THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE. LORD POWERSCOURT ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. The Merits of the Whigs; or, a Warning to the People of England: drawn from the Evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Lords which sat last Session to inquire into the State of Ireland as respects_Crime. "Ex uno disce omnes." By a Member of the House of Commons. London: Fraser, Regent Street. 1840. As we propose to devote a considerable space to the examination of this pamphlet, we shall enter with the least possible delay upon the performance of the duty which we have undertaken. The writer of an article in Fraser's Magazine for last month informs us, that the pamphlet is the production of Lord Powerscourt; and as the pamphlet and magazine are both published by the same person, we suppose that we are justified in believing upon such authority that his lordship is the avowed author of the work. As, however, it is generally known that Viscount Powerscourt is now the son-in-law, having during his minority been the ward, of the Earl of Roden, who procured the appointment of the committee in question, and as Lord Powerscourt himself has no very special or personal interest in the subject, we think it may be fairly taken for granted that the pamphlet now lying before us has been put forward at the request, or at least under the inspection and with the approbation and assistance of Lord Roden, and that it therefore contains all that can be said upon that side of the case. It is evidently intended as a full exposition of the views and principles of the majority of the Lords' committee upon the subject in question; and we are happy in having at last an opportunity of entering upon a complete consideration of the entire of that important matter which is contained in the evidence taken before the committee; but "of which matter" the noble viscount very justly observes, that "the British public, at present, have certainly no idea whatever, as the evidence is so voluminous, embodied in so inconvenient a form, and encumbered with so much extraneous matter, as to render it impossible that it could receive on the part of general readers that attention which it deserves." To supply this defect in respect to matters "which are calculated most materially to open the eyes of our fellow-countrymen upon this side of the Channel to the real state of things in Ireland, as well as to the various causes and real authors of that state of things," the noble author of the pamphlet has thought, that it would "not be altogether unacceptable to those in whom is vested in reality, if not the sole, at least an overwhelming preponderance of power in the state," to bring the contents of the Report before them in a more concise and tangible form. In this appeal, which we suppose to be addressed to the people of England, we cordially unite, and once more beg leave to express our gratitude to the noble viscount for having thus boldly, however tardily, challenged the friends of the present Government to a complete investigation of the whole of this important subject. The principal topics to which attention is called in the pamphlet, appear to us to be the following: First. The sources and causes of crime in Ireland. Secondly. Its comparative amount during the period of Lord Normanby's administration, i. e. from April, 1835, to January, 1839. Thirdly. Its effects and consequences: and Fourthly. The conduct of the Government during the period in question in reference to every part of the subject. We shall treat of these several divisions in the order in which they have been enumerated; and shall in the conduct of the discussion adopt as our principle of behaviour the declaration of the noble viscount, that " any thing uncourteous or personal is altogether foreign from our wishes or intentions; but we believe that, unless we grossly mistake the whole subject and every part of it, we shall, before we conclude this article, have proved to the complete satisfaction of every impartial reader, that no publication more deficient in justice and candour than the production which we now propose to examine and refute, has ever issued from the press of this or of any other country. noble author Let us now proceed to the consideration "of the causes of crime as they are developed in the evidence before us.' In p. 110. of the pamphlet the 66 proposes to show that those causes are not to be ascribed, as the Government speakers and writers would fain lead the public to believe, to ANY misconduct on the part of the landlords." But he proceeds upon the very same page to astound the reader by declaring, that "The connection between landlord, middleman, and tenant, in Ireland, has in times past BEEN PRODUCTIVE, NO DOUBT, OF MOST OF THE EVILS UNDER WHICH THE COUNTRY IS NOW LABOURING." To any reader possessing the ordinary faculty of