The London companies which have estates in the county Derry claimed to be entitled to all the surplus revenue after the cost of management was deducted. This was the question raised by the celebrated 'Skinners' case,' ultimately decided by the House of Lords. The effect of the decision was, that the society was a trustee, not for the companies but for the public objects defined in the charter and the 'articles of agreement.' Lord Langdale's language on the subject is perfectly clear and explicit. He declared that the Irish Society have not, 'collectively or individually,' any beneficial interest in the estates. In a sense they are trustees. They have important duties to perform; but their powers and duties have all reference to the Plantation, whose object was purely public and political.

Adverting to this judgment, it is not Derry alone that is interested in the abolition of the Irish Society. Its objects 'affected the general welfare of Ireland and the whole realm.' The city of London, in its corporate capacity, had no beneficial interest in the estates. 'The money which it had advanced was early repaid, and the power which remained, or which was considered to remain, was, like that of the society, an entrusted power for the benefit of the plantation and those interested in it. The Irish Society seems to have been little, if anything, more than the representative or instrument of the city for the purposes of the Plantation.'

I subjoin the text of the concluding part of the judgment in the Skinners' Case, the report of which fills a very bulky volume:—

Lord Langdale said: 'The mistaken views which the society may have subsequently taken of its own situation and duties (and I think that such mistaken views have several times been taken) do not vary the conclusion to be deduced from the charter and the circumstances contemporary with the grant of the first charter. I am of opinion that the powers granted to the society and the trusts reposed in them were in part of a general and public nature, independent of the private benefit of the companies of London, and were intended by the crown to benefit Ireland and the city of London, by connecting the city of Londonderry and the town of Coleraine and a considerable Irish district with the city of London, and to promote the general purposes of the Plantation, not only by securing the performance of the conditions imposed on ordinary undertakers, but also by the exercise of powers and the performance of trusts not within the scope of those conditions. The charter of Charles II. expressly recites that the property not actually divided was retained for the general operation of the Plantation.'



CHAPTER XVIII.

TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN.

If there are sermons in stones I ought to have learned something from the ruins of the castle built by Sir Arthur Hill, the founder of the house of Downshire, in which they show the chamber occupied by William III. while his army was encamped at Blaris Moor. This was once a royal fort, and among the most interesting memorials of the past are the primitive gates, long laid aside from duty, the timber gradually mouldering away from the huge nails, which once added to their massive strength. Hillsborough was incorporated by Charles II., and sent two members to parliament. The Hills rose rapidly in rank and influence. In 1717, Trevor Hill, Esq., was created Viscount of Hillsborough and Baron Hill. In 1756, Wills, the second viscount, was made Earl of Hillsborough, and in 1789 he became Marquis of Downshire.

Hillsborough is the most perfect picture of a feudal establishment that I know. On one side of the little, quiet, tradeless town are the ruins of the old castle, with its park and its fine ancestral trees, through the thick foliage of which pierces the spire of the church, lofty and beautiful. On the other side, and quite close to the town, is 'the new castle'—an immense building of cut stone, in the Greek style, two storeys high, shut in by high walls from the view of the townsfolk. Then there is the small market-square, with the court-house in the centre, the hotel at the top, and other buildings of a better class on the opposite side. From the hill, which is crowned by these buildings, descend small streets, in which dwell the inhabitants, all more or less dependent on the lord of the manor, all cared for by him, and many of them pensioned when disabled by age or infirmity.

There is a monument erected to the memory of the late marquis's father on a hill to the south of the town. The view from this point is glorious. Belfast lies a little beyond, enveloped in the smoke emitted from its numerous tall chimneys. To the left is the range of the Antrim highlands, continued along the coast of the Lough towards Carrickfergus, and from which the Cave Hill stands out in bold relief, looking down on the numerous pretty villas with which the taste of wealthy manufacturers and merchants has adorned those pleasant suburbs. Westward towards Lough Neagh, swelling gradually—southward towards Armagh, and round to Newry, the whole surface of the country gently undulating, presents a vast picture of quiet beauty, fertility, and plenty that can be rivalled only in England. The tall crowded stocks along the ridges of the corn-fields attested the abundance of the crops—the rich greenness and warmth of the landscape showing how well the ground has been drained, manured, and cultivated. The neat, white-walled houses gleaming amidst the verdure of sheltering trees and trimmed hedges tell the thoughtful observer that the people who dwell in this land belong to it, are rooted in it, and ply their industry under the happy feeling that, so far as their old landlords are concerned, their lot is one of 'quietness and assurance for ever.' Nowhere—even on the high ranges about Newry, where the population is far too dense, where the patchwork cultivation creeps up the mountain side, and the hand of industry snatches a precarious return from a poor, cold, ungrateful soil, amidst desolating tempests and blighting fogs—not even there did I notice the least trace of evictions or clearances. No black remnant of a wall tells that where sheep now browze and lambs frisk there was once a fireside, where the family affections were cherished, and a home where happy children played in the sunshine. This is the field of capital and enterprise; here we have an aristocracy of wealth, chiefs of industry, each of whom maintains an army of 'hands' more numerous than the swordsmen of Shane O'Neill when he reigned in his castle yonder on the banks of Lough Neagh. But here also is the aristocracy of rank—lords of ancient lineage, descended from heroes—men who have left magnificent monuments of their creative genius. They have not only founded great houses, but they have laid deep and broad the foundations of a social system to whose strength and beauty every age has been adding something, and which now wants only one topmost stone to make it perfect.

I read on the monument to Lord Downshire the expressive motto of the Downshire family—Per Deum et ferrum obtinui. No family ever made better use of the power thus obtained. The inscription states that the third marquis was 'alike distinguished for patriotism, rectitude of principle, and honesty of purpose. Upholding his station with becoming dignity, he was also mindful of the wants of others, and practised his duties with benevolence and humility, which won the regard of every virtuous mind, adding lustre to his exalted rank.' Although these words were engraved upon a monument by the friends and admirers of their object, they are perfectly true, and they would be equally true of the late marquis.

Lord Downshire is esteemed as the best of landlords. He charges 33 per cent. less for his land than it is worth—than the tenants would be able to pay. Tenant-right on his property sells for an enormous amount. He never evicts a tenant, nor even threatens to evict those who vote against him. What he has done for the contentment and prosperity of his tenants, with so much honour and happiness to himself, other landlords may do with like results. The late lord, his father, and his grandfather pursued the same course. They let their lands at a low valuation. They encouraged improvements—they allowed the free enjoyment of tenant-right; but they refused to allow sub-letting or subdivision of the land. They consolidated farms only when tenants, unable to retain small, worn-out holdings, wished to sell their tenant-right and depart. The consequence is that there is great competition for land on the Downshire estates. The tenant-right sells easily for 30 l. to 40 l. an Irish acre, the rent being on an average about 28 s. If a tenant is not able to pay his way, he is let run on in arrears perhaps for two or three years. Then he feels the necessity of selling; but the arrears are deducted, and also debts that he may owe to his neighbours, before he departs with the proceeds in his pocket.

The late marquis seems to have been almost idolised by the tenants. On or off the estate, in town or country, I have heard nothing of him but praise of the warmest and most unqualified kind; and, what is more remarkable, his late agent, Mr. Filgate, was universally respected for his fairness in the discharge of his duties. The way in which I heard this spoken of by the people convinces me that there is nothing that wins their confidence so much as strict impartiality, and justice, calmly, kindly, but firmly administered. The people to whom I spoke laid stress on the fact that Mr. Filgate listened quietly to the statements of both sides, carefully enquired into the merits of each, and decided accordingly. There was no favouritism, they said, no partiality; no hasty decision in a fit of anger, or passion, or impatience; no refusal to listen to reason.

I observed to one of the tenants, 'You admit that the rents are much lower than on other estates, much lower than the value of the lands, and that during the last twenty years the tenant-right has increased in value. Suppose, then, that the marquis should raise the rents, say twenty-five per cent., what would be the consequence? Would they pay the increase willingly?' 'Willingly!' he exclaimed, 'no, there would be rebellion! The late lord could do anything with the people; he could raise the country. But you see when they bought the tenant-right they believed they could never be robbed of the value for which they paid by raising the rent.'

