 
 
 Minister,- - 3,365,182 2 10 10 
 
 Ulster, - - 4,348,713 2 9 11 
 
 Connaught, - 1,431,019 1 15 2 
 
 If in consequence of these figures it is contended that 
 " Protestant" Ulster is prejudiced by being included with 
 " Catholic " Ulster, the answer is that, tested county by 
 county with the rest of Ireland, these returns prove, 
 that either as to income-tax assessment or valuation 
 ratings, the four most Protestant counties in Ulster are 
 distanced by fourteen Catholic ones in the south. 
 
 The estimated value of live stock, and average size 
 and valuation of the holdings in the four provinces,
 
 ULSTER'S ALLEGED PRE-EMINENCE. 157 
 
 afford another test of wealth (Thorn's Almanac, 
 1886): 
 
 Value of cattle. Average size of Average valua- 
 sheep, and pigs. holdings (acres). tion of holdings. 
 
 Munster, - 
 
 - 20,048,949 
 
 42 
 
 25 
 
 Leinster, - 
 
 16,938,867 
 
 36 
 
 31 
 
 Ulster, 
 
 15,667,364 
 
 29 
 
 17 
 
 Connaught, 
 
 10,857,097 
 
 23 
 
 11 
 
 of holdings 
 affected. 
 
 Totals arrears 
 wiped off. 
 
 Yearly rental of 
 holdings affecU-d. 
 
 52,883 
 
 - 634,331 
 
 - 308,456 
 
 41,134 
 
 561,391 
 
 357,398 
 
 18,994 
 
 341,198 
 
 282,563 
 
 12,879 
 
 223,902 
 
 163,533 
 
 The comparative poverty of the different provinces 
 may be judged also by a return (C. 4059, 1884) of the 
 rent extinguished under the Arrears Act, 1882 : 
 
 Connaught, - 
 Ulster, 
 Minister, 
 Leinster, 
 
 Thus it is apparent that the farmers of Ulster, who 
 enjoyed the security of tenant-right, generations before 
 it was extended to the rest of Ireland, were obliged to 
 avail themselves of the protection of the Arrears' Act to 
 nearly as great an extent as those of impoverished Con- 
 naught; whereas in the " League-ridden " provinces of 
 Munster and Leinster, with their " dishonest " and 
 " agitating " peasantry, not half as many farmers were 
 behind in their payments to the landlords, or alleged 
 that they were unable to pay their rent. 
 
 If prosperity is shown by higher emigration, then 
 Ulster is prosperous, for there was absolutely and rela- 
 tively a greater drain from the North than elsewhere 
 during the last decade : 
 
 IH-cn-OJ-o, 1H71-K1. Dccmwe jirroriit. 
 
 Ulster, 1).'J,06 5.38 
 
 Minister, ... C'.),. r >~5 5.26 
 
 Leinster, 5'J,yJ8 4.68 
 
 Conimuglit, - '-".,279 3.59
 
 158 HOME RULE. 
 
 As to illiteracy, the Northern province shows no pre- 
 eminence, although Protestant education has never been 
 proscribed, whereas the Catholics have been shamefully 
 treated in educational matters : 
 
 Percentage able to 
 read and write. 
 
 Leinster, ... 58.5 
 
 Ulster, - - - 53-4 
 
 Minister, - - - 53.2 
 
 Coniiaught, - 41.5 
 
 Injudicious champions sometimes claim a specially 
 God-fearing quality for the North ; but, so far as the 
 statistics of drunkenness and illegitimacy go, the figures 
 are less unfavourable to the "priest-ridden" South and 
 West. Ulster certainly can boast the greatest freedom 
 from evictions, and consequent agrarian crime ; but its 
 sturdy farmers would hardly be flattered by being told 
 that they would bear the razing of their roof-trees with 
 more meekness than other men; and it is but forty 
 years since the agent of Lord Londonderry declared, 
 that the oppressions common in the south would pro- 
 voke outrages that would "make Down another Tippe- 
 rary." (See p. 87.) 
 