perception, it would be an insult to make any observation upon a contradiction so portentous in itself, and so evidently and entirely destructive of the very case which the noble viscount is in the act of endeavouring to set up in favour of the class to which he belongs. What will the reader think upon this subject, when he is further informed that the noble author in a preceding page (p. 54.) of this same pamphlet, has attacked the memory of the late Mr. Drummond, for having in his celebrated letter, in answer to the memorial of the Tipperary magistrates, informed them, "that property had its duties as well as its rights, and that to the neglect of those duties IN TIMES PAST was mainly attributable that diseased state of society" which at present exists in Ireland. In what manner the Irish landlords have performed their duty to their tenantry in past times, and in what manner they have done so recently, and are doing at present, we shall by and by inform the reader at some length, and upon authority which is beyond all question; and we "have no doubt, to use the language of Lord Powerscourt, "that the evidence which we shall quote upon this point will somewhat surprise English ears." The positions which his lordship endeavours to establish in reference to this part of the case appear to be, first, that although the connection between landlord and tenant in Ireland "has in past times been productive, no doubt, of most of the evils under which that country is now labouring, yet that such connection has of late years been much less mischievous in its working, partly from the effect of judicious enactments, and partly from the increased attention paid by the proprietors to the present condition and future improvement of their estates:" and secondly, that although "in past times the Irish peasantry suffered much from the neglect of their landlords, yet even then their sins were more of omission than of commission; that dishonest agents, frequently Jews and peculating attorneys, to whose tender mercies the embarrassment of absentees compelled them to trust the management of their estates, were the real authors of those distresses, and that the landlords themselves were just as much as the tenantry the victims 1 Page 111. "of the Jews, agents, and attorneys." We don't exactly know what the present race of Irish proprietors will say to this very Irish vindication of their predecessors. After all, it seems that the only thing which can be imputed to them is, that they merely abandoned every duty which they were bound to perform, and that they were compelled by their own profligate extravagance to place the comfort and happiness of their tenantry under the guardianship of what Grattan would call a "subordination of vultures." But the landlords of Ireland are not entitled to turn away from their conduct any part of the public execration, upon the absurd and miserable pretence of their having been only the negligent or involuntary causes of the unutterable calamities which they have produced in that country. They stand forth upon every page of Irish history as the real and effective agents of the evil which they produced, of which they enjoyed the advantages, and of which they must bear the undiminished infamy to the latest posterity. Edmund Spencer says, "The landlords in Ireland most shamefully rack their tenants." Dean Swift speaks of the landlords of his time, as "squeezing their rents out of the very blood and vitals, and clothes and dwellings of their tenants, who lived worse than English beggars."3 Archbishop Boulter speaks to the same effect. Arthur Dobbs says, that "the rents in his time were so high, that the tenants had scarcely sufficient credit to procure necessary subsistence, or to till the ground." The Earl of Clare, when attorneygeneral, said in his speech in 1787, that the "peasantry were ground to powder by enormous rents." Gordon, Newenham, Bishop Woodward, and Mr. Curwen, all state the same fact. Wakefield says (vol. ii. p. 795.), “ It is an indubitable fact, that the landlords of Ireland exact more from their tenants 'than the same class of men in other country." any 4 "6 "Notwithstanding the anger of the Irish landlords," says a dignitary of the established church, "I have the opinion of some of the ablest men in the nation to confirm it, that the lands of Ireland, generally speaking, are let at an exorbitant overvalue." Con-acres are generally let at ten guineas "To say nothing," says Sadler, "of those wholesale clearances,' which the vast and successive forfeitures occasioned in remote periods, Dobbs informs us, that a century ago, and when the population could not be called redundant, it was the practice to dismiss whole villages of native Irish at once, and turn the poor wretches adrift. Half a century after, we find from Bishop Woodward, that this unnatural and inhuman custom was still continued: that it is vigorously pursued at the present day requires no proof. The novelty of the case at present is, that conduct which exhibits a revolting compound of the basest, most selfish, and most unfeeling motives, is now often represented as a meritorious deed." 9 "The origin of Whiteboyism was declared by Lord Clare to have arisen from the peasantry being ground down to powder by exorbitant rents, and being therefore so far from being able to give their dues to the clergy, that they had not either food or raiment for themselves; he boldly threw the whole of the misery and guilt which he described at the door of the landlords." 