The Measures of Relief for 1846-7--Difficulties--Shortcomings of the
Government--Vigorous action of other countries--Commissary General
Routh's Letter on the state of the depôts--Replies from the
Treasury--Delay--Incredulity of Government--English Press--Attacks
both on the Landlords and People of Ireland--Not the time for such
attacks--View of the _Morning Chronicle_--Talk about
exaggeration--Lieutenant-Colonel Jones--Changes his opinion--His
reason for doing so--Mr. Secretary Redington's ideas--Extraordinary
Baronial Presentments--Presentments for the County Mayo beyond the
whole rental of the county!--The reason why--Unfinished Public
Works--Lord Monteagle--Finds fault with the action of the
Government, although a supporter of theirs--Expenses divided between
landlord and tenant--Discontent at rate of wages on public works
being 2d. per day under the average wages of the district--Founded
on error--Taskwork--Great dissatisfaction at
it--Combination--Attempt on the Life of Mr. W.M. Hennessy--True way
to manage the people (_Note_)--Stoppage of Works--Captain
Wynne--Dreadful destitution--Christmas eve--Opposition to Taskwork
continues--Causes--Treasury Minute on the subject--Colonel Jones on
Committees--Insulting his officers--Insult to Mr. Cornelius O'Brien,
M.P.--Captain Wynne at Ennistymon--A real Irish Committee--Major
M'Namara--His version of the Ennistymon affair (_Note_)--Charges
against the Gentry of Clare by Captain Wynne--Mr. Millet on
Ennistymon--Selling Tickets for the Public Works--Feeling of the
Officials founded often on ignorance and prejudice--The Increase of
Deposits in the Savings Banks a Proof of Irish Prosperity--How
explained by Mr. Twistleton, an official--Scarcity of silver--The
Bank of Ireland authorized to issue it--The Public Works of 1845-6
brought to a close in August, 1846--The Labour-rate Act--Difficulty
of getting good Officials--The Baronies--Issues to
them--Loans--Grants--Total--Sudden and enormous Increase of
Labourers on the Works under the Labour-rate Act--How distributed
over the Provinces--Number of Officials superintending the Public
Works--Correspondence--Number of Letters received at Central
Office--Progress of the Famine--Number employed--Number seeking
employment who could not get it--The Death-roll.
To have met the Potato Famine with anything like complete success, would
have been a Herculean task for any government. The total failure of the
food of a nation was, as Mr. Monsell said, a fact new in history; such
being the case, no machinery existed extensive enough to neutralize its
effects, nor was there extant any plan upon which such machinery could
be modelled. Great allowance must be therefore made for the shortcomings
of the Government, in a crisis so new and so terrible; but after making
the most liberal concessions on this head, it must be admitted that Lord
John Russell and his colleagues were painfully unequal to the situation.
They either could not or would not use all the appliances within their
reach, to save the Irish people. Besides the mistakes they made as to
the nature of the employment which ought to be given, a chief fault of
their's was that they did not take time by the forelock--that they did
not act with promptness and decision. Other nations, where famine was
far less imminent, were in the markets, and had to a great extent made
their purchases before our Government, causing food to be scarcer and
dearer for us than it needed to be. Thus writes Commissary-General Routh
to the Treasury on the 19th of September:--"I now revert to the most
important of our considerations, the state of our depôts. We have no
arrivals yet announced, either at Westport or Sligo, and the remains
there must be nothing, or next to nothing. The bills of lading from Mr.
Erichsen are all for small quantities, which will be distributed, and
perhaps eaten, in twelve or twenty-four hours after their arrival. It
would require a thousand tons to make an impression, and that only a
temporary one. Our salvation of the depôt system is in the importation
of a large supply. These small shipments are only drops in the ocean."
The Treasury replies in this fashion, on the 22nd, to Sir R. Routh's
strong appeal:--"With reference to the remarks in your letter of the
19th instant, as to the insufficiency of the supplies for your depôts,
the fact is that we have already bought up and sent to Ireland all the
Indian corn which is immediately available; and the London and
Liverpool markets are at present so completely bare of this article,
that we have been obliged to have recourse to the plan of purchasing
supplies of Indian corn which had been already exported from London to
neighbouring Continental ports."[139] And again, on the 29th of the same
month, Mr. Trevelyan thus explains the difficulties the Treasury
laboured under in endeavouring to purchase the supplies for which the
Commissary-General had been so emphatically calling:--"It is little
known what a formidable competition we are suffering from our
Continental neighbours. Very large orders are believed to have been sent
out to the United States, not only by the merchants, but by the
Governments of France and Belgium, and in the Mediterranean markets they
have secured more than their share; all which will appear perfectly
credible, when it is remembered that they are buying our new English
wheat in our own market."[140]
Here at home, the fatal error of awaiting events, instead of
anticipating them, and by forethought endeavouring to control and guide
them, was equally pernicious. The most considerable persons in the
kingdom--peers, members of Parliament, deputy lieutenants, magistrates
without number--pronounced the potato crop of 1846 to be hopelessly gone
early in August. But although several members of the Government
expressed their belief in this, and spoke about it with great alarm,
they seem not to have given it full credence, until it was too late to
take anticipatory measures; in short, they regarded it, like everything
Irish, as greatly exaggerated. The most influential portion of the
English newspaper press supported and encouraged this view, making, at
the same time, fierce attacks on Irish landlords for not meeting the
calamity as they ought, and as they were bound in duty and conscience
to do. Equally bitter and insolent was their tone towards the Irish
people, accusing them of many inherent vices--denouncing their
ignorance, their laziness, their want of self-reliance. Whatever of
truth or falsehood may have been in those charges, it was not the time
to put them forward. Famine was at the door of the Irish nation, and its
progress was not to be stayed by invectives against our failings, or by
moral lectures upon the improvement of our habits. Food, food was the
single and essential requisite; let us have it at once, or we die;
lecture us afterwards as much as you please. But there was something to
be said on the other side about our habits and failings; and a liberal
English journalist, taking up the subject, turned their own artillery
upon his countrymen, telling them that those vices, of which they
accused the Irish people, were not an essential part of Celtic nature.
