In the case of a Mr. Whittington, whose residence, once the
finest in that locality, is now sorely dilapidated, his wife, with a new
born babe in her arms, and a large family of little children around her,
were evicted.
Is there not something very wrong when such things can be?
Of course, when the bailiff carried out the furniture to the the
roadside he was jeered and hooted at.
All the sympathy of the press is on the side of the landlords, and none
but the very poor, who have suffered themselves, have pity, except of a
very languid kind, for scenes such as this.
There are evictions and harassments flying about, as thick as a flight
of sparrows through Innishowen at present.
At Moville I had the pleasure of an interview with the Rev. Mr. Bell,
the Presbyterian minister of that place. He has studied the subject of
the land laws in general and as they affected his own people in
particular. Mr. Bell admits that there is great injustice perpetrated
under the Land Law as it stands; that the Land Law of 1870 gave relief
in many instances, and was intended to give more, but that numerous
clauses in the bill made it possible to evade it, and it was evaded by
unscrupulous men in many cases. "The necessity of a large measure of
land reform, we admit," he says; "we must get this by constitutional
means. Real wrongs must be redressed by agitating lawfully,
persistently, continually and patiently, till they are redressed
constitutionally. We must remain steadfast and never give in, but never
transgress the law in any case or take it into our own hands. The
Parnell agitation goes beyond this, and when they travel out of the safe
path of using constitutional means, into something that leads to
confiscation of property and robbery of landlords, and a concealed
purpose, or only half concealed, of separation from England, we cannot
follow them there."
Mr. Bell instanced many cases of gradual prosperity and attainment of
wealth among his flock, but they were exceptional cases, and there were
better farms in the case for one thing, and leasehold tenure for
another, combining with their industry and thrift to account for the
success.
I had conversation with another gentleman of this congregation, who,
like many others, believed firmly in Paddy's laziness and carelessness
at home. I am very tired of these statements, for any one can see the
thrifty way mountain sides, scraps amid rocks, strips of land inside the
railway fences, and every spade breadth is cultivated. It is not fair
for a man who has means to judge a poorer man from the outside view of
his case. There was a strange inconsistency in this gentleman's
opinions, for while he declared laziness to be the cause of poverty and
not the oppression of rent raised above value, yet when peasant
proprietorship was mentioned as a remedy, he declared he would not take
the farms as a gift and try to raise a living out of them.
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