The Land-War In Ireland (1870) Part 15

But the t.i.the impost was the one most grievously felt, and at last the peasantry resolved to resist it by force.

Nothing could be more violent than the contrasts presented at this time in the social life of Ireland. On the one side there was a rapid succession of atrocities and tragedies fearful to contemplate: the bailiffs, constabulary, and military driving away cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese to be sold by public auction, to pay the minister who had no congregation to whom he could preach the gospel; the cattle-prisons or 'pounds' surrounded by high walls, but uncovered, wet and dirty, crowded with all sorts of animals, cold and starved, and uttering doleful sounds; the driving away of the animals in the night from one farm to another to avoid seizures; the auctions without bidders, in the midst of groaning and jeering mult.i.tudes; the slaughter of policemen, and in some instances of clergymen, with fiendish expressions of hatred and yells of triumph; the mingling of fierce pa.s.sions with the strongest natural affections; the exultation in murder as if it were a glorious deed of war; the Roman Catholic press and platform almost justifying those deeds of outrage and blood; the ma.s.s of the Roman Catholic population sustaining this insurrection against the law with their support and sympathy and prayers, as if it were a holy war, in which the victims were martyrs. On the other side were presented pictures which excited the deepest interest of the Protestant community throughout the United Kingdom. We behold the clergyman and his family in the glebe-house, lately the abode of plenty, comfort, and elegance, a model of domestic happiness and gentlemanly life; but the income of the rector fell off, till he was bereft of nearly all his means. In order to procure the necessaries of life for his family, he was obliged to part with the cows that gave milk for his household, the horse and car, which were necessary in the remote place where his glebe-house was situated, and everything that could be spared, till at length he was obliged to make his greatest sacrifice, and to send his books--the dear and valued companions of his life--to Dublin, to be sold by auction. His boys could no longer be respectably clad, his wife and daughters were obliged to part with their jewellery and all their superfluities. There was no longer wine or medicine, that the mother was accustomed to dispense kindly and liberally to the poor around her, in their sickness and sorrow, without distinction of creed.

The glebe, which once presented an aspect of so much comfort and ease and affluence, now looked bare and desolate and void of life. But for the contributions of Christian friends at a distance, many of those once happy little centres of Christian civilisation--those well-springs of consolation to the afflicted--must have been abandoned to the overwhelming sand of desolation swept upon them by the hurricane of the anti-t.i.the agitation.

During this desperate struggle, force was employed on several occasions with fatal effect. At Newtownbarry, in the county of Wexford, some cattle were impounded by a t.i.the-proctor. The peasantry a.s.sembled in large numbers to rescue them, when they came into collision with the yeomanry, who fired, killing twelve persons. It was a market day, and a placard was posted on the walls: 'There will be an end of church plunder; your pot, blanket, and pig will not hereafter be sold by auction to support in luxury, idleness, and ease persons who endeavour to make it appear that it is essential to the peace and prosperity of the country and your eternal salvation, while the most of you are starving. Attend to an auction of your neighbours' cattle.'

At Carrickshock there was a fearful tragedy. A number of writs against defaulters were issued by the court of exchequer, and entrusted to the care of process-servers, who, guarded by a strong body of police, proceeded on their mission with secrecy and dispatch. Bonfires along the surrounding hills, however, and shrill whistles soon convinced them that the people were not unprepared for their visitors. But the yeomanry pushed boldly on. Suddenly an immense a.s.semblage of peasantry, armed with scythes and pitchforks, poured down upon them.

A terrible hand-to-hand struggle ensued, and in the course of a few moments eighteen of the police, including the commanding officer, were slaughtered. The remainder consulted safety and fled, marking the course of their retreat by the blood that trickled from their wounds.