Has not the Irish Celt, he asks, achieved distinguished success in every
country of Europe but his own? The state in which he is to be found in
Ireland to-day must be, therefore, accounted for on some other theory
than the inherent good-for-nothingness of his nature. "The sluggish,
well-meaning mind of the English nation," he continues, "so willing to
do its duty, so slow to discover that it has any duty to do, is now
perforce rousing to ask itself the question, after five centuries of
English domination over Ireland, how many millions it is inclined to
pay, not in order to save the social system which has grown up under its
fostering care, but to help that precious child of its parental nurture
to die easy? Any further prolongation of existence for that system no
one now seems to predict, and hardly any one longer ventures to
insinuate that it deserves."
"This is something gained. The state of Ireland--not the present state
merely, but the habitual state--is hitherto the most unqualified
instance of signal failure which the practical genius of the English
people has exhibited. We have had the Irish all to ourselves for five
hundred years. No one has shared with us the privilege of governing
them, nor the responsibilities consequent on that privilege. No one has
exercised the smallest authority over them save by our permission. They
have been as completely delivered into our hands as children into those
of their parents and instructors. No one has ever had the power to
thwart our wise and benevolent purposes; and now, at the expiration of
nearly one-third of the time which has elapsed since the Christian era,
the country contains eight millions, on their own showing, of persecuted
innocents, whom it is the sole occupation of every English mind to
injure and disparage; on ours (if some of our loudest spokesmen are to
be taken as our representatives) of lazy, lawless savages, whose want of
industry and energy keeps them ever on the verge of starvation; whose
want of respect for life and property makes it unsafe for civilized
beings to dwell among them. England unanimously repudiates the first
theory; but is the other much less disgraceful to us? An independent
nation is, in all essentials, what it has made itself by its own
efforts; but a nation conquered, and held in subjugation ever since it
had a history, is what its conquerors have made it, or have caused it to
become. Yet this reflection does not seem to inspire Englishmen
generally with any feeling of shame. The evils of Ireland sit as lightly
on the English conscience as if England had done all which the most
enlightened and disinterested benevolence could suggest for governing
the Irish well, and for civilizing and improving them. What has ever yet
been done, or seriously attempted, for either purpose, except latterly,
by taking off some of the loads which we ourselves have laid on, history
will be at a loss to determine."[141]
Some of the officers connected with the relief works expressed their
opinion, that the failure of the potato crop and the deficiency of food
in the country were both exaggerated. They threw doubts on the veracity
of those with whom they conversed, and warned the Government to be
cautious about believing, to the full, the statements made by
individuals, committees, or newspapers. Sir Randolph Routh, the head of
the Commissariat Department, in a letter to Mr. Trevelyan, the
Assistant-Secretary to the Treasury, says: "In the midst of much real,
there is more fictitious distress; and so much abuse prevails, that if
you check it in one channel, it presents itself in another."[142] Again,
Assistant Commissary-General Milliken, writing to Sir R. Routh from
Galway, informs him that he met a considerable number of carts loaded
with meal and other supplies; and there did not, he said, appear that
extreme want and destitution that he had expected.[143] More than any
other did Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, Chairman of the Board of Works, keep
the idea of exaggerated and fictitious distress before the mind of the
Treasury, although he began his communications in a far different
spirit. Writing on the 1st of September to Mr. Trevelyan, he says: "The
prospects for the ensuing season are melancholy to reflect upon; the
potato crop may now be fairly considered as past; either from disease,
or from the circumstance of the produce being small, it has been
consumed; many families are now living upon food scarcely fit for hogs."
And again: "I am very much afraid that Government will not find _free
trade_, with all the employment we can give, a succedaneum for the loss
of the potato." Doubtless Colonel Jones soon discovered such views as
these to be distasteful to his superiors; so, like a prudent servant, he
puts them aside, and in his after communications adopts the very
opposite tone. He writes to Mr. Under-Secretary Redington[144] on the
13th of October, from Athlone, this piece of information, intended, he
says, for his Excellency: "On the 11th instant I posted from Dublin to
Banagher. Along the entire line of road I observed the farmyards well
stocked with corn, the crop of the past harvest, unthreshed"--thus
assuming that the four millions of people who lived almost exclusively
on potatoes had such things as farmyards and corn to put in them. In the
same month he writes again to Mr. Trevelyan, that he hears from more
quarters than one that the early potatoes, which were left in the
ground, now prove to be sound. Although small in size, he says, still
from one-third to one-half may be considered available for food. "On my
way here from Athlone," he again writes, "I went into a field where a
man was digging potatoes. The crop looked good, and he told me that it
was an early crop, and that he considered that about half were sound;
and I therefore hope that there is much more food of that description
than the general outcry about famine would lead strangers to suppose."
