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was always content, there was generally cheerfulness. When milk was plenty, tobacco forthcoming, the children healthy, and the potatoes dry, the household was a happy one. It would be a mistake to suppose that Paddy's life was devoid of amusement, or even of excitement, for his joyous nature tended to make rough things smooth, and smooth things pleasant. Fairs occurred several times a year in every parish, patrons (festivals of patron saints) were frequent, christenings, weddings, wakes, and funerals, were all made conducive to fun or frolic. In fine weather the neighbours assembled at cross roads, every village had a piper or fiddler, the young people danced, and the seniors sat on the ditches smoking their pipes and applauding the dancers. Nor was a round of whisky long wanting, without which no meeting ever attained its true perfection. Private stills were numerous, and a round of sound stuff that never saw the face of a gauger was had for a few pence. Of this all partook, for popular belief stands fast, that from youth to age, and in all disease, from teething to typhus, whisky is the only specific that never fails. It was on a community circumstanced as this was that the potato disease fell with the suddenness of a summer shower.

In the preceding year the disease had appeared, but it was unheeded, for the vigour of the plant had thrown off the attack; but now destruction was complete. The root rotted and melted in the ground, and in a few days nothing remained to show where potatoes once existed but the blackened stalks. Meantime a large portion of the corn crop of 1846, which had been a deficient one, had been exported, and it was estimated that in the whole island there was

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crowded, auxiliary houses were taken and filled, but everywhere disease broke out; typhus fever killed its thousands, but what killed most of all was despair. We were then under the venerable system of protection to native produce, and the sliding scale, then regarded as the perfection of legislative wisdom, regulated the import of foreign-grown grain. By it six weeks of high averages should elapse before corn could be admitted to consumption duty free. Meanwhile Irish men, women, and children died like rotten sheep from actual lack of food and of the diseases that unsatisfied hunger brings in its train. But the wisdom of Providence, out of these evils, brought a great and permanent good. The Irish famine, there and then, struck the fatal and final blow to the food taxes of the United Kingdom.

At last relief came, but it was late in coming. Public works were undertaken, and food distributed; but in the dismal time that had passed nearly one-half the popula tion had vanished from the land. They did not all die. Numbers, who possessed some means, emigrated to America. Still more numerous bodies crossed the narrow seas, where they founded those colonies in the English and Scotch manufacturing towns which

are now spoken of as the Irish quarters. They carried with them to their new homes that love of the old land, which time, or space, or climate seems powerless to affect, and which is not inaptly expressed in one of their old ditties, which borrows a well-known Latin line:

They change their skies, and not their hearts,

That cross the seas to foreign parts.

How deep this great national disaster has struck into the hearts of Irishmen is evinced by the fact that, when the subject is talked over by the old people who have witnessed its horrors, the head bends, the voice drops, the sign of the cross is made, and a prayer muttered.

Since those days of grief, desolation, and death, a whole generation has passed away. The country had passed through a frightful ordeal; the progress towards recovery was slow, but it has been fairly sustained.

It received its first impetus from the steady improvement in the trade in meat. The grass lands of Ireland were found to be of immense value in raising and fattening cattle and sheep, and those farmers who were fortunate enough to secure possession of these lands are rich and flourishing. But, unfortunately, a vast proportion of land in Ireland is naturally unsuited for grass, or so exhausted by excessive tillage as to be incapable of producing it without time and outlay of capital, and the holders of these lands are the reverse of prosperous. There are over half a million farms in Ireland, and in such small holdings as this subdivision of the land indicates prosperity is impossible. Where the land is solely in tillage, matters

are even worse.

Farmers, also, in the present time live on better food than their pre

decessors. Potatoes, instead of being the chief reliance of a householder, rarely furnish more than a single daily meal. Dress, particularly that of the females, costs a great deal more money than formerly. The linsey woolsey garment of the old time lasted a lifetime, the blue or red cloak passed from mother to daughter. Women's dresses are doubtless cheap, but they are flimsy, and require frequent renewal.

