The sudden closing of the works of 1846, some even regarded as a breach of faith with the public. The Minute of the 31st of August, no doubt, left a course open for their completion, when it ruled, "that if the parties interested desired that works so discontinued should afterwards be recommenced and completed, it was open to them to take the usual steps to provide for that object, either by obtaining loans, secured by Grand Jury presentments, or by other means." But this suggestion (for it was no more) did not free the Government from the charge of a breach of faith, for they called upon the country to complete works begun by themselves, and to do so under new and very different conditions. Besides, it was pretty evident that Grand Juries would not present for the completion of works commenced by the Government, on its own responsibility. That the Government felt there was some ground for the charge brought against them, of a breach of faith with regard to those works, is evident from a letter from Mr. Trevelyan to Lieutenant-Colonel Jones in the beginning of October. In that letter he says, the works under the Labour-rate Act must, as far as the Act is concerned, come to an end on the 15th of August, 1847; and he adds, that "if Parliament should determine that the Irish proprietors shall support their poor after the 15th of August, 1847, by payments out of the current produce of the Poor-rate, instead of by loan from Government, the transfer from one system to the other may take place without our being liable to any demands like those which have been lately made upon us to finish what we had begun, on pain of being considered guilty of a breach of faith." This, says Mr. Trevelyan, is the full mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.[125]
The Minute of the 31st of August was modified somewhat by a letter from Mr. Labouchere, dated September 5th. In that letter the Secretary says it is his Excellency's pleasure that all works stopped on the 15th August should be proceeded with as far as the sums which may have been so sanctioned for them respectively would admit. Should the balance not be sufficient, a presentment under 10 Vict. cap. 107, should be sought for at the Presentment Sessions, provided the work were a desirable one to undertake.
Nor did the new arrangement, under which the landlord paid one moiety of the rate, and the occupier the other, pass without censure. It was, to be sure, considered an improvement on the rule which compelled the occupier to pay the whole; still it was urged that great numbers of the occupiers of small holdings would be as much in need of relief as any portion of the community, and in no position whatever to pay rates. That was true enough, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and when they determined to make the soil responsible, it is hard to see to whom they were to look for rates, had they exempted the small farmers from them. The exemption they made, namely, of those whose rent was under £4 a-year, was probably not liberal enough, but there does not seem to have been any great reason for finding fault with it.
But the great and fatal blot in the Labour-rate Act was, that under its provisions the people could not be employed on works capable of making a profitable return. Lord John Russell's Government followed the precedent set by its predecessors as to the class of works upon which employment was to be given; but there was this important difference in their legislation,—the former made no grants under their Labour-rate Act, while the latter supplied about half the cost of the Public Works from the Treasury, the remainder being a loan. Against this Act several arguments were employed, and, for the most part, very cogent ones. 1. It was said that as the country was taxed for the whole outlay, whatever it might be, the Government had no right to apply the money to unprofitable works, thus taking from our capital (already far too small) a vast sum that could not return to it. 2. Moreover, no matter whence the money came, it was urged that to employ it on barren works was wrong in principle, especially in a country like Ireland, with millions of reclaimable acres, which would, if brought under cultivation, return in almost every case ten per cent, for capital expended. 3. Again, it was put forward with reason, that the employment for the past year was meant to relieve transient distress only; but now the case was very different—a new, a far more extensive and complete failure of the potato had occurred. There was now no question of transient distress; the potato, the principal—almost the only—food of five millions of the people of Ireland, had not only failed a second time, but, to all appearance, had failed permanently and finally: such was the apprehension at the moment. In face of that alarming state of things, why talk of cutting down hills, or of making useless roads,—provide rather some substitute for the doomed esculent, and let the labour-power of the country be, at least in the first instance, employed upon it, to secure food for the next year. 4. Even if it were desirable to continue employing the people upon those public works, where were they to be always found? "In many districts it was impossible last year to find useful public works. Hills were cut down, and new roads made, which, under ordinary circumstances, no one would have thought worth the expense which they entailed on the baronies in which they were situated. In such districts, where are hills and roads to be found upon which the people may, this year, be employed?"[126] Was it not passing strange, that, with such difficulties existing, the Government would neither apply labour to profitable work, nor even allow the old unfinished works to be completed?
At the time of the Famine it was an unquestionable fact, and (to the shame of the Government be it said) it is an unquestionable fact to-day, that no country with any pretence to civilization required its resources to be developed more than Ireland; in no country could a government be more imperatively called upon to foster—nay, to undertake and effect—improvements, than Ireland. In a country so circumstanced, how disappointing, then, and heart-sickening must it not have been to good and thoughtful men, to find the Government passing a bill for the employment of our people on unproductive labour. Not only did the Labour-rate Act exclude productive labour from its own operations, but its direct tendency was to discourage and put a stop to improvement on the part of others. This is manifest enough. The baronies—that is, the lands of the baronies—were to be taxed to pay for all the works undertaken to give employment to the starving people. No one could foresee where or when that taxation was to end. There could be no more effectual bar to useful improvements. What landowner could afford the double outlay of paying unlimited taxation, and at the same time of making improvements on his property? Then, he had to look forward to other probable years of famine, and he naturally trembled with dismay at the prospect, as well he might. So far from making improvements, the commonest prudence warned him to get together and hold fast whatever money he could, in order to maintain himself and his family when his property would be eaten up—confiscated—by taxation expended upon barren works. Private charity, too, was paralysed; private exertion of every kind was paralyzed; everything that could sustain or improve the country was paralysed, by this blind, or wicked, or stupid, or headstrong legislation of Lord John Russell's Government, by which the energies and the capital of the country were squandered upon labour that could not, and was not intended to, make any remunerative return whatever.
