The Landlords' Committee--A new Irish party--Circular--The "Great
Meeting of Irish Peers, Members of Parliament and Landlords" in the
Rotunda--The Resolutions--Spirit of those
Resolutions--Emigration--Great anxiety for it--Opening of
Parliament--Queen's Speech--England on her Trial--Debate on the
Address--Lord Brougham on Irish Landlords--Lord Stanley on the
Famine--Smith O'Brien's Speech--Defends the Landlords--Mr
Labouchere, the Irish Secretary, defends the Government--The Irish
Agricultural population were always on the brink of starvation, and
when the Blight came it was impossible to meet the disaster--The
views of the _Morning Chronicle_ on the Government of Ireland--Mr.
Labouchere quotes the Poor-Law Enquiry of 1835 and the Devon
Commission--Change of the Government's views on the
Famine--Griffith's estimate of the loss by the Blight--Extent of
Irish pauperism--Lord George Bentinck points out the mistakes of the
Government--The people should have been supplied with food in remote
districts--He did not agree with the political economy of
non-interference--Mr. D'Israeli's manipulation of Lord George's
speech--Letter of Rev. Mr. Townsend of Skibbereen--Fourteen funerals
waiting whilst a fifteenth corpse was being interred--Quantity of
corn in London, Liverpool and Glasgow--Lord John Russell's
speech--He regarded the Famine as a "national calamity"--Absurd
reason for not having summoned Parliament in Autumn--Sir Robert
Peel's view--The Prime Minister on the state of Ireland--His
views--His plans--Defends the action of the Government--Defends
unproductive work--Reason for issuing the "Labouchere
letter"--Quotes Smith O'Brien approvingly--Mr. O'Brien's letters to
the landlords of Ireland (_note_)--Confounding the questions of
temporary relief and permanent improvement--Fallacy--Demoralization
of labour--The Premier's "group of measures"--Soup
kitchens--Taskwork--Breakdown of the Public Works--Food for
nothing--Mode of payment of loans--£50,000 for seed--Impossibility
of meeting the Famine completely--The permanent measures for
Ireland--Drainage Act--Reclamation of waste lands--Sir Robert Kane's
"Industrial Resources" of Ireland--Emigration again--Ireland not
overpeopled--Description of England and Scotland in former times by
Lord John Russell--His fine exposition of "the Irish question"--Mr.
P. Scrope's Resolution--A count out--Bernal Osborne--Smith
O'Brien--The good absentee landlords--The bad resident
landlords--Sir C. Napier's view--Mr. Labouchere's kind
words--Confounds two important questions--Mr. Gregory's quarter-acre
clause--Met with some opposition--Irish liberals vote for it--The
opponents of the quarter-acre clause--Lord George Bentinck's attack
on the Government (_note_).
About the middle of December, there was formed in Dublin a committee of
landlords, which assumed the name of the Reproductive Works Committee.
Its objects were excellent. It was to be the beginning of a real Irish
party, whose members were to lay aside their differences, political and
religious, that, by a united effort, they might carry the country
through the death-struggle in which it then was, and lay the foundation
of its future progress to prosperity. Many of the best men in the whole
nation were active promoters of this movement; but, viewed as a whole,
it was little more than the embodied expression of the fears of the
landlords, that they would be swamped by the rates levied to feed the
people, and of their hopes that, by uniting, for the occasion, with the
popular leaders, they would be able to compel the Government so to shape
its course, that, at any rate, _they_ would come forth safe from the
ordeal. Neither the Committee, nor the landlords who met in Dublin at
their call, intended to form a permanent Irish party; in fact, it could
not be done in the sense indicated by them. In a circular which was
issued the first week of January, they say:
"That, at this awful period of national calamity, it becomes the first
duty of every Irishman to devote his individual efforts to the interests
of Ireland, and that neither politics, parties, nor prejudices should
influence his mind in the discharge of such a duty."
"That, as we feel deeply convinced that our own divisions have been the
leading causes of our own misfortunes, and, by weakening our influence
in the councils of the empire, have deprived us of our share in the
general prosperity, so we are no less firmly persuaded that it is by
union alone that we can repair the evils that dissension has created."
"That, if the necessity of joint and united action be urgent and
important to Ireland, under ordinary circumstances, it at this moment
becomes imperative and vital, as not only the future fortunes, but the
present lives of millions, may depend on our exertions, and that
dissensions at such an hour is not only a reproach but a crime."
"That, to make such an union binding and effective, it will be necessary
not only to feel, but to act together, to take steps to ensure an united
support or united opposition to such measures as may be produced with
regard to Ireland during this anxious session of Parliament."
"That, for this purpose, we venture to suggest to the Irish members of
the Legislature, to meet together at such a time as may be considered
most proper and convenient, for the purpose of forming an Irish party
for the protection of Irish interests; and we earnestly entreat, that
every member of that body should resolve, as far as is possible, to
consider and modify his own opinion, so as to meet the united feelings
of the general body, and should banish from his mind all considerations
of party or prejudice, at a time when the lives and interests of his
countrymen are so deeply perilled."
"That we feel confident a union thus formed and carried on, for the
protection of all classes, will receive the support and co-operation of
all--the aid of the rich, and the confidence of the poor. We pray Divine
Providence to bless our efforts in the cause of our afflicted
country--to promote amongst us that feeling of united exertion and
self-reliance which can alone raise us to our proper place in the great
empire to which we belong."
A few days later, the Committee instructed their secretaries to call a
meeting of the peers, members of Parliament, and landed proprietors of
Ireland, in the Rotunda, on the 14th of January, for the consideration
of the social condition of the country, all political and extraneous
topics to be strictly excluded. They published at the same time the
resolutions they proposed submitting to the meeting, one series of
which referred to temporary measures, which, in the opinion of the
Committee, were necessary for the immediate wants of the country;
another suggested those required for her future prosperity.
The great meeting of Irish peers, members of Parliament, and landlords,
as it was called, was held in the Rotunda on the above day. The
attendance on the occasion was large, and the meeting was what might be
termed a great success. Tickets of admission were issued to fourteen
peers, twenty-six members of Parliament, and about six hundred other
landed proprietors, from all the four provinces. Admission was only by
tickets, and their issue commenced on Tuesday morning, and was continued
to an advanced hour on Wednesday evening, the meeting being convened for
Thursday. So great, however, was the influx of country gentlemen who
were anxious to take a part in the proceedings, that it became necessary
to issue a further supply of tickets in the forenoon of that day,
notwithstanding which a considerable number were sold at the entrance
door. Every phase of Irish politics was represented at the meeting.
Amongst the peers were the Marquis of Ormond, the Earl of Erne, Lord
Cloncurry, and Lord Farnham; the M.P.'s reckoned, amongst others,
O'Connell, Frederick Shaw, William Smith O'Brien, Anthony Lefroy, John
O'Connell, and Edward Grogan. The Marquis of Ormond was chairman. The
resolutions prepared by the Reproductive Works Committee were proposed
and unanimously adopted. They had, the chairman said, been considered by
a committee composed of gentlemen of all shades of parties. Great
differences occurred upon almost every word of every resolution.
However, personal opinions had been sacrificed with a view of having
perfect unanimity at the present meeting--a meeting, as he truly said,
of peculiar construction--perhaps the only one of the kind ever
assembled in the Rotunda before. The resolutions adopted by this very
remarkable assembly were:
1. That we deem it our duty most earnestly to impress upon our
representatives, our solemn conviction of the necessity of their now
co-operating cordially together in Parliament, for the advancement of
the interests of Ireland, and of their uniting to advocate such measures
as may appear calculated to raise the social, material, and moral
condition of the people; to save society from the ruin by which all
classes in the land are now threatened; and to preserve the country from
confiscation.
2. That, before and beyond all other considerations, is the salvation of
the lives of the people; and we therefore deem it our solemn duty--the
present system having signally failed--to call upon the Government, in
the most imperative terms, to take such measures as will secure local
supplies of food sufficient to keep the people alive, and to sacrifice
any quantity of money that may be necessary to attain the object,
declaring, as we do, that any neglect or delay in that matter will
render the Government responsible for the safety of the people of
Ireland, who must perish in multitudes unless supplied with food.
3. That, as the people of this country are suffering from a most
extraordinary and incalculably extensive deficiency in the stock of
food, we further call upon the Government to remove all artificial
impediments to the supply of that deficiency, by the temporary
suspension of the navigation laws, and the duties on the importation of
corn, and also to give increased facilities to that importation, by
permitting such vessels of her Majesty's navy as can be spared to be
employed in the transport of provisions.
4. That we consider it would be most desirable, that the unrestricted
use of sugar and molasses in our breweries and distilleries should be
permitted, under existing circumstances; in order to save for more
useful purposes a portion of the grain now used in those establishments.
5. That we recommend that Relief Committees should be allowed to sell
food under first cost to the destitute, in their respective
neighbourhoods, and that their doing so should not disentitle them to
Government contributions in aid of their funds.
6. That while we affirm, that it is the clear and paramount duty of the
state to take care that provision be made for the destitute, we regret
that the means hitherto adopted for that purpose have, on the one hand,
proved incommensurate with the evil, and on the other hand, have induced
the expenditure of vast sums of money upon useless or pernicious works.
7. That this most wasteful expenditure, tending, as it does, to diminish
our resources and to increase the probabilities of future famine, has
not been the result of neglect on the part of the resident proprietors
of Ireland, but of an impolitic and pernicious law, which they have been
compelled to carry into effect, notwithstanding repeated protests to the
contrary.
8. That, though entirely acquiescing in the justice of imposing upon the
land the repayment of all money advanced for reproductive purposes, we
solemnly protest, in the name of the owners and occupiers of land in
Ireland, against the principle of charging exclusively on their
property, the money which they have been forced to waste on unproductive
works.
9. That the destruction of the staple food of millions of our
fellow-subjects cannot be considered in any other light than that of an
Imperial calamity, and we claim it as our right that the burthen arising
from it, so far as it has been expended on unproductive works, shall
fall on the empire at large, and not be thrown upon Ireland alone, much
less upon those classes in Ireland which have suffered most severely
from it.
10. That though considering the present Labour-rate Act as a most
mischievous measure, to be laid aside whenever a better system can be
introduced, yet, in order to prevent the continuance of the present
waste of money, we call upon the Legislature to amend that Act, by
enabling each proprietor to take upon himself his proportion of the
baronial assessment, to be expended in reproductive works upon his own
property, and thereby to discharge himself from any further taxation in
respect to that particular assessment; and that the objects to which the
taxation shall be applied, should be extended to all permanent
improvement of the land.
11. That we have heard with alarm and regret that in many districts of
Ireland, the usual extent of land has not been prepared, and cannot be
prepared, for cultivation, owing to the poverty of the occupants, and
consequently will be waste during the ensuing year; and while we
confidently rely on the exertions of the landed proprietors to protect
this country from the great evils which must follow from such a neglect,
we cannot avoid calling the special attention of Government to the
alarming reports which have reached us on this important subject.
That it is an ascertained fact, that the supply of seed in this country
will be deficient, and to meet this evil we earnestly recommend that
depôts for the sale of seed be established by Government.
