Ireland Under Coercion Volume Ii Part 9

Thomas Moroney would not allow Mr. Edmond Moroney to value his holding, nor would he go into court, his reason no doubt being he should disclose the receipts of the amount of the tolls of the fairs.

The rents were subsequently paid on Mr. Moroney's valuation with punctuality.

In 1885, recognising the fall in prices of stock and produce, and at the request of my late agent, Mr. Shine, I directed him to allow you 15 per cent. on all judicial rents, or rents abated on Mr.

Moroney's valuation, and 25 per cent. on all other rents, when you paid punctually and with thanks.

In October last, when calling in the March 1886 rents, at the instance of Mr. Shine, I agreed to continue the abatement of 15 per cent, and 25 per cent., which, when intimated to you, were refused, and a meeting held, demanding an all-round abatement of 40 per cent.

This I considered unreasonable and unjust, and I refused to give it.

The Plan of Campaign was then most unjustly adopted on the estate, and you refused to pay your rents.

Thomas Moroney was elected as a test case to try the legality of the sale and removal of your property to avoid payment of your rent. His tenancy was a mixed holding of house property in the village of Herbertstown, the tolls of the fairs, and 37 acres of land, at a rent of 85, and a Poor-Law valuation of 73, 5s., made as follows:--

Land valued at 42 5 0 Tolls of fair at 17 0 0 Public house and yard at 11 0 0 Five small houses and forge at 3 0 0 -------- 73 5 0

I always was led to believe the tolls of the fair averaged from 50 to 60 a year, there being four fairs in the year; and I believe his reason for refusing to allow Mr. E. Moroney to value his holding, or to go into court, was that he should disclose the amount of the tolls, and in consequence I never considered he was ent.i.tled to any abatement; but still I gave it to him, and was prepared to do so. The result of his case was that his conduct in making away with his property was unjustifiable, and his farm and holding was sold out for the benefit of his creditors, and he is no longer a tenant on the estate.

I subsequently took proceedings against six other tenants, who refused payment of rent, and removed their cattle off the land to avoid payment, and having got judgment against them, the Sheriff sold out four of their farms, and writs of possession on the t.i.tle were taken out against them, and are now lodged with the Sheriff for execution. I have also got judgments for possession against two other tenants for non-payment of rent, also lodged with the Sheriff. One the widow of Patrick Hogan, who got his rent fixed in the County Court, and the other Mrs. Denis Ryan, whose farm on her marriage I a.s.sented to be put in settlement for her protection, Mr.

Shine, my agent, consenting to act as one of her trustees, whose name, with his co-trustee, Mr. Thomas FitzGerald, appear as defendants, they having signed her judicial agreement.

The following are the names of the above tenants, the extent of their holdings, the rent, the Poor-Law valuation, and the average rent per Irish acre:--

+------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ Acreage in Judicial Rent TENANT. Irish Rent Less 20 per Poor Law Measure. per cent. acre[A] Valuation +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ A. R. P. s. d. s. d. John Carroll, 87 3 38 132 4 0 30/- 127 10 0 Honora Crimmins, 35 0 27 64 5 6 36/6 52 15 0 James Baggott, 18 0 0 37 16 10 42/- 22 5 0 Margaret Moloney, 23 2 9 46 2 8 39/2 44 15 0 Mrs. Denis Ryan, 66 2 3 93 2 5 28/- 96 0 0 Maryanne Hogan, 53 2 33 112 0 0 41/8 117 15 0 +------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ 294 3 30 485 11 5 ... 461 0 0 +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+

[A] Rent per Irish acre after abatement of 20 per cent.

This represents an average of 34s. the Irish acre, for some of the best land in Ireland, and shows a difference of only 24, 11s. 5d.

between the rent, less 20 per cent. now offered, and Poor-Law valuation.

After putting me to the cost of these proceedings, and giving me every opposition and annoyance, amongst such, compelling my agent (by threats of boycotting) to resign, boycotting myself and household, preventing my servants from attending chapel, and driving my labourers away, negotiations for a settlement were opened, and you offered to accept an all-round abatement of 17-1/2 per cent. and to pay up one year's rent, provided I paid all costs, including the costs in Moroney's case; this of course I refused, but with a desire to aid you in coming to a settlement, and to prevent the loss to the tenants of the farms under eviction on the t.i.tle, I offered to allow the 17-1/2 per cent. all round on payment of one year's rent and costs, and to give time for payment of the costs as stated in my Solicitor's letter of the 2d June 1887 to Canon Scully.

This offer was refused, and the writs for possession have been lodged with the Sheriff.

I never commenced these proceedings in a vindictive spirit, or with any desire to punish any of you for your ungracious conduct, but simply to protect my property from unjust and unreasonable demands.

