CHAPTER XIII.

THE REAL REMEDY FOR REMOVAL OF INTIMIDATION FROM THE HEART OF IRELAND.

THE remedy would be a measure to place the tenants in an independent, whereas now they are in a most dependant and servile condition.

The following are the features of this condition :— In the counties the franchise is in the hands of a few great proprietors-only a nominal franchise in the hands of the tenants. The nature of land tenure is a most dependant state.

The reality of the franchise is in the landlord.

This is nearly the case in all the counties. Take one example-county Derry.

At present the Beresford family have on lease three of these properties, which enables them to return one member. The Earl of Londonderry, and his brother, Mr. A. Stewart, possess two more, and have hitherto succeeded in returning the other; but a Mr. Ogilby has created a great number of freeholders on a lease granted him by the Skinners Company, that, combined with the interest he can procure from the Ponsonby family, who hold another of these pro

portions, and from Sir William Rowley, he will succeed most probably in the representation of the county. Patrons, Marquis of Waterford, Earl of Londonderry, and Mr. Ogilby.*-See Oldfield's Parliamentary History.

THE COTTIER TENANTS OF IRELAND PLEDGED TO VOTE AT THE BIDDING OF THE LANDLORDS.

"In regard to Irish tenants, the highest bidder, as I have already said, is always preferred, and it is invariably stipulated that he must give the proprietor his vote in elections. On this head the tenants are exceedingly tractable. They have no notion of supporting a candidate from any other motive than interest; and when solicited for a vote, their answer always is, 'Why, to be sure, and do you think now that I would vote against my landlord.'"-See Account of Ireland by E. Wakefield, Vol. I. p. 304.

STATE OF LAND TENURE IN IRELAND.

"Looking generally through Ireland," say the Lord Devon Commissioners, "we believe that the large proportion of the land is occupied by tenants at will."

Mr. Mill says "Nearly the whole agricultural population of Ireland may be said to be cottier-tenants, except so far as the Ulster tenant-right constitutes an exception. In its final acceptation the word cottier designates a class of sub-tenants, who rent a cottage and acre or two of land from the small farmers. But

* Since the above was written, some of the estates have fallen into the hands of the Companies.

the usage of the writers has long since stretched the term to those small farmers themselves, and generally all peasants and farmers whose rents are determined by competition."-Principles of Political Economy, by J. S. Mill, Vol. I., p. 368.

In

The same distinguished person states-"The principal European example of this tenure is Ireland, and it is from that country that the term cottier is derived. Austria the contracts between landlords and tenants are irrevocable." Mr. Sumner, a late traveller in Central Russia, says, he would much rather be a Russian slave than an Irish peasant. In Persia the right of the proprietor or landlord is only to one tenth of the value of the land. The laws there were originally made for the benefit of the peasant, and his rights are carefully preserved. In Turkey the small proprietors hold from the lords at a fixed rent.

Every reader will see the aforesaid is a most servile and dependant condition, and its causes have been the confiscations and the feudal laws.

The tendency of the feudal laws is to make property flow into the hands of a few proprietors, and to prevent it from falling into the hands of the many.

Abolish or modify these laws, it will flow in the direction of the many.

Let Parliament modify the feudal laws, and property will soon flow into the hands of the many.

"If," says Mr. Kay, "the system of landed tenures in Ireland were altered, the Irish farmers, who now send over their savings to the English saving banks, or hide them among rafters of their barns in Ireland,

would soon buy land. A great class of small yeomanry, like those who, in the olden time, existed in England, would rapidly spring up. Every man who spent £100 in a plot of land would laugh at the demagogue," and he might have added, at the landlord or agent who would control his vote.

In the existing state of the franchise, the real franchise is in the landlord, the nominal in the tenant, which makes the Irish voter hold no higher position than that of a white slave. If the tenant dare to vote contrary to the will of the landlord or agent, he exposes himself to the vengeance of the office; he becomes liable pay his rent at the most inconvenient season, or to be thrown out a fit subject soon for the poor-house, or to famish and die by the way-side. All this and much more results from the present degraded and debasing state of Ireland.

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How, the reader will say, does the landlord hold this undivided sway ? In all cottier tenancy there is the implied if not expressed compact with the landlord that the tenant will vote at his bidding. How much all this savours of unchanged feudalism.

Under the existing state the Irish voter is a cottier, and liable to fear of the landlord. Let parliament modify the feudal law, he will become a proprietor, and thereby be placed in circumstances not to be afraid. Fear is necessarily incident to the present condition, and how easy it is for the landlord to practice intimida

tion.

Place the tenant in the opposite circumstances and he will be exempt from fear. Placed as he would

be by this new order of things in circumstances to be independent of any man, he would think, and feel, and act independently. "A proprietor of Western Europe is in a far more independent position than even an English farmer. He does not depend for the possession of his property upon the will of any man. His farm is his own; and until he chooses to sell it no man can deprive him of it. It is not, therefore, necessary for him to flatter or to cringe to some rich proprietor, in order to secure his position. The consciousness of the thorough independence of his position gives the proprietor a feeling and an air of dignity. This consciousness is in itself an education of the highest order. It renovates the man." Thus electoral independence naturally and necessarily results from the condition of proprietor.-Kay.

In the existing state of the franchise, how low, in a moral point of view, the tenant elector becomes. He is learned to act wholly from interest; he is brought back to the old pagan principle, thinking only about what he should eat, and what he should drink, and wherewithal he should be clothed; and all this degradation he must take upon him, to serve a man who is mightily served by him. The landlord, by returning that member, may obtain a place perhaps in some of the embassies for his son or brother; and yet this man, served as he is by the tenant, by his agent is continually crying give, give. Too often in Ireland the landlord has forgotten the favourite maxim of every good landlord, live and let live; but let Parliament modify the feudal law which thus chains down the elector to the chariot