12. That powers should be given to the Treasury to advance money, by way
of loan, to railway companies that have obtained their acts--such money
to be paid out in making the earthworks of the railway.
That, as there must be a large amount of population dependent for
subsistence, during the year, upon public or private charity, provision
should be made for assisting those to emigrate (with their families) who
cannot be supported in this country, by the exercise of independent
labour.
[With this resolution ended the suggestions for temporary relief; the
remainder regard measures of permanent improvement.]
13. That the direct employment of the great mass of the able-bodied
people by the state, has an unavoidable tendency to paralyse industry,
and to substitute artificial for natural labour.
That any system of relief to the able-bodied that does not lead to the
increase of food, or articles that may be exchanged for food, will
diminish the capital of the country, and that just in proportion as
capital decreases, poverty will increase.
That, therefore, any measures of relief for the able-bodied ought to
have for their object the encouragement of the employment of labour by
private individuals in productive works; and that the efficacy of their
action, as a stimulus to encourage and force such employment, will be
the measure of their utility.
That, in order to place the owners and occupiers of land in a position
in which they can be acted upon by such a stimulus, the whole energies
of the State should be applied to the absorption of surplus labour, to
the affording facilities for private employment, and to the removal of
the impediments that now obstruct it.
14. That, to absorb surplus labour, and at the same time to increase the
food produce of the country, piers and harbours for fishery purposes,
and model curing-houses, with salt depôts attached, should be
established along the coast.
That, with the like object of absorbing labour, and increasing our food
supplies, a systematic plan should be adopted for the reclamation of
waste lands throughout the country.
That, in any such system, an option should be given to the proprietors
of waste lands to undertake the reclamation themselves; and, in order to
enable them to do so, means should be placed at their disposal for
obtaining public loans for that purpose--the security of such loans to
be confined to the land improved--and (subject to due protection of
reversionary interest), every possible facility should be afforded them
in alienating their waste lands for the purpose of reclamation.
That, with the further view of absorbing labour, our representatives be
entrusted to lay claim to such expenditure upon works and objects of a
national character--such as naval dockyards, safety harbours, and packet
stations--as ought of right to be allotted to this country.
That, in addition to these measures, a scheme of systematic colonization
would, in our opinion, provide the means of subsistence to a large
portion of our destitute population--would relieve many districts in
this country, which are unable to support their inhabitants--would
benefit the Colonies by supplying them with labour--would increase the
supply of food throughout the world, by bringing fresh land into
cultivation--and would largely extend the market for home manufacture.
That the class which it is desirable to see emigrating cannot do so by
their own resources; and that no one of the other classes benefited by
the operation would, separately taken, find it so profitable as to
ensure their carrying it out upon a large scale.
That it is, therefore, peculiarly the province of the State, which
represents and protects the interests of all collectively, to promote
emigration by direct intervention, as well as by assisting, with
information and pecuniary aid, the efforts of individuals and public
bodies in promoting this most desirable result.
15. That, for affording facilities for private employment, we recommend
that the Drainage Acts should be simplified and consolidated; that
tenants for life, and other proprietors having a limited estate, should
be enabled to obtain public loans (to be a charge exclusively on the
land improved), for other permanent improvements of land, besides
drainage, without any application to the Court of Chancery, provided
such permanent improvements shall increase the value of the land seven
per cent, per annum; that all such public advances shall be repaid on
the principle of the million act, in twenty-two annual instalments, and
that a certain percentage shall be fixed, beyond which preliminary
expense and expenses of inspection shall not extend.
That, with a like object, we also recommend that tenants, with the
consent of their landlords, should have power to apply for public loans
in the same manner as the proprietor himself, and to charge the lands
improved with the repayment of the money advanced--the tenant rendering
himself responsible for the annual instalments that shall accrue due
during the period of his occupation; and that in order to encourage the
investment of the tenant's own capital upon his land, his right to
compensation for permanent improvements, in case of his removal, should
be recognised by law.
16. That, to remove the obstacles that now obstruct employment, the laws
which regulate the management of estates under the Courts of Equity
should be revised and amended, and facilities should be given to landed
proprietors to sell portions of their estates for the payment of
charges.
That, with a like object, and to diminish the enormous expense and
delays that now exist in these matters, cheap and simple modes should be
devised for the transfer, partition, and exchange of landed property.
17. That, in addition to these measures for the absorption of surplus
labour, for the affording facilities for private employment, and for the
removing of the obstacles that now obstruct it, we are of opinion that
other measures of an economical and social nature are imperatively
called for.
That, among the most prominent of these is an amendment of the present
Grand Jury system; and as great inconveniences have arisen from the want
of permanent bodies for the administration of county affairs, we would
recommend that all the fiscal powers of Grand Juries should be
transferred to county and baronial Boards.
That, in such, a change, we would recommend that the present system of
road-repair contracts should be modified; and that all roads should be
kept in repair under the superintendence of the baronial Boards.
18. That, in addition to an amendment of the Grand Jury Laws, we deem it
highly expedient to raise the social state of our agricultural labourer;
and that, as we believe, one of the most efficacious means of effecting
this will be the improvement of his habitation, we are of opinion that
measures should be adopted to enable proprietors to improve the
dwellings upon their properties of the labouring poor, and by proper
sanitary regulations to render it the interest of all landholders that
every dweller on their estates should have a good and healthy
habitation.
That we likewise deem it expedient to increase and disseminate
agricultural knowledge,--and, with this view, we are of opinion that
baronial Boards should have the power of establishing model farms in
each barony, presided over by proper agriculturists.
19. That, among the most prominent evils of the present land system, is
the want of a cheap and simple mode of checking waste, and therefore we
are of opinion that measures should be taken to remedy this.
That, with the view of relieving the owners and occupiers of the soil
from any burthens that unfairly press upon them, we would recommend that
the expense of jails, lunatic asylums, and criminal prosecutions shall
no longer remain a charge upon landed property, and that, in future, all
classes who derive an income out of land shall bear their equitable
proportion of the taxation which affects it.
20. That, having suggested above what appears to us to be the best means
of absorbing surplus labour, and removing the obstacles which fetter
private enterprise, we at the same time desire to express our firm and
deeply fixed conviction that any system of relief for the support of the
destitute, which is not based on the principle of distinguishing
between the proprietor who performs his duty, and him who neglects it,
by exempting the former from any taxation that may be rendered necessary
by the default of the latter, will be most injurious to the interests of
every class in the community.
21. That the Reproductive Employment Committee be requested to continue
their labours, and be empowered to call meetings, similar to the
present, at any time during the session of Parliament, if such shall
appear to be necessary; or to take such other steps as may appear
expedient for the carrying out the objects of the meeting.
22. That the secretaries be requested to communicate with those landed
proprietors who have been unable to attend the meeting to-day, with a
view of obtaining their support to the above resolutions.
23. That an address be presented to her most gracious Majesty, the
Queen, setting forth in the most respectful, but, at the same time, the
most urgent manner, that the present state of provisions in Ireland is
inadequate to support the people of that country; that the resources of
the landed proprietors, gentry, and merchants, are altogether unequal to
meet the present emergency; and that we, therefore, pray that her
Majesty may be graciously pleased to direct her Parliament, immediately
on their assembling, to take into consideration the speediest and most
effectual means of importing provisions into Ireland, so as to provide,
as far as possible, the necessary food for the people.
These resolutions go very fully into the state of the country, its evils
and their remedies. They contain much that is wise and well intended,
and some of the measures suggested in them will be found in the
programme of the Government, or, as their plan was called by their
friends,--the "group of measures," by which the present and future of
Ireland were to be settled to the satisfaction and advantage of all
parties. The Rotunda meeting having been held only a few days before the
assembling of Parliament was just in time to exercise an influence on
the measures the Government had in preparation, to meet the existing
Irish difficulty; and very possibly it had that effect. One thing the
landlords who met in the Round-room had evidently set their hearts
on--there was to be an extensive emigration--the land was to be cleared.
If half the improvements suggested in the resolutions were undertaken,
instead of a surplus population, labour enough could not be had for the
purpose of carrying them out: if piers and harbours were taken in hand,
and if the earthworks of the projected railways were commenced, and if
the reclamation of the waste lands were seriously taken up, the labour
wasted on the barren road-making would be found insufficient for such
gigantic undertakings: but the piers were not built; the harbours were
not deepened or improved; the waste lands were not reclaimed; the
railway earthworks were left to private enterprise--but EMIGRATION--Oh!
that darling object was always in favour with the ruling class, and most
effectively promoted by wholesale eviction. The people were sent to
benefit the colonies, as the 14th resolution suggested, by their labour;
sent "to increase the supply of food throughout the world [except in
Ireland], to bring fresh land under cultivation," and above all to
"largely extend the market for home manufacture." Yes, that last was a
happy hit to secure the willing ear of the "mother country;" as for the
poor "sister island," from which all those people were to emigrate, she
had no manufactures to open a market for. But the Rotunda people would
send away another class too. The last clause of the 12th resolution
reads thus: "that as there must be a large amount of population
dependent for subsistence, during the year, upon public or private
charity, provision should be made for assisting those to emigrate, with
their families, who cannot be supported in this country by the exercise
of independent labour." (!) This is no slip of the pen. Almost every
word of every resolution, the noble chairman said, was carefully
discussed. The suggestion, then, is, that those who are _unable to
work_, from age, weak health, or, who, having got chronic coughs,
asthma, or rheumatism, by working for 6d. or 8d. a day, "wet and dry,"
on the land that gave them birth, and are now unfit to work any longer;
or, in rosewater phrase, "who cannot be supported in this country by the
exercise of independent labour," are to be "shot," like so much rubbish,
upon the shores of the western hemisphere--provided the crazy barques
into which they are to be huddled do not go down with them bodily, in
the middle of the Atlantic. Surely, of all other people, such were unfit
for emigration, being unfit to earn their bread; but they were a
burthen, a real burthen on the soil here, and so that the clearance took
place, the manner of it and its results to the exiled were held to be of
small account indeed.
Parliament was opened by the Queen in person, on Tuesday, the 19th of
January. She read the speech from the throne, about two-thirds of which
related to Ireland exclusively. No wonder. The state of that country had
become the theme of public writers, politicians and philanthropists in
both hemispheres. England was on her trial before the civilized world.
Could not she, the richest nation of the earth, whose capitalists
searched the globe for undertakings in which to invest their vast and
ever accumulating wealth--could not she--or _would_ not she--save the
lives of those starving Irish, who were her subjects, and who, if not
loved by her like others of her subjects, were at least useful in giving
size and importance to the empire, and in fighting those battles which
helped her to keep her place among first-class nations; useful in
opening up, with the bayonet's point, those foreign markets so essential
to her iron and cotton lords--nay, to all her lords? England was on her
trial; England's Government was on its trial; and the Queen's speech was
to shadow forth their line of defence for past legislation, and to
indicate those future measures which were to stay the famine, and
prevent its recurrence. Here is the portion of the speech relating to
Ireland:
"My LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,--
"It is with the deepest concern that, upon your again assembling, I have
to call your attention to the dearth of provisions which prevails in
Ireland, and in parts of Scotland.
