GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



337 



notify the agent and landlord that as trustees 

 of the tenants they hold the rent in readiness 

 to be paid over at any time, less the 15, 20, 25, 

 or 30 per cent, abatement, as the case may be, 

 that is demanded. The money thus held is 

 used as a fund for the defense of legal pro- 

 ceedings if the landlord proceeds to eviction. 

 The tenants are advised to dispose of their 

 stock and movable property that might be 

 levied on. The tenantry, when organized un- 

 der the plan of campaign, have at their com- 

 mand various legal devices and loopholes 

 which enable them to frustrate proceedings 

 that are brought against them. If the land- 

 lord takes proceedings in bankruptcy, which 

 he can only in the case of farms let since 1872, 

 it is exceedingly difficult to bring them to a 

 successful termination, and, if the tenant pays 

 at the last moment, he loses his costs. If he 

 proceeds for debt, obtains judgment, and has 

 the tenant's interest in his farm sold at auc- 

 tion$ he has to bid it in at the price of the 

 debt and costs, which stops all further pro- 

 ceedings against the tenant, only to find on 

 bringing action for ejectment that the tenant 

 had already mortgaged his interest to other 

 creditors. The third remedy is to proceed by 

 ejectment. The tenant defends, brings the 

 landlord to trial, and raises questions of fact, 

 as, for instance, that his lease was never exe- 

 cuted. The landlord finally gets his ejectment 

 decree, and the tenant is evicted after some- 

 thing like a pitched battle. The tenant has 

 then six months within which he can redeem 

 his farm by payment of the amount due, in 

 which case the landlord must pay him the 

 amount of any profit he could have made out 

 of the farm while the tenant was out of pos- 

 session. The tenant can also claim compensa- 

 tion for improvements, such as unexhausted 

 manures, permanent buildings, and reclama- 

 tion of waste land. The onus is on the land- 

 lord to show that the improvements were not 

 done by the tenant ; and, as prior to the land 

 act of 1870 there was no necessity for keeping 

 any record, it is not always easy to do so. 

 The landlord can not commence ejectment pro- 

 ceedings until one year's rent is in arrear, the 

 proceedings probably take the best part of 

 another half-year, and the tenant has then six 

 months to redeem. The landlord has, perhaps, 

 to pay a considerable sum for improvements, 

 costs probably amounting to half a year's 

 rent, besides those which he can recover from 

 the tenant, and finally has a boycotted farm 

 thrown on his hands to work as best he can. 

 The remaining remedy is to distrain ; but the 

 sheriff invariably has his approach heralded 

 by the blowing of horns and ringing of chapel- 

 bells, the cattle are driven off the land, and 

 this method of recovering rent is in Ireland 

 practically obsolete. The plan of campaign, 

 however, entails great losses on the tenants 

 wherever it is applied, for while the struggle 

 is going on they are compelled to sell their 

 stock and crops and suspend all cultivation. 

 VOL. xxvn. 22 A 



The essence of the plan is that all the tenants 

 shall stand together, the wealthier putting 

 their money into a common purse with the 

 poor, and all refusing to pay until those who 

 can not pay obtain a fair settlement. 



The Court of Queen's Bench decided that 

 the plan of campaign was illegal, and the vice- 

 roy issued a proclamation authorizing the sum- 

 mary suppression of all proceedings connected 

 with it, the appropriation of its funds, and the 

 seizure of its documents. In December, 1886, 

 General the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, command- 

 er of the forces in Ireland, issued a proclama- 

 tion against it. After the plan had been enun- 

 ciated by the Irish leaders, the Government, 

 which bad been reluctant to carry out evic- 

 tions, was urged by the landlords to proceed 

 with more energy. General Buller, in the west 

 of Ireland, was unwilling to turn out tenants 

 who were not able to pay, and interfered to 

 secure a reduction from some landlords, while 

 he declined to evict the tenants of Col. O'Cal- 

 laghaa and others who would grant no abate- 

 ment. The Chief Secretary, Sir Michael Hicks- 

 Beach, exerted administrative pressure to in- 

 duce certain landlords to make a reduction, 

 but without success. The exercise of the u dis- 

 pensing power," as it was called by the Irish 

 Secretary, was remitted as soon as the plan of 

 campaign was developed, and the Government 

 was finally stirred into action by the insistance 

 of the landlords, and made a beginning of the 

 evictions at Glenbergh, Kerry, where three or 

 four hundred families were crowded on land 

 that was so poor that they had not been able 

 to extract from it more than a scanty subsist- 

 ence. They were from three to five years in 

 arrears, but were not able, as Sir Redvers Bul- 

 ler convinced himself, to pay the half-year's 

 rent and costs that the landlord offered to ac- 

 cept. Early in January the officers of the law 

 ejected them, turning even invalid women and 

 children into the road, and burned their cot- 

 tages to prevent them from returning. This 

 action on an estate where the plan of campaign 

 had not been applied moved tenants to resort 

 to it on many other estates. 



The plan of campaign was first applied on 

 the estates of Lord Clanricarde, on Col. O'Cal- 

 laghan's property at Bodyke, on the O'Kelly 

 estate in County Kildare, on the Mitchelstown 

 estate, and on the Ponsonby estate of Youghal. 



Evictions were ordered on the Bodyke prop- 

 erty in County Clare; but the peasantry pre- 

 pared for a desperate resistance under the 

 leadership of Father Murphy, the parish priest. 

 William O'Brien, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, 

 presided at a meeting held on January 30, and 

 urged them to oppose the execution of the de- 

 crees. The authorities found it necessary to 

 postpone the evictions. In the middle of Feb- 

 ruary emergency men and police were fired OB 

 in the neighboring village of Bnllycnr, and one 

 man was killed. Col. 6'Callaghan was one of 

 the harshest and mo?t exacting of the Irish 

 landlords, who had raised the rent on the ten- 



