"Allow me an opportunity of correcting the error which is widely diffused among the public, and even in Parliament itself, that in Hansard's Debates we have the means of obtaining an authentic report of parliamentary proceedings. This is an entire delusion. Hansard is a private publication, dependent on the ordinary newspaper reports, supplemented by such corrections as members make themselves."—Letter of Mr. Mitchell Henry, M.P., to the Times of July 14th, 1873.
[193] The Morning Chronicle.
[194] In some reports of the speech the words are "beggars enough for all Europe."
[195] Mr. D'Israeli, in his Political Biography of Lord George Bentinck, quotes this passage, and, as it seems to me, manipulates it unfairly, by ending it at the word "decimated," as if there were a full stop there, whereas the sense in the original only requires a comma, and so it is in Hansard. To make the sense terminate at "decimated," he moulds a sentence and a half into one, thus: "The Chief Secretary says, that the ministers did wisely in this decision, but I differ from him when I hear, every day, of persons being starved to death, and when he, himself, admits that in many parts of the country the population had been decimated;" the censure on the Government contained in the words immediately succeeding, is omitted. The reason why Mr. D'Israeli did this is obvious from what follows, which shows he did not agree with Lord George, in censuring the Government for not opening depôts, and he undertakes to prove that they should not have done so. He uses, amongst others, the old trite argument, when he says: there is reason to believe that the establishment of Government depôts at the end of '46, however cautiously introduced, tended in the localities to arrest the development of that retail trade, which was then rapidly extending throughout Ireland."—Lord George Bentinck, a political Biography, 5th Ed., pp. 360, 363.
There is reason to believe, says Mr. D'Israeli; yes, there is the best reason to believe, that tens of thousands died of starvation in Munster and Connaught, because food depots were not introduced, or, at least, because they were not opened for the sale of food to the public. The word "development" which he uses, sufficiently refutes his whole theory. There was no time for development; millions were starving who must die or get food within a few days. What a time to begin to develop a trade in articles of food among a people without capital, who never had such a trade before! The effect of Government not interfering in the sale of food is shown by the prices Lord George quotes a little further on.
[196] Mr. D'Israeli took good care not to quote this passage in his Biography of Lord George Bentinck.
[197] It was more than hinted that he did not follow the advice of the Irish Government in other important matters concerning the Famine.
[198] In the middle of November, Mr. Smith O'Brien commenced a series of letters to the landed proprietors of Ireland. Whilst he was preparing the first of these, which was introductory, and intended to awaken the class he was addressing to a sense of their danger and their duty, the Agricultural Society of Ireland published their objections to the system of carrying out reproductive works laid down in the Chief Secretary's letter; and it was in commenting on their views that he wrote the passage quoted above by the Prime Minister. His second letter dealt with the knotty question of land tenure. In it he urges strongly and well a principle which has become a part of the Land Act of 1870, namely, the tenant's right to compensation. He says: "I begin with the subject of tenure: uniform experience of human nature teaches that men will not toil for the benefit of others as they toil for themselves. You are very sensitive about the maintenance of the due rights of property.... The same feelings influence your tenant; he will not expend his capital upon your land unless the return of such capital be guaranteed to him." His third letter is devoted to the question of drainage, and the reclamation of waste lands. He undertook to show how advantageous a peasant proprietary would be, changing, as it would, numbers of persons from the catalogue of those who have little to gain by maintaining the rights of property, to that of those who have everything to lose by their violation. He, however, tells the landlords plainly that they will not obtain from the Imperial treasury the money necessary for the undertaking he recommends, unless they mortgage their estates, and pledge the county rates first. "An Irish member," he writes, "who would propose to apply ten millions of money to the reclamation of land in Ireland, would be laughed to scorn in the British legislature. Yet Parliament would consent almost without a question—perhaps amidst the cheers of all parties—to the expenditure of this amount in piratical incursions, such as those made upon the inhabitants of Affghanistan, Scinde, Syria, and other nations, who have never injured us." The fourth letter is a continuation of the same subjects. The fifth discusses the railway question, then in its infancy. The sixth deals with public works and public instruction. The public works which he specially discusses and recommends are—internal navigation, and fishery piers and harbours; he does not enter into systems of education, he only calls for more liberal grants. The seventh and concluding letter of the series is devoted to what the writer calls fiscal arrangements. These letters showed much practical ability, and knowledge of the true wants of the country. They were written in a calm moderate spirit, but, emanating from a man of his political views, they do not seem to have received the attention they deserved.
No doubt, the difficulty stated by Smith O'Brien, and approvingly quoted by the Prime Minister, did exist in the townland boundary scheme; it was, perhaps, as great a one as the boundary scheme in the Chief Secretary's letter; but sacrifices should have been cheerfully submitted to on such a terrible occasion; and the greatest and realest difficulty of all was, that the landlords, as a body, had little or no sympathy with the people, and were not prepared to make sacrifices to save their lives.
[199] The following is Mr. D'Israeli's account of the waste land reclamation proposal: it does not, by any means, seem to be in accord with the spirit with which that proposal was received by Parliament:—"In the course of the next ten days the Government measures of relief distinctly transpired. One of these was a public undertaking to reclaim a portion of the waste lands of Ireland: but it was finally proposed by the first Minister, sneered at a few days after by his own Chancellor of the Exchequer, and finally fell prostrate before a bland admonition from Sir Robert Peel, who was skilful always in detecting when the Cabinet was not confident in a measure, and by an adroit interposition often obtained the credit with the country of directing the Ministry, when really he had only discovered their foregone conclusion."—Lord George Bentinck: a political biography, p. 367, 5th Edition.