THE IRISH CRISIS.

Thetime has not yet arrived at which any man can with confidence say, that he fully appreciates the nature and the bearings of that great event which will long be inseparably associated with the year just departed. Yet we think that we may render some service to the public by attempting thus early to review, with the calm temper of a future generation, the history of the great Irish famine of 18471. Unless we are much deceived, posterity will trace up to that famine the commencement of a salutary revolution in the habits of a nation long singularly unfortunate, and will acknowledge that on this, as on many other occasions, Supreme Wisdom has educed permanent good out of transient evil.

If, a few months ago, an enlightened man had been asked what he thought the most discouraging circumstance in the state of Ireland, we do not imagine that he would have pitched upon Absenteeism, or Protestant bigotry, or Roman Catholic bigotry, or Orangeism, or Ribbandism, or the Repeal cry, or even the system of threatening notices and midday assassinations. These things, he would have said, are evils; but some of them are curable; and others are merely symptomatic. They do not make the case desperate. But what hope is there for a nation which lives on potatoes?

The consequences of depending upon the potato as the principal article of popular food, had long been foreseen by thinking persons; and the following observations extracted from a paper on the native country of the wild potato2, published in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London for the year 1822, are a fair specimen of the opinions which prevailed on the subject previously to the great failure of 1845.

“The increased growth of the potato, not only in these kingdoms, but almost in every civilised part of the globe, has so added to its importance, that any information respecting it has become valuable. With the exception of wheat and rice, it is now certainly the vegetable most employed as the food of man; and it is probable that the period is at no great distance, when its extensive use will even place it before those which have hitherto been considered the chief staples of life. The effect of the unlimited extent to which its cultivation may be carried, on the human race, must be a subject of deep interest to the political economist. The extension of population will be as unbounded as the production of food, which is capable of being produced in very small space, and with great facility; and the increased number of inhabitants of the earth will necessarily induce changes, not only in the political systems, but in all the artificial relations of civilised life. How far such changes may conduce to or increase the happiness of mankind, is very problematical, more especially when it is considered, that since the potato, when in cultivation, is very liable to injury from casualties of season, and that it is not at present known how to keep it in store for use beyond a few months, a general failure of the year’s crop, whenever it shall have become the chief or sole support of a country, must inevitably lead to all the misery of famine, more dreadful in proportion to the numbers exposed to its ravages.”

The important influence which has been exercised by this root over the destinies of the human race, arises from the fact that it yields an unusually abundant produce as compared with the extent of ground cultivated, and with the labour, capital, and skill bestowed upon its cultivation. The same land, which when laid down to corn, will maintain a given number of persons, will support three times that number when used for raising potatoes. “A family in the West of Ireland, once located on from one to three or four acres of land, was provided for; a cabin could be raised in a few days without the expense of a sixpence; the potatoes, at the cost of a very little labour, supplied them with a sufficiency of food, with which, from habit, they were perfectly content; and a pig, or with some, a cow, or donkey, or pony, and occasional labour at a very low rate of wages, gave them what was necessary to pay a rent, and for such clothing and other articles as were absolutely necessary, and which, with a great proportion, were on the lowest scale of human existence. The foundation of the whole, however, was the possession of the bit of land; it was the one, and the only one thing absolutely necessary; the rent consequently was high, andgenerally well paid, being the first demand on all money received, in order to secure that essential tenure; and only what remained became applicable to other objects. Although of the lowest grade, it was an easy mode of subsistence, and led to the encouragement of early marriages, large families, and a rapidly-increasing population, and at the same time afforded the proprietor very good return of profit for his land3.”

The relations of employer and employed, which knit together the framework of society, and establish a mutual dependence and good-will, have no existence in the potato system. The Irish small holder lives in a state of isolation, the type of which is to be sought for in the islands of the South Sea, rather than in the great civilized communities of the ancient world. A fortnight for planting, a week or ten days for digging, and another fortnight for turf-cutting, suffice for his subsistence; and during the rest of the year, he is at leisure to follow his own inclinations, without even the safeguard of those intellectual tastes and legitimate objects of ambition which only imperfectly obviate the evils of leisure in the higher ranks of society.The excessive competition for land maintained rents at a level which left the Irish peasant the bare means of subsistence; and poverty, discontent, and idleness, acting on his excitable nature, produced that state of popular feeling which furnishes the material for every description of illegal association and misdirected political agitation. That agrarian code which is at perpetual war with the laws of God and man, is more especially the offspring of this state of society, the primary object being to secure the possession of the plots of land, which, in the absence of wages, are the sole means of subsistence.

There is a gradation even in potatoes. Those generally used by the people of Ireland were of the coarsest and most prolific kind, called “Lumpers,” or “Horse Potatoes,” from their size, and they were, for the most part, cultivated, not in furrows, but in the slovenly mode popularly known as “lazy beds;” so that the principle of seeking the cheapest description of food at the smallest expense of labour, was maintained in all its force. To the universal dependence on the potato, and to the absence of farmers of a superior class, it was owing that agriculture of every description was carried on in a negligent,imperfect manner4. The domestic habits arising out of this mode of subsistence were of the lowest and most degrading kind. The pigs and poultry, which share the food of the peasant’s family, became, in course, inmates of the cabin also. The habit of exclusively living on this root produced an entire ignorance of every other food and of the means of preparing it; and there isscarcely a woman of the peasant class in the West of Ireland, whose culinary art exceeds the boiling of a potato. Bread is scarcely ever seen, and an oven is unknown.

