TENANT-RIGHT AND THE PRESBYTERIAN CLERGY.

HL Deb 01 March 1850 vol 109 cc221-33

The MARQUESS of LONDONDERRY

then rose to present a petition, of which he had given notice, and which he considered to be of great importance in the present state of Ireland, and more particularly of that county (Down) with which he was connected. It emanated from a public meeting at Coleraine, and was the petition of the tenant-farmers of that district very numerously assembled in that town. The purport of the petition was to pray their Lordships to pass an Act securing to the tenant-farmer full compensation for all the improvements which he might have effected on his farm during his tenancy, and the full benefit of what was considered the privilege and property of tenant-right. The petitioners further prayed their Lordships to pass such an Act as would insure to the tenant any investment of property which he might make upon the land. He would beg leave to say on the subject of tenant-right, that he was sensible of the moral obligation which devolved on a proprietor of land to promote the comfort and well-being of his tenantry. He had been the constant advocate for twenty years and more of the so-called tenant-right. But the attempt now made was to exact as a right what had been theretofore conceded as a voluntary act of kindness and regard; and if there were now to be a struggle for the overthrow of the rights of property, let them proclaim the object at once, and let the agitators announce the project of a resort to socialism and communism. The efforts now making in Ulster led to confiscation. The tenants had hitherto only held a terminable interest. They wanted now to be independent of proprietors, or partners in the fee. Not simply content with the so-called tenant-right, they violently claim a fixity of tenure; and the allegiance and demeanour of their class was in future to be contingent on the absolute yielding to their demands. The renewed efforts now being made in Down seemed to be the following up those of May or April, 1848; and that of the Nation and United Irishman, who taught first the doctrines whereby to repudiate the payment of rents. The tenant-right always practised on his estate, was the free liberty of the tenant to sell his holding, and no restraint as to his bargain with his successor; except that if he was ineligible in his (the Marquess of Londonderry), or his agent's opinion, he exercised a veto, and called upon him to produce another candidate. The successor became the actual locum tenens to the retiring tenant. He always considered hitherto, in former good times, the tenant-right as good as his own to his manor, as the tenant could sell, or get money for leaving it, or improving it, which he (the Marquess of Londonderry) never could do. But surely the case came now in a widely different form before the landlords of the north of Ireland. What were the voluntary gifts and offerings of proprietors, the farmers now insisted on as a right. They told them also of their own property in the soil. They insisted upon a reduction of their rents, not according to their landlords' judgment or opinion, but they insisted upon their own valuations. They menaced the collectors; they said they would pay no rents, and they followed up those proceedings by incendiary fires. And such was their silent (encouragement of the nocturnal incendiaries and agrarian outrages, that they refused to organise themselves, or subscribe for their discovery. This was the lamentable but too true picture of that county, hitherto the garden of Ireland, possessing the greatest number of resident gentry, and the most influential and intellectual landlords—he might add, the kindest and most beneficent in Ireland. Could this extraordinary change have occurred without some outward circumstances? It was notorious that the recent assemblages in that county had created very considerable excitement. Within the last eighteen months the county had been repeatedly called together, and there had been assemblings of its inhabitants five or six times on great public questions. Such meetings had given rise to much discontent and dissatisfaction. First of all, was an assembling to declare to Lord Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, their loyalty and affection to Her Majesty during the disturbances which took place in another part of that kingdom; shortly afterwards, there was an assembling to protest against the rate in aid. The principal speakers at that meeting indulged in the most violent and inflammatory declamations against that rate, to which, however, they subsequently submitted with exemplary patience; showing thereby that there was no occasion for, and not much sense in, their declamatory invectives. The next meeting was for the same object as its predecessor, and was equally uncalled for. The meeting after that was occasioned by the unfortunate circumstances which occurred at Dolly's Brae. On those circumstances he would not say a word; for he thought that it would be much better to have them buried in oblivion. The