"In Ireland, especially, the loss of the usual food of the people has
been the cause of severe sufferings, of disease, and of greatly
increased mortality among the poorer classes. Outrages have become more
frequent, chiefly directed against property, and the transit of
provisions has been rendered unsafe in some parts of the country.
"With a view to mitigate these evils, very large numbers of men have
been employed, and have received wages, in pursuance of an Act passed in
the last session of Parliament. Some deviations from that Act, which
have been authorized by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in order to
promote more useful employment, will, I trust, receive your sanction.
Means have been taken to lessen the pressure of want, in districts which
are most remote from the ordinary sources of supply. Outrages have been
repressed, as far as it was possible, by the military and police.
"It is satisfactory to me to observe, that in many of the most
distressed districts, the patience and resignation of the people have
been most exemplary.
"The deficiency of the harvest in France and Germany, and other parts of
Europe, has added to the difficulty of obtaining adequate supplies of
provisions.
"It will be your duty to consider, what further measures are required to
alleviate the existing distress. I recommend to you to take into your
serious consideration, whether, by increasing, for a limited period, the
facilities for importing from foreign countries, and by the admission of
sugar more freely into breweries and distilleries, the supply of food
may be beneficially augmented.
"I have also to direct your earnest attention to the permanent
consideration of Ireland. You will perceive, by the absence of political
excitement, an opportunity for taking a dispassionate survey of the
social evils which afflict that part of the United Kingdom. Various
measures will be laid before you, which, if adopted by Parliament, may
tend to raise the great mass of the people in comfort, to promote
agriculture, and to lessen the pressure of that competition for the
occupation of land, which has been the fruitful source of crime and
misery."
In the House of Lords, the debate on the address in reply to the Queen's
speech was not very remarkable. All the speakers admitted that which it
was impossible to deny, the terrible reality of the famine, unequalled,
as Lord Hatherton said he believed it to be, in past history, and
certainly not to be paralleled in the history of modern times. Lord
Brougham made a joke and raised a laugh at the expense of the Irish
landlords. He inclined, he said, to the opinion that Parliament ought to
have been called together sooner, but it was objected that such a course
would have the effect of bringing the Irish proprietors to England at a
time when their presence at home was much needed. "God forbid,"
exclaimed his lordship, "that I should be instrumental in bringing the
Irish proprietors over to this country."[192] He further said, in one of
those involved sentences of his, "that he held it to be impossible
that, when the cry of hunger prevailed over the land--when there was a
melancholy substance as well as the cry--when the country was distracted
from day to day by accounts of the most heartrending spectacles he had
ever seen, heard, or read of--that at a time when there was deep misery
and distress prevailing, and proved in Ireland--rendered only the more
heartrending, because the more touching, by the patience--the admirable
and almost inimitable patience--with which it seemed to be borne--that
at a time when that great calamity existed--when there were scenes
enacted all over those districts, which they could find nothing existing
in the page of disease and death and pestilence, ever following in the
train of famine--to which nothing existing was to be found in the page
of Josephus, or on the canvas of Poussin, or in the dismal chant of
Dante ... that they should be in circumstances like these, and yet be
able calmly and temperately to take up questions of permanent policy, he
held to be absolutely and necessarily impossible."
More to the point were some of the remarks made by Lord Stanley, then in
opposition. With regard to the awful visitation which afflicted the
sister island from one end to the other, he said he believed that no
exaggeration could, in many instances, exceed the dreadful reality. He
was quite content, that for the prevention and palliation of the evil,
_for the purpose of rescuing the country from the guilt of permitting a
large portion of its people knowingly to_ STARVE, there is no sacrifice,
no efforts which her Majesty's Government can call upon the people of
this country to make, which will not be cheerfully responded to by the
members of your Lordships' house, and by the representatives of the
people, who will, in this case, represent the deliberate and cordial
sense of the whole country. The Labour-rate Act he pronounced "a great
blunder." With regard to the non-establishment of food depôts, he said
that if he could accuse the Government of an error on that head, they
were led into it by too rigid an adherence to the principles of
political economy--to the _abstract_ principles of political economy,
that were meant for the permanent improvement of the people; but the
question might arise as to the propriety of acting against such
principles, in order to meet an extraordinary emergency.
In the House of Commons, one of the earliest speakers on the address was
Smith O'Brien. He said, he thought he would be wanting in his duty to
his country if he did not, on that occasion, make an appeal to the House
on behalf of those whose sufferings could not be exaggerated--could not
be described. He was asked, by assenting to the address, if he was
prepared to say that the Government had been altogether guiltless of
having produced that frightful state of things; and if he were called
upon to affirm, that everything had been done by the Government, which
might have been done by them, he would answer, that _he believed it was
in their power, to prevent one single individual from dying of
starvation in Ireland_. He did not impute to them the wilful intention
of bringing about a state of things so disastrous, but it was his
opinion, and the opinion of others in Ireland, that they had not
introduced those measures which were suitable to the condition in which
Ireland was placed, and had thus brought about the state of things which
was now witnessed. "To the declaration of the Prime Minister, last
session, that there was to be no legislative interference with the price
of food, he believed they owed many of the disasters which had taken
place in Ireland." This sentiment was received with cheers. Mr. O'Brien
then made a point in favour of the Irish landlords. Was this, he asked,
to be considered as a local calamity, or was it to be considered as a
national calamity? If the Irish members were legislating in an Irish
parliament, it would be considered by them as a national calamity, and
all classes--the fund holder, the office holder, the mortgagee, the
annuitant, would be called on to contribute to the general exertion to
alleviate distress. He wished to learn whether the House considered this
as an Imperial calamity or not; and whilst he, for his own part,
refrained from any supplication to the Imperial treasury, he could
assure the House, that there were millions in Ireland, who did not
consider the Union a union in which all the advantages ought to be on
the part of England. England had the advantage of the Irish absentee
rents, and the advantage of applying all the resources of Ireland; and
the Irish people did not consider that it ought to be looked upon as a
union for the advantage of England alone, and no union when it was for
the interests of Ireland. Nothing, he thought, could be more outrageous
than that one class, who suffered most from the disasters which had
taken place--namely, the landlords of Ireland--should be called upon to
bear the whole burthen of this calamity.
Smith O'Brien was quite right in saying it was most unreasonable that
the Irish landlords should be called upon to bear the whole expense of
the Famine, but it is equally true, that, as a body, they made no effort
worth the name to stay or mitigate the Famine, until it had knocked at
their own hall doors in the shape of rates, present and prospective,
that threatened them with the confiscation of their properties.
Mr. Labouchere, the Irish Chief Secretary, as was to be expected, was
put up to defend the Government, and to foreshadow the future measures
of relief. His line of defence was a strange one for an English minister
to adopt. It was, that the agricultural population of Ireland, vast in
its numbers, were always on the brink of starvation; so that when the
potato blight swept the country from sea to sea, it was impossible for
the Government to meet the disaster fully. An English journal of high
repute,[193] whose words have been already quoted in these pages, truly
said, that for five hundred years Ireland had been completely in the
hands of England, to mould and fashion her as she pleased; and now at
the end of those five centuries, a British statesman does not blush to
urge, as an argument in favour of the Government of which he is a
member, that the normal state of Ireland was--to be on the brink of
starvation. This defence, weak and inconclusive from every point of
view, served his colleagues and himself, of course, but little, while it
was calculated to cover his nation with shame and confusion. He goes on
to prove the fact, alas! too easily proved; he goes to Lord Devon's
Commission, and tells us from it, that it is no exaggeration to say,
that the people of Ireland are the worst housed, the worst clothed, and
the worst fed of any people in Europe. It is a country, proceeds the
Secretary, of which I find an account given from a most unexceptionable
source, the Commission of Poor Law Enquiry in 1835. From this Report it
appeared, that Ireland then contained 1,131,000 agricultural labourers,
whose average earnings did not exceed from two shillings to two
shillings and six pence a week; and that of these one-half were
destitute during thirty weeks of every year. "This," said he, "is the
ordinary condition of Ireland, and it is upon such a country as this
that the calamity has fallen--a calamity which I believe to be without a
parallel in modern times."
Such was the defence of the Irish Chief Secretary. And here it is worth
while remarking, that in the earlier stages of the Famine it was the
practice of the government organs to throw doubt on the extent of its
ravages which were published, and the Government, apparently acting on
these views, most culpably delayed the measures by which the visitation
could be successfully combated. _Now_, their part was to admit to the
fullest extent the vastness of the Famine, and make it the excuse for
their want of energy and success in overcoming it. On the same
principle, Mr. Labouchere, relying on figures supplied by Mr. Griffith,
goes into what appears to be a fair statement of the actual money value
of the loss Ireland suffered from the potato blight. The money value of
the potatoes destroyed by the Blight of 1846, he estimates at
£11,250,000: the loss of the oat crop of that year he calculates to be
£4,666,000, making the whole loss in oats and potatoes £15,916,000.
Still this sum, he says, is under the actual loss; the money value of
the loss not at all representing the real loss to the people; and the
House, he added, would form a very inadequate notion of the nature and
extent of the loss which had befallen Ireland, if they merely considered
the money value of the crop which had failed, or the stock of human food
which had been supplied.
The chronic poverty and misery of Ireland, as set forth in the Report
which the Poor Law Commissioners published in 1835, seems to have been
the favourite armoury whence Mr. Labouchere loved to draw his logical
weapons, for the defence of the Government on this occasion. In that
Report he finds it stated that "Mayo alone would furnish beggars to all
England."[194] Be it remembered, that the Poor Law Commissioners had
published their Report eleven years before Mr. Labouchere made this
speech, but he does not inform us what measures the British Government
had in the meantime adopted, or if they had adopted any, to raise the
people out of such a state of misery and degradation; but he clearly
thinks he has brought forward a clever argument in his own and his
colleagues' defence, when he states that one of the thirty-two counties
of Ireland, had such abundant and redundant pauperism. Yet this was in
the "sister country"--the sister of that great and wealthy and
enlightened England of which, no doubt, the Irish Secretary felt proud
to be a native.
After offering some defence for the free-trade policy of his chief, and
having indicated the measures the Government had prepared for Ireland,
he resumed his seat, and was followed by Lord George Bentinck.
Lord George had, within a short time, attained to great importance in
the House of Commons. After the protectionist party was deserted
("betrayed" was their own word), by Sir Robert Peel, that large-hearted
and high-minded nobleman was installed in his place, as their leader. On
the present occasion, without being severe or unkind towards the
Government, he pointed out their shortcomings and mistakes with regard
to the Irish crisis. Speaking for himself and the party with whom he
acted, he said: "We shall be prepared to give our calmest and best
attention to any measures her Majesty's ministers may be prepared to
bring forward as remedies for that destitution which unhappily exists.
