Sir Robert Inglis, referring to the assertion that absentees did not discharge the duties of proprietors, said he found it stated in a speech of the late Bishop Jebb, in 1822, when there was a similar calamity, that a large subscription was raised in a western county by the resident proprietors, but the absentees, who received out of it a rental of £83,000 a-year, only subscribed £83.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Right Hon. Charles Wood), defended the absentees, but was severe upon local proprietors. He held that the occupiers of land, and not the absentee landlords, were mainly chargeable with the neglect of their duties to the people in this trying crisis. Many of the absentees, he said, were most exemplary in their conduct in alleviating the present distress, amongst whom he named Colonel Wyndham, who was furnishing daily rations to ten thousand people.
I wonder how many more such absentees could the Chancellor of the Exchequer name.
The speakers who were supporters of the Government, and indeed almost all the English members, were excessively severe on the Irish landlords. Mr. Roebuck, in the course of a very bitter speech, during the debate on the address, said: "Now let me say a word about Irish landlords" (sensation). "I had no doubt," he continued, "but that that sentence would be met by some sort of feeling on the part of those, the Irish landlords, for whom the British Parliament has been legislating for the last three hundred years. Yes, it has been legislating for them, as a body, against the people of Ireland—it has been maintaining them against the people of Ireland—it has been permitting them to work for their own personal purposes, the mischief of the people of Ireland."
Sir Charles Napier, in reply to Mr. Roebuck and others who attacked the Irish landlords, said, that whether the landlords of Ireland had or had not done their duty, he did not pretend to say; and more than that, he thought that many gentlemen, who were so violent against the landlords of Ireland, knew just as much about them as he did. Of this he was quite satisfied, that if they had not done their duty the Government were to blame for not having forced them to it, long before the existing calamity appeared. Had the English proprietors, he would ask, who had large estates in Ireland, done their duty? It was not enough to tell him that their agents were doing all in their power, and he maintained that the presence of such men as the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and other large landed proprietors, upon their estates in Ireland, would do much to relieve the people.
Mr. Labouchere defended the Labour-rate Act, and complained that the Government had not received from the gentry of Ireland, or from the Relief Committees, that cordial support which they had a right to expect. He said, the more the real condition of Ireland was examined, the more tremendous would their difficulties be found. He believed the great majority of the House was disposed to treat Ireland with a becoming and proper spirit, and that no one contended that Ireland was to be considered a mendicant applying for alms to the Imperial Legislature. He thought the relief should be granted as a matter of justice, and that the relation between the two countries should be considered as the relation between the members of a family, whose one member had been afflicted by some great and sudden and tremendous distress; and that just as the other members of the family would be bound, in a spirit of humanity and justice, to come to the relief of the starving member, so it was incumbent on the Imperial Legislature to come forward and relieve the starving members of the United Kingdom, at the present moment. These sentiments were received with marked approbation. He defended the non-interference of the Government in the supply of provisions for Ireland: and in dealing with this, not easy question, he reasoned thus: "We have been blamed," he said, "amongst other things, by honorable members, who have said to us, 'When you had the corn in the country, why did you not sell it under the cost price—why did you not allow the Relief Committees to dispose of it at less than its own cost—it would have been so much better.' His answer was, because the Government thought it of infinite consequence to foster, in every manner, the retail trade of Ireland." There is a confounding of two important questions here by Mr. Labouchere, which should be kept quite distinct, and it even looks like an intentional confounding of them. What certain members of Parliament may have privately said to Mr. Labouchere, we have no means of ascertaining except from the information he here gives; but he was Irish Secretary, and he ought to have known—was bound to know—that the country asked two questions about the supply of food, instead of one: 1. The first was, "Why did the Government allow the corn crop of Ireland to be taken out of the country to feed others, and await their chance of getting Indian meal from a distance of three thousand miles, to save from starving (which they failed to do) the people who raised that crop?" The Secretary's answer to his own-made question, is no answer to that. 2. The second question asked by the country was—why did not the Government sell corn and meal to the starving people at some price or another, in districts where there was no retail trade, and where the creation of it would be the work of years? There is no answer given to that by Mr. Labouchere. It is on record, that the people died of starvation with the money in their hands ready to purchase food, but it would not be sold to them, although thousands of tons of meal were in the Government stores, at the doors of which they knocked in vain. Where were the retailers then, who were to have sprung into existence under the political economy wand of Lord John Russell and Mr. Labouchere? Mr. Trevelyan, their mouth-piece, said that the corn in the Government stores should be held over to meet the pressure expected in May and June. Why did they not keep the Irish corn crop for May and June, or use it for immediate need and import Indian meal for May and June?