A coroner's jury p.r.o.nounced this deed of death as 'wilful murder'

against some persons unknown. A large government reward was offered, but it failed to produce a single conviction. At Castlepollard, in Westmeath, on the occasion of an attempted rescue, the chief constable was knocked down. The police fired, and nine or ten persons were killed. One of the most lamentable of these conflicts occurred at Gurtroe, near Rathcormac, in the county of Cork. Archdeacon Ryder brought a number of the military to recover the t.i.thes of a farm belonging to a widow named Ryan. The a.s.sembled people resisted, the military were ordered to fire, eight persons were killed and thirteen wounded; and among the killed was the widow's son.

These disorders appealed with irresistible force to the Government and the legislature, to put an end to a system fraught with so much evil, and threatening the utter disruption of society in Ireland. In the first place, something must be done to meet the wants of the dest.i.tute clergy and their families. Accordingly, Lord Stanley brought in a bill, in May 1832, authorising the lord lieutenant of Ireland to advance 60,000 l. as a fund for the payment of the clergy, who were unable to collect their t.i.thes for the year 1831. This measure was designed to meet the present necessity, and was only a preliminary to the promised settlement of the t.i.the question. It was therefore pa.s.sed quickly through both Houses, and became law on June 1. But the money thus advanced was not placed on the consolidated fund.

The Government took upon itself the collection of the arrears of t.i.thes for that one year. It was a maxim with Lord Stanley that the people should be made to respect the law; that they should not be allowed to trample upon it with impunity. The odious task thus a.s.sumed, produced a state of unparalleled excitement. The people were driven to frenzy, instead of being frightened by the chief secretary becoming t.i.the-collector-general, and the army being employed in its collection. They knew that the king's speech had recommended the settlement of the t.i.the question. They had heard of the evidence of Bishop Doyle and other champions, exposing what they believed to be the iniquity of the t.i.the system. They had seen the condemnation of it in the testimony of the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, who declared his conviction that it could not be collected except at the point of the bayonet, and by keeping up a chronic war between the Government and the Roman Catholic people. They had been told that parliamentary committees had recommended the complete extinction of t.i.thes, and their commutation into a rent-charge. Their own leaders had everywhere resolved:--

'That it was a glaring wrong to compel an impoverished Catholic people to support in pampered luxury the richest clergy in the world--a clergy from whom, the Catholics do not experience even the return of common grat.i.tude--a clergy who, in times past, opposed to the last the political freedom of the Irish people, and at the present day are opposed to reform and a liberal scheme of education for their countrymen. The ministers of the G.o.d of charity should not, by misapplication of all the t.i.thes to their own private uses, thus deprive the poor of their patrimony; nor should ministers of peace adhere with such desperate tenacity to a system fraught with dissension, hatred, and ill-will.' The first proceeding of the Government to recover the t.i.thes, under the act of June 1, was therefore the signal for general war. Bonfires blazed upon the hills, the rallying sounds of horns were heard along the valleys, and the mustering tread of thousands upon the roads, hurrying to the scene of a seizure or an auction. It was a b.l.o.o.d.y campaign; there was considerable loss of life, and the Church and the Government thus became more obnoxious to the people than ever. Lord Stanley being the commander-in-chief on one side, and Mr. O'Connell on the other, the contest was embittered by their personal antipathies. It was found that the amount of the arrears for the year 1831 was 104,285 l., and that the whole amount which the Government was able to levy, after putting forth its strength in every possible way, was 12,000 l., the cost of collection being 15,000 l., so the Government was not able to raise as much money as would pay the expenses of the campaign. This was how Lord Stanley ill.u.s.trated his favourite sentiment that the people should be made to respect the law. But the Liberal party among the Protestants fully sympathised with the anti-t.i.the recusants.

Of course the Government did not persevere in prosecutions from which no parties but the lawyers reaped any advantage; consequently, all processes under the existing law were abandoned. It was found that, after paying to the clergy the arrears of 1831 and 1832, and what would be due in 1833, about a million sterling would be required, and this sum was provided by an issue of exchequer bills. The reimburs.e.m.e.nt of the advance was to be effected by a land tax.