 Passing from the Ulster argument, objectors contend 
 that the Irish question could be settled by a minuter 
 measure of Home Eule than that on which Mr. Glad- 
 stone was defeated. Yet these are the same logicians 
 who at other times pretend that the rejected Bill is too 
 small to satisfy the Irish people, and that it would be 
 used as a lever for separation. If Mr. Gladstone's Bill 
 would not satisfy the Irish people, what could a minor 
 measure effect \ If Home Rule affords a lever for sepa- 
 ration, would a smaller proposal not give a leverage to 
 gain Home Rule, out of which it is asserted separation 
 must spring ? Which plan, then, offers the greatest 
 prospect of finality ?
 
 COUNTY BOARDS V. HOME RULE. 159 
 
 Again, what are those lesser powers of local govern- 
 ment which are allowable and safe ? For generations 
 we have been hearing that Parliament would be willing 
 to entrust Ireland with control over gas, water, and rail- 
 ways. It costs tens of thousands annually to pass Irish 
 private Bills at Westminster. In 1885, for instance, the 
 Central Ireland Branch Railway, seven and a-half miles 
 long, was opened, at a cost of 52,460. Of this, 4,322 
 was parliamentary costs, or 8 per cent, of the whole, 
 the land for the line costing but little more, viz. : 
 6,025. Millions have been wasted in this way since 
 the Union. The Marquis of Harrington, in a speech at 
 Sheffield, on 28th June, 1886, in support of a Unionist 
 candidate, said that when he was Chief Secretary for 
 Ireland (1872), "it had been his duty to prepare a 
 small measure in the direction of Irish Home Rule a 
 measure intended to prevent the delays that were con- 
 stantly occurring in matters of private bill legislation 
 for Ireland ; but he was not fortunate enough even to 
 get the attention of his colleagues to that measure, 
 which had since remained where, he was afraid, many 
 other useful Irish measures had remained in the pigeon 
 holes of the Irish Department." This is a pretty con- 
 fession, seeing that fourteen weary years have since 
 elapsed. But why has no reform been tried ? Because 
 the moment any such thing was attempted, it would be 
 " the letting out of water." The question of the tribunal 
 to which such subjects should be relegated would in- 
 stantly be raised; the Irish would object to any but a 
 popular body having large powers conferred on it, and 
 by no possibility could proper machinery be created, 
 except under a sound representative system, which could 
 alone invest it wi,th authority and dignity. 
 
 So long, however, as an unsatisfied National feeling
 
 160 HOME RULE. 
 
 remained in Ireland a feeling which the rejected Home 
 Rule Bill would appease every smaller concession 
 would be used against the central government, adding 
 a thousand-fold to the difficulties of the executive. 
 Disaffection would impregnably entrench itself behind 
 pettifogging reforms, and the evil would not only 
 affect the government at large, but would poison the 
 local life of the country. To county councils on the 
 proposed British model (minus a parliament) the magis- 
 tracy and the police would have to be surrendered ; 
 but once the people controlled the Bench and Con- 
 stabulary, their will would be law ; and when dis- 
 affection had been formally enthroned in local power, 
 what relics of privilege would be left which the ascen- 
 dancy class would care to defend ? Minute doses of 
 local government would simply be a slow poison, which 
 would bring about as certainly, but with a thousand-fold 
 more agony, the death of the present system. 
 
 And what is that system ? It is one which debars 
 the body of the people from enjoying any control over 
 their local affairs. The counties are governed and taxed 
 by Protestant magistrates, chosen by a Protestant sheriff, 
 under the name of a Grand Jury. The Poor-law is ad- 
 ministered by boards, of which these magistrates must 
 form half, with a restricted franchise for the elected 
 moiety. The Harbour Boards and Town Boards arc 
 elected on an exclusive franchise, and exercise only 
 limited powers ; while the country at large is ruled from 
 Dublin Castle by the Lord Lieutenant with arbitrary 
 authority. On his Privy Council no man in the con- 
 fidence of the people has a seat, though this body 
 exercises a wide control even over matters wholly non- 
 political, such as the shipping of live stock, a chief 
 industry of Ireland. The Viceroy directs the troops
 