The first step to improvement was wanting to this state of things. The people had no incitement to be industrious to procure comforts which were utterly beyond their reach, and which many of them perhaps had never seen. Their ordinary food being of the cheapest and commonest description, and having no value in the market, it gave them no command of butcher’s meat, manufactures, colonial produce, or any other article of comfort or enjoyment. To those who subsist chiefly on corn, other articles of equal value are available, which can be substituted for it at their discretion; or if they please, they can, by the adoption of a less expensive diet, accumulate a small capital by which their future condition may be improved and secured; but the only hope for those who lived upon potatoes was in some great intervention of Providence to bring back the potato to its original use and intention as an adjunct, and not as a principal article of national food; and by compelling the people of Ireland to recur to other more nutritious means of aliment, to restore theenergy and the vast industrial capabilities of that country.

A population, whose ordinary food is wheat and beef, and whose ordinary drink is porter and ale, can retrench in periods of scarcity, and resort to cheaper kinds of food, such as barley, oats, rice, and potatoes. But those who are habitually and entirely fed on potatoes, live upon the extreme verge of human subsistence, and when they are deprived of their accustomed food, there is nothing cheaper to which they can resort. They have already reached the lowest point in the descending scale, and there is nothing beyond but starvation or beggary. Several circumstances aggravate the hazard of this position. The produce of the potato is more precarious than that of wheat or any other grain. Besides many other proofs of the uncertainty of this crop, there is no instance on record of any such failure of the crops of corn, as occurred in the case of potatoes in 1821, 1845, 1846, and 1847; showing that this root can no longer be depended upon as a staple article of human food. The potato cannot be stored so that the scarcity of one year may be alleviated by bringing forward the reserves of former years, as is always done in corn-feedingcountries. Every year is thus left to provide subsistence for itself. When the crop is luxuriant, the surplus must be given to the pigs; and when it is deficient, famine and disease necessarily prevail. Lastly, the bulk of potatoes is such, that they can with difficulty be conveyed from place to place to supply local deficiencies, and it has often happened that severe scarcity has prevailed in districts within fifty miles of which potatoes were to be had in abundance. If a man use two pounds of meal a-day (which is twice the amount of the ration found to be sufficient during the late relief operations), a hundredweight of meal will last him for fifty-six days; whereas a hundredweight of potatoes will not last more than eight days; and when it was proposed to provide seed-potatoes for those who had lost their stock in the failure of 1845–6, the plan was found impracticable, because nearly a ton an acre would have been required for the purpose.

The potato does not, in fact, last even a single year. The old crop becomes unfit for use in July, and the new crop, as raised by the inferior husbandry of the poor, does not come into consumption until September. Hence, July and August are called the“meal months,” from the necessity the people are under of living upon meal at that period. This is always a season of great distress and trial for the poorer peasants; and in the districts in which the potato system has been carried to the greatest extent, as, for instance, in the barony of Erris in the county of Mayo, there has been an annual dearth in the summer months for many years past. Every now and then a “meal year” occurs, and then masses of the population become a prey to famine and fever, except so far as they may be relieved by charity.

In 1739 an early and severe frost destroyed the potatoes in the ground, and the helplessness and despair of the people having led to a great falling off of tillage in 1740, the calamity was prolonged to the ensuing year, 1741, which was long known as thebliadhain an air, or year of slaughter. The ordinary burial-grounds were not large enough to contain those who died by the roadside, or who were taken from the deserted cabins. The “bloody flux” and “malignant fever,” having begun among the poor, spread to the rich, and numerous individuals occupying prominent positions in society, including one of the judges (Mr.Baron Wainwright), and the Mayor of Limerick (Joseph Roche, Esq.), and many others of the corporation, fell victims. Measures were adopted at Dublin on the principle of the English Poor Law, some of the most essential provisions of which appear to have been well understood in the great towns of Ireland in that day; and it was “hoped, since such provision is made for the poor, the inhabitants of the city will discourage all vagrant beggars, and give their assistance that they may be sent to Bridewell to hard labour, and thereby free themselves from a set of idlers who are a scandal and a reproach to the nation.” Soup-kitchens and other modes of relief were established in different parts of the country, in which Primate Boulter and the Society of Friends took the lead; and numerous cargoes of corn were procured on mercantile account from the North American Colonies, the arrival of which was looked for with great anxiety. In only one point is there any decided difference between what then took place in Ireland and the painful events which have just occurred, after the lapse of upwards of a century. The famine of 1741 was not regarded with any active interest either in England or in any foreign country, and the subject isscarcely alluded to in the literature of the day. No measures were adopted either by the Executive or the Legislature for the purpose of relieving the distress caused by this famine. There is no mention of grants or loans; but an Act was passed by the Irish Parliament in 1741 (15 Geo. II, cap. 8), “For the more effectual securing the payment of Rents, and preventing frauds by Tenants5.”

The failure of 1822, in the provinces of Munster and Connaught, was owing to a continued and excessive humidity, which caused the potatoes to rot after they had been stored in the pits, so that the deficiency of food was not discovered till late in the season. On the 7th May, 1822, a public meeting was held in London which was attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the most eminent persons of the day, when a committee of no less than 109 of the nobility and gentry was formed, and a subscription was entered into, amounting, with the aid of a king’s letter, to 311,081ℓ.5s., 7d., of which 44,177ℓ.9s.was raised in Ireland. Many excellent principles werelaid down for the distribution of this large sum; and after reserving what was required for immediate relief, the balance, amounting to 87,667ℓ., was granted to various societies which had been established for the future and permanent benefit of the Irish peasantry6. A committee also sat at the Mansion House at Dublin, which collected 31,260ℓ.from various quarters, independently of the grants it received from the London Committee. Central Committees were established in each county town in the distressed districts, and Sub-Committees in each parish. The western portion of Ireland was also divided into three districts, to each of which a civil engineer was appointed for the purpose of employing the destitute in making roads, and the following sums were voted by Parliament for carrying on these and other Public Works set on foot with the same object of relieving the distress7:

On 24 June, 1822, £100,000,

“for the employment of the poor in Ireland, and other purposes relating thereto as the exigency of affairs may require.”