next meeting was convened at Belfast, by certain Protectionist Lords, to complain of the change of the law relating to the importation of corn. It not only raised a question between the population of the county and the farmers as to whether protection or free trade should be the law of the land, but it also raised another question, whether the tenant-farmers were not entitled to, and ought to have, a reduction of rents. Many speeches were made, strong, fiery, and exciting; but the most extraordinary circumstance of all was, that the Orangemen, and the Roman Catholics brought in by the Protectionist Lords, who were supposed to be the leaders of the meeting, to carry the cause of protection, had united together to proclaim reduction of rents, tenant-right, and fixity of tenure; and, not only to do that, but also to force their landlords by intimidation to accede to those objects. After these meetings there was great discontent among the tenants of the county of Down. These county meetings were followed up by meetings at various places—at Banbridge, at Newton Clonards, and elsewhere; and at these district meetings Presbyterian ministers were very active and prominent. The local newspapers, especially the Radical newspapers, gave full details of all their proceedings, and certainly encouraged and aided the Presbyterian ministers in their furious declamations. The doctrines which they inculcated were not alone reduction of rents and tenant-right—they added to those demands a demand for fixity of tenure, or, in other words, for a perpetuity of tenure. The tenants already thought the land their own, and the Presbyterian ministers assisted in encouraging that delusion. What had been the result? The tenant-farmers had continued their agitation; they had not only continued it by writing and speeches, but had even threatened and menaced all those farmers who should dare to take land from which others had been ejected for nonpayment of rent; and the consequence was, that no farmers would now take land so rendered untenantable. There had also been many offences against the law perpetrated, and many incendiary fires lighted, in the county of Down. Looking at the acts which these men had committed, he would say that they were not to be contented by any reduction of rents which the landlords could make. They had taken the law into their own hands. They had even sent a deputation in one instance to their landlord, who was a noble Marquess, a Member of their Lordships' House. The agent of that noble Marquess met them, and stated that he would agree to a new valuation of the farms which they occupied, with a view to the reduction of rents. When that offer was made to them, they declared that they would not consent to any such thing; they would only have what they had originally stated. Now, if this were 60, if such a state of things were to be tolerated, the property of the landlords of Ireland might as well be confiscated at once. And in what part of Ireland was it that this language was used, and such violence was tolerated? In that portion of it which was once considered the best-conducted portion of the country. What was worst of all, such outrageous proceedings were becoming general. He would not petition his noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to proclaim the county; but really something must be done to put a stop to such outrages. He thought that the Government ought to look to it; he thought that they should consider whether there were not means of arresting these rev. gentlemen, who were adding to the agitation by the various insidious measures which they were hourly proposing. He held in his hand another letter addressed to himself by a Presbyterian clergyman, who had not only taken up the cudgels for the Rev. W. Dobbin, whose letter he had read to their Lordships on a former evening, but who also pretended to speak as the representative and in the name of other large bodies. It had been said that he could not establish what he had stated on a former night, and he had boon called upon in consequence to retract it. Now, if everything which had been printed in the county did not fully establish his past assertions—if every report of their speeches did not prove the fact that Presbyterian ministers were preaching up resistance to the payment of rents, he did not know by what evidence he would convince those who still remained incredulous. They had no right, either by law, morality, or religion, to preach such doctrines; but that they had done so the letters which he should presently read to their Lordships would prove beyond all doubt, and would place his accuracy even beyond suspicion. In reading the first letter which he should place before their Lordships, he asked that nothing should be done upon it—it was too contemptible for serious notice—and he was almost ashamed to read it to their Lordships. The letter was as follows:— Ballydown, Banbridge, Feb. 25. My Lord—I am requested by the Rev. William Dobbin to inform you, that he has road in the public journals a report of the