The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-08-03
FARMERS OF ULSTER.
John Nitchel's Sensible Advice 10 His
COuntrymen.

C0untrymen.
John Mitchell wrote these eloquent
words in reference to the small farm
ers of Ulster, some fifty years ago:
81 wish to tell you distinctly who
and what you, the farmers and lab
orers of Ireland, are. 1 hear you
constantly called class, a class of
the community just as the military
people are class-or as the landlords
are class-or as the doctors and law
yers are class-or as the informers
and detectives are class. And fools
often say, 'Ah! beware of exalting the
tenant class at the expense of the
landlord or any other class Now,
you are no class. You are the whole
community; you support all classes,
create all classes; if you are elevated,
they are elevated-if you are depressed,
they are all ruined; on you they con-
tinually depend and without you they
are less than nothing.
you pay the wage of the artisan,
the fees Of the lawyer and physician:
you array the soldier in his gilded
hardware the bishop in his alb and
sleeves Of lawn; you are the spokes in
the mobiles chariot wheel, the jewels
in the monarch's crown; you could
live marvellously we'll without other
classes, mucls better than you do now.
without some of them, but they could
not live without you at all. Remem-
Der, therefore, the dignity and nobility
of your order; refuse to be dealt with
rs Il mere 'class'-know that your in
terest ought to be stable and solid as
the earth you till, and resent any at
tack upon them accordingly. have
always looked with sort of venera-
ton upon an Independent farmer cul-
tiyating his small demesne-a rural
paterfamilias, who aspires to no lot but
labor i'll his own land, and takes off his
hat to no superior under God AL
mighty. Tenant-right fee-farm, call
his tenure what You will-only let him
be sure that where he sows he or his
shall reap, eat and be satisfied. Such
farmer as this, though his acres be
very few, can generally bring his chill
dren creditably forward in a life of
honest industry, apprentice some of
his sons to handicraft trades, portion
the girls with two cows and ego, and
ppoU, old on,onr lis, rrr, =, ,l,;l1,o,, ,;1,o
an uncivlised patriarch as he is; never
troubling his mind about the progress
of the species, nor knowing in the least
what the phrase means.
II have loved to see, in the north of
lreland-while Ireland was-the smoke
OF the homesteads of innumerable
brave working farmers, rising from
thousand hills; and often in our sum-
MGR wanderings, from the farthest
wilds of Donegal to the pleasant fields
of Down and Armagh. we have fondly
dreamed that our countrys hope lay in
the quiet extension of this tenant right
spirit and practice throughout the
island. Monuar. monuar! how many
of the warm hcartlls we saw smoking
then are cold to-day! How ill we
have estimated the profound ferocity
of foreign landlordism! How many of
those simple people have had to arise
in their old age, bid adieu to their
forefathers' graves, and llopelessly
seek their fortune in foreign land! 1
know that respectable puppies would
laugh at the hardship of mere peas
ant. one of the masses, leaving his
native land. Respectable idiots! By
heaven! there is more true refinement
of feeling, more resistless human pas
sion, more delicate sensibility, more
keen natural affection, more genuine
character in any one of 10000 farm
houses in Ulster than there is in Dub
lin Castle, or in the 'genteelest' resi-
dencc of Fitzwilliam square,"