What can be better than the social picture which Harris presents of the state of society here 130 years ago? 'The inhabitants are warm and well clad at church, fairs, and markets. Tillage and the linen manufacture keep them in constant employment; a busy and laborious life prevents excess and breaches of the laws, which in no part of the kingdom are more reverenced. The people are regular in their attendance on public worship. Few breaches of the peace, felonies, burglaries, or murders come before the judges at the assizes; convictions for capital offences seldom happen. Men travel securely by day, and are afraid of little disturbance at night to keep them on their guard. Every man sits down securely under his vine and his figtree, and enjoys with comfort the fruit of his honest labours.' He ascribes in the main this prosperity to what he calls 'the spirit of tillage.' Until that spirit arose in Ulster, the Irish had to send to America for their daily bread, 'which,' he says, 'to the astonishment of all Europe, has been often our weakness.' Viewing the whole social condition of the county, he exclaims, 'Such are the happy effects of a well-peopled country, extensive tillage, the linen manufacture, and the Protestant religion.'

In the first year of the present century, the Dublin Society (not yet 'Royal') employed 'land commissioners' to enquire into the condition of agriculture in the several counties of Ireland. The Rev. John Dubourdieu, rector of Annahilt, in this county, was their commissioner for Down and Antrim. He states that the rent was then on an average 20 s. the Irish acre (three equal to five English), allowing for the mountains and bogs, which he computed at 44,658 acres. The rental of the county he sets down at 300,000 l. The net annual value of property assessed under the Tenement Valuation Act is now 743,869 l. This is considerably under the letting value, it is supposed, 25 per cent. If this be so, the county yields to the proprietors a revenue of about 1,000,000 l. a year. If we add the value of the tenant-right, and of the fixtures of all sorts—houses, mills, roads, bridges—as well as the movable property and stock, we may get some idea of the enormous aggregate of wealth which the labour of man has created on this strip of wild wooded hills, swampy plains, and bogs.

Now, what has effected this marvellous change? The tenants, with one voice, exclaim, 'our labour, our capital, our skill, our care, and self-denial. It was we that cleared away the woods which it was so difficult to eradicate. It was we who drained away the bogs and morasses, and by the help of lime and marl converted them into rich land. It was we that built the dwelling-houses and offices. It was we that made the fences, and planted the hedge-rows and orchards. It was we that paid for the making of the roads and bridges. The landlords gave us the wild country to work upon; we have done the rest. Our industry enabled them to build their stately mansions, and we have continued to pay to them their princely revenues. Our forefathers came with them as settlers, that they might "plant" the country with a loyal and industrious race of people, and they came on the assurance that they and their children's children were to remain for ever rooted where they were planted. They did their duty faithfully and well by the land, by the landlords, and by the Government. Where the children that inherited their rights failed, their interest in their farms has been purchased dearly by others of the same race who have taken their places. By what right, then, can they be turned out?'

It is not possible, if it were desirable, to introduce the 'high farming system' in this county. But if possible, would it be desirable? In the eye of a scientific agriculturist it might be better that all those comfortable farm-houses, with the innumerable fences crossing the landscape in every possible form, making all sorts of mathematical figures, presenting the appearance of an immense variegated patchwork—were levelled and removed so that the plough and all the modern machinery might range unobstructed over hill and vale. But assuredly it would not seem better to the philanthropist, the Christian, or the statesman. To the chancellor of the exchequer it would make the most serious difference; for a few herds and ploughmen would consume but a very small portion indeed of the excisable articles now used by the tenant farmers of this county. I have taken some notes on the diet of this people which may be instructive.

At the beginning of the present century the small farmers were generally weavers. There was an obvious incompatibility in the two occupations, and the farms were neglected. Gradually this evil has been corrected, especially since the famine. The weavers have become cottiers, and the farmers have devoted themselves to their agricultural operations exclusively with the more energy since railroads have so facilitated the quick sale of produce, particularly that sort of produce which enables the occupiers to supply the markets with the smaller necessaries of life, and with which large farmers would not trouble themselves. Daily labourers working from 6 A.M., to 6 P.M. in large fields with machinery cannot do the hundreds of little matters which the family of the small holder attends to every hour of the day, often in the night—and which give work to women and children as well as the men—work of the most healthful character and most free from demoralizing influences.

On a farm of fifteen to thirty acres there is constant employment of a profitable kind for the members of a household, including women and children. The effect of good drainage is that farming operations can be carried on through winter, in preparing the ground and putting in wheat and other crops early to supply the markets, when prices are high. Oats, barley, potatoes, flax, turnips claim attention in turn, and then come the weeding and thinning, the turf-making, the hay-making, and all the harvest operations. It is by the ceaseless activity of small farmers in watching over their pigs, poultry, lambs, &c., that the markets are kept so regularly supplied, and that towns grow up and prosper. If Down and Antrim had been divided into farms of thousands of acres each, like Lincolnshire, what would Belfast have become? Little more than a port for the shipping of live stock to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the famine, the food of the small farmers was generally potatoes and milk three times a day, with a bit of meat occasionally. But salt herrings were the main reliance for giving a flavour to the potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure of the potatoes, their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form of 'stirabout.' Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more wholesome. But of late years the diet of the farmers in these parts has undergone a complete revolution. There is such brisk demand for butter, eggs, potatoes, and other things that used to be consumed by the family, that they have got into the habit of taking tea, with cakes and other home-made bread twice, or even three times, a day. The demand for tea is, therefore, enormous. There is one grocer's establishment in Belfast which has been able to produce a mixture that suits the taste of the people, and the quantity of tea sold by it is a ton a day. This is the business of but one out of many houses in Belfast. Then there is the brisk trade in such towns as Newtownards, Lisburn, Ballymena, &c. In pastoral districts the towns languish, the people pine in poverty, and the workhouses are in request.

In a financial point of view, therefore, it is manifestly the interest of the state to encourage 'the spirit of tillage.' It is thus that most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue will be raised, and that the other elements of national power will be most fully developed. How can this encouragement be most effectually given? Security for the farmer is essential—of what nature should the security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used. But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that his remedy is to retrograde—to undo what he has done—to take out of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first received it? Should not the policy of the legislature rather be to keep up improvements of the soil, and its productive power at the highest possible point, and make it the interest of the occupier never to relax in his exertions? The rower will not put forth all his strength unless he believes he will win. In other races, though many start, only one or two can receive the prize. In this race of agricultural improvement all competitors might win ample rewards. But will they put forth all their energies—is it in human nature that they should—was it ever done by any people, if the prizes are to be seized, enjoyed, and flaunted before their eyes by others, who may be strangers, and who never helped them by their sympathy in their toilsome course of training and self-denial? It is because the landlords of the county Down have been so often in the same boat with their tenants, and with so much good faith, generous feeling, and cordial sympathy encouraged their exertions, and secured to them their just rewards, that this great county presents to the world such a splendid example of what industry, skill, and capital can accomplish. Is it not possible to extend the same advantages through the whole island without wronging the landlord or degrading the tenant?

The stranger is at first surprised to see so large a town as Newtownards, with its handsome square, its town-hall, its wide, regular streets, its numerous places of worship, and a population of 9,500, in a place without visible factories, and without communication with the sea, within eight miles of Belfast, and three miles of Bangor, which, though a seaport, is but one-fourth of the size. But although there are no great mills sending forth volumes of smoke, Newtownards is really a manufacturing town. Those clean, regular streets, with their two-storey houses, uniform as a district in the east of London, are inhabited by weavers. In each house there is one loom at least, in most two or three, and in some as many as six. The manufacture of woollen and cotton goods of finer qualities than can be produced by the power-loom is carried on extensively. I saw one man working at a piece of plaid of six colours, a colour on every shuttle, With the help of his wife, who assisted in winding, he was able to earn only 8 s. a week by very diligent work from early morning till night. There is a general complaint of the depression of trade at present. Agents, chiefly from Glasgow houses, living in the town, supply the yarn and pay the wages. I was struck with the number of public-houses in all the leading streets. How far they are supported by the weavers I cannot say, but whether or not they can dispense with the glass, they must have their tobacco, and when this luxury is deducted, and a shilling a week for the rent of the cottage, it is hard to understand how a family of six or eight can be supported on the weekly wages. The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished here, and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but it has so fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle unceasingly during the long, long day, can earn only three or four shillings a week. Before the invention of machinery for flax-spinning, the manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was a most profitable employment. Wonders were wrought in this way by female fingers. The author of 'Our Staple Manufactures' states that in 1799, out of a pound and a half of flax, costing 10 s., a woman produced yarn of the value of 5 l. 2 s. 6 d. Miss M'Quillan, of Comber, spun 94 hanks out of one pound of flax, splitting the fibre with her needles to give this degree of fineness.

But alas! what a change to the cottage hearth! The song of the wheel's no more— The song that gladdened with guileless mirth The hearths and homes of the poor!

