A VOICE FOR IRELAND,

THE

FAMINE IN THE LAND.
W HAT HAS BEEN- DONE AND WHAT IS TO BE DONE.

I S A A C B U T T , ESQ., Q.C.

REPRINTED FROM "THE DUBLIN UNIVEKSITY MAGAZINE,"

DUBLIN
JAMES McGLASHAN, 21 D'OLIER-STREET.
WILLIAM S. ORE AND CO., 147 STRAND, LONDON. "
FRASER AND CO., EDINBCROH,
MDCCCXLVII.

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR,
ON SIMILAR SUBJECTS.

I.

THE POOR-LAW FOR IRELAND EXAMINED ;
ITS PROVISIONS CONTRASTED W I T H T H E REPORT OF T H E COMMISSIONERS
OF POOR ENQUIRY, I N A L E T T E R TO LORD MORPETH.

Published in 1837.
II.

AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY,
BtliUxttt Ufoxt tf)t ©ntbei'Sitj? of UttWln, in (faster €tx\n, 1837.
WITH AN APPENDIX OF NOTES.
III.

Preparing for the Press, a Second Edition of

PROTECTION TO HOME

INDUSTRY;

TWO LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE T H E UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, ON T H E
SUBJECT OF IRISH MANUFACTURES.

DUBLIN : JAMES MCGLASHAN, 21 D'OLIER-STREET.
SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

INTRODUCTION,

T H E following pages contain a reprint of an article which
appeared in the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE of last
April. It is reprinted because it has been suggested that
its publication in a separate shape, with whatever additional sanction the sentiments might derive from being
printed with the name of the writer, might possibly be of
use to the cause of the country.
I could have wished, in republishing this article, to
have had time to have altered and revised it, so as to
have made it more suitable for its present form of publication; it is, however, reprinted without the alteration
of a line, as it was originally written for the pages of a
periodical. Those who read it now, in its separate shape,
will make allowance for many things which, though well
suited to the form in which it originally appeared, are not,
perhaps, equally well adapted to the present shape of its
publication.
The months which have passed since this article first
appeared, have not in the slightest degree altered the conclusions, or invalidated the reasonings it contains. The
imminent peril to all Irish interest still continues the same.
The necessity for active, vigorous, and immediate exertion
in increasing the productions of the country, to prevent
the total confiscation of its property, continues as urgent
as before. Perhaps the temporary respite that is now felt
from the severer pressure of the famine—a respite not altogether anticipated in these pages— has but increased the

iv

INTRODUCTION.

danger, by leading the indolence of too many to believe
that with the promised plenty of the approaching harvest
the difficulties of the country will pass away. A delusion
more fatal to the interests of the country could not be
entertained.
The harvest, however abundant, cannot enable the
country to support upon a corn diet the population formerly fed upon the potato, without trenching, and trenching largely, upon the portions of that harvest which in
other years went to the other classes of the community.
I t is quite true, that by the exportation of wheat we will
be able to purchase cheaper kinds of grain, and thus make
our land, by means of commerce, more productive for our
peoples' wants—a consideration, I may observe, which
appears to be overlooked by those who urge an embargo
upon exportation as a remedy for our deficient supply of
food. By exporting the dearer, and importing the cheaper
bread stuffs, we will make, it is true, our acres of wheat
equivalent in effect to a much larger surface of rye or
Indian corn; but, making every allowance for this, it is
still manifest that, to support our labouring population in
the altered circumstances of the country, we must either
increase the amount of produce of all kinds raised in the
country, or apply to the wants of that population the income that has hitherto belonged to other classes of the
community—that is, in other words, EITHER THE GENERAL
R E S O U R C E S OF T H E C O U N T R Y MUST B E CALLED INTO I M M E D I A T E AND VIGOROUS A C T I V I T Y , OR I R I S H P O V E R T Y
S U P P O R T E D FOR A T I M E (AND IT CAN B E B U T FOR A T I M E )
B Y T H E C O N F I S C A T I O N OF I R I S H P R O P E R T Y .

This great and startling truth is the one fact that ought
now to be presented to the mind of every Irishman. I t
ought, may I be permitted to say it, to supersede all
party and all political considerations. No party interest
can survive our country ; and, while we are struggling for
party or class interests, the common country of all is itself
crumbling away beneath our feet.
If parliamentary inquiries are to be relied on, the
impossibility of supporting our population out of our
present resources, without reducing all to a common level
of pauperism, is matter of arithmetical demonstration.
The Commission of Poor Inquiry, in 1835, contrasted the
agricultural population of Ireland with that of Great Britain, and also the quantity of cultivated land, and the pro-

INTRODUCTION,

V

duce in each. T h e result is stated in their report to be
this, that there are—
IN GREAT BRITAIN

IN IRELAND.

Acres of cultivated land
. .
34,254,000
Value of produce
. . . . £150,000,000
Labourers, including occupiers)
^55,082
who do not employ labourers j

14,603,000
£36,000,000
1,131,715

T h e problem, therefore, that is now presented to the
Irish nation is this—to support the 1,131,000 labourers of
Ireland, out of a produce worth £ 3 6 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 , in the same
manner as Great Britain supports 1,000,000 of labourers
out of a produce worth £ 1 5 0 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 .
T h e solution is obvious. L e t the labourers still continue the same in number—let the produce be the same in
amount—and utter beggary to all grades and classes in
Ireland is the inevitable result.
These figures I brought forward I believe upon more
than one occasion, at a meeting of the Irish Council—subsequently I perceived that they were quoted in Parliament,
T h e y make it matter of demonstration, that unless we can
increase the quantity of what is raised in Ireland, every
interest in the country must share a common ruin.
T o reiterate this t r u t h — t o keep it constantly present to
the minds of our people—ought now to be the object of
every well-wisher of his country, until every man in Ireland shall learn the lesson, t h a t to increase the productiveness of Ireland's resources is no longer a matter of patriotism, b u t of self-preservation.
Some of the means by which this might be effected,
the following pages imperfectly and inadequately endea1
voured to point out.
Suggesting, however, immediate
remedies, they were not conversant with one great and
necessary object, which must be comparatively the growth
of time, but to forward which much perhaps may be
speedily done—I mean the REVIVAL AND ESTABLISHMENT
OF I R I S H MANUFACTURES.
T h e figures 1 have quoted
demonstrate that we cannot support our population as
agricultural labourers—no conceivable increase in our
agricultural produce will enable us to do so. T h e choice
is, whether we will support a portion of them as manufacturers or as paupers.
T h e question, however, of Irish manufactures is one too
large to be discussed in a few cursory remarks. Ireland

VI

INTRODUCTION,

once was, to a large extent, a manufacturing country9 and
there is nothing to prevent its being so again. The history of nations abundantly teaches the means by which
manufactures may be introduced or fostered among a people.
Holding and expressing these strong opinions as to the
possible confiscations of all Irish property that may be involved in the attempt to support, out of our present resources, our pauper population—these pages have been
charged with inconsistency, in approving of the new poorlaw, which gives, for the first time, to the pauper population, the right to that support. However unpopular with
many persons in Ireland the support of an extended poorlaw will be, I for one will never shrink from declaring my
conviction, that until every man in Ireland is given, by
law, the right to earn his bread, we cannot hope for the
real improvement of the country.
The question of a poor-law for Ireland is one in regard
to which I have long been anxious to place before the
public views which I am deeply convinced are founded
alike in justice, expediency, and truth, I am convinced
that it ought to be a first principle of every social system5
that every man who is willing to work should have guaranteed to him by law a right to obtain wages adequate to
his decent support. A law of this nature for the ablebodied—and a law, furnishing at the same time, under
proper restrictions, medical relief and necessary sustenance
for the sick, and relief for those unable to work, would
alone, in my mind, satisfy the requirements either of
Christian legislation, or comply with the dictates of social
expediency and prudence.
To the fact that England had, from the days of Queen
Elizabeth, such a law—while the poverty of Ireland was
left without legal provision for its support—may be traced
much of the difference in the condition of the two countries, and in the character of the people. In the case of
nations, as of families and individuals, the neglect of moral
obligations brings with it its inevitable consequences of
physical misery and distress. The moral crime which has
been committed in Ireland, of leaving our poor without a
legal right to support, has entailed upon us the consequences of a pauperised population, and of the deterioration
of their character.
I say deliberately, the deterioration of their character—
for so far from believing that a poor-law properly admi-

INTRODUCTION.

vii

nistered either degrades or demoralizes a people, I am
sure that the absence of a legal right to support, is that
feature in the social system which tends, of all others, to
create in the labouring population habits of idleness, imprudence, and dependence; and that in no country where
that right is not recognised, can we hope to have an independent, a thrifty, or an industrious peasantry.
These views of the effects of a poor-law on the character
of a people are, I know, directly opposed to those which
have been advanced in quarters that are deemed of high
authority. I t is impossible, in these few pages, to discuss
a question of this nature. I hope ere long to be able to
make an attempt to vindicate from this and other objections that have been urged against it, the great principle
of the right of the poor to earn their bread. I can now
only ask of those who imagine that a poor-law demoralises
a people, to reconcile with their theory the fact which Mr.
Godley has brought forward in the admirable pamphlet
referred to in the following pages—that in every country
in which, the poor have a legal right to support, the habits
of the labouring population are thrifty and industrious, and
their bearing bold and independent—in every country in
which they have not, the character which they exhibit is
directly the reverse.
I feel, however, all the difficulty of introducing any
thing like the principle of such a law into a country where
long neglect of the rights of the poor has permitted pauperism to make such fearful progress.; I feel, too, how immeasurably that difficulty is aggravated, by selecting as the
time of its introduction the period when a fearful calamity
has at once embarrassed the property and prostrated the
energies of a country. The ministerial measure comes
short, indeed very far short, of the requirements of a law
that will give to our poor their just rights. I t ha%
however, established the principle that the property of
Ireland shall support its poverty. I t unjustly applies that
principle to the distress which the recent calamity has
created—a distress which I shall ever think ought entirely
to be relieved from imperial resources. Whether this principle shall mean that the poverty of Ireland shall eat up its
property, depends upon this—whether the great resources
of the country shall be stimulated into immediate and
active productiveness. If Irishmen will combine to forget
party, and obtain for their country measures of practical

Vlll

INTRODUCTION.

advantage, there are elements enough of wealth in the
country to supply all the demands that even this unprecedented crisis makes upon our resources.
A belief entertained by some persons that the republication of these pages might conduce, however humbly, to
this result, has induced me to reprint them, I have delayed
their publication, in the hope of being able to throw the
substance into a form better suited for separate publication.
The article is now reprinted exactly as it appeared in the
pages of the Magazine for which it was written.
LB.
LEESQN-STREET, J u l y 27th* 1847.

THE FAMINE IN THE LAND.
The Winter of 1846-7 in Antrim ; with remarks on Out-door Belief and Colonization. By
A. Shafto Adair, F.K.S. London: James Ridgway, Piccadilly. 1847.
Ireland : its Present Condition and Future Prospects ; in a Letter addressed to Sir Robert Peel.
By Robert Murray, Esq. Dublin : James M c Glashan. 1847.
Relief to Ireland, under the recent Calamity, out of the General Funds of the State, no Favour
but a matter of Right, by virtue of the Union. Dublin : James M c Glashan. 1847.
Speech of theRight Hon. Lord George Bentinck, in the House of Commons, on Thursday, February 4th, 1847, on moving for leave to bring in a Bill " to stimulate the prompt and profitable employment of the people by the encouragement of Railways in Ireland." London :
Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 1847.
Observations on the Irish Poor-Law. By John Robert Godley, Esq. Dublin: Grant and
Bolton. 1847.
Letters on the State of Ireland. By the Earl of Rosse. London : Hatchard and Son. 1847.
Extracts of Evidence taken by the late Commission of Enquiry into the occupation of Land in
Ireland, on the subject of Waste Land Reclamation. With a Prefatory Letter to the Right
Hon. Lord John Russell, from G. Poulett Scrope, M.P. London: James Ridgway, Piccadilly. 1847.
Self-supporting Colonization. Ireland supported without Cost to the Imperial Treasury. By R.
Torrens, Esq., F.R.S. London : James Ridgway, Piccadilly. 1847.

A MELANCHOLY duty we have proposed to ourselves to discharge
in treating of the subject indicated in the title we have prefixed.
The history of Ireland, since the commencement of the fearful
blight with which it has pleased an all-wise God to visit the food
of her people, is one in which there is but little to please, although
possibly there may be much to instruct. Little is there in her
present condition on which the mind can dwell with any feeling
but that of the most intense pain. And gloomy as is the retrospect, and appalling as is the spectacle around us, we grieve to add
that in the prospect there seems nothing to vary the monotony
of horror. Nevertheless, it is a duty to look all this boldly, we
cannot say fearlessly, in the face. With a deep, and we had
almost said, an awful, sense of the solemnity, and, at the same
time, the magnitude of our task, we proceed to do what poor
service we can to our afflicted country, in recording the history
of the calamity by which her people have been stricken down—
in commenting upon the nature of the means by which that calamity has been attempted to be met—in tracing the effects of
that calamity and those measures upon the condition of her people—and in suggesting what yet may be done to mitigate the
evils that are still future, or improve this opportunity for good.
Ireland is now, in one sense, in the midst, in another sense,
B

2

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

we fear in the beginning of a calamity, the like of which the world
has never seen. Four millions of people, the majority of whom
were always upon the verge of utter destitution, have been suddenly deprived of the sole article of their ordinary food. Without any of the ordinary channels of commercial intercourse, by
which such a loss could be supplied, the country has had no means
of replacing the withdrawal of this perished subsistence, and the
consequence has been, that in a country that is called civilized,
under the protection of the mightiest monarchy upon earth, and
almost within a day's communication of the capital of the greatest and richest empire in the world, thousands of our fellowcreatures are each day dying of starvation, and the wasted corpses
of many left unburied in their miserable hovels, to be devoured
by the hungry swine ; or to escape this profanation, only to diffuse among the living the malaria of pestilence and death.
As we proceed, we trust it will be seen that we have no inclination either to exaggerate or unnecessarily to alarm; but it were
criminal to disguise the extent of the calamity, or to shrink from
telling all the hideous truth. We must presume there are none
of our readers to whom the evidences upon which this statement
rests are not familiar, in the appalling narratives that have filled
the journals of the empire for the last few months. It is long
since the coroners gave over in despair the task of holding inquests upon the bodies of those whom starvation had stricken
down. Our journals have become unable to record, our people
to communicate, the deaths which in some districts result from
insufficient food. " Death by starvation" has ceased to be an article of news ; and day by day multitudes of our population are
swept down into the pit—literally into the pit—in which the
victims of the famine are inter redo
We will not take up our space by repeating the testimonies,
which prove incontestably that this is no exaggeration. It is not,
perhaps, the least appalling feature of this calamity, that it is
difficult, if not impossible, to obtain accurate information upon the
extent of devastation that has already taken place. Nearly a
month ago, the deaths that had resulted in one shape or other
from starvation were estimated at 240,000. Long before the sam
period, the deaths that were occurring each day in Ireland, beyond those of the same period in the preceding year, were estimated at 1,000—1,000 each day—a number, we apprehend, below
the truth. In many of the workhouses deaths occurred in numbers that would lead to a much greater estimate of the loss of
life in the entire country. In one electoral poor-law division of
the county Cork—one not within the fatal district of Schull or
Skibbereen™out of a population of 16,000, the deaths in the
early part of March were averaging seventy a-day, a rate of mortality that would sweep away the entire population in about eight
months. There are parts of Mayo, Gal way, and Sligo, in which

