The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1914-02-25

I%nniskeen, County Louth, Ireland
In America we are trying in a more or
less conscious effort to make the
s~choolhouse the educational and social
center and the school master a com
munity leader. In Ireland without any
set purpose this result is already Sc
cured. At Inniskeen, In county Louth,
for example, John Quinn; the school
master, is the big man. BY virtue of
his natural qualities and by reason of
his s%ecretarial position in the co-opera-
tive association he Is the farmers
banker, their business manager and
adviser, their agricultural expert and
a temperance reformer. In fact he Is
the community leader. His school
house Is q social center for to 1t the
people go for cooperative association
meetings, for temperance lectures, and
for public gatherings Of all. sorts.
We have been to County Donegal
and have seen what the cooperative
enterprises ceptered at Dunglow have
done for a region which is naturally
unproductive. Under the leadership
of Paddy Gallagher, a native business
genius, cooperation has brought COM
fort, relative prosperity and hopeful
ness to a community which was previ-
ously a desolate combination Of peet
bog and rocky hillside.
We have stopped here to see the re-
suits Incorporation when planted in
a more fertile productive soil, for this
portion Of County Louth would COM
pare favorably with the richest
stretches of our own middle western
states. ... . -.
The Average Irish Farmer.
Anxious to find the average small
farmer who is a member Of the coop
erative society and willing to talk
about its affairs, we were directed to
Edward Meeghan, who operated a
farm out two Irish miles from the vii
lage. AS we walked out to Meeghan's
place the consciousness was forced
. upon us that in this section Ireland Is
far from being starving Ireland" The
fields are carefully cultivated-culti-
waited as they seldom are in the states.
The hedges and walls are we'll kept.
The heavy crops indicate a high de-
gree Of fertility. Each cottage gives
evidence of prosperity and self-respect-
ing pride. Upon the faces Of those
whom we meet we see nothing to indi-
Icate that the local Irish are poverty
stricken or despairing. We find Meeg-
han on a 40-acre farm Of which he is
evidently and justly proud. The fer
tile fields, the stacks Of rich grain, the
high grade live stock, all demonstrate
that it is possible to make money
lhereabouts and that there is a promis-
ing future in the local agricultural sit
uation.
/ Buying Farms for Less Than Rent.
Meeghan himself, a vigorous fellow,
full of enthusiasm and hopefulness, ex-
plains that his father prior to his
death had bought the land under the
imperial land tenure act providing for
an arbitrated value as between land
lord and tenant. The value once fixed
the government pays for the land, and
then permits the tenant who becomes
a purchaser to repay the purchase price
in sixty odd years, each year keeping
up the interest at two and three
fourths per cent. and paying in addi-
ton a small installment upon the
principal. He tells how his father paid,
as rent alone, IS pounds per year,
while he himself In buying the farm is
now paying, including both interest
and annual installments on principal
only IA pounds per year. Quite nat
urally he has a keen appreciation Of
the land tenure laws which enabled
him gradually to obtain the farm by
the payment Of less money each year
than originally went for rent alone.
Prevented Improvements.
This is not to him the important
thing. however. His father had pre-
viously been a tenant A new thatch
on the barn, a new slate on the roof,
or a new shed for the COW, could not
be obtained in any way from the land
lord. 1t must be contributed by the
tenant, who knew that within thirty
days thereafter he might be put off the
place. The natural result was to pre-
vent all repairs and all permanent i'm
proVements. In this entire region we
have not been able to discover a sim
gle fruit tree that had been planted
prior to the acquisition of the land by
the tenant purchasers. In fact there
are no mature fruit trees here. Where
we have seen a new farm building or
any permanent repairs on old build
ings or any other farm improvement
inquiry invariably has revealed that it
had been added since the farm went
into the hands Of a purcasing tenant.
In other words, Meeghan and other
tenant purchasers feel now that in
making repairs or improvements they
are working for themselves, adding
value to their OWL property, where for
merly any improvements made were
for the benefit Of the landlord for
whom they had no particular liking.
Farmers Views on Cooperation.
We asked him what he thought of
tho oo-pporofiyo oooiatu opd u,hof ,oo