At the end of December he reports to the Treasury a conversation he had
had with an assistant-engineer from Roscommon, who told him his belief
was, that there were much more provisions in the country than was
generally supposed. He had every day, he said, good potatoes at eight
shillings a cwt. When the disease appeared, the people who held conacres
threw them up, and the potatoes remained undug. Those that were sound
continued so up to the late frost; and the people had, by degrees, been
taking them up. This engineer expected a considerable quantity,
serviceable for food, would be found during the ploughing of the land in
spring.
But the wail of starving millions reached the Lord Lieutenant from
every side, and, in compliance with it, he authorized the "Extraordinary
Baronial Presentment Sessions" to be held. At those sessions the tone of
the speakers was, on the whole, kind and liberal; acknowledging the
universality of the failure of the potato crop, and the necessity of
making immediate provision against its consequences. Sometimes the
presentments for the public works were very large--far beyond the entire
rental of the barony; yet they may not have been too great to meet the
starvation which the assembled ratepayers saw everywhere around them. At
Berehaven, in the County Cork, a place certainly fearfully tried by the
Famine, the presentments at the sessions--at the very first sessions
held in the barony--were said to be quadruple the rental of the entire
barony! This, however, was only one district of the largest Irish
county; but the presentments for the whole County of Mayo, the most
famine-stricken, to be sure, of all the counties, are worth remembering;
and so is their explanation. They were forwarded to the Board of Works
by the County Surveyor. The number of square miles in the county are
given at 2,132, the rent value being £385,100. The County Surveyor
recommended to the Sessions presentments amounting in the aggregate to
£228,000, nearly two-thirds of the entire rental. The Baronial Sessions,
however, were far from resting contented with this. The ratepayers and
magistrates assembled in their various baronies, presented for works to
the amount of £388,000, nearly £3,000 in excess of the entire rental of
the county; but which was finally cut down by the Board of Works to
£128,456 8s. 4d. Prudent people and political economists will at once be
inclined to exclaim, "Very right; it was most fortunate to have an
authority to check such recklessness." But, softly; let there be no
hasty conclusions. Hear the end. The County Surveyor gives the
population of Mayo at 56,209 families, _of whom 46,316 families_, he
says, _were to be employed on the relief works!_ Taking those families
at the common average of five and a-half individuals to each, the total
number would be 254,738 persons. The presentments allowed would thus
give about ten shillings' worth, of employment for each individual, with
nine or ten foodless months before them. The conclusion is inevitable;
the presentments allowed were utterly inadequate to meet the Famine in
Mayo, the fearful consequences of which we shall learn as we
proceed.[145]
Many of the speakers at the Presentment Sessions charged the Government
with a breach of faith, in not finishing the works which were
prematurely closed on the 15th of August, 1846. Those works were
commenced under the law passed by Sir Robert Peel's Government, whereby
the baronies, or, in other words, the ratepayers, paid _one-half the
expense_, and the Government the other; so that even if Lord John
Russell's Government took them up anew, under the Labour-rate Act, _the
whole expense_ should, according to the terms of that Act, fall upon the
baronies. This was looked upon as a grievance, and at the Glenquin
Sessions, in the county Limerick, Lord Monteagle, a friend and supporter
of the Administration, put the grievance in the shape of a resolution,
which was unanimously adopted. In moving the resolution, his lordship
said: "We claim that we have a right to ask from the Government one-half
of the expenses incurred by the completion of these works, on the terms
and conditions upon which we entered into the engagement. The Government
are bound to do this in point of justice." The resolution was: "That
whilst we express our full approval of these works, yet the magistrates
and ratepayers feel that it is also their duty to express their strong
and unanimous opinion, that the just construction of the arrangement
between this barony and the Government for the completion of such works
as have been commenced under the Act 9 Vic. c. 1, requires an adherence
to the terms of that contract."