T H E FAMINE IN THE LAND,

3

the deaths were nearly in the same proportion. It is impossible,
however, to form more than an approximation to the real extent
of the calamity. It is an incident of the neglect with which the
people, when living, have been treated, that we have no note of
them when dead. The occupation of Death has not been interfered with, even by registering the number he has carried oif.
It is, however, enough, to say that multitudes in Ireland are
starving—that each day is striking down new victims of want of
food, and that there is not in Ireland sufficient food to supply
her whole population with subsistence for many weeks to come.
So many topics press upon us in relation to the fearful subject
we have undertaken, that we scarcely know how to commence its
treatment. Let us recall the attention of our readers to the commencement of the potato blight.
In the autumn of 1845, it was discovered that a disease had
attacked the potato in Ireland, and in several other parts of the
world. Of the actual existence of such a disease there was no
doubt. Its extent was, like most questions in Ireland, made a
party one—and, we grieve to say, the Tory party were in the
wrong. Some of the journals in Ireland, supposed most to represent the aristocracy, persisted in vigorously denying the existence
of any failure to more than a very partial extent. The question
of the corn laws, then pending, gave this question an imperial interest. The potato famine in Ireland was represented as the invention of the agitators on either side of the water. So far was
party feeling carried, that the Conservative mayor of Liverpool,
honestly we are sure, refused to convene a meeting for the relief
of Irish distress—a committee which sat at the Mansion House,
in Dublin, and first declared their belief in the approach of an
overwhelming calamity, were stigmatized as deluding the public
with a false alarm. Men's politics determined their belief. To
profess belief in the fact of the existence of a formidable potato
blight, was as sure a method of being branded as a radical, as to
propose to destroy the Church.
Thus in the very outset of this sore trial did Ireland encounter
that which has ever been her bitterest curse—that questions of
fact are made party questions, and the belief or disbelief of matters of fact is regulated in each man's mind, not by the real state
of the case, but by his own political prejudices or opinions.
Sir Robert Peel was then at the head of affairs, and the ministry certainly foresaw the coming calamity. Inquiries were
made as to the substance that would be the best and cheapest
substitute for the potato. Indian corn was adopted, and without
any public excitement on the subject, orders were given by the
government for the importation of Indian corn to the amount of
£100,000. This timely precaution^ and the subsequent judicious
distribution of this store, had the effect of bringing the people
through the winter that closed the year 1845, without exposing

4

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

them to any very severe privations. Arrangements were made
by the government for the supply of provisions in biscuit and
rice, to a much greater extent, if needed. However men may
differ as to the merits of Sir Robert Peel as a politician, whatever
estimate may be formed of his measures, it is impossible to deny
that for the limited distress that existed consequent upon the partial failure of the potato crop of 1845, provision was made with
the most consummate skill—at least with the most complete success. Uninfluenced by party representations, the minister had
evidently accurately informed himself of the nature of the calamity, and clearly foresaw its extent. That he erred in fixing too
early a period for its full realization, subsequent events have
proved ; but this was an error on the right side : and all that Sir
Robert Peel predicted of the fearful extent of calamity which he
anticipated in the summer of 1846, has been more than realized
in the spring of 1847. There is no man of any party in Ireland
who does not now feel the debt which Ireland owes to the minister for the precautions that enabled us to meet the difficulties of
1846, or who is not thoroughly convinced that an imitation, and,
with the extended occasion, an extension of that policy last
autumn, would have obviated most, if not all, of the suffering in
which Ireland is now paying the penalty of the adherence of the
present ministry, not to the doctrines of political economy, but to
an utterly mistaken application of them.
It was, however, the misfortune of famine-stricken Ireland, and
a deep misfortune almost all men in Ireland now feel it to be, that
party combinations (we say not now, how justifiable or honorable)
removed from office the man who had shown himself alone, perhaps, of living statesmen, alive to the exigencies of the crisis, and
capable of boldly and efficiently meeting them. It was an occasion upon which no statesman could efficiently serve the country
out of office—a lamentable proof of this we have later in this sad
history, in the rejection of Lord George Bentinck's bill; and with
the removal of Peel from office he lost the power of even assisting
to obviate the danger, which, we do believe, had he remained in
office, he would successfully have met.
Our sketch of this part of our history would be incomplete
without alluding to the repeal of the corn laws, by which the
session of 1846 was ushered in. On that question, this periodical has already strongly and distinctly expressed its opinion, and
that opinion it forms no part of the object of this article to qualify
or retract. Sir Robert Peel stated, however, in parliament, that
the determination of ministers to settle the question was forced
on by their anticipation of an Irish famine—that he and his colleagues felt it would be impossible to maintain the protection
during that famine—and that the ports once opened to avert starvation, never could be closed—that the agitation of the question
of corn laws in a famine, when arguments in favour of cheap

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

5

bread could carry with them such a deep appeal to the passions
and sympathies of the human heart, would go far to break up
society altogether. The coming of the Irish famine was that
which he stated forced the ministry to perhaps a premature decision upon this question—and we well remember the deep and
solemn warning in which, with all the authority of premier, he
predicted the coming of a calamity in Ireland, of which no one
could know or measure the extent.
It has, however, been the misfortune of Ireland, that every one,
from the highest to the humblest, who has attempted to make
the public mind sensible of the full extent of her danger has been
disbelieved. From this fate Sir Robert Peel was not exempt.
That prediction, however cheered it might be for party purposes,
was in reality disbelieved; and we fear the manly and fearless
declaration of his belief damaged the premier in public estimation,
especially when the time which he had fixed on for the fulfilment
of his predictions had passed by, and left them still unrealized.
Far is it from our intention to discuss the policy of the corn
law repeal—equally remote from our wish to determine whether
the famine in Ireland formed a sufficient reason for undertaking,
at that crisis, the settlement of the corn law question—whether
the very pressure of this calamity did not disqualify both ministers and legislature from calmly considering a great question. It
may be that the councils, prompted by the clear view of this terrible calamity, were those of
"Metus et malesuada fames,"

and that these counsels were too hastily adopted by a " frightened
parliament"—-to borrow the language of Lord Brougham in the
upper, and Lord John Manners in the lower house. But time
has already done justice to the speech to which we have referred.
Predictions that even from Sir Bobert Peel were looked upon as
the exaggerations of the politician, events have proved to have
been but the language of caution. Every man now can feel the
pressure under which he acted in the nearer view which he took
of the calamity that is now upon us ; we can appreciate the sagacity that foresaw the full extent of the calamity that was coming,
and we can understand the feeling under which the premier sacrificed party associations, and power, and cherished friends, to what
he believed to be his duty ; thus far, at least, time has vindicated
his conduct, and who is there that does not feel with what immeasurable power for evil over the passions of the multitude, the
agitator for a free trade in corn could now direct the fury of the
mob against the corn law lords, by denouncing their monopoly as
the cause of the horrors of Skibbereen. All this, it is true, leaves
untouched the question, whether the corn laws ought to be maintained or not; but a calm and impartial estimate of events must
decide, that of all the motives which, in that memorable speech,

0

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND,

Sir Robert Peel declared to have influenced his mind, time has
proved and tested the power and the strength.
We will not pause long to review the measures by which Sir
Robert Peel met the difficulties of the partial failure of 1845. The
early purchase, at a very low rate, of large quantities of Indian
corn by the government—the direction of the attention of merchants to its importation, while the government supply prevented
them from realizing exorbitant prices—the distribution of assistance through relief committees, under the superintendence of a
commission appointed on the 27th of November, 1845—the keeping in reserve a store of biscuits, ready, if necessary, to be applied
to the feeding of the people—and some additional preparations to
obtain, at a short notice, an additional supply of Indian corn.
These simple arrangements enabled Sir Robert Peel effectually to
meet all the distress that then existed in Ireland, and but for
these arrangements we would have had, last year, deaths by starvation, not, indeed, as numerous, but still numerous enough to
have afflicted the country, disturbed its trade, and probably interfered with its cultivation.
These arrangements recognized the duty of government to feed
the people to the utmost extent to which all the resources of the
empire could accomplish that end. That duty, under the more
trying circumstances of this year, we are satisfied, Sir Robert Peel
would have discharged, and by a larger expenditure of money5
but still an expenditure utterly insignificant in comparison with
the revenue of England, he would have fulfilled it with equal ease
as he had done the year before. Sir Robert Peel, however, paid
the penalty which, perhaps, it is well public men who change
their conduct on any great question should pay. He lost the
confidence of his party, and in an evil day we shall never cease to
believe for the suffering poor of Ireland, in an evil day for the
greatness of the British empire, he resigned the seals of office,
and with them the power and the opportunity of doing good.
The question of Irish destitution was one for the minister, not
the legislator ; it could only be met even in legislation by those
who have the power, the responsibilities, and the information of
the official servants of the crown.
The summer of 1846 saw the place of Sir Robert Peel filled by
Lord John Russell, and upon the present premier and his colleagues devolved the responsibility of meeting the heaviest calamities of the famine. Scarcely had the present cabinet been
formed, when men began to be convinced that all hope of the
preservation of the potato crop of that year must be given up. As
in the former year, the question was made, indeed, a party one.
Those who wished to see Peel disparaged, persisted in representing his alarm as groundless. Confident reports were still published
of the probability of an average supply. The journals, who had
from the very beginning appeared to make it a point of political

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND,

7

conscience to disbelieve in the existence of the scarcity, persevered
in their delusive hopes of abundance. It was elaborately calculated that the abundance of the produce of the potato and the
great excess of the wheat and hay crops, for which last harvest
was remarkable, would at least make up for the potatoes that were
lost, and thus Ireland still have her ordinary supply of food, while
in the increased prices obtained for their oats, the farmers would
find the year one of profit. Alas ! the representations of party
cannot stay the progress of nature's blight,
"While these calculations were amusing and deluding the public
mind, the potatoes were rotting in the ground, and before the end
of September the conviction had been fixed upon the mind of the
most sceptical that the potato crop, as a means of support for the
people, was destroyed, and that of the ordinary food of the people
there was not a supply to support them for many weeks to come,
Parliament was not then sitting. The measures which ministers considered necessary to meet the exigencies of the crisis had
been passed. We cannot believe that previous to the prorogation
of parliament ministers foresaw the full extent of the destitution
which they had to meet Ignorance of that extent is the only
possible excuse for their measures. Their Labour Rate Act was,
in truth, applying to meet the exigencies of a famine, the very
principle of the Poor-Law of Queen Elizabeth, and applying it in
the very worst possible way, compelling enormous waste of the resources of the country upon useless works ; and we cannot help
regarding as a great and a fatal mistake the determination to leave
the supply of food entirely to the chances of private enterprise,
Were it altogether too late to retrace these disastrous errors,
comment upon them might now, perhaps, be thrown away. But
vast as is the mischief inflicted upon Ireland, which no repentance
can now mend, and no change of legislation repair, there is something yet to be gained by an abandonment of the pernicious system which has desolated so many districts of our land. In this
belief we deem the time not thrown away that will be spent in
reviewing the sad catalogue of mistakes, and neglects, more fatal
than mistakes, which the history of ministerial dealing with Ireland presents.
The destruction of the potato crop entailed a double misery
upon the poor. It destroyed their food, and at the same time it
took from them their income. Let the corn of England fail, and
you have indeed the distress among her population that a scarcity
of the means of subsistence will occasion, but the capacity of the
great mass of the people to purchase that subsistence, were it offered at the accustomed price, is left unimpaired. Far different,
however, was the effect of the withering of the potato gardens
and the con-acres of Ireland. The poor man's store was altogether gone: a purchaser of his provisions he never had been—
the means of purchasing them he never had, Send the potatoes

8

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

into the market at the usual price, and the cottier who never had
wherewithal to purchase, if unrelieved by the charity of others,
must still starve. His whole wealth has perished in his potato
ridge: not only was the usual quantity of provisions removed
from the country, but his power of commanding a share of those
that were, or might be in it, was gone.
These two evils were to be met. A supply of provisions must
be brought into the country to take the place of the perished potatoes ; and the poor man who had lost his all, in losing his patch
of potatoes, must be supplied with the means of purchasing the
imported food.
Before the prorogation of parliament, ministers announced the
mode in which they proposed to deal with Irish distress. The
means of purchasing provisions were to be secured to the poor by
an enactment which enabled, or, perhaps, we ought to say, obliged
the cess-payers, in districts which the Lord Lieutenant proclaimed
as distressed, to tax themselves for what were termed public
works—the money for the expenditure to be advanced by the
Treasury, but to be repaid by a rate upon the taxed districts in a
period not exceeding twenty years. A sum of J € 5 0 , 0 0 0 was voted
by way of grant, and in this measure was summed up the whole
of the ministerial plan for meeting the exigencies of Irish distress !!
The introduction of the Labour Rate Act was coupled by a declaration on the part of the premier, which appeared almost to
amount to a pledge that with the supply of food to the country government did not intend to interfere; that this should be left
entirely to the ordinary resources of commercial enterprise ; and
that government was resolved in no manner to interfere with the
ordinary operations of the speculators or traffickers in human food.
' This fatal declaration of the minister was the grand mistake of
his policy—it was the doom of myriads of the Irish people to
death. Combined with measures of a character very different
from any that ministers have ventured to propose, this determination would still have perilled, upon an experiment of social economy, the lives of thousands of Irishmen. Coupled only with such
a remedial measure as the Labour Rate Act, it was consigning
this ill-fated country to the horrors of starvation.
The expectation that the enterprise of merchants would bring
to Ireland, under the circumstances in which the country was
then placed, the additional supply of food that was needed for
her people, appears to us, we confess, to have been one of the
most unnatural expectations which an ignorance of the principles
of social economy could permit any man to entertain, supposing
the extent of the calamity to have been fully understood.
There can be no doubt that if any change in the circumstances
of Ireland were to cause Ireland permanently to need an importation of Indian corn, and if the same change of circumstances
were to endow her people with the means of paying for it, in a

THE F A M I N E IN T H E LAND.

