Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule

No. 29 What Rack-Rent Means. ToC

I am disposed to call this quiet inland place a fishing village. The people not only sell fish and eat fish, but they talk fish, read fish, think fish, dream fish. The fishing industry keeps the place going. Anglers swarm hither from every part of the three kingdoms. Last year there were five fishing Colonels at the Greville Arms all at once. Brown-faced people who live in the open air, and who are deeply versed in the mysteries of tackle, cunning in the ways of trout, pike, perch, and salmon, walk the streets clad in tweed suits, with strong shoes and knickerbockers. The Mullingar folks despise the dictum of the American economist who said that every town without a river should buy one, as they are handy things to have. They boast of three magnificent lakes, and they look down on the Athlone people, thirty miles away, with their trumpery Shannon, of which they are so proud, but which the Mullingar folks will tell you is not worth the paper it is written on. Lough Owel, five miles long by two or three wide; Lough Derravarra, six miles by three or four; and Lough Belvidere, eight miles by three, all of which are in the immediate vicinity, may be considered a tolerable allowance of fishing water for one country town. Lough Belvidere, formerly called Lough Ennell, with its thousands of acres of water, would perhaps meet with the approval of the Yankee who called the Mediterranean "a nice pond," not for its size, but for its exceeding beauty. And the most remarkable feature about the fisher-enthusiasts of Mullingar, is the fact, the undoubted, well-attested fact, that they actually catch fish. English anglers, who in response to the inquiries of new arrivals at any Anglican fishing resort state that they have caught nothing yet, having only been fishing for a fortnight, will hardly believe that at Mullingar their countrymen catch fish every day, and big fish too. The lake trout vary from five to twenty pounds in weight, but the latter are not often seen. Nine-pounders are reckoned fairly good, but this weight excites no remark. How big the pike may be I know not, but Mr. Herring, of London, on Monday last, fishing in Lough Derravarra, hauled out a specimen which looked more like a shark than a pike. He weighed over thirty-six pounds, and measured four feet three inches over all. Hoc egomet oculis meis vidi. Birmingham anglers who win prizes with takes of four-and-a-half ounces would have recoiled in affright from the monster, even as he lay dead in the entrance hall of the Greville Arms. Old women stand at the street corners with silver eels like boa-constrictors, for which they wish to smite the Saxon to the tune of sixpence each. I vouch for the pike and eels, but confess to some dubiety re the story of a fat old English gentleman, who said, "I don't care for fishing for the sake of catching fish. I go out in a boat, hook a big pike, lash the line to the bow, and let the beggar tow me about all day. Boating is my delight. Towards evening I cut my charger loose, and we part with mutual regret. Inexpensive amusement; more humane than ordinary fishing."

Mullingar is a thriving town situate in a fertile district. The land is very rich, and the rents are reasonable. The farmers are well off, and admit the soft impeachment. They are Home Rulers to a man, and they boldly give their reasons. "Did ye ever know a man who was contint wid a good bargain when he has a prospect of a better bargain still?" said a prosperous agriculturist residing a mile outside the town. The country around has a decidedly English appearance. Fat land, good roads, high hedges, daisied meadows, and decent houses everywhere. The main street is long, wide, clean, well-paved, well-built. The shopkeepers who live in the surrounding district make money, and when they "go before," cut up for surprising sums. Said Mr. Gordon, "Everybody here has money. The people are downright well off. Living in constant communication with Dublin, fifty miles away on the main line of the Midland and Western Railway, they have adopted the prevailing politics of the metropolis. They do not understand what Home Rule means, and they blindly believe that they will do better still under a Dublin Parliament. I am quite certain of the contrary. Suppose we want £500 for some improvement, who will lend us the money? I am satisfied that the prosperity of the place would immediately decline. The priests influence the people to an extent Englishmen can never understand. The Protestant clergy do not intervene in mundane matters, but the Catholic clergy consider it their duty to guide the people in politics as well as in religion. Given Home Rule, Protestantism and Protestants would be nowhere. There is no doubt in my mind on this point."

Mr. Mason said:—"The whole agitation would be knocked on the head by the introduction of a severe land measure, which would have the effect of further reducing the rents. No doubt all previous land legislation has been very severe, and I do not say that a further measure would be just and equitable. I merely say that the people do not want Home Rule, but they want the advantages which they are told will accrue from Home Rule. If the measure is not to benefit them in a pecuniary sense, then they do not care two straws about it. Do the English people grasp the present position of landowner and tenant respectively? Let me state it in a very few words.—

"Formerly the landowner was regarded as the owner of the land. At the present moment, and without a line of further legislation, the tenant is the real owner, and not the nominal landlord at all. For owing to reduction of rent, fixity of tenure, free sale, and the tenant-right, the tenant is actually more than two-thirds owner. This is a matter of cash and not of theory, for the tenants' rights are at this moment worth more than double the fee-simple of the land itself. What will the Gladstonian party who prate about Rack-rents say to this?"

