The Landlords and the Government--Public Meetings--Reproductive Employment demanded for the People--The "Labouchere" Letter--Presentments under it--Loans asked to construct Railways--All who received incomes from land should be taxed--Deputation from the Royal Agricultural Society to the Lord Lieutenant--They ask reproductive employment--Lord Bessborough answers cautiously--The Prime Minister writes to the Duke of Leinster on the subject--Views expressed--Defence of his Irish Famine policy--Severe on the Landlords--Unsound principles laid down by him--Corn in the haggards--Mary Driscoll's little stack of barley--Second Deputation from the Royal Agricultural Society to the Lord Lieutenant--Its object--Request not granted--The Society lectured on the duties of its Members--Real meaning of the answer--Progress of the Famine--Deaths from starvation--O'Brien's Bridge--Rev. Dr. Vaughan--Slowness of the Board of Works--State of Tuam--Inquest on Denis M'Kennedy--Testimony of his Wife--A Fortnight's Wages due to him--Received only half-a-crown in three weeks--Evidence of the Steward of the Works; of Rev. Mr. Webb; of Dr. Donovan--Remarks of Rev. Mr. Townsend--Verdict--The Times on the duties of landlords--Landlords denounce the Government and the Board of Works--Mr. Fitzgerald on the Board and on the farmers--Meeting at Bandon--Lord Bernard--Inquest on Jeremiah Hegarty--The Landlord's "cross" on the barley--Mary Driscoll's evidence; her husband's--Post mortem examination by Dr. Donovan--The Parish Priest of Swinford--Evictions--The Morning Chronicle on them--Spread and Increase of Famine--The question of providing coffins--Deaths at Skibbereen--Extent of the Famine in 1846--Deaths in Mayo--Cases--Edward M'Hale--Skibbereen--The diary of a day--Swelling of the extremities--Burning beds for fuel--Mr. Cummins's account of Skibbereen--Killarney Relief Committee--Father O'Connor's Statement--Christmas Eve!--A Visit to Skibbereen twenty years after the great Famine.
As events progressed, the landlords of Ireland appeared to grow more and more alarmed, not so much for the people as for themselves; and they held meetings and passed resolutions, censuring the Government for the mode which it had chosen of counteracting the Famine. The Government and its organs returned the compliment by pointing out the inaction and obstructive policy of the landlords.
At those meetings it was invariably one of the resolutions, that labour should be employed upon productive works. The common-sense principle contained in this expression of opinion could not be denied: it was, indeed, the general opinion of the country; still every one felt that it would require time to develop such works—the starving millions must be fed, or at least the attempt must be made to feed them; they could not wait for tedious preliminaries, and more tedious surveys, and no other means existed to supply their daily food, but those afforded by the Labour-rate Act.[174] But very early in the business, as soon as a famine seemed imminent, it was urged by men of weight and character, that reproductive works should and could be found for the people. Yes; and it was a fatal error—it was worse than an error, it was a crime, not to have adopted, at the earliest moment, the principle of reproductive employment. At length the Government felt the force of this logic, and did, although late, make an attempt to lessen the effects of their own great blunder. On the 5th of October, the "Labouchere letter" came out, authorizing reproductive works, the very thing the landlords were agitating for; now that their agitation was successful, what did they do? Nothing, or next to nothing, except that they opened a new cause of disagreement with the Government about boundaries. In the Chief Secretary's letter the Government followed the subdivisions of electoral districts, as they had been doing before; the landlords insisted on townland boundaries, and would not be content with—would not act under—any other. Their opponents said this was merely to cause delay; some even asserted it was an attempt to turn the whole system of public works to their own private advantage; a contrivance of the landlords, they said, to enjoy just so many jobs unmolested. The request about the change of boundaries was not granted; and so the Labouchere letter was not acted upon to the extent which it ought to have been. The entire amount presented under the letter was £380,607, of which presentments were acted on to the gross amount of £239,476. The sum actually expended was about £180,000; and the largest number of persons at any time employed was 26,961, which was in the month of May, 1847.[175]
Another demand which the landlords put in the shape of a resolution was, that the Government should advance loans for the construction of railways in Ireland. This the Government also refused, or rather, they insisted on conditions that amounted to a refusal. They said proper security could not be had for the advancement of the money; they therefore resolved not to make any advances to Irish Railways, except in the ordinary way, namely, by application to the Exchequer Loan Commissioners, when fifty per cent of the subscribed capital would be paid up. Could they not have made railways themselves, as they were afterwards almost compelled to do by Lord George Bentinck, in which case they would have had something for their money?