9

few years trade would accommodate itself to this new market, so
as to afford the required supply. Shipping, probably, would be
built to carry on the new transit—capital would be gradually
withdrawn from other occupations, to be embarked in the trade—
merchants would build stores, and carriers establish conveyances,
to distribute the imported produce through the country; retail
dealers in the towns and villages would gradually spring up, and
in the course of a few years the new social machinery which the altered habits of the people demanded would be called into existence.
But all this must be, in any event, the work of time, and it
could only be the work of time where there was a market existing, and people with the means of purchase known to exist in
their hands; but to expect all this to be done as if by magic, to
meet a sudden emergency, and this to supply the wants of a people known not to have the means of purchase in their hands,
whose ability to pay must depend upon the successful application
of the provisions of a questionable statute—to expect this economic miracle to be wrought, would indicate the most miserable
misapprehension of every principle and law that regulates the
system by which the wants of mankind are supplied.
The process by which extraordinary demand produces within
certain limits additional supply, is one not very difficult to understand. The retail dealer of an article finds the calls of his customers for that article increasing; he correspondingly increases his
orders to the merchant, who again, if the article be one of importation, gives larger orders to his correspondents abroad. By what
delusion could any man persuade himself, that by the natural operation of this process, Indian corn could find its way to the wilds of
of Mayo, or the village of Carberry ? There were neither retail
dealers nor merchants in the article required. The people whose
food was gone were, in fact, beyond the pale of all mercantile
system—they had lived upon the produce of their potato gardens,
and had been customers of no shop. To trust to mercantile enterprise to supply a country so circumstanced, was to expect men
suddenly to embark in the trade of supplying Ireland with food,
not by any of the ordinary processes by which merchants are led
into the affording of additional supplies, by orders coming in the
usual way of trade, but upon some vague and uncertain speculation that a country of which they knew nothing would have a demand for corn, and the still more uncertain speculation that the
pauper inhabitants of that country would have the means of paying for that demand.
We say nothing of the difficulty, upon such a sudden emergency, of finding in the ordinary way of trade the shipping necessary for the additional transit ; from what other branch of commercial marine were they to be withdrawn ? what trade was to
have all its contracts disturbed—its promised freights r e t a r d e d its orders for importation disregarded 1 and all this to meet an

10

T H E FAMINE

IN T H E

LAND.

emergency for which no calculation had prepared men. While
this difficulty was aggravated by the obstinate refusal of ministers,
up to the very meeting of parliament, to suspend the navigation
laws, and permit foreign vessels to assist in the task of transit, to
which the British marine was inadequate.
The refusal or neglect to suspend the navigation laws, was the
climax of infatuation. While food was deficient in the country,
and the freight of corn from America had risen to three times its
ordinary rate, not a vessel of any foreign nation would have been
permitted to unload a cargo of grain in any one of our ports*
If ministers resolved to trust the lives of the Irish people to
private enterprize, was it not common sense and common justice
to them that private enterprize should be unencumbered by any
restrictions in the execution of the task of supplying, at the notice
of a few months, provisions to five millions of people ; yet> during
the months in which food might have been imported into the
country, the ministry left the importation of corn impeded by the
restrictions of the navigation laws, and subject to a duty on importation which an order in council might have removed.
It is difficult to trace this history without indignation. We
can understand the verdict of the coroner's jury, who, in days
when inquests were held in Ireland upon the bodies of men found
dead upon the highway, returned upon the body of a man who
died of starvation while toiling at the public works, and fell dead
of exhaustion with the implements of labour in his hand, a verdict
of murder against the ministers who had neglected the first responsibility of government. Can we wonder if the Irish people
believe—and believe it they do—that-the lives of those who have
perished, and who will perish, have been sacrificed by a deliberate compact to the gains of English merchants, and if this belief
has created among all classes a feeling of deep dissatisfaction, not
only with the ministry but with English rule.
Let us not be misunderstood. Of any such compact we acquit
the ministers. In the resolution they originally formed, they
were actuated by a sincere, but most mistaken belief, that they
could best secure a supply of food to Ireland by declaring their
determination to leave all to be done by the ordinary operations
of trade. But these must be excused, who, while they witness
the scenes of horror that too many in Ireland are daily seeing,
believe that the subsequent deliberations of the cabinet were too
much influenced by the fear of offending powerful British interests—that the omission to remove the duty from the importation
on corn—to suspend the navigation laws—and to import provisions into Ireland at government expense, when it became manifest that by no other means could the emergency be met, indicated a tender regard for the interests that might have been
affected by a change in their policy, which gave too much weight
to those interests, and too little to the safety of the Irish people^

THE FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

11

and which, in all probability, would not long have delayed remedial measures, had the interests to be sacrificed been Irish ones.
The folly of relying on private enterprize to supply the deficiency, is proved incontestably by the result. Private enterprize
has not saved us from the horrors of the famine. With Indian
corn at the price of 15s. 4d« a quarter on the other side of the
Atlantic, and 60s. in London ! with wheat 32s. and 73s.! private
enterprize has failed to import it. The applications of the best
established principles of political economy would have enabled
any man of ordinary sagacity to have foreseen this result. All
the ordinary demands of civilized life are, doubtless, best met by
those spontaneous processes in which the self-interest of man
directs his activity and energy in the channels best adapted to
supply these demands; but sudden and extraordinary emergencies must be met by other means. These are the occasions upon
which it is of value to all that great resources should be wielded
by the governing°power to effect rapidly great ends.
If ever there was an occasion upon which practical proof could
be given of the value to every member of the state of that association of men into states, that permits the government to wield
mighty powers for the common good—if ever there were a time
when men in the remotest corners of Ireland might have been
taught the lesson that they have a deep interest in the strength
and greatness of the United Empire, this famine presented that
occasion. Tell us not that it was beyond the power of the combinations which the strength of the British empire could have
wielded, to have brought to the ports of Ireland subsistence for
all her people. Who is there that will say, that in such an
empire all that strength should not have been put forth ? What
nobler triumph of British greatness could be imagined, than to
have collected in the ports of famine-stricken Ireland, vessels of
all nations laden with food ? This would have been an exhibition
of British power and British greatness, compared with which the
most glorious of her fleets, or the vastest of her arsenals, would
bring to the mind but a poor idea of majesty and strength. Six
months ago it was possible to have done all this. The opportunity was lost; and Britain is now branded as the only civilized
nation which would permit her subjects to perish of famine, without making a national effort to supply them with food.
In what parallel case do we find statesmen willing to trust to
the ordinary operations of commerce, to supply in any country a
sudden and unexpected demand for human subsistence ? If England had occasion to send an army into some country destitute of
food, would her statesmen content themselves with seeing that
the soldiers were provided regularly with their pay, and trust to
the speculations of private enterprize to follow them with the
necessary articles of food ? Multiply that army to four millions,
and you have exactly the case of the starving Irish in this year.

12

T H E FAMINE I N T H E

LAND.

Four millions, it is calculated, annually subsisted each year upon
the potato. This sustenance interfered in no way with the commercial operations, either of export or import, in which the country was engaged. It was supplied independently of all of which the
laws of the market could take cognizance. With the withdrawal
of the supply, which in other years had been found in the potato
garden beside their hovels, these people for the first time started
into existence as elements of calculation in the economic problem
of the supply of Ireland's food—they became for the first time
claimants upon a share of the general resources of the country.
The effect was exactly the same as if Ireland had been, in previous years, a country raising only her grain and her pasture
produce with a population of about half her present; and, suddenly, four millions of additional human beings had been placed
upon her shores. Suppose this case actually to have occurred—
suppose four millions of people to become located in any state of
things upon a country altogether unprepared for them, would any
man in his senses venture to locate that mass of human beings
upon the shores, let us say of Spain, fruitful as is her soil, and
content himself with giving them each a very small amount of
money, and trust to the speculations of merchants to follow them
with food ? If any man were mad enough to do so, would we be
surprised if starvation were the lot of multitudes of his victims ?
The case, however, of Ireland was exactly analogous to that of
a country into which such an addition to the population, to be
supported out of its resources, had suddenly been poured.
We do not under-value the activity, the omnipresence of commercial enterprize, compared with the partial and cumbrous effects
that the best directed commissariat can make. Government might,
however, have fulfilled this duty without throwing over the aid of
this enterprize ; its contracts with merchants for two or three
million of quarters of wheat and Indian corn, might have still left
all of commercial activity and enterprize in the service of this
supply. We confess, compared with the magnitude of the occasion, we see no reason why government might not have contracted
for a supply of Indian corn sufficient to prevent any man in Ireland from starving. The offer of such a contract would have
stimulated, not retarded, commercial enterprize. It would have
bid the corn of the world to our shores ; it would have made the
poor Irish peasant a sharer in the supremacy of the British empire, and saved this country from the horrors with which it is
now inflicted.
Early in last autumn, it was the clear and bounden duty of the
government to have suspended the navigation laws; to have opened
the ports to the free importation of foreign corn ; and we believe
it to have been their equally bounden, although, perhaps, not their
equally clear duty to have, by some means or other, secured, by
the expenditure or the pledge of the national resources, an adequate supply of bread-stuff to the Irish ports.

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

13

To fix. the details of such a plan is far beyond the object or the
capabilities of any writer of an article like this. We can, however,
point to the general principles upon which it ought to have been
carried into effect.
Let us, however, be just. If we condemn the ministry for
want of exertion, and want of foresight, let us remember the unprecedented circumstances in which they were placed, with a calamity literally, as well as metaphorically, working underground,
upon the progress or extent of which it was alike impossible to
calculate with certainty. Unequal as they proved themselves to
meet the emergency, let it not be forgotten that the emergency
has been one which men seldom have been called on to meet.
Their mistakes in the measures which preceded the prorogation
of parliament, were at least excusable, but, we confess, it is difficult, with every disposition to make allowance for the circumstances in which they were placed, to find excuse for the obstinacy
which last autumn persevered in their fatal policy of inaction,
which refused to convene parliament, when the full extent of the
calamity, and the inefficiency of their measures became plain, and
which postponed the suspension of the navigation laws, and the
removal of the duty on corn to a period when it was too late for
either measures to be of much use. The only palliation that can
be found for their conduct is in the too general acquiescence of
Irishmen themselves. Some men were silent, because they sincerely believed it wrong to embarrass, or even to question the
measures of those upon whom the responsibility of providing for
the exigencies of the crisis had devolved—others, like the ministers themselves, were bewildered by the pressure of the calamity
upon the country. Political motives contributed a less creditable
share to the silence of the nation. There were patriots who would
not for all the world censure the minister, because places were
given to their friends. Others, again, who were sore at the conduct of Sir Robert Peel, determined to see nothing wrong in those
who had taken his place, and in the shortsightedness which is too
often the attendant of resentment, and degrades it into spite, would
hazard no attack upon the policy of the ministry that might bring
back the ex-premier. In truth, men of all parties were dissatisfied with the measures of the ministry, but the motives at which
we hinted, combined with a want of appreciation of the full extent
of the danger, kept all men silent, while a large proportion of the
nation felt, and in private acknowledged, that they wished, for
this crisis at least, Sir Robert Peel once more at the helm of
affairs.
While ministers thus declined all exertion of government to increase the supply of food, the Labour Rate Act, as the autumn
deepened into winter, came into operation in the country. Of the
merits and demerits of this measure, the country has had abundance of discussion. It is not our intention now to repeat all

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T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

that has heen said and written upon its subject. The question,
after all, lies in a narrow compass.
The provisions of the Labour Rate Act were simple enough.
In every barony which the Lord Lieutenant proclaimed in a state
of distress, extraordinary presentment sessions were to be held, at
which the magistrates and cess-payers were to have the power of
presenting for public works to an indefinite extent, subject only
to the control of the Board of Works. The sums so presented
were to be at once advanced by the Treasury, to be replaced by
instalments that would spread the repayment of the entire, with
interest, over a period varying, at the discretion of the Treasury,
from four to twenty years. Questions were raised at first, whether
the duty of making these presentments could be enforced or not.
A very short experience of its working proved how unimportant
were such questions, In every district that was proclaimed, the
gentry and the farmers vied with each other in voting away money
with a reckless prodigality, to be accounted for only by the circumstances in which they were placed. Roads, bridges, and quays,
it was found, were the only things that could be considered as
public works; and roads were made through every district of the
country where no intercourse ever had existed, or ever could exist.
Hills were cut down, on which a horse had scarcely ever felt a
draught. The highways of the country became impassable, from
the improvements of the public works. In the month of February 700,000 men were thus employed, making, with their families, upwards of two millions of people, supported in laborious
idleness by a taxation upon the country.
Before we proceed to observe upon the operations of this act,
let us make the observation which the self-imposition of this enormous taxation naturally suggests. It is the best, the most triumphant refutation of those who have charged the resident gentry
of Ireland with indifference to the necessities of the poor. Want
of sympathy with the class below them, in the proper sense of the
word sympathy—that is, an absence of identity with their feelings
—respect for their habits—or cordiality and confidence of intercourse, unquestionably does exist. This the unfortunate circumstances of Ireland's past and present position have produced. But
to understand by the charge of want of sympathy, an accusation
of hard-heartedness, of disregard to the sufferings, of indifference
to the privations of the poor, this were grossly to libel the gentry
of this country. It may be, that in the unfortunate estrangement
to which we have adverted—an estrangement to inquire into the
causes of which would give this article a controversial character,
which, of all things,, we are most desirous to avoid—it may be that
this estrangement is, in its practical effects, the same as indifference to their welfare ; but nobly have the gentry of Ireland proved
themselves ready to disregard every selfish, nay, every prudential
consideration, when the hand of calamity pressed upon the people,

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LANDo

15

and in the very recklessness of the prodigality with which they consented to pledge their estates to the repayment of the enormous
sums which the presentment sessions voted, they proved how false
was the charge that slandered them as the oppressors of the poor.
In addition to the enormous expenditure under the Labour
Rate Act, it must be remembered that, in many districts, the
landed proprietors undertook to employ all the poor, independently of any such provision ; that, in others, the provisions of
the summary Drainage Act were made available for the same purposes, and that sums that never were, or can be, calculated, were
distributed as gratuitous relief—sums unostentatiously given,
which appeared in no list of charity subscriptions, which yet form
by far the largest proportion of what has been so given ; and, remembering all this, some estimate may be formed of what has been
done by the holders of property in Ireland for the suffering poor.
If this enormous expenditure has been, except, so far as giving
immediate relief to the people, altogether misplaced—if roads that
lead to nothing, and public works, that never can be of any public
or private advantage, have been constructed, this has not been the
fault of the gentry, but of the legislature, who called upon men
assembled in sessions, with every motive influencing them that
could disturb their judgments, with the great object pressing on
them, not to select works of utility, but to employ the people, to forward applications of labour, which, within the limits of public works,
it would have puzzled a staff of engineers profitably to discover.
' The enormous expenditure of the national resources, upon works
that could not profit, was, perhaps, not the greatest of the evils
of the Labour Rate Act. Pitiable, indeed, it was to see labour
that, judiciously applied, might have multiplied the means of the
future productiveness of the country, squandered upon cutting up
the fields into useless roads, or in making the old highways impassable ; doubly pitiable at a time when there was need for husbanding every available resource that could make the country
better able to meet that portion of the calamity that must extend
over future years. Men seemed, in the pressure of the present,
wholly to have forgotten the future, and the importance of providing for the present wants of the people was so exaggerated to
the mind, that they never bestowed a thought upon the question,
whether it was not possible to combine with this something that
could supply at the same time means for the future. But the
effect of all this upon the labourer was bad. The Irish are an
acute people, and they understood as well as their Employers that
the works upon which they were set were valueless ; the inference
was not an unnatural one, that the less labour they could bestow
upon them the better. They knew that the labour was but a pretence for giving them wages, and they made as little of the pretence as possible suffice. Hence the public works became schools
of idleness, in which men met to teach other how little it was possible to do in a day's work. The indolence which the long absence

16

THE

FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

of the proper rewards of industry has fostered into a national habit, supplied but too ready pupils to these normal schools of busy
idleness, until men have absolutely been known to refuse higher
wages from the farmers with whom they must have laboured to
earn the money, and prefer the lower wages and dignified ease of
labourers upon the public works.
We believe and trust that the demoralizing effect of this upon
the habits of the Irish labourer have been overrated; partly, perhaps, because the Irish labourer had few lessons or habits of patient industry to unlearn. What we regret is, the lost opportunity
of inculcating better habits. Had these labourers been taught to
feel that they were employed upon that which it was of real importance should be done—had they been employed, under active
discipline and careful superintendence, in the formation of the
earthwork of a railway, or engaged in the reclamation of some
waste land, how well might they have been taught the lesson, that
the remuneration of labour must, in the long run, depend, in a
great degree, upon its productiveness. The employment given
under the Labour Rate Act had a double fault; the wages were too
low, and the work too light; it taught the people neither side of
the lesson which employers and labourers in Ireland equally need
to learn—" a good day's wages for a good day's work."
The real nature of the Labour Rate Act soon began to be understood. Men began to be alarmed at the prospect which this
unproductive expenditure of the national resources opened. They
asked themselves, how is this money to be repaid ? They began
to ask, how is next year to be provided for ? It was felt, that if
the people must be fed at the expense of the holders of land,
something might be made of their labour, either for those holders,
or for the country, or for both. It was asked why railroads, the
great iron highways to modern civilization, were to be the only
highways to which the labour of the people could not be applied.
With the field unreclaimed and undrained on one side of the ditch,
and the roads cut up upon the other, men did begin to think that
the gang of labourers might at least as well be employed in improving the fields, as in destroying the roads. With the ministry,
however, no remonstrance seemed to have effect. Like the Irish
navigator in a fog, they knew no rule but too keep steady to their
" nor'-east course/'—they heaved no lead—they kept no reckoning. The labour rate was passed, and that was the panacea for
all the evils. It will be a melancholy and a startling instance of
the folly of the present generation, that in a year, when the national resources have been prodigally squandered upon setting
labourers to work, we will not be able, at the end of it, to point
to one single useful work. While we have employed and paid ablebodied labourers enough to have made a viaduct on a level from
the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear, we have not opened a single
road, the construction of which will not be felt as a positive nuisance to the locality upon which it has been inflicted.

