_Scotland._
Richard Sinnott, Stranraer, Greenock.
J. Bremner, Abbey Parish, Paisley.
W. Walsh, Old Monkland.
The pestilence, which all the precautions practicable on land could
not overcome, broke out, as was to be expected, with increased
virulence on board the emigrant ships. A new law was passed at Boston
in Massachusetts, empowering the local authorities to demand a bond
of 1000 dollars from the masters of emigrant ships for each passenger
apparently indigent, that he should not become chargeable to the State
or to the city for ten years, the effect of which was to divert the
stream of emigration to a greater extent than usual to Canada and New
Brunswick. The deaths on the voyage to Canada increased from 5 in every
1000 persons embarked, to about 60, or to twelve times their previous
rate; and so many more arrived sick, that the proportion of deaths in
quarantine to the numbers embarked, increased from 1⅓ to about 40 in
the 1000, besides still larger numbers who died at Quebec, Montreal,
and elsewhere in the interior[55]. A Medical Board was appointed;
large supplies of provisions were dispatched to the quarantine station;
tents sufficient for the reception of 10,000 persons were issued from
the Ordnance stores, and the labours of the Commissariat in this war
against famine and pestilence, were carried on at the same time on both
sides of the Atlantic; but the utmost exertions and the most liberal
expenditure could not prevent a fearful amount of suffering amongst the
emigrants, and a painful spread of disease to the resident population.
We are well aware that among men of talents and of benevolent
dispositions, there is a wide difference on the important question
of emigration; and in what follows on this subject, we wish to be
understood, not as committing ourselves to particular opinions, but
merely as making a statement, in pursuance of the historical character
of this review, of what we believe to have been the views which guided
the resolutions of the Government.
There is no subject of which a merely one-sided view is more commonly
taken than that of Emigration. The evils arising from the crowded state
of the population, and the facility with which large numbers of persons
may be transferred to other countries, are naturally uppermost in the
minds of landlords and rate-payers; but Her Majesty’s Government, to
which the well-being of the British population in every quarter of the
globe is confided, must have an equal regard to the interests of the
emigrant and of the colonial community of which he may become a member.
It is a great mistake to suppose that even Canada and the United States
have an unlimited capacity of absorbing a new population. The labour
market in the settled districts is always so nearly full, that a small
addition to the persons in search of employment makes a sensible
difference; while the clearing of new land requires the possession
of resources[56], and a power of sustained exertion not ordinarily
belonging to the newly-arrived Irish emigrant. In this, as well as in
the other operations by which society is formed or sustained, there
is a natural process which cannot with impunity be departed from. A
movement is continually going on towards the backwoods on the part of
the young and enterprising portion of the settled population, and of
such of the former emigrants as have acquired means and experience;
and the room thus made is occupied by persons recently arrived from
Europe, who have only their labour to depend upon. The conquest of
the wilderness requires more than the ordinary share of energy and
perseverance, and every attempt that has yet been made to turn Paupers
into Backwoodsmen by administrative measures, has ended in signal
failure. As long as they were rationed, they held together in a feeble,
helpless state; and when the issue of rations ceased, they generally
returned to the settled parts of the country. Our recent experience
of the effects of a similar state of dependence in Ireland, offers no
encouragement to renew the experiment in a distant country, where the
difficulties are so much greater, and a disastrous result would be so
much less capable of being retrieved.
It must also be observed, that from an early period of the present
distress, two modes of meeting the calamity presented themselves,
which have since acquired greater distinctness in people’s minds, and
have been acted upon in a more and more systematic manner. The first
of these was to stimulate the industry of the people, to augment the
productive powers of the soil, and to promote the establishment of new
industrial occupations, so as to cause the land once more to support
its population, and to substitute a higher standard of subsistence,
and a higher tone of popular character, for those which prevailed
before. This plan aimed at accomplishing the object without the pain or
risk of wholesale expatriation; and the result proposed by it was to
increase the strength and prosperity of the country and the happiness
of the people, by enabling the present population to maintain itself
comfortably at home by the exercise of its industry. The Government
adopted this plan from the first, and has since promoted its success
by every means in its power. The other plan was to relieve the
mother-country by transferring large masses of people to the Colonies;
and great efforts were made to obtain the command of public funds to
assist in paying the expense of this emigration.
The main pointy therefore, is, that by taking an active part in
assisting emigration, the Government would throw their weight into the
scale with the last of these two plans. They would assist it by their
means; and, what is of far more consequence, they would countenance
it by their authority: and in the same degree, they would discourage
and relax the efforts of those who are exerting themselves to carry out
the opposite plan. In order to appreciate the full ultimate effect of
such an interposition, it must be remembered that the solution of the
great difficulty by means of emigration carried out on the scale and
in the manner proposed, offers to the promoters of it the attraction
of accomplishing their object by a cheap and summary process; while
the other remedy, of enabling the population to live comfortably at
home, can be arrived at only by an expensive, laborious, and protracted
course of exertion: and it therefore behoves the Government, which
holds the balance between contending parties, to take care to which
side it lends its influence on a social question of this description.