This seems a suitable opportunity for calling attention to the term Rack-rents, which in England is almost universally misunderstood. Separatist speakers invariably use the term as denoting an excessive rent, an impossible rent—a rent, which is, as it were, extorted by means of the Rack. The term is purely legal, and denotes a rent paid by ALL yearly tenants, whether their rent, as a whole, be high or low. The lowest-rented yearly tenant in the country is paying Rack-rent. The whole case for the farmers has been obscured and a false issue raised by the constant use of this term, to which a new meaning has been given. Another common term is found in the word Head-rent, of which Gladstonians know no more than of Rack-rent. When Head-rent comes to be discussed in England we shall have Home Rulers explaining that the term refers to decapitation of tenants for non-payment of Rack-rent. This explanation will not present any appreciable departure from their usual vein. An English Home Ruler who supports Mr. Gladstone "because his father did," and who first landed in Ireland yesterday, said, "I do not approve of ascendency. Hang the rights of property! Give me the rights of intellect. Let us have equality. Treat the Irish fairly, even generously. They should have equal rights with Englishmen. Why keep them down by force of bayonets? Live and let live, that's what I say. Equal laws and equal rights for all."

That is the usual patter of the self-satisfied Separatist, who, having delivered himself, looks around him with an air which seems to say—"What a fine fellow I am, how generous, fair, disinterested. Have I not a noble soul? Did you ever see such magnanimity? Can anybody say anything against such sentiments? Thank heaven that I am not as other men, nor even as this Unionist." He is plausible, but no more. The mob which applauds the hero and hisses the villain of a melodrama pats him on the back, while he looks upward with his hand on his heart and a heaven-is-my-home expression in his eye. Put him under the microscope—he needs it, and you will see him as he is. The platitudes in which he lives, and moves, and has his being have no foundation in fact. His talk is grand, but it lacks substance. It is magnificent, but it is not sense. Listen to what a statesman has said:—

"I have looked in vain for the setting forth of any practical scheme of policy which the Imperial Parliament is not equal to deal with, and which it refuses to deal with, and which is to be brought about by Home Rule."

"There is nothing Ireland has asked, and which this country and this Parliament has refused. This Parliament has done for Ireland what it would have scrupled to do for England or Scotland."

"What are the inequalities of England and Ireland? I declare that I know none, except that there are certain taxes still remaining, which are levied over Englishmen and Scotchmen, and which are not levied over Irishmen; and, likewise, that there are certain purposes for which public money is freely and largely given in Ireland, and for which it is not given in England and Scotland."

I read this deliverance to my Gladstonian friend, who was staggered to learn upon incontrovertible evidence, to wit, the printed report of his speech, that these were the publicly expressed opinions of the Grand Old Man, whose pandering to Irish opinion as expressed by outrage dates from the time of the Clerkenwell explosion. That his conversion to Home Rule is entirely attributable to the endless murders and atrocities of the Land League, the Invincibles, and other Fenian organisations, is universally admitted in Ireland by Unionists and Nationalists alike. And once an Irish Parliament is granted, how will he resist the demand for Irish independence, for the Irish Republic affiliated with America? Query—if a given number of murders were required to bring about Home Rule, how many murders will be required to effect complete separation? A mere question in arithmetic.

Concurrently with the compulsory withdrawal of the Union Jack displayed by my friend Mrs. Gibson, of Northern Hotel, Londonderry, another occurrence, this time in the South, will serve to attest the progress made by the inventor and patentee of the Union of Hearts. During the progress of a cricket match on the Killarney Athletic Grounds, between the clubs of Limerick and Kerry, on Whit-Monday, a Union Jack was hoisted, not as a political banner, but as an ornament, and the only banner available for the purpose. It was left flying when the cricketers went home, but in the morning it lay prone and dishonoured. The forty-foot spar had been sawn through, and in falling had smashed the palings. Let a chorus of musical Gladstonians march through Ireland bearing the Union Jack and singing "God save the Queen," let them do it, with or without police protection, and I will gladly watch their progress, record their prowess, and will have great pleasure in writing their obituary notice. The people, as a whole, are enemies to England. They are filled with a blind, unreasoning, implacable resentment for injuries they have never received, their dislike engendered and sustained by lying priests and selfish agitators, who are hastening to achieve their ends, alarmed at the prospect of popular enlightenment, which would for ever hurl them from power. The opinions of Cardinal Logue have been quoted by Lord Randolph Churchill. The Freeman's Journal is still more absolute. Does this sound like the Union of Hearts? Does this give earnest of final settlement, of unbroken peace and contentment, of eternal fraternity and friendship? The Freeman says, "We contend that the good government of Ireland by England is impossible, not so much by reason of natural obstacles, but because of the radical, essential difference in the public order of the two countries. This, considered in the abstract, makes a gulf profound, impassible—an obstacle no human ingenuity can remove or overcome."

This promises well for the success of the Home Rule Bill; but why is the thing "impossible"? Why is the gulf not only profound but also "impassible"? Why is the good government of Ireland by England prevented by an obstacle beyond human ability to remove, and which, as Mr. Gladstone would say, "passes the wit of man." The Freeman has no objection to tell us. The writer assumes a high moral standpoint, addressing the eminently respectable and religious Mr. Bull more in sorrow than in anger, but notwithstanding this, in a style to which that highly moral and Twenty-shillings-in-the-pound-paying person is not at all accustomed. The Freeman goes on—

"We find ourselves bound by reason and logic to deny to English civilisation the glorious title of Christian."