17

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

Of all the money that has been expended within the last six
months, not a shilling has been advanced to forward those works,
which, above all others, emphatically deserve the name of public
works—those railroads, the general construction of which through
the country would do more than any other conceivable project to
develop the resources, increase the productiveness, and civilize the
people of Ireland.
In the policy of refusing all assistance to railways, the government steadily persevered with an obstinacy that almost deserves
the name of infatuation ; they declined to enable the railway companies, whose operations had been suspended in the unprecedented
depression of the times, by a comparatively small, and abundantly
secured, advance of public money, to give employment to the
people. Every effort to induce them to take this course was disregarded. This, at least, was not the fault of the Irish people.
In favour of such a measure, the opinion of all classes in Ireland
was clearly, if not very energetically, expressed. One county
(Meath) went so far as to present for the earthwork of a railway,
under the provisions of the Labour Hate Act. No measure appeared more simple or more in accordance with the declared object of the Act, but it did not suit the predetermined policy of
the ministry, and no railroad has been made.*
Perhaps we ought in sorrow rather than in anger to say, that
even here some portion of the blame must be cast upon the want
of public spirit and public opinion, which is, from whatever cause,
the unfortunate characteristic of this country. The landed interests did not support as they ought to have done the demand that
railways should be constructed with the labour that Ireland was
forced to employ. It is the misfortune of every movement in
Ireland, that each class looks to what immediately affects itself,
and forgets the interest that all have in the common prosperity
of the whole. "While merchants and traders and the inhabitants
of towns held their meetings for assistance to the railways, most
of the gentry, and those immediately connected with them, urged
a claim of what is termed profitable expenditure on the soil, with
an exclusive zeal, and each demand, inconsequence of this unfortunate separation of interests, came to ministers only with the
authority of a class. The landlords were, on the whole, more
successful than the railway companies. For once, the obstinacy
of the English cabinet was forced to give way ; Lord Besborough,
himself an Irish landed proprietor, and one who we believe is not
responsible as a statesman for any of the fatal supineness that has
marked the policy of our rulers, took upon himself the responsibility of dispensing with the provisions of the Labour Rate Act,

* It appears that since parliament has met, government have consented to some
such presentment on the Limerick and Waterford line!!

c

18

T H E FAMINE IN THE

LAND.

so far as to allow presentments to be made for works of profitable cultivation of the land ; and a letter from the Chief Secretary stated the terms and conditions upon which this departure
from the enactments of the statute would be allowed.
Great praise is, beyond all question, due to the wisdom and the
boldness of this measure—one, for the benefit of which Ireland
is, we believe, altogether indebted to the strong representations
of Lord Besborough. But we cannot help thinking its effect has
been ridiculously exaggerated by the apologists of government. It
was, perhaps, making the best of the Labour Rate Act that could
be made of it, without a total contravention of its principle ; but
this could neither supply its deficiencies nor obviate its mischiefs.
The employment of the labour was still to be impeded by the
cumbrous machinery of presentment sessions, and its remuneration loaded with the enormous expense of pay-clerks and officials.
It could not neutralize the evil effects of the indolent habits fostered by employment which the people felt to be eleemosynary.
To say that this latter would have enabled the gentry, by cordial
co-operation with the government, to mitigate entirely the evils
of the former act, as has been said by advocates of the government, whose opinions we respect, strikes us as utterly wild. To
remedy these evils required measures very different from those
which any Lord Lieutenant could venture to carry, on his own
authority, into effect. Far be it from us, however, to detract from
the praise and gratitude that Lord Besborough has received for
even this slight approximation to a better order of things. We
cannot but believe that if the suggestions of the men who dictated
this policy, had received more attention in Downing-street, Ireland
would not now complain of the utter neglect of her interests manifested in the imperial councils for so many months.
Condemning, as we do, the Labour Rate Act, it would be unjust to deny the good that it has effected. Whatever evils have
been attendant on its train, it has been the means of preserving
the lives of thousands of Irishmen. God forbid that any man
should have raised, should even now raise, his hand to stop its
operations, until some substitute is put in its place. By its operation, masses of the people have been fed, who, but for its existence, would, in all probability, have perished. We must never
forget that this has been effected by its means. We may complain,—indeed, we do complain, that this has been done with a
mixture of danger and evil from which more comprehensive measures would have saved us, while they did this more efficiently;
but to the positive good it has accomplished we cannot shut our
eyes.
Nor can we help observing, that those who look upon the state
of Ireland as only to be remedied by a poor law that will fully
recognize the right of every man to earn his bread by his labour,
saw with satisfaction, not unmingled with surprise, that this

T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

19

principle, from which modern legislation appeared to be departing, was now, in the pressure of this calamity, embodied for the
first time in an enactment relating to Ireland. What was the
principle of the Labour Kate Act ? That it was the duty of each
locality to give to every man within it, who was willing to work,
the means of livelihood. This is just the principle of the much
misunderstood and maligned poor law of Queen Elizabeth. If it
be just and expedient in time of famine, it cannot be wrong or
inexpedient in a country in which a great portion of the population are always bordering upon famine. We confess we were
among the number of those who saw with satisfaction this great
principle for the first time even partially acknowledged in Irish
legislation. We are perfectly convinced that until it be fully and
honestly carried out, Ireland can never become prosperous. We
cannot hope to lay the foundation of any solid Irish prosperity
upon the hopeless slough of misery and despair that forms the
substratum of our social state. Even the imperfect recognition
of this principle were worth to the country a great price. But
the man badly reads the signs, and ill understands the policy
of legislation, who can be surprised that the ministry, who proposed to feed the people in time of famine by a Labour Rate Act,
were prepared to follow it at no distant day by extending to Ireland's habitual destitution the remedy of outdoor relief.
The new year opened gloomily on Ireland. By this time the
appalling extent of the calamity, and the inefficiency of the measures adopted to meet it, were, at least, partially understood. A
vague sense of alarm possessed men's minds. The terror was,
perhaps, exaggerated, because the evils apprehended were indefinite. The public eye was shocked by whole columns of the
daily newspapers occupied exclusively with deaths by starvation.
Men's hearts failed them with fear, for looking for the things
which should come. The landlords saw ruin in the enormous
imposts which the Labour Rate Act placed upon their estates—
the merchant and the trader feared it in the general stagnation
which they anticipated as they consequence of general distress.
Rents were, in many parts of the country, withheld, and alarmists
stated they were so universally. It is impossible to conceive a
more gloomy picture than that presented by Irish society at the
close of the disastrous year '46, yet all men looked forward to the
meeting of Parliament with something like hope. The Irish people looked with confidence to Sir Robert Peel, in office or out of
office; they calculated that his practised sagacity and comprehensive mind would have pointed out the inadequacy of what
had been done, and suggest what ought to be done; and one
fortnight before the meeting of Parliament, had the choice of premier depended on the suffrages of the Irish nation, Sir Robert
Peel would have commanded their almost unanimous votes.
These expectations, perhaps unreasonable, have been disap-

20

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

pointed. The Queen's speech, and the debate on the address,
spread through Ireland the conviction that Parliament was as
supine as the ministry. Nor ought it to be disguised that the
part of the session which is past has shaken the attachment of
many to the Imperial and British constitution. Men have asked
themselves, to what is to be attributed the apparent acquiescence
in a policy which, right or wrong, has resulted in the sacrifice of
such multitudes of our fellow Christians by the most horrible of
all deaths? They have asked if the house in which this sacrifice
has called forth so little inquiry, represent indeed the commons of
the empire. How is it that the GRAND INUUEST of the nation
has made no inquiry as to the death of thousands of the people ?•
Men who have hated democracy all their lives, began seriously to
reflect whether the people had influence enough upon a Parliament in which their sufferings were so little heeded. Irishmen,
too, began to feel that they were legislated for by men ignorant
of the condition and circumstances of their country. From this
feeling arose the meeting of the landed proprietors in January
last, which for one day assumed the form of an Irish convention;
from this emanated the resolutions of many of the grand juries
of Ireland, in which were propounded sentiments bordering very
closely upon those of Federalism, if not of Repeal.
This unfortunate state of feeling has been aggravated by the
rejection of the measure known as Lord George Bentinck's b i l l it has been exasperated, as well as aggravated, by the manner in
which senators, not, perhaps, of much character or influence in
either house, have spoken of the Irish nation—language, of which
we scarcely know whether we should most wonder that Englishmen were found base enough to speak it, or that, when it was
spoken, Irishmen were not found adequately to resent.
We know that in the feelings of these spiteful malignants, the
English nation do not participate ; it is among the few blessings
of the crisis that Irishmen have been taught how deeply the better
heart of England sympathizes with their affliction. The aid
which Englishmen have generously sent to Ireland has produced
this counteracting effect: but Irishmen do still believe that in
these feelings of good will, the parliament does not represent the
people of England, and contrasts are drawn in the mind of many
of the warmest advocates of British connexion, between the manner in which a British parliament have met, and an Irish parliament would have met, the calamity that has befallen us.
What can be more absurd—what can be more wicked, than for
men professing attachment to an imperial Constitution to answer
claims now put forward for state assistance to the unprecedented
necessities of Ireland, by talking of Ireland being a drain upon
the English treasury ? By such declamation as this some Engish senators opposed the proposition of Lord George Bentinck,
not to advance the money, bat to pledge the credit of the empire

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

21

to facilitate undertakings in this country, which, in enriching
Ireland would have increased the strength of the empire at large.
If the Union be not a mockery, there exists no such thing as an
English treasury. The exchequer is the exchequer of the United
Kingdom. Its separation into provincial departments is never
thought of when imperial resources are to be spent, or imperial
credit pledged, for objects principally or exclusively of interest to
the English people. Ireland has been deprived, by the Union
with England, of all separate power of action. She cannot do
now, as in the days of her parliament she might have done-—
draw upon her own resources, or pledge her own credit, for objects of national importance. Irishmen were told, indeed, that
in consenting to a Union which would make them partners with
a great and opulent nation, like England, they would have all the
advantages that might be expected to flow from such a Union.
How are these expectations to be realized, how are these pledges
to be fulfilled, if the partnership is only to be one of loss, and never
of profit to us ? if, bearing our share of all imperial burdens—
when calamity falls upon us we are to be told than we then recover our separate existence as a nation, just so far as to disentitle us to the state assistance which any portion of a nation,
visited with such a calamity, had a right to expect from the
governing power ? If Cornwall had been visited with the scenes
that have desolated Cork, would similar arguments have been used ?
Would men have stood up and denied that Cornwall was entitled
to have the whole country share the extraordinary loss ?*
Language like that to which we have alluded must force on
inquiries, by the full prosecution of which, we believe, the
claims of/ Ireland will not lose. Men will ask how much of food
Ireland has sent to England as a subsidy, without return, whether to pay the rent of her absentees, or to contribute her share
to the general revenue of the country; they will inquire how
much of that revenue is spent in Ireland, and how much in England ; what amount of revenue the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests derive from the crown lands and rents of Ireland,
and when and how that income has been spent. These, perhaps, are questions of which the accomplished financiers, who
talk so flippantly of drains upon the English treasury, have never
dreamed. It is enough, perhaps, to tell them that to talk of an
* This article, was unfortunately actually in print before we had the opportunity of seeing the veiy able and temperate pamphlet, which, under the title we
have prefixed to a note at its commencement, discusses the right we here assert
for Ireland, in language strikingly corroborative of these views. This pamphlet
bears internal evidence of being the production of a profound thinker, an accomplished scholar, and a lawyer deeply read in the history and constitution of the
country. If surmise as to its authorship be correct, it furnishes a striking proof
how entirely the sentiments we have expressed are shared by classes that English
statesmen, perhaps, believe inaccessible to their influence.

22

THE FAMINE IN T H E

LAND,

English treasury is, in effect, to declare the Union repealed.
Some of them have made it a boast that England could now
amply punish Ireland by repealing the Union, and leaving her to
struggle, unaided, with the crisis. But if the partnership were
to-morrow to be dissolved, and a fair account to be taken of all
dealings between the partners, the items of charge upon the side
of Ireland would exhibit at this moment no inconsiderable balance in her favour, were it struck between the sums she has
contributed to the imperial treasury, and those which that treasury has expended in this country for Irish objects.
We trust it is not necessary for us to give proof of our adherence to the cause of British connexion in Ireland; it is in no
spirit of unfriendliness that we tell British statesmen, that the
last few months have silently set thoughts at work, and called
passions into existence, which bode more peril to the Union than
all the insurrectionary movements and monster meetings of 1843.
A little more of insult and contumely heaped upon the Irish
people; a little more disregard of Irish interests and feelings in
legislation; a little more treatment of Ireland as a conquered
country, to be parcelled out in legislation as pleases her masters,
and he would be a bold man who would promise many years'
continuance of the Union.
We know that there are men in England—we trust not among
her statesmen—who believe that those possessing the property of
the country, of both creeds, and the bulk of her Protestant population, are so impressed with the opinion, that the ascendancy
of an intolerant and bigoted democracy would be the inevitable
result of a repeal of the Union, that no amount of ill-treatment
will make these parties unite in the demand for a separate legislature. The reliance, at best, is an imgenerous one—it is as unsafe as it is ungenerous. These feelings are, from whatever
cause it proceeds, losing their activity. The removal from the
stage of Irish politics of some of those most prominently connected with the feuds of former times ; the pressure of the calamity of the country, making men feel that no state of society
can be worse than what they see ; only one of a thousand accidents of the almost innumerable fluctuations that change the
direction of public opinion, may prove the falsity of such security
as this. The policy that makes the maintenance of the Union
depend upon our divisions, must calculate on its ceasing with the
termination, or even the first suspension of our mutual distrusts.
We have brought down our history to the meeting of parliament ; we have now to deal with the measures that, in the present session, ministers have proposed.
The suspension of the navigation laws, in favor of the importation of food, and the abolition of the duty on importation, were
measures so obvious that the only observation that can be made
upon them is, that their adoption, the moment parliament met,

T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

23

is the strongest self-condemnation of the policy that deferred
them so long—that put off the permission to import grain in
foreign bottoms until the ice upon the greater rivers of Europe
was a barrier against their employment almost as effectual as the
navigation laws. At the time when parliament suspended the
navigation laws, many of the ships that would, at an earlier
period, have been employed in bringing us food, were lying icebound in the Elbe.
Ministers felt themselves compelled to remit the re-payment
of one-half of the sums advanced to Ireland under the Labour
Rate Act. Common justice required such an arrangement. It
is now proved that almost the entire of these sums had been
spent, without the slightest permanent benefit to any one—that
they had been so spent in opposition to the earnest remonstrances
of the Irish landed proprietors who offered to make themselves
responsible for the repayment of the very same sums—giving to
the people at least the same wages, if they would be allowed to
direct the labour to increasing the productive power of the soil—•
in opposition to the remonstrances of a large number of the Irish
people, who had earnestly pressed upon the government to spend
the same sums in aiding the construction of railroads, and thus
at once benefit the country, and relieve the landed interests from
the pressure of taxation.
This remission of half this sum—misspent as it was through
the mistake of ministers, with the very trifling addition of the
sums advanced by way of gift, is the entire amount of contribution from the imperial treasury, to meet the loss which Ireland
has suffered by the unprecedented visitation that afflicts her—a
loss which cannot be estimated, in its direct effects, at less than
fifteen millions, and which, in its indirect effects, must be calculated at much more. If the principle be true—a corollary from
the Union it appears to be—that this loss, as the best of English
statesmen have admitted, ought to be considered not as an Irish
but an imperial one, this contribution is inadequate. Poor, however, as it is, it was forced by circumstances—it was to repair
the mistakes of the ministers. The principle of the Labour Bate
Act was to throw upon the landed interests of Ireland the entire
reparation of the loss that had accrued—a principle we believe
to be unjust; but the application of this principle was accompanied by regulations which deprived the Irish rate-payers of all
control over the expenditure. Had parliament declared that Ireland must bear the burden—and enacted, that the property of
Ireland must find employment and wages for all the destitute,
but left it at the same time to local and domestic arrangement to
determine how that employment was to be directed, the grievance would have been less than that which is felt in the provisions of an enactment, which at once threw upon one class in
Ireland the entire burden of the distress, and, at the same time.