Those who have purchased or inherited estates in which a redundant
population has been permitted or encouraged to grow up, may with
propriety assist some of their people to emigrate, provided they
take care to prevent their being left destitute on their arrival in
their new country. The expense of assisting emigration under such
circumstances properly falls on the proprietor. A surplus population,
whether it be owing to the fault or to the misfortune of the
proprietor or his predecessors, must, like barrenness, or the absence
of improvements, be regarded as one of the disadvantages contingent
on the possession of the estate; and he who enjoys the profits and
advantages of the estate, must also submit to the less desirable
conditions connected with it. So long as emigration is conducted only
at the expense of the proprietor, it is not likely to be carried to
an injurious or dangerous extent, and it will press so heavily on his
resources, as to leave the motives to exertion of a different kind
unimpaired. Emigration is open to objection only when the natural
checks and correctives have been neutralized by the interposition of
the Government, or other public bodies. It then becomes the interest
and policy of the landed proprietor to make no exertion to maintain his
people at home, to produce a general impression that no such exertion
could be successfully made, and to increase by every possible means
the pressure upon those parties who, having the command of public
funds, are expected to give their assistance; and the responsibility
of the consequences, whatever they may be, becomes transferred from
the individual proprietors, to the Government or public body which
countenances and promotes their proceedings.
Three things had become apparent before the close of the year 1846:
the first was, that if these gigantic efforts were much longer
continued, they must exhaust and disorganize society throughout the
United Kingdom, and reduce all classes of people in Ireland to a state
of helpless dependence; the second was, that provision ought to be
made for the relief of extreme destitution in some less objectionable
mode than that which had been adopted, for want of a better, under
the pressure of an alarming emergency; and the third was, that great
efforts and great sacrifices were required to provide another and a
better subsistence for the large population which had hitherto depended
upon the potato. Upon these principles the plan of the Government for
the season of 1847-8, and for all after time, was based.
Much the larger portion of the machinery of a good Poor Law had
been set up in Ireland by the Irish Poor Relief Act (1 & 2 Vic. c.
56), which was passed in the year 1838. The island had been divided
into unions, which were generally so arranged as to secure easy
communication with the central station; and these had been subdivided
into electoral districts, each of which appointed its own guardian,
and was chargeable only with its own poor, like our parishes. A
commodious workhouse had also been built in each union by advances from
the Exchequer[57], and rates had been established for its support.
No relief could, however, be given outside the workhouses, and when
these buildings once became filled with widows and children, aged and
sick, and others who might with equal safety and more humanity have
been supported at their own homes, they ceased to be either a medium
of relief or a test of destitution to the other destitute poor of
the union. To remedy this and other defects of the existing system,
three Acts of Parliament were passed in the Session of 1847[58], the
principal provisions of which were as follows: Destitute persons
who are either permanently or temporarily disabled from labour, and
destitute widows having two or more legitimate children dependent
upon them, may be relieved either in or out of the workhouse, at the
discretion of the guardians. If, owing to want of room, or to the
prevalence of fever or any infectious disorder, adequate relief cannot
be afforded in a workhouse to persons not belonging to either of the
above-mentioned classes, the Poor Law Commissioners may authorize the
guardians to give them outdoor relief in food only; the Commissioners’
order for which purpose can only be made for a period of two months,
but, if necessary, it can be renewed from time to time. Relieving
officers and medical officers for affording medical relief out of
the workhouse are to be appointed; and in cases of sudden and urgent
necessity, the relieving officers are to give “immediate and temporary
relief in food, lodging, medicine, or medical attendance,” until
the next meeting of the guardians. After the 1st November, 1847, no
person is to be relieved either in or out of a workhouse, who is in
the occupation of more than a quarter of an acre of land. No person
is to be deemed to have been resident in an electoral division so as
to make it chargeable with the expense of relieving him, who shall
not during the three years before his application for relief have
occupied some tenement within it, or have usually slept within it for
thirty calendar months. All magistrates residing in the union are to be
_ex-officio_ guardians, provided their number does not exceed that of
elected guardians. Greater facilities are given for dissolving Boards
of Guardians, in case they do not duly and effectually discharge their
duty according to the intention of the several Acts in force. Public
beggars and persons going from one district to another for the purpose
of obtaining relief are rendered liable to one month’s imprisonment
with hard labour; and an independent Poor Law establishment is
constituted for Ireland, consisting of three Commissioners (two of
whom are to be the Secretary and Under-Secretary for Ireland for the
time being), an Assistant Commissioner and Secretary, and as many
Inspectors as may be required.
The principle of a comprehensive Poor Law and of the abolition of
mendicancy, having thus been established, the efforts of the Government
were earnestly directed to the removal of the difficulties likely to
impede its satisfactory working. The repayment of the first instalment
due on account of the advances for the Relief Works of the winter and
spring of 1846-7 (9 & 10 Vic. c. 107), was postponed until after the
Spring Assizes of 1848, and it was announced that no demand would
be made until after the 1st January, 1848, for the repayment of
the advances under the temporary Relief Act, when the rates levied
previously to that date for the current expenses of the permanent
Poor Law equalled or exceeded 3s. in the pound, and that even when
rates had been struck for the purpose of repaying the advances, they
might, if necessary, be applied to defraying those current expenses.
