Hawke's Bay Herald. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1889. LOOK ON THIS—AND ON THAT.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8336, 12 April 1889, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1889. LOOK ON THIS— AND ON THAT.

In The Times of January 26th and February 15th are two articles having no connection with each other, but which nevertheless afford an effective contrast. The first is in the form of a letter by Mr T. W. llussoll, the Liberal M.P. for Tyrone South, his subject being tile evictions ou the Clauricarde estate, of which such a vast amount of political capital has been made. Lord Clanricarde has been upheld as a bad sample of the very worst type of Irish landlords, and the evictions have been pictured as the most heartless imaginable, We are quite prepared to accept this, and, indeed, frankly confess that Lord Olanricarde appears to have been anything but a i desirable landlord. Mr Russell says " his is a case for very plain speaking," and accordingly he is spoken of " very | plainly." In the first place he is an absentee landlord, and has practically been bo ever sinoe he came into possession of his estates. He has drawn large suns 1 by way of rent, while his total benefactions amount to £10 a year to schools and charities. Houses are suffered to fall . into disrepair, and even the Resident Magistrate's house and police barracks ' are in that plight. The late Marquis ' commenced to build a noble mansion to replace the ancestral castle burned some thirty years ago. It stands, roofed and glazed, but unfinished inside, a.a it wss nt the death ot the late Marquis, and of course is going fact to ruin, One of the

moat beautiful abbeys in Great Britain is there, but it, too, is left to decay. It is true that the estates are now so heavily encumbered that Lord Clanricarde i 8 little more than their nominal possessor, but at one time they were almost, if not quite, free, and then the Marquis did no more than now, Mr Rflssell thus sums him up !— Lord Clanricarde may Bay that he is a mere rent charger ; that he is not now the owner of fcho land. He could not plead this prior to 1881. .He, has never been near the place since 1872. Few on the estate would know him were lie now to visit it. I say that this man has abdicated his position. . He has neglected every duty devolving *on the dwuer of land. He has rights, and is not, slow to demand the support of tho Crown in enforcing them. It is time to tell his lordship that he has also his duties, and that by the systematic neglect of these in every particular he has become a public danger to the State. IHo not know what Mr Balfour will do. But I should faHcy that at this moment Lord Clanricarde is to him the greatest Irish difficulty. His lordship takes .it easily enough in trie Albany. Nothing that "happens is at all likely to impair his digestion. Mr Tener, acting for him, considers himself the man in the breach, the real defender of the British Empire and the moral law combined. Surrounded by an armed guard, the like of which is not to be seen on this i side of Texas, he sallies forth to execute Lord Clanricarde's orders. He has done and will do his duty faithfully. Were there no other interests involved I should be glad to see the battle feught out between the League and Lord Olanricarde. But there are other interests at stake. And on the ground that Lord Clanricarde lias bo completely abdicated his functions aa to imperil the iuterests.pf the State itself, t, for one; should heartily support a special bill to relieve the county of Galway of his influence. I may be told that this is an extreme proposal. Of course it is. But I ae'e no wrong to Lord Clanricarde in it. Let the Land Commissioner value his land. Let him be paid for it. Let him have his ducats. Thank God there* is'liut one Lord Clanricarde. If it were otherwise the country would be in worse plight than it is." Mr Kussell, it will be seen from the foregoing, is no apologist for Lord Clanricarde, and in reviewing the relations between him and his tenants is not likely to err on the side of leniency to the former. This makes the more valuable what he has to say with regard to the evictions. It seems that the trouble on the Clanricarue estates began with the "surrender" to the Land League of Sir Henry Burke, the owner of AVoodford. Twice over he gave .in to the " Plan of Campaign," and yielded all the teunnts' demands. The poor-law valuation of the estate is £2464, and the nominal rent roll £1911, but though Sir Henry Burke consented to the rents fixed by the League only twelve out of 260 have paid rent since 1885. As a significant indication of the ability of the tenants to pay their rents the Post-office Savings Bank returns are quoted, Bhowing that the deposits at Woodford h&,ve increased over five-fold in seven years. .Mr Russell continues :— And no man can fairly say that the rents are rack-rents. But, notwithstanding this fact, Woodford has supplied much of the motive power in the struggle against Lord Clanricarde. And the leaders in the war are not Clanricnrde tenants at all. It was here poor Finlay was murdered in 1886. It was here Mr William O'Brien held the famous midnight meeting at which the Lord Lieutenant's proclamation was burnt. It was here Mr Wilfrid Blunt came to close quarters with the Royal Irish and got the worst of it. It is here that the famous I. jj r _» Tally lives and moves and compounds his medicine. An altogether famous place is Woodford. But it is high time a tew rays of daylight were let in upon it and its doings. Lord Clanricarde has enough to answer for. Let him have the benefit of plain facts. I take first the case of the Rev. Father Coen, the parish priest. He holds thirteen acres of admirable land. He has upon this land a capital house, built entirely, I think, by the late Marquis of Clnnricarde. For this Father Coen pays £2 103 per annum. This is rack-renting with a vengeance ! It is, of course, ecclesiastical property, and this is a point of great importance. I do not know the law of the Roman Catholic Church ; but I should say that if a minister of the General Assembly refused to pay the rent for his manse, nnd placed Church property in peril, the Assembly would deal with him very promptly. I am certain the representative body of the Irish Protestant Church would do likewise. But Father Coen is allowed to go on refusing to pay this nominal rent without the slightest public protest from his Bishop, aud his horse and car had actually to be seized the other day to meet the landlord's demand. " Dr. " Tnlly is another of the Woodford leaders, and was evicted in September last, He held seventeen statute acres of land at a yearly rent of £2 10s, the PoorLaw valuation being £4. He was sued for three years' rent. The land in his case may have been poor, and some of it at least was so, but it must be poor indeed if it is not worth 2s 6d an acre. John White, of Douras, was evicted in 1887. He held sixty-seven acres at a rent of £32, the valuation being £36. Mr While, it would appear, came to his senses, arranged with Mr Tener, went back to his holding, and has been protected by two policemen ever since. This case is an illustration of the terrorism on the estate, concerning which I shall have something to say presently. Mr J. S. Burke, of. Clondegoff, was also evicted in ISB7. The rent of this farm in 1872 was £50. It was one of the twelve upon which the late Marquis operated after the Galway election. It was then raised t0. £82. The Land Court reduced it to £77, the valuation being £77 10s. Mr Burke went out, and Mr Tener stocked the farm, which is a splendid one. That it lias paid exceedingly well Mr Tener demonstrated to me, and I cannot conceive of any nian'giving up such a place unless upon strong pressure. Mr Russell gives other instances of the same tenor, but enough has been quoted to show the general result of his investigations. "No rent" proclamations and boycotting notices posted on the estates are quoted by Mr Russell, as well as letters from a number of tenants who desired to act honestly, but who were afraid to do so in consequence of outrages on others who were known to have paid. Ih more than one instance tenants who paid begged to be evicted, and allowed to return nominally as caretakers, and one at least ottered to pay all costs of the eviction ! In all the savings banks on the Clanricarde estates the deposits have increased largely, though not in the same proportion as at Woodford. But, by determination and pluck, says Mr Russell, the agent has now "smashed the Campaigners beyond all question," the rents coming in well. The article in The Times of the 15th February is a description of the evictions on the Hawarden estate, owned by Mr W. E. Gladstone, supplied by a special commissioner of the Liverpool Courier. "The recent clearances decreed by the landlord," says the writer, " have, however, excited widespread sympathy for the broken-down farmers, who are compelled to leave the farms that their families have held for generations." Mrs Whitehead, one of Mr Gladstone's tenants, who had received notice to quit, stated that her rent for low-lying laud was £3 per acre, which was exorbitant. Mr William Henry Gladstone, the ex-Pre-mier's eldest son, put in a distress. At tho solicitation of the rector of Hawarden she was permitted to remove her furniture, but she left a stack of hay on the place valued at £24. The place had been let at a reduced rent to a new comer. Here is the destription of Clayhill, one of the farms occupied by evicted tenants :— Neither the reason of the sale nor the name of the owner 6f the stock appeared on the bill, although it is customary to mention both. The commissioner saw on a piece of rising ground what seemed to be a large hovel, aud on a nearer inspection he discovered it to be Clayhill Farm. He found the place wretched and miser- . able. In front of the buildings were scattered about in the snow agricultural implements, dairy utensils, and other 1 articles, bearing the name of the auc- . tioneera. What chiefly attracted his 1 I attention was the dreadfully dilapidated condition ot the buildings, and the utter , unfitness of the place either for habitation or for farming purposes. It had not even 1 "the appearance of a respectable cow- • shed/ The tenant, M* William Speed, 1 and his wife .showed the special com- , tnissioner round the place, and in the course .of co»versation informed him that ■ their losses and the inability to pay their 1 rent had been principally caused by [ heavy sickness in the house. The writer j adds that there was an utter absence of ( sanitary arrangement, which accounted for the sickness, there being a cesspit in the rear of the premises, close to tho > dairy, and that into a brook from which i the drinking water of the house is taken flows the sewage of the farm. The '. tenant had effected many permanent ; improvements at his own expense. He 12 acres of land and bis rent was £2 1 waore, The tenant telte his story in the