proceedings in the House of Peers on Friday evening last, and has therefore been made aware of the reception which it pleased your Lordship to give to his respectful application, either to retract or substantiate your previous calumnious assertions respecting the Presbyterian clergy of the county of Down. And, in reference to the whole transaction, I am deputed to communicate to you that Mr. Dobbin, and many of his brethren, undismayed by the risk of being called upon to answer for having committed a breach of privilege of the House of Peers, and un-appalled by your attempt to defraud them of the Regium Donum, again call upon you to stand forth, and either withdraw or make good your assertions aforesaid. Should you decline either alternative, you stand convicted of having calumniated a body of men as loyal and as honest as any the empire contains, and who, conscious of the rectitude of their words and acts, are equally regardless of your smiles or your frowns, and view with unmitigated scorn your impotent attempt to crush their independent principles. My Lord, be wise in time. You may try your hand at privilege and Regnum Donum; you may sow the wind, but beware you do not reap the whirlwind, and sigh in vain for that shilling an acre which I said before, and now say again, is all to which, either in law, in equity, or in justice, you are entitled for your land.—I am, my Lord, with all duo respect, JHON RUTHERFORD, Presbyterian Minister of Ballydown, County of Down. However unworthy this letter might be of a reply, it showed what those rev. gentlemen were in their language as well as in their conduct. He, however, was not to be intimidated, and he would warn those rev. gentlemen that he would rather leave his estates to rapine and plunder, than yield to compulsion, menace, and clamour, with regard to his management of them. He treated their threats with disregard, relying on the Government, the law, and the justice of the British empire for protection. To show that he was not exaggerating the condition of the county of Down, he would now read another letter, which he had received from a gentleman of the highest respectability, who was well known to a noble Lord near him (the Earl of Roden):— I am very glad to see you have brought the state of the county of Down under the notice of the Government and the public. There is a very bad spirit and feeling prevalent among the farmers, agitating tenant-right, fixity of tenure, and encouraged by free-traders, the radical press, and the calumnies heaped on the landlords by many of the Presbyterian ministers, who have preached everything wicked and rebellious to their people. Poor Anketell's family have had a narrow escape. If the balls had been fired into the other window of their bedroom, husband and wife would have been shot in their bed. I understand the attempts to assassinate them were known and talked about in the streets of Comber two days before. The system now is to intimidate and prevent any person taking a farm when the tenant has been ejected. In short, Down is now a second Tipperary; we are trying to get up a barge private subscription to discover the incendiaries and Anketell's ruffians; but, strange to say, the Government re-ward has only been 60l.; when the country expected 500l. for such a dreadful outrage. He understood that it was well known in the town two days before that this attempt at assassination would be made, but not a hand or a voice was raised to prevent it. The subject of these parties was intimidation—intimidation at all events and at all hazards. Let their Lordships reflect upon the words that "the county of Down was becoming a second Tipperary." He understood that certain parties in the county were getting up large subscriptions to discover the authors of the incendiary fires which had occurred within it. He was sorry to learn that the Government had offered a reward of 60l. only for the discovery of such dreadful outrages, when it ought to have offered 500l. at least to accomplish their suppression. From his confidence in his noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he hoped that the Government would find some mode of expressing its disapprobation of the proceedings of these Presbyterian ministers. His belief was, that the Government had the means of remedying the evils of which he complained, and he trusted that it would not hesitate to authorise the proclamation of such large rewards as would lead to the detection of the perpetrators of such outrages. The noble Marquess concluded by declaring his conviction, that as surely as O'Connell, with all his agitation and monster meetings, had been incapable of attaining the repeal of the Union, owing to the resistance of the middle classes in Ireland, so surely would the threats and menaces of these personages be brought to nought, if the landlords of Ireland would only stand firmly together in resistance to their unconscionable demands, and would call upon the law and the Government not to allow these exciters to incendiarism and murder to remain unpunished.