Whilst the value of the general principle of employing labour on profitable rather than on unprofitable works was evident enough, and accepted by almost everybody, the practical carrying out of that principle was not without its difficulties. Those who endeavoured to solve them brought forward plans varying from each other in some particulars; but, taking them collectively, there was sufficient good sense in them to enable the Government to frame a system of reproductive employment for the exigencies of the period.
Fears were entertained by many that much of the arable land would remain unfilled in the ensuing spring, by which the Famine would be perpetuated; and it was thought the labour of the country ought to be made available for that purpose. A kind-hearted, charitable clergyman, the Rev. William Prior Moore, who endeavoured most zealously to relieve the sufferings of the people, put forward this view very strongly, in letters addressed by him to the Chief Secretary. In those letters he accuses the Government of being mere theorists, ignorant of the practical way of relieving Ireland. "The Labour Act," he says, "was worse than absurd—it was in many respects pernicious. The Chief Secretary's letter (I speak with all respect), though well meant, was in many cases impracticable; and the late Treasury Minute, also well-intentioned though it be, is for the most part incomprehensible; and when the three are taken together, or brought partially into operation together, as in some places is attempted, the Irish gentry would require a forty-horse power of intellect to understand or avail themselves of them."[127] "I do not say, as many do," Mr. Moore continues, "that the roads will be spoiled by cutting down the hills; on the contrary, it will be of the greatest advantage to have level highways through the land; but I do say, that there could not by possibility have been a more absurd misapplication of the labour and the power of the country. Level roads are a good thing, but food is better. And what will level highways do for the poor of Ireland next year, if they have nothing to eat?"[128] When Mr. Moore penned these lines he assumed, we must suppose, that all roads undertaken by Government would be completed, which would, in its way, be an improvement; but such was not the case.
At this time a class of landowners, and an extremely numerous one, raised the cry of "excessive population." They were anxious to clear their lands, not of rocks or briars, but of human beings; and in their opinion the country could be saved only by a vast system of emigration. Mr. Moore denies that such excess existed, and therefore condemns emigration. "It is not a fact," he says, "that Ireland is over-peopled; the contrary is the fact. But the strength of Ireland, her bone and sinew, like her unequalled water-power, is either unapplied or misapplied."[129] "Simply two things," in his opinion, were required—"immediate occupation for the people, and that that occupation shall, as far as possible, be made conducive towards providing for the exigencies of coming seasons ... WE WANT EMPLOYMENT WHICH CAN BE MADE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD—and nothing will or can answer this purpose, save only to employ the people in tilling and cultivating the soil; and not a moment is to be lost!"[130] One is inclined to doubt the feasibility of sending the labouring population of Ireland in upon the tillage farms, to trench, and dig, and plough, and sow; but Mr. Moore had his practical plan for doing it; and although he does not go into details, it does not seem to offer insuperable difficulties. "The plan I would suggest," he writes, "is briefly this: to HIRE THE LABOURERS TO THE SMALL FARMERS ALL THROUGH THE COUNTRY, AT HALF-PRICE, TO TILL THE GROUND. The farmers would be delighted at the arrangement."[131]
The necessity of applying labour to the cultivation of the soil was also most strongly insisted upon by a high Government official, Sir Randolph Routh, the head of the Commissariat Relief Office, Dublin Castle, whose experience was of the most extensive and valuable kind, he having superintended the relief works through Ireland in 1846. He says: "Under the circumstances which you describe, I recommend you to call a meeting of the proprietors, to explain to them the state of the country; to state the liberal intentions of the Government to give a grant equal to the amount subscribed, when the Workhouse is full; to explain to them that this grant is tantamount to selling them the supply at half-price, as their funds, being doubled, go twice in the purchases they require. Point out to them also the dreadful responsibility the whole country will incur, if they neglect the cultivation of the soil. The transition from potatoes to grain," he says, "requires a tillage in the comparison of three to one between grain and potatoes. All this requires a corresponding increase of labour; and wages so paid are a mere investment of money, bringing a certain and large profit." He adds these remarkable words: "It is useless to talk of emigration, when so much extra labour is becoming indispensable to supply the extra food. Let the labour first he applied, and then, it will be seen whether there is any surplus population, and to what extent. If industrious habits can be established, and the waste lands taken into cultivation, it is very doubtful whether there would be any surplus population, or even whether it would be equal to the demand."[132] These were sound views, except in so far as they threw upon landlords and people the duty of cultivating the soil; the people could do nothing, and many of the landlords had not capital: moreover, as a class, they were wholly disinclined to make any adequate effort. From the terms of the memorandum just quoted, it is evident that, in their intercourse with Commissary Hewetson, they were clamouring for emigration. If the Government were sincerely anxious to produce food, and save the country, they ought not to have leaned on such rotten reeds. They should have put their own hand more thoroughly to the work, and framed an Act which would, at least indirectly, have compelled proprietors to second their efforts, and discharge those duties, which, as men and as Christians, they refused to attend to or acknowledge.
Besides the numerous letters called forth by the publication of the Treasury Minute, that important document came prominently under discussion at baronial sessions, and the meetings of Relief Committees. At a meeting of the Relief Committee for the districts of Kells and Fore, in the County of Meath, held in the Court House of Kells on the 5th of September, and presided over by the Marquis of Headfort, the principal question debated was, "the nature of the employment which ought to be provided for the poor during the ensuing season." A report to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant was agreed to. It was based upon the sound, common-sense principle, "that the labour for which the land is compelled to pay, should be applied in developing the productive powers of the land." From this stand-point they proceed to make practical suggestions, as to the manner in which its principle is to be carried out. Assuming that a rate sufficient to provide for the employment of labour should be levied in each district, and that this labour should be paid for by landlord and occupier, according to the Poor Law valuation, as enacted by the Labour-rate Act, they suggest: