The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-10-07
Agricultural Ercitement i'm ireland.

communities in that hapless country against
which "the stars fight in their courses. !"
Poor Ireland seems destined to be ever
unfortunate. The quick and excitable
temper of its people has too often on former
occasions kindled the Irish outside of Ire
land into flame of merely sentimental and
quasi-patriotic fervor; as, for example, In
the quixotic Fenian enterprises in Amer
lea, and the passionate outbreaks
against PROFESSIONS on days celebrated by
the Orangemen. Grievances of this kind
are purely fanciful. 1t is foolish for men
to work themselves into q violent Juror over
events which took place nearly two GEN.
turtles ago, as in the case of the Orange
celebrations; and it is equally foolish for
people of Irish lineage dwelling in America
to 90 crazy over fantastic assaults on the
British Empire, gotten up by the wild and
irrepressible Fenians. But such unreason-
ing outbursts illustrate the passionate
tendencies which run in the Irish blood
and assist us in estimating the extremes to
which Irish passion and prejudice may go
under the sting and stimulus Of hardship
which is not fictitious or imaginary
or sentimental, but is SO real that it needs to
borrow no colors from the wild and riotous
Irish imagination and presses with such
tremendous force of hunger-bitten neces-
sty as to make exaggeration superfuous.
1t is not sentimental or imaginary
grievance which is just now stirring pop
ular feeling in Ireland to it's protoundest
depths. There has perhaps been no pre-
vious occasion in the eventful his
tory of the beautiful but misgoverned
Emerald Isle when the public mind Of the
Irish people has been so heaved and agitated
by tremendous groundswell OF popular
ferment The attendance of twenty thou
sand people at public meeting in Cork;
of fourteen thousand people at Mary
borough; OF fifteen thousand people at
Dunmore, in Galway, with other monster
meetings approaching these in size, shows
how thoroughly the Irish population is
aroused in this remarkable crisis.
AS we have said this is not a sentimental
agitation. 1t springs from something more
solid and tangible than the historical and
ideal grievances which have so often
excited the Irish Imagination. The
present intense excitement does not
grow out of difference of sentiment
respecting the Battle of the Boyne or any
kind OF Anticipated Irish grievances, but
out of intolerable sufferings arising
from the present deplorable condition
of the Irish tenant farmers. There is
nothing fancitul, or sentimental, or
merely historical in the loud and bois-
ferrous complaints of the Irish people
in their multitudinous public meetings
The state of the facts is this that the bad
harvests make it impossible for the Irish
tenant farmers to pay their rents 1t may
be said that they are merely the victims of
| the seasons But this is not quite ade-
! quate. They are victims of hard bargains
with their landlords, which did not take
into account the fluctuations of the seasons
and the possibility of long succession Of
bad harvests. The statement that the
ruined tenants are the victims Of untavora-
bic weather is not a statement which
covers all the facts OF the situation. If
the Irish tenantry were owners of the land
which they cultivate their condition would
be very different. In that case they could
mortgage their farms and thus acquire the
means of bridging over the embarrassments
brought upon them by bad harvests.
But not being owners, like American
farmers, but only tenants, they have nothing
which they can pledge as security for
loans If harvest fails, if several har-
vests in succession fail, the afflicted Irish
tenants have no resource, and are
subject to the distress and horrors
of eviction, liable to be turned out
of house aud home at the Will OF hard and
farmer, who owns the land he cultivates.
is embarrassed by short crops he has
the means of making y loan which
will tide him over his embarrassments, be-
cause he can mortgage his land and rely
on the crops of more favorable seasons to
enable him to lift the mortgage. But the
distressed Irish cultivator has no such
resource. He has nothing which he
can mortgage for the payment Of debts
He lies at the mercy OF hard and
exacting landlord, who can evict and
ruin him for non-payment of rent.
What can the distressed Irish tenant
farmer do when thus pushed to the wall
Having nothing which he can mortgage
us security for borrowing money to
tide him over his difficulty he must
| be evicted and turned loose upon
the cold charities of the world if
he has no friends willing to help
him and stand as security between
him and his landlord. He cannot
pay his rent because short crops de-
prive him OF the means; he cannot give
security because he has no property which
he can pledge, and his memorable landlord
can turn him out of house and home
and send forth his family as beg
gars. The payment Of rent being