Some, whilst finding fault with the illiberality of the Government,
still expressed their satisfaction at the expenses under the new Act
being equally divided between landlord and tenant; a proper
responsibility being thus placed upon landlords, which was not the case
under the former Act. Very general discontent was manifested at the rule
by which the rate of wages on the public works was to be twopence a day
under the average wages of the district in which the works were being
carried on. Wages ruled so excessively low at the time, it was felt
that, with rapidly advancing markets, the labourer on the works could
not get food sufficient for his family. The object of this rule,
however, was obvious and well meant enough; it was framed to induce
agricultural labourers to remain at their usual employments, in order
that the crops might be sown. Had the Government been well informed of
the relations subsisting between farmer and labourer in Ireland, they
would have known that this arrangement could not have the desired
effect, _money-wages regularly paid_ being almost a thing unknown to our
agricultural population at the time; whilst the Famine made money-wages,
regularly paid, the first essential of existence.[146]
When the Government began to insist on task, or piecework, instead of
day labour, the greatest amount of dissatisfaction that occurred during
the entire Famine manifested itself. The engineers of the Board of Works
reported over and over again, that an industrious man, willing to
labour, could earn from fifteen to eighteen pence a-day under this
arrangement, yet the people rose in combination--almost in
rebellion--against it, whilst daily wages ranged from eight to tenpence
only. They assaulted overseers; refused to work for them; threatened
their lives, and in one instance at least, attempted the life of a
Government functionary. At the village of Clare, in the county of that
name, some short distance south of Ennis, the capital, this
insubordination seems to have become rather formidable, as a murderous
outrage was committed there on the head steward of the works, Mr. W.
Hennessy, half-way between Clare and Ennis. He was fired upon by one of
four men whom he observed inside the road ditch, as he passed along. The
weapon used was a blunderbuss. It was charged with some of the blasting
powder belonging to the works, and duck shot; so that although Mr.
Hennessy received the contents in his right side, he was not mortally
wounded, and recovered in a little time. Captain Wynne, the local
inspector, giving an account of this outrage to his Board, says, the
cause of the outrage was because Mr. Hennessy was trying to get the men
into proper training. Quite likely. But it must be taken into account,
that a duty of that kind might be done in such a way as neither to
offend the men, nor lose their respect or esteem; and it might be done
in an offensive insolent manner, calculated to exasperate them,
especially as they were in a state of excitement at the period.[147]
Captain Wynne further says, that the perpetrator of the outrage was
known, but could not be brought to justice. The Board of Works, to mark
its indignation at this murderous attack upon one of its servants,
stopped the works in the locality, and the inhabitants, miserably off
before, sank into a state of the most heartrending destitution, as is
testified by Captain Wynne, writing from the same place a fortnight or
three weeks after, to Colonel Jones.[148] "I must again," he says, "call
your attention to the appalling state in which Clare Abbey is at
present. I ventured through that parish this day, to ascertain the
condition of the inhabitants, and although a man not easily moved, I
confess myself unmanned by the extent and intensity of suffering I
witnessed, more especially among the women and little children, crowds
of whom were to be seen scattered over the turnip fields, like a flock
of famishing crows, devouring the raw turnips, and mostly half naked,
shivering in the snow and sleet, uttering exclamations of despair,
whilst their children were screaming with hunger. I am a match for
anything else I may meet with here, but this I cannot stand. When may we
expect to resume the works?" This letter does much credit to the feeling
and manly heart of Captain Wynne. He says the wretched beings were
devouring the raw turnips they found in the fields, but surely very
little such was to be found among the snowdrifts in the last days of
December, for, sad to say, his letter was written on Christmas Eve! Such
a Christmas for the people of Clare Abbey, and of a thousand places
besides!
Beyond doubt, the Government, and those under them, had enormous
difficulties to contend against. Every new scheme, or modification of a
scheme, proposed by them had its inconveniences. Inspectors, engineers,
and overseers appeared to regard the opposition to task work as the
dislike of the lazy Celt to labour for his daily bread, and to his wish
to get the "Queen's pay," as the wages on the works were termed, without
doing anything for it. Hence they were of opinion almost from the
outset, that the sooner the system of task work was enforced the better,
as the people, they said, seemed to be generally under the impression
that no work was really required from them. This was a very wrong and
demoralizing notion, if it were entertained to any considerable extent.
Very probably it had a percentage of truth in it, but no more. Worthless
idlers, in no very urgent distress, must from the nature of things, have
got employed upon works so extensive, but the officials were too fond of
founding general conclusions on isolated, or at least on an insufficient
number of cases. The opposition to task work arose from more than one
cause. Lazy unprincipled people were opposed to it, because they were
lazy and unprincipled; a far larger class were opposed to it, because it
was no secret that the works were carried on not for sake of their
utility, but to keep the people from being idle. Had this class been
employed upon really useful works, such as reclaiming land, tilling the
soil, draining, subsoiling, or railroad-making, they would, no doubt,
have had more heart for their daily labour. There is a natural
repugnance in the mind of a man to apply himself in earnest to what he
has been told is useless,--to what he sees and feels to be useless. If a
labourer were hired, and even given good wages, for casting chaff
against the wind, I make bold to say, he would soon resign his
employment, from sheer inability to work at anything so much opposed to
his common sense. A third and a very large class of the labouring
population were opposed to task work, because they were able to earn so
very little at it. "Those who choose to labour may earn good wages,"
writes Colonel Jones to Mr. Trevelyan; but he forgot, or was ignorant of
the fact, that great numbers of the working class had been already so
weakened and debilitated by starvation, that they were unable to do what
the overseers regarded as a day's work; and it is on record that task
work frequently brought industrious willing workmen less money than they
would have received under the day's-work system.[149]
At the end of October a Treasury Minute was published to the effect that
such prices were to be allowed for Relief Works, executed by task, as
would enable good labourers to earn from one shilling to one shilling
and sixpence a day; the day's work system, at the wages fixed by the
Treasury Minute of the 31st of August, was to be in future confined to
those who were unable or unwilling to work by task. There was some
concession in this. Under it the labourer could choose piece work or
day's work as seemed more advantageous to himself. The spirit, at least,
of the August Treasury Minute was, that all should work by task. "The
persons employed on the Relief Works," says that Minute, "should, to the
utmost possible extent, be paid in proportion to the work actually done
by them." In a few instances task work was reported to have given
satisfaction, but in the great majority of cases it was resisted by the
labourers, and it sometimes resulted in serious disturbances, as we have
seen. The local Committees, who had much to do with preparing the lists
of those whose circumstances made them proper objects for the public
works, were repeatedly complained of by the Government officials.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, who appears to have been more severe and
distrustful than his subordinates, accuses Committees of insulting his
officers, producing improper lists, and even of balloting amongst
themselves for the persons who were to be put upon the works.
