cases exceeded 50 per
cent., were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, but
also may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference.
Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believe
in the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes from
idleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others to
relieve--these others having to suffer for sins not their own--how
about that as a righteous obligation? Must I and my children go
foodless because my tenants will neither till the land they hold from
me, so as to make it yield their own livelihood and that profit over
which is my inheritance, nor suffer others to do what they will not?
If we are prepared to endorse the famous saying: "La propriete c'est
le vol," well and good. Meanwhile to spend all our sympathy on men who
reduce themselves and others to poverty by idleness and unthrift,
seems rather a bad investment of emotion. The old-fashioned saying
about workers and eaters had a different ring; and once on a time
birds who could sing, and would not, were somehow made.
Co-incident with these conditions of no rent at all--reduction of rent
all round--and the free purchase of land by those who yesterday
professed pauperism, is the startling fact that the increase in Bank
deposits for the half-year of 1889 was L89,000--in Post Office Savings
Bank deposits L244,000--in Trustee Savings Banks, L16,000.
Mr. Mitchell Henry, writing to the _Times_, says:--"If any one will
tell the exact truth as to Irish matters at this moment, he must
confess that landlords are utterly powerless to coerce their tenants;
that the pockets of the tenants themselves are full of money formerly
paid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely;
that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the
banks--savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks--are
richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of
whisky--that sure barometer of Irish prosperity--is increasing beyond
all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that,
with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed
than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation
and long to be let alone; but they are a people of extraordinary
clannishness, and take an intellectual delight in intrigue, especially
where the Saxon is concerned. British simplicity is wonderful, and the
very people who have put on
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