On 23 July, 1822, £200,000,

“to enable His Majesty to take such measures as the exigency of affairs may require.”

And on the 24 June, 1823, £15,000 was voted,

“to facilitate emigration from the south of Ireland to the Cape of Good Hope.”

In 1831 another failure of the potato crop occurred in the counties of Galway, Mayo, and Donegal, upon which another meeting was held in the City of London, and one committee was established at the Mansion House, and another at the West End. Great exertions were made to raise subscriptions; a bazaar was held at theHanover Square Rooms by many of the ladies of the nobility, presided over by the Queen in person; and there was a ball at Drury Lane Theatre, which was honoured by the presence of the King and Queen. The whole amount collected was 74,410ℓ.; and besides this 40,000ℓ.was granted by Parliament, part of which was expended on relief works, and part in the actual distribution of food. Besides these London Committees, two other Committees were formed at Dublin, through one of which (the Mansion House Committee8) 8,569ℓ.was collected,and through the other (the Sackville Street Committee) 21,526ℓ.

In each of the years 1835, 1836, and 1837, the potato crop failed in one or other of the districts in the West of Ireland, and sums amounting in the aggregate to 7,572ℓ.were expended from Civil Contingencies in relieving the distress thereby occasioned, to which was added the sum of 4,306ℓ.remaining from the English and Irish subscriptions of 1831.

In 1839 another failure occurred; and in all the Western and Midland Counties, the average price of potatoes in July and August was 7d.a stone, and of oatmeal 18s.or 19s.a cwt.; the former double, and the latter one-third more than the usual price at that time of the year. On this occasion Captain Chads, R.N., was deputed by the Governmentto assist the landlords in employing the destitute in constructing roads and other useful public works; and it appears from a report addressed by him to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, dated the 22nd of August, 1839, that 5,441ℓ.was expended in this way, of which 1840ℓ.was contributed by the Government, besides 1478ℓ.disbursed through other channels. Towards the conclusion of his report Captain Chads made the following remarks:—“A recurrence of these seasons of distress, which have been almost periodical hitherto, must, I fear, be necessarily expected, so long as the present condition of the poor continues, and whilst they subsist on that species of food, which in a year of plenty cannot be stored up for the next, which may be one of scarcity. A very great alleviation, however, of this evil is most confidently expected from the Poor Law now being established. I have conversed on this subject with persons of every class of society, from one end of the country to the other, and it is universally regarded as the promise of a great blessing:—to the poor by inducing more provident and industrious habits; and by making it the interest of the landlords to give them employment; and to all other classes, comfort and contentment, fromthe knowledge that the really distressed are provided for, and that the country is generally improving by the extension of employment.”

After this, urgent representations of distress were made in each year to the Irish Government and to the Poor Law Commissioners, until the summer of 1842, which was more than usually wet and unfavourable to vegetation, and it therefore again became necessary to have recourse to extensive measures of relief. On this occasion 3,448ℓ.was distributed in aid of local subscriptions, in 121 separate districts; the aggregate sums raised in each case being expended, partly in public works on Captain Chads’ plan, and partly in giving gratuitous relief9.

Besides the grants above enumerated, made for the immediate relief of the Irish poor, when failures of the potato crop caused unusual distress, large sums of money have been advanced or granted from the ImperialTreasury from time to time since the Union, for various purposes supposed to be conducive to the tranquillity and improvement of the country, and to the removal of the causes of permanent distress, as will be seen from the following specimens taken principally from a return to an order of the House of Commons of the 12th February, 1847, made on the motion of Mr. John O’Connell10.

Other causes concurred with the natural tendency of every people to have recourse to the cheapest description of food, in encouraging the growth of a large population depending for its subsistence on the potato. Ireland was essentially a grazing country until the artificial enhancement of prices caused by the Acts of the Irish Parliament passed in 1783 and 1784, for granting a bounty on the exportation, and restricting the importation of corn, occasioned an immediate and extraordinary increase of cultivation; and as, owing to the general want of capital, it was impossible to find tenants for large tillage farms, the stimulus intended to act exclusively on agriculture, had a still more powerful effect in causing the subdivision of farms. The new occupiers also, being, for the most part, exceedingly poor, instead of paying their labourers in money, allowed them the use of small pieces of ground whereon they might erect cabins and raise potatoes, and their labour was set off, at so much a-day, against the annual rent. The plan of dividing and subdividing for the purpose of making freeholders, wascarried to a great extent after 1792, when the elective franchise was restored to the Roman Catholics; and although the practice was far from being general, yet in some parts of the country, where particular families made it their object to contest or secure the county, it was carried to a very pernicious extent. Another powerful cause is that the emoluments of the Roman Catholic priesthood, including the bishops, depend not only on the extent of the population, but also on its continual increase; and if the parish priests object to emigration and the consolidation of small holdings, and look with favour on early marriages, it is only what any other body of men, in their circumstances, would equally do. Lastly, the small holding and potato system offered the inducement of large rents, obtained at the smallest possible amount of cost and trouble. The embarrassed and improvident landlord, and the leaseholder whose only object it was to make the most of his short tenure, equally found their account in this state of things, and the result in both cases was, that the farms were covered with hovels and miserable cottiers, in order, through them, to create profit-rents. When the failure of the potato forced all the “squatters” and“mock tenants” into notice, the owner of many a neglected estate was surprised by the apparition of hundreds of miserable beings, who had grown up on his property without his knowledge, and now claimed the means of support at his hands. The subsistence of the tenant was at the minimum; the rent was at the maximum; and the interval between the ignorant excitable peasantry and the proprietor in chief, was filled only by the middleman, whose business it was to exact rents and not to employ labourers. The base and the capital of the column were there, but the shaft was almost entirely wanting.

