Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-16
Friday Merning, Jan. 16, 1880.
IRISH LANDLORDS AND TENANTS.

AkkASH AANDAORDS AND TENANTS
 The New York Herald has done excellent service in setting before its vast number of readers both sides of "the Irish question, 1" and in letter published yesterday which bears all the marks of fairness, one of it's correspondents gives most interesting anal ysis of the situation. He has been making 6 tour for the last few weeks in the North and
 West of Ireland and returns to London con- vinced that the grossest congregations have got abroad concerning the feeling and atti- tude of the landlords and tenants toward each other, and that any.serious collision is improb- able. It is not denied, however, that there has
 been oppression of the tenants and great dif-
 iculty in earning bare subsistence, or that
 widespread suffering and distress need allevi- ation. The oppression of tenants does not
 come from the landlords of the hereditary sort, who own vast estates and exercise a kind of paternalt care and authority over their tenants. It Is the small fry who have
 recently bought land upon speculation, in
 tending to make the most of it, who have
 neither sympathy nor charity for their ten-
 ants and whose exclusive privilege it is to
 practice the odious system of rack renting, aud thus bring the maledictions of the peas- antry upon themselves and the whole landlord class. They are sometimes aliens, but of tener small shopkeepers grown rich by usury, who buy properties in the Estates Court at Dublin and promptly set to work to screw the last penny out of their acquisitions. Ten ants are to them merely representatives of policy of cent per cent and sympathy or sen timentalism never enter into their dealings" :" Among the landlords of the larger class the writer found frequent instances where less than three per cent. was realized upon the real value of estates, and where the land was clung to more for the sake of old associations and ancestral ties than for the small interest received. Upon nearly every estate visited there was a large proportion of the tenants in arrears of rent of from six months to two years, and many more instances of extreme leniency and latitude to defaulting tenants than of eviction were found.
 Among the causes of the present distress extravagance and improvidence in the man. agement of family expenses figure. In dress and drink the outlay has been disproportion- ate to. the means. And in addition to this im- providence of living there has been unthrjfty and careless management of the land. Flax, the most exhausting of crops, has been in many districts sown year after year because the crop had during one season proved 8 pay ing one, until, from the constant drain upon its vitality and the lack of manure, the soil has become absolutely barren and unproduc- tive. Manure is frequently sold by farmers who prefer the immediate profit of it's sale to the greater prospective remuneration which its use upon the land might bring. In various other ways the farmers manage their land upon the penny wise pound foolish Nan, neg leoting opportunities and throwing away chances in manner which in French or Belgian peasant would be sheer rack lessness." And the monstrous evil ot the credit system has lent its power full aid to the bankruptcy of the small farm CTS. This system has now. completely col lapsed. Shopkeepers who have for years been giving long credits at usurious rates, and money lenders who have been advancing cash at twenty five, fifty and even sixty per cel t. per annum are now pressing for payment and threatening summary process and seizure of cattle or of household goods. 'In this quan dary, with rent overdue, crops failure, usur CTS demanding their pound of flesh for money long spent or groceries and whiskey long ago eaten and drank, the improvident and har- assed farmer, ready to clutch at any straw, hears the cry of agitation raised at an oppor tune moment by cunning demagogues. It is 8 signal of relief, and he accepts 1t unhesitat, ingly and without reflection, seeking only to avoid his present endorsements and hailing as his friend and savior any man who tells him to repudiate his debts and defy his cred itors. This is the fruitful soil upon which the present agitation has sown its seed"
 Whatever the causes are which have helped to bring about the present sad state of affairs in Ireland, the poor people of that country must not be permitted to starve, nor will they be. At the same time, 1t is we'll to have the truth told.