By these arrangements the demands for repayment between the Summer
Assizes of 1847 and the Spring Assizes of 1848 were limited to the
second instalment for the Relief Works and repairs of Grand Jury
Roads of 1846 (9 Vic. c. 1 and 2), amounting only to 27,000ℓ. for the
whole of Ireland; and after providing for this and for the expense
of the gaols and other ordinary local demands, all the rates levied
from the produce of the abundant harvest of 1847 became applicable
to the relief of the people under the Poor Law, then for the first
time coming into full operation. The Guardians were at the same time
earnestly recommended by the Poor Law Commissioners to strike rates
sufficient to meet the exigencies of the coming winter, and to be
strict in the levy of them. They were advised to guard against the
necessity of giving out-door relief to the able-bodied, by providing
for disabled persons, widows, school-children, and fever patients out
of the workhouse; and five Boards of Guardians which had obstinately
persisted in not doing their duty, were dissolved, and paid Guardians
were appointed in their place. Ireland had now had a year and a half’s
experience of the administration of relief on a great scale and in
different ways, and the objects to be aimed at and the abuses to be
avoided had become generally known. “The very evil itself,” the
Relief Commissioners observe in their Sixth Monthly Report, “has been
attended with a salutary reaction, and the whole country seems, by
this experience, to have been made sensible that it is only by the
most rigid and thoroughly controlled principles of affording relief
by any public arrangement, that society can be protected from a state
of almost universal pauperisation, and that the charge of a more
benevolent alleviation of distress than what is absolutely necessary
for the bare support of the thoroughly destitute, must and ought to
be left to the exertions and voluntary distribution of the charitable
and humane, which it is hoped will always be largely afforded.” During
the week ended Saturday the 14th August, 1847, there were above 20,000
persons on the relief lists of the electoral division which comprises
the northern half of the city of Dublin; and as the operations under
the Temporary Relief Act terminated in that union on the 15th, the
guardians, on the 16th, had to deal with the apparent necessity of
having to provide relief for above 20,000 persons. On the morning of
that day, however, owing to previous arrangements, they had room in
the workhouse of their union for 400 individuals; and by offering
workhouse relief to applicants, aided by some assistance from the
Mendicity Institution, the guardians were enabled in the course of six
days to reduce the number on the relief lists to about 3000 persons.
This is only one instance among many that might be adduced, of the
practical value of the experience that has been acquired in Ireland of
the true principles of Poor Law management.
A principle of great power has thus been introduced into the social
system of Ireland, which must be productive of many important
consequences, besides those which directly flow from it. Mr. Drummond’s
apophthegm, that “property has its duties as well as its rights,”
having now received the sanction of law, it can never hereafter be
a matter of indifference to a landed proprietor, what the condition
of the people on his estate is. The day has gone by for letting
things take their course, and landlords and farmers have the plain
alternative placed before them of supporting the people in idleness
or in profitable labour. Hitherto the duties of Irish landlords had
been, as jurists would say, of imperfect obligation. In other words,
their performance depended upon conscience, benevolence, and a more
enlightened and far-seeing view of personal interest than belongs to
the generality of men; the consequence of which has been a remarkable
difference in the conduct of Irish landlords: and while some have
made all the sacrifices and exertions which their position required,
others have been guilty of that entire abandonment of duty which has
brought reproach upon their order. For the future this cannot be.
The necessity of self-preservation, and the knowledge that rents can
be saved from the encroachments of poor-rates, only in proportion as
the poor are cared for and profitably employed, will secure a fair
average good conduct on the part of landed proprietors, as in England,
and more favourable circumstances will induce improved habits. The
poor-rate is an absentee tax of the best description; because, besides
bringing non-resident proprietors under contribution, it gives them
powerful motives either to reside on their estates or to take care
that they are managed, in their absence, with a proper regard to the
welfare of the poor[59]. Lastly, the performance of duty supposes the
enjoyment of equivalent rights. When rich and poor are at one again,
the repudiating farmer will find the position of his landlord too
strong to allow of his taking his present license, and it will then be
fearlessly asserted that the converse of Mr. Drummond’s maxim is also
true, and that “Property has its rights as well as its duties.” For the
first time in the history of Ireland, the poor man has become sensibly
alive to the idea that the law is his friend, and the exhortation of
the parish priest of Dingle to his flock in September 1847, indicates
an epoch in the progress of society in Ireland:--“Heretofore landlords
have had agents who collected their rents, and they supported them. The
grand jury had agents to collect the county-cess, and they supported
them. Now, for the first time, the poor man has an agent to collect
_his_ rent. That agent is the poor-rate collector, and he should be
supported by the poor.” Time must, however, be allowed for the gradual
working of this feeling, before its full effects can be seen.
Those who object to the existing Poor Law are bound to point out a more
certain and less objectionable mode of relieving the destitute and
securing the regular employment of the poor. The principle of the Poor
Law is, that rate after rate should be levied _for the preservation of
life_, until the landowners and farmers either enable the people to
support themselves by honest industry, or dispose of their property to
those who can and will perform this indispensable duty.
The fearful problem to be solved in Ireland, stated in its simplest
form, is this. A large population subsisting on potatoes which they
raised for themselves, has been deprived of that resource, and how are
they now to be supported? The obvious answer is, by growing something
else. But that cannot be, because the small patches of land which
maintained a family when laid down to potatoes, are insufficient for
the purpose when laid down to corn or any other kind of produce; and
corn cultivation requires capital and skill, and combined labour, which
the cotter and conacre tenants do not possess. The position occupied by
these classes is no longer tenable, and it is necessary for them either
to become substantial farmers, or to live by the wages of their labour.
They must still depend for their subsistence upon agriculture, but upon
agriculture conducted according to new and very improved conditions.
Both the kind of food and the means of procuring it have changed. The
people will henceforth principally live upon grain, either imported
from abroad or grown in the country, which they will purchase out of
their wages; and corn and cattle will be exported, as the piece-goods
of Manchester are, to provide the fund out of which the community will
be maintained under the several heads of wages, profits, and rents.