A new misfortune, from which Irish tenants in the old time were free, has fallen upon the present generation, the weight of which cannot well be exaggerated. This has come upon them from the multiplication of money-lenders in recent times, into whose nets fully onehalf the farmers of the south of Ireland have fallen, and out of which extrication seems impossible. There is such a complication of clanship and cousinship among this class, that a refusal to put one's name on a bill is not thought of, and the result is in many cases that whole districts are bound to pay large sums, of the origin of which they know nothing, and as the rate of interest 18 rarely under 20, and not seldom 40 per cent. per annum, these liabilities are simply enormous.

It may be said that such rates are impossible in these days of a money plethora, but an account of what occurred at a recent assize trial will throw some light upon this point. The evidence of the plaintiff in this case, who was a money-lender, ran in this way :

"Did you say," asked the Judge, "that your charge for discount was 30 per cent. per annum ?" "Yes, my Lord," was the reply, "that is my manner of doing business."

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But," said the Judge, "you stated that 301. in the 100l. was deducted on the bill being dis

counted, and only 701. handed to the defendant, and that would be. 43 per cent. per annum instead of 30?" "Yes, my Lord," was the reply, "that is my manner of doing business." These are some of the difficulties of an Irish farmer's position; there are others, neither few nor small, that might be added to the list, quite independent of those recently fallen upon him, from the fall in the price of live stock, and from deficient harvests; the worst point of all being failure of the potatoe crop. The breadth under it was fortunately smaller than it had ever been before, neither did the disease strike harder or earlier than in

most former years. But there had been no sun, the ground was cold, and the weakly plant was cut down at once. The tuber is immature, rarely fit for human food, and not at all safe for seed, for the only certain thing about the disease is, that from tainted seed a healthy crop is an impossibility. Wheat, too, is a bad crop in quality and quantity, barley not much better, oats alone seem to have flourished.

It may be well to say a few words on the chief remedies put forward by the friends of Ireland to meet this unhappy condition of the farming class. One is to remove the present owners of the soil, by a process of buying out, and to replace them by a peasant proprietary. It is not disguised that this project, if carried out, would effect a total revolution in the state of the country, but the difficulties attending so momentous a change have been kept carefully in the background. The Government valuation of Ireland exceeds twenty millions yearly, the rental from agricultural holdings is twelve millions, and the lowest estimate of the probable purchase money is 500 millions.

Let us see what this large sum means.

In the wars growing out of the French Revolution, covering, with but a short interval of armed truce, a period of twenty-two years, the expenditure of England was in round numbers 1000 millions. One half raised by direct taxation, the remaining 500 millions, exactly what is required for buying out Irish proprietors, was obtained by loan some of it at exorbitant interest, for we believe at one time the Five per Cents. were as low as 67 -and large amounts by various devices, such as terminable annuities, tontines, and lotteries. During a part of this time England was engaged in a struggle for her very existence. An army was encamped within sight of her shores, whose back no enemy had ever seen, with a commander, to whom it is no injustice to the fame of the Norman conqueror to say that the force that fought at Hastings was but as a horde of banditti. It was under these circumstances that this immense treasure was raised and expended, and is it possible that anything like the same effort would be attempted for the purpose of ascertaining whether Irish farmers would become more successful as owners in fee than under the same tenure which has satisfied and enriched their brothers of the same craft in England and Scotland? Of the security on which this money should be advanced little need be said. Irish moneylenders think 20 to 30 per cent. is only the fair and legitimate return for money advanced on the security of agricultural holdings, and men who listen to such speeches as the following, repeated by more than one of the trusted leaders of the Irish people, and cheered to the echo by thousands of farmers, will form their own ideas on the matter: "The

fruits of the earth are the gift of God to the tillers of the soil. It is your clear duty towards God to apply these gifts to the clothing, food, and education of the children whom he has sent you-all other claims are secondary to them." The public who have money to spare will probably prefer lending it to less godly men. Another

