IRELAND UNDER THE WHEELS.
I repeat the assertion that Ireland has been _ruined by Free Trade_.
Let us take a brief retrospect of Ireland before the introduction
of Free Trade.
At the earlier part of this century Ireland showed great
capabilities for improvement and national prosperity, and (in
spite of the somewhat selfish policy of England, which did not
sufficiently protect from herself the industries of Ireland) she
gave undoubted signs of a steady but rapid advance in prosperity.
Between the years 1825 and 1835, her exports and imports were more
than doubled.
Her population between 1821 and 1841 increased from 6,802,000 to
8,196,000. That this population was not too great for the land,
is proved by the fact that the whole resources of land were not
utilized; moreover, her population was far smaller per square mile
than the population of Holland or Belgium[78]--countries that enjoy
a high state of prosperity. In the years of 1826 and 1835, the
ratio of exports was as follows:--
1826. 1835.
Oxen 1·0 to 1·7
Pigs 1·0 ” 5·1
Sheep 1·0 ” 2·0
Butter 1·0 ” 1·7
Wheat, oats, &c. 1·0 ” 1·9
The county cess rose between 1825 and 1838 in the ratio of 1·0 to
1·5.
The transfers of invested funds from England to Ireland between
the years 1832 and 1841 exceeded those from Ireland, to England by
£1,840,000.
Deposits in savings banks, in 1831 and 1841, were relatively in the
proportion of 1·00 to 2·24. Crime and offences were diminishing.
The Weavers Commission in 1840 reported as follows:--
“The comparative prosperity enjoyed by that part of Ireland where
tranquillity ordinarily prevails.--such as the Counties Down,
Antrim, and Derry,--testify the _capabilities of Ireland to work
out her own regeneration_, when freed of the disturbing causes
which have so long impeded her progress in civilization and
improvement.
“We find there a population hardy, healthy, and _employed_;
capital fast flowing into this district; new sources of
employment daily developing themselves; and people well disposed
alike to Government and to the institutions of the country, and
not distrustful and jealous of their superiors.”
In another place the Commission reports that the manufacturing
industries of Ireland were doing well, and that--
“The woollen trade in Ireland is in a more sound and healthy
condition than it has ever been, and its yearly advance may be
confidently expected.”
There was an abundant supply of land for the increasing
population--1,200,000 acres of land being capable of cultivation,
besides upwards of 1,000,000 acres of bog land capable of
reclamation at a cost of little more than £1 per acre.
With such capabilities for advancement, nothing short of the most
extraordinary prosperity ought to have followed the general advance
of wealth in the civilised world, caused by the improvements in
arts, sciences, machinery, steam, and electricity. But what do we
find after thirty-six years of the curse of Free Trade? Land out
of cultivation; farms abandoned; manufacturing industries extinct;
population decreasing by more than three millions[79] in forty
years. Anarchy, murder, assassination rampant. No doubt the Famine
of 1847 and the subsequent emigration caused a large decrease in
the population of Ireland, but disciples of the Malthusian theory
would have told you that this was an element of prosperity. I
do not hold this view, but any protectionist country would have
rapidly recovered the blow, whilst Free Trade Ireland has since
steadily decreased in population, and is sinking lower and lower
into the Slough of Despond.
You argue that “_rack-renting is the cause_.” Nonsense! The average
rent of land in Ireland is only one-third of that which is paid
in prosperous protectionist countries;[80] any rent at all will
soon be a rack-rent. There is plenty of land in Ireland to be
had at nominal rents, land that has gone out of cultivation; but
Free Trade has taken away the possibility of its cultivation at
a profit, even if it were rent-free. You urge absenteeism as the
cause; it is the _effect_, not the cause. Moreover, only about
one-sixth of the land is owned by absentees.
Ireland is like a child crying out in the pangs of starvation,
and you give it opiates in the shape of mischievous enactments
(such as the Encumbered Estates Act and the Land Act) which
only augment the evil. To use the words of a writer of the day:
“_Your Statesmanship knows no policy but that of coercion to-day,
concession to-morrow_.” Ireland cries in the pangs of hunger, you
alternately beat and coax it.
You propose wholesale emigration, which may be compared to bleeding
the patient to death in order to cure it of starvation.
_Fools!!_ Can’t you see it is dying of hunger? All it wants is
food, work, and employment of its labour,--development of its
resources.
Take away your iniquitous policy of Free Trade,--abolish your
unjust enactments, your legalised instruments of confiscation
and plunder,--abandon your insane encouragement of internecine
war between capital and labour,--desist from your suicidal
encouragement to agitation and class antagonism,--encourage
capitalists,--protect industries,--employ labour,--and you will
soon find Ireland prosperous, contented, and loyal.
The cry for Home Rule is a protest against your misrule.
If you persist in your insane policy, Ireland must inevitably be
depopulated either by starvation or by wholesale emigration.[81]
FOOTNOTES:
[78]
Population in Ireland in 1841 256 per square mile.
” ” 1880 161 ” ”
” Belgium in ” 480 ” ”
” Holland in ” 312 ” ”
[79]
Population of Ireland in 1841 8,196,597
” ” ” 1881 5,174,836
---------
Decrease 3,021,761
---------
[80]
_s._ _d._
Average rent in Ireland 10 3 per acre.
” ” United Kingdom 19 9 ” ”
” ” France 30 0 ” ”
” ” Belgium 30 0 ” ”
” ” Holland 30 0 ” ”
[81] I cannot think that, in a country where four millions of acres
of valuable land are calling out pitifully for labour,--where
thousands of families of agricultural habits and of laborious
instincts are pleading for work and hungering for the tenancy
of deserted farms,--where labour is becoming scarce,--where the
population is deteriorating in quality by the continued exportation
of its strongest and most promising elements; that, in such a
country, and under such circumstances, Englishmen should resign
themselves to accept the continued banishment of the flower of the
population to a foreign land as the best and only means of meeting
this great national difficulty. (E. Hart, _Fortnightly Review_,
1883.)