THE ANTI-RENT AGITATION IN IRELAND.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 964, 1 December 1879, Page 2

THE ANTI-RENT AGITATION IN IRELAND.

I The land agitation m Ireland continues with unabated energy, and there is no reason to expect that it will soon subside. It would be wrong to infer, however, from the number of great demonistrations which have been held that the movement is a general one, extending over the whole country. On the contrary, very little fresh ground has been broken by the agitators, and their strength is still confined to certain defined districts, chiefly m the west. The country of Mayo and parts of the adjoining countries close to it may be considered their headquarters. Such an agitation is not new m that district, For many years past a secret movement has been going on against property, and the doctrines which are now propounded from the platforms, have been circulated m more inflammatory publications, pamphlets, sheets containing the views 1 of " Tom Brown " as to the rights of tenants and how they ought to act, and American newspapers plainly telling them to shoot the " tyrants " and ' oppressors," and applauding those who have followed this advice. The country generally, but especially the districts refetred to, has been saturated with pernicious literature of this kind, which is largely imported and greedily devoured by the " starving peasantry." The series of unfavourable seasons and the early prospects of another bad harvest— which, however, is happily not likely to be realised— furnished a pretext and opportunity for reviewing aland agitation and appealing to the self-interest of the masses, and the approach of a general election furnished an additional motive for seekinw the popularity which such a movement would secure. Political agitation has been for many years a dead failure m the country, though it has won victories m Parliament which surprise even those who have been engaged mit Here, however, was one which had new attractions for the people, since it demanded no money from them, but promised them great advantages — to give them, m fact, their land for nothing, getting rid of rent and landlords altogether. No wonder they join m such numbers ; the only wonder is that any refrain or keep aloof. Here is a view of the rent question, not put forward m the heat of a platform speech, but deliberately written m one of the organs of the people :— " The landlord has no absolute right, no right at all, to have rent paid to him unless the produce of the land leaves a profit above the oost of cultivation. What we call rent is not a thing that is always due to the landlord whatever happens. It is, properly speaking, a profit left over as a residue after the labourer and the farmer have been paid, The wages of the labourer are the first charge on the land. The due reward of the farmer is the next charge after that, and this should comprise enough to pay him for money advanced for labourers' wages, for manure, for seed, and such needful outlay ; and also enough to enable him to maintain his family decently, to feed, clothe, house, and educate them as befitting his position, and, m short, to hold his place and theirs on a par with the persons who do for other industries what he does m relation te the land. Why should th» farmers' way of living be kept down lower than that of the shopkeeper ? His calling requires as much care and skill. His labour is more anxious and more exhausting. Therefore, it follows that he should be clothed and fed as well as the shopkeeper is, that his children should be dressed as well as the shopkeeper's children, and that they should be educ ited at schools of as good a class. The fund to provide for this is the second charge on the land — the labourers' wages being first ; and until these first and second charges are satisfied the third charge, that of rent, does not arise. Now, Irish farmers, as a body, have hitherto done great wrons;, both to their families and themselves, by pitching their scale of living on a level wretchedly low, m order to give the bulk of the produce of the land, m rent, to heartless and grasping landlords. The farmer's house, as a general rule, has been poor and but rudely furnished ; the food upon his table has been of the coarsest kind — such, indeed, as English farmers would give their swine ; the clothing of his household has been rough, and worn to rags before he WOUld incur the cost of a renewal ; the thought of a holiday trip has been out of his imagination ; and seldom has it occurred to be able to lay by anything for such a trying time as is on him now. All this must be changed entirely for the future. The farmer has as good a right to a decent living out of the land as the landlord has to the profit known as rent, and we have shown already that the farmer's right comes before the right of the landlord." This is the advice of the WeeUy News. The same, m substance, is given to a better class of readers by the Nation, and to justify it the landlords are represented as improvident spendthrifts, who squander the rents which they wring from their tenants m extravagance and vice. It would be absurd to suppose that such teaching as this, often reiterated, will not produce an impression upon the minds of even the respectable and well-disposed tenants, and that they will not be ultimately drawn into the agitation, though they shrink from it at present. They now recoil from the suggestion that they should rob the landlord, but after a while they would become reconciled to it, and finally begin to regard it as an act of patriotic virtue and a duty which they owe to their country and themselves. The effect of the agitation is spreading into districts where there can be no pretence of poverty and the tenants are treated with great liberality and kindness. The agent of a landlord m the West, for ex- . ample, who has a good estate and keeps a large number of tenants employed on works of improvement, expending, m fact, m the district far more than he receives, waa lately informed by some of those to whom he applied for rent that they did not intend to pay any more. In these cases, if the landlords were not too generous to resent their ingratitude and folly, and resolve to stop the works, their chief meansof existence would absolutely cease. In the country of Sligo, m a district where the tenants are well-to-do, holding the land at low rents, and have hitherto been punctual m their' payments, the agent of Mr. Eldred Kuox,

D.L. attended at Tobercurry ?^i week to receive rents, but not oixjWt them appeared, and it was ascertained that on the night before they were visited by an armed party, who warned them not to pay. A similar party visted the tenants of Mrs. Costelloe, of Kilrea, who were also comfortable, and gave the same warning, enforcing it m one instance by firing a shot into a tenant's house. These are the natural fruits of the instructions which they are receiving. Why should they pay rents, if they have a prospect of getting' the land for nothing and becoming their own landlords ? The question now is, what is to be done m the present state of affairs ? — Home News.