With regard to the first accusation there was generally a counter-charge
from the Committees, accusing the Board's officers of being insulting
and overbearing to them. One of the most noteworthy cases of this kind
occurred at Ennistymon. Captain Wynne, the Board of Works' inspector,
writes a long complaint about the treatment he had received from the
members of the Committee there; it being, amongst other things, he says,
proposed that he should be kicked out of the Court-house, where the
Committee was assembled. The well-disposed few, he writes, advised him
to stay at Ennistymon for the night, or to take an escort of police with
him, should he persevere in his intention of returning to Ennis; "but,"
he continues, "with my double gun, a rifle, and three cases of pistols,
Mr. Gamble, myself, and Mr. Russell returned home. Mr. Russell was very
anxious to see a Clare Relief Committee. He was indeed astonished. He
said he would not have supposed matters were so bad."[150] There is a
fine dash of the sensational in this. Mr. Russell's anxiety was very
laudable, being evidently akin to that thirst for information which
excites travellers like Captain Cook or Dr. Livingstone to seek an
assembly or encampment of "natives" in some previously unexplored
region; but there happened to be members of the Ennistymon Relief
Committee in every respect the equals, and in some the superiors of
Captain Wynne and Mr. Russell. Major M'Namara, one of the members for
the county, thus gives his version of the affair to the Chief Secretary,
Mr. Labouchere: "I feel it to be my duty towards myself and the
constituency of this county, to state to you, as the organ of the
Government, that I was present on Thursday at Ennistymon, when Mr.
Wynne, an inspecting officer of the Board of Works, gave my colleague,
Mr. O'Brien, in the presence of several magistrates and gentlemen
assembled at the Ennistymon Relief Committee, the most unprovoked
insult, by stating that he treated what Mr. O'Brien said with utter
contempt, although Mr. O'Brien merely observed that certain letters
containing what we all believed to be unfounded charges against the
Liscannor Committee, afforded evidence of a vile conspiracy." Captain
Wynne being called on by the authorities for an explanation, charged the
gentry of Clare with putting their servants and dependants on the lists
for public works without being proper objects for them, and that they
were indignant with him because he took such persons off in great
numbers. He did not, however, deny the insult Major M'Namara had charged
him with giving his brother representative for the county, Mr. Cornelius
O'Brien.[151]
As to the complaint made by Colonel Jones about the preparation of the
lists, there does not seem to be much in it. Men of influence would
naturally try to get their own people on the works in preference to
others, but the efforts of such parties would be calculated to
neutralize each other. The balloting for the lists is explainable on
very legitimate grounds. Great as the extent of the Relief Works
undoubtedly was, these works were lamentably short of the wants of the
time. Let us suppose that five hundred men in a district were, every
one, urgent cases for the Relief Works, and let us suppose employment
could not be given to them all, a very common occurrence indeed, what
more natural--what more just than to select by ballot those who were to
be recommended? It is hard to see what else could be done, unless the
system of influence and favoritism against which Colonel Jones
complained, were adopted. The ballot, in short, would seem in many
instances the only means of defeating that system. It might be said that
five hundred equally pressing cases could not be found in the same
district. Very true. But what was unfortunately found in many districts
was, twice--thrice as many cases as there was employment for, the least
urgent of which might be well pronounced very urgent. Such, for
instance, was the fact in the whole county of Mayo.
After Skibbereen, Bantry, and Skull, there was scarcely any place in the
South so famine-stricken as Ennistymon. The gentry of the place knew the
real wants of the population, and pressed them on the Government
officials; while they, on the other hand, in obedience to orders, felt
bound to keep the labour lists as low as possible. To have reduced those
lists always served an inspector at head-quarters. In such cases it is
no wonder that unpleasant differences sometimes arose between Committees
and inspectors. That Ennistymon was sorely tried appears from many
communications to the Board of Works. A very short time after Captain
Wynne's unpleasant quarrel with the Committee there, I find Mr. Millet,
the officer, I suppose, who succeeded him, writing to the Board from
that town, that he was besieged in his house by men trying to compel him
to put them on the works, on which account he could not get out until
half-past four o'clock in the evening. "Some of the men make a list," he
writes, "and get it sent by the Committee whether men are wanting or
not. The people think this is sufficient authority."[152] From this it
seems clear that the works at Ennistymon were quite insufficient for the
number of the destitute. The starving people wanted to get employment,
_whether men were wanting or not_. What a complaint! Good Mr. Millet,
the question with the people was not whether you required workmen or
not, but it was, that they and their families were in the throes of
death from want of food, and they saw no other way of getting it but by
being employed on those works. Besides, your masters began by stating
that the Public Works were not undertaken on account of their necessity
or utility, but for the purpose of rescuing the people from famine, by
giving them employment.[153]
The inspectors and the local Committees had such frequent differences,
that the Board had it under serious consideration to dispense with those
Committees altogether. This idea was abandoned, but the important
privilege of issuing tickets for the Works was taken away from the
Committees, by an order of the Board, bearing date the 9th of December.