You will owe two years' rent next month (September), and I now write you this circular letter to point out to each, individually, the position of the tenants under eviction, and even at this late hour to give them an opportunity of saving their holdings, to enable them to do so, and with a view to settlement, I am now prepared to allow 20 per cent. all round, on payment of a year's rent and costs.

Under no circ.u.mstance will I forego payment of costs, as they must be paid in full.

If this money be paid forthwith, I will arrange with my brother, the purchaser, to restore the four holdings purchased by him at sheriff's sale to the late tenants.

After this offer I disclaim any responsibility for the result of the evictions, and the loss attendant thereon, as it now remains with you to avert same.

All the evictions have since been carried out, and the Land Corporation men are at work upon the estate! Whom has all this advantaged? The tenants?--Certainly not. The O'Grady?--Certainly not. The peace and order of Ireland?--Certainly not. But it has given the National League another appeal to the intelligent "sympathies" of England and America.

It has strengthened the revolutionary element in Irish society. It has "driven another nail into the coffin" of Irish landlordism and of the private ownership of land throughout Great Britain.

Such at least is the opinion of Mr. Kavanagh. If I were an Englishman or a Scotchman, I should be strongly inclined to take very serious account of this opinion in forecasting the future of landed property in England or Scotland.

CHAPTER XII.

GREENANE HOUSE, THOMASTOWN, _March 5th._--The breakfast-room at Borris this morning was gay with pink coats. A meet was to come off at a place between Borris and Thomastown, and bidding fare-well to my cordial host and hostess, I set out at 11 o'clock for a flying visit to this quaint and charming house of Mr. Seigne, one of the best known and most highly esteemed agents in this part of Ireland.

My jarvey from Borris had an unusually neat and well-balanced car. When I praised it he told me it was "built by an American," not an Irish American, I understood him to say, but a genuine Yankee, who, for some mysterious reason, has established himself in this region, where he has prospered as a cart and car builder ever since. "Just the best cars in all Ireland he builds, your honour!" Why don't he naturalise them in America?

All the way was charming, the day very bright, and even warm, and the hill scenery picturesque at every turn. We looked out sharply for the hunt, but in vain. My jarvey, who knew the whole country, said they must have broken cover somewhere on the upper road, and we should miss them entirely. And so we did.

The silting up of the river Nore has reduced Thomastown or Ballymacanton, which was its Irish name, from its former importance as an emporium for the country about Kilkenny. The river now is not navigable above Inistiogue. But two martial square towers, one at either end of a fine bridge which spans the stream here, speak of the good old times when the masters of Thomastown took toll and tribute of traders and travellers. The lands about the place then belonged to the great monastery of Jerpoint, the ruins of which are still the most interesting of their kind in this part of Ireland. They have long made a part of the estate of the Butlers. We rattled rapidly through the quiet little town, and whisking out of a small public square into a sort of wynd between two houses, suddenly found ourselves in the precincts of Grenane House.

The house takes its name from the old castle of Grenane, an Irish fortress established here by some native despot long before Thomas Fitz-Anthony the Norman came into the land. The ruins of this castle still stand some half a mile away. "We call the place Candahar," said Mr. Seigne, as he came up with two ladies from the meadows below the house, "because you come into it so suddenly, just as you do into that Oriental town." But what a charming occidental place it is! It stands well above the river, the slope adorned with many fine old trees, some of which grow, and grow prosperously, in the queerest and most improbable forms, bent double, twisted, but still most green and vigorous. They have no business under any known theory of arboriculture to be beautiful, but beautiful they are. The views of the bridge, of the towers, and of the river, from this slope would make the fortune of the place in a land of peace and order.

A most original and delightful lady of the country lunched with us,--such a character as Miss Edgeworth or Miss Austen might have drawn.

Shrewd, humorous, sensible, fearless, and ready with impartial hand to box the ears alike of Trojan and of Tyrian. She not only sees both sides of the question in Ireland as between the landlords and the tenants, but takes both sides of the question. She holds lands by inheritance, which make her keenly alive to the wrongs of the landlords, and she holds farms as a tenant, which make her implacably critical as to their claims. She mercilessly demolished in one capacity whatever she advanced in the other, and all with the most perfect nonchalance and good faith.

This curiously dual att.i.tude reminded me of the confederate General, Braxton Bragg, of whom his comrades in the old army of the United States used to say that he once had a very sharp official correspondence with himself. He happened to hold a staff appointment, being also a line officer. So in his quality of a staff officer, he found fault with himself in his capacity as a line officer, reprimanded himself sharply, replied defiantly to the reprimand, and eventually reported himself to himself for discipline at head-quarters. She told an excellent story of a near kinsman of hers who, holding a very good living in the Protestant Irish Church, came rather unexpectedly by inheritance into a baronetcy, upon which his women-folk insisted that it would be derogatory to a baronet to be a parson. "Would you believe it, the poor man was silly enough to listen to their cackle, and resign seven hundred a year!"