It is in vain that the granary of the merchant and the homestead
of the farmer are filled to overflowing, if the mass of the people
have not the means of purchasing, and it has therefore become of the
highest consequence that the resources which are most available for
the payment of wages should be cultivated to the utmost. The Poor
Law cannot alone bear the whole weight of the existing pauperism of
Ireland; and its unproductive expenditure, however indispensable, must
be supported by adequate industrial efforts, in order to prevent all
classes of society from being involved in one common ruin. Before this
crisis occurred, Sir Robert Kane had proved in theory, and many good
farmers in practice, that a much larger produce might be raised, and
a much larger population might be supported from the soil of Ireland
than heretofore; and this view has since been confirmed by numerous
surveys conducted under the superintendence of the Board of Works,
which have disclosed an extensive and varied field for the investment
of capital, upon which the whole unemployed population of Ireland
might be employed with much advantage to all parties concerned. The
great resource of Ireland consists in the cultivation of her soil, the
improvement of her cattle, the extension of her fisheries; and while
there are large tracts of flooded land to be reclaimed, and still
larger tracts of half-cultivated land to be brought to a higher state
of productiveness, it would be a misdirection of capital to employ
it in the less profitable manufactures of cotton and wool. Ireland is
benefited to a greater extent than many parts of Scotland and England
are, by the markets and the means of employment which Manchester and
Glasgow afford; but her own staple manufacture is corn.
The Treasury was authorized by the 1 & 2 Wm. IV, c. 33, passed in
1831, to lend money to private individuals for the improvement of
their estates, provided the value of the estate was increased 10
per cent. and repayment was made in three years; and by the first
Act of the Session of 1846 the period of repayment was extended to
twenty years. This power was however very sparingly acted on. Grave
objections existed to the State becoming a general creditor throughout
the country, and the operations of private capitalists were likely to
be deranged and suspended by the interference of such a competitor. A
rate of interest (5 per cent.) higher than the market rate for money
lent on mortgage, was therefore charged, and the result was, that
only three persons took out loans under this arrangement, one of whom
was the late Lord Bessborough. At the close of the Session of 1846,
the Act 9 & 10 Vic. c. 101, was passed, by which 1,000,000ℓ. was
authorized to be lent for drainage in Ireland, and repayment was to be
made in equal half-yearly instalments, spread over twenty-two years,
including interest at 3½ per cent.; but this Act could not be worked,
so far as Ireland was concerned, partly owing to a legal opinion that
tenants for life were not eligible for loans under it, and partly
because the works must be executed to a certain extent before the
money could be advanced. Upon this the Treasury issued a Minute dated
the 1st, and a letter dated the 15th December, 1846[60], offering to
lend money for the general improvement of estates, including drainage,
on a footing which combined the advantages of the previous Acts with
the indulgent mode of repayment introduced by the last; and in the
following session the Act 10 & 11 Vic. c. 32 was passed, by which
all the existing legislation on the subject was consolidated, and
loans[61] were authorized to be made in Ireland to the extent of
1,500,000ℓ., on the principle that the improvements on each estate
are to be executed by the proprietor, and that the interference of
the officers of the Government is to be confined to ascertaining, in
the first instance, that the proposed improvements are likely to be
of such a permanent and productive character as would justify the
cost of them being made a charge upon the estate, with priority over
other incumbrances, and, afterwards, to inspecting the works from time
to time, so as to secure the proper application of the sums advanced
to the purposes for which they were intended. No advance can be made
under this Act unless the increased annual value to be given to the
land by the proposed improvement shall equal the amount to be charged
on it; and a difficulty having arisen from the circumstance that the
full benefit to be derived from draining is attained in different
soils at different periods after the completion of the drains, it
was declared by a Treasury Minute dated the 15th June, 1847, that it
is not necessary that each portion of land improved should yield, in
the first and in every subsequent year, an additional rent equal to
6½ per cent. per annum on the outlay beyond the present rent; but
that the general result of the improvement of the lands on which the
rent-charge is to be secured, will, one year with another, from the
period when the full benefit of the improvement may be supposed to
have accrued, be such as to produce an increased annual value to the
above extent; taking care, of course, that the rent-charge is fixed
upon lands amply sufficient to secure the repayment to the Government
of the sums so charged. These directions had particular reference to
the circumstances of the poverty-stricken districts in the West of
Ireland, where it is peculiarly desirable to increase the food grown on
the spot, and to provide the means of employment for the people in the
productive avocations of agriculture; and every practicable facility
and preference is therefore given to the landed proprietors in those
districts, which is not inconsistent with justice to other parties.
It was determined by the same Minute, in pursuance of the course
taken by Parliament with respect to the loans for drainage in England
and Scotland, that the loans to be made to any one landed proprietor
should not, under ordinary circumstances, exceed, in the aggregate,
the sum of 12,000ℓ.; but if, in any particular case, owing to the
extent of the property to be improved, or other causes, it should be
advisable to enlarge this limit, the Lords of the Treasury will be
prepared to authorize such additional sum as may appear to be proper,
not exceeding, however, an aggregate amount to the same proprietor, of
20,000ℓ.
In taking its line on this subject, the Government had to choose
between employing the agency of the landed proprietors and that of
public officers; and after much consideration and some experience,
the final decision was in favour of the former alternative, as above
described.