LORD BROUGHAM

On a former night he expressed his opinion in strong reprobation of the letter which a rev. gentleman had then written to his noble Friend. That letter, reprehensible as it was, was nothing when compared to this which his noble Friend has just read. In all his long experience, both in this and the other House of Parliament, he could not charge his memory with any letter so remarkable for mere vulgar abuse and lowlived ribaldry, so unworthy of a gentleman, so unworthy of a man of education, and, above all, so utterly unworthy of a Christian minister, the minister of peace. The attack which he had made on the value of his noble Friend's land, and the menaces which he had directed against him personally, were neither to be extenuated nor defended. If those persons fancied that threats would make any noble Peer swerve from the performance of what he considered his duty, they would find themselves cruelly deceived, and bitterly ere long would they rue it. Whatever faults might be laid to the charge of their Lordships, of this he was very sure, that victims of intimidation they never would become. Of yielding to intimidation, they would never even be accused.

The EARL of DEVON

said, he wished to say a few words with regard to any possible legislative interference on the subject of the relations between landlord and tenant. He hoped their Lordships would not be misled into confounding two things, most different in their character, which were mixed together in the agitation now going forward. These were claims for full compensation for capital put into the land in improvements, and what was called by the term of tenant-right. He had some experience of the nature of the claims put forward under these heads during the course of his inquiries on the Commission with which he had the honour of being connected, and he was aware that the most anomalous views were entertained on the subject. He should be sorry that any strong opinion should go forth from their Lordships' House opposed to the principle of securing to the tenant full compensation for any improvements made by him. It would, no doubt, be desirable that such matters should be the subject of arrangement between the landlord and tenant; but if mutual contracts were not found sufficient for the purpose, he, for one, would not object to any proposition for securing to the tenant full compensation by law for improvements made by him. That, however, was a totally different matter from what was called tenant-right; and he was satisfied that their Lordships would at once scout any proposition that might come before them to legalise that system of tenant-right in Ireland. The most extravagant representations had been put forward with regard to tenant-right. They amounted to neither more nor less than this, that if a tenant held, he would say, 100 acres of land at a fair rent from year to year, he should, if he chose to go away at any time, he entitled to expect eight or ten years' purchase of the farm for his interest in it, the rent paid being understood to be a fair one; and it was also expected that the landlord should be bound to accept the incoming tenant, whoever he might be, at the same rent as had been paid by the former tenant. Their Lordships would recollect that this was expected to be done, although there was no lease of the land, but merely a tenancy from year to year. He wished it to be understood that this was regarded by their Lordships in a totally different light from the question of compensation for improvements.

The EARL of RODEN

said, that he fully agreed in the observations which had been made by the noble Earl (the Earl of Devon) who had just sat down; for, perhaps, there was no man better able to give an accurate description of tenant-right than the noble Earl. He regretted to hear the awful accounts which had been given by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Londonderry) of the condition of the county Down. He was resident as well as the noble Marquess in that county, and he should very much regret if it should be supposed that the whole of the county was in the state which the noble Marquess had described. He believed that the description could only refer to a few portions of the county. Meetings had been held at Banbridge and at Newtownards, in the nighbourhood of the noble Marquess's estate, in which language had been used which he would not have their Lordships think was generally approved of through the county. He did not defend one word which had been uttered at those meetings. The letter which the noble Marquess had read, every man must deprecate to the fullest extent—it certainly was most vulgar and abusive. But he knew that in his own neighbourhood no such feeling prevailed, and that no such opposition to the payment of rent was entertained. On the contrary, the accounts which reached him every day, showed more and more strongly that the people were making use of the valuable weather which God had given them at the present season to put in their crops. The noble Marquess had also alluded to the violent language of the Presbyterian clergy. He had no doubt but that the noble Marquess was perfectly correct, that individuals of that body to whom he had referred, had been violent in their language; but he would ask, was there any body, particularly so large a body as the Presbyterian clergy, in which individuals in the habit of using violent language were not to be found? He thought it was most unfair to involve the whole Presbyterian body in censure because some individuals had engaged in these proceedings. He had been for many years a resident in the county of Down, and knew the Presbyterian clergy of that county well, and he believed that a more respectable, a more correct, and loyal body of men, or more useful servants of the Master whom they served, did not exist, than the Presbyterian clergy of Down. Therefore when he heard them spoken of as a body in the manner in which they had been alluded to that night, he could not avoid standing up and bearing this testimony in their favour. It would be a very great mistake to suppose that the whole of the county Down was pervaded by the same excitement and agitation which now unhappily prevailed in certain districts of it. On the contrary, there were many quarters of the county in which the violent proceedings which were practised in other parts were viewed with unqualified disapproval. In evidence of the truth of this statement, he might instance the fact, that a few days since a meeting of the tenantry of the Marquess of Downshire was held at Hillsborough, at which a resolution was unanimously adopted, declaratory of the feelings of reprobation with which the meeting regarded the violent language that had been held at Banbridge. The meeting also passed a resolution expressive of their confidence in the Marquess of Downshire, and their sincere appreciation of the justice and humanity of his conduct as a landlord. Many other facts might be cited, did time permit, to show that the state of feeling of which the noble Marquess so bitterly complained as existing throughout all the county Down, was merely confined to particular districts of that county. He was very sorry that a document so despicable in itself as that alluded to by the noble Lord had been taken so much notice of; for all that was said upon the subject only tended to invest with fictitious importance a matter of the smallest conceivable significance. Had these men been left alone, and if no notice had been taken of their absurd proceedings, the bad cause they had so much at heart would have long since died of mere inanition, and the men who promoted it would have sunk into oblivion. It would have been much better if the vulgar letter about which so much had been said had been thrust into the fire, instead of making it a subject of discussion in their Lordships' House. He regretted that such a course had not been taken, for their Lordships might rest assured that no surer means could be adopted to magnify such a mischief as had been in the present case intended, than to take notice of it.