The extent to which the welfare of the agricultural population, and through them of the rest of the community, is affected by the conditions upon which landed property is held, has become fearfully apparent during the present social crisis. The dependence for good and evil of workman on master manufacturer, of subject on Government, of child on father, is less absolute than that of the Irish peasant upon the lord of the soil from which he derives his subsistence. This is a subject to which, if we would save ourselves and our country, it behoves us to give our most earnest andcareful attention at the present time. We cannot give landed proprietors the will and disposition (where it is wanting) to fulfil the important part they have to perform in the scheme of society, but we have it in our power to strike off the fetters which at present impede every step of their progress in the performance of the duty they owe to themselves and to those dependent on them.

One half of the surface of Ireland is said to be let off in perpetuity leases, with derivative and subderivative interests in an endless chain, so as to obtain profit-rents at each stage; and these leases are often open to the additional objection that they are unnecessarily burthensome or uncertain from the particular mode in which they are made; such as “leases for lives renewable for ever by the insertion of other lives when the first-named are dead,” “for three livesorthirty-one years,” and “for three livesandthirty-one years.” Many proposals have at different times been made for the redemption of these various interests; but an arbitrary interference with the rights of property is to be avoided, and our object should rather be to give every prudent facility for the voluntary transfer of landand of the various interests connected with it, which must lead, by a safe but certain gradation, to that degree of improvement of the existing tenures which is necessary for the encouragement of agriculture. In the flourishing islands of Guernsey and Jersey, corn-rents of fixed amount are charged upon the same farm one after another, like the coats of an onion; but the lowest holder, who is the party really interested in the improvement of the property, has every requisite security that he will enjoy the whole profit of any outlay he may make, and the most essential part of the benefit of ownership is thus obtained. In Mayo and other western counties the old barbarous Irish tenure calledRundale(Scotchrunrigg), still prevails, which stops short of the institution of individual property, and by making the industrious and thriving responsible for the short-comings of the idle and improvident, effectually destroys the spring of all improvement. The cessation of this antiquated system is an indispensable preliminary to any progress being made in the localities where it exists; but this improvement may be effected by the landlords without any change in the law.

The master evil of the agricultural systemof Ireland, however, is the law of Entail, and the Incumbrances which seldom fail to accumulate upon entailed estates. “Proprietors of estates,” observes the author of an excellent pamphlet which has recently appeared on this subject11, “are too often but mere nominal owners, without influence or power over the persons holding under them. Their real condition is often pitiable, nor is it possible, in the great majority of cases, to retrieve the estates. The burthen of debt, or the evils of improvident leases, are fastened upon the land in such a manner as to convert the owner into a mere annuitant, often glad to obtain from a good estate a scanty annuity (after payment of the incumbrances thereon and the publicburthens) for his own subsistence. Proprietor and tenant are equally powerless for good; and the whole kingdom suffers from the disorders which have resulted from this state of real property in Ireland.” And the author of another valuable publication on the same subject12observes as follows: “The evils resulting from settlements and entails may be regarded as arising from insecurity or uncertainty of tenure; because the possessor of the property is not in reality the owner; he cannot deal with it as an owner; he is merely a trustee for others; he has no interest in its future thorough permanent improvement, except so far as he may wishto benefit his successors; he can never reap the benefit himself; he cannot sell; he cannot dispose of a part, even though the alienation of a part might greatly enhance the value of the remainder; he holds it during his lifetime, as his predecessor held it, unaltered, unimproved, to transmit it to his heir clogged with the same restrictions alike injurious to him and to his country. This is the case of an unembarrassed landlord13. But let us suppose, as is unfortunatelytoo often the case, that he has received the estate incumbered under a settlement, with a jointure to the widow of the late possessor, and a provision for daughters and younger sons. In what difficulties is he at once involved! this owner for life of a large tract of country with a long rent-roll, but in fact a small property! He cannot maintain his position in society without spending more than his income; debts accumulate; he mortgages his estate, and insures his life for the security of the mortgagee. Of course he cannot afford to lay out anything on improvements; on the contrary, though perhaps naturally kind-hearted and just, his necessities force him to resort to every means of increasing his present rental. He looks for the utmost amount; he lets to the highest bidder, without regard to character or means of payment. If his tenants are without leases, he raises their rents. If leases fall in, he cannot afford to give the preference to the last occupier. Perhaps, with all his exertions, he is unableto pay the interest or put off his creditors. Proceedings are commenced against him, and the estate passes during his lifetime under the care of the worst possible landlord, a Receiver under the Court of Chancery14.”