By following this course, all the existing relations of society were
preserved and strengthened; the landed proprietors were held to their
responsibility for the well-being of the people residing on their
estates, and they were assisted to the extent of the loan fund placed
by Parliament at the disposal of the Government. The proprietor or
his agent has the strongest interest in seeing that the work is well
done, and can exercise the most effectual superintendence over it; and
as the people are invited to exert themselves under the eye of their
natural employers, the healthy relation of master and labourer becomes
established throughout the country. It has not, as yet, been usual
in Ireland, for the landlord to undertake to make the more expensive
and permanent improvements, as is the case in England, but it may be
hoped that an impulse will be given to this wholesome practice by the
loans to proprietors under the Land Improvement Act. The landlord will
be encouraged to proceed in a course of improvement which he finds by
experience to be profitable to him; he will be likely to make further
investments on land which has been reclaimed or improved by him, and he
will be especially careful to prevent it from being subdivided into
small holdings[62].
The other plan of reclaiming waste lands by the direct agency of the
Government, did not survive the objections made to it on the score of
its interference with the rights of private property. The land must
be obtained before it could be improved, and was it to be left to the
discretion of Commissioners to take any bog-land they pleased at a
valuation; to single out, for instance, a tract of unreclaimed land in
the centre of an estate? Some firm land also must be annexed to each
allotment for the erection of the farm buildings, and to obtain soil
for the improvement of the bog, and this would have given a still wider
and more arbitrary discretion to the Commissioners. The compulsory
powers had therefore to be given up; and without them the plan could
not be worked.
But there are other objections to this plan which have a much deeper
root. The first result of the Government undertaking to reclaim the
waste lands of Ireland would be that the mass of the people would
throw themselves on these works, as they did upon the roads, taking
it for granted that the means of payment were inexhaustible, and that
less labour would be exacted than in employment offered with a view
to private profit. The landlords and farmers would consider that, as
the Government had undertaken to employ the people and improve the
soil, they were themselves absolved from responsibility, and they
would refer all the persons who applied to them for employment, to the
Government works, as has been so often done on former occasions. The
single agency of the Government would be substituted for the exertions
of the whole body of the landowners acting in concert with their
tenants and dependants; and instead of landed proprietors and farmers
laying out their own money for their own benefit, with all the care
and economy which this supposes, we should have hundreds of public
officers, of various grades and characters, expending public money,
for the supposed benefit of the public, in a business totally foreign
to the proper functions of Government, and without a possibility of
effectual superintendence; the inevitable consequence of which would
be, bad work, idle habits, and profuse and wasteful expenditure.
Lastly, when the land had been reclaimed, whatever care might be taken
to dispose of it in farms of reasonable size, however durable might be
the interest granted, or whatever legal restrictions might be attempted
to be imposed, the old process of the subdivision of the land, and the
multiplication of the persons subsisting upon it, would run its course.
Nothing can supply the place of the watchful supervision exercised by
a proprietor, for the protection of his own interests, in such a case.
A peasant proprietary may succeed to a certain extent[63], where there
is a foundation of steadiness of character, and a habit of prudence,
and a spring of pride, and a value for independence and comfort; but
we fear that all these words merely show the vain nature of schemes of
peasant proprietorship for Ireland. The small holders of Belgium[64],
with all their industry and frugality, have, during this calamitous
period, been the most distressed population in Europe next to Ireland.
Their own resources were too small to carry them through a season of
dearth, and they had no employers to assist them. In India, society
is based on a system of small holdings, and there is no country in
which destructive famines have been so common. In Ireland itself, the
greatest over-population, and consequently the greatest distress,
prevailed in those districts in which, owing to the existence of long
leases, the landlords had no power to prevent the subdivision of the
land. Mere security of tenure is of no avail, without the capital,
and skill, and habits of life, and, above all, the wholesome moral
qualities required to turn this advantage to good account. During the
late season of dearth, food was dearer in the long peninsula which
stretches to the south-west of England, than it was in Ireland, and
the poor had no resource analogous to the farming stock of the Irish
small holder; but the Devonshire and Somersetshire labourer lives by
wages paid by persons richer than himself; and though severely pinched,
he had enough for daily bread, with some assistance from charitable
aid, which was generally afforded throughout the west of England,
during the late season of distress, either by parochial subscriptions
or by allowances from the unions. The south-west of England is the
least favourable specimen which Great Britain affords of the system
of society based upon wages, because the flourishing manufactures
which formerly existed in that quarter have disappeared before the
superior natural advantages of the North, and wages are consequently
very low[65]. In every other part of this island the contrast is
more decidedly to the disadvantage of the small holdings; and in
Northumberland, which is a county of large farms, there may be said to
be no poor. Whether the good order, the physical well-being, or the
moral and intellectual progress of rural society, be considered, the
best model is that in which the educated and enlightened proprietor,
the substantial farmer, and the industrious labourer on regular wages,
each performs his appropriate part.
The works required for deepening and straightening the course of many
of the rivers are of peculiar importance to Ireland; because until
the outfalls have been cleared, the landowners cannot enter upon the
detailed or thorough drainage of their respective estates. In such
cases the necessity of working upon the lands of different proprietors
calls for the active interposition of the Board of Works, who make the
preliminary survey, execute the work, and afterwards apportion the
charge, according to the benefit derived by each person interested. The
funds for carrying on these improvements had been chiefly obtained by
the issue of debentures under the authority of the Acts of Parliament
relating to the subject; but, under existing circumstances, loans were
not to be expected from private individuals at a moderate rate of
interest; and the ordinary loan fund of the Board of Works amounting to
60,000ℓ. a-year, was therefore reinforced with 120,000ℓ., transferred
to it from the London Loan Commissioners, and 250,000ℓ. issued from
the Consolidated Fund; making altogether a sum of 430,000ℓ. placed
at the disposal of the Board of Works, between the 1st April, 1847,
and the 1st April, 1848, to be advanced by them for works of utility
in Ireland, but principally for drainage of the above-mentioned
description.