LORD BROUGHAM

begged to explain, that he would be very sorry if anything which had fallen from him in allusion to the Presbyterian clergy should be supposed to imply any charge against the Presbyterian body at largo, or against the Presbyterian clergy at largo. He never dreamed of making such a charge. On the contrary, nobody knew better than he did the great merits of that body. He had had constant communications with them, both legislatively and judicially, and he could say, that a more respectable body he had never met with, or a body less inclined to be insolent in their communications with others. He might be allowed to add that, as the writer of that letter appeared to speak as if he were deputed by his brotherhood, it was to be hoped that the Presbyterian clergy would take an early opportunity of repudiating such conduct.

The MARQUESS of LONDONDERRY

begged leave totally to deny that he had inculpated the body of the Presbyterian clergy. On the contrary, both on that night and on a former evening when the subject had been before their Lordships' House, he had spoken of that body generally with the greatest respect. He knew them to be a most excellent and loyal body of men; but their Lordships were aware that it was to be expected that in any large body some black sheep would be found. He would defy the noble Earl to show that the whole of the county of Down was not in a violent and excited state. It was very well to read an address got up by the agent of the Marquess of Downshire, but it was well known that the great agitation existing in the north of Ireland had been got up originally by the noble Marquess and the noble Earl themselves, having been putting their heads together. He felt bound to state that he had received a letter from a friend in the county of Down, who was also the friend of the noble Earl, stating it as the writer's opinion that Down was now in a worse state than Tipperary.

The EARL of MOUNTCASHELL

said, he was happy to have heard the explanation of the noble Marquess, because he thought that, both on that occasion as well as on the former evening, the noble Marquess had not in the first instance made any exception in his censures on the Presbyterian clergy of the north of Ireland, but had brought forward what appeared to be a wholesale charge against the whole body, when he had intended to allude only to the conduct of individual members of that body. He did not mean to offer any palliation for the violence of the language that had been used, and he was sure the great majority of their Lordships would blame him if he were to attempt doing so. He was aware that any of their Lordships might get up and move that the writer of that letter should be brought to the bar of the House, in which case he would, no doubt, be liable to very heavy punishment, but it was perhaps better that no such notice should be taken of the matter. However, if others should follow up the same course of conduct, it would be a question to consider whether it would not be right to bring the offenders to the bar of their Lordships' House, and punish them severely for the offence. One word on the subject of tenant-right. Connected as he was with the neighbouring county of Antrim, he begged to say that he did not believe the name of tenant-right had been ever heard or known until it had been invented by Mr. Sharman Crawford. The landlords of the north of Ireland had always been exceedingly attached to their tenantry, and their tenantry had been attached to them, until recent attempts had been made by ill-designing persons to separate them. The consequence was, that the landlords never took an unfair advantage of the tenants when improvements had been effected, by increasing the rents at the termination of a lease, but the tenure was renewed at a fair value. Latterly, however, an agitation had been got up by certain writers in local newspapers, and other busy bodies, which had excited a great deal of bad feeling in the north of Ireland. Some proceedings in the other House of Parliament had raised unfounded expectations among the tenants, who forgot that when they first got possession of the land it was under certain conditions, contained in a lease, binding both landlord and tenant. One of these conditions was, that at the expiration of the term the tenant promised to give up peaceable possession of the farm to the landlord, when, of course, the whole bargain ceased. As an instance of the extent to which the doctrine of tenant-right was carried, he would wish to mention a case that had occurred on his own property. Some eighty years ago his grandfather, wishing to give a gratuity to an old servant, granted him a lease of twenty acres of land, at a nominal rent of 6d. an acre, for three lives. The man sold his interest in the lease, and three years ago the lease expired; but the person holding the land considered that he had a right to have his purchase-money refunded, and also to be paid for improvements, though no improvements had been effected. The consequence was, that he (the Earl of Mountcashell) had to take legal proceedings to enforce his rights.

Petition read, and ordered to lie on the table.

House adjourned to Monday next.