The Irish Crisis

by Charles E. Trevelyan

“For the first time since the Lord visited this unhappy land with famine, I address you with delight. The markets are rapidly falling; Indian corn from 16ℓ. to 15ℓ. per ton. The vast importations, and the still more vast exportations from America, have produced this blessed effect.”

On the 26th March, Mr. Cummins states—

“I have now to report the continuance each day of numerous arrivals of food cargoes here; the additional number during the present week (mostly maize laden) considerably exceeds 100 sail, several being American ships of large burthen; and although many have proceeded to other ports, the number afloat, waiting orders or sale, has been fully doubled. I cannot estimate the fleet this day in our harbours at less than 250 sail, nor the contents at much under 50,000 tons. Indian corn may be purchased at 14ℓ. by the cargo, and retailed at 15ℓ. per ton.”

It now began to be perceived that more was to be expected from the collective exertions of the merchants of the United Kingdom, than from the Admiralty or the Commissariat. The whole quantity of corn imported into Ireland in the first six months of 1847 was 2,849,508 qrs., which was worth, at the then current prices, 8,764,943ℓ.; and the Irish market was, to use the words of the present Lord Lieutenant, “freer, cheaper, and better supplied, than that of any country in Europe where distress prevailed, and where those measures of interference and restriction had been unwisely adopted which were successfully resisted here.” The price of Indian corn, which in the middle of February had been 19ℓ. a-ton, was reduced at the end of March to 13ℓ., and at the end of August to 7ℓ. 10s. a-ton; and such was the quantity of shipping which flocked to the United States on the first intelligence of the unusual demand for freight, that the rate for the conveyance of corn to the United Kingdom, which had been as high as 9s. per barrel during the winter months, was as low as 4s. 6d. in May, and has since fallen to 1s. 9d. It may safely be asserted that these results would not have been obtained, if the great body of our English and Irish merchants and shipowners, instead of having free scope given to their exertions, had been left under the discouraging impression that all their calculations might be upset by the sudden appearance in the foreign market, of Government vessels and Government orders for supplies. The noble harbour of Cork was established as the house of call and entrepôt for the grain ships bound to every part of Western Europe; and the merchant being now free either to sell on the spot or to re-export, Ireland began to enjoy the benefit of her admirable commercial position, by getting the first, and largest, and cheapest supply.

Nevertheless, the public establishments were not idle. Upwards of 300,000 quarters of corn were purchased from time to time to supply the Government depôts on the western coast of Ireland[30], and large stores of biscuit and salt meat, which had been laid up at the different military stations in the year 1843, in anticipation of popular disturbances arising out of the repeal movement, were now applied to the relief of the people. One of the consequences of the sudden change from a potato to a corn diet, was, that the means of grinding were seriously deficient. The powerful Admiralty mills at Deptford, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Malta, besides two large hired mills, were therefore constantly employed in grinding the corn bought by the Commissariat, leaving the mill-power of Ireland to the private importers of grain into that country; and hand-mills, on the principle of the old Irish Quern, were made for distribution in the most distressed districts; while others, constructed on an improved principle, were procured from France. Thirty-four large depôts were established on the western side of Ireland, from Dunfanaghy, in the most northern part of Donegal, to Skibbereen, in the south-west of the county of Cork: and the sales were made, as far as possible, to the Relief Committees, with the double object of drawing forth the resources and activity of the upper classes, and of preventing an indiscriminate pressure upon the depôts, which it would have been difficult to resist. Several ships of war were moored in convenient situations and used as store-ships. The largest and most powerful war-steamers, reinforced, when the occasion required it, by sailing vessels, were appropriated to the conveyance of the meal from the mills in England to the depôts in Ireland, and every other available steamer, not excepting the Admiralty yacht, was employed in making the necessary transfers between the depôts, and in conveying the supplies which the Relief Committees had purchased.