Together with these temporary arrangements to meet the exigency of the case, for the payment of the clergy and the pacification of Ireland, an act was pa.s.sed to render t.i.the composition in Ireland compulsory and permanent. But Ireland was not yet pacified.[1]

[Footnote 1: The foregoing sketch of the t.i.the war was written by the author seven years ago for Ca.s.sell's _History of England_, from which it is now extracted.]

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FAMINE.

It had often been predicted by writers on the state of Ireland, that, owing to the rottenness at the foundation of the social fabric, it would come down with a crash some day. The facts reported by the census commissioners of 1841 showed that this consummation could not be far off. Out of a population of 8,000,000, there were 3,700,000 above the age of five years who could neither read nor write; while nearly three millions and a half lived in mud cabins, badly thatched with straw, having each but one room, and often without either a window or a chimney. These figures indicate a ma.s.s of ignorance and poverty, which could not be contemplated without alarm, and the subject was, therefore, constantly pressed upon the attention of parliament. As usual in cases of difficulty, the Government, feeling that something should be done, and not knowing what to do, appointed in 1845 a commission to enquire into the relations between landlords and tenants, and the condition of the working cla.s.ses. At the head of this commission was the Earl of Devon, a benevolent n.o.bleman, whose sympathies were on the side of the people. Captain Kennedy, the secretary to the commissioners, published a digest of the report of the evidence, which presented the facts in a readable form, and was the means of diffusing a large amount of authentic information on the state of Ireland. The commissioners travelled through the country, held courts of enquiry, and examined witnesses of all cla.s.ses. As the result of their extensive intercourse with the farming cla.s.ses, and their own observations, they were enabled to state that in almost every part of Ireland unequivocal symptoms of improvement, in spite of many embarra.s.sing and counteracting circ.u.mstances, continually presented themselves to the view, and that there existed a very general and increasing spirit and desire for the promotion of such improvement, from which the most beneficial results might fairly be expected.

Indeed, speaking of the country generally, they add: 'With some exceptions, which are unfortunately too notorious, we believe that at no former period did so active a spirit of improvement prevail; nor could well directed measures for the attainment of that object have been proposed with a better prospect of success than at the present moment.'

But this improvement produced no sensible effect upon the condition of the labouring people. However brightly the sun of prosperity might gild the eminences of society, the darkness of misery and despair settled upon the ma.s.ses below. The commissioners proceed: '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 hards.h.i.+ps; that he continues to depend upon casual and precarious employment for subsistence; that he is still badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour. Our personal experience and observation during our enquiry have afforded us a melancholy confirmation of these statements; and we cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring cla.s.ses have generally exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain.' It was deeply felt that the well-being of the whole United Kingdom depended upon the removal of the causes of this misery and degradation; for if the Irish people were not elevated, the English working cla.s.ses must be brought down to their level. The facility of travelling afforded by railways and steam-boats caused such constant intercourse between England and Ireland, that Irish ignorance, beggary, and disease, with all their contagion, physical and moral, would be found intermingling with the British population. It would be impossible to prevent the half-starved Irish peasantry from crossing the Channel, and seeking employment, even at low wages, and forming a pestiferous Irish quarter in every town and city. The question, then, was felt to be one whose settlement would brook no further delay.

It was found that the potato was almost the only food of the Irish millions, and that it formed their chief means of obtaining the other necessaries of life. A large portion of this crop was grown under the system, to which the poorest of the peasantry were obliged to have recourse, notwithstanding the minute subdivision of land. There were in 1841, 691,000 farms in Ireland exceeding one acre in extent.

Nearly one half of these were under five acres each. The number of proprietors in fee was estimated at 8,000--a smaller number, in proportion to the extent of territory, than in any other country of Western Europe except Spain. In Connaught, several proprietors had 100,000 acres each, the proportion of small farms being greater there than in the rest of Ireland. The total number of farms in the province was 155,842, and of these 100,254 consisted of from one to five acres.

