Daily Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1876-1884, 1881-01-28
IReLANp's WOES.
Evils Wrought by the Landlord System
Districts Cleared Of Peasants.

Irish Correspondence of the New York
Herald.l
Taking Kilconnel as a central
point, you may drive for four or
five miles any way you please and
you will not see an. acre of cul-
tivated ground. Grass everywhere
but scarcely a house. You pass
field after field grown rank with
rushes, producing grass of a not
very nutritious quality, support.
ing so many cattle to the acre.
Thirty years ago and all this dis.
trict, desolate looking now as q
Hungarian pussts, was studded
with the small homes of the Irish
tenant farmer, who cultivated his
land in grain and root crops, and
before the repeal of the corn laws,
was enabled to support his family
in comparative comfort. Then the
price Of grain fell and that of cattle
went up. The landlords of the dis.
trict then determined to reap the
benefit Of the newsstate of things.
They evicted the old tenants aud
let the land to grass farmers. Lord
Clsncarty might have done the
same thing as his neighbors, but
he followed more humane course.
O'Connell had sacrificed the forty
shilling freeholders when he gained
Catholic emancipation, and the
small tenant was thereafter of no
earthly use in promoting the pOlit.
ical welfare Of his lord. Aud so it
came to pass that the small tenant
farmer, deprived OF his vote,
and being of not the slight.
est personal value in the
district, was evlcted from
the lands aud driven to the poorer
districts of the western coast, where
ever since he has lived q miserable
existence, compelled to wrest .
scanty living from unwilling
mountain sides and boys unified
for human habitations. Where,
thirty years ago, on a thousand
acres, ten families Tor fifty people)
gained a livelihood, and paid a fair
rent to the landlord, now a single
herder exists In his squalid hut,
taking care OF the cattle of
the grass farmer. True, grass
farms pay and landlords
must live, but the fact
remains that immense districts of
the best parts of Ireland have been
cleared of the original peasant
farmers in order to make room for
bullocks and a few herdsmen. The
sad truth dawns upon you as you
dive along these deserts of grass
lands that a great, crying wrong
has been done to once fairly pros
porous people. They were driven
from their homes without COM
pensation, with nothing but the
clothes on their back, driven from
the rich lands of the district with
out pity and without hope, in or.
der that the landlord might get in.
creased rents from his lands in the
quickest fashion. Why did not
Lord Clancarty adopt the same
method of procedure? Perhaps,
first, he was rich and did not feel
inclined to increase his rent roll.
But, whatever the reason, it is q
fact that he left his tenants undis-
turbed, and gave his people the OPP
portunity, by urging them to put
part OF their farms in grass, to gain
u better livelihood than before.
The same thing might have been
done by other Landlords, and the
district would now, instesd of only
affording grazing for bullocks, sup
port a thick population of we'll
to.do small farmers. AS 1t is, these
grass lands are gradually running
to wilderness, and furze and rushes
are in many cases fighting with
the grasses for supremacy. It is es-
timated that 10000 acress of land
become waste every year, crying
out, as 1t were, for tiliage and cul-
tivation, while the men who once
titled 1t are starving on western
hills and boys. No wonder, it
seems to me, that the people have
dubbed these landlords OF grass
farms "exterminat0rs," for they
have succeeded In desolatlng the
country and driving the people to
miaorv and am iuratiOn