The highest praise to which these great operations are entitled, is that they were carried through without any sensible disturbance of the ordinary course of trade, and that in some important respects they even gave new life and development to it. The purchases were all made in the home market, and care was taken never to give the highest current price. The sales were made at the wholesale price of the nearest large mart, with a reasonable addition for the cost of carriage, &c. When supplies of food could be obtained elsewhere, the depôts were closed. Private merchants, therefore, imported largely in the face of the Government depôts; while, in the remote western districts, the Commissariat acted as pioneers to the ordinary trade, and led the way to habits of commercial enterprise where before they had no existence.

There was the same general pressure for the premature opening of the depôts as for the early commencement of Relief Works, but in this case it was successfully resisted. It was explained that the Government depôts were intended to be a last resource to supply the deficiencies of the trade, and not to take the place of that trade; and that if the depôts were opened while the country was still full of the produce of the late harvest, that produce would be exported before the spring supplies arrived from America and the Black Sea, and the population would become entirely dependent upon the depôts, which must, in that case, soon come to a discreditable and disastrous stop. Meanwhile, great exertions were made to protect the provision trade, and the troops and constabulary were harassed by continual escorts. The plunder of bakers’ shops and bread-carts, and the shooting of horses and breaking up of roads, to prevent the removal of provisions, were matters of daily occurrence; and at Limerick, Galway, and elsewhere, mobs prevented any articles of food from leaving the towns, while the country people resisted their being carried in. Convoys under military protection proceeded at stated intervals from place to place, without which nothing in the shape of food could be sent with safety.

As many as 1097 Relief Committees were established under the superintendence of the Commissariat; while 199,470ℓ.[31] was subscribed by private individuals, and 189,914ℓ. was granted by the Government (making together 389,384ℓ.) in support of their operations.

One of the functions of these committees was to provide supplies of food for sale at the current market price; and when the rise of prices began to be seriously felt, the Government was called upon from every part of Ireland to permit the grants of public money made to the committees to be employed in reducing the price of provisions to that of ordinary years. To this demand it was impossible for the Government to accede. In 1845–6 the scarcity was confined to a few districts of Ireland, while there was abundance everywhere else. The question, therefore, at that time, was a money one; and all that was required to relieve the distress, was to purchase a sufficient quantity of food elsewhere and to send it into the distressed districts. In 1846–7, on the contrary, the scarcity was general, extending over all Western Europe, and threatening a famine in other quarters besides Ireland. The present question, therefore, was not a money, but a food question. The entire stock of food for the whole United Kingdom was insufficient, and it was only by carefully husbanding it, that it could be made to last till harvest. If provisions had been cheapened out of the public purse, consumption would have proceeded in a time of severe scarcity, at the same rate as in a time of moderate plenty; the already insufficient stock of food would have been expended with a frightful rapidity, and in order to obtain a few weeks of ease, we should have had to endure a desolating famine. Those Relief Committees which attempted to follow this plan speedily exhausted their capital; and private dealers (who necessarily lay in their stock at the current market price, whatever that may be) retired from the competition with public bodies selling food at prices artificially reduced by charitable subscriptions and grants out of national funds.

The other function of the Relief Committees was to give gratuitous aid in cases of extreme destitution, and this was well performed by them to the extent of their means. As the distress increased, the distribution of cooked food by the establishment of soup-kitchens was found the most effectual means of alleviating it. The attention of the committees was therefore generally directed to this object by the Inspecting Officers. Boilers were manufactured and sent to Ireland in great numbers, and Government donations were now in every case made equal in amount to the private subscriptions (“pound for pound”), and in cases of more than usual pressure, twice or three times that amount was given. This mode of giving relief was not found to be attended with any serious abuse. The committees expended in a great measure their own money, which made them more careful in seeing that it was laid out with the greatest possible advantage and economy; and as the ration of cooked food distributed by them was not an object of desire to persons in comfortable circumstances, as money wages were, it acted in a great degree as a test of destitution. The defect of this system of relief was, that being voluntary, it could not be relied on to meet the necessities of a numerous population in a period of great emergency, and the difficulty of obtaining private subscriptions was often greatest in the most distressed districts.