Le

"C'est qu'en vérité dans tous les pays la classe populaire, qui comprend difficilement les abstractions de la légalité, sent, par instinct, le besoin d'une direction et finit par subir l'ascendant d'une caractère résolu. paysan Irlandais, tout insubordonné qu'il est, sait parfaitement, comme le bandit et le sauvage, se soumettre à un chef et marcher sous une bannière. Les Whiteboys, les Ribonmen, les Cœurs d'Acier, les Molly Maguires en ont eu toujours à leur tête un capitaine visible ou invisible, plus despote et plus rigoureux que le constable, le juge de paix et le sheriff."

The intelligent foreigner, looking with his own eyes upon the course of the experiment in Gweedore, perceived not only the manner in which it was worked, but also penetrated to the general theory of the initiation of any process for the regeneration of Ireland. The Irish peasant, lawless though he be, is ever ready to submit to the despotic rule of a chief; he can always be induced to march under a banner. He will not quietly, and of his own accord, enter on the path of civilisation; he must be drilled, and brigaded, and led on to his regeneration with a shout; he will stray from his ranks unless a captain be ever at hand to direct the eager, and to urge on the laggard. This is true of every Irish movement for good or for evil, and in its truth lies the explanation of the continued failure, and continued resumption of agitation. When M. Pichot truly says, "the Whiteboys, the Ribbonmen, the Hearts of Oak, the Molly Maguires have always had at their head a captain, visible or invisible, more despotic and more rigorous than the constable, the magistrate, and the sheriff," he also tells the tale of many a rightlyconceived project for national advancement. We have seen many a host marshalled at the word of one bold

leader, only to disperse in face of some noble enterprise, when the voice of authority was no longer within hearing, or the banner of the chief was, for a moment, hidden from sight. In testitifying that Lord George Hill had begun his work rightly, M. Pichot excited our curiosity as to the prospect of a right ending. We knew it to be possible for a bold spirit and a true heart to "substitute its single rule for a routine of anarchy," and so to begin the work of Irish civilisation; but we much longed to learn what could be done towards rendering permanent the benefits of a benevolent despotism.

Thus meditating, we determined to examine Lord George Hill's work with our own eyes, and so, after an interval of full twenty years, we again, in the beginning of last September, took the road to Gweedore. The first steps of the journey brought to view a marked contrast between the past and the present. Instead of spending a long autumn day in the saddle, a wellappointed mail-car carried us, for a few shillings, and in seven hours, by a detour, about twice the length of the direct road, to the village of Dunfanaghy, and thence along the coast, in full view of the beautiful island of Tory, to the cross-roads of Falcarragh, and by the deserted lead-mine of Kildrum to the New Hotel. And truly a strange sight was that comfortable hostelrie, with its precinct of healthy vegetation, to eyes that had last looked upon its picturesque site in the undressed barren grandeur of nature. Still stranger and more unexpected were the easements of its pleasant chambers and well-stored larder to one, who might have recorded his reminis. cences of Gweedore, in the words of a native rhymer:*

"I've lain upon the self-same bed,
With master, man, and maid;
And in the same apartment where
The cows and sheep were laid.
"One covering did us all, you see

(Tis true 'twas summer weather);
And as we had no other choice,
We all lay snug together."

The building of this hotel was the first substantial memorial of the successful progress of Lord George Hill's experiment. It was accomplished in the year 1842, some three years after his Lordship had made his first lodgment in