If all the proprietors were resident among their tenantry, and were in a position to encourage their industry and care for their welfare, matters would not have been so bad; but most of the large landowners were absentees. It frequently happened that the large estates were held in strict limitation, and they were nearly all heavily enc.u.mbered. The owners preferred living in England or on the Continent, having let their lands on long leases, or in perpetuity to 'middlemen,' who sublet them for as high rents as they could get.

Their tenants again sublet, so that it frequently happened that two, three, or four landlords intervened between the proprietor and the occupying tenant, each deriving an interest from the land. The head landlord, therefore, though ever so well disposed, had no power whatever to help the occupying tenants generally, and of those who had the power very few felt disposed. There were extensive districts without a single resident proprietor.

For a few weeks after the blight of the potato crop in 1846 the cottiers and small farmers managed to eke out a subsistence by the sale of their pigs and any little effects they had. But pigs, fowl, furniture, and clothing soon went, one after another, to satisfy the cravings of hunger. The better cla.s.s of farmers lived upon their corn and cattle; but they were obliged to dismiss their servants, and this numerous cla.s.s became the first victims of starvation; for when they were turned off, they were refused admission by their relations, who had not the means of feeding them. Tailors, shoemakers, and other artisans who worked for the lower orders, lost their employment, and became dest.i.tute also. While the means of support failed upon every side, and food rose to such enormous prices that everything that could possibly be eaten was economised, so that the starving dogs were drowned from compa.s.sion, the famine steadily advanced from the west and south to the east and north, till it involved the whole population in its crus.h.i.+ng grasp. It was painfully interesting to mark the progress of the visitation, even in those parts of the country where its ravages were least felt. The small farmer had only his corn, designed for rent and seed: he was obliged to take it to the mill to ward off starvation. The children of the poor, placed on short allowance, were suffering fearfully from hunger. Mothers, heart-broken and worn down to skeletons, were seen on certain days proceeding in groups to some distant depot, where Indian meal was to be had at reduced prices, but still double that of the ordinary market. As they returned to their children, with their little bags on their heads, a faint joy lit up their famine-stricken features.

When the visitors entered a village their first question was: 'How many deaths?' '_The hunger is upon us_,' was everywhere the cry; and involuntarily they found themselves regarding this hunger as they would an epidemic, looking upon starvation as a disease. In fact, as they pa.s.sed along, their wonder was, not that the people died, but that they lived; and Mr. W.G. Forster, in his report, said: 'I have no doubt whatever, that in any other country the mortality would have been far greater; and that many lives have been prolonged, perhaps saved, by the long apprentices.h.i.+p to want in which the Irish peasant has been trained, and by that lovely, touching charity which prompts him to share his scanty meal with his starving neighbour. But the springs of this charity must be rapidly dried up. Like a scourge of locusts, _the hunger_ daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all before it. One cla.s.s after another is falling into the same abyss of ruin.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Transactions during the Famine in Ireland, Appendix III.]

The same benevolent gentleman describes the domestic scenes he saw in Connaught, where the poor Celts were carried off in thousands:--

'We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a portion of the covering, perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last stage of actual starvation. Crouched over the turf embers was another form, wild and all but naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred not nor noticed us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her, on something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer to our enquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a look of unutterable anguish and despair. Many cases were widows, whose husbands had been recently taken off by the fever, and thus their only pittance obtained from the public works was entirely cut off. In many the husbands or sons were prostrate under that horrid disease--the result of long-continued famine and low living--in which first the limbs and then the body swell most frightfully, and finally burst. We entered upwards of fifty of these tenements. The scene was invariably the same, differing in little but the manner of the sufferers, or of the groups occupying the several corners within. The whole number was often not to be distinguished, until the eye having adapted itself to the darkness, they were pointed out, or were heard, or some filthy bundle of rags and straw was seen to move. Perhaps the poor children presented the most piteous and heart-rending spectacle. Many were too weak to stand, their little limbs attenuated, except where the frightful swellings had taken the place of previous emaciation. Every infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some reason and intelligence had evidently flown. Many were remnants of families, crowded together in one cabin; orphaned little relatives taken in by the equally dest.i.tute, and even strangers--for these poor people are kind to each other, even to the end. In one cabin was a sister, just dying, lying beside her little brother, just dead. I have worse than this to relate; but it is useless to multiply details, and they are, in fact, unfit.'

