FATHER FERRIS'S CASE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 29, 16 November 1883, Page 19

FATHER FERRIS'S CASE.

(The Nation, Sept. 8.) The most notable eviction for many years was that of last week at Castlelyone, county Cork, when the Rev. Thomas Ferris, P.P., was turned out of house and lands.

As the circumstances of this case cannot be too widely made known, .we shall summarise them from the reports in the Cork papers. The landlord is a Mr. John Walker Perrott, of Monkstown. The farm in question contains about fourteen acres. Griffith's valuation of it is £11 ss. The rent charged for it was £19 10s lOd, or nearly double the valuation. The house, in which the various parish priests of Castlelyons have for half a century resided, was built by one of them some hfty years ago. It has been the custom for each incoming parish priest to pay to the outgoing <?-ne a substantial smn for the good-will of the residence, and Father Ferris himself actually paid £225 to his predecessor in occupation for that house. Finally, the premises are held under a lease, some forty years of which have yet to run. Had not the Land Act cruelly excluded leaseholders from its rent-fixing provisions he would by now, in all probability, be paying a greatly reduced rent, imtead of being an evicted tenant ; since the house, for the good-will of which he had paid, must unquestionably have been treated by any Land Court as his personal improvement, and allowance must have been made for it in the judicial rent.

So far for the situation of affahs when the Land League movement began. Three yeais ago a meeting was held at Castlelyons at wh eh it was resolved to pay no higher rents than Griffith's valuation. Father Ferris assented to that resolution, and acted up to it manfully. During the intervening period he repeatedly tendered the arrears at the Government valuation, but they would not be accepted. A writ was at length issued ; the holding wa3 then put up to auction by the Sheriff, and the tenant's interest bought iv for the landlord at a nominal figure. On the deed from the sheriff an ejectment degree was sought, and the result was the bringing together, on the Thursday of last week, of a foicj of four bailiffs, fifty policemeD. and forty foot-soldiers, to drive the parish priest of Castlelyons from the residence to which his moral title is as clear as noonday. The resolute priest, acting up to bis principles, once more declined to pay what he considered an exorbitant claim for rent on his own improvements, left his comfortable dwelling at the demand of the law, and proceeded to instal himself in a half-built mud hut which was in course of erection in the chapel-yard for his reception. It should be noted also that by the Sheriff's sale Father Ferris not only lest all legal intersst in his holding, but lost too, by legal confiscation, the £225 he paid in respect of the bouse, minus only the comparatively trifling sum claimed as rent and refused for the last three years. From this case we learn in a most foicible way the striking injustice done by the Land Act in excluding leaseholders from those of its provisions which make the nearest approach to securing equity fdr the Irish tenantry. The parish priest of Castlelyons had before him on the one hand the choice of paying a heavy rent for a dwelling which neither the landluid nor any of his predecessors built, and fof which the priest himself gave a large sum, and on the other the loss of his entire interest in house and land, with residence in a mud cabin for probably the remainder of his days. He chose the latter alternative ; and there are probably few people in Ireland, save landlords and their hangers-on, who will not honour him in their hearts for doing so, and held him to be a man every inch of heroic mould. What Mr. Perrott hoped to gain by his obstinacy is by no means clear. We may take it for granted that a dwelling-house built by a parish priest for occupation by himself and his successors is greatly in excess of the requirements of a fourteen-acre farm ; therefore the landlord's chauces of getting a tenant willing to pay him £19 odd yearly for the place are small indeed. Even if that were not so for the reason mentioned, there are other reasons which suggest that Mr. Perrott may go whistle for a £19 rent. Anyone who has even a faint idea of Iri-h Catholic feeling must know well that the most inveterate landgrabber if a Catholic would draw the line at taking a house and land from which a priest had been evicted. We believe that most Irish Protestants would also refuse to become the seccessor of an evicted priest. Mr. Pt-rrott may think of working by the aid of Emergency men, and if so we wish him joy of all the profits he will thus realise. But, whatever Mr. Perrott's projects may be, we repeat that this case brings out under a three light the monstrous injustice done by the Land Act to leaseholder?. We believe, too, that it will powerfully tend towards procuring an earlyremedy for that injustice, and that thus the spirited action of Father Ferns will have earned the lasting gratitude of that large class of tenants. In conclusion we echo with unfaltering confidence the rev. gentleman's prediction that when landlordism is out of the country, there will be priests in Ireland and a house and laud for the parish priest of Castlelyons.