the room of a shebeen-house, where he and his able agent and assistant, Mr. Forster, began their work, by a careful study of the many obstacles, moral and material, that stood in the way of their enterprise. For this task Lord George Hill was prepared, by a knowledge of the Irish language; and Mr. Forster, by a life-long acquaintance with the condition and character of the people in the neighbouring district of Rosses. No very long probation was required before both gentlemen were received into full fellowship, and admitted freely to the privileges and familiar society of the clubs, coteries and distilleries of Gweedore. The first result of this intercourse was a conviction that nothing could be begun, in the way of improvement, until the practice of ilicit distillation should be, to some extent, checked, or, at all events, rendered less necessary to the social system. Corn was, heretofore, made into whiskey, because it was in that shape more easily stored and more readily exported. To meet this necessity, a store, capable of holding three or four hundred tons of oats, was built at the port of Bunbeg; a kiln was provided for drying the grain, and a quay wherefrom to ship it was formed, giving accommodation, close to the store, for vessels of two hundred tons. A corn-market was thus established, in which, for the time, the landlord was the principal purchaser, and a competition between the grain-merchant and the distiller was at once set up. Supply soon begat demand; and no sooner was it known that oats were in store at Bunbeg, than the ship-owners of Liverpool discovered the navigation of those seas, and freely sent their vessels for the accumulating produce of the district. Gweedore became an exporting country, and, as usual, luxury attended at the very birth of commerce. Among Lord George's staff, was a wheelwright, whose occupation being once known, the people, forgetful of the manly simplicity of their fathers, began to sigh for carts and wheelbarrows, and burned to invest some of the profits of their corn sales in those otiose implements of industry. And here again it was supply that created demand. The appear. ance of a wheelwright, and of the products of his labour, showed the people their wants; and the reaction of their desire to satisfy them so pressed upon Lord George Hill, as to suggest the

idea of opening a shop for the sale of timber and iron, at first, and, subsequently, for the supply of other wants of a still more advanced stage of civilisation. The corn-store soon became a warehouse for the sale of a multitudinous assortment of articles, including, at one end of the list, bread, flour, biscuit, salt, soap, reaping - hooks, and saucepans; and at the other, mixed pickles, tea, lozenges, arrowroot, raisins, Italian irons, and staylaces. Gradually the commerce of this bazaar extended, until almost every necessary of civilised life is now dealt in. The sales of the first quarter, end. ing in December, 1840, amounted to £40 12s. 10d. ; and, in the corresponding quarter of 1844, they had reached £550. At the time of our visit, a chest of tea was regularly sold per month, and two tons of sugar yearly; and, during the preceding twelve months of 1851-52, 400 tons of Indian meal, at £7 10s. to £8 a ton, had been purchased by the peasants. Coincidently with this increase of traffic, the freight from Liverpool fell to five shillings a ton. A few years ago, from the same port to Dunfanaghy, the freight had been eighteen shillings. The reader may naturally ask, what gold-field was discovered in Gweedore, to supply the means of supporting these newborn habits of extravagance? The

answer, we believe, may be truly given in the moral of the fable of the old man who bequeathed to his sons a treasure, hidden a yard beneath the surface of his garden. Except a trade in kelp, which has been re-established by the demand for iodine during the last few years, no new diggings have been opened in those parts. The increased expenditure, and higher scale of living, have been rendered possible, simply by the introduction of regular habits of industry, and the growth of a better system of husbandry. Such prosperity as exists is not the gift of any demigod, but the development of very limited natural resources, relieved, by the exertions of a true-hearted and resolute man, from some portion of the burthen of ignorance and evil customs that oppressed them. Eggs, butter, hides, woollen stockings and oats, soon formed the staple of an export trade, when an outlet through the port of Bunbeg was once established. During the first year (1839), £479 9s. 6d. was paid for oats at the store,

and in 1844 no less than £1,100. One hundred and thirty-five pounds' worth of stockings was bought for a London house, during eight months of the present year. The export of oats has been, of course, much diminished by the potato-famine; but, in its place, as we have intimated, a new trade in kelp has sprung up, and seems likely to grow into a traffic in manufactured iodine. About 400 tons of kelp, at from forty to fifty shillings a-ton, have been this year shipped at Bunbeg, and, at the time of our visit, the little quay was covered with iron boilers and other materials recently landed for the establishment of an iodine factory. The kelp trade is carried on by native jobbers, who have superseded the original Scotch buyers; and as its growth has been natural and unassisted, its activity is an indication of, no less than an agent in, the advancement of the people. And they have got forwardno very great absolute length it is true -but still so far, that a little metropolis of industry, justice and religion, now surrounds the port of Bunbeg, where, thirteen years ago, all was waste. To the store and shop, which have passed into ordinary commercial hands, Lord George Hill has added an excellent mill. Neat houses and a station have been built for the coastguard. The constabulary are provided with dwellings. There is a sessionscourt, a post-office and a dispensary on the quay; and at a short distance from it, a substantial parsonage, with a school-house at hand, fitted up and licensed for the performance of divine service according to the forms of the Established Church.* The priest is lodged in a substantial new house; detached cottages with well-thatched roofs and whitewashed walls have everywhere replaced the crowded villages of the olden time; drains