24

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

provided that by the plans, the caprices, or the obstinacy of the
Imperial or the English cabinet, the money raised from that class
should be spent, in opposition to their remonstrances, in an utterly
unprofitable expenditure.
It must be remembered, too, that to a very large class in Ireland, upon whom the loss of the potato crop has fallen heavily,
no assistance whatever has been given from the Imperial treasury ;
we mean THE LANDED P R O P R I E T O R S

AND THE TENANT FAR-

MERS of Ireland. The former, in many instances, found their
incomes suddenly stopped. The latter have not only lost severely by the loss of the potatoes which they had planted on
their farms ; but many of them who had paid their farmlabourers by giving them a portion of ground to plant the potatoes, as their wages by anticipation for the year, were obliged in
the autumn either to give up their labour, or to pay them over
again in money ; and we believe we do not exaggerate when we
say, that the majority of the small farmers in Ireland have not
at this moment the means of paying in cash for the labour that
is necessary for the cultivation of their farms, while, in too many
instances, the landlords have been left entirely without the means
of assisting them.
To these two classes, both of whom have suffered severely from
this visitation, no assistance whatever has been given. Nay, it
appeared sufficient to condemn any proposition if it could be
shown that its effect would be to benefit these proscribed classes.
If there be any truth or justice in the principle that the losses
occasioned by a calamity like this—a calamity against which no
prudence could guard, and which no fault on the part of the
sufferers produced—should be borne, not by the immediate objects of the visitation, but, in some part at least, by the resources
of the empire at large, it is difficult to see why nothing should be
done to assist these two classes. On the contrary, they who
themselves were heavy sufferers by the visitation, were selected
out of all classes in the British empire, out of all the classes in
Ireland possessing property or income, as the persons to bear the
entire burden of meeting this extraordinary destitution of the
classes below them.
The one expedient of ministers appears to be to tax the land.
Amid these measures, indeed, of unprecedented impost upon the
landed interest, one ominous measure of relief to the proprietors
is promised. The boon that is offered to the owners of the
soil is, " A bill to facilitate the sale of encumbered estates in
Ireland."
The principle of the measures of this year is the same as that
of last. The entire burden of the loss of the potato crop is to be
thrown upon the proprietors and tenant-farmers of the land.
No expedient certainly can be more simple, and admirably is its
simplicity preserved. It is unenumbered by any measure to

T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

25

improve the condition of the country at large, and thus assist
the proprietors or occupiers of the soil to hear the burthen that
is cast upon them. A general railway bill would have marred
the simplicity of the ministerial policy. Can it be wondered at
if there are men who regard these measures as nothing but
measures of confiscation. Lord Clare stated in the Irish House
of Lords that the entire soil of Ireland had been confiscated three
times. The next Chancellor who speaks in an Irish parliament
will have probably to add to the catalogue of general confiscations a fourth.
The entire measures which ministers contemplate for the relief
of Irish famine, are to be found in an act which, on the 26th of
February, received the royal assent, entitled an act for " The
Temporary Relief of Destitute Persons in Ireland." The Poor
Law Act admitting for the first time of out-door relief, although
forced on, no doubt, by the exigencies of the present crisis, is one
of a permanent, not a temporary nature. Its provisions require,
therefore, a consideration distinct in some respect from the present circumstances of the country.
The provisions of the new act have unquestionably an immense
advantage over those of the Labour Rate ilct. They give at
least the opportunity of boldly and efficiently meeting the destitution in Ireland, as far as the time that has been lost will permit
it now to be met. But never was there an act passed, the result
of which so much depends upon the administration, because
every thing is left to the arbitrary power of those who are to
carry its provisions into practice.
Relief Commissioners or Finance Committees, appointed by
the Lord Lieutenant, are given by this act an unlimited power of
taxing the landed interests of Ireland—a power that may indeed
be exercised so as to amount to a confiscation of all landed property in Ireland. In every electoral division, under the poorlaw, in which the Lord Lieutenant considers it expedient that
the act should be put in force, a Relief Committee is to be
formed, consisting of all justices of the peace resident within the
district, the guardians of the poor, the clergy of the different
churches, and the three highest rate-payers not included in any
of these descriptions. This committee are to make out lists of
all persons within their districts entitled to be relieved, and the
estimate of the expense ; but both lists and estimates are subject
to the revisions and alterations of finance committees, appointed
by the Lord Lieutenant, and removable at his pleasure, upon
which the Lord Lieutenant issues his warrant to the poor-law
guardians to assess upon tenements liable to the poor-rate that
sum, and all the expenses of the staff necessary for the execution
of the act, either upon the union at large or the electoral division,
as he shall judge expedient; the entire amount of such expenditure, unlike that of the Labour Rate Act, must be levied by an

26

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

immediate rate. The treasury is indeed authorized to advance a
sum of ^£300,000, in anticipation of these rates, but this is
plainly a mere temporary accommodation, pending the collection
of the rate. So far as this act provides, the entire cost of maintaining the destitute poor in Ireland, until the 1st of October
next, is cast upon the landed proprietors and tenant farmers of
. Ireland—a measure which may be carried out so as to involve
both classes in utter ruin, and amount to a total confiscation of
landed property in Ireland.
The act, however, does contain a provision that these relief
committees shall receive and distribute voluntary contributions,
and the Commissioners may apply such grants as may be granted
hereafter from the treasury, either by way of gift or loan, in aid
of these local rates.
The mode of relief, the manner in which it is to be granted,
and the terms of its distribution, are left entirely to the discretion
of the local committees, acting under the complete control of the
Relief Commissioners, whose orders and directions they are
bound to obey. The act, however, contemplates a complete
departure from the policy of leaving the supply of food to the
people to the ordinary operations of commerce, since it authorizes
the distribution, the sale, and even the culinary preparation of
food under the direction of these committees.
Such are the provisions of an act, to the administration of
which we look with fearful and trembling anxiety. If it be
administered in a wise and generous spirit—if it be accompanied
with large and liberal measures for this country—if it be assisted
with the aid which Ireland, we say boldly all classes in'Ireland,
have a right to DEMAND from the imperial legislature, its
machinery is capable of immense application for good. If, on
the other hand, it be administered in a grudging or penurious,
and an un-Irish, we do not wish to say anti-Irish spirit; if no
measures of general utility accompany it—if no aid be given
from the imperial treasury to mitigate the pressure upon all
classes in Ireland ; if, in a word, this act be put in force in that
spirit of confiscation, of the existence of which, in some influential quarters, the owners of the land in Ireland have had abundant
indication, then, we say, this act will result in temporary, and
only temporary, relief to the destitute, in the ruin of all who
derive their income from land in Ireland, in confusion and distress to all classes of her people, and in a state of things which
will amply realize the expression—national bankruptcy.
It is, in the first place, manifestly impossible to expect that
the destitution which must, for months to come, exist in many
districts in Ireland, can be met, as this act proposes, by the
assessment of a rate upon these districts, to be levied within the
year. We do not now speak of the justice or expediency of such
a course, but we speak of its physical impossibility. What rate

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

27

could be levied in Scariff or Skibbereen that could supply the destitution that in these districts is to be provided for ? It may be
very easy to assess a rate, but its collection would be utterly impossible. Gratuitous subscriptions must supply the wants of
such localities as these, or parliament must make liberal advances
from the imperial treasury. This, again, may be done in two
ways—either as a grant, or as a loan, to be repaid by instalments
out of future rates. When we remember the pressure that must
be upon these future rates by the operation of out-door relief, we
do not hesitate to say that to relief committees in districts like
these, and they are many in Ireland, large sums must be given,
and given not as a loan but as a grant.
For our own parts, we confess we regret that another source
was not provided to bear a portion of the burden—of the burden,
we mean, that must fall upon exclusively Irish resources. We
do not understand why property in land alone should be taxed
for this purpose. Did machinery exist for the collection of such
a tax, or if it be possible to create it, we see no reason why every
man in Ireland, no matter whether his income be derived from
the funds, from mortgages, or from official or professional sources,
ought not to be compelled to contribute, in proportion to his
income, to that portion of the expenditure which must be raised
in Ireland within the year. That portion of the expenditure
of this year, which is to become a continuing tax upon the industry of the country, in fairness ought to be charged upon the
property which is of a permanent character; but to the expenditure that is cast upon this year's income, all income ought to
contribute. For a measure of this nature it is now, perhaps, too
late to hope. The landed interests of Ireland have, however, a
right to expect that of the extraordinary supplies required to
meet the extraordinary emergency of this year, a large proportion, if not the entire, shall be borne by the consolidated fund.
The taxation of the Labour Rate Act has placed on the landed
interest a burden for many years to come, which, with the increased taxation of the out-door relief, will be as much as it will
be able to bear. There is neither wisdom nor justice in throwing
upon that interest the entire loss occasioned by the calamity of
last year.
Our first demand for Ireland is—we brave the scorn of the
legislators at whom we have glanced in making it—that the taxation of this temporary relief act should, in every district where
such aid is needed, be accompanied by large and liberal grants
from the consolidated fund.
The mode in which relief is to be dispensed under this act is,
we have said, to be left to the discretion of those who are to administer it, and we see nothing in the act to prevent that relief
being given in part in the shape of wages to persons to be employed in the useful work of cultivating the land. This is a sub-

28

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

ject of the very first importance to the country. Exaggerated,
no doubt, the accounts have been which have alarmed us by representing whole districts as left waste; but still it is a melancholy fact, that in many districts numbers of the tenant-farmers
have not, from causes we have already explained, the means of
either purchasing seed, or paying the labour that is necessary to
the cultivation of the land. Of the money that must be paid away
in relief, we suggest that so much as may, in each district, be considered by proper authority advisable, be expended in paying the
wages of workmen for either landlords or farmers, who want them
for works of profitable cultivation, and will give for the repayment
of those wages the security of the produce of the labour they employ. The farmer might thus obtain seed and labour to stock
his farm, perhaps, on the security of his next harvest crops—the
landlord labour for profitable undertakings, upon his personal security and a charge upon his estate.
No doubt there would be difficulties in the way of administering
such a plan—but a crisis like the present is not to be met without difficulties ; there are none which a little firmness and a little
prudence cannot avoid; and unless plans like this are grafted on
the measures for temporary relief, we confess we see nothing to
result from that measure but a repetition of the wasteful expenditure of the Labour Rate Act, with more certain ruin to all connected with the landed interests of the country.
And, above all, to make this act effectual even for the sustentation, during the summer, of the poor, government must take immediate steps to insure, by every possible means, an importation
of food into Ireland. Commercial enterprise will, we fear, prove
as inadequate to supply the wants of the summer as it has of the
winter. The last few days, indeed, have brought to us increased
importations, and lowered the prices of grain in our market. But
let us beware of placing too much reliance upon this. Fearful is
the responsibility ministers will incur, unless they have information, which the public have not, of the operations of trade, if,
with the experience of the winter, they leave the supplies of our
food to resources proved to be precarious. Five long months must
pass away before the next harvest can be available for the people's
food. It is a solemn duty which the Queen's ministers owe to
the Irish people and to our sovereign, to increase, by every means
that the resources of the empire can command, the supply of food
to Ireland. If that supply be unhappily deficient in July or August, the scenes of the summer will cause the horrors of the winter
to be forgotten. The pestilence that in the history of Ireland
has invariably marked the famine will be upon us—want will
increase as endurance of suffering makes men less able to resist it.
The famine is creeping up in society—men who had some little
money stored have been living on their stores, and one by one
they will drop into the class of paupers, and become victims of

T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

29

the famine. No Relief Act can give bread to the people, unless
the quantity of bread in the country be sufficient to be distributed
among all, and this, we fear, it will not be, unless the resources of
the state are applied to increase, in the end of summer, the importation of food,
The new harvest of Indian corn that is now wasting on the
prairies of the Missisippi, because it is of no value, will be floated
down to New Orleans, in large quantities, if once it is known that
the British government will buy. There is no vessel that the
government can bribe, ay, or press into such a service, that they
ought not to employ. The vessels of war that now lie idle in ordinary, may, at very little expense, be freighted for this service.
Shippers, if sufficiently tempted by high freights, will employ
their vessels in bringing food; we can employ the quantity of
steam ships belonging to our own country in this trade ; we can
hire the vessels of the merchants of other nations.
And when we speak of other nations, need we fear the jealousy
of other nations, above all, of that great nation by whose cordial
co-operation an enterprise of this nature might be made easy. Is
there in the history of the world a nobler trait of national character than that which is exhibited in the recent proceedings in
America, in relation to Irish distress ? If the American people
offer us corn, is it too much to ask of our own government to find
the freight that is to convey it to us ? We say our own government, for, despite of the malice of the malignants, the British
government is our own. If, in very truth, it be not, what Irishman will advocate the continuance for one hour of the Union ?
While Britain, last autumn, refused either to suspend the navigation laws, or to purchase bread stuffs for her people, France
had done both. Ministers ask where were they to find food, food
for the Irish people ; they ask this question triumphantly of men
who have no means of information such as ministers possess. We
believe they could have found it. Let us ask them to account
for the difference in the price for corn in America and in London.
Do they know that last autumn a Dublin merchant was compelled
to abandon a cargo actually purchased abroad, because foreign
bottoms would not be allowed to import it. The enormous difference of price to which we have referred, abundantly proves we
have not derived the supply that other countries could yield us.
But have endeavours been made to ascertain the extent to which
government interference could be carried ? Have ministers, with
all the information they possess, which no private individual can
possess, exhausted the efforts of ingenuity in discovering by what
new means food can be supplied—what new fisheries might yield
to us unknown supplies—what countries might send us new supplies of coarser animal or vegetable food ? With a summer of
unprecedented scarcity before us, has any effort, even now, been
made to prepare to bring into the stock of that summer's food the

30

T H E F A M I N E IN T H E

LAND,

supply that might be obtained from the deep sea fisheries round
the Irish coast.
Three steps we believe indispensably necessary to make the
Temporary Relief Act safe or efficient for the purposes of relieving
the distress. The funds to meet the demands it will entail must
be provided, in a very considerable degree, by grants or loans from
the state. Full power must be left to the local committees to employ the labour as they see best, even though that employment
be in the service of individuals upon profitable works; and lastly,
and above all, the ministers who have indeed in this act undertaken the commissariat of the Irish people, must be prepared to
apply all the available resources of the state to procure a sufficient
importation of food.
' When all this is done, Ireland must still undergo destitution
and misery during the next summer, which we fear it is beyond
the reach of human power to avert. No power but that of the
Great God can now avert the pestilence which, if all former experience can be relied on, will most assuredly follow with the hot
days of the summer the want of sufficient food. Fever is already
in its ravages anticipating our prediction. In many of the workhouses the deaths have arisen to a fearful per centage of the inmates. In one work-house we read of deaths to the amount of
two hundred a-week. But this is but the beginning of the plague.
"We tremble to think of what is before us. "We know not whether,
in their preparations for the summer, the government have calculated on this fearful element in the misery that is before us; but
sure we are that every day that leaves our population with insufficient food, will fearfully aggravate this worst and last evil of the
famine.
When we ask for grants from the imperial Treasury to meet
the purposes of the Temporary Relief Act, let it not be supposed
for an instant that we wish to shield the property of Ireland from
contributing its fair share to the support of our poor. To meet
the ordinary destitution of the country, we believe that property
ought to be taxed; but to impose upon a class of the holders of
Irish property, and that class the most embarrassed, the entire
burden of this, which is justly admitted to be an imperial loss,
appears to us, we confess, to be a measure of confiscation, as
complete in principle as if the landed property of Ireland had
been declared forfeited to pay the expenses of the Chinese war.
We advocate, be it remembered, the imposition of a tax in which
personally we would be much more concerned than in any tax
upon land. If government wish boldly and honestly to make
Irish property contribute to Irish distress, let them put a tax for
this year upon all who have property in Ireland—let them tax
the holders of mortgages, and the owners of bank shares and
stock—let there be now put an income tax on Ireland, to meet
the exigencies of the present year, but let its amount be fixed,