The remedy for this state of things is simply the sale of the encumbered estate, or of a sufficient portion of it to enable the owner to discharge his encumbrances and to place him in a position to do his duty towards the remainder. This is the master-key to unlock the field of industry in Ireland. The seller, in all such cases, is incapable of making a proper use of the land. The purchaser, on the other hand, may safely be assumed to be an improver. It is a natural feeling in which almost all men indulge, and purchases of land are seldom made without a distinct view to further profitable investments in improvements. “To give every prudent facility for the transfer by sale of real property from man to man, by the adoption of a simple, cheap, and secure system of transfer, in lieu of the present barbarous, unsafe, and expensive system, so that real property could be bought and sold in Ireland with as much freedom and security as other property15,” is, therefore, the objectat which we ought to aim, and especially to encourage the investment of small capitals in the land, it being through the instrumentality of small capitalists chiefly that the country can be civilized and improved. “The purchasers would give extensive and permanent employment to numbers of people around them in carrying out that natural desire of man, the improvement of newly-acquired landed property; they would promote industry everywhere; they would greatly increase the value of land generally. By their number, all property in land would be rendered secure against revolutionary violence. The habits and example of men who had made money by industry, and who might invest their savings in land, would place the social system of Ireland on a solid basis. The best of the Protestants and Roman Catholics, those who had been careful and industrious, would be purchasers of land, and all would have a common interest in peace and order. That surplus population beyond the means of present employment, which now oppresses and embarrasses the country, might gradually be absorbed, and become a source of wealth and strength. Towns would everywhere improve, and new ones might ariseby the extension of the railway system, spreading industry and civilization among men now sunk in indolence and almost barbarism16.”

All the parties concerned in these transfers would be benefited by them. Lands are comparatively valueless to those who have no capital to improve them, and they are often justly felt to be a burthen and a disgrace, because they entail duties which the nominal owners have no means of performing. The effect on the character and prospects of the whole body of landed proprietors would be as described in the following passage from the author to whom we are already so much indebted: “When men, however young, act under responsibility, they usually proceed with caution; if others will think and act for them, and provide for their wants, and secure them from poverty and danger, their own prudential faculties may become dormant; and a man or any class of men so protected, are likely to exhibit deficiency in the qualities of prudence and good management of their affairs. But owners of land would not evince any such deficiency, if oncethey felt that they would be ruined, and their families also, if they were not governed by the same rules of prudence which other men must observe, and which necessarily enter into the proper management of all other descriptions of property. The present difficulties of sale of land, and the consequent protection afforded to entailed properties, are the chief reasons why so many persons of the class of proprietors are in difficulties. With more liberty, there would be more prudence and more attention to estates on the part of owners, from which they and the country would be great gainers17.”

The manner in which the interests of the public at large are affected, is correctly described in the following passage from the other pamphlet: “If these premises be correct; if employment with regular wages must be found for the peasantry: if capital be necessary, and the parties holding the land do not possess sufficient for this purpose; it follows, either that Government must continue to supply the capital required, not merely by a loan on an emergency, but as part of its regular system of action; or elsethat the land must pass into the hands of those who do possess the means of employing the people—of men who will carry on agriculture as a business, and will bring to their occupation the capital, the habits of business, and the energy and intelligence which have raised the commerce and manufactures of this nation to their present pre-eminence18.”

Her Majesty’s Government being deeply impressed with the importance of these views, introduced a bill into Parliament in the session of 1847, the object of which was to enable the owners of encumbered estates in Ireland to sell the whole or a portion of them, after the circumstances of each estate had been investigated by a Master in Chancery with a view to secure the due liquidation of every claim upon it. The sale was not to take place without the consent of the first incumbrancer, unless the Court of Chancery should consider the produce sufficient to pay the principal and all arrears of interest, or unless the owner or some subsequent incumbrancer should undertake to pay to the first incumbrancer any deficiencywhich might exist, and give such security for the performance of his undertaking as the court might direct. This bill passed the House of Lords, but was withdrawn in the Commons, owing to the opposition of some of the Irish proprietors, and to objections entertained by the great Insurance Companies, who are the principal lenders on Irish mortgages, to having their investments disturbed. The failure of the bill was a national misfortune which cannot be too soon remedied.

The Government, however, did what was in its power. A system has existed in Ireland since the time of Queen Anne for the registration of all deeds affecting landed property; and of late years a similar registration has been established of all judgments relating to that description of property. The attention of the Lord Lieutenant has been called to the practicability of diminishing the delay and expense attending transfers of landed property, by the adoption of two simple practical measures, viz., that when searches have been made in the office of the Registrar of Deeds, copies should be recorded in the office, as well as given to the parties on whose behalf they are made; and that whenjudgments, &c., recorded in the office of the Registrar of Judgments have been satisfied, notice should be immediately sent to the Registrar, in order that such satisfaction may be recorded in the books of his office19. The consequence of the neglect of the first of these obvious precautions was, that, after expensive searches had been made in the Registry Office, the same searches often had to be made again and again, at the same expense, at the instance of other parties, however limited the transactions might be for the security of which these inquiries into past transfers and incumbrances were made; and the consequence of the neglect of the other precaution was, that if, after a search had been made through the records deposited in the office of the Registrar of Judgments, to ascertain whether any judgment had been passed against the estate, it appeared that any such judgment had been given, another search had to be made in the courts of law, involving fresh loss of time and fresh expense, to ascertain whether it had been satisfied20.

But it is time that we should resume our narrative.