and fences have been constructed, and every man lives, if not under his own vine and his own fig-tree, at least upon his own farm, none making him afraid of evil consequences, should he dare to step beyond the customary limits of the common indolence. "We found," said a committee of gentlemen, who acted as judges at the annual exhibibition in 1843, "that the interior of the houses fully realised the expectations raised by their exterior appearance-clean, orderly, and well-ventilated rooms, comfortable and suitable beds and bedsteads, with a supply of bedclothing and furniture equal at least to the wants of the inmates, and, in many instances, showing a taste in the arrangement for which we were quite unprepared." There was, even then, "a considerable extent of new ground, reclaimed from bog and mountain, bearing crops of oats and potatoes, and, in many places, the tenants were already attempting the cultiva tion of green crops," and labouring with comparative skill at draining and spade husbandry.

Slow and painful were the steps by which this progress was attained. Skilled artisans there were none: it was the habit of the people to subsidise a foreign carpenter, by the payment of an annual tribute of oats, on the condition that he would make their coffins when they died. Carpenters and masons were therefore imported from a distance, and such were the privations to which they were exposed during the erection of the buildings, that they frequently deserted in despair. The most vexatious and harassing opposition was offered by the people themselves; they would not labour at the foundations or fences, and they carried off the tools from such desperate wanderers as hunger and necessity forced to engage in the works.

The new-made fences were levelled at night; the whole scheme of innovation roused the ridicule no less than the indignation of the country. "They imagined, that by persevering in this way, they would in the end tire out Lord George Hill, prevent the divisions from being occupied, and thus defeat altogether the new plans." They were met, however, and overcome by a perseverance greater than their own. The store was built, the quay made, and the market of Bunbeg established; and then, "the next important step was to endeavour to obviate the old rundale-system, by placing each tenant on his own farm, preparatory to which, every landholder on the estate was served with a notice to quit.' A surveyor was employed, and maps were drawn. After six months had elapsed a commencement was made upon one of the townlands."*

6

The tenants were all assembled, and it was fully explained to them that each man should be allotted a just proportion of the townland, in accordance with all pre-existing rights and bargains. In order that they might be satisfied of the good faith in which the proposition was male, they were asked to appoint a committee of their own number to accompany the agent and surveyor, and assist in re-dividing the farms. When the division was accomplished, an interval of some days was allowed for objections and revisions, and then the farms were distributed by lot. This work, simple as it may seem, was not finished in less than three years; and, as it was accomplished in each case, a greater difliculty remained to be overcome. The house of

the tenant was to be removed from the cluster in which it was originally placed, to a convenient site upon his newly laid-out farm. Here a host of prejudices and ancient pleasant customs rose in the way of the reformer. Recollections of nights of social converse, of aid in sickness, of sympathy in joy and sorrow, of combined operations of defence against bailiff or guager, contrasted mournfully with the picture fancy was able to sketch of the solitary grandeur of the new self-contained dwelling. The expense of the change was declared by the first adventurers to be ruinous: it entailed upon them

the necessity of keeping a servantmaid, "just to talk to the wife." But these difficulties also were overcome. When a house was to be removed, a fiddler was engaged, whose services realised the myth of Orpheus. The stones moved at the sound of his notes, and travelled on the backs of the assembled neighbours to the new site, where they were again composed into a dwelling, by the power of music. Man, woman and child gathered around the artist, and, for that occasion, working with a will, they effected the bodily transplantation of a house in an incredibly short time, labouring and dancing alternately, and closing each day's work with a ball, often prolonged till the next rising of the sun.