But here, and in all the small towns about, they have still the weaving, and it is carried on to a considerable extent by persons who hold a few acres of land, throwing aside the shuttle while putting in the crops and doing the harvest work. Thus combining the two pursuits, these poor people are able, by extraordinary industry, to earn their daily bread; but they can do little more. The weavers, as a class, appear to be feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet, intelligent, and well-disposed—a law-abiding people, who shrink from violence and outrage, no matter what may be their grievances. It is cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens of life, and yet I am afraid it is sometimes done, even in this county, unnecessarily and wantonly. What I have said of the Downshire and Londonderry estates, holds good with respect to the estates of the other large proprietors, such as Lord Roden, the kindest of landlords, almost idolised, even by his Catholic tenants; Lord Annesley; the trustees of Lord Kilmurray; Sir Thomas Bateson, and others. But I am sorry to learn that even the great county Down has a share of the two classes which supply the worst species of Irish landlords—absentees who live extravagantly in England, and merchants who have purchased estates to make as large a percentage as possible out of the investment. It is chiefly, but not wholly, on the estates of these proprietors that cases of injustice and oppression are found. In the first class it is the agent that the tenants have to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters little to them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny must be exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the landlord in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere. Every transaction of the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be not unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the money at all hazards. I have been assured that it is quite usual, on such estates, to find the tenantry paying the highest rent compatible with the maintenance of bare life. There is in the county of Down a great number of small holders thus struggling for existence. As a specimen let us take the following case:—A man holds a dozen acres of land, for which he pays 2 l. 10 s. per acre. He labours as no slave could be made to work, in the summer time from five o'clock in the morning till six in the evening. He can hardly scrape together a pound beyond the rent and taxes. If a bad season comes, he is at starvation point: he falls into arrears with the landlord, and he is forced by the bailiff to sell off his small stock to pay the rent.

Without the excuse of pecuniary difficulties, the merchant landlord is not a whit less exacting, or more merciful. He looks upon the tenants as he would on so many head of cattle, and his sole consideration is what is the highest penny he can make out of them. Not far from Belfast lived a farmer who cultivated a few acres. Sickness and the support of a widowed sister's family forced him into arrears of rent. Ejectment proceedings were taken, and one day when he returned to his house, he found his furniture thrown out on the road, the sister and family evicted, and the door locked. He was offered as much money as would take him to America, but he would not be allowed to sell the tenant-right. Here is another case illustrative of the manner in which that right is sometimes dealt with:—A respectable man purchased a farm at 10 l. an acre. It was very poor land, much of it unfit for cultivation. Immediately on getting possession a surveyor came and added two acres to the former measurement. The incoming tenant was at the same time informed that the rent was raised to an extent that caused the possession to be a dead loss. On threatening to throw up the concern, some reduction was made, which brought the rent as close as possible to the full letting value.

I have been told by a well-informed gentleman, whose veracity I cannot doubt, that it is quite common in the county of Down (and indeed I have been told the same thing in other counties) to find an improving tenant paying 2 l. to 3 l. an acre for land, which he has at his own expense brought up to a good state of cultivation, while the adjoining land of his lazy neighbour—originally of equal value—yields only 20 s. to 35 s. an acre. The obvious tendency of this unjust and impolitic course on the part of landlords and agents, is to discourage improvements, to dishearten the industrious, and to fill the country with thriftless, desponding, and miserable occupiers, living from hand to mouth. There are circumstances under which even selfish men will toil hard, though others should share with them the benefit of their labours; but if they feel that this partnership in the profits of their industry is the result of a system of legalised injustice, which enables unscrupulous men to appropriate at will the whole of the profits, their moral sense so revolts against that system that they resolve to do as little as they possibly can.

The consequence of these painful relations of landlord and tenant, even in this comparatively happy county, is a perceptible degeneracy in the manhood of the people. Talk to an old inhabitant, who has been an attentive observer of his times, and he will tell you that the vigorous and energetic, the intelligent and enterprising, are departing to more favoured lands, and that this process has produced a marked deterioration in the population within his memory. He can distinctly recollect when there were more than double the present number of strong farmers in the country about Belfast. He declares that, with many exceptions of course, the land is getting into the hands of a second or third class of farmers, who are little more than servants to the small landlords. Even where there are leases, such intelligent observers affirm that they are so over-ridden with conditions that the farmer has no liberty or security to make any great improvements. Were it otherwise he would not think a thirty-one years' lease sufficient for the building of a stone house, that would be as good at the end of a hundred years as at the end of thirty. All the information that I can gather from thoughtful men, who are really anxious for a change that would benefit the landlords as well as themselves, points to the remedy which Lord Granard has suggested, as the most simple, feasible, and satisfactory—the legalisation and extension of the tenant-right custom. They rejoice that such landlords now proclaim the injustice which the tenant class have so long bitterly felt—namely, the presumption of law that all the improvements and buildings on the farm belong to the lord of the soil, although the notorious fact is that they are all the work of the tenant.

And here I will take the opportunity of remarking that the legislature were guilty of strange oversight, or deliberate injustice, in the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act. Taking advantage of an overwhelming national calamity, they forced numbers of gentlemen into a ruinous sale of their patrimonial estates, in order that men of capital might get possession of them. But they made no provision whatever for the protection of the tenants, or of the property which those tenants had created on these estates. Many of those were tenants at will, who built and planted in perfect and well-grounded reliance on the honour and integrity of their old landlords. But in the advertisements for the sale of property under the Landed Estates Court, it was regularly mentioned as an inducement to purchasers of the Scully type that the tenants had no leases. The result of this combination of circumstances bearing against the cultivators of the soil—the chief producers of national wealth—is a deep, resentful sense of injustice pervading this class, and having for its immediate objects the landlords and their agents. The tenants don't speak out their feelings, because they dare not. They fear that to offend the office in word or deed is to expose themselves and their children to the infliction of a fine in the shape of increased rent, perhaps at the rate of five or ten shillings an acre in perpetuity.

One unfortunate effect of the distrust thus generated, is that when enlightened landlords, full of the spirit of improvement, like Lord Dufferin and Lord Lurgan, endeavour, from the most unselfish and patriotic motives, to make changes in the tenures and customs on their estates, they have to encounter an adverse current of popular opinion and feeling, which is really too strong to be effectually resisted. For example: In order to correct the evils resulting from the undue competition for land among the tenants, they limit the amount per acre which the outgoing tenant is permitted to receive; but the limitation is futile, because the tenants understand one another, and do what they believe to be right behind the landlord's back. The market price is, say, 20 l. an acre. The landlord allows 10 l.; the balance finds its way secretly into the pocket of the outgoing tenant before he gives up possession. As a gentleman expressed it to me emphatically, 'The outgoing tenant must be satisfied, and he is satisfied.' Public opinion in his own class demands it; and on no other terms would it be considered lucky to take possession of the vacant farm.



CHAPTER XIX.

TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM.

I find from the Antrim Survey, published in 1812, that at that time leases were general on the Hertfort estate. There were then about 3,600 farmers who held by that tenure, each holding, on an average, twenty English acres, but many farms contained 100 acres or more. Mr. Hugh M'Call, of Lisburn, the able author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,' gives the following estimates of the rental. In 1726, it was 3,500 l.; in 1768, it was 12,000 l.; and for 1869, his estimate is 63,000 l. Taking the estimate given by Dean Stannus, as 10 l. or 12 l. an acre, the tenant-right of the estate is worth 500,000 l. at the very least, probably 600,000 l. is the more correct figure. This vast amount of property created by the industry and capital of the tenants, is held at the will of an absentee landlord, who has on several occasions betrayed an utter want of sympathy with the people who lie thus at his mercy. There are tenant farmers on the estate who hold as much as 100 to 200 acres, with handsome houses built by themselves, whose interest, under the custom, should amount to 1,500 l. and 2,500 l. respectively, which might be legally swept away by a six months' notice to quit. The owners of this property might be regarded as very independent, but in reality, unless the spirit of martyrdom has raised them above the ordinary feelings of human nature, they will take care to be very humble and submissive towards Lord Hertfort's agents. If words were the same as deeds, if professions were always consistent with practice, the tenants would certainly have nothing to fear; for great pains have been taken from time to time, both by the landlord and agent, to inspire them with unbounded confidence.

In the year 1845, the tenants presented an address to Lord Hertfort, in which they said:—'It is a proud fact, worthy to be recorded, that the tenant-right of the honest and industrious man on your lordship's estate is a certain and valuable tenure to him, so long as he continues to pay his rent.' To this his lordship replied in the following terms:—'I am happy to find that the encouragement I have given to the improvement of the land generally has been found effectual, and I trust that the advantage to the tenant of the improved system of agriculture will be found to increase; and I beg to assure you that with me the right of the improving tenant shall continue to be as scrupulously respected as it has been hitherto by my ancestors. Your kindness alone, independent of the natural interest which I must ever feel as to everything connected with this neighbourhood, affords a powerful inducement to my coming among you, and I hope to have the pleasure of often repeating my visit.'