Besides the various other complaints forwarded to Dublin of the way in
which tickets were issued by the Committees, one officer writes that he
finds they had become a "saleable commodity" in the hands of the
labourers. A man, he says, obtains a ticket, disposes of it for what he
can get, and goes back for another, feeling sure that amongst the
numberless applicants he would not be recognized as having been given
one before. This practice, which was not and could not be carried on to
any great extent, was but another proof that the works were insufficient
to meet the demand for employment. Instead of the issue of tickets by
Committees it was ruled by the Board, that the inspecting officer should
furnish to the check clerk, for the engineer, a list of the men to be
employed on any particular work.[154]
As before remarked, an undercurrent of feeling pervaded the minds of
officials that there was not at all so much real distress in Ireland as
the people pretended, and that there was a great deal more food in the
country than there was said to be. This was sometimes openly asserted,
but more frequently hinted at and insinuated in communications to the
Board of Works and the Treasury. It was founded partly on prejudice, and
partly on ignorance of the real state of affairs, which was far worse
than the most anxious friends of the people asserted, as the event,
unfortunately, too truly proved. That there was some deception and much
idleness, in connection with the public works, cannot be doubted for a
moment; such works being on a gigantic and ever increasing scale,
effective supervision was impossible. The mistake of many of the
officials, although not of all, was, that they regarded such exceptional
things as an index to the general state of the country, built theories
upon them, and sent those theories up to their superiors, which helped
to make them close-handed and suspicious. Those officials did not, and,
in many cases, could not sound the depths of misery into which the
country had sunk; the people were dying of sheer starvation around them,
whilst they were writing reports accusing them of exaggeration and
idleness. What the Rev. Jeremiah Sheahan of Clenlure, in the County
Cork, said of his parishioners was equally true in hundreds of other
cases: "The most peaceable have died of want in their cabins. More than
twelve have done so in the last six days."[155]
One of the proofs brought forward that the Irish people were not so
badly off as they pretended--in fact that in many instances they were
concealing their wealth, was, _the increase of deposits in the Savings
Banks_. At a superficial glance there would appear to be much truth in
this conclusion; but we must remember that the millions whom the potato
blight left foodless, never, in the best of times, had anything to put
in Savings' Banks. They planted their acre or half acre of potatoes,
paid for it by their labour; they had thus raised a bare sufficiency of
food; and so their year's operations began and ended. An official of the
Irish Poor Law Board, Mr. Twistleton, gave a more elaborate and detailed
answer to the Savings' Banks argument. Writing to the Home Secretary,
Sir George Grey, under date of the 26th of December, he calls his
attention to leaders in the _Times_ and _Morning Chronicle_ on the
subject. One of those articles is remarkable, he says, since it "seemed
to treat the increase in the deposits as a proof of _successful
swindling on the part of the Irish people_, during the present year." So
far from this being true, an increase, in Mr. Twistleton's opinion,
might show "severe distress," inasmuch as when times begin to grow hard,
deposits would increase for the following reasons:
1. People in employment, who were thoughtless before and did not
deposit, would begin to be depositors in bad times.
2. People in employment, who were depositors before, would increase
their deposits.
3. Thrifty people, who would at other times have gone into little
speculations, would now be afraid to do so, and they would become
depositors instead.
4. Persons of a higher class, say employers, in such times cease to be
employers and become depositors.
An increase of deposits, Mr. Twistleton admits, may arise from
prosperity; he only wishes to show that such increase is not always a
certain sign of it. We know too well now, that the increase of deposits
in some of our Savings' Banks during the Famine, was no sign whatever of
prosperity; yet the _journals_ named above, at once built upon the fact
a theory most damaging to the existing destitution of our people, and
most injurious to their moral character; basing this theory on one of
those general principles of political economy, which often admits of
grave exceptions, and sometimes breaks down utterly, when put to the
test of practical experience.
