The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Vol. 1-4). Robert Thomas Wilson

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      GLENDALOUGH VALLEY, CO. WICKLOW—VIEW IN GLENDALOUGH.

      not only famine that had to be dealt with in that country; it was famine plus pauperism and pestilence.

      Looking back at the condition of affairs that obtained in Ireland in 1847, one is surprised that statesmen did not foresee what was coming. Irish industries, with the exception of the manufacture of linen, had been crushed by the commercial policy of England. It was not till 1825, a quarter of a century after the Union, that a true commercial union between Ireland and Great Britain was effected, and absolute Free Trade was established between the two countries. By that time English industries had got a great start, and when Free Trade was conceded to Ireland, she was no longer fit to compete with England, even in the industries that were indigenous to her soil. But as her wealth was chiefly agricultural, in husbandry, at all events, she might have been expected to hold her own. The high prices that followed the wars with France made Irish farmers, large and small, both rich and prosperous. But in 1815 the piping times of peace brought ruin to many of them. The fall in prices tempted the tenants to demand more land, so that, by carrying on tillage on a larger scale, they might be able to hold the market. This logically led to consolidation of holdings, which, in turn, led to evictions, agrarian outrage, and crime.

      In one respect, however, the position of Ireland was safeguarded. The Corn Laws, which imposed a prohibitory duty on foreign grain, allowed Irish corn to enter the English market freely. Corn was therefore largely grown in Ireland under Protection. But when Protection was abandoned, Irish, farmers lost the only prop they had—the tariff which left them profits in excess of rent. The effect of Free Trade in Ireland was naturally to reduce prices. It therefore did not pay after 1846 to grow corn in Ireland, and the alternative crop was cattle. But the rearing of cattle is best managed on a large scale and on large farms. Hence a movement in Ireland was set on foot for further consolidation of holdings—a movement, in other words, for a fresh policy of eviction that brought outrage in its train. Mr. Jephson has shown that “the adoption by Great Britain of free importation of food supplies from any part of the world must have revolutionised Irish agriculture and vitally affected the circumstances of the Irish, and it is not on the political connection between the two countries (which the Nationalists are now trying to break), but it is on the economic dependence of Ireland on England (which is unbreakable) that must be thrown the responsibility.”65 A very curious and instructive table of figures might be drawn up to prove this point:—

      Agricultural Holdings in Ireland.

      Thus it is seen that since Free Trade was adopted, small holdings in Ireland have been diminishing, whereas large holdings have been increasing; and that would be in favour of Lord George Bentinck’s contention, which in 1847 gave the utmost annoyance to Mr. Cobden and his friends, that Free Trade caused the Irish Famine. Perhaps the true view is, that in manufacturing districts, where the mass of the people did not live by selling produce from the soil, the fall in the price of grain which followed Free Trade was a boon. To a country like Ireland, on the other hand, where the mass of the people lived on the profits of tillage on a small scale, Free Trade came as a disaster. Coupled with the failure of the potato crop, it meant famine in 1847.

      Literally, the great mass of the Irish people were by this time starving. Their savings were gone, and as for economising, it was hopeless. A nation that lives on potatoes alone—the cheapest and worst form of human food the earth can yield—has already lowered its standard of comfort to zero. Beggary is the only alternative to a potato diet: for potato-feeders, as Mr. J. S. Mill has observed, “retrenchment is impossible.” Public works were therefore started for the relief of the people, and to these tottering skeletons dragged themselves in despair, often to die almost as soon as they began their task. A few ounces of oatmeal were reckoned a day’s ration for a family, and those who survived cold and hunger were swept away by typhus. The scenes in the overcrowded workhouses recalled the horrors that are immortalised in Defoe’s “History of the Plague.” In the towns the sufferings of the people were not less keen and cruel. “Daily in the street,” writes Mr. A. M. Sullivan in “New Ireland,” “and on the footway, some poor creature lay down as if to sleep, and presently was still and stark. In one district it was a common occurrence to find, on opening the front door in the early morning, leaning against it the corpse of some victim who in the night had ‘rested’ in its shelter. We raised a public subscription and employed two men with horse and cart to go round each day to gather up the dead. One by one they were taken to Ardrahahair Abbey, and dropped through the hinged bottom of a ‘trap coffin’ into a common grave below. In the rural districts even this rude sepulchre was impossible. In the fields and by the ditches the victims lay as they fell, till some charitable hand was found to cover them with the adjacent soil.” And yet during this time, as Lord George Bentinck said, the food exports of Ireland were greater than those of any other country in the world, not merely relatively but absolutely in proportion to people or area. As Mr. Henry George observes,66 “grain and meal and butter were carted for exportation along roads lined with the starving, and past trenches into which the dead were piled.”

      During the preceding autumn the Government had quite under-estimated the gravity of the situation in Ireland. They had given a pledge that they would not disturb the food market, and they relied on the ordinary capital of the nation to obtain supplies for a starving country, in the greater part of which there was by this time СКАЧАТЬ