The abolition of the rundale system and allotment of separate holdings was made the occasion of settling many disputes and redressing many grievances of old standing. Complaints, long suppressed, then found a ready vent; and some of the facts disclosed might be studied with profit by the dilettanti reformers of the land system of Ireland, who are so prone to look at the subject from a single point of view. Numerous usurpations of land by strong individuals or factions, were brought to light, and restorations were effected undertheinfluence of the newly-created public opinion. In one instance, a tenant complained that a portion of his farm, for which he was paying rent, had been forcibly seized, and held by a neighbour for thirty years. It was

found, upon inquiry, that the life of the former landlord had been seriously endangered in an attempt to do justice in this case, which was now redressed without commotion or resistance. Here was a cruel violation of tenant-right, which might have pointed the moral of many a tale by English fortnightly tourists, or adorned the address of many an aspirant senator, had it ended, Tipperary-wise, in the shooting of Lord George Hill or his agent; but which the former of these public instructors do not suspect, and the latter well know to be, in fact, the type of the majority of the agrarian grievances of Ireland. For one case of oppression of tenant by landlord, there are nineteen cases of oppression of tenant by fellow-tenant : nineteen agrarian murders are com

mitted in revenge for the redress of tenants' grievances, for one that has its origin in the wild justice of revenge for landlords' tyranny.

An

Coincidently with these operations, an attempt was made to stimulate industry by arousing a spirit of emulation, and by the hope of reward. annual show was announced, and premiums were offered for draining, trenching and fencing; for neat cottages with chimneys, and clean homesteads; for bedding and bedclothes; for green crops; for improved breeds of cattle; for flannel, woollen cloth, stockings, and butter. To those disposed to compete, the assistance and direction of the agricultural steward of the estate was tendered, and a preliminary exception was taken to any competitor who should be convicted of making or dealing in illicit malt or whiskey, or of being engaged in any breach of the public peace, or who did not pay his rent without compulsion. The first year not a single candidate appeared; the announcement was thought to be a hoax, and was laughed out of court accordingly. In 1840, it began to be suspected that there was something in the matter, and thirty-six competitors came forward, among whom the premiums were so adjudged as to give general satisfaction. The shows have been since held yearly, and with increasing success.

The curious social experiment we have been describing was severely tested during the melancholy years that have passed over Ireland since 1846; still it endures, and so far as a trial of fourteen years' duration can go, it goes towards solving the question of the permanency of the good done. In addition to those signs of advancement we have already alluded to we may mention, that there are no arrears due upon the rental, which is the same as it was in 1838; the average wages of a farm labourer is nine pence a-day; there are no beggars visible; no paupers from the district are, as we were informed, chargeable upon the union ; the people are well clad, healthy-looking, and orderly; the business of the post-office is steadily increasing; the traffic over the newly-made roads to Dunfanaghy and Letterkenny, growing daily more considerable. These are tenable positions in advance, yet we will not venture to say that the ground has yet been made

sure. We do not believe that the des potism under which so much has been done has as yet turned out a complete and finished work, and sincerely do we hope that the benevolent despot may be spared to accomplish and to enjoy the completion of his task; that he may live to abdicate, having trained his people into fitness for social self-government and freedom. With a view towards this end, it is manifest that Lord George Hill has shaped all his plans, and it is upon this peculiarity in his policy that we most confidently fix our hopes of his ultimate success. He has not shrunk from the exercise of authority nearly absolute, but he has exercised it manifestly with a design of training beings endowed with human faculties, not in the coercion and ordering of senseless machines. He issues his ukase against the sub-division, sale, or exchange of land, without his leave; he forbids the building or enlargement of houses, unapproved of by his agent, and he is prepared to enforce his laws by "severe punishment," by ejectment from the farm, expulsion from the estate; but he causes all men to know that such tyranny is "freedom's best and truest friend." His arbitrary power is directed to the overthrow of the hard slavery of poverty and dependence; his object, avowed and recognised, is to evoke a spirit of selfreliance, and a power of self-maintenance, which is liberty.

"The sons and daughters of the tenants must try and do for themselves; and if their parents can give them a cow, or the price of one, they should take a mountain farm, or go out to service, or get work elsewhere, if none is to be had near home.

"The old plan of dividing the land amongst the children of a family has made many beggars; this will, therefore, no longer be allowed."

It is thus, Lord George addresses his tenants; but while he forbids the rising generation to impose misery and slavery upon themselves, their parents, and their descendants, he opens a way by which they may attain to self-support and freedom. Under the circumstances indicated in his address, he will let them mountain farms at a shilling an acre for the first seven years, and give them security of tenure for twenty-one years, with no greater increase of rent than a shilling an acre at the close of each septennial period.