"That didn't clear him," I said, "of the cloth, did it?"

"Not a bit, of course, poor foolish man. He was just as much a parson as ever, only without a parsonage. Men are fools enough of themselves, don't you think, without needing to listen to women?"

Mr. Seigne comes of a French Protestant stock long ago planted in Ireland, and his Gallic blood doubtless helps him to handle the practical problems daily submitted in these days to an Irish land-agent--problems very different, as he thinks, from those with which an Irish agent had to deal in the days before 1870. The Irish tenant has a vantage-ground now in his relations with his landlord which he never had in the olden time, and this makes it more important than it ever was that the agent should have what may be called a diplomatic taste for treating with individuals, finding out the bent of mind of this man and of that, and negotiating over particulars, instead of insisting, in the English fashion, on general rules, without regard to special cases. I have met no one who has seemed to me so cool and precise as Mr. Seigne in his study of the phenomena of the present situation. I asked him whether he could now say, as Mr. Senior did a quarter of century ago, that the Irish tenants were less improvident, and more averse from running into debt than the English.

"I think not," he replied; "on the contrary, in some parts of Ireland now the shopkeepers are kept on the verge of bankruptcy by the recklessness with which the tenants incurred debts immediately after the pa.s.sing of the Land Act of 1870--a time when shopkeepers, and bankers also, almost forced credit upon the farmers, and made thereby 'bad debts' innumerable. Farmers rarely keep anything like an account of their receipts and expenses. I know only one tenant-farmer in this neighbourhood who keeps what can be called an account, showing what he takes from his labour and spends on his living."[20] "They save a great deal of money often," he says, "but almost never in any systematic way.

They spend much less on clothes and furniture, and the outward show of things, than English people of the same condition do, and they do not stint themselves in meat and drink as the French peasants do. In fact, under the operation of existing circ.u.mstances, they are getting into the way of improving their condition, not so much by sacrifices and savings, as by an insistence on rent being fixed low enough to leave full margin for improved living."

"I had a very frank statement on this point," said Mr. Seigne, "not long ago from a Tipperary man. When I tried to show him that his father had paid a good many years ago the very same rent which he declares himself unable to pay now, he admitted this at once. But it was a confession and avoidance. 'My father could pay the rent, and did pay the rent,' he said, 'because he was content to live so that he could pay it. He sat on a boss of straw, and ate out of a bowl. He lived in a way in which I don't intend to live, and so he could pay the rent. Now, I must have, and I mean to have, out of the land, before I pay the rent, the means of living as I wish to live; and if I can't have it, I'll sell out and go away; but I'll be--if I don't fight before I do that same!'"

"What could you reply to that?" I asked.

"Oh," I said, "'that's square and straightforward. Only just let me know the point at which you mean to fight, and then we'll see if we can agree about something.'"

"The truth is," said Mr. Seigne, "that there is a pressure upward now from below. The labourers don't want to live any longer as the farmers have always made them live; and so the farmers, having to consider the growing demands of the labourers, and meaning to live better themselves, push up against the landlord, and insist that the means of the improvement shall come out of him."

He then told me an instructive story of his calling upon a tenant-farmer, at whose place he found the labourers sitting about their meal of pork and green vegetables. The farmer asked him into another room, where he saw the farmer's family making their meal of stirabout and milk and potatoes.

"I asked you in here," said the farmer, "because we keep in here to ourselves. I don't want those fellows to see that we can't afford to give ourselves what we have to give them,"--this with strong language indicating that he must himself be given a way to advance equally with the progressive labourer, or he would know the reason why!

This afternoon Mr. Seigne drove me over through a beautiful country to Woodstock, near Inistiogue, the seat of the late Colonel Tighe, the head of the family of which the auth.o.r.ess of "Psyche" was an ornament.

It is the finest place in this part of Ireland, and one of the finest I have seen in the three kingdoms, a much more picturesque and more n.o.bly planted place indeed than its namesake in England. The mansion has no architectural pretensions, being simply a very large and, I should think, extremely comfortable house of the beginning of this century. The library is very rich, and there are some good pictures, as well as certain statues in the vestibule, which would have no interest for the Weissnichtwo professor of _Sartor Resartus_, but are regarded with some awe by the good people of Inistiogue.

The park would do no discredit to a palace, and if the vague project of establishing a royal residence in Ireland for one of the British Princes should ever take shape, it would not be easy, I should say, to find a demesne more befitting the home of a prince than this of the Tighes. At present it serves the State at least as usefully, being the "pleasaunce"

of the people for miles around, who come here freely to walk and drive.