Twenty-four years have since elapsed, and during all that time the marquis has never indulged himself in a repetition of the exquisite pleasure he then enjoyed. At a banquet given in his honour on that occasion, he used the following language, which was, no doubt, published in the Times, and read with great interest in London and Paris:—'This is one of the most delightful days I ever spent. Trust me, I have your happiness and welfare at heart, and it shall ever be my endeavour to promote the one and contribute to the other.' The parting scene on this occasion must have been very touching; for, in tearing himself away, his lordship said: 'I have now come to the concluding toast. It is, "Merry have we met, and merry may we soon meet again!"'

The tenants could scarcely doubt the genuineness of their landlord's feelings, for on the same occasion Dean Stannus said: 'I feel myself perfectly justified in using the term "a good landlord;" because his lordship's express wish to me often was, "I hope you will always keep me in such a position that I may be considered the friend of my tenants."' But as he did not return to them, a most respectable deputation waited upon him in London in the year 1850, to present a memorial praying for a reduction of rent on account of the potato blight and other local calamities which had befallen the tenantry. The memorialists respectfully showed 'that under the encouraging auspices of the Hertfort family, and on the faith of that just and equitable understanding which has always existed on this estate—that no advantage would be taken of the tenant's improvements in adjusting the letting value of land, they had invested large sums of money in buildings and other improvements on their farms, and that this, under the name of tenant-right, was a species of sunk capital that was formerly considered a safe repository for accumulated savings, which could be turned to account at any time of difficulty by its sale, or as a security for temporary advances.' In his reply, Lord Hertfort said, 'I seek not to disturb any interest, much less do I wish to interfere by any plan or arrangement of mine with the tenant-right which my tenants have hitherto enjoyed, and which it is my anxious wish to preserve to them.'

The faith and hope inspired by these assurances of the landlord were repeatedly encouraged and strengthened by the public declarations of his very reverend agent, Dean Stannus. At a meeting of the Killultagh and Derryvolgie Farming Society, in 1849, he stated that he had great pleasure in subscribing to almost everything said by Mr. M'Call. He had taken great pains to convince the late Lord Hertfort that tenant-right was one of the greatest possible boons, as well to the landlords themselves as to the tenants. So advantageous did he regard it to the interest of Lord Hertfort and the tenants, that if it were not preserved he would not continue agent to the estate. Tenant-right was his security for the Marquis of Hertfort's rent, and he would not ask a tenant to relinquish a single rood of land without paying him at the rate of 10 l. to 12 l. an acre for it.

Firmly believing in the statements thus emphatically and solemnly made to them from time to time, that on this estate tenant-right was as good as a lease, the tenants went on building houses, and making permanent improvements in Lisburn and elsewhere, depending on this security. And, indeed, the value of such security could scarcely be presented under more favourable circumstances. The absentee landlord receiving such a princely revenue, and absorbed in his Parisian pursuits, seemed to leave everything to his agent. The agent was rector of the parish of Lisburn, a dignitary of the Church, a gentleman of the highest social position, with many excellent points in his character, and pledged before the world, again and again, to respect rigidly and scrupulously the enormous property which a confiding tenantry had invested in this estate. If, under these circumstances, the security of tenant-right fails, where else can it be trusted? If it be proved, by open and public proceedings, that on the Hertfort estate, the distinctly recognised property of the tenant is liable to be seized and wrested from him by the agent, it is clear to demonstration that such property absolutely requires the protection of law. This proof, I am sorry to say, is forthcoming. Let my readers reflect for a moment on what might have been done for Lisburn and the surrounding country if the Marquis of Hertfort had rebuilt his castle and resided among his people. What an impulse to improvement of every kind, what employment for tradesmen of every class, what business for shops might have resulted from the local expenditure of 50,000 l. or 60,000 l. a year! What public buildings would have been erected—how local institutions would have flourished! The proverb that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' does not apply to the relations of landlord and tenant. But there is another proverb that applies well—'Out of sight, out of mind.' Of this I shall now give two or three illustrations. Some years ago, it was discovered that no lease of the Catholic chapel at Lisburn could be found, and in the recollection of the oldest member of the congregation no rent had been paid. Kent, however, was now demanded, and the parish priest agreed to pay a nominal amount, which places the congregation at the mercy of the office. Ground was asked some time ago to build a Presbyterian Church, but it was absolutely refused. A sum of money was subscribed to build a literary institute, but, though a sort of promise was given for ground to build it on, it was never granted, and the project fell through. Lord Hertfort spends no portion of his vast income where it is earned. His estate is like a farm to which the produce is never returned in the shape of manure, but is all carted off and applied to the enrichment of a farm elsewhere. One might suppose that where such an exhausting process has been going on for so long a time an effort would be made at some sort of compensation, especially at periods of calamity. Yet, when the weavers on his estate were starving, owing to the cotton famine during the American war, his lordship never replied to the repeated applications made to him for help to save alive those honest producers of his wealth. The noble example of Lord Derby and other proprietors in Lancashire failed to kindle in his heart a spark of humanity, not to speak of generous emulation. The sum of 3,000 l. was raised in Lisburn, and by friends in Great Britain and America, which was expended in saving the people from going en masse to the workhouse. Behold a contrast! While the great peer, whose family inherited a vast estate for which they never paid a shilling, was deaf to the cries of famishing Christians, whom he was bound by every tie to commiserate and relieve, an American citizen, who owed nothing to Ireland but his birth—Mr. A.T. Stewart, of New York—sent a ship loaded with provisions, which cost him 5,000 l. of his own money, to be distributed amongst Lord Hertfort's starving tenants, and on the return of the ship he took out as many emigrants as he could accommodate, free of charge. The tourist in Ireland is charmed with the appearance of Lisburn—the rich and nicely cultivated town parks, the fields white as snow with linen of the finest quality, the busy mills, the old trees, the clean streets, the look of comfort in the population, the pretty villas in the country about. Mrs. S.C. Hall says that there is, probably, no town in Ireland where the happy effects of English taste and industry are more conspicuous than at Lisburn. 'From Drumbridge and the banks of the Lagan on one side, to the shores of Lough Neagh on the other, the people are almost exclusively the descendants of English settlers. Those in the immediate neighbourhood of the town were mostly Welsh, but great numbers arrived from the northern English shires, and from the neighbourhood of the Bristol Channel. The English language is perhaps spoken more purely by the populace of this district than by the same class in any other part of Ireland. The neatness of the cottages, and the good taste displayed in many of the farms, are little, if at all, inferior to aught that we find in England, and the tourist who visits Lough Neagh, passing through Ballinderry, will consider it to have been justly designated the garden of the north. The multitude of pretty little villages, scattered over the landscape, each announcing itself by the tapering tower of a church, would almost beguile the traveller into believing that he was passing through a rural district in one of the midland counties of England.'

We have seen that after General Conway got this land, it was described by an English traveller as still uninhabited—'all woods and moor.' Who made it the garden of the north? The British settlers and their descendants. And why did they transform this wilderness into fruitful fields? Because they had permanent tenures and fair rents. The rental 150 years ago was 3,500 l. per annum. Allow that money was three times as valuable then as it is now, and the rental would have been about 10,500 l. It is now nearly six times that amount. By what means was the revenue of the landlord increased? Was it by any expenditure of his own? Did any portion of the capital annually abstracted from the estate return to it, to fructify and increase its value? Did the landlord drain the swamps, reclaim the moors, build the dwellings and farmhouses, make the fences, and plant the orchards? He did nothing of the kind. Nor was it agricultural industry alone that increased his revenue. He owes much of the beauty, fertility, and richness of his estate to the linen manufacture, to those weavers to the cries of distress from whose famishing children a few years ago the most noble marquis resolutely turned a deaf ear.