After further considerable discussion and many modifications, "The Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill," granting outdoor relief and establishing soup kitchens, became law on the 16th of April. The name of William Henry Gregory, then member for the City of Dublin, and afterwards for the County of Galway, must remain for ever associated with this measure, on account of two clauses which he succeeded in having incorporated with it. The first was to this effect: that any tenant, rated at a net value not exceeding £5, and who would give up to his landlord, the possession of his land, should be assisted to emigrate by the Guardians of his Union, the landlord to forego any claim for rent, and to provide two-thirds of such fair and reasonable sum as might be necessary for the emigration of such occupier and his family; the Guardians being empowered to pay to the emigrating family, any sum not exceeding half what the landlord should give, the same to be levied off the rates. This clause, although not devoid of redeeming features, was proposed and carried in the interest of the landlord-clearing-system, yet it was agreed to without what could be called even a show of opposition. It is, however, on the second clause—the renowned quarter-acre-clause—that Mr. Gregory's enduring fame, as an Irish legislator, may be said to rest. It is well entitled to be transcribed here in full: "And be it further enacted, that no person who shall be in the occupation, whether under lease or agreement, or as tenant at will, or from year to year, or in any other manner whatever, of any land of greater extent than the quarter of a statute acre, shall be deemed and taken to be a destitute poor person under the provisions of this Act, or of any former Act of Parliament. Nor shall it be lawful for any Board of Guardians to grant any relief whatever, in or out of the Workhouse, to any such occupier, his wife or children. And if any person, having been such occupier as aforesaid, shall apply to any Board of Guardians for relief as a destitute poor person, it shall not be lawful for such Guardians to grant such relief, until they shall be satisfied that such person has, bona fide, and without collusion, absolutely parted with and surrendered any right or title which he may have had to the occupation of any land over and above such extent as aforesaid, of one quarter of a statute acre." So that by this carefully prepared clause, the head of a family who happened to hold a single foot of ground over one rood, was put outside the pale of relief, with his whole family. A more complete engine for the slaughter and expatriation of a people was never designed. The previous clause offered facilities for emigrating to those who would give up their land—the quarter-acre-clause compelled them to give it up, or die of hunger. In the fulness of his generosity Mr. Gregory had, he said, originally intended to insert "half an acre" in the clause, but, like many well-intentioned men, he was over-ruled: he had, he said, been lately in Ireland, and people there who had more knowledge of the subject than he could lay claim to, told him half an acre was too extensive, so he made it a quarter of an acre. It is not hard to conjecture who his advisers were on this occasion.
This clause met with more opposition than the former one, but only from a small band of kind, good-hearted men, Smith O'Brien called it a cruel enactment; but as he had heard the Government were for it, he knew, he said, to remonstrate against it was useless. Mr. Curteis, the member for Rye, said the clause was meant for the benefit of Irish landlords—a class that deserved little sympathy from the House or the country. Sir George Grey, one of the Secretaries of State, supported the clause, because he had always understood that small holdings were the bane of Ireland; from which observation it is clear he accepted it as an exterminating clause. Now, suppose it is admitted that small holdings were the bane of Ireland, who, we may be permitted to ask, created them? The very landlords who now sought to abolish them, at the expense of millions of lives. Again, if small holdings were the bane of Ireland, was the midst of an unparalleled famine the proper time to remove the bane? Ought not such a bane be the subject of legislation, when society was in its normal state? Sir George thought not, and hence he virtually says to the landlords, "Now is your time to get rid of the people; they have served your purpose; they are useful to you no longer; why should they cumber the ground?" Mr. Poulett Scrope objected to carrying the clause so suddenly into execution, as it would be a complete clearance of the small farmers of Ireland, and would amount to a social revolution in the state of things in that country. Mr. Sharman Crawford said he would divide the House against the clause, which he did. Strange as it may seem, some Liberal Irish members present supported the clause. Mr. Morgan John O'Connell said he looked on it as a valuable alteration in the bill. Alderman Humphrey said the phrase "quarter-acre" ought to be changed to five acres; whereupon he was told, almost in terms by Sir George Grey, that he did not understand what he was talking about. Sir George said "he was afraid his honourable friend, Alderman Humphrey, did not really see the effect of his own amendment. All holders of land, up to 4¾ acres, would, according to such an amendment, be enabled to obtain relief without selling their land." "Giving up to the landlord," not "selling," is the phrase in the clause. In spite of Sir George Grey's opinion to the contrary, it would seem to ordinary readers that the worthy Alderman knew quite well the force of his amendment; it was meant to feed the starving people, even though they happened to have a little land. Mr Gregory, replying in defence of his clause, used these words: "Many honourable members insisted that the operation of a clause of this kind would destroy all the small farmers. If it could have such an effect, he did not see of what use such small farmers could possibly be;" because, I suppose, they could not survive a famine that threatened the lords of the soil with bankruptcy or extinction, as they were constantly proclaiming. Mr. Gregory's words—the words of a liberal, and a pretended friend of the people—and Mr. Gregory's clause are things that should be for ever remembered by the descendants of the slaughtered and expatriated small farmers of Ireland. On a division, there were 119 for the clause and 9 against it. Here are the nine who opposed the never-to-be-forgotten quarter-acre-Gregory clause: William Sharman Crawford, B. Escott, Sir De Lacy Evans, Alderman Humphrey, A. M'Carthy, G.P. Scrope, W. Williams. Tellers: William Smith O'Brien and J. Curteis.[204]
FOOTNOTES:
[192] So given, in the daily journals, but in Hansard the passage is much modified, and the hit at the Irish landlords disappears.