DARK CLOUDS IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 335, 19 September 1879, Page 9

DARK CLOUDS IN IRELAND.

Dublin, July 3. 1879. Those who oan recall the fearful scenes of misery and destitution which prevailed in this country during the years '47 and '48, rendered remarkable by the failure of the potato crop, are not unlikely to witness a period almost as trying. A succession of bad seasons, extravagant rents, which are not only demanded, but wrenched from the unfortunate tenantry at the point of the bayonet, and lowering prices on account of the vast increase in the importation of all edible commodities, have reduced the condition of the farming classes to a state bordering on bankruptcy, while the depression felt by the agricultural community has spread and continues to expand over all grades among the industrial classes. Dark clouds, indeed, hover over the land and in many places they have descended, bringing starvation and positive rum wherever they have fallen. Factories are closing in toto, the banks refuse to advance money except whea unexceptionable security is forthcoming, and although some landlords are returning from ten to twenty-five per cent, of the rents the vast majority must have their " pound of flesh," and thus theie is every prospect of the country drifting into a state worse than what decimated it in the famine years already alluded to. Misery in its chrysalis condition only has as yet made its hideous appearance in Ulster and Leinster, but the western portion of Munster and the entire province of Connaught have already bowed down under the awful visitation.

From enquiries which I have personally instituted in Mayo and Sligo I can assert that in these counties the farming classes are on the threshold of the workhouse. Unproitable seasons have, as I have said, led to this ; but there is a contributory cause, and this is the system of credit which traders allowed and which made the population anything but thrifty ; and now, that dark days have arrived, their energies are paralyzed and efforts in any direction appear unavailing. That districts not as yet included in the scope on which desolation has come must in a short time feel the terrible depression is certain, unless Providence interposes. Within twelve months Leinster farmers have had their rents increased by more than twenty per cent., and with fully thirty per cent, of a decrease in the value of all produce the position can be easily understood. Ireland's oldest duke, the head of the G-eraldians, has led the way, and just as the prospects of bad times had become assured his representatives set to work to increase his rent roll, the process being in many cases repeated in the short space of a dozen years. Agreements, commonly called leases, were issued only to make the heel of oppression the more keenly felt, as clauses, rendered legal by an abortive Land Act, were introduced to cripple the tenantry and oust them from any claims which the most stupid enactment in the British statute book contains. Rents are still forthcoming on some places, but in the counties which I have named above, Sligo and Mayo, the landlords, have in many instances not a penny to receive. Their own cruel misrule has turned on themselves, and by impoverishing those by whom they had to live they at last feel the biting of want. Not a week ago an agent informed me that on the day he appointed for collections of rents he had not received a cent, nor does he see any prospect of payment. Monster meetings occur weekly, at which the people declare that they are willing and would have no difficulty to pay fair terms for their holdings. Of course the landocracy hold aloof, but how long they can afford to do so remains to be seen. In the course of one year 800 ejectments have been served in Mayo alone so that taking the small average of six to each family we would have 4,800 persons in this country alone houseless cast on the wide world, with no other shelter in their own land save that afforded by the unions. On Sunday, the 29th June, I attended a public meeting at Castlebar, which was promoted for the purpose of calling attention to the threatened evictions on the estate of Miss Crean Lynch, and on that occasion a Mr. Daly, in speaking of the state of the district, said he challenged any commissioner from Dublin Castle or elsewhere to find within the walls of many of the people who are to be evicted " a second animal, barring a cat, and in some cases he was aware that there was not sufficient food for the rat watcher without pinching the supply of some member of the family."

But it is useless to pursue this strain. It is patent to every one that the owners of property must either reduce their rents or take the land on their own hands. They are not likely to adopt the latter course, and may err in postponing the former until it becomes too late. The importation of cattle and sheep weigh heavily on prices of beef and mutton, but at the same time if it were not for the supplies from America and Spain meat would be a luxury only within the reach of the moneyed classes, The Irish press is, I think, to blame in not taking more cognizance of the depression which prevails. In this communication I have avoided details, as later on I shall furnish instances of misery than which I do not believe human nature in a civilized and Christianized State ever endured anything more crushing.— New York Herald,