But, passing from historical matters to the immediate purpose of our enquiry, let it suffice to remark that from Lisburn as a centre the linen trade in all its branches—flax growing, scutching, spinning, weaving and bleaching—spread over the whole of the Hertfort estate, giving profitable employment to the tenants, circulating money, enabling them to build and improve and work the estate into the rich and beautiful garden described by Mrs. Hall;—all this work of improvement has been carried on, all or nearly all the costly investments on the land have been made, without leases and in dependence on tenant-right. We have seen what efforts were made by landlord and agent to strengthen the faith of the tenants in this security. We have seen also from the historical facts I have adduced the sort of people that constitute the population of the borough of Lisburn. If ever there was a population that could be safely entrusted with the free exercise of the franchise it is the population of this town—so enlightened, so loyal, so independent in means, such admirable producers of national wealth, so naturally attached to British connection. Yet for generations Lisburn has been a pocket borough, and the nominee of the landlord, often a total stranger, was returned as a matter of course. The marquis sent to his agent a conge d'elire, and that was as imperative as a similar order to a dean and chapter to elect a bishop. In 1852 the gentleman whom the Lisburn electors were ordered to return was Mr. Inglis, the lord advocate of Scotland. They, however, felt that the time was come when the borough should be opened, and they should be at liberty to exercise their constitutional rights. A meeting of the inhabitants was therefore held, at which Mr. R. Smith was nominated as the popular candidate. The contest was not political; it was simply the independence of the borough against the office. Dean Stannus, as agent to an absentee landlord, was the most powerful personage in the place, virtually the lord of the manor. Before the election that gentleman published a letter in a Belfast paper contradicting a statement that had appeared to the effect that Lord Hertfort took little interest in the approaching contest, in which letter he said: 'I have the best reason for knowing that his lordship views with intense interest what is passing here, and that he is most anxious for the return of Mr. Inglis, feeling that the election of such a representative (which I am now enabled to say is certain) will do much credit to the borough of Lisburn, and that this unmeaning contest will, at all events, among its other effects, prove to his lordship whom he may regard as his true friends in his future relations with this town.'

Notwithstanding this warning, so significantly emphasized, the candidate whom the voters selected as their real representative was returned. Now no one can blame the marquis or his agent for wishing that the choice had fallen upon Mr. Inglis. So far as politics were concerned, the contest was unmeaning; but so far as the rights of the people and the loyal working of the British constitution were concerned, the contest was full of meaning, and if the landlord and his agent respected the constitution more than their own personal power they would have frankly acquiesced in the result, feeling that this Protestant and Conservative constituency had conscientiously done its duty to the state. But who could have imagined, after all the solemnly recorded pledges I have quoted, that they would have instantly resolved to punish the independent exercise of the franchise by inflicting an enormous and crushing fine amounting to nothing less than the whole tenant-right property of every adverse voter who had not a lease! Immediately after the election 'notices to quit' were served upon every one of them. In consequence of this outrageous proceeding a public meeting was held, at which a letter from John Millar, Esq., a most respectable and wealthy man (who was unable to attend) was read by the secretary. He said: 'I have at various times purchased places held from year to year, relying on the custom of the country, and on the declared determination of the landlord and his agent to respect such customary rights of property, for the continued possession of it. I have besides taken under the same landlord several fields as town parks, which were in very bad order. These fields I have drained and very much improved. I have always punctually paid the rent charged for the several holdings, and, I think I may venture to say, performed all the duties of a good tenant. At the last election, however, I exercised my right as a citizen of a free country, by giving my votes at Hillsborough and Lisburn in favour of the tenant-right candidates, without reference to the desires or orders of those who have no legal or constitutional right to control the use of my franchise. I have since received from the office a notice to quit, desiring me to give up possession of all my holdings, as tenant from year to year, in the counties of Down and Antrim, without any intimation that I shall receive compensation, and without being able to obtain any explanation of this conduct towards me except by popular rumour.' At the same meeting Mr. Hugh M'Call said that he had looked over some documents and found that the individuals in Lisburn who had received notices to quit held property to the value of 3,000 l., property raised by themselves, or purchased by them with the sanction of the landlord. In one case the agent himself went into the premises where buildings were being erected, and suggested some changes. In fact the improvements were carried out under his inspection as an architect. Yet he served upon that gentleman a notice to quit. Some of the tenants paid the penalty for their votes by surrendering their holdings; others contested the right of eviction on technical points, and succeeded at the quarter sessions. One of the points was, as already mentioned, that a dean and rector could not be legally a land agent at the same time. It was, indeed, a very ugly fact that the rector of the parish should be thus officially engaged, not only in nullifying the political rights of his own Protestant parishioners, but in destroying their tenant-right, evicting them from their holdings, which they believed to be legal robbery and oppression, accompanied by such flagrant breach of faith as tended to destroy all confidence between man and man, and thus to dissolve the strongest bonds of society. Sad work for a dignitary of the church to be engaged in!

In April, 1856, there was another contested election. On that occasion the marquis wrote to a gentleman in Lisburn that he would not interfere 'directly or indirectly to influence anybody.' Nevertheless, notices to quit, signed by Mr. Walter L. Stannus, assistant and successor to his father, were extensively served upon tenants-at-will, though it was afterwards alleged that they were only served as matters of form. But what, then, did they mean? They meant that those who had voted against the office had, ipso facto, forfeited their tenant-right property. Many other incidents in the management of the estate have been constantly occurring more recently, tending to show that the most valuable properties created by the tenants-at-will are at the mercy of the landlord, and that tenant-right, so called, is not regarded by him as a matter of right at all, but merely as a favour, to be granted to those who are dutiful and submissive to the office in all matters, political and social. For instance, one farmer was refused permission to sell his tenant-right till he consented to sink 100 l. or 200 l. in the shares of the Lisburn and Antrim railway, so that, as he believed, he was obliged to throw away his money in order to get his right.

The enormous power of an office which can deal with property amounting to more than half a million sterling, in such an arbitrary manner, necessarily generates a spirit of wanton and capricious despotism, except where the mind is very well regulated and the heart severely disciplined by Christian duty. Of this I feel bound to give the following illustration, which I would not do if the fact had not been made public, and if I had not the best evidence that it is undeniable. George Beattie, jun., a grocer's assistant in Lisburn, possessed a beautiful greyhound which he left in charge of George Beattie, sen., his uncle, on departing for America. This uncle possessed a farm on the Hertfort estate, the tenant-right of which he wanted to sell. Having applied to Mr. Stannus for permission, the answer he received was that he would not be allowed to sell until the head of the greyhound was brought to the office. The tenant remonstrated and offered to send the dog away off the estate to relatives, but to no effect. He was obliged to kill the greyhound, and to send its head in a bag to Lord Hertfort's office. It was a great triumph for the agent. What a pretty sensational story he had to tell the young ladies in the refined circles in which he moves. How edifying the recital must have been to the peasantry around him! How it must have exalted their ideas of the civilising influence of land agency. 'It is quite a common thing,' says a gentleman well acquainted with the estate, 'when a tenant becomes insolvent, that his tenant-right is sold and employed to pay those of his creditors who may be in favour. I know a lady who made application to have a claim against a small farmer registered in the office, which was done, and she now possesses the security of the man's tenant-right for her money.'

The case of the late Captain Bolton is the last illustration I shall give in connection with this estate. Captain Bolton resided in Lisburn, and he was one of the most respected of its inhabitants. He was the owner of four houses in that town, a property which he acquired in this way:—The site of two of them was obtained by the late James Hogg, in lieu of freehold property surrendered. On this ground, his son, Captain Bolton's uncle, built the two houses entirely at his own expense. Two other houses, immediately adjoining, came into the market, and he purchased the out-going tenant's 'good-will' for a sum of about 40 l. These houses were thatched, and in very bad condition. He repaired them and slated them, and thus formed a nice uniform block of four workers' houses. Captain Bolton inherited these from his uncle and retained uninterrupted possession till 1852, when he voted for Johnston Smyth at the election of that date. Immediately afterwards he received a notice to quit, an ejectment was brought in due time, the case was dismissed at the quarter sessions, an appeal was lodged, but it was again dismissed at the assizes. Undaunted by these two defeats, the persistent agent served another notice to quit. The captain was a man of peace, whose nerves could not stand such perpetual worrying by litigation, and he was so disgusted with the whole affair that he tied up the keys, and sent them to Lord Hertfort's office. In his ledger that day he made the following entry:—'Plundered, this 20th December 1854, by our worthy agent to the marquis, because I voted for Smyth and the independence of the borough.—J.B.'

The houses remained in the hands of the agent till the next election, when Captain Bolton voted for Mr. Hogg, the office candidate. The conscientious old gentleman—as good a conservative as Dean Stannus—voted from principle in both cases and not to please the agent or anyone else. The agent, however, thought proper to regard it as a penitent act, and as the tenant had ceased to be naughty, and had, it was assumed, shown proper deference to his political superiors, he received his houses back again, retaining the possession of them till his death. The profit rent of the houses is 20 l. a year. Either this rent belonged to Captain Bolton or to Lord Hertfort. If to Captain Bolton, by what right did Dean Stannus take it from him and give it to the landlord? If to the landlord, by what right did Dean Stannus take it from Lord Hertfort and give it to Captain Bolton?