 CHARACTER OF NATIONAL LEAGUE. 161 
 
 and the police. He appoints and dismisses officials 
 of all grades. His nominees fill " Boards " without 
 number. These Boards deride and defy popular feeling, 
 and are practically irresponsible. There is a " Local 
 Government Board" of three persons to control the 
 poor-law guardians and sanitary authorities, a " Board 
 of Public Works " of three persons to control the 
 management of public works and public loans, a 
 " Prisons Board " of four persons to control the prisons, 
 and a " Board of National Education " to control Irish 
 Education. Every public matter, almost, is in the 
 Viceroy's hands Judges, Drainage, Fisheries, Surveys, 
 Petty Sessions Clerks, Lunatic Asylums, Dublin Hospi- 
 tals, Endowed Schools, Charitable Donations, Public 
 Records, Loan Funds, General Registry, Statistics, etc. 
 What minor scheme could be proposed that did not give 
 the ratepayers an effective control over these matters ? 
 And after it were established upon the ruins of Home 
 Rule would the unappeased National sentiment be 
 then less or more resistless ? 
 
 To the idea that Irishmen are not to be trusted like 
 other people the "Hottentot" theory of Lord Salisbury 
 may be opposed the declaration of Herbert Spencer : 
 " When antagonism has bred hatred towards another 
 nation, and has consequently bred a desire to justify the 
 hatred by ascribing hateful characters to members of 
 that nation, it invariably happens that the political 
 arrangements under which they live, the religion they 
 profess, and the habits peculiar to them, become asso- 
 ciated in thought with these hateful characters become 
 
 o 
 
 themselves hateful, and cannot therefore have their 
 natures studied with the calmness required by science." 
 Study of Sociology. 
 
 Attacks on the character and conduct of the National
 
 162 HOME RULE. 
 
 League (an organization which the Tory administration 
 announced their intention of suppressing) are constantly 
 made by partisan or uninformed persons in England. 
 Those who patiently investigate the facts on the spot 
 hold very different language. The special correspondent 
 of the Manchester Guardian, who visited Ireland in 
 February, 1886 (republished in The Eve of Home Rule, 
 by Spenser Wilkinson), thus describes the management 
 of the League : " The local branches report their work 
 in assisting tenants to combine or to make terms with 
 landlords. They receive from the head office advice and 
 pecuniary assistance. Their disputes are settled for them 
 by the Central League, which also does its best to keep 
 them within the legal and constitutional limits of its 
 programme. This latter duty is one of the hardest the 
 Central League has to perform, and I think great praise 
 is due for the manner in which it is done. Who that 
 has seen the bitter feelings, the often acute sufferings, of 
 the peasant, against whom a harsh landlord has used his 
 ' legal remedy ' of eviction, is astonished when the 
 peasant resorts to his ' natural remedy ' of outrage 1 
 The National League has shown the peasant a better 
 way, and has guided into peaceable channels a great 
 portion of the pent-up feeling which without it would 
 rush to the 'wild justice of revenge.' That a meeting 
 of such peasants (from which of course the gentry, who 
 might have been a guiding and a restraining influence, 
 are absent) is now and then extreme or even wild in 
 its resolutions, is natural enough. As far as 1 can judge, 
 the National League is doing its best to keep such 
 meetings within the bounds of reason and temperance." 
 Prejudice, privilege, ignorance, and the memory of 
 an ancient feud, work against the cause of Ireland in 
 the minds of Englishmen. Reason, policy, humanity,
 
 HOME RULE, OR - 163 
 
 and civilization are on its side. For seven hundred 
 years the Irish have sought justice at the bar of Eng- 
 land. It is surely time to grant their advocates a full 
 hearing. The judge, the jury, and the accused in this 
 international suit being the same, impartiality is diffi- 
 cult. Yet not without confidence, Ireland lodges before 
 the high tribunal of the British people her great appeal. 
 She pleads that for centuries she has been robbed and 
 ruled by a selfish class, without profit or advantage to 
 anyone but her puny persecutors, and freely admits that 
 in this wretched business the great bulk of the English 
 people have had neither part nor lot. Now, however, 
 the hour of immediate and personal responsibility for 
 the masses of England has arrived. They have had 
 placed before them the methods by which Ireland has 
 been ruled in the past. The crimes, the evils, the pro- 
 fitlessness of that system are everywhere acknowledged. 
 If then no heed is give to the counsels of the wise and 
 brave statesman, who has staked a noble career to pro- 
 mote the peace of both nations by proposing to allow 
 the home affairs of Ireland to be managed by Irishmen, 
 who will show England a better way 2 
 
 THE END.
 
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