Lord John speaks of the corn in the haggards of Ireland. There was, I believe, much corn in some of them, at the time he addressed his letter to the Duke of Leinster. Why did not the Government buy it, instead of sending to America and Malta for Indian corn and bad wheat? Had his lordship ascertained, before he wrote, how many of the stacks in Irish haggards had the landlord's cross upon them for the rent, like poor Mary Driscoll's little stack of barley at Skibbereen? It stood in her haggard while her father, who resided with her, died of starvation in a neighbouring ditch![178]
About the middle of November, the Royal Agricultural Society again approached the Queen's representative in Ireland by memorial. It was not this time for leave to commence reproductive works,—that had been already granted; they came now to prove that reproductive works could not be undertaken under the provisions of Mr. Secretary Labouchere's letter. They assure his Excellency that the letter gave them much satisfaction; that, on its appearance, they directed their immediate attention to the introduction of reproductive works in their respective districts; but on account of one or more of the reasons they were about to lay before him, their opinion was, that, in the majority of cases, it was "impossible" to carry out his Excellency's views in the manner required by the Letter: 1. Because it was scarcely possible to find works in any electoral division of such universal benefit as would render them profitable or reproductive to all owners and occupiers in such divisions.[179] 2. Because by the terms of the letter, drainage in connection with subsoiling appeared to be the only work of a private character allowed as a substitute for public works, whereas, in many districts, this class of work was not required, whilst others, such as clearing, fencing, and making farm roads, were. 3. Because, in case of works, the cost of which was to be made an exclusive charge on the lands to be improved, as specified in the letter, it was necessary for the just operation of the system, that each proprietor should undertake his own portion of the sum to which the electoral division would be assessed, and unanimity, so essential on this point, was seldom attainable. For instance, townlands were chiefly in the hands of separate proprietors, of whom many were absentees, whose consent it would be almost impossible to obtain; others were lunatics, infants, tenants for life, in which cases impediments existed to the obtaining of the required guarantee; others again were embarrassed; some, too, might prefer the work on the public roads to private works, and their opposition could counteract the wishes of the majority. 4. In practice it could not be expected, that a proprietor would submit both to the direct charge incurred for drainage or other improvement of his property, and likewise to that proportion of the general rate, which would be cast upon him by the refusal of other proprietors to undertake their own portion. Such a state of things would not only involve the enterprising proprietor in a double expense, but would, in precisely the same proportion, relieve his negligent neighbours from their allotted share of the burthen.
The memorialists, therefore, prayed that each proprietor, or combination of two or more proprietors, who might be willing to charge their proportion of the rate for employing the poor upon any particular land to be improved thereby, should be relieved to that extent, from the payment of rate, and that the works so to be undertaken should not be confined to drainage or subsoiling, but might include all works of a productive nature, suited to the wants of the locality for which they were proposed, provided only, that such works should meet the approbation of the Board of Works.
This carefully prepared memorial was met by a refusal, the reasons given for which do not seem very cogent; the real reason, in all probability, not having been directly given at all; the impossibility of supervising townland improvements, with such care as to avoid the malversation and misapplication of funds, having, it is reasonable to suppose, great influence on the decision of the Government. The reasons given by Lord Bessborough for the refusal were: 1. That he saw great practical difficulties would be attendant on any attempt to carry the townland-boundary plan into execution; and—2. That he also believed it would be inconsistent with the primary object of the Poor Employment Act, which, he said, was meant to meet, as far as possible, the present exigency of the season, by providing sustenance for the destitute, through the means of labour, in the most available manner of which the circumstances of the case would admit. In giving the option of reproductive work, his Excellency said he had taken upon himself "a responsibility;" but that the option was conceded with as little departure as possible from the spirit of the measures sanctioned by Parliament; whereas the adoption of the townland, instead of the electoral division, would, in many cases, lead to the greatest expenditure, where the amount of destitution was least. Perhaps his Excellency gave his real reason, when he concluded with something stronger than a hint to the Royal Agricultural Society, which comprised, as he said, the leading gentry of the country. He calls upon them to discharge their duties in their various localities, and to avoid or prevent the misapplication of the funds given for the relief of the really destitute. He cannot, he says, forego the opportunity of expressing an earnest hope that they will, in their various relief committees, lend their aid to the Government in resisting a practice which, he has reason to fear, has very extensively prevailed—namely, "that of allowing persons, who are by no means in a destitute condition, to be employed upon the public works, thus depriving the really distressed of the benefit which was intended for them, as well as withdrawing from the ordinary cultivation of the soil the labour which was essential to the future subsistence of the people."[180]
The latter part of the answer means just this: that the landlords were already turning the public works to their private gain, by getting numbers of their well-to-do tenants, often with their carts and horses, upon those works, in order to obtain their own rents more securely; a practice of which they were repeatedly accused by the Board of Works' people; and that, therefore, if townland boundaries were conceded, the landlords would have increased power, and a still greater amount of the same kind of jobbing would be the inevitable result.