However, the latter gentleman having no doubt whatever, first or last, that the property was his own, bequeathed the houses to trustees for the support of a school which he had established in Lisburn. The school, it appears, had been placed in connection with the Church Education Society, and as it did not go on to his satisfaction, he placed it in connection with the National Board of Education, having appointed as his trustees John Campbell, Esq., M.D., William Coulson, Esq., and the Rev. W.J. Clarke, Presbyterian minister, all of Lisburn. Dr. Campbell died soon after, and Mr. Coulson refused to act, so that the burden of the trust fell upon Mr. Clarke, who felt it to be his duty to carry it out to the best of his ability. Dean Stannus, however, was greatly dissatisfied with the last will and testament of Captain Bolton. Yet the dying man had no reason to anticipate that his affectionate pastor would labour with all his might to abolish the trust. Dean Stannus paid the captain a visit on his deathbed, and while administering the consolations of religion he seemed moved even to tears. To a friend who subsequently expressed doubt, the simple-minded old Christian said: 'I will trust the dean that he will do nothing in opposition to my will. He was here a few days ago and wept over me. He loves me, and will carry out my wishes.' The captain died in April, 1867. He was scarcely cold in his grave when the agent of Lord Hertfort took proceedings to eject his trustees, and deprive the schools of the property bequeathed for their support. Not content with this, he took proceedings to get possession of the schoolhouse also, deeming it a sufficient reason for this appropriation of another man's property, this setting aside of a will, this abolition of a trust, that, in his opinion, the schools ought to be under the patronage of the rector, and in connection with the Church Education Society. He had a perfect right to think and say this, and it might be his conscientious conviction that the property would be thus better employed; but he ought to know that the end does not sanctify the means; that he had no right to substitute his own will for that of Captain Bolton, and that he had no right to take advantage of the absence of an act of parliament to possess himself of the rightful property of other people. Unfortunately, too, he was a judge in his own case, and he did not find it easy to separate the rector of the parish from the agent of the estate. It is a significant fact that when his son, Mr. Stannus, handed his power of attorney to Mr. Otway, the assistant-barrister, that gentleman refused to look at it, saying, 'I have seen it one hundred times;' and the Rev. Mr. Clarke, while waiting in the court for the case to come on, observed that all the ejectment processes were at the suit of the Marquis of Hertfort. The school-house was built by Mr. Bolton, at his own expense twenty-eight years ago, and he maintained it till his death. The Rev. W.J. Clarke, the acting trustee, bravely defended his trust and fought the battle of tenant-right in the courts till driven out by the sheriff. He was then called on to perform the same duty with regard to the school-house. He has done it faithfully and well, and deserves the sympathy of all the friends of freedom, justice, and fair dealing. 'I shall never accept a trust,' he says, in a letter to the Northern Whig—'I shall never accept a trust, and permit any man, whether nobleman, agent, or bailiff, to alienate that trust, without appealing to the laws of my country; and if the one-sidedness of such laws shall enable Dean and Mr. Stannus to confiscate this property, and turn it from the purpose to which benevolence designed it, then, having defended it to the last, I shall retire from the field satisfied that I have done my duty to the memory of the dead and the educational interests of the living.' Nor can we be surprised at the strong language that he uses when he says: 'The history of the case rivals, for blackness of persecution, anything that has happened in the north of Ireland for many years. But such a course of conduct only recoils on the heads of those who are guilty of it, and it shall be so in this case. The Marquis of Hertfort will not live always, and the power of public opinion may be able to reach his successor, and be felt even in Lisburn.'

Dean Stannus, in his evidence before the Devon commission, stated that only a small portion of the estate was held by lease. The leases were obtained in a curious way. In 1823 a system of fining commenced. If a tenant wanted a lease he was required to pay in cash a fine of 10 l. an acre, which was equal to an addition of ten shillings an acre to the rent for twenty years, not counting the interest on the money thus sunk in the land. Yet, such was the desire of the tenants to have a better security than the tenant-right custom, always acknowledged on the estate, that 'every man who had money took advantage of it.' Mr. Gregg, the seneschal of the manor, gave an illustration of the working of this fining system. A tenant sold his farm of fourteen acres for 205 l., eight of the fourteen acres being held at will. The person who bought the farm was obliged to take a lease of the eight acres, and to pay a proportional fine in addition to the sum paid for the tenant-right. Dean Stannus said 'he would wish to see the tenant-right upheld upon the estate of Lord Hertfort, as it always had been. It is that,' he said, 'which has kept up the properties in the north over the properties in other parts of Ireland. It is a security for the rent in the first instance, and reconciles the tenants to much of what are called grievances. If you go into a minute calculation of what they have expended, they are not more than paid for their expenditure.' It transpired in the course of the examination that a man who had purchased tenant-right, and paid a fine of 10 l. an acre on getting a lease, would have to pay a similar fine over again when getting the lease renewed. The result of these heavy advances was that the middle-class farmers lived in constant pecuniary difficulties. They were obliged to borrow money at six per cent. to pay the rent, but they borrowed it under circumstances which made it nearly 40 per cent., for it was lent by dealers in oatmeal and other things, from whom they were obliged to purchase large quantities of goods at such a high rate that they sold them again at a sacrifice of 33 per cent.

Mr. Joshua Lamb, another witness, stated that the effect of the fining system had been to draw away a great deal of the accumulated capital out of the hands of the tenantry, as well as their anticipated savings for years to come, by which the carrying out of improved methods of agriculture was prevented. Still, the existence of a lease for 31 years doubled the value of the tenant-right. This witness made a remarkable statement. With respect to this custom he said: The 'effect of this arrangement, when duly observed, is to prevent all disputes, quarrels, burnings, and destruction of property, so common in those parts of Ireland where this practice does not prevail. Indeed, so fully are farmers aware of this, that very few, except the most reckless, would venture on taking a farm without obtaining the outgoing tenant's "good-will." Such a proceeding as taking land "over a man's head," as it is termed, is regarded here as not merely dishonourable, but as little better than robbery, and as such held in the greatest detestation.' He added that the justice of this arrangement was obvious—'because all the buildings, planting, and other improvements, being entirely at the tenant's expense, he has a certain amount of capital sunk in the property, for which, if he parts with the place, he expects to be repaid by the sale of the tenant-right. He knew no case in the county in which the tenant, or those from whom he purchased, had made no improvements.'

The first marquis occasionally visited the estate, and was proud of the troops of yeomanry and cavalry which had been raised from his tenantry. The second marquis, who died in 1822, was only once in that part of Ireland. The third marquis—he of Prince Regent notoriety—never set foot on the property; and the present, who has been reigning over 140 townlands for nearly thirty years, has never been among his subjects except during a solitary visit of three weeks in October, 1845, when, it is said, he came to qualify for his ribbon (K.G.) that he might be able to say to the prime minister that he was a resident landlord. He has resided almost entirely in Paris, cultivating the friendship of Napoleon instead of the welfare of the people who pay him a revenue of 60,000 l. a year. Bagatelle, his Paris residence, has, it is said, absorbed Irish rents in its 'improvements', till it has been made worth three quarters of a million sterling. If the residence cost so much, fancy may try to conceive the amount of hard-earned money squandered on the luxuries and pleasures of which it is the temple—the most Elysian spot in the Elysian fields.

The following curious narrative appeared in a Belfast newspaper, and was founded on a speech made by Dean Stannus at a public meeting.

The venerable Dean of Ross and his son, Mr. W.T. Stannus, had been deputed to go to Paris to wait on Lord Hertfort, and urge him to assist in the expense of finishing the Antrim Junction Railway. The dean is in his eighty-first year; fifty-one years of his life have been spent in the management of the Hertfort estate, and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to his arrangements with the tenantry, every one who knows anything of the affair must admit that there never existed a more faithful representative of a landowner. On arriving in Paris he found the marquis ill, so much so that neither the dean nor his son could get an interview. For three days the venerable gentleman danced attendance on his chief, and on Monday the fourth attempt was made, the dean sent up his name, and had a reply that 'the marquis was too ill to see anyone.' Next day, however, the marquis condescended to receive his agent, and the subject of the railway was introduced. The dean told him that Lord Erne had given 200,000 l. towards the railway projects on his property—that Lords Lucan, Annesley, and Lifford had contributed largely, and that Lord Downshire had been exceedingly liberal in promoting lines on his estate. But all was vain. The noble absentee, who drains about 60,000 l. a year from his Irish property, and who often pays 5,000 l. for a picture, refused to lend 15,000 l. to aid in finishing a railway, which runs for three-fourths of the mileage through his own estate. During the interview Mr. W.T. Stannus urged on the marquis that the investment would be the best that could be made, as preference shares paying five per cent. would be allocated to him as security for the amount. All arguments and entreaties, however, were lost on the noble invalid. Even the appeal of the old gentleman who, for more than half a century, had managed the estate so advantageously for the successive owners of that splendid property, was made in vain. 'You never refused me anything before,' urged the dean, 'and I go away in very bad spirits.' What a wonderful history lies in this episode of Irish landlordism. Here is an unmarried nobleman whose income from investments in British and French securities is said to exceed 30,000 l. a year, besides the immense revenue of his English and Irish estates, and yet he refuses to part with 15,000 l. towards aiding in the construction of a railway on his own property.