10 "The disturbances of 1760 were occasioned," says the same writer, "by the oppressions of which the landed proprietors were guilty in many respects, 2 State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 33. 3 View of the State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 159. 4 Letters, vol. i. p. 292. 5 Essay on the Trade of Ireland, vol, ii. p. 80. 6 See also the First Report on the State of Ireland (1825), p. 38. 7 Grievances of Ireland, by a Dignitary of the Establishment, p. 8. 3 Rep. Sel. Com, on State of Ireland, i. p. 50. ; ii. p. 414. ; iv. p. 638. 9 Sadler, 105. 10 Ibid, 115. especially in turning adrift vast numbers of the old tenantry, in order to throw many farms into one, to obtain if possible a greater surplus produce. Those who were expelled had no regular means of subsistence, whilst those who remained had no means of paying the exorbitant rents imposed upon them. Their misery was complete, when by inclosures they were deprived of the commonage to which they had been previously entitled. Numbers of them secretly assembled at night," &c." "The fatal insurrection of 1763 and 1764," says the same writer," was likewise excited by the cruelty of the landlords, exercised through the medium of their subordinate agents, the middlemen, who demanded excessive fines, and racked the old tenants utterly beyond their power to pay. The tenants were cleared out." 12 All the commotions which for the last sixty years have tormented and desolated Ireland have sprung, says Mr. Grant," from local oppressions.' » 13 Sadler (p. 151.) says, that "the exorbitant, indeed incredible, rents which they exact, and their clearings, burning of cottages, and driving the people into exile,' are the principal causes of all the disturbances of Ireland." The condition to which the tenants are brought by such enormous cruelties may be easily imagined, a condition which, as the Bishop of Cloyne justly observed, "reduced them to the dreadful alternative of breaking the laws for the support of life, or perishing by an observance of the regulations of society." "14 "The peasants are ejected," says Sadler, "from the home of their forefathers; sent forth with their families as fugitives and vagabonds, without present employment, or the prospect of any; more destitute than the beasts of the field; and not having where to lay their heads." "It would be," as the Bishop of Cloyne observed, "a mercy in that circumstance to adopt the refined and more humane policy of the Indians, by putting them immediately to death." 15 "These circumstances," says Sadler, "combined with some others, reduce the Irish cottager below the peasant of almost every country in Europe. Such is his hard condition in the most plentiful season, and in the prime of his health and strength; what then must be his state in time of dearth, under the pressure of years, infirmities, and a numerous family?" 16 "The desolate wretch," says Sadler (p. 158.)," is driven, under such circumstances, to desperation; and connected with a multitude of others who have been similarly treated, he proceeds to those acts of violence which are so frequent in Ireland." The writer then gives an instance, from his own observations, of a person who had been the victim of a "clearance," and concludes by exclaiming, "only imagine a whole moving multitude thus suffering and thus feeling, and the whole insubordination of Ireland is explained." 17 Their houses, therefore, at that period- the time spoken of by Sir William Petty and Lord Clarendon-were certainly no better than they are at present, when "driving," or "clearing" landlords think they can be purified only by fire and destruction. As to building them fresh ones, THAT they never dream of. Contrary to the practice of almost all other countries under the sun, the Irish cultivator has almost universally to provide house and buildings; the proprietor can therefore destroy them at pleasure, and without detriment to himself." 18 "It is vain," says Sir Robert Peel, "to attempt to palliate the conduct of those who turned seventy or eighty families loose upon the world under the 11 Sadler, 113, 114. 13 Speech of Mr. Grant (now Lord Glenelg), April 22. 1822. 16 Sadler, 301. 17 Ibid. p. 159, note. 12 Ibid. 114. 15 Ibid. p. 32. |