In December, 1846, Father Mathew wrote to Mr. Trevelyan, then secretary of the treasury, that men, women, and children were gradually wasting away. They filled their stomachs with cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops, &c., to appease the cravings of hunger.

There were then 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 then over a hundred a week.

From December 27, 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 Mathew 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 April 3, and 2,613 in the following week. Yet the number of inmates in the Irish workhouses was but 104,455 on April 10.

The size of the unions was a great impediment to the working of the poor law. They were three times the extent of the corresponding divisions in England. In Munster and Connaught, where there was the greatest amount of dest.i.tution, and the least amount of local agency available for its relief, the unions were much larger than in the more favoured provinces of Ulster and Leinster. The union of Ballina comprised a region of upwards of half a million acres, and within its desert tracts the famine a.s.sumed its most appalling form, the workhouse being more than forty miles distant from some of the sufferers. As a measure of precaution, the Government had secretly imported and stored a large quant.i.ty of Indian corn, as a cheap subst.i.tute for the potato, which would have served the purpose much better had the people been instructed in the best modes of cooking it.

It was placed in commissariat, along depots the western coast of the island, where the people were not likely to be supplied on reasonable terms through the ordinary channels of trade. The public works consisted princ.i.p.ally of roads, on which, the men were employed as a sort of supplement to the poor law. Half the cost was a free grant from the treasury, and the other half was charged upon the barony in which the works were undertaken. The expense incurred under the 'Labour Rate Act, 9 and 10 Viet. c. 107,' amounted to 4,766,789 l. It was almost universally admitted, when the pressure was over, that the system of public works adopted was a great mistake; and it seems wonderful that such grievous blunders could have been made with so many able statesmen and political economists at the head of affairs and in the service of the Government. The public works undertaken consisted in the breaking up of good roads to level hills and fill hollows, and the opening of new roads in places where they were not required--works which the people felt to be useless, and at which they laboured only under strong compulsion, being obliged to walk to them in all weathers for miles, in order to earn the price of a breakfast of Indian meal. Had the labour thus comparatively wasted been devoted to the draining, sub-soiling, and fencing of the farms, connected with a comprehensive system of arterial drainage, immense and lasting benefit to the country would have been the result, especially as works so well calculated to ameliorate the soil, and guard against the moisture of the climate, might have been connected with a system of instruction in agricultural matters of which the peasantry stood so much in need, and to the removal of the gross ignorance which had so largely contributed to bring about the famine. As it was, enormous sums were wasted. Much needless hards.h.i.+p was inflicted on the starving people in compelling them to work in frost and rain when they were scarcely able to walk, and, after all the vast outlay, very few traces of it remained in permanent improvements on the face of the country.

The system of government relief works failed chiefly through the same difficulty which impeded every mode of relief, whether public or private--namely, the want of machinery to work it. It was impossible suddenly to procure an efficient staff of officers for an undertaking of such enormous magnitude--the employment of a whole people. The overseers were necessarily selected in haste; many of them were corrupt, and encouraged the misconduct of the labourers. In many cases the relief committees, unable to prevent maladministration, yielded to the torrent of corruption, and individual members only sought to benefit their own dependants. The people everywhere flocked to the public works; labourers, cottiers, artisans, fishermen, farmers, men, women, and children--all, whether dest.i.tute or not, sought for a share of the public money. In such a crowd, it was almost impossible to discriminate properly. They congregated in ma.s.ses on the roads, idling under the name of work, the really dest.i.tute often unheeded and unrelieved because they had no friend to recommend them. All the ordinary employments were neglected; there was no fis.h.i.+ng, no gathering of sea-weed, no collecting of manure. The men who had employment feared to lose it by absenting themselves for any other object; those unemployed spent their time in seeking to obtain it. The whole industry of the country seemed to be engaged in road-making. It became absolutely necessary to put an end to it, or the cultivation of the land would be neglected. Works undertaken on the spur of the moment, not because they were needful, but merely to employ the people, were in many cases ill chosen, and the execution equally defective. The labourers, desirous to protract their employment, were only anxious to give as little labour as possible, in which their overlookers or gangers in many cases heartily agreed. The favouritism, the intimidation, the wholesale jobbing practised in many cases were shockingly demoralising.

