But the most curious part of Mr. Labouchere's explanation is the extract from Colonel Jones's letter. In the Colonel's opinion it was a great mistake of the Dublin press to assume that the men discharged from the works had been deprived, in an instant, of their daily food. No such, thing: it was gross ignorance or wilful calumny to assert it. The dismissed labourers, Colonel Jones tells us, had no right to claim their wages till Tuesday or Wednesday, yet he generously pays them on the Saturday—two or three days before! But did he pay them for the Monday and the Tuesday?—not a word about that. Then where was the generosity? The order was that the men were to be dismissed on Saturday, the 20th of March, and Colonel Jones's vast bounty consisted in paying them the day he dismissed them, instead of compelling them to loiter about two or three days waiting to be paid. It well became Colonel Jones, indeed, to brag of such an act, in face of the many inquests at which such verdicts as this were returned:—"Died of hunger, in consequence of not being paid by the Board of Works, a fortnight's wages being due at the time of death."
Some time previous to this, the Irish Secretary said in the House of Commons that there was an organized combination amongst the people not to till their farms. Such a combination could hardly exist to any considerable extent, but there can be little doubt that a strong feeling had sprung up in the minds of the people against tilling their farms, not because they were opposed to tillage, but for quite another reason: they felt that whatever labour they might expend upon their farms would be thrown away, as far as they were concerned, because they knew full well that the landlords would seize the produce of their farms for rent, so that after expending their labour they would be still left to starve,—in fact, that they would be tilling the land for others instead of for themselves. Rents at the time were, of course, over due, and the landlords' power to seize was unlimited. At a meeting of the Claremorris deanery it was declared, that the assertion in the House of Commons, that there was a systematic combination not to till the ground, was a great calumny; and further, that there should be legal security that the people would get the fruit of their labour in autumn. A petition to Parliament from Ballinrobe says:—"Your petitioners have read with the utmost alarm the letter of the Secretary of the Board of Works, directing that twenty out of every hundred should be put out of employment on Saturday, the 20th inst., as we are convinced that death by starvation to thousands will be the result of such a fatal measure. That we pray your honourable House, to direct the Board of Works to have the persons now employed on the public works transferred to labour on their own holdings, at the same rate of wages as if on the public works, from the 25th of March, inst., to the 1st of May next, enabling them, at the same time, to have seed on reasonable terms sufficient to sow their little farms, to prevent the recurrence of famine next year."
The effect of the dismissals soon began to manifest itself in complaints and remonstrances. Of Balla, in the county of Mayo, we read that the order was rigidly enforced there, that the people had no seed to sow their land, and that there was no provision for supplying them with food. All remonstrance with the inspecting officer, writes a correspondent from Ballyglass, in the same county, is useless; he said the Government orders were peremptory. No seed. No food.
Ballnigh, Co. Cavan: Twenty per cent. dismissed, no provision whatever having been made for their support.
Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford: No provision made to supply food to the dismissed labourers.
Clones, Co. Monaghan: No provision.
Maryborough, Queen's Co.: No means of support.
Clonmel, Tipperary: No provision. The relief committee under the new Act is in course of organization, but some time must elapse before it can afford relief.
From persons who were in possession of some land, the first twenty per cent., as we have seen, were to be selected for dismissal, but in Kilnaleck, in the County of Cavan, all those employed on the public works were about equally destitute, so that the twenty per cent. with land could not be furnished: lots had to be cast, and those on whom the lot for dismissal fell received it like a sentence of death. Of course the Board of Works felt they were best carrying out the intentions of Government by dismissing the full twenty per cent. at Kilnaleck.
The state of things in Cashel was this: the twenty per cent. were dismissed before the committee had any preparation made, or was, in fact, appointed. The old committee had emphatically protested against the dismissal, and published a resolution condemnatory of it, as an inexcusable cruelty. Although twenty per cent. of the labouring population were turned adrift in that locality, not one supernumerary was disemployed. No pay-clerk lost his salary, though his labour was diminished by one-fifth; no check-clerk was dismissed, though there were twenty per cent. fewer to check; no steward or under-steward was displaced. Such are specimens of the accounts from nearly every part of the country.