The Irish Crisis

by Charles E. Trevelyan

The next step was to order from the United States of America 100,000ℓ. worth of Indian corn. It was considered that the void caused by the failure of the potato crop might be filled, with the least disturbance of private trade and market prices, by the introduction of a new description of popular food. Owing to the prohibitory duty, Indian corn was unknown as an article of consumption in the United Kingdom[23]. Private merchants, therefore, could not complain of interference with a trade which did not exist, nor could prices be raised against the home consumer on an article of which no stock was to be found in the home market. Nevertheless, with a view to avoid as long as possible, the doubts and apprehensions which must have arisen if the Government had appeared as a purchaser in a new class of operations, pains were taken to keep the transaction secret, and the first cargoes from America had been more than a fortnight in Cork harbour before it became generally known that such a measure was in progress.

In order to distribute the food so obtained, central depôts were established in various parts of Ireland, under the direction of officers of the Commissariat, with sub-depôts under the charge of the Constabulary and Coast Guard; and, when the supplies in the local markets were deficient, meal was sold from these depôts at reasonable prices to Relief Committees, where any existed, and where they did not, to the labourers themselves. In the time of the heaviest pressure (June and July 1846), one sub-depôt retailed 20 tons of meal daily, and the issues from a single main depôt to its dependencies amounted to 233 tons in one week.

The Relief Committees were formed, under the superintendence of a Central Commission at Dublin, for the purpose of selling food in detail to those who could buy it, and of giving it to those who could not; the requisite funds being derived from private subscriptions, added to, in certain proportions, by Government donations. The Relief Committees also selected the persons to be employed on the Relief Works carried on under the superintendence of the Board of Works.

If the Irish poor had been in the habit of buying their food, as is the case in England, the object would have been attained when a cheap substitute had been provided for the potato; but as the labouring class in Ireland had hitherto subsisted on potatoes grown by themselves, and money wages were almost unknown, it was necessary to adopt some means of giving the people a command over the new description of food. This was done by establishing a system of public works, in accordance with the previous practice on similar occasions, both in Ireland and in other countries.

These works, which consisted principally of roads, were undertaken on the application of the magistrates and principal cess-payers, under the Act 9 & 10 Vic., c. 1, which was passed for the purpose, and the expense of executing them was defrayed by advances of public money, half of which was a grant, and half a loan to be repaid by the barony. The largest number of persons employed in this first season of relief was 97,000, in August, 1846.

The first symptoms of neglected tillage appeared in the Spring of 1846, and they were worst in those districts in which the Relief Works were carried on to the greatest extent. The improvements in progress on the Shannon and the arterial drainages were also impeded by the preference which the labourers showed for the Relief Works.

The measures of which we have been speaking were brought to a close on the 15th August, 1846, and they may be considered to have answered their end. The scarcity being partial and local, the deficiency of one part of the country was supplied from the superabundance of others, and the pains taken to prevent the people from suffering want, led to their being better off than in ordinary years. Above all, Ireland was prepared by the course adopted during this probationary season of distress, as it may be called, to bear better the heavy affliction of the succeeding season. No misapplication of the funds deserving of notice took place, except in the instance of the Relief Works, the cause of which was as follows:—The landed proprietors of Ireland had long been accustomed to rely upon Government loans and grants for making improvements of various kinds, and the terms on which the Relief Works were to be executed being more advantageous than any which had been open to them for many years before, a rush took place from all quarters upon this fund, and the special object of relieving the people from the consequences of the failure of their accustomed food, was to a great extent lost sight of in the general fear, which in many cases was not attempted to be concealed, of being deprived of what the persons interested called “their share of the grant.” This description of relief, therefore, instead of acting as a test of real distress, operated as a bounty on applications for public works from a class of persons who were at once charged with the administration of the relief and were interested in the execution of the works. The result was that, while the applications amounted to 1,289,816ℓ., the sum actually sanctioned and expended was only 476,000ℓ., and great part even of this was merely yielded to the distressing appeals pressed on the Lord Lieutenant on the plea of urgent local destitution, and of the lamentable consequences to be expected from allowing it to remain unrelieved. The other expenses connected with this season of relief were as follows:—Loans on grand jury presentments, 130,000ℓ.; loss on the purchase and sale of grain, 50,000ℓ.; given in aid of Relief Committees, 69,845ℓ.; extra staff of the Board of Works, 7,527ℓ.; thus making the whole sum expended in relief to Ireland, up to the 15th August, 1846, 733,372ℓ., of which 368,000ℓ. was in loans, and 365,372ℓ. in grants. The sum raised by voluntary subscription through the Relief Committees was 98,000ℓ.

The new and more decisive failure of the potato crop called for great exertions from Lord John Russell’s recently formed Government, and the plan resolved upon was explained in the Treasury Minute dated the 31st August, 1846, which was published for general information[24].

The system of public works was renewed by the Act 9 & 10 Vic., c. 107, which was passed without any opposition in either House of Parliament. In order to check the exorbitant demands which had been made during the preceding season, the whole of the expense was made a local charge, and the advances were directed to be repaid by a rate levied according to the Poor Law valuation, which makes the landlords liable for the whole rate on tenements under 4ℓ. yearly value, and for a proportion, generally amounting to one-half, on tenements above that value, instead of according to the grand jury cess (the basis of the repayments under the preceding Act), which lays the whole burden upon the occupier. It was also determined that the wages given on the Relief Works should be somewhat below the average rate of wages in the district; that the persons employed, should, as far as possible, be paid by task or in proportion to the work actually done by them; and that the Relief Committees, instead of giving tickets entitling persons to employment on the public works, should furnish lists of persons requiring relief, which should be carefully revised by the officers of the Board of Works; the experience of the preceding season having shown that these precautions were necessary to confine the Relief Works to the destitute, and to enforce a reasonable quantum of work.

The question which the Government had to decide, in regard to the renewal of the Commissariat operations, was of the most momentous kind. After all that had taken place during the last few months, it could not be expected that private trade would return, as a matter of course, to its accustomed channels. Neither the wholesale dealers in towns, nor the retail dealers in the rural districts, would lay in even their usual stocks of food; still less would they make the extraordinary provision required to meet the coming emergency, while they had before them the prospect of the Government throwing into the market supplies of food of unknown extent, which might make their outlay so much loss to them. The Government could not, therefore, calculate, as it did on the former occasion, on finding the private trade, by means of which the people are ordinarily supplied with food, proceeding as usual, and on being able to add more or less, at its discretion, to the resources which that trade afforded. Mercantile confidence in this branch of business was, for the time, destroyed. The trade was paralysed; and if this state of things had been suffered to continue, the general expectation of the Government again interfering would inevitably have created a necessity for that interference, on a scale which it would have been quite beyond the power of the Government to support.