In order to induce the people to attend to their ordinary spring work, and put in the crops, it was found necessary to adopt the plan of distributing free rations. On March 20, therefore, a reduction of twenty per cent. of the numbers employed on the works took place, and the process of reduction went on until the new system of gratuitous relief was brought into full operation. The authority under which this was administered was called the 'Temporary Relief Act,' which came into full operation in the month of July, when the dest.i.tution was at its height, and three millions of people received their daily rations.

Sir John Burgoyne truly describes this as 'the grandest attempt ever made to grapple with famine over a whole country.' Never in the history of the world were so many persons fed in such a manner by the public bounty. It was a most anxious time--a time of tremendous labour and responsibility to those who had the direction of this vast machinery. A member of the Board of Works thus describes the feeling which no doubt pervaded most of those that were officially connected with the administration of relief: 'I hope never to see such a winter and spring again. I can truly say, in looking back upon it even now, that it appears to me not a succession of weeks and days, but one long continuous day, with occasional intervals of night-mare sleep. Rest one could never have, when one felt that in every minute lost a score of men might die.' Mr. Trevelyan was then secretary of the treasury, and it was well that a man so enlightened, energetic, and benevolent occupied the post at such a time. He was indefatigable in his efforts to mitigate the calamity, and he wrote an interesting account of 'The Irish Crisis' in the _Edinburgh Review_. Having presented the dark side of the picture in faithfully recording the abuses that had prevailed, it is right to give Mr. Trevelyan's testimony as to the conduct of the relief committees during this supreme hour of the nation's agony. 'It is a fact very honourable to Ireland that among upwards of 2,000 local bodies to whom advances were made under this act, there is not one to which, so far as the Government is informed, any suspicion of embezzlement attaches.'

The following statement of the numbers receiving rations, and the total expenditure under the act in each of the four provinces, compared with the amount of population, and the annual value a.s.sessed for poor-rate, may serve to ill.u.s.trate the comparative means and dest.i.tution of each province:--

-------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Population | Valuation | Greatest | Total | | | | | Number of |Expenditure | | | | | Rations given | | | | | | out | | |---------|-------------|------------|----------------|------------| | | | | | | |Ulster | 2,386,373 | 3,320,133 | 346,517 | 170,508 | |Leinster | 1,973,731 | 4,624,542 | 450,606 | 308,068 | |Munster | 2,396,161 | 1,465,643 | 1,013,826 | 671,554 | |Counaught| 1,418,859 | 1,465,643 | 745,652 | 526,048 | | |-------------|------------|----------------|------------| | | 8,175,124 | 13,187,421 | 2,556,601 | 1,676,268 | --------------------------------------------------------------------

Private benevolence did wonders in this crisis. The British a.s.sociation raised and distributed 269,302 l. The queen's letter, ordering collections in the English churches, produced 200,738 l. But the bounty of the United States of America transcended everything. The supplies sent across the Atlantic were on a scale unparalleled in the history of the world.

Meetings were held in Philadelphia, Was.h.i.+ngton, New York, and other cities, in quick succession, presided over by the first men in the country. All through the States the citizens evinced an intense interest, and a n.o.ble generosity worthy of the great Republic.

The railway companies carried free of charge all packages marked 'Ireland.' Public carriers undertook the gratuitous delivery of packages intended for the relief of Irish distress. Storage to any extent was offered on the same terms. s.h.i.+ps of war, without their guns, came to the Irish sh.o.r.es on a mission of peace and mercy, freighted with food for British subjects. Cargo after cargo followed in rapid succession, until nearly 100 separate s.h.i.+pments had arrived, our Government having consented to pay the freight of all donations of food forwarded from America, which amounted in the whole to 33,000 l.