CHAPTER XX.

TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH.

Among the undertakers in the county of Armagh were the two Achesons, Henry and Archibald, ancestors of Lord Gosford, who founded Market Hill, Richard Houlston, John Heron, William Stanbowe, Francis Sacheverell, John Dillon, John Hamilton, Sir John Davis, Lord Moore, Henry Boucher, Anthony Smith, Lieutenant Poyntz, and Henry M'Shane O'Neill.

In connection with each of these settlements Pynar uses the phrase, 'I find planted and estated.' What he means is more fully explained in his reference to the precinct of Fews, allotted to Scottish undertakers, where Henry Acheson had obtained 1,000 acres. The surveyor says: 'I find a great number of tenants on this land: but not any that have any estates but by promise, and yet they have been many years upon the land. There are nominated to me two freeholders and seventeen leaseholders, all which were with me, and took the oath of supremacy, and petitioned unto me that they might have their leases, the which Mr. Acheson seemed to be willing to perform it unto them presently. These are able to make thirty men with arms. Here is great store of tillage.' The whole of the reports indicate that the Crown required of the undertakers two things. First, that they should themselves reside on the land, that they should build strong houses, fortified with bawns, and keep a certain number of armed men for the defence of the settlement. Secondly, that the English and Scotch settlers who were expected to reclaim the land and build houses, were to have 'estates' in their farms, either as freeholders or lessees. The grants were made to the undertakers on these conditions—they should be resident, and they should have around them a number of independent yeomanry to defend the king when called upon to do so. Everything connected with the plantation gives the idea of permanent tenures for the settlers. A curious fact is mentioned about Sir John Davis, who had been so active in bringing about the plantation. He obtained a grant for 500 acres. 'Upon this,' says Pynar, 'there is nothing at all built, nor so much as an English tenant on the land.' It seems his tenants were all of the class for whose extirpation he pleaded, as weeds that would choke the Saxon crop. Henry M'Shane O'Neill got 1,000 acres at Camlagh, 'but he being lately dead, it was in the hands of Sir Toby Caulfield, who intended to do something upon it, for as yet there was nothing built.' Sir Toby was the ancestor of the Earl of Charlemont, always one of the best landlords in Ulster.

It is gratifying to find that both the undertakers and the original tenants are still fairly represented—a considerable number of the former having founded noble houses, and the latter having multiplied and enriched the land to such an extent that, though the population is dense and the farms are generally very small, they are the most prosperous and contented population in the kingdom. Leases were common in this county at the close of the last century, but the terms were short—twenty-one years and one life. Some had leases for thirty-one years or three lives, and there were some perpetuities. Land was then so valuable that when a small estate came into the market—large estates hardly ever did—they brought from twenty-five to thirty years' purchase. The large tracts of church land, which are now among the richest and most desirable in the country, presented at the close of the last century, a melancholy contrast to the farms that surrounded them. The reason is given by Sir Charles Coote. It is most instructive and suggestive at the present time. He says, 'It is very discouraging for a wealthy farmer to have anything to do with church lands, as his improvements cannot even be secured to him during his own life, or the life of his landlord, but he may at any time be deprived of the fruits of his industry, by the incumbent changing his living, as his interest then terminates.' This evil was remedied first by making the leases renewable, on the payment of fines, and, in our own time, an act was passed enabling the tenants to convert their leaseholds into perpetuities. The consequence is, that the church lands now present some of the finest features in the social landscape, occupied by a class of resident gentry, an essential link, in any well-organised society, between the people and the great proprietors. The Board of Trinity College felt so strongly the necessity of giving fixed tenures, if permanent improvements were to be effected on their estates, that, without waiting for a general measure of land reform, they obtained, in 1861, a private act of parliament giving them power to grant leases for ninety-nine years. 'The legislature,' says Dr. Hancock, 'thus gave partial effect in the case of one institution to the recommendation which the Land Occupation Commissioners intended to apply to all estates in the hands of public boards in Ireland.'

Armagh was always free from middlemen. The landlord got what Sir Charles Coote calls a rack rent from the occupying tenant, and it was his interest to divide rather than consolidate farms, because the linen trade enabled the small holder to give a high rent, while the custom of tenant-right furnished an unfailing security for its payment.

The country, when seen from an elevation, is one continuous patchwork of corn, potatoes, clover, and other artificial grasses. Wonders are wrought in the way of productiveness by rotation of crops and house-feeding. Cattle are not only fattened much more rapidly than on the richest grazing land, but large quantities of the best manure are produced by the practice of house-feeding. The more northern portions of the county, bordering on Down and Lough Neagh, and along the banks of the rivers Bann and Blackwater, are naturally rich, and have been improved to the highest degree by ages of skilful cultivation. But other parts, particularly the barony of Fews, embracing the high lands stretching to the Newry mountains, and bordering on the County Monaghan, were, about the close of the last century, nearly all covered with heather, and absolutely waste. Sir Charles Coote remarked, in 1804, that it had been then undergoing reclamation. Within the last fifteen years the land had doubled in value, and was set at the average rate of 16 s. an acre. Mr. Tickell, referring to this county, remarked that the Scotch and English settlers chiefly occupied the lowland districts, and that the natives retired to this poor region, retaining their old language and habits; and he was occasionally obliged to swear interpreters where witnesses or parties came from the Fews, which were 'very wild, and very unlike other parts of the county of Armagh.'

Now let us see what the industry of the people has done in that wild district. The farms are very small, say from three to ten English acres. They have been so well drained, cleared, sub-soiled, and manured, that the occupier is able to support on one acre as many cattle as on three acres when grazed; while affording profitable employment to the women and children. Great labour has been bestowed in taking down crooked and broad fences. Every foot of ground is cultivated with the greatest care, and in the mountain districts, patches of land among rocks, inaccessible to horses, are tilled by the hand. In many cases in the less exposed districts, two crops in the year are obtained from the same ground, viz., winter tares followed by turnips or cabbages, and rape followed by tares, potatoes, turnips, or cabbages. These crops are succeeded by grain or flax the next year, with which clover is sown for mowing and stall-feeding, yielding two or three cuttings. The green crops are so timed as to give a full supply for house-feeding throughout the year. Nothing is neglected by those skilful and thrifty farmers; the county is famous for orchards, and when I was in the city of Armagh, last autumn, I saw in the market square almost as many loads of apples as of potatoes.

The connection of large grazing farms with pauperism, as cause and effect, has not received sufficient attention from the friends of social progress. I resolved last year to test this matter by a comparison. We have at present no check upon the legally enforced depopulation of this country except the interest of the landlords, or what they imagine to be their interest. It is well that the question should be determined whether it is really for the benefit of the owners of the land that they should clear it of Christians and occupy it with cattle—in other words, whether Christians or cattle will pay more rent and taxes. I omit all higher considerations, because some of the most philanthropic and enlightened defenders of the present land system have defended it on this low ground. In order to make the test complete and unexceptionable, I have selected a comparatively poor district for tillage, and one of the richest I could find for grazing, giving all possible natural advantages to Scullyism. But the test would not be fair unless the occupiers of the poorer land had a tolerably secure tenure so long as they paid the highest rent that a reasonable agent could impose. I thought also that possible objections would be obviated if the tenantry were destitute of 'the fostering care of a resident landlord.' Therefore, instead of selecting the tenants of Lord Downshire, or Lord Roden, or Lord Dufferin, I have fixed upon the tenants of Lord Kilmorey, because he and the producers of the rents which he enjoys have never seen one another in the flesh, and they have never received one word of encouragement or instruction from him in the whole course of their lives. Accordingly, with the Union of Kilkeel, which comprises the Mourne district, I have compared the Union of Trim, which comprises some of the richest grazing land in Ireland. Travellers have noted that population always grows thick on rich lands, while it is sparse on poor lands. No one requires to be told the reason of this.