But, sir, at the same time, we must be expected to deal frankly with the
conduct of ministers, and whilst we are not disposed to say that
ministers acted wrongly in declining to call Parliament together, not
disposed to censure them for having overridden the law, and suspended
the duties of the legislature itself, we are disposed to say, that the
measures to which they have had recourse are not those to which we can
altogether agree. It is impossible to view the operation of their
poor-employment Act, and say that it has answered any good purpose." He
held strongly the opinion, that the Government should have supplied food
to the people, at least in remote districts, where it could not be
otherwise procured. On this point he thus expressed his sentiments:
"With respect to the supply of food to the people he, for one, cannot
agree altogether in those principles of political economy which had been
advanced by the Right Hon. gentleman, the Irish Secretary. This
political economy of non-interference with the import and retail trade
may be good in ordinary times, but in times such as the present, when a
calamity unexampled in the history of the world has suddenly fallen
upon Ireland--when there are no merchants or retailers in the whole of
the West--when a country of which the population has been accustomed to
live upon potatoes of their own growth, produced within a few yards of
their own doors, is suddenly deprived of this, the only food of the
people, it was not reasonable to suppose that, suddenly merchants and
retailers would spring up to supply the extraordinary demands of the
people for food. Therefore, I should say that this was a time when her
Majesty's Ministers should have broken through these, the severe rules
of political economy, and should, themselves, have found the means of
providing the people of Ireland with food. The Right Hon. gentleman has
said, that ministers have done wisely in adhering to this decision, but
I think differently from them. When, every day, we hear of persons being
starved to death, and when the Right Hon. gentleman himself admits that
in many parts of the country the population has been decimated, I cannot
say, that I think ministers have done all they might have done to avert
the fatal consequences of this famine."[195] Lord George then read a
letter from the Rev. Mr. Townsend, of Skibbereen, in which it was stated
that in one month from the 1st of December to the 1st of January, there
were one hundred and forty deaths in the workhouse of that town; the
people having entered the workhouse, as they said, "that they might be
able to die decently under a roof and be sure of a coffin." The Rev. Mr.
Townsend also mentioned that in the churchyard of his parish there were,
at one time, fourteen funerals waiting, whilst the burial of a fifteenth
corpse was being completed. In the next parish to his, there were nine
funerals at once in the churchyard, and in two other adjoining ones,
there were six together in each. To prove his assertion that the
Government should have done more in supplying food to the people, his
lordship said: "At this moment, we know that there are between 300,000
and 400,000 quarters of corn in stock on hand in the different ports of
London, Liverpool and Glasgow. I want to know, then, what was to have
prevented ministers from sending any part, or all of this food to the
West of Ireland, to feed the starving people there?... It would have
kept the retailers and forestallers in order, and prevented them from
availing themselves of the Famine to obtain undue prices. What do we see
with regard to Indian meal? Why Indian corn is, at this moment, selling
in New York at three shillings, and at Liverpool and in Ireland at nine
shillings per bushel."[196]
The Prime Minister spoke towards the close of the debate, and, with the
apparent intention of answering a question put by Smith O'Brien, said he
was quite willing to consider what had occurred in Ireland as "a
national calamity," and that the national resources were fitly employed
in endeavouring to meet it. The reason he gave for not having summoned
Parliament in the Autumn, as O'Connell and many others had suggested, or
rather demanded, was a striking proof of the evils of absenteeism. "We
had to consider," he said, "that if we did meet Parliament, we should be
acting against the opinion of the Irish Government, and against the
opinion of almost every one I saw who was connected with Ireland, who
thought that to take away at that time--at the commencement of the
severe pressure--every person connected by property with Ireland, would
inflict a very great injury upon that country, and that, consequently,
Parliament should not be called together at that time."[197] If it could
be looked upon as a great injury to Ireland to have the comparatively
few proprietors who are resident there absent for even one short month,
doing important business for Ireland, how terrible the evil must be of
having the owners of £4,000,000 of her rental continually absent, and to
have her representatives in both Houses of Parliament absent, not merely
for a month, but for about seven months out of every twelve!
Sir Robert Peel supported the Premier's view, and in a sentence
remarkable for the same sort of logic, said--"He believed nothing
effectual ever would or ever could be done in Ireland, without the
active, earnest, and unremitting cooperation of the landlords of that
country." No doubt, it is the very truth; but how can landlords
co-operate for the good of Ireland unless they reside in it, and try to
understand something about it? Let them, therefore, reside, or
reimburse the country for the evil and loss of their non-residence.
The address was, of course, voted without a division.
The First Minister made no unnecessary delay in bringing the state of
Ireland formally before Parliament. On the 25th of January, six days
after the opening of the session, he rose in a full house; expressed his
sense of the great responsibility under which he laboured, and claimed
its indulgence whilst he endeavoured to explain what had been already
done to counteract the disastrous results of the potato blight in
Ireland; to call their attention to those measures which the Government
considered necessary to meet the existing emergency, and finally to
submit to its consideration other measures, which, in the opinion of her
Majesty's advisers, were calculated to improve the general condition of
that country, and lay the foundation of its permanent improvement.
He proceeded to develope this somewhat pretentious programme.
Like other members of the Government, he commenced by quoting the
reports of Poor Law Commissioners, to prove that even in what were
regarded in Ireland as prosperous times, that country was on the verge
of starvation. A pretty confession for an English Prime Minister, to be
sure; yet such was his argument and his excuse. It may be imagined, he
said, how those who, in the most prosperous years, were scarcely able to
maintain themselves, and may be said to have been on the brink of
famine, were utterly unable to resist the flood of calamity which poured
in upon them with a crop so lamentably deficient; a calamity almost
without a parallel, because acting upon a very large population, a
population of eight millions of people,--in fact he should say it was
like a famine of the 13th century acting upon a population of the 19th
century. He then went into some figures to show how vast the operations
of the Board of Works were. At present, he said, they had 11,587
officials, and half a million of people at work, at a weekly cost of
between seven and eight hundred thousand pounds. He took up the
objections against the Labour-rate Act, and the reproductive works
authorized by the "Labouchere Letter." Very soon after the Labour-rate
Act had come into operation there came, he said, on the part of the
proprietors and country gentlemen of Ireland, a complaint that the works
were useless, that they were not wanted, and that they were not
reproductive. The First Minister, strange to say, did not attach any
great value to these objections. "I think," he said, "the object being
relief, and to combine relief with a certain amount of work, to show
that habits of industry have not been entirely abandoned, that the
productive nature of the work was a question of secondary importance. We
spend in Ireland upwards of £1,000,000 a-year in poor-rates, and I do
not believe that if enquiry were made it would be found that any
productive works were the result." So much the worse; and it was one of
the great objections to the Irish Poor-law system, that under it no
provision was made for the profitable employment of able-bodied paupers.
To call the productiveness or non-productiveness of the labour of half a
million of men a matter of secondary importance was, certainly, most
cool assurance on the part of a professed political economist, who must
hold as a central dogma of that science that labour is the principal
producer of capital. Everybody admitted that the crying want of Ireland
was the want of capital; yet here is a Minister, holding in his hands
her destinies during a life-and-death struggle for existence, and an
ardent disciple of Adam Smith besides, expressing his belief that to
expend in useless and even pernicious works the labour of half a million
of men was a matter of secondary importance; and because it was, he did
not attach any great weight to the objection! It was not, therefore, he
said, such an objection that caused the Government to sanction a
modification of the law as was announced in the letter of the Irish
Chief Secretary, but because it was desirable to obtain the co-operation
of the landed gentry of Ireland, and, if possible, to have the labour
made reproductive, that the plan of reproductive works was sanctioned.
But this plan did not win the Irish landowners, and they began a new
agitation for townland divisions. On this point he quoted the following
passage from a letter of Smith O'Brien, in which the Prime Minister said
he fully concurred: "This plan had the merit of being intelligible,
simple, and effective. It is undoubtedly better that the population
should be so employed than in destroying good land, by making new lines
of road which are wholly unnecessary, or in otherwise doing absolute
mischief. It will, however, have the effect of still further pauperizing
the labour of the country. To elucidate this result in the simplest
manner, let us suppose that there are one hundred labourers in a
district which belongs to two landlords, whose incomes are equal, and
one of whom now employs fifty independent workmen, whilst the other does
not employ a single labourer. It is at present necessary to provide for
the maintenance of fifty unemployed labourers. These are now set to work
upon the roads, and the expense of their maintenance falls upon the two
proprietors in equal proportions. If the proposed plan be adopted, the
improving landholder will naturally desire to exempt himself from
taxation, without employing more hands than he at present requires. This
he could do by dismissing all his present workmen. There would then be
one hundred surplus labourers in the district. As these must be
maintained at the expense of the two properties, each proprietor would
eventually be compelled, in self-defence, to employ fifty. The
landholder who originally employed this number will thus escape
taxation, without engaging more labourers than he requires; but his
labourers will cease to be independent workmen, chosen and paid by
himself, and subject to his own control. They will be sent to him by
the Relief Committee of the district; they will be placed under the
superintendence of an expensive staff of stipendiaries appointed by the
Board of Works, and will be paid out of the funds raised for the relief
of the poor. A system not very dissimilar to this was acted upon in
several parts of England, previous to the Poor Law Amendment Act of
1834, and was found to produce effects most demoralizing to the
labouring population--paralyzing all the energies of independent labour
and of individual enterprise, and in many respects operating most
unjustly upon particular classes of property."[198] Referring to the
value of independent labour, the Premier said: "I admit the evils of the
present system, but I think that still greater danger would have ensued
if we had done that which I conceive to be one of the most pernicious
acts which a Government can do, the depriving labourers of their
independence, and thus permanently injuring the great and important
class to which those labourers belonged."
Through all the Famine time, there is nothing more remarkable than the
manner in which the expounders of the views of Government, as well as
many others, managed, when it suited them, to confound two things which
should have been kept most jealously distinct,--(1.) What was best for
the Famine crisis itself; (2.) What was best for the permanent
improvement of the country. The confounding of these two questions led
to conclusions of the most unwarrantable and deceptive kind. In the
present instance, the Prime Minister himself seems to fall into the same
mistake; or he goes into it with his eyes open, that he may be able to
draw conclusions to suit his purpose. The proposition laid down by him
is by no means unreasonable in itself; in fact it may be accepted as
true: the fallacy is, that he keeps out of sight the peculiar
circumstances of the case, and puts his proposition stripped of those
circumstances, which should greatly modify it, when applied to Ireland,
as she then was. Here is the Premier's argument: Smith O'Brien, in the
extract quoted, said it was found to be a great evil in England, before
the Poor-laws were revised, that employers, instead of choosing their
own workmen, had them sent to them by the parish authorities. This
produced two bad results: (1.) The men did not give a good day's work,
and so the employer was injured; (2.) In practice it was found most
demoralizing to the labourers themselves, destroying their independence,
and paralyzing individual enterprise. Lord John assents most approvingly
to all this, and then applying it to the existing state of Ireland,
says, that by such a system still greater dangers would have ensued, and
that one of the most pernicious acts which a Government could do would
be to adopt it, for it would deprive labourers of their independence,
and thus permanently injure the great and important class to which they
belonged. The fault in this reasoning is plain enough. If the system
recommended for ensuring reproductive employment were to be a permanent
arrangement, the evils which resulted from it in England would, in all
likelihood, result from it here--for the time being; but the
demoralization of labour would not, in the case, be greater than that
already in existence on the Public Works, from which there was no
reproduction; nor could it be near so great as what he was about to
propose that the people should be fed without any labour, or labour test
whatever. But nothing done to counteract the Famine should be regarded
as a permanent arrangement, suitable to the ordinary wants of the
country; on the contrary, the extraordinary means adopted to meet an
extraordinary crisis should, from the nature of things, pass away with
the crisis. The Famine once over in Ireland, labour would soon return to
its ordinary channels. The simple question: "Was it better to employ the
labour of the country on productive rather than on non-productive works
during the Famine?" became involved and obscured by the enunciation of
principles which applied only to an ordinary state of society. It is an
amusing commentary on the line of argument adopted above by the First
Minister, that he concludes this very speech with two distinct sets of
measures for Ireland, one temporary, to meet the Famine, and another
permanent.