Amongst the minor difficulties with which the Board of Works had to
contend, were scarcity of silver, and the impossibility of having
suitable tools manufactured in sufficient quantity. Gold and bank notes
were of little or no use on pay day,--and where works were opened in
wild out-of-the-way places, there was no opportunity of exchanging them
for silver coin. Representations on this head having been made by the
Inspectors, the "Comet," a government vessel, was sent to deliver as
much silver as was required, to the various banks in the towns round the
coast of Ireland; but this system was not long persevered in. Towards
the end of October, Mr. Secretary Trevelyan announced that the Treasury
would return to the ordinary mode of supply. The Bank of England, he
informed the Board, is the appointed distributor of silver coin, which
is supplied to it for that purpose by the Treasury; but as there might
be some inconvenience in sending to England, the Board of Works are to
apply to the Bank of Ireland, which is authorized to give silver coin
when they have it, and when it is not in their own vaults, they will
procure it for the Board from the Bank of England.[156] In this manner
the want was met, but there is very little in the official
correspondence about the channels through which it reached the various
parts of the country where it was required; secrecy on the subject
being, no doubt, thought necessary to avoid danger.
The public works projected and carried on by the Government to meet the
distress of 1845-6 were brought to a close on the 15th of August of the
latter year. The Treasury Minute, empowering the Board to begin anew
public works in Ireland under the provisions of the Labour-rate Act, was
published on the 31st of the same month; so that the officials whom the
Board had added to their ordinary staff, when entrusted with the
management of the previous public works, were, we may assume, still in
their hands, when they received their new commission from the Treasury.
Although numerous, they were miserably insufficient for the vast and
terrible campaign now before them. Indeed, throughout those trying and
marvellous times, a full supply of efficient officers the Board was
never able to secure; the pressure was so great, the undertakings so
numerous and extensive, that this is by no means matter for surprise. A
few figures selected from their accounts and reports, will serve to show
the sudden and extraordinary expansion of their operations.
The baronies to which loans had been issued up to the 31st of December,
1846, under the Labour-rate Act, numbered _three hundred and
twenty-two_, and the total sum issued up to the same time was £999,661
4s. 2d.--a million of money, in round numbers. Besides this, many of
those baronies (but not all) had obtained loans under previous Acts;
whilst baronies, which had as yet made no application for loans under
the Labour-rate Act, were also indebted to Government for money borrowed
under previous Acts. The number of baronies which had taken out loans
under the Acts of 1 Vic., cap. 21, and 9 and 10 Vic., cap. 124, was four
hundred and twenty-four. The account between the baronies and the
Government stood thus on the 31st of December, 1846:
Loans to baronies under Acts passed previous
to the Labour-rate Act ... £186,060 1 5
Grants ... 229,464 8 0
Loans to baronies under the Labour-rate Act 999,661 4 2
--------------
Making in all ... £1,415,185 13 7
£229,464 8s. 0d. being the amount of grants, and £1,185, 721 5s. 7d.
being the amount of loans; besides which there was expended by the Board
of Works under various drainage Acts, for the year ending 31st December,
1846, a sum of £110,022 14s. 4d.
In the week ending the 3rd of October, there were 20,000 persons
employed on the public works in Ireland; in the week ending the 31st of
the same month, there were over 114,000. In the very next week, the
first week of November, there were 162,000 on the works; and in the week
ending the 28th of November, the returns give the number as something
over 285,000! A fortnight later, in a detailed account of the operations
of the Board, supplied to the Treasury, this remarkable sentence occurs:
"The works at present are in every county in Ireland, affording
employment to _more than_ three hundred thousand persons."[157] The
increase went on rapidly through December. In the week ending the 5th of
that month, there were 321,000 employed; and in the week which closed on
the 26th, the extraordinary figure was 398,000![158]
The number of persons employed was greatest in Munster, and least in
Ulster. At the beginning of December, they were thus distributed in the
four Provinces: Ulster, 30,748; Leinster, 50,135; Connaught, 106,680;
and Munster, 134,103. At the close of the month the same proportion was
pretty fairly maintained, the numbers being: for Ulster, 45,487; for
Leinster, 69,585; for Connaught, 119,946; and for Munster, 163,213.
According to the Census of 1841, there were in Ulster 439,805 families;
in Leinster, 362,134; in Connaught, 255,694; and in Munster, 415,154.
From these data, the proportion between the number of persons employed
on the relief works in each Province, and the population of that
Province, stood thus at the close of the year 1846: in Ulster there was
one labourer out of every nine and two-thirds families so employed; in
Leinster there was one out of about every five and a quarter families;
in Munster, one out of every two and a-half families; and in Connaught,
one out of every two and about one-seventh families.
At the end of November, the number of employees superintending the
public works were: 62 inspecting officers; 60 engineers and county
surveyors; 4,021 overseers; 1,899 check clerks; 5 draftsmen; 54 clerks
for correspondence; 50 clerks for accounts; 32 pay inspectors, and 425
pay clerks--making in all 6,913 officials, distributed over nine
distinct departments.
The gross amount of wages rose, of course, in proportion to the numbers
employed. At the end of October, the sum paid weekly was £61,000; at the
end of November, £101,000; and for the week ending the 26th of December,
£154,472.
The number of Relief Committees in operation throughout the country at
the close of 1846, was about one thousand. Indeed, everything connected
with the Public Works and the Famine tends to impress one with their
gigantic proportions;--even the correspondence, the state of which is
thus given by the Board in the middle of December: "The letters received
averaged 800 a-day, exclusive of letters addressed to individual members
of the Board, on public business; the number received on the last day of
November was 2,000; to-day, (17th December,) two thousand five hundred."