The Unions of Kilkeel and Trim have populations very nearly equal—viz., Kilkeel, 22,614; Trim, 22,918. The total arable land in Kilkeel is 50,000 statute acres, giving 2 1/3 acres on an average for each person, and 14 acres for each holding. Trim contains 119,519 statute acres, giving 5 acres to each person, and 42 to each holding.

In Mourne the area of land under crops is 20,904 acres (nearly half), giving one acre of tillage to each inhabitant, and 6 acres to each holding of 14 acres. In Trim the area under crops is 38,868 acres, giving 2 acres for each inhabitant, and 14 for each holding of 42 acres.

The significance of these figures is shown by the Government valuation in 1867. The valuation of Mourne Union is 40,668 l., the average for each person being 2 l. and for each holding 11 l. The valuation of Trim is 109,068 l., allowing 5 l. for each person and 38 l. for each holding. In other words, the capability of the land of Trim to support population is as five to two when compared with Mourne; but whereas in Mourne 2 1/3 acres support one person, in Trim it takes 5 acres to support one person—about double the quantity. As the value of the land in Meath is more than double what it is in Mourne, each acre in Meath ought to maintain its man. That is, if Meath were cultivated like Down, its population ought to be five times as large as it is!

But this is not the whole case. The Mourne population may be too large. With so many families crowded on such a small tract of poor land, the Union must be overwhelmed with pauperism. If so, the case for tenant-right and tillage would fall to the ground, and Scullyism would be triumphant. Let us see, then, how stands this essential fact. The number of paupers in the workhouse and receiving outdoor relief in the Union of Trim, in 1866, was 2,474. This large amount of pauperism is not peculiar to Trim. It belongs to other Unions of this rich grazing district, which so fully realises the late Lord Carlisle's ideal of Irish prosperity. Navan Union has 3,820 paupers, and Kells has 1,306. Now, the population of Trim and Mourne being nearly the same, and Trim being twice as rich as Mourne, and not half as thickly peopled, it follows that Mourne ought to have at least four times as many paupers as Trim—that is, it ought to have 9,896. But it actually has only 521 persons receiving relief in and out of the workhouse!

Consequently, Scullyism and grazing produce nearly twenty times the amount of poverty and misery produced by tenant-right and tillage.

I have not overlooked the difference of race and religion. On the contrary, they were uppermost in my mind when rambling among the nice, clean, comfortable, orderly homesteads of Mourne, reminding me strongly of Forth and Bargy in the county Wexford. I said to the owner and driver of my car, who is a Roman Catholic, 'Do the Roman Catholics here keep their houses and farms in as nice order as the Presbyterians?' He answered, 'Why should they not? Are they not the same flesh and blood?'

According to the census of 1861, the Roman Catholics greatly outnumber the Protestants in this Union. The exact figures are:—

Total population of Mourne Union 22,614 Protestants of all denominations 8,080 Roman Catholics 14,534

The result of this comparison may perhaps make a better impression on the reader's mind if cast in the form of tables, as given on succeeding page.

Table Headings:

Col A. Population in 1861 Col B. No. of Holdings in 1864 Col C. Total Area (in Stat. Acres) Col D. Area under Crops, 1864 (in Stat. Acres) Col E. Valuation in 1807 (in L) Col F. No. in Workhouse and receiving Out-door Relief Col G. Protestants of all denominations Col H. Roman Catholics

- TENANT-RIGHT AND TILLAGE. - Names of Unions A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. - Kilkeel 22,614 3,540 50,000 20,904 40,668 521 8,080 14,534 Average for each person 2-1/2 1 2 Average for each holding 14 6 11 - LARGE FARMS AND GRAZING. - Trim 22,918 2,816 119,519 38,867 109,068 2,474 1,700 21,218 Average for each person 5 2 5 Average for each person 42 14 38 -

In Kilkeel Union there were 4,012 acres of flax in 1864, which at 20 l. an acre would produce 80,000 l., considerably more than the rental of the entire district. Trim, in that year, produced only 78 acres of flax.

What everyone wants to know now is this—whether any measure can be devised that will satisfy the cultivators of the soil without wronging the landlords, or militating against the interests of the state. A measure that will not satisfy the tenants and put an end to their discontent, would be manifestly useless. It would be but adding to the numerous legislative abortions that have gone before it. A man engaged in such enquiries as this, is to ascertain what will satisfy the people. It is for the legislature to determine whether it can be rightly or safely granted. I have, therefore, directed my attention to this point in particular, and I have ascertained beyond question, from the best possible sources of information, that nothing will satisfy the people of this country but what they do not hesitate to name with the most determined emphasis—'Fixity of Tenure.' Whether they are Protestants or Catholics, Orangemen or Liberals, Presbyterians or Churchmen, this is their unanimous demand, the cry in which they all join to a man. Every case in which tenant-right is disregarded, or in which, while admitted nominally, an attempt is made to evade it, or to fritter it away, excites the bitterest feeling, in which the whole community sympathises.

They deny, however, that the existing tenant-right is a sufficient security:—

Because it depends on the option of the landlord, and cannot be enforced by law.

Because even the best disposed landlord may be influenced to alter his policy by the advice of an agent, by the influence of his family, or by the state of his finances.

Because a good landlord, who knows the tenants and cares for them, may be succeeded by a son who is a 'fast young man,' addicted to the turf and overwhelmed in debt, while the estate gets into the hands of usurers.

Because in such a case the law affords no protection to the property of the tenant, which his family may have been accumulating on the land since the first of them came over from England or Scotland, and settled around their commander, after helping by their swords to conquer the country, and preserve it to the crown of England.

Because it is not in human nature to avoid encroaching on the rights and property of others, if it can be done at will—done legally, and done under the pretext that it is necessary for 'improvement,' and will be a benefit even to those who are despoiled.

Because the custom is no protection to a man's political rights as a British subject. No tenant farmer can vote against his landlord in obedience to his conscience without the risk of ruining his family. The greater his interest in the land, the larger his investments, the heavier his stake; the greater his accumulations in his bank—the farm—the greater will be his dependence, the more complete his political bondage. He has the more to lose. Therefore, if a Conservative, he must vote for a Radical or a Catholic, who would pull down the Church Establishment; or if a Catholic, he must vote for a 'No-popery' candidate, who ignores tenant-right, and against a Liberal statesman, whose life has been devoted to the interests of the country.

It appears to me that the difficulty of settling this question is much aggravated by the importation of opinions from the United States hostile to the aristocracy; and as this source of discontent and distrust is likely to increase every year, the sooner the settlement is effected the better. What is the use of scolding and reviling the tenant's advocates? Will that weaken one iota the tremendous force of social discontent—the bitter sense of legal injustice, with which the legislature must deal? And will the legislature deal with it more effectually by shutting its eyes to facts?



CHAPTER XXI.

FARNEY—MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'

When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives were all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the county Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts in Dublin. The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued that the Irish could have no legal rights, no property in the land, because they did not enclose it with fences, or plant orchards. True, they had boundary marks for their tillage ground; but they followed the Eastern custom in not building ditches or walls around their farms. They did not plant orchards, because they had too many trees already that grew without planting. The woods were common property, and the apples, if they had any, would be common property too, like the nuts and the acorns.

The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy their own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as we have seen, were bound to deal differently with the English settlers; but their obligations resolved themselves into promises of freeholds and leases which were seldom granted, so that many persons threw up their farms in despair, and returned to their own country.

In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration of the manner in which the natives struggled to live under their new masters. The successors of some of those masters have in modern times taken a strange fancy to the study of Irish antiquities. Among these is Evelyn P. Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr. W. Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain, consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel, charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was 'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till 1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former times (when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no lord deputy did ever venture himself into those parts, without an army of 800 or 1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the barony of Farney to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of 250 l. payable in Dublin. After fourteen years the same territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500 l. In the year 1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022 l. 18 s. 4 d. paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then taken gives the several townlands and denominations nearly as they are at present. Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his estates devolved on his sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the former of whom married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter Sir Henry Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half the barony. Ultimately the other half became the property of the Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at 1313 l. 14 s. 4-1/2 d. Gradually as the lands were reclaimed by the tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000 l., and the Shirley estate 5,000 l. The total of 8,000 l. per annum, from this once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census in 1841 the population of the barony exceeded 44,000 souls, and they contributed by their industry, to the two absentee proprietors, the enormous annual revenue of 40,000 l., towards the production of which it does not appear that either of them, or any person for them, ever invested a shilling.