The first great means he proposed for arresting the progress of the
Famine was to establish soup-kitchens, and to give the people food
without any labour test whatever. Was the townsland boundary system,
which he had just condemned, half so demoralizing to the labourer as
this? Certainly not; but this had the excuse, that there was now no time
for anything but the immediate supply of food: exactly so; but when
there was time, it was wasted in needless delay, and misused in barren
discussions about questions of political economy, and the probable
extent of the Famine, when its real extent was already well known.
The question of task work has been dealt with already. It was insisted
on at a time when a very large number of the working poor were so
exhausted with starvation that their physical capacity for work of any
kind was almost completely gone. This fact is more than sufficiently
proved by the evidence given at various coroners' inquests; still the
Government persevered in insisting upon it, and Colonel Jones was
amongst the most determined in doing so. In addressing the House on the
present occasion, Lord John Russell said it was reported to the
Government that the people on the Public Works were seen loitering about
the roads; that the Government then introduced task work; that it met
great opposition, but that the Lord Lieutenant remained firm, and had it
carried out; an announcement which was received with "loud cheers." And
no one would be inclined to find fault with task work, if the people had
strength enough left to earn fair wages at it, but they had not--a fact
which was, long before, evident to everybody but the Government; but
even they saw it, or at least were compelled to acknowledge it at last,
and then the Prime Minister is furnished with a convenient letter from
the same Colonel Jones, so late, he tells the House, as the 19th of
January, in which that gentleman informs the Premier that it would be
better to give the people food for nothing than to give them any more
money; and as for task work, the Colonel says of them, that "their
strength was gone, and they had not power to exert themselves." This
looks wonderfully like a letter written to order. The people, for many
months, had been quite unequal to task work, but the Colonel could never
see it until the line of policy resolved upon by his chief required him
to clear his vision. "Sir," continued Lord John, "the opinion of the
Government previously to the receipt of this letter was, that the system
had become so vast in itself, while at the same time destitution and
want of food had so greatly increased, that it was desirable, if
possible, to attempt some temporary scheme by which, if possible, some
of the evils which now met us might be mitigated, and with so vast an
expenditure of money, some more effectual relief might be afforded." He
then laid his new scheme before the House. 1. His first proposal was to
form the country into districts, with a relief committee in each,
empowered to receive subscriptions, levy rates, and receive donations
from the Government. By these means the committees were to purchase
food, and establish soup-kitchens in the different districts, where food
was to be distributed without any labour test; the labourer, however,
was to be allowed to work on his own plot of ground, for the next
harvest. The Lord Lieutenant, he said, and the Board of Works were
consulted about this, and approved of it. The system was to be carried
out in the first instance by a preparatory measure, and then by a Bill
to be proposed to Parliament. 2. As soon as circumstances would permit,
by an easy transition, and without disturbing existing arrangements, no
further presentments would be made, and no new public works undertaken.
The Lord Lieutenant was of opinion that if the roads which had been
already begun should be left in an unfinished state, much evil would
result, and he therefore suggested that those roads should be completed.
With respect to the money which had been already expended, and was being
expended, on public works in Ireland, a claim had been made that it
should not wholly be a burthen upon that country. Sir, said the Premier,
passing by the remote causes of these evils, and looking at the present
resources of Ireland, I think it would not be right that the whole
burthen should remain on Irish property. We shall, therefore, propose,
on a future day, that an arrangement shall be made by Parliament, by
which, in each succeeding year, when an instalment becomes due, the
payment of one-half of that instalment shall suffice, and that the other
half shall be remitted. We purpose, however, that the whole debt shall
be kept up until the half of it be paid; thus providing that one-half of
the whole charge shall fall upon the public. "I should state," he
continued, "that with regard to the financial part of the question, the
sums paid have been issued out of the Consolidated Fund, and that there
is not contemplated any new issue of Exchequer bills. At the same time
it must be considered, when I make this proposition to Parliament, that
it is placing a very considerable burthen on the finances of the
country; and that by placing that burthen upon its finances, I do feel
myself disabled from making some proposition, which otherwise I should
be called on to make, and which would involve further advances, but
which I think it is now hardly fair to the people of this country to
propose. When it is said--'Let the burthen be borne by the Consolidated
Fund, or by the Imperial Treasury, and the Imperial Exchequer,' I must
always recollect that these sums are not granted by Government or by
Parliament without the most serious consideration, and that they are
sums derived from the people of this country, by their payment of the
taxes upon soap, sugar, tea, and coffee; from the surplus of which we
are enabled to come to the assistance of Ireland. And, sir, while I feel
that there is a disposition in this country to do everything that is
liberal towards Ireland, in this respect, we must also consider the
difficulties and privations to which the people of England will be
subjected." These words of the First Minister were evidently spoken in a
spirit of kindness and compassion; still it is hard for an Irishman to
avoid feeling that they are degrading and offensive. Ireland is not
regarded as part and parcel of the United Kingdom in any part of the
quotation. He speaks of placing a serious burthen on the finances "of
this country," meaning England only. Again: the sums advanced are, he
feels, derived from the people "of this country," by their payment of
taxes on the necessaries of life, from the surplus of which "we are"
enabled to come to the assistance of Ireland--of Ireland as an alien--a
beggar,--who clings to us and looks to us in her misery, but who has no
claim upon us, except her starvation and our great bounty;--to all which
an advanced Irish nationalist might well reply--"Why not cut her adrift
then, and let her shift for herself, as she has so often craved and
demanded?" It would seem to be assumed by the Prime Minister, that
Ireland never paid any taxes, never helped to fight any battles for
England, never manned any ships, never did anything to entitle her
people to be kept from dying of starvation, when the Famine-plague fell
upon her. Lord John Russell keenly felt the placing of a considerable
burthen upon the finances of England--"this country" was his word. All
the unjust, and unnecessary, and extravagant wars ever waged by England,
were burthens upon the finances of the country, just as much as the
grants to relieve the Irish famine; and it is a question if a Minister
ever felt it necessary to make so many apologies in asking the sinews of
war from Parliament, as Lord John did, when asking the means of saving
millions of the Queen's subjects from death by a famine, for the
existence of which they could in nowise be held responsible.
Lord John next proposed a loan of £50,000 for one year, to enable landed
proprietors to furnish seed for land. He had, he said, some misgivings
about proposing this loan to Parliament, but still the Government
thought it right to do so. The loan was not to be made to the small
tenants themselves, which he considered would be disadvantageous, but to
the proprietors, which course, he thought would be safe and beneficial.
His lordship then read an extract from an address signed by the Marquis
of Sligo and Mr. George H. Moore, in which the people were earnestly
entreated to petition Parliament to take such steps as might ensure an
immediate and sufficient supply of food. "I own, sir," he continued,
"that I am astonished at this--I am astonished that, at a time like
this, men of education--men who seek to relieve their countrymen from
the difficulties which encompass them, should tell them to demand from
Parliament, such steps as may be necessary for an immediate, a constant
and a cheap supply of food. Why, sir, that is a task which it is
impossible for us to accomplish--that is a task which they should tell
their countrymen, that it is impossible for us to perform--that the
visitation under which they are suffering has made it impossible for
man; that is a task which is beyond all human power; all that we can
possibly do being, in some mode, to alleviate the existing distress--to
lighten somewhat the dreadful calamity which has befallen them. They
should not imagine that it is in our power to turn scarcity, and even
famine into plenty. But, sir, what surprises me all the more in
reference to this announcement, is, that it so happens that at
Castlebar, where the people of the surrounding country are requested to
meet, there is a Union workhouse, which Union workhouse should contain
600 inmates, but which, at present, contains not more than 130--the
doors being closed against other persons seeking, and in need of
admittance, and the guardians saying, that it is impossible for them to
levy the rates, in order to enable other persons in want of food to come
to that workhouse for relief. Amongst those who have not paid the rates,
who have not furnished the money by which famine might have been, to a
certain degree, averted, are some who, we cannot but suppose, are fully
able to pay what is due from them; and I cannot but see in this proposal
a most unhappy tendency--an unhappy tendency, which I have more than
once remarked--to recommend to others to do some vague and impossible
thing--to call upon Government, or Parliament to do something, the
practicability of which is not considered; to confer some benefit that
may be visionary or impossible, whilst the plain practical duty of
paying the rates, for the sustenance of starving men, women and children
in the neighbourhood, is left neglected and unperformed" (hear, hear,
from all sides).
The Premier next proceeded to lay before the House other measures which
the Government considered would be of permanent as well as immediate
benefit to Ireland.
These measures were three in number: 1. An improved drainage act; 2. An
Act for the reclamation of waste lands, and, 3. A system of out-door
relief, at the discretion of the guardians of the poor. Of the Drainage
Act, which he was about to propose, he said, it would be founded on
various previous Drainage Acts, but more especially upon the Act of the
previous session, and the Treasury Minute of the 1st of December.
According to those Acts and that Minute, he proposed that, "When the
improvement of an estate, by draining and other operations, by
reclamation of waste lands--when a certain improvement in the value of
the lands reclaimed will be produced, so that the legal heirs will not
be prejudiced, can be made, a certain advance shall be made from the
public funds." The usual rate of interest for such advances from the
Treasury used to be five per cent.; by the act of 1846 the rate payable
on such advances was reduced to three and a half per cent., with
repayment in twenty-two years; making six and a half per cent, in each
year, until the expiration of twenty-two years, when the advance,
principal and interest, would be repaid. The Government now proposed to
take the terms of the Drainage Act, and to extend them to various
improvements, not confining the operation of the measure to drainage
alone; and to do away with those technical difficulties which arose
under the former Act, and which rendered it difficult for tenants for
life to borrow money. This Act only applied to private estates, but the
Government now intended to consolidate former Drainage Acts of a more
general nature, so that the drainage of districts could be carried out
by the majority of the proprietors of any district agreeing upon the
drainage of such district, the minority being bound by their acts. 2. A
further announcement, and a very striking one, was made by the Premier;
namely, that the Government intended to propose that the State should
undertake the reclamation of a portion of the waste lands in Ireland; he
alluded to various reports of Commissions upon the reclamation of waste
lands, and to the works of eminent writers, who were of opinion that, in
many cases, the reclamation of such waste lands would provide profitable
employment for large masses of the people; and would render land, now
valueless, of great value, as it would be made capable of cultivation.