The landlords also made a demand which must be regarded as a fair one: it was that all who received incomes from the land should be taxed for the relief of the people. This was pointed at absentees, but still more at mortgagees.
The Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, a society mainly representing landlord and aristocratic views, of which the Duke of Leinster was president, took up, as became it, the great labour question of the moment. A deputation from that body waited on the Lord Lieutenant, on the 25th of September, and laid its views before his Excellency. The members of the deputation open the interview at the Viceregal Lodge by enunciating the good and sound principle, "that it is the clear and imperative duty of the possessors of property in Ireland, to avert from their poor fellow-countrymen the miseries of famine; and that they, therefore, willingly acquiesce in the imposition upon them of any amount of taxation necessary for that purpose." They go on to say, that as a very large sum must be raised on the security of Irish property, and expended upon labour, during the continuance of the distress occasioned by the failure of the potato crop, the expenditure of this sum upon unproductive works will increase the disproportion already existing between labour and capital in the country; which disproportion they look on as the main cause of the want of employment for the people, and of the miserable wages they are sustained by. Reproductive work, they continue, is the only work on which the labour of the population ought to be employed, and plenty of such work was to be found in every part of the country. It would improve the soil, and return the ratepayers a large interest for the capital expended. The Board of Works, they suggest, might be empowered to postpone the public works ordered by the presentment sessions, whenever they saw fit, and also to suspend the portion of money voted for that purpose on any townland, and have it applied to the carrying out of reproductive works, according to the requisition of the owners and ratepayers of such townland; such works, in every case, to be approved of by at least three-fourths of the ratepayers.
Lord Bessborough gave a short, and, of course, a cautious answer to the deputation, saying that he would give his best consideration to the proposal; consult the Government, and in a few days let them know the result. The "Labouchere Letter," authorizing reproductive works, was the response to this memorial of the Royal Agricultural Society. But it received another answer, and that from the Prime Minister himself. The question of productive and non-productive labour was so important, that, some time after the publication of the Labouchere Letter, Lord John Russell discussed it, in a communication addressed by him to the Duke of Leinster, as president of the Royal Agricultural Society.
After a passing allusion to the deputation that waited on the Lord Lieutenant, he at once takes the landlords to task. "It had been our hope and expectation," he says, "that landed proprietors would have commenced works of drainage and other improvements, on their own account: thus employing the people on their own estates, and rendering the land more productive for the future. The Act, [the Labour-rate Act,] however, was put in operation in the baronies in a spirit the reverse of that which I have described ... When the case was brought before the Government by the Lord Lieutenant, we lamented the wrong direction in which the Act had been turned; but admitting the necessity of the case, and anxious to obtain the willing co-operation of the landlords, we authorized the Lord Lieutenant to deviate from the letter of the law, and gave our sanction for advances for useful and profitable works of a private nature. But after having incurred the responsibility, I am sorry to see that, in several parts of Ireland, calls are made upon the Government, to undertake and perform tasks which are beyond their power, and apart from the duties of Government." The political-economy Premier then enunciates this principle: "Any attempt to feed one class of the people of the United Kingdom by the Government, would, if successful, starve another part—would feed the producers of potatoes, which had failed, by starving the producers of wheat, barley, and oats, which had not failed." He proceeds: "That which is not possible by a Government is possible by individual and social exertions. Everyone who travels through Ireland observes the large stacks of corn, which are the produce of the late harvest. There is nothing to prevent the purchase of grain by proprietors or committees, and the disposal of these supplies in shops furnished on purpose with flour at a fair price, with a moderate profit. This has been done, I am assured, in parts of the Highlands of Scotland, where the failure of the potatoes has been as great and as severe a calamity as it has been in Ireland.[176] There is, no doubt, some inconvenience attending even these modes of interference with the market price of food; but the good over-balances the evil. Local committees or agents of landowners can ascertain the pressure of distress, measure the wants of a district, and prevent waste and misapplication. Besides, the general effect is to bring men together, and induce them to exert their energy in a social effort directed to one spot; whereas the interference of the State deadens private energy, prevents forethought—and after superseding all other exertion, finds itself, at last, unequal to the gigantic task it has undertaken." Towards the end of his letter, the First Minister gives his views on another point or two. "One thing," he writes, "is certain—in order to enable Ireland to maintain her population, her agriculture must be greatly improved. Cattle, corn, poultry, pigs, eggs, butter, and salt provisions have been, and will probably continue to be, her chief articles of export. But beyond the food exchanged for clothing and colonial products, she will require, in future, a large supply of food of her own growth and produce, which the labourer should be able to buy with his wages."