Next to agricultural improvements, well-selected public works perhaps
offer the greatest resource in the present unhappy circumstances of
Ireland. It is a mistake to suppose that opening a good road may not
be the most reproductive work in many districts; and the construction
of railroads on the great lines of communication, does for the whole
country what new roads do for particular districts, facilitating and
stimulating every description of production, and agriculture more than
all, binding society together by a closer intercourse and interchange
of good offices, and rapidly diffusing through the remote provinces the
advantages enjoyed by the more favoured parts of the country.
The objection to Lord George Bentinck’s plan for assisting Irish
railways was, that while it was inadequate as a measure of relief,
it was too large and indiscriminate when viewed as a measure for the
promotion of public works. Private enterprise would have been overlaid;
the bad lines would have been benefited at the expense of the good; the
public credit would have been lowered; the available stock of national
capital would have suffered an additional drain which it could ill
afford; and after all, the object of relieving the existing distress
would not have been attained. The famine was then at its height, and
it could not be stayed by any measure short of distributing food to
the multitude. After allowing for the largest number of persons who
could be employed on railways, millions must still have starved, if
other more effectual steps had not been taken; and the sums advanced
to the Railway Companies, large as they would have been, would not
have perceptibly diminished the expense of feeding a whole nation[66].
When this primary object had been attained, and all the funds had been
raised by loan which the state of Ireland required, the Government
was then in a position to consider what assistance could be given to
railroads in common with other works of public utility; and 620,000ℓ.
was voted by Parliament to be lent to Railways which were legally
able to borrow, owing to their having paid up half their capital, and
could undertake to expend within a certain fixed time, another sum of
their own equal to that advanced to them. By the aid thus given, the
great South-Western Railway of Ireland will be enabled to employ a
large number of men throughout the winter, and the important object of
opening the communication between Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, will be
accomplished at a much earlier period than would otherwise have been
the case.
The other works in progress in Ireland, with the aid of grants or loans
from Parliament, are as follows: the Shannon navigation, which has been
in operation for several years; the construction of new floating docks
and markets at Limerick; works at Hawlbowline, with a view to render
that place more useful as a naval station; four great works of combined
navigation and drainage; the construction of three new colleges, and of
several prisons and lunatic asylums; and the repair and construction
of fishery piers, for which 50,000ℓ. was voted in the session of 1846,
and a further sum of 40,000ℓ. in the session of 1847.
* * * * *
Having thus furnished as clear a sketch as the variety and complexity
of the incidents would allow, of this remarkable crisis in our
national affairs, when the events of many years were crowded into two
short seasons, and a foundation was laid for social changes of the
highest importance, it may be asked, what fruits have yet appeared of
this portentous seed-time, and what the experience is which we have
purchased at so heavy a cost?
First, it has been proved to demonstration, that local distress cannot
be relieved out of national funds without great abuses and evils,
tending, by a direct and rapid process, to an entire disorganisation
of society. This is, in effect, to expose the common stock to a
general scramble. All are interested in getting as much as they can.
It is nobody’s concern to put a check on the expenditure. If the poor
man prefers idling on relief works or being rationed with his wife
and children, to hard labour; if the farmer discharges his labourers
and makes the state of things a plea for not paying rates or rent;
if the landed proprietor joins in the common cry, hoping to obtain
some present advantage, and trusting to the chance of escaping future
repayments, it is not the men, but the system, which is in fault.
Ireland is not the only country which would have been thrown off its
balance by the attraction of “public money” _à discrétion_. This
false principle eats like a canker into the moral health and physical
prosperity of the people. All classes “make a poor mouth,” as it
is expressively called in Ireland. They conceal their advantages,
exaggerate their difficulties, and relax their exertions. The cotter
does not sow his holding, the proprietor does not employ his poor
in improving his estate, because by doing so they would disentitle
themselves to their “share of the relief.” The common wealth suffers
both by the lavish consumption and the diminished production, and the
bees of the hive, however they may redouble their exertions, must
soon sink under the accumulated burden. The officers of Government,
overborne by numbers, and unable to test the interested representations
pressed upon them from all quarters, cannot exercise their usual
watchful care over the expenditure of the public money. Those persons
who have the will to do their duty, have not the power. Those who have
the power, have not the will. There is only one way in which the relief
of the destitute ever has been, or ever will be, conducted consistently
with the general welfare, and that is by _making it a local charge_.
Those who know how to discriminate between the different claims for
relief, then become actuated by a powerful motive to use that knowledge
aright. They are spending _their own money_. At the same time, those
who have the means of employing the people in reproductive works, have
the strongest inducement given them to do so. The struggle now is to
keep the poor off the rates, and if their labour only replaces the cost
of their food, it is cheaper than having to maintain them in perfect
idleness.