He quoted Sir Robert Kane (then Dr. Kane), who said, "in his most
interesting work on the Industrial Resources of Ireland," that the
estimate, that 4,600,000 acres of waste land might be reclaimed, and be
reduced to the condition of cultivated land, was by no means an
exaggerated estimate. "We propose, then, sir," continued Lord John, "to
devote a million to this purpose, and that the land reclaimed should, if
the proprietor is willing to part with it, be purchased from him, but
that if he does not improve it in the method just before stated, by
loan, or by his own resources, and _if he refuses to sell it, there
should be a compulsory power in the Commissioners of Woods and Forests
to take and improve all such waste lands, so situated, as are below a
certain annual value, namely two and sixpence per acre_." This
announcement was received by the House with an approving "hear, hear."
He went on to say, that lands of this nature were only to be improved
and reclaimed so far as general operations were concerned, such as the
making of roads through them, general drainage, and necessary buildings;
that the lands so reclaimed should be divided into lots, which should
not be below nor above a certain amount. Without binding himself to any
precise amount, he would say, by way of illustration, not less than
twenty-five, and not more than fifty acres; that when so reclaimed and
subdivided, the lands might be either sold or let to poor tenants for a
certain number of years, with the determination, that the portion thus
let should likewise be sold at the end of the term. "I own, sir," said
his lordship, "that I expect a very great advantage gradually to arise
from the adoption of this plan. I expect that great numbers of persons,
who have hitherto been driven to despair, and many of them to crime, by
the great demand for land in Ireland, will earn a competent livelihood
from the produce of these lands. I think, likewise, with regard to those
who will purchase the lands, so reclaimed and improved, _that there will
arise a class of small proprietors, who will form a very valuable class
in the social fabric of Ireland_." He further expressed his opinion,
that he did not think that small holdings were the great evil of
Ireland, he rather thought that the particular way in which land was
held has often been the source of insecurity and want of cultivation.
From the state of the County Armagh he came to the conclusion, he said,
that small holdings were not the great evil of Ireland. In that county
the greatest subdivisions had taken place, and yet it was one of the
most flourishing, and best cultivated counties in Ireland. Compare it,
or in fact compare the whole province of Ulster with the province of
Munster, and many more small holdings will be found in the former than
in the latter.
The whole of the Premier's plan for the reclamation of waste lands in
Ireland, was received with marked approbation by the House.[199]
Having at some length explained the principle on which out-door relief
was to be given, he adverted to the subject of emigration, about which,
he said, the most extravagant expectations had been excited and
entertained in Ireland, but which never could be realized. Emigration
did not, he said, consist in landing a certain number of people on the
shores of America; they should be looked to when they would arrive
there; and his opinion was, that the best mode of promoting emigration
was by affording aid on the arrival of the emigrants at the place of
their destination. This had been extensively done, the previous year, at
Montreal, and he should be sorry to give any other stimulus to
emigration. He then went on to prove that Ireland was not overpeopled;
and as it was not, emigration, in his opinion, had not become a
necessity for that country. He again quoted Sir Robert Kane, who had
stated that there were resources in Ireland, which, if properly
developed, would enable that country to maintain seventeen millions of
inhabitants. He, Lord John, did not go so far as that, but he did not
think the population of the country was excessive, and there was
nothing in the country to prevent the highest improvement. Other
countries, he said, had been quite as badly off as Ireland was now
asserted to be, which were, at present, in the highest state of
prosperity.
To illustrate this he would read a description of a country, in which
the following evils were said to exist. The writer, an old English
author, says:--"The husbandman be thrust out of their own, or else
either by covin or fraud, or violent oppression, they be put beside it;
or by wrongs and injuries they be so wearied, that they be compelled to
sell all. By one means, therefore, or by the other, either by hook or by
crook, they must needs depart away, poor wretched souls--men, women,
husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, woeful mothers with their
young babes, and the whole household, small in substance, and much in
number, as husbandry requires many hands. Away they trudge, I say, out
of their known and accustomed houses, finding no place to rest in. All
their household stuff, which is very little worth, though it might well
abide the sale--yet, being suddenly thrust out, they be constrained to
sell it for a thing of nought; and, when they have wandered about till
that be spent, what can they then do but steal, and then justly pardy be
hanged, or else go about a-begging? Sir," said the Prime Minister, "is
this vivid description unlike the story of an ejectment in Ireland?--of
an ejectment, where the wretched families turned out are obliged to sell
their little all, and forced in a few days either to steal or go about
begging? And yet the description which I have read is a description of
England, by Sir Thomas More--a description of the England of his
day.[200] And lest it should be considered highly coloured or fanciful,
let it be recollected that there are accounts written by magistrates, in
which it is stated that in every county there were 200 or 300 persons
who lived by thieving--who went about, say the contemporary
chroniclers, by sixty at a time--who carried away sheep and cattle, so
that no husbandman was secure, and against whom no defence was
sufficient: that in one reign alone no less than 70,000 of these
marauders were hanged. Sir, this is an account of what England once
was--the England in which we now see so much security. And in the
absence of the outrages described as formerly existing, I think we have
a proof that their existence was owing to the state of society at the
time, and not the nature of the country. I will now read you a
description of another country, at a different period, at the end of the
seventeenth century:--"There are at this day (besides a great number of
families very meanly provided for by the Church boxes, with others, who,
with living upon bad food, fall into various diseases) 200,000 people
begging from door to door. These are not only no ways advantageous, but
a very grievous burthen to so poor a country; and though the number of
them be, perhaps, double what was formerly, by reason of the very great
distress, yet in all times there have been about 100,000 of these
vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or submission, either to
the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature--fathers
incestuously accompanying their own daughters, the son with the mother,
and the brother with the sister. No magistrate could ever discover, or
be informed, which way any of these wretches died, or that ever they
were baptized. Many murders have been discovered among them; and they
are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they
give not bread, or some sort of provision, to, perhaps, forty such
villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many
poor people, who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years
of plenty, many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where
they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets,
burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both
men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting
together." Such, sir, is a description of industrious, sober, civilized,
religious Scotland. Such is a description of what that country was at
the end of the seventeenth century. Dare we, sir, say that the
particular laws--that the particular state of a country--has no
influence; that a country which has been in a perfectly disordered
condition--where robberies have been frequent--where industry has been
interrupted--may not yet become orderly, civilized, and industrious? We
should be unworthy of being members of this British Parliament were we
to give way to despair." To prove that the miseries of Ireland could be
neither attributed to the soil or the people, the Premier said, at the
close of his singularly able and lucid speech: "There is no doubt of the
fertility of the land; that fertility has been the theme of admiration
with writers and travellers of all nations. There is no doubt either, I
must say, of the strength and industry of its inhabitants. The man who
is loitering idly by the mountain-side, in Tipperary or in Derry, whose
potato plot has furnished him merely with occupation for a few days in
the year, whose wages and whose pig have enabled him to pay his rent,
and eke out afterwards a miserable subsistence--that man, I say, may
have a brother in Liverpool, or Glasgow, or London, who, by the sweat of
his brow, from morning to night, is competing with the strongest and
steadiest labourer of England and Scotland, and is earning wages equal
to any of them. I do not, sir, therefore, think that either the
fertility of the soil of Ireland, or the strength and industry of its
inhabitants, is at fault."[201]
During the delivery of the speech here summarized, Lord John Russell
was frequently interrupted with an amount of applause very unusual in
the House of Commons, and at its close he is reported to have sat down
amidst vociferous and continued cheering.
And no wonder, for never did an English Minister touch the grievances of
Ireland with a bolder or truer hand than he did on this occasion; but
amongst his proposals, that which was of the greatest value, the
reclamation of the waste lands, was abandoned,--in fact, was never
brought forward. May we not well ask, Why were not the permanent
measures, now proposed, thought of long before, and passed into laws?
Statesmen appear to have understood them well enough: why then did it
require a famine to have them brought officially before Parliament?
Because it seemed to be the rule with successive Governments to do
nothing for Ireland until they were forced to it by agitation,
rebellion, famine, or some abnormal state of things, which could not be
passed over or resisted. Here we have a plan sketched for the
reclamation of the waste lands of Ireland, which, if in operation for
twenty years before, would have gone far to make the famine transient
and partial, instead of general and overwhelming, as it was. Still the
plan was very welcome when it came, as it offered the prospect of great
future prosperity for this country; everybody felt this, and hence it
was hailed with the most unusual marks of approbation by the House of
Commons. But, the turning point of the famine crisis over, one of the
most valuable measures ever proposed for the benefit of Ireland was
shamefully abandoned. One is inclined to suspect that the Government
never really intended to carry the measure,--it was too good--too much
to the advantage of the people--too great a boon to this country. Mr.
Labouchere, as Irish Secretary, had charge of it; he never seemed in any
hurry to bring it forward, and after a notice or two, followed by
postponements, it ceased to be heard of. Some excuse for the Government
may, perhaps, be found in the fact that the Tories would, in all
probability, have opposed it, and Lord John was only Minister on
sufferance; he could be displaced at any moment Sir Robert Peel pleased,
who expressed himself against the reclamation scheme in his speech
during the debate on the Premier's "group of measures" for Ireland, but
with this exception, Sir Robert gave his full support to those
proposals. He said it was better for Ireland to have self-reliance than
be looking to Dublin Castle; and he advised Irish proprietors to act
independently of the Castle. "With respect to the proposition for the
reclamation of waste lands in Ireland," said Sir Robert, "I shall only
so far allude to that proposition as to express a hope that the noble
lord will pause before he expends so much of the public money on those
lands." The noble lord did pause, and every Minister since his time has
continued to pause; so that the four and a-half millions of waste acres
are still unreclaimed, and the public money which, as was proved, might
be profitably expended on them, has been saved for other purposes, such
as foreign wars, which, since the Irish Famine, have cost as much as
would reclaim them twenty times over, although no one, I should think,
would call those wars "reproductive employment;"--nay, the money spent
on the Crimean war alone, undertaken to keep the Grand Turk on his
throne, would reclaim them twenty times over.