The quant.i.ty of American food consigned to the care of the Society of Friends was nearly 10,000 tons, the value of which was about 100,000 l. In addition to all this, the Americans remitted to the Friends'

Committee 16,000 l. in money. They also sent 642 packages of clothing, the precise value of which could not be ascertained. There was a very large amount of remittances sent to Ireland, during the famine, by the Irish in the United States. Unfortunately, there are no records of those remittances prior to 1848; but since that time we are enabled to ascertain a large portion of them, though not the whole, and their amount is something astonis.h.i.+ng. The following statement of sums remitted by emigrants in America to their families in Ireland, was printed by order of Parliament:--During the years 1848, 460,180 l.; 1849, 540,619 l.; 1850, 957,087 l. 1851, 990,811 l.

The arrival of the American s.h.i.+ps naturally excited great interest at the various ports. 'On Monday, April 13,' writes Mr. Maguire, 'a n.o.ble sight might be witnessed in Cork harbour--the sun s.h.i.+ning its welcome on the entrance of the unarmed war-s.h.i.+p Jamieson, sailing in under a cloud of snowy canvas, her great hold laden with bread-stuffs for the starving people of Ireland. It was a sight that brought tears to many an eye, and prayers of grat.i.tude to many a heart. It was one of those things which one nation remembers of another long after the day of sorrow has pa.s.sed. Upon the warm and generous people to whom America literally broke bread and sent life, this act of fraternal charity, so gracefully and impressively offered, naturally produced a profound and lasting impression, the influence of which is felt at this moment.'

The clergy, Protestant and Roman Catholic, almost the only resident gentry in several of the dest.i.tute districts, worked together on the committees with commendable zeal, diligence, and unanimity. Among the Roman Catholic clergy, Father Mathew was at that time by far the most influential and popular. The ma.s.ses of the peasantry regarded him as almost an inspired apostle. During the famine months, he exerted himself with wonderful energy and prudence, first, in his correspondence with different members of the Government, earnestly recommending and urging the speedy adoption of measures of relief; and next, in commending those measures to the people, dissuading the hungry from acts of violence, and preaching submission and resignation under that heavy dispensation of Providence. Of this there are ample proofs in the letters published by Mr. Maguire, M.P. 'It is not to harrow your feelings, dear Mr. Trevelyan,' he wrote, 'I tell this tale of woe. No; but to excite your sympathy in behalf of our miserable peasantry. It is rumoured that the capitalists in the corn and flour trade are endeavouring to induce the Government not to protect the people from famine, but to leave them at their mercy. I consider this a cruel and unjustifiable interference. I am so unhappy at the prospect before us, and so horror-struck by the apprehension of our dest.i.tute people falling into the ruthless hands of the corn and flour traders, that I risk becoming troublesome, rather than not lay my humble opinions before you.' Again: 'I hail with delight the humane, the admirable measures for relief announced by my Lord John Russell; they have given universal satisfaction. But of what avail will all this be, unless the wise precautions of Government will enable the toiling workman, after exhausting his vigour during a long day to earn a s.h.i.+lling, to purchase with that s.h.i.+lling a sufficiency of daily food for his generally large and helpless family?' Father Mathew earnestly pleaded for out-door relief, in preference to the workhouse, foreseeing the danger of sundering the domestic bonds, which operate so powerfully as moral restraints in Ireland. The beautiful picture which he drew of the Irish peasant's home in his native land was not too highly coloured, as applied to the great majority of the people:--'The bonds of blood and affinity, dissoluble by death alone, a.s.sociate in the cabins of the Irish peasantry, not only the husband, wife, and children, but the aged parents and the married couple and their dest.i.tute relatives, even to the third and fourth degree of kindred. G.o.d forbid that political economists should dissolve these ties! should violate these beautiful charities of nature and the gospel! I have often found my heart throb with delight when I beheld three or four generations seated around the humble board and blazing hearth; and I offered a silent prayer to the great Father of all that the gloomy gates of the workhouse should never separate those whom such tender social chains so fondly link together.'