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

31

according to what it may be deemed the holders of moneys in Ireland ought reasonably to pay; in addition to this, let the Treasury be empowered to advance to any district, a sum that will
bear a fixed proportion to the value at which its property is rated
to the poor—let this be repaid by instalments, on the principle of
the Labour Rate Act ; and let these advances be expended as far
as possible in the wages of labour, to be employed on wrorks that
will ultimately increase the productiveness of the soil. The
amount of taxation thus to be levied, either directly within the
year, or in future years, to repay these advances, should be
limited to the amount which a fair and impartial estimate may
deem the property of Ireland fairly liable to contribute. Be}rond
the amount that can by these means be placed at the disposal of
the Relief Commissioners, Ireland has a just and reasonable
claim to have this extraordinary exigency met from the funds of
the state.
Let it not be supposed that the emergency will pass away with
the next harvest. We leave out of our considerations apprehensions too horrible to dwell upon, that are entertained, groundlessly
we trust, that the wheat crop is showing symptoms of failure.
We admit all calculations of the loss that will accrue from ground
that must, even in spite of all exertions, remain untilled. To expect the potato crop to be resuscitated next year, is visionary and
wild. All calculations agree that the quantity of ground which,
planted in potatoes, will feed three persons, sown with wheat will
do little more than supply sustenance to one—a calculation that
leaves out the not unimportant item, that by the very waste of a
potato diet, the swine and the poultry were fed. Perhaps the
calculation would be more accurate which set against the one person maintained by the wheat, three persons and a pig to be fed
upon the potato. If, then, the potato ground next year be all
grown with corn—a supposition far too favourable for the country—where are we to find the food of four millions* who have
hitherto been supported by the potato produce of that ground ?
If in corn, it can do little more than sustain a million and a-half;
it is taking, indeed, a short-sighted view of the effects of the
potato failure, to believe that even its extraordinary effects will
pass away with next harvest, or even the harvests of 1849, or
1850.
The country must prepare itself for a permanent change in the
diet of the great mass of the population. We earnestly hope that
never again will the potato be the staple food of her people. In* In estimating the number of persons supported by the potato at four millions,
we do not calculate that so great a number of persons were exclusively fed upon
that food ; calculating those partially supported by it, the result would be found,
in the whole, equivalent to four millions, entirely depending upon it. This estimate is rather below the truth.

32

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

dependency of those frequent failures which have brought periodical distress upon our poor—the difficulty of its transport—
the impossibility of storing it up in a year of abundance
to meet the wants of a year of scarcity—apart from all
these objections which economists have so frequently pointed
out as existing to its adoption as the staple food of a country, we believe the potato diet of the population, in the manner in which they subsisted on it, to have had the most injurious
effects upon the character and habits of our people. It might
appear almost fanciful to say, that the necessity of its culture fostered those habits of filth which have given so squalid an aspect
to the wretchedness of an Irish hovel. The dunghill before the
cottage was almost the necessary adjunct of the potato garden in
the rear. The pig, the most unclean of all animals, the inmate of
the hut, was the product of the same prolific source of degeneration. We will not inquire how far those philosophers are right
who attribute to the physical qualities of " the dirty weed," the
overabundance of our population. But it does not require the aid
of any questionable philosophy to trace to the mode in which our
labouring classes subsisted on the potato, the evil habits of these
classes. The dunghill, the pig, and the potato garden were the
poor Irishman's world. Receiving no money-wages, he neither
knew the value of money, nor what it was to save. Men who
toiled for their daily wages, and purchased their loaf with their
shilling, would soon learn the value of husbanding a penny out of
each shilling; but the man who received his wages by the process
of digging a basket of potatoes from his ridge, would never have
suggested to his mind the idea of saving one potato out of twelve.
The worst of this mode of subsistence was, that it shut out the
man who so existed from any contact with the mercantile and
social world e In the simple process by which he heaped up his
dunghill, manured his potato garden, and dug out the root as he
wanted it, requiring nothing but the process of boiling to make it
fit for food, he was never driven to rely on the help of his fellowman. What room, in such a miserable and wretched process, for
that mutual dependence, that division of labour, even in its rudest
form, to which we owe all the progress of the most refined civilization ! What lessons of prudence were to be learned! what
habits of frugality to be acquired in the solitary monotony of this
unsocial existence! The very fact that throughout the whole
process, the man might subsist without ever handling a coin, was
enough to account for his knowing but little of the value of either
industry or money. Living without exchange or barter, scarcely
ever exchanging the products of his own industry for that of
others, except when the price of the pig left him surplus enough
after paying the rent, the means of purchasing something like
clothing for himself or his family. It is impossible to conceive a
mode of life less calculated to offer incentives to exertion or mo-

33

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND,

tives to frugality, or one better calculated to form the habits of the
labourer to idleness, imprudence, and, worse almost than either,
contentedness with the wretchedness of his condition. Earnestly
do we hope, then, that once we have passed the ordeal of their
loss, potatoes may never again be the staple of our food, or
conacre the form in which the wages of our labourers will be
paid.
In the transition from such a mode of livelihood to one more
approaching to civilization, Ireland must unquestionably pass
through great difficulties ; and measures which contemplate only
the present year, are, in reality, inadequate to the demands of the
condition of the country—measures that will supply what is
wanted, must, like the calamity that has called them forth, extend
their operations far beyond the present year.
Of measures professing to go beyond the 1st of October next,
ministers have only proposed the bill for extending the poor law
system to one of out-door relief. Although introduced in company with measures to relieve the destitution, and forced by the
fearful disclosures which that famine has made of the wretchedness of our people, this measure is not properly one of those by
which they propose to meet the emergency of the present time.
To the permanent prosperity of Ireland, we believe an extension
of the poor law, even more liberal than that now proposed, to be
an indispensable requisite. No matter at what expense to the
upper classes, we hold that no state can prosper in which the
right of every man who is willing to work to be fed is not fully
and liberally recognized. The rights of property do not arise
until this obligation is discharged. Unquestionably, the habits
and character of the people make the administration of a poor law
in Ireland difficult, and, perhaps, dangerous. But still the obligation to provide for all the destitution of the country in ordinary
years, is one from the fulfilment of which we are sure it is not the
real interest of the owners of property in Ireland to be exempt.*
All our sympathies have been writh those who have long laboured
to establish in Ireland a legal provision for her destitute ; and the
attempt to narrow that provision to the miserable mockery of our
workhouse relief, was, in effect, to leave Ireland without a poor law
at all. To the principle of the poor law bill of the ministry, we
give our cheerful and cordial assent. It is not, indeed, the mea* We think we are justified in saying that it is unjust to represent the landed
gentry of Ireland as universally, or even generally, opposed to the legal enforcement of this obligation. Two of them—Mr. Godley, and Mr. Adair—have written upon the subject; and both of them advocate the ministerial measure of outdoor relief. Mr. Adair's pamphlet, with singular eloquence and ability, advocates
a poor law that would be still more efficient. The information, and ability,
and honesty of Mr. Godley's letter, must command the respect—we would almost
hope convince the understandings-—of the most determined opponents of out-door
relief.
D

34

T H E FAMINE I N T H E LAND.

sure by which famine can be, or ought to be met. Introduced
two years ago, it would have commanded our cordial and unqualified assent. Intended as a measure for the permanent government of this country, we believe it to be one absolutely required ;
but if upon its provisions be thrown the burden of providing for
the temporary destitution, it is not difficult to see that, in words
which we remember to have seen applied on a similar occasion,
" It will desperately deserve the name of a poor law, because it
will be a bill for making all Ireland poor.3'
This bill proposes to introduce into the poor law system of
Ireland two changes, the magnitude and importance of which it
is impossible to overrate.

I T RECOGNIZES, F O R T H E FIRST

TIME IN ANY CLASS OF PERSONS, A R I G H T TO SUPPORT,
AND I T A U T H O R I Z E S , IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, OUTDOOR R E L I E F ,

The persons whose right to relief is fully recognized by this
bill, are those who are e( permanently disabled from labour by
means of old age, infirmity, or bodily or mental defect ; 5 ' and it
directs relief to be given to them in or out of the workhouse as
the guardians may deem expedient. Practically, there can be no
doubt that this will be, and ought to ba, a full and unqualified
recognition of the right of such persons to be supported by outdoor relief, leaving the possibility of enforcing the workhouse
test as merely the means of detecting and obviating attempts at
imposture.
Such a provision as this is one which the first dictates of
Christianity, of humanity, obviously demand.
In addition to this, the able-bodied poor, (i when destitute and
unable to support themselves by their own industry, or by other
lawful means," acquire by this bill a partial recognition of their
right to be maintained—that is, the guardians are bound by this
proposed act to take order for relieving and setting to work in
the workhouse, all such persons, whenever there is sufficient
room in the workhouse for them to do so.
If, however, the workhouse should be full, or unfit for the reception of inmates, from the pressure of infectious disease, then
comes tbe much-dreaded provision of out-door relief. In this
case the Poor Law Commissioners are empowered to make an
order for the extension of out-door relief to the able-bodied poor:
this order cannot extend beyond a period of two months, and the
relief shall only be given in food.
In addition to this, a relieving and a medical officer are to be
appointed in each union, and the relieving officer is empowered,
in cases of urgent necessity, to give immediate relief in lodging,
food, or medical attendance.
The difficulties attending on the recognition of the right to
relief without a law of settlement, are for the present at least
escaped, by the expedient of simply recognizing the right to

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

35

relief, and leaving it to the Poor Law Commissioners to frame
regulations under which the applications must be made and the
relief administered. But these regulations must, it is evident, be
framed so as to secure the relief, the right to which the bill recognizes—-that is, in all those permanently disabled, an unqualified right to relief; in the able-bodied destitute poor, a right to
be relieved to the full capacity of the workhouse to which they
may be directed to apply; when that workhouse is full or unfit
for their reception, a right, subject to the control of the Poor
Law Commissioners, to be supplied with food outside its walls.
To these provisions, we confess, we cannot understand how
any one can object, who is not prepared to leave the destitute
population of Ireland to a state of misery and wretchedness unparalleled in the civilized world. Twelve years ago that destitution was laid bare to the legislature and the empire, in the report
of the Commissioners of Irish Poor Lav/ Inquiry. What effort
was made to relieve it then ? With the statement in that report,
that two millions of people were for a considerable portion of each
year in want of sufficient food, a measure was introduced which
could not do more than feed 80,000 people in workhouses. What
effort has been made to relieve that destitution since ? We left
our poor to the helpless misery in which they were proved then
to drag out a wretched existence, supported often upon the seaweeds of the rocks. Statesmen contented themselves with having
given to Ireland a poor-law, and the national conscience, which
had been startled by the fearful revelations which the poor law
inquiry had brought to light, was too easily satisfied with the
excuse, and legislators turned away from the embarrassing subject of Irish destitution with the feeling that they had passed a
poor law. It was something certainly to have established, even
in its most niggard form, the great principle, that there should
be relief for the destitute ; this we owe to the poor law of 1837.
Ten years have been sufficient to see that principle extended to a
modified one of out-door relief. So true is it that the great principles of social charity, like those of the Christianity that teaches
them, are expansive and progressive in their innate power. A few
years more, and Ireland will have a poor law that will satisfy all
the requirements of Christian legislation for the poor.
We are speaking, be it remembered, of the poor law as a measure to be enforced in the ordinary condition of the country, not
as a measure to meet the emergency of a famine. It is the measure by which the ministry have, for the first time in Irish history, given to the poor man equality with his English neighbour;
entirely do we agree with the memorable words of a writer in the
Standard, of the 24th of May, 1836, when propounding the
truth, that a poor law for Ireland was " that real and substantial
equalization of the Irish with the British people, which must
supply the basis of all sound schemes of uniformity." We may

36

THE FAMINE I N THE LAND.

be told, indeed, that a poor law tax will press heavily upon the
landlords. Be it so—every man must suffer a share of the
poverty of his country. The man who has, must and ought to
suffer whatever of inconvenience belongs to being the owner of
property in a poor country. The social system that places the
landlord of a poor and wretched tenantry in as good a situation
as the landlord of those who are comfortable and happy, is based
upon injustice, and most probably upon oppression. Let any
man read over the evidence collected by the Poor Law Inquiry
Commissioners in 1836, let him read the pitiable pictures of destitution that evidence discloses, and, having done this, let him
vote against the out-door relief, proposed by the ministry, I F H E
CAN !

The subject, however, of this extension of the poor law is one
that must demand from us a separate discussion upon a future
occasion. While, however, for any ordinary destitution existing
in the country, we believe such a poor law to be the proper
remedy, we cannot too strongly reiterate our conviction of the
monstrous injustice of applying its provisions to meet the necessities of an extraordinary visitation. So long as the temporary
relief act is in force, the out-door relief provisions of the poor law
will obviously not be in force. They will, in fact, be carried into
effect by a different arrangement, and, we earnestly hope, by funds
provided from a different source ; but, by present arrangements,
the provisions of the temporary relief act expire on the 1 st October
next. If we be right—as we have shown to demonstration that
we are—that the pressure of extraordinary distress will not pass
away with the next harvest—that in all probability three millions
of people less by those whom famine and the pestilence and emigration has removed, will still be in want of their ordinary food—•
it is plain that to throw the support of them upon the poor rates
of next year, will be to plunge all classes in Ireland into confusion, embarrassment, and distress. To the very success of the
great measure of justice and humanity which ministers have
introduced, it is essential that the powers of the temporary relief
act should be continued until after the next meeting of parliament—it is equally essential that the funds necessary for carrying out that act should not be raised from the poor rates of the
year.
Earnestly do we entreat of the owners of land in Ireland to
look after these things. Measures that may involve the confiscation of their entire estates—measures that will involve it, unless
properly guarded and accompanied, are in progress; measures
which may, indeed, if well administered, be the means of raising
Ireland from her abject state of poverty and degradation, but
which, ill-administered, will ruin the landlords without benefiting
the people. It is for them now to press the just claims of their
country and themselves upon the ministry and the nation; mak-

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

37

ing common cause with the people in their demand, that by
vigorous and imperial efforts the calamity that now afflicts Ireland may be met; but we warn them, they must not shrink from
admitting their readiness and their liability to bear all obligations
which belong to property in England, and then they may with
justice and reason demand, that in this extraordinary emergency,
their country shall receive the same assistance which, under a
similar calamity, any portion of England would, most undoubtedly, receive.
Intermediately in character between the Temporary Relief
Act and such measures as the new Poor Law—between the measures by which the present necessity is to be met, and those by
which the future state of Ireland is to be regulated—there are
measures which deserve consideration—measures which we believe ought to be adopted—which will at once relieve, in some
degree, the pressure of the present distress—-facilitate the progress of the country through the transition through which it
must pass—and assist in laying the foundation of her prosperity
in a future, and what wise measures will make a better and a
happier state of things.
The measures of this character which have been suggested
may, perhaps, be classed under three heads. Measures to improve the country, by facilitating the construction of railways;
measures to facilitate emigration of the destitute; and, lastly,
measures to increase the productiveness of the soil by the reclamation of waste lands, or the improvement of those already
under cultivation.
Our readers who have followed us so far, and who feel, perhaps, that we have trespassed unreasonably upon their time, will
not expect from us a full discussion of the large subjects that
questions upon such measures involve. It is the difficulty of
considering Ireland's present condition, that to deal with it
aright subjects must be taken into account of the most varied
and the most comprehensive character. No partial or narrow
view of her circumstances will suffice. This is the penalty of
years of neglect. Had the whole social state of Ireland been
reviewed in 1836, when the Report of the Poor Law Inquiry
disclosed the destitution of great masses of her people, we would
not need now to crowd the page of remedial suggestions with
subjects involving all interests in the country. But the malady
under which Ireland labours, produced, though it may be now by
an accident, is not the result of that accident alone, but an aggravation of long settled constitutional disease. True it is, the
immediate evil of the accident must be met; but no man can
venture to prescribe the remedy, who will not estimate the effects
of the constitutional derangement, and frame the remedy with
regard to its effects upon the system of the patient. Recovered
health assuredly will only follow the application of the remedies

