Irish Tcnant-Farmers and their Labourers 



323 



abundant signs that some portion of the land 

 at least is owned by noblemen and gentle- 

 men, who are known as " improving land- 

 lords." Wherever one sees a ruined hovel, 

 or a naked gable, there one is tolerably sure 

 that a miserable bankrupt farmer has left the 

 country, to his own benefit and that of either 

 his landlord or his neighbour. Where these 

 signs of a diminished agricultural population 

 are most abundant, they are associated with 

 newly-drained fields, recently " squared " 

 farms, better farm-buildings and occupation 

 roads, and every other sign of active im- 

 provement in the productive powers of the 

 country, and in the condition of the people 

 by whose labour it is achieved. But the 

 labourers who are employed on such works 

 as these have a far different remuneration from 

 the farmer's labourer whose condition we have 

 just sketched. The rate of wages paid by 

 improving landlords in the districts to which 

 we refer, ranges from 9s. to 12s. per week, ac- 

 cording to the age and capabilities of the men ; 

 but, unfortunately, in a good potato year 

 a large number of them prefer the easy work 

 and low wages of the farmer, to the harder 

 work and higher wages of the landlord. This 

 autumn, however, it is quite different, and re- 

 sident landowners are already beginning to 

 realize in some measure the nature of the 

 season that lies before us all. The labourers' 

 w'ves are commencing their crusade, in the 

 hope either of inducing the landlord to 

 employ their husbands, or of compelling their 

 husbands to move into an urban district. 

 We accompanied a gentleman in a visit to 

 one of his best tenants with a view to 



induce the farmer to give his labourer more 

 wages. The wages had been, as already 

 stated, 3s. per week, and the man's keep, 

 with the deductions of 6d. per week for the 

 house and another 6d. for the potato-land. 

 The request of the landlord was that the 

 wages should be raised from 3s. to 5s. 

 Reasoning and persuasion were alike useless, 

 for the tenant had but one reply to both, 

 " Shure, your honour, and is it the likes of 

 me that can afford to give 5 s. a-week ?" 

 This was no solitary instance, and it was 

 almost exhilarating to find that one poor 

 woman, at least, had succeeded in getting a 

 situation for her husband at increased wages. 

 The remedy for the hardships of the 

 coming winter cannot, therefore, be found on 

 the farms of the small tenants, but must be 

 discovered, if at all, on the undrained and 

 unreclaimed lands of the owners of the soil. 

 A drive through such a district as the one 

 we recently visited, is sufficient to shew that 

 there remains an abundance of works of im- 

 provement, such as draining, fencing, and 

 road-making, that will in the end repay the 

 outlay. If done at this crisis they will be a 

 real charity to the farm-labourers' families, 

 who have depended upon the potato-crop for 

 their sustenance, and if now planned by Irish 

 landowners and their agents, the mistakes of 

 1846 need not be repeated in any case. The 

 result would be to avert the famine that now 

 threatens the agricultural community in the 

 outlying districts of Ireland, and to add to 

 the productive powers of a country which is 

 sadly in need of the application of capital to 

 the soil. 