The potato disease, which had manifested itself in North America in 184421, first appeared in these islands late in the autumn of 1845. The early crop of potatoes, which is generally about one-sixth of the whole, and is dug in September and October, escaped; but the late, or what is commonly called the “people’s crop,” and is taken up in December and January, was tainted after it arrived at an advanced stage of maturity. When the disease had once commenced, it made steady progress, and it was often found, on opening the pits, that the potatoes had become a mass of rottenness. Nevertheless, this year the attack was partial; and although few parts of the country entirely escaped, and the destruction of human food was, on the whole, very great, a considerable portion ofthe crop, which had been a more than usually large one, was saved. The wheat crop was a full average; oats and barley were abundant; and of turnips, carrots, and green crops, including a plentiful hay harvest, there was a more than sufficient supply. On the Continent, the rye crops failed partially, and the potato disease was very destructive in Holland, Belgium, France, and the west of Germany.

In the following year (1846) the blight in the potatoes took place earlier, and was of a much more sweeping and decisive kind. “On the 27th of last month (July), I passed,” Father Mathew writes in a letter published in the Parliamentary Papers, “from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant harvest. Returning on the 3rd instant (August), I beheld with sorrow one wide waste of putrefying vegetation. In many places the wretched people were seated on the fences of their decaying gardens, wringing their hands, and wailing bitterly the destruction that had left them foodless.” The first symptom of the disease was a little brown spot on the leaf, and these spots gradually increased in number and size, untilthe foliage withered and the stem became brittle, and snapped off immediately when touched. In less than a week the whole process was accomplished22. The fields assumed a blackened appearance, as if they had been burnt up, and the growth of the potatoes was arrested when they were not larger than a marble or a pigeon’s egg. No potatoes were pitted this year. In many districts where they had been most abundant, full-grown wholesome potatoes werenot to be procured; and even in London and other large towns, they were sold at fancy prices, and were consumed as a luxury by the wealthy, rice and other substitutes being had recourse to by the body of the people. The crop of wheat this year was barely an average one, while barley and oats, and particularly the former, were decidedly deficient. On the Continent, the rye and potato crops again failed, and prices rose early in the season above those ruling in England, which caused the shipments from the Black Sea, Turkey and Egypt, to be sent to France, Italy, and Belgium; and it was not till late in the season, that our prices rose to a point which turned the current of supplies towards England and Ireland. The Indian corn crop in the United States this year was very abundant, and it became a resource of the utmost value to this country.

In the third year (1847) the disease had nearly exhausted itself. It appeared in different parts of the country, but the plants generally exerted fresh vigour and outgrew it. The result, perhaps, could not have been better. The wholesome distrust in the potato was maintained, while time was allowed formaking the alterations which the new state of things required. Although the potatoes sown in Ireland in the year 1847 were estimated only at 1/5th or 1/6th of the usual quantity, it would have been a serious aggravation of the difficulties and discouragements under which that portion of the empire was suffering, if the disease had reappeared in its unmitigated form. The crops of wheat, barley, and oats, in almost every part of the United Kingdom, and in most of the neighbouring countries on the Continent, were this year, to use the epithet generally applied to them, magnificent; and it became more and more apparent on the brink of what a precipice we had been standing, as the unusually small remaining stock of old corn came to light, and the exhausted and embarrassed state to which every description of business had been reduced, notwithstanding the advantage of a good harvest, gradually declared itself.

Among the numerous causes which enhanced the difficulty of obtaining adequate foreign supplies at moderate rates during the most exigent period of the winter of 1846–7, one of the most embarrassing, was the sudden and extraordinary advance infreights, which occurred simultaneously in the ports of the United States of America, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. Vessels were not obtainable in the Black Sea and the Danube at less than 18s.and 22s.per quarter for corn, whereas the usual rates are 9s.and 11s.; while in the United States, where large shipments of grain, flour, and Indian corn, were going forward to Europe, the comparatively limited number of vessels caused the rates to run up to 9s.per barrel for flour, and 16s.and 18s.per quarter for Indian corn to British ports, the rates usually given being 2s.6d.to 3s.6d.per barrel of flour, and 8s.and 9s.per quarter for Indian corn.

On the 27th January, 1846, Sir Robert Peel proposed his measure for the relaxation of the duties on the importation of foreign corn, by which the scale of duties payable on wheat was to range from 4s.to 10s.per quarter, and Indian corn, which had previously been charged with the same duty as barley, was to pay only 1s.a-quarter. This was to last till February 1849, when an uniform duty of 1s.a-quarter was to be charged on every description of grain. The bill passed the House of Lords on the 29thJune, 1846; and Sir R. Peel announced his resignation in the House of Commons on the same day.

Immediately on the meeting of Parliament in January, 1847, Lord J. Russell introduced bills to suspend until the 1st September, 1847, the duties on foreign corn, and the restrictions imposed by the Navigation Laws on the importation of corn in foreign vessels; and he at the same time moved a resolution permitting the use of sugar in breweries; all which measures received the sanction of the Legislature. At the close of the same session, the suspension of the Corn and Navigation Laws was extended to the 1st March, 1848.

On the first appearance of the blight in the autumn of 1845, Professors Kane, Lindley, and Playfair, were appointed by Sir Robert Peel to inquire into the nature of it, and to suggest the best means of preserving the stock of potatoes from its ravages. The result showed that the mischief lay beyond the knowledge and power of man. Every remedy which science or experience could dictate was had recourse to, but the potato equally melted away under the most opposite modes of treatment.

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 Kingdom23. Privatemerchants, 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 ofbuying 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 greatestextent. 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 tookplace 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 information24.

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, generallyamounting 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 accustomedchannels. 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.