There can be little doubt but the Premier intended this letter as a defence of his Irish-famine policy. As such it is not very conclusive. It is quite true to say, that the landlords should have exerted themselves far more than they did, to employ the people in improving their estates, by draining, subsoiling, and reclamation; which works were sure to be remunerative, and at no distant time. But had they done all this, Lord John Russell could take no credit to himself for it, having done nothing to induce or compel them to do so. When he says he expected it, he shows great ignorance or forgetfulness. The Irish landlords, as a class, were not improvers of their properties before the Famine;—how could he expect them to become so at such a crisis, when many of them feared, with reason, that both themselves and the people would be swallowed up in one common ruin? Besides, most of the wealthy proprietors were Englishmen or absentees, who, with few exceptions, never saw their tenants; took no friendly interest in them, but left them in the hands of agents, who were prized by their employers in proportion to their punctuality in sending the half-yearly remittances, no questions being asked as to the means by which they were obtained.[177] How could the Prime Minister pretend to think that such men would rush into the midst of a famine-stricken people, to relieve, employ, and improve them? He knew, or ought to have known, they would do no such thing, except on compulsion, and there was no compulsion in the case; he being, he said, for "willing co-operation" only. His government has certainly a right to be credited with the praiseworthy attempt it made to turn the labour of the Irish people to profitable work, but it came too late for immediate practical purposes. Planning, surveying, and laying out improvements take much time. The principle contained in the "Labouchere Letter" should have been embodied in an Act of Parliament, and reclamation of waste lands made compulsory, as had been advocated by many. The publication of that letter was, no doubt, the confession of a previous error, but it was also a concession to a present demand, and with active hearty co-operation it could be still turned to great advantage. Lord John is right in blaming the landlords for not making use of the powers conferred by it. They, above all others, called the loudest for reproductive employment, but when it was sanctioned, they raised new difficulties about boundaries and other matters, which looked very like a determination not to carry into practical effect the permission granted, it may be fairly said, at their own request.
When Lord John says, that "any attempt to feed one class of people of the United Kingdom by the Government, would, if successful, starve another part," he is rather puzzling. One is tempted to think that he originally wrote—"Any attempt to feed one class of people of the United Kingdom at the expense of another class, would, if successful, starve the latter," and that by some mistake of the writer or printer, the words in italics were omitted. As the sentence stands in his letter, it is strangely inexact. 1. In case one portion of the people had raised more food than was required for their own wants—a most common case, they would not surely starve by the fact of the Government buying their surplus for another portion who were starving—no, but they would thank the Government very much for buying it. There would be no danger of their finding fault with the quality of their customer, provided they got their price. 2. What are Governments for, if not for the good of the people?—and the Government that sees millions of its people dying of starvation, with none others to help them, neglect the very first duty of a Government—the salus populi—unless they make all the efforts in their power to relieve and save them. 3. Besides, to feed one part of the people—the starving Irish people—is just the thing Lord John's Government did attempt to do, although badly. There is, moreover, a fallacy in calling the Irish people, in every instance, a class of people of the United Kingdom, for they have often been, and still are, treated as a distinct and separate nation, or class of people. In such a case it is assumed that our interests and those of England and Scotland are identical, whereas they are no such thing. We used to be legislated for separately, and in many instances we are so legislated for to-day, which need not be the case if Lord Russell's assumption were true. Again: England is a great manufacturing country, whilst Ireland has no manufactures; from the nature of things the interests of two such peoples could not be identical, and yet Lord John Russell and many others talk and write about Ireland as a portion of the people of the United Kingdom, in the sense that we are partakers of the great material prosperity that manufactures have brought to England, which is supposing that a fair proportion of the manufactures of the United Kingdom are established and flourishing in Ireland: but so far from this being the case,—so far from Lord John's political ancestors having supposed the interests of England and Ireland to be identical, they never ceased, until by a code of unjust and tyrannical commercial laws, they destroyed all the manufactures we had, in order, as they avowed, to encourage the same manufactures in England. What position did we then occupy as a class of people of the United Kingdom? Where were Lord John's wonderful free trade principles then? The time had not come for them. No; but when his countrymen had monopolized our manufactures by shameful prohibitions; when England had become supreme as a manufacturing nation, and when she wanted cheap bread for her artizans and markets for her wares, then arose the anti-Cornlaw League; then, but not till then, did Free Trade become the only saving gospel with enlightened English politicians.