All this notwithstanding, the Famine was but very partially stayed: on
it went, deepening, widening, desolating, slaying, with the rapidity and
certainty which marked the progress of its predecessor, the Blight. The
numbers applying for work without being able to obtain it, were
fearfully enormous. From a memorandum supplied by the Board of Works to
Sir Randolph Routh, the head of the Commissariat Department, dated the
17th of December, we learn that the labourers then employed were about
350,000, whilst the number on Relief Lists (for employment) was about
500,000,--that is, there were 150,000 persons on the lists seeking work,
who could not, or at least who did not, get it. Those 150,000 may be
taken to represent at least half a million of starving people;--how many
more were there at the moment, whose names never appeared on any list,
except the death-roll!
FOOTNOTES:
[139] Commissariat Series of Blue Books, Correspondence, vol. I., pp. 80
and 83.
[140] _Ib._ p. 98.
[141] _Morning Chronicle_ quoted in _Freeman's Journal_ of October 7th,
1846. The _Standard_, commenting on a letter which appeared in the
_Times_ shortly before on the same subject, and written in the same
spirit of hostility to the Irish people, says it would be "indecent" at
any time; at present it is "intolerably offensive" and "greatly
mischievous." "That the Irish are not naturally an idle race," continues
the _Standard_, "every man may satisfy himself in London streets, and in
the streets of all our great towns, where nearly all the most toilsome
work is performed by Irish labourers."
[142] Letter in Commissariat Series of Blue Books, vol. I., p. 360.
[143] _Ib._ p. 349.
[144] Afterwards Sir Thomas Redington, Knt.
[145] Mr. Brett, County Surveyor of Mayo to the Board of Works. Board of
Works Series of Blue Books, vol. L, p. 125.
[146] "_Employment_, with wages in _cash_ is the general outcry."--_Com.
Gen. Hewitson to Mr. Trevelyan; Commissariat Series, p. 12._
[147] "Those at taskwork had fivepence, and in some cases as low as
threepence per diem. In other cases, again, an opposite extreme existed,
and as much as two shillings and twopence per diem was found in two
instances to have been paid ... I fear there was not, in all cases,
sufficient sympathy for the present sufferings of the poor--a feeling
quite compatible with a firm and honest discharge of duty. This inflames
the minds of the people against the system generally, and they become
victims alike to their own intemperance, and the mismanagement of those
placed over them. Throughout the country, in the majority of cases,
disturbances are attributable wholly, or in a great degree, to such
errors, overseers acting more as slave-drivers than as the messengers of
benevolence to an afflicted but warm-hearted people."--_A Twelvemonth's
Residence in Ireland during the Famine and the Public Works, with
suggestions to meet the coming crisis. By William Henry Smith, C.E.,
late conducting Engineer of Public Works. London, 1848; p. 94._
Again: "I much regretted leaving, and but for the circumstance of some
imperative engagements recalling me to London, my intended sojourn of
two or three months, which I originally named to the Commissioners,
would probably have been prolonged even beyond what it eventually was,
amongst a people whom I saw no reason to fear, even when using necessary
severity, but on the contrary every reason to admire, from their
strongly affectionate dispositions and resignation in deep suffering:
they treated it as the will of God, and murmured, 'Thy will be
done.'"--_Ibid. p. 18._
[148] "In cases where disturbances arose in any one district, the works
of the whole barony were suspended, inflicting injury upon all, the
guilty and innocent indiscriminately."--_Ibid. p. 93._
[149] See Note p. 203, from Mr. Smith's valuable book, _A Twelvemonth's
Residence in Ireland_.
[150] Board of Works Series, vol. L, p. 53.
[151] On the 8th of February, 1847, during the debate on the "Poor
Relief (Ireland) Bill," in the House of Commons, Lord Duncan said, "He
found it stated in the Blue Book he had referred to, that the two
members for Clare had put tenants upon the relief-rate who were paying
them considerable rents. He trusted that they would be prepared to deny
this serious imputation."
Major M'Namara rose and said:--"Sir--As one of the members for Clare, I
beg to say, that every sentence in Captain Wynne's letter is a malicious
falsehood. (Some sensation, amid which the hon. member resumed his
sat)."
[152] He thus complains in italics: "_None of the gentry will take our
part except one_." Board of Works Blue Books, vol. L, p. 352, Appendix.
[153] "The works under 9 and 10 Vic., c. 107, are sanctioned for sake of
the relief and not for sake of the works themselves." Mr. Trevelyan to
Lieut.-Colonel Jones, 5th October, 1846.
[154] The duty of check clerks was to visit the works frequently, to
count the labourers, and prepare the pay lists.
[155] Memorial to Lord John Russell, Dec. 14, 1846.
[156] Letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, 28th October, 1846.
[157] Board of Works' Series of Blue Books, vol. L (50), p. 352.
[158] Another account makes it only 376,133. It is easy to see that
perfect accuracy with regard to the number of persons employed on the
works at any given time was, for obvious reasons, not to be attained.
The figures given above from the official returns are, therefore, only
an approximation to the truth, but they may be accepted as substantially
correct.