It is not surprising that at this period society in Ireland was shaken to its foundations. Terror and dismay pervaded every class; the starving poor suffered so intensely, and in such a variety of ways, that it becomes a hard task either to narrate or listen to the piteous story; it sickens and wrings the heart, whilst it fills the eyes with the testimony of irrepressible sorrow. To say the people were dying by the thousand of sheer starvation conveys no idea of their sufferings; the expression is too general to move our feelings. To think that even one human creature should, in a rich and a Christian land, die for want of a little bread, is a dreadful reflection; and yet, writes an English traveller in Ireland, the thing is happening before my eyes every day, within a few hours of London, the Capital of the Empire, and the richest city in the world.
O'Brien's Bridge is a small town on the borders of Limerick, but in the County Clare. The accounts received from this place during the first half of October were, that nothing could restrain the people from rising en masse but an immediate supply of food. On one of the admission days, one hundred and thirty persons were taken into the Scariff Workhouse, out of six thousand applicants! Scariff is the union in which O'Brien's Bridge and Killaloe are situate. Of Killaloe, the Rev. Dr. Vaughan, afterwards Bishop of the Diocese, wrote, about the same time, that there was some promise of fifty or sixty being employed out of six hundred. The Relief Committee, of which he was a member, had to borrow money on the stones broken by the poor labourers for macadamizing the roads, in order to pay them their wages. Being paid, they were dismissed, as the Committee could not, in any way, get funds to employ them further. "We are a pretty Relief Committee," exclaims the reverend gentleman, "not having a quart of meal, or the price of it, at our disposal." He adds, with somewhat of sorrow and vexation of spirit: "When those starving creatures ask us for bread, we could give them stones, if they were not already mortgaged."
Employment was not, and, with the appliances in the hands of the Board of Works, perhaps, could not be given rapidly and extensively enough for the vast and instant wants of the people. Hunger is impatient, and the cry of all men—loudest from the South and West—was one of despair, mingled with denunciations of the Government and the Board of Works for their slowness in providing work, and, if possible, still more, for their refusal to open the food depôts. "I am sorry to tell you," writes the correspondent of a local print, "that this town [Tuam] is, I may say, in open rebellion. They are taking away cattle in the open day, in spite of people and police.... They cannot help it; even if they had money, they could not get bread to buy." Works were often marked out for a considerable time before they were commenced. At a place called Lackeen, in the South, they were in that state for three weeks or more, without any employment having been given. If this goes on, writes a resident of the locality, there must be an increase of coroners, and a decrease of civil engineers. "It is coffins," says another, "must now be sent into the country. I lately gave three coffins to bury some of the poor in my neighbourhood." This was bad enough; but a time was at hand when the poor had to bury their dead without coffins.
Three weeks had scarcely elapsed from the day on which the labourers engaged on the Caharagh road had shouldered their spades and picks, and marched to Skibbereen, when an inquest upon one of them laid open a state of things that no general description could convey. A man named Denis M'Kennedy was employed on those works. He was found dead on the side of the road one day, and a coroner's inquest was held upon his remains in the historic graveyard of Abbeystrowry. The evidence will tell the rest. Johanna M'Kennedy, the wife of the deceased, was the first witness examined. She said her husband died on Saturday, the 24th of October, and had been at work on the Caharagh road the day he died. He had been so engaged for about three weeks before his death. He did not complain of being sick. She explained to the coroner and the jury what they had had to support them during the week, on the Saturday of which her husband died. Her family was five in number. She had nothing, she said, to give them on Monday; and then the poor woman varied her mode of expression by saying they had nothing at all to eat on Tuesday. On Wednesday night she boiled for her husband and the family one head of cabbage, given to her by a neighbour, and about a pint of flour, which she got for a basket of turf she had sold in Skibbereen. On Thursday morning her husband had nothing to eat. She does not account for Friday; but on Saturday morning she sent him for his breakfast less than a pint of flour baked. Poor creature! she had but a pint for the whole family; but in her loving anxiety to sustain her husband, who was trying to earn for them, she only kept "a little" for the children. "The rest was sent to him," said Mrs. M'Kennedy, through her choking grief, "but it was too late; before it arrived he was dead." Thus, through the whole of that, to her dreadful week, she had for her family of five persons about half a weight of potatoes,[181] small and bad, which were given to her by a kind neighbour, Mick Sweeney (God bless him, she said, for he often relieved us), two pints of flour, and one head of cabbage. It is no great marvel that the man who was trying to work on his share of such provision was dead on Saturday. In M'Kennedy we have a specimen of the people to whom the Board of Works insisted on giving task work. "For the three weeks he was at work," said his wife at the inquest, "he got two shillings and sixpence, being one week's pay." There was a fortnight's wages due to him the day he died. "Even if his hire was regularly paid," she added, "it would not support the family; but it would enable us to drag on life, and he would be alive to-day."
Jeremiah Donovan, the steward of the works at Caharagh, deposed that M'Kennedy was at work the morning of the day on which he died. On that morning he saw the deceased leave his work and go to the ditch-side; seeing him stop so long, he told him to return to his work. He did not return, but said to deponent, "How can a man work without food?—a man that did not eat anything since yesterday morning." Deponent then handed him a bit of bread. He took it in his hand and was putting it to his mouth when it fell from him. He died in two or three hours after. His pay was eight pence a day.