I, looking at it with
Canadian eyes, would not have taken a gift of it and be bound to reclaim
it. If I rented a few acres of those wild hills, and rooted out the
whins and raised and removed the stones, I would think it unjust to
raise the rent on me because of my labor.
It is admitted by all who know anything of the matter, that the tenants
have reclaimed what land is reclaimed. Rent in County Leitrim has been
raised from L24,990 to L170,670 within the last eighty years, and is
L34,144 above the Government valuation.
We called at the house of a tenant farmer who had been evicted for non-
payment of rent, and was back as a weekly tenant. He was putting in some
crop, working alone in the field. He came to speak to my companion. He
had got no word from the landlord as to whether he would put in any crop
or not. He was in sore anxiety between his fear of offending the
landlord, and the fear of doing anything against the rules of the Land
League. His little boys were putting out manure in creels, carrying it
on their shoulders. He had no means of paying rent. If he were forgiven
the rent due and a year's rent to come, he might then be in a position
to resume paying rent. This is my own opinion. The poor man himself was
sorely perplexed and cast down. A thin, white, helpless-looking man. The
terrors of the eviction had taken hold of his wife, who was sickly. The
only hope they had was that God would bless the potato crop, for they
had secured Champion potatoes for seed.
The potatoes that used to flourish in Ireland forty years ago, have
entirely passed away. Even the Champion potato is not very good. The
skin is thick and has a diseased appearance and the potato has black
spots on the outside. I think the land is suffering from an overdose of
such manure as they apply here, and the leaf mould is entirely
exhausted. Of course this is the opinion of one who knows nothing of
farming.
Passed another house, a widow's, who has been evicted. The family had
been put out and the official went to get some water to quench the fire;
all the little household belongings were scattered about. Putting out
the fire and fastening up the door were the last acts of the eviction.
While the official's back was turned, the widow slipped in again, and
was fastened up in the house, the children being outside. Her sons are a
little silly. The children camp outside and she holds the garrison
inside. She thinks the Land Bill or the Land League, or something
miraculous will turn up to help her if she keeps possession for a while.
Fear that she has done wrong and laid herself open to some greater
punishment, and excitement have blanched her face. In the dim evening
she sits at the window inside; the children have a gipsy fire and sit
under the window outside. When the gloaming has passed and dark night
settled down, the police come over from the barracks to see if any of
the children have gone in beside the mother. This would be taking
forcible possession, and some other process of law would be possible. To
make assurance sure, the policeman puts his head close to the window,
sees the widow's white face and wild eyes sitting in the dark alone, and
the children sitting under the window, and then the party, with
something like tears in their eyes, something very like pity in their
hearts, go back to the barracks.
I wonder how these things will end. It is not stubbornness, but
helplessness and despair that makes them cling so to their homes,
combined with an utter dread of the disgrace and separation involved in
going to the workhouse. I listened to one tale after another of
harassment, misery and thoughtless oppression in Kiltyclogher till my
heart was sick, and I felt one desire - to run away that I might hear no
more. I applied the traditional grain of salt to what I heard, but could
not manage to add it to what I saw.
Mr. Tottenham rules part of Kiltyclogher. This man has a very evil name
among the tenants. Reclamation of land by very poor people is a very
serious matter. Not only do the bogs require drains twenty-one feet
apart and three deep (I have seen the people in the act of making such
drains again and again); not only do the surface stones require to be
gathered off, but great stones and immense boulders that obstruct the
formation of the drains, have to be removed, and as they have no powder
for blasting, they take the primitive method of kindling great fires
over the rock and splitting it up that way, so that their husbandry is
farming under difficulties. As the Fermanagh farmer said, they put their
lives into it.
In the long ago the landlords of Ireland, though extravagant, were not,
as a class, unkindly, but their waste involved the land, and their
absenteeism prevented any thoughts for the benefit of the country ever
occurring to them.
The commercial spirit has invaded the aristocracy and men have begun to
see visions of redeeming their lands from encumbrances and to dream
dreams of still greater aggrandizement, all to be realized by commercial
tact in raising the rents and abolishing the long-suffering people who
could not be squeezed any farther. It was then that the beginning of the
present desperate state of things was inaugurated.
