[63] In what follows we must be understood as giving expression to the practical conclusions of those who, having been charged with the unenviable task of superintending the measures of relief, and assisting to replace society on a permanent basis after it had been unsettled by this great calamity, must be allowed to have had unusual advantages for a close examination of the subject under a variety of aspects.
[64] The same results appeared in those parts of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden, in which the subdivision of the land has been carried to the greatest extent. The following extract from a letter received in January last from Brest, contains a correct description of the manner in which that part of France was affected by the dearth: “All the petty farmers are in the greatest distress, having been obliged to sell their wheat and most of their other grain in October, to pay their rents due on Michaelmas-day. The overplus in the crop of buckwheat is not sufficient to compensate for the deficiency in their stock of potatoes, and they are now living on cabbages, carrots, and a very small proportion of buckwheat. Unless some stringent measures be adopted to prevent the progressive subdivision of land in France, the country must eventually be reduced to the present state of Ireland.” It has been justly observed, that “in agriculture, as in every other industrial process, prosperity must depend upon the application of capital to production; and equal injury is done when such application of capital is prevented, either by landlords refusing to give tenants a beneficial interest in their improvements, or by a combination of pauper occupants to prevent capitalists from obtaining possession of land.” Those who take an interest in this important subject will do well to read Mr. M‘Culloch’s excellent chapter on compulsory partition, in his recently-published work “On the Succession to Property vacant by Death.”
[65] The inferior condition of the peasantry in the West of England is in a great degree owing to the increased use of the potato, the cultivation of which by the poor was much encouraged by the gentry and clergy as a cheap means of subsistence during the high prices of corn in the last war. Somersetshire and Devonshire were, in fact, fast becoming potato countries; and if the blight of that vegetable had occurred twenty years later, their sufferings might have approached to those of Ireland.
[66] Lord George Bentinck stated that 1500 miles of railroad would give constant employment, either on the line or in the various occupations connected with it, to 110,000 able-bodied labourers and artificers, representing, with their families, 550,000 persons; but even supposing that all these had been set to work at once, they would have been selected from the classes of persons least likely to require charitable assistance, while the weak and infirm would have been systematically excluded. The number of persons for whom the Government had to provide the means of subsistence at this crisis, was upwards of three millions; and this had to be done in the neighbourhood of their own homes, which could not be accomplished by means of railroads, employment on which is confined to particular localities. The number of persons stated in the House of Commons as likely to be employed on railroads in Ireland was greatly overrated; the general surface of the country requires scarcely any deep cuttings or embankments, and the eskars, through which the cuttings are made, offer the finest possible material for ballasting.
[67] Speech of Mr. Richard Bourke, M.P. for Kildare, to his father’s tenantry, September 1847.
[68] Although both did their best, it is fair to state that the Protestant clergy had some advantages which the Roman Catholic clergy did not possess. The Protestant clergy were assisted by liberal subscriptions from England; and as their stipends are primary charges on the rent, they were regularly paid even during the period of the greatest distress. The Roman Catholic clergy, on the contrary, depend, both for their own subsistence, and for the means of helping their poor and ignorant people, upon the voluntary contributions of the people themselves; and when these had nothing to give, owing to the failure of their crops and the want of employment, the clergy were reduced to great straits, which they bore with exemplary patience. The fees on marriages and baptisms which are the principal source of the income of the Roman Catholic clergy, almost entirely ceased in some parts of the country. It is much to the credit of the poor Irish, that now that they have been deprived of the potatoes on which they had been accustomed to bring up their families, marriages have become much less frequent.
[69] “A great deal has been written, and many an account given, of the dreadful sufferings endured by the poor, but the reality in most cases far exceeded description. Indeed, none can conceive what it was but those who were in it. For my part, I frequently look back on it as a fearful and horrid dream, scarcely knowing how sufficiently to express gratitude to the Almighty for having brought this country through it, even as it is. If the first measures which prepared us to meet the second and severest calamity had been neglected, it is frightful to suppose what would have been the state of this afflicted country. My opinion is, that there are but very few who will not gratefully remember the generous and prompt relief afforded in this time of trouble; such sufferings, and such help, cannot be easily forgotten.”—Captain Mann’s Narrative.
[70] The Irish peasant made up for the deficiency of nutritive qualities in the potato, by the quantity he ate, amounting generally to as much as fourteen pounds in a single day; and it was therefore a general complaint at first, that the Indian corn left an uneasy sensation, arising from the absence of the habitual distension of the organs of digestion. The half raw state in which it was often eaten, arising partly from ignorance of the proper mode of cooking it, and partly from impatience to satisfy the cravings of hunger, also concurred with the previous debilitated state of the people, to produce sickness when it was first introduced. All this, however, has been got over, and the people have now not only become accustomed to the use of a grain food, but they prefer it, and declare that they feel stronger and more equal to hard work under the influence of a meal of stirabout, than of potatoes; and their improved appearance fully bears out this conclusion. One main cause of the fact which has been so often remarked, that the Irishman works better out of Ireland than in it, is, that when he leaves his native country and obtains regular employment elsewhere he commences at the same time a more strengthening diet than the potato. It is commonly observed in Canada, that the Irish emigrants, although a much larger race of men than the French Canadians, are, for some time after their arrival, inferior to them as farm labourers; and this difference is attributed to their food. The Canadian labourer, who receives his food as part of his hire, has an ample breakfast on bread and milk. He dines at midday on soupe aux pois, with a full quantity of salt pork and bread à discrétion. At four o’clock he is allowed a luncheon of bread and onions, and at night he has a ragout of meat and vegetables for his supper. He however works laboriously, and generally from sunrise to sunset, and is scarcely ever absent a day from his work. An Irishman cannot endure this continuous labour without better food than the potato; and in every way it is desirable to teach him the use of a more substantial diet, both to enable him to give a proper amount of labour for his hire, and in order to raise him to a higher standard as a social being. We shall not consider the object finally accomplished until the people of Ireland live upon a bread and meat diet, like those of the best parts of England and Scotland.
[71] The following is the proportion of agrarian crimes in each quarter from January 1845, to November 1847:
In the Quarter ending