Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Letters from Ireland (Author: Friedrich von Raumer)

p.187

letter 62

Ireland — Distress — Orangemen — Intolerance — Reform — Dublin — Clonmel — Kilkenny — Calne — Early History — Cork — Misery — Beauty of the Irish Women.


Cork,

19 August:

To-day, on the anniversary of your birth-day, dear Hermann, I have reached nearly the remotest point of my journey; our thoughts, however, doubtless meet in affection and regard. May you continue to proceed blameless in the career of life, improve your mind and heart more and more, and lead a life as rich as possible in every enjoyment that active virtue can bestow. You have only twice caused me the greatest apprehensions, once when you were ill, and at the point of death, in Dobrau; and when I was not able to find you in the night on a road in France. Otherwise, I have never had reason to complain of you, and you certainly not of me. So may it continue till death parts us in this world!

I am much in arrear with my accounts, for I had no time, especially quiet hours in the morning, to write anything; add to this, that I have in my head so much, both general and special, so much that is personal, that I do not know where to begin, or how to make any orderly arrangement. Well, if it cannot be reduced to order, let all be mingled together as it flows from the pen. Go on.


p.188

All my plans to visit the lakes in Scotland were defeated, as I have already told you, by the unfavourable weather; however, I was able to see the two banks of the Clyde. The river and bay, before you sail from Greenock southwards to Ireland, close in such a manner, that you fancy you are sailing on an extensive lake surrounded with cultivated hills.

The time that I saved in Scotland I determined to employ in Ireland, because this much-talked-of country has become doubly remarkable in our days, and it is scarcely possible to decide, without ocular demonstration, which of the opposed opinions and assertions are correct. The following is my route: — Belfast, Lisburn, Newry, Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, Naas, Carlow, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Clogheen, Fermoy, Cork, Killarney (the Lakes,) Limerick, and back to Dublin.

The Bay of Belfast, with its green hills and environs, the city with its shipping and activity, excite a favourable opinion of Ireland, and (to begin with a consolatory declaration) there is no doubt that Ireland has, in general, made great progress in improvements, if we compare it with its condition in former centuries, with respect to legislation, manufactures, agriculture, &c. But that, for this reason, there is nothing more to be done, and that every complaint is unfounded or merely produced by excitement, can be affirmed only by persons who know nothing, or will know nothing, of Ireland. A country of such extent has, of course, barren, stony, or marshy tracts; nor is Ireland distinguished as one of the most


p.189

picturesque parts of Europe; but, on the whole, it is fertile, perhaps more fertile than England, and as beautiful as La Belle France. The first thing that strikes you is, that close to the finest and richest fields of wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and clover, there are other adjoining tracts wholly uncultivated, overgrown with high weeds; that an equally fruitful soil here manifests the highest cultivation and activity, and there the greatest neglect and abandonment. There is no want of good soil or of agricultural knowledge, nor of industry; there are so many hands, that the Irish emigrate by hundreds to work for very low wages. Whence, then, does this happen? The whole clearly points to the centre of all the evil, — to a defective, nay, a ruinous and condemnable legislation. Let us, however, proceed step by step, otherwise you might believe that I sought only to introduce pathetic declamations as a cover for falsehood or partiality.

Why does not the Irishman cultivate his land? Because he has none. Why does not the landlord employ those under him? — Because there is no landlord there.

If we take two steps, but with seven-leagued boots, we are at once on the summit of the naked rock from which we can overlook the whole misery of Ireland. Let us begin our considerations, as is fitting, with the Lords. Where are they? They are absentees, — they are absent. No, not absent, for he who is absent intends to return to a home which he loves, where he grew up, and which he doubly values after having seen many


p.190

countries and nations. An Irish absentee, on the contrary, is one who neglects his country, — who never visits it, nor intends to do so. He has no home, and desires none. This is the hereditary curse of the ancient dreadful confiscation. Violence gave them land, but with the mode of acquisition the avenging Nemesis joins the condition that it should never become their fatherland. But he who possesses land without loving it as a fatherland loses the noblest foundation for property, and there remains only the dead letter of the law, — and here in Ireland what is the law?

Public law and private law both equally require prescription; and no man can be farther than I am from desiring to stifle life, as it at present exists, in order to find, somewhere or other, an original germ of all life, and of a pretended eternal law. But as great sovereigns have been obliged to sanctify the defective origin of their new position by a praiseworthy system of government, or go to ruin, the landlords of Ireland who first intruded, and then absented themselves, are doubly bound to remain there, and to promote the interest of the country. Where only one performs this condition, I saw walls, fences, and hedges in good condition; plantations formed; the land free from weeds; the houses, at all events, kept in better repair, and the people rather better clothed, &c. And then, close by, what a contrast! Let him who would see the blessings of a well-disposed resident aristocracy in a few single instances, and the curse of an absent oligarchy in innumerable places, go to Ireland.


p.191

This is so fortunate a circumstance in our country, that the great landowners devote themselves more and more to agriculture, love their occupation, promote every improvement, and, directly or indirectly, exercise a salutary influence over the free peasantry. Here, on the contrary, the great landowners too often despise the country, agriculture, and people. The whole wisdom of their improvements is to squeeze more and more from the tenants-at-will. Instead of living in noble activity in the Emerald Isle, they idle away their existence in the arid, gray Provence, or sentimentalize about the beggars in Itri and Fondi, while hundreds of beggars are produced in Ireland by the harshness of their principles.

No other country can, in this respect, be compared with Ireland. Everywhere some wealthy persons travel, everywhere there are some individuals who seek a home abroad. But here the exception has become the rule, and measures which, in other places, appear not only superfluous, but absurd, here urge themselves as almost necessary through the power of circumstances.

The landowner will do nothing for the cultivation of the soil. The tenant can do nothing. Capital and credit are everywhere wanting. Only the industry of the tenants raises the rich harvest; but in the midst of an abundance which does not belong to them, they perish from misery and famine.

How shall I translate tenants-at-will? Wegjagbare? Expellable? Serfs? But, in the ancient days of vassalage, it consisted rather in keeping the


p.192

vassals attached to the soil, and by no means in driving them away. An ancient vassal is a lord compared with the present tenant-at-will, to whom the law affords no defence. Why not call them Jagdbare (chaseable?) But this difference lessens the analogy — that for hares, stags, and deer, there is a season, during which no one is allowed to hunt them; whereas tenants-at-will are hunted, and may be hunted, all the year round. And if any one would defend his farm (as badgers and foxes are allowed to do) it is here denominated rebellion.

But I hear it objected, — have we not a right? Do we violate any law if we live where we like; if we take from the tenants what they freely offer; and treat them according to the law, if they do not keep their engagement? Undoubtedly, you have a right, a perfect right; as much right as Shylock had to exact from Antonio the pound of flesh, and drain the life-blood from his heart. Fiat justicia el pereat mundus is the whole code of your laws. True justice, however, is not destructive, but conservative, and includes (as Plato shows) wisdom and moderation. True justice distributes, but does not plunder; and if any doubt could be entertained upon the subject, the Christian virtues step forward, and show how your heathenish Roman justice is to be purified. Summum jus, summa injuria!