38

T H E FAMINE I N T H E LAND*

that will improve the constitution, as well as cure the temporary
malady of the patient. Indeed in the social, as in physical
science, it is vain to attempt to recover the temporary malady
without checking the constitutional disease,
I. As to measures for promoting the construction of railways.
Scarcely had parliament assembled, when Lord George Bentinck, to whom appears to have been awarded by unanimous consent, the place of leader to the party now termed the Protectionist
party in the House of Commons, in conjunction with Mr. Hudson,
a name celebrated in the annals of railway enterprise, introduced
" a bill to stimulate the prompt and profitable employment of
the people, by the encouragement of railways in Ireland." This
measure proposed an advance of sixteen millions, to be distributed among such Irish railways as could give the security of
the expenditure of capital to half the amount required from the
state. With the debate and the votes that followed, Ireland is
unhappily too familiar.
Prominent among the measures which—IF RUIN IS TO BE
AVERTED FROM IRELAND—must be passed in conjunction with

any such enactments as the Temporary Relief Act, we place
some measure similar in its provisions to that of Lord George
Bentinck. It is impossible to add anything to the facts and reasoning by which the noble lord supported the measures he introduced. It is impossible, let us add, for any to appreciate that
noble lord in the character of a statesman, who has not read and
studied his masterly speech—the title of which we have prefixed
to this article. We cannot say the speech failed to bring conviction to the mind of the House of Commons ; unfortunately,
however, it failed in commanding votes. With surprise, we confess, and grief, we number among the opponents of the measure
it advocated, Sir Robert Peel.
The measure of Lord George Bentinck would have given relief
to all grades and classes of the Irish nation, without costing the
British Treasury one penny. It would have employed our destitute labourers; it would have stimulated our stagnant trade;
developed the resources of our soil, about to be subjected to novel
and unprecedented burdens; and poured into Ireland, rapidly
and yet naturally, an amount of capital, productively employed,
that would have arrested the evil effects of the present calamity
upon her commerce and her trade.
It is impossible to bestow too much or too high praise on the
speech of Lord George Bentinck in introducing this bill. It was
spoken in a spirit worthy of the best days of British statesmanship, with a reliance upon the energies of the country, to which,
in better days, a British House of Commons would proudly have
responded, and in a generous spirit to Ireland, that proved the
difference between genuine andmock liberality to this country—
between the liberality which contents itself with taking privi-

THE FAMINE IN THE LAND.

39

lege from one class of the people to give it to another, and the
liberality that sympathizes with the distress, vindicates the character, and would employ the resources of the empire for the
benefit of all.
These qualities we value almost more than the unanswerable
demonstration, the clear argument, and the accurate knowledge
by which he proved the case he had undertaken to make out.
It is impossible to read that speech without being convinced of
the shortsightedness of the policy, and the wastefulness of the
economy which refused to Ireland this aid. One of the railways
now stopped for want of funds traverses near the doomed district of Skibbereen; another runs to the shores of Bantry Bay :
two more traverse the most destitute districts of the west—districts in which hundreds of thousands have been lavished from
the imperial treasury, upon useless roads, and in which yet
famine numbers its victims hj thousands.
That speech incontestably proved, that for the return of the
sixteen millions to be advanced under the proposed regulations,
the Irish railways would afford ample security—it established
the fact, that wherever railways have been constructed, civilization and. wealth have sprung up ; and it showed, that in the increased consumption of excisable articles, the revenue would permanently gain to an extent almost impossible to calculate, while
in the very sums that were to be expended in the purchase of
land, and paid over to the landlords and the occupiers of estates,
new means of employment would be given—let us add, new
means of impetus to the general trade and industry of Ireland.
Upon the employment of the people we must permit the speech
to speak for itself:—
" Suffice it for me that this great fact stares us in the face, that at this moment
there are 500,000 able-bodied persons in Ireland living upon the funds of the
state ; that there are 500,000 able-bodied persons commanded by a staff of 11,537
persons, employed upon works which have been variously described as ' works
worse than idleness;' by the yeomanry of Ulster, as 'public follies;' and by the
Inspector of the Government himself, Colonel Douglas, as ' works which will
answer no other purpose than that of obstructing the public conveyances.' Sir, I
say that I feel with others that a great calamity is overhanging Ireland; but at
the same time I cannot say that I look with any despondency at the present state
of affairs. Sir, I do hope that we, who in former times have arisen from difficulties far greater than these, shall not be appalled at a calamity which consists in
the loss of property to the value of £10,000,000 sterling; that we who at one
period of the war were expending, upon an average for three years, £103,000,000
sterling a year, will not be down-hearted at having to provide for a deficiency and
for a disaster that may be estimated at £10,000,000. On the contrary, sir, I look
with confident hope that good will rise out of evil, and that so far from lying down
and weeping over our misfortune, like children lost in a wood, we shall have the
spirit to look our difficulties fairly in the face, and to be resolved to exercise a firm
determination to overcome them.
" The great question now arises, and it is this: How many men can you, by
your scheme, find employment for? We know by experience—at least I know
by information received from Mr. Stephenson, the engineer of the line—that the

40

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

London and Birmingham Railway employed 100 men per mile in its construction,
for four consecutive years. The London and Birmingham line, however, was one
far more expensive in its works than the Irish lines, of which the outside average
cost is estimated at £16,000 per mile. The estimate of Mr. Stephenson is, that,
taking one line with another throughout Ireland, to execute the whole of them
would require the services of sixty men per mile for four consecutive years. Sixty
men per mile, for 1500 miles, would give constant employment, for four consecutive years, to 90,000 men on the earthworks and line alone (hear, hear) ; but it
is estimated that the employment given to quarrymen, artificers, and others, not
actually engaged on the line of road, would occupy six men per mile for the whole
number of miles under construction. This would give 9000 men more, to which
is to be added—that which experience teaches is the fact—that when a new railway passes through a country, the new fences to be made, the fields to be squared,
the new drains and courses to be cut, and the new roads to be constructed, also
occupy at least six men per mile, maldng altogether a total number of 108,000
men. But there are other miscellaneous employments to which the expenditure
of so large a sum of money gives rise, and it is thought to be putting the number
very low when we estimate the able-bodied men required to be employed at high
wages, in order to accomplish 1500 miles of railway in Ireland at 110,000, representing, with their families, 550,000 persons (hear, hear). Then, Sir, if, as I
have shown, without cost to this country, and in the end adding greatly to the
wealth of this country, we could by such a measure as this, for four consecutive
years, feed, by means of good wages to the heads of families, 550,000 of the
population of Ireland, it must be admitted that we should go a great way in
assisting my noble friend to carry out his new Poor Law Amendment scheme for
Ireland."

If there be truth in the views we have urged, as to the continuance of the necessity for exertion; if next year, and the year
after, must feel the effects of the famine of last year ; if we have
truly pointed out the dangers of the Temporary Relief Act, and
the extension of the poor law, with what almost immeasurable
force do all these arguments apply! How overwhelming is the
demonstration that if we could avert ruin from all classes in Ireland ; some measure resembling in all its main features, if not
identical with, Lord George Bentinck's rejected measure, must
be passed !
It is impossible to do justice to the argument of this speech,
without quoting the entire. The immense increase which railways have always secured to the productive powers of the country—the stimulus which the very example of their formation
gives to enterprise—these arguments were all urged, and urged in
vain.
No other measure has been suggested that will give a stimulus
to trade. To one feature of Ireland's coming misery, even at the
risk of being deemed prophets of alarm, and perhaps meeting the
fate which the selfishness of those that aim at ease too often
awards to the unprofitable predictions of Cassandra, it is our solemn duty to call attention—we mean the certain ruin that awaits
a large number of the shopkeepers and small traders of the country. It was singular that a long interval elapsed, before the distress that had visited the poorer classes in Ireland, so far reached
the high as to interrupt the ordinary operations of trade. This

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

41

was because the people, whose food was withheld, were, as we
have said, beyond the pale of the ordinary mercantile system.
Those within that pale proceeded in their ordinary routine,
scarcely being conscious that these wretched beings were left without their ordinary sustenance. This could not last. As the gentry
became gradually aware of the full extent of the misery that surrounded them, their expenditure on all but works of charity was
stayed, or in a great degree curtailed. By the beginning of the
new year trade began sensibly to feel the effects of the alarm. By
the middle of the month of March, so far had the stagnation proceeded, that houses of the first respectability, in the leading
streets in Dublin, have closed their establishments on a Saturday
night, without having effected one pound's sale during the week.
Tradesmen in every department are dismissing the workmen from
their employment. These workmen who last year were happy
and independent, supporting themselves by their labour, will, in
a few weeks from the time in which we write, be an additional
burden to the rates of the Temporary Relief Act. While such of
their masters as had some little capital stored, are at this moment
living upon i t ; such of these as have not, have no resource before
them but the Insolvent Calendar and the poor-house.
All this portion of the calamity could have been avoided, had
the measure proposed by Lord George Bentinck been passed. It
may yet be avoided, if some measure like that be yet enacted.
Such a promise of good to our country ivould have given heart to
all classes ; and who is there can overrate the value and importance of this, in a calamity like the present. Hands that now
hang listless, would have moved to active employment—hearts that
now despair, would have beat to the pulses of energetic and stirring
exertion. Who can estimate in millions of pounds, the value of
inspiring courage and confidence, at this fearful crisis, in the Irish
people ?
But again we are driven to ask, where is the public opinion,
where is the public spirit of Ireland ?
Not many years ago we remember when Ireland's nobility and
leading merchants summoned the citizens of Dublin to a meeting,
to call on government to construct railways in Ireland, when no
such pressing necessity existed as there does now ? Why have
we not now a requisition to call forth the voice of the nation in
favour of such a measure as Lord George Bentinck's bill; in the
name of our starving people we ask the question. There have
been occasions upon which the peers and the gentry of Ireland,
in their respective parties, have stood forward in imposing requisitions to convene meetings for party purposes, to express the
opinions which they honestly held; for once, let party feuds be
merged; let class interests be forgotten ; let a great requisition
summon Irishmen to demand that assistance to her railways
which even yet may save Ireland from ruin, and no ministry will

42

THE FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

take on themselves the responsibility of refusing their sanction to
a measure like Lord George Bentinck's bill.
It is in no spirit of invidious signalizing of individual defaulters,
in the midst of national neglect, that we ask, where is the Duke
of Leinster, with the honours and the responsibilities of the descendant of the Geraldines upon his head ? Where is the Marquis of Ormond, with a descent at least equally illustrious in the
history of Ireland? Why does Lord Glengall content himself with
a letter as Chairman of the Waterford and Limerick railway company, pointing out to the English Treasury the number of men
that company could profitably employ!! or Lord Rosse with
publishing those admirable letters to which, though sent with the
name of the noble lord, an English journalist refuses to give a
place in his columns. Let these four men head a requisition convening a meeting in this very month, in the city of Dublin, to
petition parliament for aid—large and liberal aid—-to Ireland in
her present distress, and we are bold to say that, responded to as
that requisition wrill be, no English minister will dare to take on
himself the responsibility of refusing it.
Demanding for Ireland that the government should now give
large and liberal assistance to the speedy construction of railways
in the country, we pass to the next class of measures which have
been suggested as necessary for the transition state through which
Ireland must pass ; that class of measures includes those which
propose
II. A LARGE ENCOURAGEMENT TO EMIGRATION.

Emigration is not, perhaps, a popular word—-we do not wonder that in Ireland it should not be so, because it has hitherto
been associated with the loss of the best and bravest of her people. So long as emigration is left to the unaided efforts of the
emigrants themselves, it must be the natural result that the most
industrious and most enterprising of our peasantry should be
those who would hazard the adventure of a new world. Emigration, besides, requires some little expenditure to make it productive ; and in former years it has been our duty, in the pages of
this very periodical, to point the attention of our rulers to the
tide of emigration which was rapidly draining Ireland of her Protestant population—the yeomanry of Ulster. To recommend
emigration, too, appears to favour the harsh doctrine of political
economists, which represents the increase of population as the
origin of all the evils of the human race. The recommendation
may be answered by many specious arguments, and met by many
plausible appeals to facts.
Nevertheless, emigration was from the beginning the destiny
assigned to the human race—" Be fruitful and multiply, AND
R E P L E N I S H THE E A R T H , " was the Creator's primeval command

to the family of man. I t is in truth the necessary condition of
his existence upon earth. How much of all the misery we de-

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

43

plore in the state of civilized society may, perhaps, be traced to
the neglect of the primeval injunction of our race. Men are
crowded in the manufactories of Lancaster or the alleys of London, while wide plains of South America—the fairest portion of
the globe—are untrodden by the foot of man ; human beings
have been for years famishing in Ireland for lack of food, while
one,valley on the Mississippi lies uncultivated, that would raise
corn enough to supply the whole human race with food. Men
have been fruitful, and they have multiplied, but they have not
replenished the earth.
Attention has been latterly turned to emigration, as a means
not only of relieving the present distress of Ireland—to that task
it is inadequate—but as a means of enabling the country to pass
through the ordeal that is yet before it. Lord Ashburton and
Lord Ripon, in the House of Lords, have expressed themselves
favourable to such a plan. Mr. Murray, Mr. Shafto Adair, and
Colonel Torrens, have urged strongly in the pamphlets the titles
of which we have prefixed, the necessity of encouraging emigration. Among the English journals, the Morning Herald has recommended the adoption of a system of emigration, with equal
perseverance and ability; and to the advocates of an extended
emigration—although his valuable letters on the state of Ireland
were not written directly with reference to this subject—we can
add, on the testimony of these letters, the honoured name of the
Earl of Rosse0
The policy, the actual necessity of emigration from Ireland, is,
indeed, so obvious, that it needs only to look fairly at the actual
condition of the country to be aware of its indispensable importance. The difference to which we have already adverted between
the quantity of ground necessary to give sustenance to a human
being on a corn and on a potato diet, is in itself demonstration,
that it is impossible for the country to pass from the one mode of
subsistence to the other—and pass, we believe it must—without
the most fearful suffering and confusion, if its present population
continue to crowd its soil. Apart, however, from the present
circumstances of Ireland, the population of the country has been
too dense, not for its capabilities of supporting them, if properly
called forth, but too dense for the circumstances in which the
country has been placed. Ireland, to support eight millions of
people, would have required, at least, all her present agricultural
produce, and many other things besides. We should have had
the accumulated products of the industry of many former years—
works upon which former generations had spent their savings—
factories in which the savings of the present would enable the
owners to advance food and sustenance to thousands of workmen,
who now are wretched squatters on her bogs or her fields ; a soil
highly improved, the result of a long and careful tillage, farmsteads provided with all the appliances of high and successful cul-

44

T H E FAMINE I N T H E LAND.