This is distinctly surprising. John always believed himself a Christian. The natural pain he may be expected to undergo after this disagreeable discovery is luckily to some extent mitigated by the information that although England is not Christian, Ireland is extremely so. The one people (the Irish) "has not only accepted but retained with inviolable constancy the Christian civilisation;" the other (the English) "has not only rejected it, but has been for three centuries the leader of the great apostacy, and is at this day the principal obstacle to the conversion of the world."

Do the English Separatists see daylight now? Will they any longer deny what all intelligent Irishmen of whatever creed readily admit, namely, that religion is at the bottom of the Home Rule question? And is not Mr. Bull surprised to find that after all his missionary collections, he is without the right balm of Gilead, that his civilisation is not Christian, and that he is the principal obstacle to the salvation of the world? Is he not surprised to find that Ireland, with its thousand and ten thousand tales of horror, its brutal outrages on helpless women, its chronic incendiarism, its myriads of indecent anonymous letters addressed to young girls, such as I have seen filed by the ream in Irish police-stations—Ireland with its moonlighting atrocities, its barbarous boycotting of helpless children, its poisoning of wells and water supply, its mutilation of cattle, its unnumbered foul and cowardly murders, its habitual sheltering and protection of unspeakable felons—Ireland, one of the few remaining strongholds of the Catholic faith, has the true Christianity? Ireland would convert the world, but England stops her. The No-rent manifesto, the Plan of Campaign, and the Land League were sample productions of the genuine faith, to say nothing of Horsewhipped Healy, Breeches O'Brien, and T.D. Sullivan, who composed a eulogy on the murderers of Police-sergeant Brett, of Manchester (Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien),

High upon the gallows tree
Swung the noble-hearted three.

That is all I can remember, but it may serve to show that Irish Christianity is the real stingo, and no mistake.

A Mullingaringian who wishes to be nameless desires to know particulars of the gorging capacity of the average Gladstonian elector. The particular item that excites his wonder is the letter of Mr. J.W. Logan, M.P., on Irish rents. Briefly stated, Mr. Logan's point is this: That notwithstanding the complaints of Irish landlords they are getting more rent than ever! And he proceeds to adduce testimony thus: Income-tax valuation in Ireland, on land, in three years selected by himself stands as follows:—

1861	£8,990,830
1877	£9,937,681
1891	£9,941,368

Then, after showing the amount of increase, he says:—"Rents continue to rise in Ireland as far as is indicated by the income-tax."

My friend says:—"Mr. Logan is both culpably ignorant and flagrantly dishonest. He seems incapable of understanding the difference between an assessment, a mere valuation, and the actual payment of income-tax. He is dishonest, because he deliberately suppresses the explanation of the difference between the first and second row of figures. When I saw the curiously-selected years, I said, why 1861, 1877, and 1891? I knew there was some thimble-rigging. I looked at the twenty-eighth annual report of her Majesty's Commissioners, that for 1885, the latest I have, and behold, the year 1877 had an asterisk! It was the only starred number on the page. It referred to a foot-note, and that foot-note read as follows:—

"'The large difference as compared with prior years is due to the value of farmhouses having been previously included under the head of messuages.'

"The land up to '77 was called land, and the farm buildings were called messuages. But in '77 they began to reckon the buildings as land, shifting an amount from one column of figures to another. A mere matter of book-keeping. Mr. Logan writes to the papers for an explanation which is given in a footnote. He carries his point, for hundreds of people will follow his figures. Give a lie twenty-four hours' start and you can never overtake it. Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust. I suppose the Gladstonians claim that the Land Commission reduced rents by 25 to 30 per cent. But here Mr. Logan is proving that the landlords are drawing more money than ever! They wish they could believe it. Valuation is a queer thing. It fluctuates in the most unaccountable way. What an increase shows is the prosperity of the tenant who is putting up buildings and making other improvements. Mr. Logan's third figures show a further increase. Look at the figures in the authorised Report, not for '77 and '91, but between the two. What do you see there?"

I looked, and this is what I saw:—

1880	£9,980,543
1881	£9,980,650
1882	£9,980,215
1883	£9,981,156
1884	£9,982,072
1885	£9,982,031
1886	£9,954,535

So that Mr. Logan might have shown from these figures that during the No-Rent Campaign the landlords were enjoying an untold period of prosperity, for his chosen year, 1891, shows a decrease as compared with any one of the seven years above-mentioned. The truth is that the figures prove nothing in support of Mr. Logan's case, which is based on fallacy and suppression of material facts. His comparison of 1861 with 1877, without reference to the explanatory footnote, is of itself sufficient to shoulder him out of court, and stamps him as little more scrupulous than Father Humphreys, of venerated memory. Mr. Logan's belief that assessment and tax-paying are one and the same thing is here regarded as ridiculous, and my friend thinks that if Mr. Gladstone should impose a tax on Brains, the Grand Old Man's followers will escape with an easy assessment.

Mullingar (Co. Westmeath), June 1st.