The following is a tabular view of the whole amount of voluntary contributions during the Irish famine, which deserves a permanent record for the credit of our common humanity:--

s. d. s. d.

Local contributions officially reported in 1846 104,689 18 1 Local contributions officially reported in 1847 199,569 4 1 British Relief a.s.sociation, total received 470,041 1 2 say five-sixths for Ireland 391,700 17 8 General Central Relief Committee, College Green 83,934 17 11 Less received from British Relief a.s.sociation 20,190 0 0 _____________ 63,744 17 11 Irish Relief a.s.sociation, Sackville Street 42,446 5 0 Relief Committee of the Society of Friends, London 42,905 12 0 Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends, Dublin 198,313 15 3 Less received from Committee of the Society of Friends in London, and interest 39,249 19 11 _____________ 159,063 15 4 Indian Relief Fund 13,919 15 2 National Club, London 19,928 12 2 Wesleyan Methodist Relief Fund, London 20,056 14 4 Irish Evangelical Society, London 9,264 9 9 Baptists' Relief Fund, London 6,141 11 2 Ladies' Irish Clothing Society, London 9,533 4 0 Less received from British a.s.sociation, &c. 5,324 12 11 _____________ 4,208 11 1 Ladies' Relief a.s.sociation for Ireland 19,584 0 9 Less received from Irish Relief a.s.sociation and for sales of manufactures 7,659 6 7 _____________ 11,924 14 2 Ladies' Industrial Society for encouragement of labour among the peasantry 1,968 12 8 Less received from Irish Relief a.s.sociation 1,500 0 0 _____________ 468 12 8 Belfast Ladies' a.s.sociation for the relief of Irish Distress 2,617 1 6 Belfast Ladies' Industrial a.s.sociation for Connaught 4,615 16 1 There were also two collections in Belfast for general purposes, the amount of which exceeded 10,000 0 0

CHAPTER XVII.

TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER.

The Earl of Granard has taken a leading part in the movement for the settling of the land question, having presided at two great meetings in the counties in which he has large estates, Wexford and Longford, supported on each occasion by influential landlords. He was the first of his cla.s.s to propose that the question should be settled on the basis of tenant-right, by legalising and extending the Ulster custom.

A reference to this custom has been frequently made recently, in discussions on the platform and in the press. I have studied the history of that province with care; and I have during the year 1869 gone through several of its counties with the special object of inquiring how the tenant-right operates, and whether, and to what extent, it affords the requisite security to the cultivators of the soil; and it may be of some service that I should give here the result of my enquiries.

Of the six counties confiscated and planted in Ulster, Londonderry, as I have already remarked, was allotted to the London companies. The aspect of their estates, is on the whole, very pleasing. In the midst of each there is a small town, built in the form of a square, with a market-house and a town-hall in the centre, and streets running off at each side. There are almost invariably three substantial and handsome places of wors.h.i.+p--the parish church, always best and most prominent, the presbyterian meeting-house, and the catholic chapel, with nice manses for the ministers, all built wholly or in part by grants from the companies.

Complaints were constantly made against the Irish Society for its neglect of its trust, for refusing to give proper building leases, and for wasting the funds placed at its disposal for public purposes. The details are curious and interesting, throwing much light on the social history of the times. The whole subject of its duties and responsibilities, and of its anomalous powers, was fully discussed at a meeting of the princ.i.p.al citizens, most of them strongly Conservative, on the 28th of May, 1866. There had been a discussion on the subject in the House of Commons, in which Lord Claud Hamilton, then member for the borough, distinguished himself. Mr. Maguire brought the Society before Parliament in an able speech. The legislature, as well as the public, were then preoccupied with the Church question. But, doubtless, the maiden city will make her voice heard next session, and insist on being released from a guardian who always acted the part of a stepmother.