Another point which has been established by the result of these
extensive experiments in the science, if it may be so called, of
relieving the destitute, is that two things ought to be carefully
separated which are often confounded. Improvement is always a good
thing, and relief is occasionally a necessary thing, but the
mixture of the two is almost always bad; and when it is attempted
on a large scale without proper means of keeping it in check, it is
likely to affect in a very injurious manner the ordinary motives and
processes by which the business of society is carried on. Relief,
taken by itself, offers, if it is properly administered, no motive
to misrepresent the condition of the people; and being burdensome to
the higher, and distasteful to the lower classes, it is capable of
being carefully tested and subjected to effectual controul. But when
relief is connected with profitable improvements and full wages, the
most influential persons in each locality become at once interested in
establishing a case in favour of it, and the higher are always ready
to join with the lower classes in pressing forward _relief works_
on a plea of urgent general distress, which it may be impossible to
analyse and difficult to resist. Relief ought to be confined as much
as possible to the infirm and helpless. Wages, by means of which
improvements are carried on, should be given by preference to the
able-bodied and vigorous. Relief ought to be on the lowest scale
necessary for subsistence. Wages should be sufficiently liberal to
secure the best exertions of the labourer. Relief should be made so
unattractive as to furnish no motive to ask for it, except in the
absence of every other means of subsistence. Improvements should be
encouraged and urged forward by every practicable means, both as
regards the parties undertaking them, and those by whom they are
executed. If labour is connected with relief, it should only be as a
test of the destitution of the applicant, and of his being consequently
entitled to a bare subsistence, in the same way as confinement in a
workhouse is also a test; and the true way to make relief conducive
to improvement, is to give the rich no choice between maintaining the
able-bodied labourers as paupers, or employing them on full wages on
profitable works, and to take care that the poor have no reason to
prefer living on public alms, to the active exercise of their industry
in their own behalf.
Among all our discouragements, there are not wanting many and sure
grounds of hope for the future. The best sign of all is, that the case
of Ireland is at last understood. Irish affairs are no longer a craft
and mystery. The abyss has been fathomed. The famine has acted with
a force which nothing could resist, and has exposed to view the real
state of the country, so that he who runs may read. We have gained,
both by what has been unlearned and by what has been learned during the
last two years: and the result is, that the great majority of people,
both in Ireland and England, are now agreed upon the course which
ought to be pursued, in order to arrive at the wished-for end. The
attention of the two countries has also been so long directed to the
same subject, that a new reciprocity of interest and feeling has been
established, and the public opinion of each has begun to act upon the
other with a force which was never felt before.
The Irish have been disabused of one of the strangest delusions
which ever paralysed the energies of a naturally intelligent and
energetic people. Those who knew the country best, were aware of
the habitual dependence of the upper classes upon the Government;
and it was a common saying of former days, that an Irish gentleman
could not even marry his daughter without going to the Castle for
assistance. The vulgar idea was, that when difficulties occurred,
every personal obligation was discharged by “bringing the matter under
the consideration of the Government;” and if, in addition to this, “a
handsome support” was promised, it seldom meant more than helping to
spend any public money that might be forthcoming. But it was reserved
for that potent solvent, the Famine, to discover to the full extent,
this element of the national character. To pass with safety through
this great crisis, required that every man, from the highest nobleman
to the meanest peasant, should exert himself to the utmost of his
means and ability; instead of which, the entire unassisted burden of
employing all the unemployed labourers of Ireland, of improving all the
unimproved land of Ireland, and feeding all the destitute persons in
Ireland, was heaped upon a Board consisting of five gentlemen, sitting
in an office in Dublin. The example of the gentry was followed with
customary exaggeration by the lower orders, and throughout extensive
districts, the cultivation of the land was suspended in the spring of
1847 until it should be seen what “encouragement” the Government would
give, or, as it was sometimes ingenuously expressed, “We expect the
Government will till the ground.” It is also a fact that the people in
some parts of the West of Ireland neglected to a great extent to lay in
their usual winter stock of turf in 1847, owing to the prevalence of a
popular impression that the Queen would supply them with coals. Ireland
has awakened from this dream by the occurrence of the most frightful
calamities, and it has at last begun to be understood that the proper
business of a Government, is to enable private individuals of every
rank and profession in life, to carry on their several occupations
with freedom and safety, and not itself to undertake the business
of the landowner, merchant, money-lender, or any other function of
social life. Reason is now able to make herself heard, and there has
not been wanting many a warning and encouraging voice from Ireland
herself, declaring--“The prosperity of Ireland is only to be attained
by your own strong arms. We are able to help ourselves. We will no
longer be dependent on the precarious assistance received from other
lands. We will never rest until every sod in Ireland brings forth
abundantly--till every inch of ground is in its highest and fullest
state of bearing. In a short time we shall have among us more industry
and exertion, less politics and more ploughing, less argument and more
action, less debating and more doing[67].”
