Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
This demand Mr. Lavan considers to be unreasonable in the extreme, and
he attributes it to the influence of the National Leaguers here, whose
representatives among the local guardians constantly vote away the money
of the ratepayers in "relief to evicted tenants who have ample means and
can in no respect be called destitute." In his opinion the effect of the
Nationalist agitation here has been to upset all ideas of right and
wrong in the minds of the people where any question arises between
tenants and landlords. He told a story, confirmed by Mr. Tener, of a
bailiff, whom he named, on the Clanricarde property here, who was
compelled two years ago to resign his place in order to prevent the
"boycotting" of his mother who keeps a shop on the farm. He was
familiar, too, with the details of a story told me by one of the
Clanricarde tenants, a farmer near Loughrea who holds a farm at £90 a
year. This man was forced to subscribe to the Plan of Campaign. The
agent proceeded against him for the rent due, and he incurred costs of
£10. His sheep and crop were then seized.
He begged the local leaders to "permit" him to pay his rent, as he was
able to do it _without drawing out the funds in their hands_! They
refused, and so compelled him to allow his property to be publicly sold,
and to incur further costs of £10. "His farm lies so near the town that
he did not dare to risk the vengeance of the local ruffians."
Mr. Lavan gave me the name also of another man who is now actually under
a "boycott," because he has ventured to resist the modest demand made by
the son of a man whose tenant-right he bought, paying him £100 for it,
twenty years ago, that he shall give up his farm without being
reimbursed for his outlay made to purchase it! In other words, after
twenty years' peaceable possession of a piece of property, bought and
paid for, this tenant-farmer is treated as a "land-grabber" by the
self-installed "Nationalist" government of Ireland, because he will not
submit to be robbed both of the money which he paid for his
tenant-right, and of his tenant-right!
Obviously in such a case as this the "war against landlordism" is simply
a war against property and against private rights. Priests of the
Catholic Church who not only countenance but aid and abet such
proceedings certainly go even beyond Dr. M'Glynn. Dr. M'Glynn, so far as
I know, stops at the confiscation of all private property in rent by the
State for the State. But here is simply a confiscation of the property
of A for the benefit of B, such as might happen if B, being armed and
meeting A unarmed in a forest, should confiscate the watch and chain of
A, bought by A of B's lamented but unthrifty father twenty years before!
After dinner to-night Mr. Tener gave me some interesting and edifying
accounts of his experience in other parts of Ireland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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