Under these circumstances it was announced,—1st. That no orders for suppliesof food would be sent by the Government to foreign countries. 2ndly. That the interference of the Government would be confined to those western districts of Ireland in which, owing to the former prevalence of potato cultivation, no trade in corn for local consumption existed. And 3rdly. That even in these districts, the Government depôts would not be opened for the sale of food, while it could be obtained from private dealers at reasonable prices, with reference to those which prevailed at the nearest large marts. It was also determined to adhere to the rule acted upon during the preceding season, not to make any purchases in the local markets of Ireland, where the appearance of the Government as a buyer must have had the effect of keeping up prices and encouraging interested representations; and a promise was given that every practicable effort would be made to protect the supplies of food introduced by private traders, both while they were in transit and when they were stored for future consumption.

The Relief Committees of the preceding season were re-organised; the rules under which they had acted were carefully revised;and inspecting officers were appointed to superintend their proceedings, and keep the Government informed of the progress of events. A large proportion of the people of Ireland had been accustomed to grow the food they required, each for himself, on his own little plot of ground; and the social machinery by which, in other countries, the necessary supplies of food are collected, stored, and distributed, had no existence there. Suddenly, without any preparation, the people passed from a potato food, which they raised themselves, to a grain food, which they had to purchase from others, and which, in great part, had to be imported from abroad; and the country was so entirely destitute of the resources applicable to this new state of things, that often, even in large villages, neither bread nor flour was to be procured; and in country districts, the people had sometimes to walk twenty miles before they could obtain a single stone of meal. The main object for which the Relief Committees were established, therefore, was to provide a temporary substitute for the operations of the corn-factor, miller, baker, and provision-dealer, and to allow time and furnish the example for a sounder and morepermanent state of things; but they were not precluded from giving gratuitous relief in cases of more than ordinary destitution. The agency of Relief Committees was this season almost universally substituted for the coast guard and constabulary depôts with the object of drawing out the resources of the country before the Government depôts were had recourse to, of inducing the upper and middle classes to exert themselves, and of preventing a direct pressure of the mass of the people upon the Government depôts, which in a time of real famine it would have been very difficult to resist.

Such was the plan resolved upon for the campaign of 1846–7 against the approaching famine, and we shall now show the result of the struggle.

It was hoped that a breathing-time would have been allowed at the season of harvest, to enable the Board of Works to reorganize their establishments on a scale proportioned to the magnitude of the task about to devolve on them, and to prepare, through their district officers, plans and estimates of suitable works for the assistance of the baronial sessions. This interval was not obtained. The general failure of the potatocrop spread despondency and alarm from one end of Ireland to the other, and induced every class of persons to throw themselves upon the Government for aid. On the 6th of September, the Lord Lieutenant ordered all the discontinued works under the 9 & 10 Vic., c. 1, to be recommenced, and sessions were rapidly held in all the southern and western counties of Ireland, at which roads were presented in the mass, under the 9 & 10 Vic., c. 107, the cost of which, in some cases, much exceeded the annual rental of the barony. The resident gentry and rate-payers, whose duty it was to ascertain, as far as possible, the probable amount of destitution in their neighbourhood, the sum required to relieve it, and the works upon which that sum could best be expended, and who had the necessary local knowledge, in almost every case devolved these functions upon the Board of Works, who could only act on such information as they could obtain from naval and military officers and engineers, most of whom were selected from among strangers to the district, in order to prevent undue influence being used. After that, to advance the funds; to select the labourers; to superintend the work; to paythe people weekly; to enforce proper performance of the labour; if the farm works were interrupted, to ascertain the quantity of labour required for them; to select and draft off the proper persons to perform it; to settle the wages to be paid to them by the farmers, and see that they were paid; to furnish food, not only for all the destitute out of doors, but in some measure for the paupers in the workhouses, were the duties which the Government and its officers were called upon to perform. The proprietors and associated rate-payers having presentedindefinitely, said it was the fault of the Government and its officers if the people were not instantly employed, and these officers were blamed, even by persons of character and understanding, if they were not at once equal to execute the duties which in this country are performed in their respective districts by thousands of country gentlemen, magistrates, guardians, overseers, surveyors, &c., resident throughout the country, and trained by the experience of years to the performance of their various functions. The Board of Works became the centre of a colossal organization; 5,000 separate works had to be reported upon;12,000 subordinate officers had to be superintended. Their letters averaged upwards of 800 a-day, and the number received on each of the following dayswas—

The strain on the springs of society from this monstrous system of centralisation was fearful in the extreme. The Government, which ought only to mediate between the different classes of society, had now to bear the immediate pressure of the millions, on the sensitive points of wages and food. The opposition to task-work was general, and the enforcement of it became a trial of strength between the Government and the multitude. The officers of the Board were in numerous instances the objects of murderous attacks, and it became necessary forthe preservation of the whole community, to have recourse to the painful expedient of stopping the works whenever cases of insubordination or outrage occurred.

Meanwhile, the number of persons employed on the works was rapidly on the increase. The utmost exertions of two sets of inspecting officers, one under the Board of Works, and the other under Sir R. Routh, were insufficient to revise the lists; and the Lord Lieutenant in vain directed that no person rated above 6ℓ.for the Poor Law cess, should, except under very special circumstances, be eligible for employment. Thousands upon thousands were pressed upon the officers of the Board of Works in every part of Ireland, and it was impossible for those officers to test the accuracy of the urgent representations which were made to them. The attraction of money wages regularly paid from the public purse, or the “Queen’s pay,” as it was popularly called, led to a general abandonment of other descriptions of industry, in order to participate in the advantages of the Relief Works. Landlords competed with each other in getting the names of their tenants placed on the lists; farmers dismissed their labourersand sent them to the works; the clergy insisted on the claims of the members of their respective congregations; the fisheries were deserted; and it was often difficult even to get a coat patched or a pair of shoes mended, to such an extent had the population of the south and west of Ireland turned out upon the roads. The average number employed in October was 114,000; in November, 285,000; in December, 440,000; and in January, 1847, 570,000. It was impossible to exact from such multitudes a degree of labour which would act as a test of destitution. Huddled together in masses, they contributed to each other’s idleness, and there were no means of knowing who did a fair proportion of work and who did not. The general enforcement of the system of task work had justly been considered necessary to stimulate the industry of the labourers on the Relief Works, but when this point had been carried, after a hard struggle, the old abuse reappeared in the aggravated form of an habitual collusion between the labourers and the overseers who were appointed to measure their work; so that the labourers, if they could be so called, were not only as idle as ever, but were enabledwithal to enjoy a rate of wages which ought only to have been the reward of superior industry.