The Government having evidently abandoned their promise of bringing
forward a measure for the reclamation of Irish waste lands, Mr. Poulett
Scrope, (an English member!) on the 22nd of June, moved the following
resolution in the House of Commons: "That the waste lands of Ireland
offer an available resource for the immediate employment and future
maintenance of a part of her population, now apparently redundant; and
that it is expedient to apply them to this great national object, making
equitable compensation to their present proprietors." The hon. member
proceeded to speak in support of his resolution, but, says _Hansard_, he
had not proceeded far when the House was counted out. (!) With respect
to this "count out," the following appeared in the pages of a Dublin
morning journal, from its London correspondent: "In my private note of
last night I enclosed you a copy of a resolution, which Mr. Poulett
Scrope had given notice of his intention to move, with respect to the
waste lands of Ireland. When I closed my letter, the hon. gentleman's
motion stood next on the paper to that which the Commons were engaged in
discussing, but although the House was tolerably full, about a hundred
members being present, I expressed my conviction that a 'count out'
would abruptly terminate that which ought to be a debate of the greatest
possible consequence, The despatch which conveyed my anticipations of
another deliberate insult being offered to the Irish nation, was not
forwarded from the House of Commons more than an hour before the 'count'
took place. There can be little doubt that the Government were privy to
this disreputable manoeuvre, as a debate upon the subject of reclaiming
Irish waste lands, particularly after their broken promises, would, just
at the present moment, and on the eve of a general election, be
exceedingly inconvenient and distasteful.... When the 'count out' took
place, there were only thirty members present, including _thirteen_
Irish members! Where were the virtuous and conscientious men in whom
the constituencies of Ireland had reposed confidence? Why did they not
attend in numbers sufficient to prevent Mr. Poulett Scrope's laudable
effort on behalf of Ireland from being burked?"[202]
During the debate which followed Lord John Russell's speech on the state
of Ireland, Mr. Bernal Osborne accused Parliament of shutting its eyes,
for a series of years, to the fact that there were two millions and
a-half of destitute poor in Ireland, until honorable members had been
suddenly awakened to the circumstance by the potato famine. They were
now endeavouring, by convulsive efforts of legislation, to correct evils
which had been in a great measure incurred through the neglect and
carelessness of that House. "Hear, hear," responded the neglectful and
careless House. He thought the Minister would have exercised a much
wiser discretion if, in addition to the soup-shops, he had turned his
serious attention to the tilling of the land for the next harvest. He
combated Lord John Russell's argument drawn from the prosperity of the
small farmers of Armagh, inasmuch as that county had manufactures as
well as agriculture, and expressed his opinion that small farms were at
the root of the evils of Ireland.[203]
Mr. Smith O'Brien (then enthusiastic about a Repeal of the Legislative
Union) said that the picture of Irish misery drawn by Lord John Russell
was the result of forty-seven years of union with England. Halcyon days
were promised to Ireland at the time of the Union, but he called on the
House to contrast the progress of Ireland from 1782 to the Union, with
the state of Ireland since. He expressed his opinion that the loss in
potatoes, considering the value of offal for pigs and the rise in
prices, was from twenty to thirty millions of money. He believed the
Government could have made such exertion as would have prevented the
death of ONE INDIVIDUAL in Ireland from starvation. He thought the
legitimate course was to have called Parliament together at the earliest
possible moment, (cheers,) and nothing surprised him more than the
statement of the Chief Secretary, that the Irish people had not a
general desire for Parliament to meet in November.
Sir Robert Inglis, referring to the assertion that absentees did not
discharge the duties of proprietors, said he found it stated in a speech
of the late Bishop Jebb, in 1822, when there was a similar calamity,
that a large subscription was raised in a western county by the resident
proprietors, but the absentees, who received out of it a rental of
£83,000 a-year, only subscribed £83.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Right Hon. Charles Wood), defended
the absentees, but was severe upon local proprietors. He held that the
occupiers of land, and not the absentee landlords, were mainly
chargeable with the neglect of their duties to the people in this trying
crisis. Many of the absentees, he said, were most exemplary in their
conduct in alleviating the present distress, amongst whom he named
Colonel Wyndham, who was furnishing daily rations to ten thousand
people.
I wonder how many more such absentees could the Chancellor of the
Exchequer name.
The speakers who were supporters of the Government, and indeed almost
all the English members, were excessively severe on the Irish landlords.
Mr. Roebuck, in the course of a very bitter speech, during the debate on
the address, said: "Now let me say a word about Irish landlords"
(sensation). "I had no doubt," he continued, "but that that sentence
would be met by some sort of feeling on the part of those, the Irish
landlords, for whom the British Parliament has been legislating for the
last three hundred years. Yes, it has been legislating for them, as a
body, against the people of Ireland--it has been maintaining them
against the people of Ireland--it has been permitting them to work for
their own personal purposes, the mischief of the people of Ireland."
Sir Charles Napier, in reply to Mr. Roebuck and others who attacked the
Irish landlords, said, that whether the landlords of Ireland had or had
not done their duty, he did not pretend to say; and more than that, he
thought that many gentlemen, who were so violent against the landlords
of Ireland, knew just as much about them as he did. Of this he was quite
satisfied, that if they had not done their duty the Government were to
blame for not having forced them to it, long before the existing
calamity appeared. Had the English proprietors, he would ask, who had
large estates in Ireland, done their duty? It was not enough to tell him
that their agents were doing all in their power, and he maintained that
the presence of such men as the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of
Lansdowne, and other large landed proprietors, upon their estates in
Ireland, would do much to relieve the people.
Mr. Labouchere defended the Labour-rate Act, and complained that the
Government had not received from the gentry of Ireland, or from the
Relief Committees, that cordial support which they had a right to
expect. He said, the more the real condition of Ireland was examined,
the more tremendous would their difficulties be found. He believed the
great majority of the House was disposed to treat Ireland with a
becoming and proper spirit, and that no one contended that Ireland was
to be considered a mendicant applying for alms to the Imperial
Legislature. He thought the relief should be granted as a matter of
justice, and that the relation between the two countries should be
considered as the relation between the members of a family, whose one
member had been afflicted by some great and sudden and tremendous
distress; and that just as the other members of the family would be
bound, in a spirit of humanity and justice, to come to the relief of the
starving member, so it was incumbent on the Imperial Legislature to come
forward and relieve the starving members of the United Kingdom, at the
present moment. These sentiments were received with marked approbation.
He defended the non-interference of the Government in the supply of
provisions for Ireland: and in dealing with this, not easy question, he
reasoned thus: "We have been blamed," he said, "amongst other things, by
honorable members, who have said to us, 'When you had the corn in the
country, why did you not sell it under the cost price--why did you not
allow the Relief Committees to dispose of it at less than its own
cost--it would have been so much better.' His answer was, because the
Government thought it of infinite consequence to foster, in every
manner, the retail trade of Ireland." There is a confounding of two
important questions here by Mr. Labouchere, which should be kept quite
distinct, and it even looks like an intentional confounding of them.
What certain members of Parliament may have privately said to Mr.
Labouchere, we have no means of ascertaining except from the information
he here gives; but he was Irish Secretary, and he ought to have
known--was bound to know--that the country asked two questions about the
supply of food, instead of one: 1. The first was, "Why did the
Government allow the corn crop of Ireland to be taken out of the country
to feed others, and await their chance of getting Indian meal from a
distance of three thousand miles, to save from starving (which they
failed to do) the people who raised that crop?" The Secretary's answer
to his own-made question, is no answer to that. 2. The second question
asked by the country was--why did not the Government sell corn and meal
to the starving people at some price or another, in districts where
there was no retail trade, and where the creation of it would be the
work of years? There is no answer given to that by Mr. Labouchere. It
is on record, that the people died of starvation with the money in their
hands ready to purchase food, but it would not be sold to them, although
thousands of tons of meal were in the Government stores, at the doors of
which they knocked in vain. Where were the retailers then, who were to
have sprung into existence under the political economy wand of Lord John
Russell and Mr. Labouchere? Mr. Trevelyan, their mouth-piece, said that
the corn in the Government stores should be held over to meet the
pressure expected in May and June. Why did they not keep the Irish corn
crop for May and June, or use it for immediate need and import Indian
meal for May and June?
After further considerable discussion and many modifications, "The Poor
Relief (Ireland) Bill," granting outdoor relief and establishing soup
kitchens, became law on the 16th of April. The name of William Henry
Gregory, then member for the City of Dublin, and afterwards for the
County of Galway, must remain for ever associated with this measure, on
account of two clauses which he succeeded in having incorporated with
it. The first was to this effect: that any tenant, rated at a net value
not exceeding £5, and who would give up to his landlord, the possession
of his land, should be assisted to emigrate by the Guardians of his
Union, the landlord to forego any claim for rent, and to provide
two-thirds of such fair and reasonable sum as might be necessary for the
emigration of such occupier and his family; the Guardians being
empowered to pay to the emigrating family, any sum not exceeding half
what the landlord should give, the same to be levied off the rates. This
clause, although not devoid of redeeming features, was proposed and
carried in the interest of the landlord-clearing-system, yet it was
agreed to without what could be called even a show of opposition. It is,
however, on the second clause--the renowned quarter-acre-clause--that
Mr. Gregory's enduring fame, as an Irish legislator, may be said to
rest. It is well entitled to be transcribed here in full: "And be it
further enacted, that no person who shall be in the occupation, whether
under lease or agreement, or as tenant at will, or from year to year, or
in any other manner whatever, of any land of greater extent than the
quarter of a statute acre, shall be deemed and taken to be a destitute
poor person under the provisions of this Act, or of any former Act of
Parliament. Nor shall it be lawful for any Board of Guardians to grant
any relief whatever, in or out of the Workhouse, to any such occupier,
his wife or children. And if any person, having been such occupier as
aforesaid, shall apply to any Board of Guardians for relief as a
destitute poor person, it shall not be lawful for such Guardians to
grant such relief, until they shall be satisfied that such person has,
_bona fide_, and without collusion, absolutely parted with and
surrendered any right or title which he may have had to the occupation
of any land over and above such extent as aforesaid, of one quarter of a
statute acre." So that by this carefully prepared clause, the head of a
family who happened to hold a single foot of ground over one rood, was
put outside the pale of relief, with his whole family. A more complete
engine for the slaughter and expatriation of a people was never
designed. The previous clause offered facilities for emigrating to those
who would give up their land--the quarter-acre-clause compelled them to
give it up, or die of hunger. In the fulness of his generosity Mr.
Gregory had, he said, originally intended to insert "half an acre" in
the clause, but, like many well-intentioned men, he was over-ruled: he
had, he said, been lately in Ireland, and people there who had more
knowledge of the subject than he could lay claim to, told him half an
acre was _too extensive_, so he made it a quarter of an acre. It is not
hard to conjecture who his advisers were on this occasion.
This clause met with more opposition than the former one, but only from
a small band of kind, good-hearted men, Smith O'Brien called it a cruel
enactment; but as he had heard the Government were for it, he knew, he
said, to remonstrate against it was useless. Mr. Curteis, the member for
Rye, said the clause was meant for the benefit of Irish landlords--a
class that deserved little sympathy from the House or the country. Sir
George Grey, one of the Secretaries of State, supported the clause,
because he had always understood that small holdings were the bane of
Ireland; from which observation it is clear he accepted it as an
exterminating clause. Now, suppose it is admitted that small holdings
were the bane of Ireland, who, we may be permitted to ask, created them?
The very landlords who now sought to abolish them, at the expense of
millions of lives. Again, if small holdings were the bane of Ireland,
was the midst of an unparalleled famine the proper time to remove the
bane? Ought not such a bane be the subject of legislation, when society
was in its normal state? Sir George thought not, and hence he virtually
says to the landlords, "Now is your time to get rid of the people; they
have served your purpose; they are useful to you no longer; why should
they cumber the ground?" Mr. Poulett Scrope objected to carrying the
clause so suddenly into execution, as it would be a complete clearance
of the small farmers of Ireland, and would amount to a social revolution
in the state of things in that country. Mr. Sharman Crawford said he
would divide the House against the clause, which he did. Strange as it
may seem, some Liberal Irish members present supported the clause. Mr.
