The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) / With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines

by Canon John O'Rourke

1. That we deem it our duty most earnestly to impress upon our representatives, our solemn conviction of the necessity of their now co-operating cordially together in Parliament, for the advancement of the interests of Ireland, and of their uniting to advocate such measures as may appear calculated to raise the social, material, and moral condition of the people; to save society from the ruin by which all classes in the land are now threatened; and to preserve the country from confiscation.

2. That, before and beyond all other considerations, is the salvation of the lives of the people; and we therefore deem it our solemn duty—the present system having signally failed—to call upon the Government, in the most imperative terms, to take such measures as will secure local supplies of food sufficient to keep the people alive, and to sacrifice any quantity of money that may be necessary to attain the object, declaring, as we do, that any neglect or delay in that matter will render the Government responsible for the safety of the people of Ireland, who must perish in multitudes unless supplied with food.

3. That, as the people of this country are suffering from a most extraordinary and incalculably extensive deficiency in the stock of food, we further call upon the Government to remove all artificial impediments to the supply of that deficiency, by the temporary suspension of the navigation laws, and the duties on the importation of corn, and also to give increased facilities to that importation, by permitting such vessels of her Majesty's navy as can be spared to be employed in the transport of provisions.

4. That we consider it would be most desirable, that the unrestricted use of sugar and molasses in our breweries and distilleries should be permitted, under existing circumstances; in order to save for more useful purposes a portion of the grain now used in those establishments.

5. That we recommend that Relief Committees should be allowed to sell food under first cost to the destitute, in their respective neighbourhoods, and that their doing so should not disentitle them to Government contributions in aid of their funds.

6. That while we affirm, that it is the clear and paramount duty of the state to take care that provision be made for the destitute, we regret that the means hitherto adopted for that purpose have, on the one hand, proved incommensurate with the evil, and on the other hand, have induced the expenditure of vast sums of money upon useless or pernicious works.

7. That this most wasteful expenditure, tending, as it does, to diminish our resources and to increase the probabilities of future famine, has not been the result of neglect on the part of the resident proprietors of Ireland, but of an impolitic and pernicious law, which they have been compelled to carry into effect, notwithstanding repeated protests to the contrary.

8. That, though entirely acquiescing in the justice of imposing upon the land the repayment of all money advanced for reproductive purposes, we solemnly protest, in the name of the owners and occupiers of land in Ireland, against the principle of charging exclusively on their property, the money which they have been forced to waste on unproductive works.

9. That the destruction of the staple food of millions of our fellow-subjects cannot be considered in any other light than that of an Imperial calamity, and we claim it as our right that the burthen arising from it, so far as it has been expended on unproductive works, shall fall on the empire at large, and not be thrown upon Ireland alone, much less upon those classes in Ireland which have suffered most severely from it.

10. That though considering the present Labour-rate Act as a most mischievous measure, to be laid aside whenever a better system can be introduced, yet, in order to prevent the continuance of the present waste of money, we call upon the Legislature to amend that Act, by enabling each proprietor to take upon himself his proportion of the baronial assessment, to be expended in reproductive works upon his own property, and thereby to discharge himself from any further taxation in respect to that particular assessment; and that the objects to which the taxation shall be applied, should be extended to all permanent improvement of the land.