The plan of the Labour Rate Act (9 & 10 Vic., c. 107) was based on the supposition that the great majority of the landlords and farmers would make those exertions and submit to those sacrifices which the magnitude of the crisis demanded, leaving only a manageable proportion of the population to be supported by the Board of Works; and the Act would probably have answered its object, if a larger, instead of a smaller number of persons than usual had been employed in the cultivation and improvement of the land, and the Relief Committees had put only those who were really destitute upon the lists. Including the families of the persons employed, upwards of two millions of people were maintained by the Relief Works, but there were other multitudes behind, including often the most helpless portion of the community, for whom no work could be found. The Relief Works did not always furnish a subsistence even for those who were employed on them. The wages, paid regularly in money, were higher than any which had ever been givenfor agricultural labour in Ireland, but at the existing prices of food they were insufficient for the support of a family, melancholy proof of which was afforded by daily instances of starvation in connexion with the Relief Works26. The fearful extent to which the rural population had been thrown for support upon the Board of Works also threatened a disastrous neglect of the ordinary tillage. If the people were retained on the works, their lands must remain uncultivated;if they were put off the works, they must starve. A change of system had become inevitable, and when Parliament met in the end of January, it was announced that the Government intended to put an end to the Public Works, and to substitute for them another mode of relief, which will be hereafter described.

Meanwhile, the pressure on the Relief Works was continually on the increase, and the persons daily employed, who in January had been 570,000, became in February 708,000, and in March amounted to the enormous number of 734,00027, representing,at a moderate estimate of the average extent of each family, upwards of three millions of persons. At last, the Government, seeing that the time suited for agricultural operations was rapidly passing away, and that the utmost exertions made on the spot had failed in keeping the numbers in check, took the matter into its own hands, and directed that on the 20th March, 20 per cent. of the persons employed should be struck off the lists; after which, successive reductions were ordered, proportioned to the progress made in bringing the new system of relief into operation in each district. These orders were obeyed, and the crisis passed without any disturbance of the public peace or any perceptible aggravation of the distress. The necessary labour was returned to agriculture, and the foundation was laid of the late abundant harvest in Ireland, by which the downward progress of that country has been mercifully stayed, and new strength and spirits have been given for working out her regeneration. In the first week in April, the persons employed on the Relief Works were reduced to 525,000; in the first week in May to 419,000; in the first week in June to 101,000; and in the week endingthe 26th June to 28,000. The remaining expenditure was limited to a sum of 200,000ℓ.for the month of May, and to the rate of 100,000ℓ.a-month for June, July, and the first fifteen days of August, when the Act expired. These sums were afterwards permitted to be exceeded to a certain extent, but the object was attained of putting a curb on this monstrous system and of bringing it gradually and quietly to a close. Great exertions were made, and a heavy expense was incurred, to leave the roads and other works in progress in a safe and passable state as far as they had gone; but their completion must depend upon the parties locally interested in them. From the first commencement of the Relief Works in February 1846, repeated warnings were given that the object was not the works themselves, but the relief of the prevailing destitution through the employment afforded by them; that the works would be closed as soon as they were no longer required for that purpose; and that if the proprietors desired to complete them, they might do so under the ordinary system of Government loans made on the security of county presentments28.

This system threw off a shoot, the history of which it is necessary to trace. In order to impose some limits on what threatened to become a gigantic system of permanently supporting one portion of the community at the expense of the remainder, and of making provision out of the taxes for classes of undertakings which properly belong to the economy of private life, the application of the public money under the Labour Rate Acts was strictly limited to works of a public character, which were not likely to be undertaken except for the purpose of giving relief. This condition was generally objected to in Ireland; and although no disposition was evinced to take advantage of the loans which the Government was ready to make under the General Improvement and Drainage Acts, a great desire was expressed that the funds advanced under the Labour Rate Act should be employed on what were called reproductive works. The Lord Lieutenant, having obtained the sanction of the Government, yielded to this general feeling, andauthorized presentments to be made for the drainage and subsoiling of the estates of individuals, provided they consented to their estates being charged with the repayment of the sums advanced. This was the arrangement which acquired so much notoriety under the name of “Labouchere’s Letter,” owing to its having been announced by the publication of a letter from Mr. Labouchere, who then held the office of Secretary for Ireland, to the Board of Works, dated 5th October, 1846; but the result did not answer the expectations which had been formed. The aggregate amount presented “under the Letter,” was 380,607ℓ., of which presentments were acted on to the gross amount of 239,476ℓ.The sum actually expended was about 180,000ℓ.; and the largest number of persons at any one time employed was 26,961 in the month of May, 1847. Some incidental good was done by the example of the advantages of thorough draining, and of the proper mode of executing it; but, as a remedy for the wide-spread calamity, the plan totally failed.

Back to Index Next