THE IRISH FAMINE: INTERIOR OF A PEASANT’S HUT.
that the law of supply and demand would feed the people, and that whenever hunger smote them in a desolate district, there merchants and retailers of food would spring up as if by magic. Meetings of the Cabinet Council were
LORD BROUGHAM, 1850. (From a Sketch of the Period.)
held, it is true; and a glimpse at their deliberations is afforded us by Lord Campbell, who says he was summoned to attend a meeting of the Cabinet on the 20th October, at which the impending aggravation of the calamity was discussed. He adds:—“Lord John Russell has been severely blamed for not having immediately made an Order in Council to open the ports for the introduction of corn duty free. He actually proposed this measure, but was overruled, his colleagues being almost unanimously against him. In our then state of knowledge I think we were right not to tamper with the law as it had been recently settled, particularly as an Order in Council of this nature would have induced a necessity for the immediate meeting of Parliament, which, on account of the state of Ireland, was universally deprecated. The course we adopted was applauded till the accounts of Irish destitution became daily more appalling. We employed ourselves in considering the Bills which were to be brought forward at the meeting of Parliament, and Committees of the Cabinet were appointed to prepare them. Cabinet dinners were given once a week, and we were still in good spirits, hoping that the scarcity of this winter would not be more severe than that of the preceding.”[67] Ministers were painfully undeceived.
When the Session of Parliament opened on the 19th of January, 1847, the Queen, in reading her speech, seemed downcast and sorrowful, and her voice is said to have trembled and fallen low as she spoke of the sufferings of the Celtic population, and commended the patience and exemplary resignation with which their hardships were borne. And well might her voice and heart sink, for at that time the newspapers teemed with descriptions of scenes of suffering in Ireland, more harrowing than any which the most lurid pages of history record—scenes in which pestilence dogged the track of famine, and perishing wretches fought with each other like wild beasts for carrion. They were more dreadful even than those that live for ever in the ghastly narrative of Josephus, and, as Lord Brougham said in the Upper House, they recalled the canvas of Poussin and the dismal chant of Dante.[68]
Lord John Russell explained, on the 25th of January, the plans of the Government. Some £2,000,000 were advanced to feed the Irish people on doles of Indian meal, and to give them work and wages. A new Irish Poor Law, based on the English principle that property must support pauperism, was introduced, much to the disgust of the Irish landlords. The Corn Law and Navigation Acts were to be temporarily suspended. The Tories, not to seem laggards in the race of philanthropy, through Lord George Bentinck brought in a Bill to raise £16,000,000 for the construction of new railways in Ireland, so that employment might be given to the poor. His plan was that for every £100 expended on a line, £200 should be lent to its promoters by the Government at the same rate of interest at which it had been borrowed, and it was significant that in drafting his measure Lord George had been guided by Mr. Hudson, “the Railway King,” who made railways, and Mr. Alderman Thompson, who supplied materials for their construction. The House rejected the project as one designed to invest the money of the taxpayers in speculative enterprises for the benefit of financial “rings,” who had duped the Protectionist leader. Ministers, however, to the surprise of the House, followed up this rejected measure with a Bill of their own on the 26th of April, providing for advancing Treasury Loans, amounting in all to £620,000, repayable at 5 per cent. interest, to Irish railways, 50 per cent. of whose capital was paid up. In fact, it was the fag end of Lord George Bentinck’s proposal, and, as Sir Robert Peel said, if the Government had saved money on the expenditure in relief works, it would have been wiser to increase the Treasury balances than subsidise private speculators in Ireland. On the other hand, there was a popular feeling that some aid should be given to Irish railway enterprise, which might lead to an absorption of unemployed labour, and the objections to Lord George Bentinck’s gigantic scheme—namely, its interference with the ordinary operations of trade, and the absence of adequate administrative machinery—did not lie against a proposal to assist great arterial lines of railway already under construction.