following terms:— "I have tilled a por- ' tion of the land and the remainder I have nsed.as pasture land and for hay. I had managed to struggle on until heavy sickness came, and 1 had an accident which incapacitated me from doing any work. This threw me back with my rent, but just as I am recovering my health and strength they are turning me out, and to-day have sold my horse and cart on wbicli my livelihood largely depended. . . The farm, I believe, has been let at a reduced rent. . . I have always voted Liberal; bat my views arc likely to change after this treatment. Space does not permit us to cjuote further, but theabovo examples are fair samples of the rest, The reply of Mr Gladstone, who weeps so copiously at the woes of the evicted Irish tenant, is simply that the estate was managed by his son, Mr W. H. Gladstone 1 , and that several of the evicted tenants were from ttf o to six years la firrear with their rent. Does Mt Gladstone mean td say thai lie is irresponsible for the acts of hismanaggf oil his dwn estate ? What would he say to such a plea put forward by an Irish landlord ? IW e can fancy the scathing satire with which he wduld denoutide such a shifty excuse, and expose Its iioilowness ! And does not Mr Gladstone kndw that Irish tenants are also evicted for being ifi arrears with their rent, and for no other reason, and that they are often far more than fix years in arrears 1 In comparison with the Clanricarde evictions those on the Hawiirden estate were cruel and hearties?. The Hawarden tenants could not get their rents reduced by appeal to a Land Court ; they could not sell any interest they might have in their farms, or demand compensation # for improvements ) they could not claim sis Months' grace before eviction ; they could not demand that Mr Gladstone should sell them their holdings and then borrow the money at a low rate of interest trom the Government, with 49 years in which to repay the advance. Yet all these privileges, and more, has the Irish tenant. Out upon the hypocrisy which sheds crocodile tears on evictions in Ireland under the most merciful land laws the world has ever seen, and yet evicts English tenants ander a law which is framed altogether in favor of the landowner, and against the tenant !