plan which has acquired some popularity is little less impracticable. It is that the Law Courts should not sanction the recovery of any rent which exceeded the public valuation of the land, which, of course, should be made suitably low. Such an Act, if the folly of Parliament should be carried to such an extreme as to pass it, would be the source of endless legal chicanery, for to make land cheap by law would end as all efforts to make money cheap have ended, namely in making it dear. Money has never been so cheap as since financiers gave up the efforts to make it so, and Irish land, like everything else, must be left to the natural law of demand and supply. It may be asked, then, is there no remedy for a state of things admitted to be so very bad indeed? Our reply is, that there is no single balsam so efficient as to soothe the grief of wounds so numerous and so deep seated. Sedatives and tonics may be administered with effect to correct constitutional irritability; they at least tend to sustain the patient until nature, in the shape of fruitful seasons, brings the sufferer round to health and strength. From these, with industry, economy, a careful avoidance of public-houses, and public meetings, a sound condition of the body politic may be fairly hoped for. That any man should die of hunger in Ireland would be disgraceful, not only to Irish, but to Englishmen. Boards of guardians, with a slight increase of power,

ought to be efficient and sufficient for the prevention of such a catastrophe. Above all, let there be no sham work; if no real work can be had, let there be no pretence. The scenes that occurred in 1847 dishonoured honest labour. Gangs of men were marched from the villages to roads leading nobody knew and nobody cared where; a few barrows of earth were moved, names were entered on a pay sheet, and the farce ended by paying a labourer unworthy of his hire. In conclusion, we shall venture on three suggestions, which, if carried into practice, would not indeed do " great things for Ireland," but would tend to secure a few modest benefits, at no great cost to the public. The first has reference to fuel. We should recommend grants of coals to be made, not only in those districts where the turf harvests have failed, but also in those localities where fuel, though cheap and plenty, is unattainable from the poverty of the householders. Another suggestion is, as to seed potatoes. There are varieties of the plant over which the disease seems to have no power. These, though raised in many places, are altogether short in quantity to supply seedlings for the future. Prices in spring time will probably run high, and, from the difficulty of distinguishing good seed from bad, imposition will probably be practised. The suggestion is, that some of the most suitable of these varieties should be obtained from Scotch growers of character. They should always be accompanied, however, by a pedigree as clear and undoubted as that of a favourite for the Derby. Our last suggestion is, that in March next small loans on six months' bills, without interest, should be made to farmers being holders of not more than twenty acres of land. These

loans would enable lands to be brought under cultivation, which otherwise would remain unfruitful, as well as supply other small needs of this impoverished class, of the existence of which the public are ignorant, for, as the adage runs, "No one knows where Jack's shoe pinches so well as Jack himself." It would also bring the rulers and the ruled into confidential and amicable relations, in itself no bad thing. Our belief is that such loans would be repaid with the utmost punctuality. There is nothing arouses the feelings of an ordinary Irishman like lending him money. Even when saddled with usurious interest he is thankful, and when the charge is moderate he is grateful. But advances such as these coming in his utmost need would touch his heart and be regarded as debts of honour. Excellent machinery for the distribution of such loans is ready to hand, and in complete working order. Perhaps the best of all would be through the "Charitable Loans Fund," the agents of which possess the necessary local knowledge, and would probably manage the issue at a trifling cost to the public. Scarcely less efficient would be the clerks of poor-law unions. There are 162 unions giving an average of five to each of the thirty-two counties in Ireland. The clerks form a body of most intelligent officers; in

knowledge of tenant farmers, and of the peculiar hardships of their lot, they are not exceeded by any lay members of society in the kingdom.

The call of the Lord Mayor of London for a subscription to meet Irish distress, and the readiness with which it has been responded to, form a bright spot in a very gloomy prospect.

The suggestion of this public appeal came from the Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the LordLieutenant of Ireland, to be assisted by a committee drawn from the ladies of the highest rank and position in Ireland. Let us hope that the female character of the charity may be maintained throughout, and that the local subcommittees may consist exclusively of ladies. It is on Irish households the distress presses the very sorest, and it is there the evil must be met if it can be met at all. From a female committee to the female heads of families relief may be passed without hurting that pride of caste and family of which the Irish peasant has perhaps more than his due share.

The Irish peasant may be improvident, perhaps wasteful, possibly over-indulgent to himself; but none of these lapses can be laid to the charge of the wives or daughters of the Irish people.

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