The uniting power of a common misfortune has also been felt throughout
the British Empire. Those who had never before exchanged words or
looks of kindness, met to co-operate in this great work of charity,
and good men recognised each other’s merits under the distinctions
by which they had been previously separated. The Protestant and
Roman Catholic clergy vied with each other in their exertions for
the famishing and fever-stricken people, and in numerous instances
their lives became a sacrifice to the discharge of their exhausting,
harassing and dangerous duties. To the priests all were indebted for
the readiness with which they made their influence over their flocks
subservient to the cause of order; and the minister of religion was
frequently summoned to the aid of the public officer when all other
means of restraining the excited multitude had failed[68]. The
political dissensions which had distracted Ireland for centuries
became suddenly allayed. The famine was too strong even for the mighty
demagogue, that great mixed character to whom Ireland owes so much good
and so much evil. People of every shade of political opinion acted
together, not always in an enlightened manner, but always cordially
and earnestly, in making the social maladies of Ireland, and the means
of healing them, the paramount object. In the hour of her utmost need,
Ireland became sensible of an union of feeling and interest with the
rest of the empire, which would have moved hearts less susceptible
of every generous and grateful emotion than those of her sons and
daughters[69]. Although the public efforts in her behalf were without
parallel in ancient and modern history, and the private subscriptions
were the largest ever raised for a charitable object, they were less
remarkable than the absorbing interest with which her misfortunes
were regarded for months together both in Parliament and in society,
to the exclusion of almost every other topic. It will also never be
forgotten that these efforts and these sacrifices were made at a time
when England was herself suffering under a severe scarcity of food,
aggravated by the failure of the cotton crop, and by the pecuniary
exhaustion consequent upon the vast expenditure for the construction
of railways. Even in such a state of things, though serious injury was
done to all her interests by the Irish Loan, and though the pressure
upon the labouring classes was greatly increased by the wholesale
purchase of their food, that it might be given without cost to the
starving Irish, yet every sacrifice was submitted to without a murmur
by the great body of the people.
Although the process by which long-established habits are changed, and
society is reconstructed on a new basis, must necessarily be slow,
there are not wanting signs that we are advancing by sure steps towards
the desired end. The cultivation of corn has to a great extent been
substituted for that of the potato; the people have become accustomed
to a better description of food than the potato[70]; conacre, and
the excessive competition for land, have ceased to exist; the small
holdings, which have become deserted, owing to death, or emigration,
or the mere inability of the holders to obtain a subsistence from
them in the absence of the potato, have, to a considerable extent,
been consolidated with the adjoining farms; and the middlemen, whose
occupation depends upon the existence of a numerous small tenantry,
have begun to disappear. The large quantity of land left uncultivated
in some of the western districts is a painful but decisive proof of
the extent to which this change is taking place. The class of offences
connected with the holding of land, which was the most difficult to
deal with, because agrarian crimes were supported by the sympathy and
approbation of the body of the people, and were generally the result
of secret illegal associations, fell off in a remarkable degree[71];
and although offences against other kinds of property increased, owing
to the general distress, the usual difficulty was not experienced in
obtaining convictions. The much-desired change in the ownership of
land appears also to have commenced; and when great estates are brought
to the hammer now, instead of being sold, as formerly, _en masse_, they
are broken up into lots[72], which opens the door to a middle class,
more likely to become resident and improving proprietors than their
predecessors, and better able to maintain the stability of property
and of our political institutions, because they are themselves sprung
from the people. The most wholesome symptom of all, however, is that
a general impression prevails, that the plan of depending on external
assistance has been tried to the utmost and has failed; that people
have grown worse under it instead of better; and that the experiment
ought now to be made of what independent exertion will do. This feeling
has been much strengthened by the necessity which has been imposed upon
the upper classes through the Poor Law, of caring for the condition
of the people; and the attention of the country gentlemen has in many
districts been seriously directed to the means of supporting them in a
manner which will be alike beneficial to the employer and the employed.
The poet Spenser commences his view of the state of Ireland by these
discouraging observations: “Marry, so there have been divers good
plots devised, and wise counsels cast already about reformation of
that realm, but they say it is the fatal destiny of that land, that
no purposes whatsoever which are meant for her good, will prosper or
take good effect; which, whether it proceed from the very genius of
the soil, or influence of the stars, or that Almighty God hath not yet
appointed the time of her reformation, or that he reserveth her in
this inquiet state still for some secret scourge, which shall by her
come into England, it is hard to be known, but yet much to be feared.”
Our humble but sincere conviction is, that the appointed time of
Ireland’s regeneration is at last come. For several centuries we were
in a state of open warfare with the native Irish, who were treated as
foreign enemies, and were not admitted to the privileges and civilising
influences of English law, even when they most desired it. To this
succeeded a long period of mixed religious and civil persecution[73],
when the Irish were treated as the professors of a hostile faith,
and had inflicted on them irritating and degrading penalties, of
which exclusion from Parliament and from civil and military office
was one of the least; the general characteristics of this epoch of
Irish management being that the Protestant minority were governed by
corruption, and the Roman Catholic majority by intimidation. During
all this time England reaped as she sowed: and as she kept the people
in a chronic state of exasperation against herself, none of her “good
plots and wise counsels” for their benefit succeeded; for there was no
want of good intention, and the fault was principally in the mistaken
opinions of the age, which led to persecution in other countries
besides Ireland. Now, thank God, we are in a different position;
and although many waves of disturbance must pass over us before that
troubled sea can entirely subside, and time must be allowed for morbid
habits to give place to a more healthy action, England and Ireland are,
with one great exception, subject to equal laws; and, so far as the
maladies of Ireland are traceable to political causes, nearly every
practicable remedy has been applied. The deep and inveterate root of
social evil remained, and this has been laid bare by a direct stroke
of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence, as if this part of the
case were beyond the unassisted power of man. Innumerable had been the
specifics which the wit of man had devised; but even the idea of the
sharp but effectual, remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected
had never occurred to any one. God grant that the generation to which
this great opportunity has been offered, may rightly perform its part,
and that we may not relax our efforts until Ireland fully participates
in the social health and physical prosperity of Great Britain, which
will be the true consummation of their union.