Morgan John O'Connell said he looked on it as a valuable alteration in
the bill. Alderman Humphrey said the phrase "quarter-acre" ought to be
changed to five acres; whereupon he was told, almost in terms by Sir
George Grey, that he did not understand what he was talking about. Sir
George said "he was afraid his honourable friend, Alderman Humphrey, did
not really see the effect of his own amendment. All holders of land, up
to 4-3/4 acres, would, according to such an amendment, be enabled to
obtain relief without selling their land." "Giving up to the landlord,"
not "_selling_," is the phrase in the clause. In spite of Sir George
Grey's opinion to the contrary, it would seem to ordinary readers that
the worthy Alderman knew quite well the force of his amendment; it was
meant to feed the starving people, even though they happened to have a
little land. Mr Gregory, replying in defence of his clause, used these
words: "Many honourable members insisted that the operation of a clause
of this kind would destroy all the small farmers. If it could have such
an effect, he did not see of what use such small farmers could possibly
be;" because, I suppose, they could not survive a famine that threatened
the lords of the soil with bankruptcy or extinction, as they were
constantly proclaiming. Mr. Gregory's words--the words of a liberal, and
a pretended friend of the people--and Mr. Gregory's clause are things
that should be for ever remembered by the descendants of the slaughtered
and expatriated small farmers of Ireland. On a division, there were 119
for the clause and 9 against it. Here are the nine who opposed the
never-to-be-forgotten quarter-acre-Gregory clause: William Sharman
Crawford, B. Escott, Sir De Lacy Evans, Alderman Humphrey, A. M'Carthy,
G.P. Scrope, W. Williams. Tellers: William Smith O'Brien and J.
Curteis.[204]
FOOTNOTES:
[192] So given, in the daily _journals_, but in _Hansard_ the passage is
much modified, and the hit at the Irish landlords disappears.
"Allow me an opportunity of correcting the error which is widely
diffused among the public, and even in Parliament itself, that in
_Hansard's Debates_ we have the means of obtaining an authentic report
of parliamentary proceedings. This is an entire delusion. _Hansard_ is a
private publication, dependent on the ordinary newspaper reports,
supplemented by such corrections as members make themselves."--_Letter
of Mr. Mitchell Henry, M.P., to the Times of July 14th_, 1873.
[193] _The Morning Chronicle_.
[194] In some reports of the speech the words are "beggars enough for
all Europe."
[195] Mr. D'Israeli, in his _Political Biography_ of Lord George
Bentinck, quotes this passage, and, as it seems to me, manipulates it
unfairly, by ending it at the word "decimated," as if there were a full
stop there, whereas the sense in the original only requires a comma, and
so it is in _Hansard_. To make the sense terminate at "decimated," he
moulds a sentence and a half into one, thus: "The Chief Secretary says,
that the ministers did wisely in this decision, but I differ from him
when I hear, every day, of persons being starved to death, and when he,
himself, admits that in many parts of the country the population had
been decimated;" the censure on the Government contained in the words
immediately succeeding, is omitted. The reason why Mr. D'Israeli did
this is obvious from what follows, which shows he did not agree with
Lord George, in censuring the Government for not opening depôts, and he
undertakes to prove that they should not have done so. He uses, amongst
others, the old trite argument, when he says: there is reason to believe
that the establishment of Government depôts at the end of '46, however
cautiously introduced, tended in the localities to arrest the
development of that retail trade, which was then rapidly extending
throughout Ireland."--_Lord George Bentinck, a political Biography, 5th
Ed., pp. 360, 363_.
_There is reason to believe_, says Mr. D'Israeli; yes, there is the best
reason to believe, that tens of thousands died of starvation in Munster
and Connaught, because food depots were not introduced, or, at least,
because they were not opened for the sale of food to the public. The
word "development" which he uses, sufficiently refutes his whole theory.
There was no time for development; millions were starving who must die
or get food within a few days. What a time to begin to develop a trade
in articles of food among a people without capital, who never had such a
trade before! The effect of Government not interfering in the sale of
food is shown by the prices Lord George quotes a little further on.
[196] Mr. D'Israeli took good care not to quote this passage in his
Biography of Lord George Bentinck.
[197] It was more than hinted that he did not follow the advice of the
Irish Government in other important matters concerning the Famine.
[198] In the middle of November, Mr. Smith O'Brien commenced a series of
letters to the landed proprietors of Ireland. Whilst he was preparing
the first of these, which was introductory, and intended to awaken the
class he was addressing to a sense of their danger and their duty, the
Agricultural Society of Ireland published their objections to the system
of carrying out reproductive works laid down in the Chief Secretary's
letter; and it was in commenting on their views that he wrote the
passage quoted above by the Prime Minister. His second letter dealt with
the knotty question of land tenure. In it he urges strongly and well a
principle which has become a part of the Land Act of 1870, namely, the
tenant's right to compensation. He says: "I begin with the subject of
tenure: uniform experience of human nature teaches that men will not
toil for the benefit of others as they toil for themselves. You are very
sensitive about the maintenance of the due rights of property.... The
same feelings influence your tenant; he will not expend his capital upon
your land unless the return of such capital be guaranteed to him." His
third letter is devoted to the question of drainage, and the reclamation
of waste lands. He undertook to show how advantageous a peasant
proprietary would be, changing, as it would, numbers of persons from the
catalogue of those who have little to gain by maintaining the rights of
property, to that of those who have everything to lose by their
violation. He, however, tells the landlords plainly that they will not
obtain from the Imperial treasury the money necessary for the
undertaking he recommends, unless they mortgage their estates, and
pledge the county rates first. "An Irish member," he writes, "who would
propose to apply ten millions of money to the reclamation of land in
Ireland, would be laughed to scorn in the British legislature. Yet
Parliament would consent almost without a question--perhaps amidst the
cheers of all parties--to the expenditure of this amount in piratical
incursions, such as those made upon the inhabitants of Affghanistan,
Scinde, Syria, and other nations, who have never injured us." The fourth
letter is a continuation of the same subjects. The fifth discusses the
railway question, then in its infancy. The sixth deals with public works
and public instruction. The public works which he specially discusses
and recommends are--internal navigation, and fishery piers and harbours;
he does not enter into systems of education, he only calls for more
liberal grants. The seventh and concluding letter of the series is
devoted to what the writer calls fiscal arrangements. These letters
showed much practical ability, and knowledge of the true wants of the
country. They were written in a calm moderate spirit, but, emanating
from a man of his political views, they do not seem to have received the
attention they deserved.
No doubt, the difficulty stated by Smith O'Brien, and approvingly quoted
by the Prime Minister, did exist in the townland boundary scheme; it
was, perhaps, as great a one as the boundary scheme in the Chief
Secretary's letter; but sacrifices should have been cheerfully submitted
to on such a terrible occasion; and the greatest and realest difficulty
of all was, that the landlords, as a body, had little or no sympathy
with the people, and were not prepared to make sacrifices to save their
lives.
[199] The following is Mr. D'Israeli's account of the waste land
reclamation proposal: it does not, by any means, seem to be in accord
with the spirit with which that proposal was received by
Parliament:--"In the course of the next ten days the Government measures
of relief distinctly transpired. One of these was a public undertaking
to reclaim a portion of the waste lands of Ireland: but it was finally
proposed by the first Minister, sneered at a few days after by his own
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and finally fell prostrate before a bland
admonition from Sir Robert Peel, who was skilful always in detecting
when the Cabinet was not confident in a measure, and by an adroit
interposition often obtained the credit with the country of directing
the Ministry, when really he had only discovered their foregone
conclusion."--_Lord George Bentinck: a political biography, p. 367, 5th
Edition_.
[200] In the _Utopia_.
[201] "The people are not indolent. Of that there has been abundant
proof. Give them a definite object, a fair chance of profit, and they
will work as well as the people of this or any other country. Of this I
have had ample opportunity of judging, on works where thousands have
been employed, both here [England] and in Ireland."--_A twelve months'
residence in Ireland, during the Famine and the Public Works in 1846-7,
by Wm. Henry Smith, C.E., late conducting Civil Engineer of Public
Works_.--London, 1848; p. 120.
"A foreign railway company, a few months ago, advertised in the English
papers for Irish labourers to work on their lines, where they would
receive one-third more wages than the French people themselves were
receiving. He [the Irishman] would do the same amount of work at home,
if properly fed; but the principle is much the same as keeping a horse
without his oats, and expecting him to get through his work the same as
if well fed. The Irishman at the English harvest, or as a railway
labourer, and the London heavy goods or coal porter, is not excelled in
his willingness or industry."--_Ib._ 196.
"It is a mistake to suppose the Irish people will not work. They are
both willing and desirous to work, and, when in regular employment, are
always peaceable and orderly."--_His Excellency Lord Clarendon's Letter
to the Lord Mayor of London, on the "Plantation Scheme," dated Viceregal
Lodge, June 26, 1849._
[202] _Freeman's Journal_, 23rd June, 1847.
[203] Armagh could be scarcely said to have had any manufactures at this
time, as machinery, erected in the large factories of Belfast and other
places, had abolished the hand-looms at which the people worked in their
cottages, and the linen trade had been greatly depressed for years
before; but no doubt there was a time when it was a material help to the
inhabitants of that and other Northern counties.
[204] Immediately after the above clause was added to the "Poor Relief
(Ireland) Bill," Lord George Bentinck made the following attack upon the
Irish-famine policy of the Government: "The noble Lord," says the
report, "proceeded to contend that, if the Government had had recourse
to the system he had recommended, it would have raised the condition of
the people, and the House would not have heard of the tens of thousands
and the hundreds of thousands of deaths; but they could not learn from
the Government how many, for there was one point upon which the Irish
Government were totally ignorant, or which they concealed, which was,
the mortality which had occurred during their administration of Irish
affairs (hear, hear). They shrink (continued the noble lord,
energetically) from telling us; they are ashamed to tell us. They know
the people have been dying by thousands, and I dare them to inquire what
has been the number of those who have died through their mismanagement,
their principles of free trade (oh, oh). Yes, free trade; free trade in
the lives of the Irish people (laughter, cries of 'oh, oh, oh,' and
great confusion); leaving the people to take care of themselves, when
Providence has swept away their food from the face of the earth. There
were no stores, nor mills, nor granaries. Then why (the noble Lord
continued, with much vehemence) don't he give us the information, if he
don't shrink from it? Never before was there an instance of a Christian
government allowing so many people to perish--(oh, oh)--without
interfering (great confusion and cries of 'oh, oh'). Yes, you will
groan; but you will hear this. The time will come when we shall know
what the amount of mortality has been; and though you may groan, and try
to keep the truth down, it shall be known, and the time will come when
the public and the world will be able to estimate, at its proper value,
your management of the affairs of Ireland (murmurs and confusion)."