tivation, and all the means of large expenditure within the reach
of the farmer; we should, in a word, have in the hands of all
the different classes of society what political economists have
called capital; we should have the whole country filled with the
accumulated products of by-gone industry, and more than this,
we should have a population trained to skill, and taught in industrious occupations. "Were Ireland such a country as this, it could
support, from its natural resources, far more than its present population. But how different from such an Ireland is the Ireland
with which we have to deal—bare, naked, and unimproved!—no
capital in the hands of its people—its population unskilled—its
natural advantages unemployed—such an Ireland is incapable of
supporting its present population.
Could we accomplish all these requisites in a day—could we
give to the farmers all the appliances they would need for successful cultivation of the soil—could we endue them with knowledge
so to apply them—could we stud our country with these evidences
of capital, which must be the growth of the expenditure of years;
and could we, after all these miracles of transforming the habits
of our people—of enduing the wretched cottier with the skill of
the artisan—of fitting our rural population for pursuits that are
utterly opposed to the long-formed habits of their lives—then,
indeed, the millions who now inhabit Ireland might be supported
in comfort and independence within her shores ; but if all this be
but the dream of a fairy tale, to be used in sober argument only
as an illustration of impracticability—and if the country, as it is
now, cannot support its present population, what expedient is
there but to remove a portion to scenes where energy and enterprise will raise for them a comfortable subsistence and a happy
home.
What instance does the history of civilization afford of a country in which the population have multiplied, as they have done in
Ireland, without the progress of these improvements which would
have fitted the country to sustain them, emerging from such a
state ? The beginnings of improvement belong, in the natural
order of a nation's progress, to a time when population is thin,
and its advance should at least keep pace with the increase of
numbers ; but a dense population of paupers presents a problem
in the economic condition of man, in which it is not easy to discover the means by which they are to rise from such a state. In
every effort at improvement, they must be in each other's way.
How forcibly is this felt in Ireland. What plans for social improvement does not the density of the population obstruct ? Here
is the evidence of Mr. Murray, * to whose practical wisdom, and
* Mr. Murray has been for many years, indeed we believe since its establishment, the chief manager in Ireland of all the concerns of the Provincial Bank ;
an establishment which is said to owe much, if not all of its present high position

THE

FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

45

intimate acquaintance with the circumstances of the country, every
one in Ireland will pay deference :—
"There is abundance of means, as regards money, intelligence, and energy,
amongst the tenantry in Ireland, to improve the country and make it productive
in proportion to its natural capabilities, but that tenantry so often stand in the
way of each other as to render it impossible for a movement to be made. In
every townland there is to be found, as in every other condition in life, one, two,
three, or more men as tenants who, by reason of their greater intelligence, industry, and carefulness, are capable of holding positions greatly above those they
now occupy; but they could not, and dare not, venture to extend their usefulness for their own benefit and that of their country, because they could only do
so by the ejectment of their neighbours from their homes and places of refuge.
Upon these men, and such as them, however, would devolve the regeneration of
Ireland, if the way were prepared for them. Their savings, in place of being deposited in the National Savings' Banks of the country, the present place of safety,
would soon be invested in the improvement of a grateful soil, as far more remunerative. The course of that improvement would be gradual,—but pave a course
for it, and set it in motion, and like the stone in the proverb, its progress would
be vastly accelerated as it proceeded. The labour to be afforded in this way
would be natural—the wages of labour would be increased, and as these were permanently increased, and steady and continual employment obtained, emigration
would naturally cease. The increased wages of labour would be amply compensated by the annually increasing produce of the soil, and each succeeding year
would add to its productiveness."

We ask again, from what analogy are we to expect an overcrowded population of paupers to civilize themselves ? In their
very struggles for existence, they must, as has been finely said,
trample each other down into indigence.
Mr. Shafto Adair, in his " Winter in Antrim," one of the
ablest pamphlets which for many years has issued from the press,
urges strongly the necessity for emigration, not only as a means
of meeting the change that Ireland must pass through in losing
the potato, but still more as a safe and necessary adjunct to the
great social revolution which must be created by the new poor
law act:—•
" And here I would distinguish between emigration—by which I understand
the thrusting forth of unwelcome inmates from the parent home, as young ravens
are driven into the wilderness—and colonization, by which systematic facility is
afforded to industrious men to found, under other skies, British homes within the
circumference of the British empire.
" I view, as among the worthiest objects of a statesman's ambition, the extension of the British race, and its institutions, through all lands. Broad regions lie
ready for our occupancy: the crowded multitudes, who might find happy competences, and lead honoured lives in those yet unbroken solitudes, trample down
each other in their fierce fight for existence on the over-burdened native soil.

to its indefatigable industry, and great ability, and tact. The letter to Sir Robert
Peel, in which he has urged the necessity of emigration, is one of the best timed
and most valuable contributions to the cause of Ireland which her present calamity
has called forth.

46

THE FAMINE IN THE LAND.

Many a brave heart has sighed forth its last during this dreadful winter, which
might have animated, had it been cared for, another hardy settler to a British
colony.
" Therefore systematic colonization must, for years to come, be adopted as a
principle in the social management of Ireland; and the circumstances of the
times, while they increase the facility, furnish additional proof of the necessity of
such a step."
. . . . . .
" The tendency of the new state of things will be to enlarge holdings, and to
convert the cottiers into labourers. It is probable, therefore, that a much larger
class, willing to emigrate, will crowd upon you, and that the newly-opened channels of employment may not be choked, it will be well to assist them. The Union
has already power to assist in emigration; but the co-operation of government is
necessary, in order to conciliate the public mind to the extensive assessment that
would be necessary, even to the half of the actual outlay. The labouring poor
should be taught to feel that colonization was not an engine for banishment, but
to promote the positive well-being of the colonist; the rate-payer should be enabled to appreciate at once the prospective relief to be obtained by a partial ex penditure of his contributions, for the purpose of relieving the labour market; and
the government, as trustee for the empire, should take care that those whom the
mother country could not employ, should find the means of honest subsistence in
her scarcely-peopled colonies.
" But government alone, and unassisted public bodies, are not equal to the task
of colonization, from which all possible benefits might be derived. The necessary
funds should be furnished by the two parties to the operation—by the Union, in
consideration of the actual relief, and as acting for the benefit of the pauper emigrant ; and by the government, on behalf of the empire, whose solid power is
augmented by every emigrant transplanted to her colonial possessions."

Colonel Torrens, long known and valued for his labours in the
cause of emigration, has shown the possibility of locating a population much larger than could be taken away from Ireland, in British colonies. There may, indeed, be difficulties in providing
for the support of a large number of emigrants when landed upon
one of these colonial shores. But as we have already said, men
cannot meet a famine, the like of which the world never saw,
without difficulty. Those who wish for demonstration that it is
possible, by a well-arranged system of colonization, to provide
amply for the comfort and welfare of the emigrant, will find it in
the admirable Essay of Colonel Torrens.
The Morning Herald, & journal which has advocated Irish interests always with generosity and ability, generally with accurate
knowledge of the circumstances of this country, has recently referred to a very striking statement in the report of the commission to inquire into the state of the Irish poor. The statement
and the comment embody, in clear and truthful language, facts of
the utmost importance in estimating the value of emigration,
either in relation to the general state of Ireland, or the measures
that are in progress :—
" The statement to which we refer is contained in the following passage, to be
found in the first passage of the commissioners' report:—.
" ' I t appears that in Great Britain the agricultural families constitute a little
more than a fourth, while in Ireland they constitute about two-thirds of the whole

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

47

population; that there were in Great Britain, in 1831, 1,055,982 agricultural
labourers ; in Ireland, 1,131,715. Although the cultivated land in Great Britain
amounts to about 34,250,000 acres, and that of Ireland only to about 14,600,000,
THERE ARE IN IRELAND ABOUT FIVE AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS FOR EVERY
TWO THAT THERE ARE FOR THE SAME QUANTITY OF LAND IN GREAT BRITAIN.'
" Thus we have in the outset the quantity of land that in this country would
support two agricultural labourers, in Ireland supporting five. Suppose, then, the
produce of that quantity in each country to be the same; suppose the share of the
produce allotted to the reward of labour to be the same, and still you find the Irish
labourer in a condition not half as comfortable as that of the English or Scotch.
Some small, very small, allowance we know must be made in this calculation for
the fact that the Irish agricultural labourer is himself, in many instances, the
lessee and occupier of the soil, and so adds to his share what in England would
be the profits of the farmer on this small holding; but the accuracy of the stubborn
figures that supply the data of the calculation is indisputable.
" But this supposition is far too favourable to the condition of the Irish labourer. The very same report supplies us with the means of calculating that the
quantity of land upon which, in Ireland, Jive labourers are located, produces very
little more than half the value produced by the same quantity in England, upon
which there are but two. Here is the short statement of the miserable and depressed condition of the population of Ireland. Give to this state of facts what
name you will—call it superabundant population—designate it as a want of
efficiency in agricultural labour—describe it as want of capital—express it by the
nomenclature of any favourite theory or science that you please, in the end you
must come round to the plain stubborn statement of fact, that five agricultural
labourers squat themselves upon a piece of ground in Ireland which, in England,
would be tilled by two; and that, after all, there is raised from that piece of
ground about half as much as is yielded by the corresponding piece in England.
" Is it too much to say that here is demonstration that no measure of relief can
permanently improve the condition of Ireland that does not contemplate, either by
direct means, or indirectly as a consequence, the removal of no inconsiderable proportion of this agricultural population from the soil? Distribute as you will the
produce of the land—nay, increase that produce as you will, and leave the five
labourers still to receive the same share that two receive in England, and the destitution of Ireland is not removed. Increase the taxation of the poor law until
you give each of the five as much as each of the two has in England, and you
pauperize all classes. Will you leave 100,000 persons in Ireland depending upon
agricultural labour more than there are in England so depending, no legislative
enactment can raise the condition of the Irish labourers to a level with ours. The
importance of the statement we have quoted from the commissioners' report it is
impossible to over-rate. It is the key to Ireland's destitution; it is the warning
of the dangers that must attend the attempt to relieve Irish distress by the mere
enactment of a poor law; in our minds, it points to the safe and practicable remedy. What is that remedy ? We say with Mr. Murray, in the able and welltimed pamphlet with which we have already made our readers familiar, ' in one
word—emigration.' If the plainest calculations of arithmetic can be relied on—
if the rules of addition and subtraction be not cheats—you cannot permit the present population still to prey upon the soil, and hope to see the country elevated to
a level with England. What is to be done with those whom you must remove,
in a country where there are no manufacturers to receive them, even were they
fit for such employment—where they are too numerous to be located on the waste
lands, even were all the waste lands capable of being reclaimed ? JSTo dictate of
common sense appears more axiomatic than that which would prompt us to remove this population to those fruitful and vast plains of other regions in which
man has yet new conquests to make, and new stores of subsistence to command.
Shall one grand effort be made to do this now, when the people will co-operate
with us ; or shall we permit this wretched population to continue to trample each
other down into indigence, until insulted nature vindicates her own laws, and

48

THE FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

periodical visitations of famine, and its sure attendant, pestilence, depopulate an
over-burdened and neglected land ?
" We stated, on Tuesday, our conviction, that were the circumstances of the
Irish landlords prosperous, they would, at their own cost, avail themselves of the
eagerness now manifested for emigration by their cottier tenants. "We have heard,
and we believe with truth, of one Irish nobleman (better known, however, as an
English statesman) whose agents have actually contracted for the removal to
Canada, at his expense, of 2,000 persons, cottier tenants, and their families, who
have thankfully accepted the boon that removes them from destitution to a region
where their industry will find them bread.
" There is not an estate in Ireland upon which, to a greater or less extent, the
same offer, made in a kindly spirit, and with proper additions, would not now be
received as a boon. Once more we ask of our rulers, shall the opportunity be lost ?'*

We have quoted this statement at length, because, while we do
not entirely assent to all its reasonings, we feel that it forcibly
calls attention to one great fact in the economic condition of Ireland, which must never be forgotten or overlooked, we mean the
superabundance of the agricultural population on the soil of Ireland, compared either with its produce or the necessities of its
cultivation. In every consideration of Ireland's condition, in every
proposition for the improvement of the country, this fact meets us
as one of the landmarks of her social state.
Foremost among the advocates for emigration we must place
Mr. Murray. He it was who first called attention to the fact, that
this year the small holders of land in Ireland ivere, for the first
time as a body, willing to emigrate. By how many evidences this
is now confirmed, no one who has watched the progress of events
in Ireland needs be told. Every seaport is crowded with emigrants, leaving behind them this land of horrors. The neglect of
tillage, which Mr. Labouchere was led to charge as a crime upon
the people of some districts, proceeded from their determination
to depart from the country. Such few of the landlords as have
the means, are now doing that which in former years no price
could have commanded ridding their estates of the pauper tenants
for whose location upon them they never were responsible. Miserable in jlreland, these very people will, in another state of social
existence, exhibit qualities of industry, of enterprise, and of prudence, which no one could have dreamed of discovering in the listless or turbulent idler here, while their departure will leave room
for others of their countrymen to exhibit the same qualities at
home. One extract from Mr. Murray's pamphlet we cannot refrain from the satisfaction of quoting. Let us see what we may
expect from our people when fair open is given to the fine qualities, moral and physical, with which nature has endowed them.
It is a passage in which the writer feelingly details the remittances which Irish emigrants are in the habit of sending across the
Atlantic to their relatives at home :—
"You have been accustomed," he says, addressing the statesman to whom he
writes, " to grapple with and master figures, whether as representing the produce

THE FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

49

of former tariffs, or in constructing new ones, or in showing the income and expenditure of the greatest nation on the earth. Those now about to be presented
to you, as an appendix to this communication, are small, very small, in their separate amounts, and not by any means in the aggregate of the magnitude of the
sums you have been accustomed to deal with; but they are large separately, and
heaving large in the aggregate, in all that is connected with the higher and nobler
parts of our nature—in all that relates to and evinces the feeling of the heart towards those who are of our kindred, no matter by what waters placed asunder, or
by what distance separated. They are large, powerfully large, in reading lessons
of instruction to the statesman and philanthropist, in dealing with a warm-hearted
people for their good, and in placing them in a position of comparative comfort to
that in which they now are. These figures represent the particulars of 7917 separate Bills of Exchange, varying in amount from £ 1 to ,£10 each—few exceeding
the latter s u m ; so many separate offerings from the natives of Ireland who have
heretofore emigrated from its shores, sent to their relations and friends in Ireland,
drawn and paid between the 1st of January and the 15th of December, 1846—not
quite one year; and amount in all to £41,261 9s. l i d . But this list, long though
it be, does not measure the number and amount of such interesting offerings. I t
contains only about one-third part of the whole number and value of such remittances that have crossed the Atlantic to Ireland during the 349 days of 1846. The
data from which this list is compiled enable the writer to estimate with confidence
the number and amount drawn otherwise; and he calculates that the entire number, for not quite one year, of such bills, is 24,000, and the amount £125,000,
or, on an average, £ 5 4s. 2d. each. They are sent from husband to wife, from
father to child, from child to father, mother, and grand-parents, from sister to
brother, and the reverse; and from and to those united by all the ties of blood and
friendship that binds us together on earth."

Who will not assent to the justice of his comment ?—
" These remittances show by evidence incontrovertible that it is the want of
opportunity alone that prevents the population of Ireland from raising itself, and
becoming prosperous. That opportunity cannot, as Ireland is circumstanced, be
given at home; let it be afforded elsewhere. If Ireland were not ' sea-girded,'
would the population have become what it is ? Certainly not: it would long ago
have relieved itself.
" If we turn from the physical capacity of the population, as strongly manifested by these remittances, to raise itself, so as to enable it to support relations
and friends, to the evidence which is afforded by them of the moral qualities of
the population, there is proof equally incontestable of the heart of that population
being in the right place. The first savings of labour are sent to aid those who
were nursed in the same arms, and reared under the same roofs, with the emigrants, or to those who nursed and reared them."

Imperfect, of necessity, as has been our review of the facts and
arguments that incontrovertibly establish the absolute necessity
for extended emigration from this country, we have sufficiently
examined the subject to demonstrate, that among the remedial
measures for Ireland, emigration or colonization must hold a
prominent place. The enormous voluntary emigration that is
this year taking place, evidences how favourable is the opportunity. Unhappily, however, this emigration is just of the class
that it is desirable to keep at home. Those who are able to
leave the country without assistance are persons who must take
with them means and enterprise that the country can but ill
spare. The landlords share too deeply in the calamity of the
E

50

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND,

visitation, to be able in general to give to their other tenants the
means of removing themselves and their families.
After all, might not the best charity be, when we have failed
in bringing the food to the people, to spend our money in
enabling the people to go to the food. The ships that are bringing us provisions from beyond the Atlantic, might thus, in their
transit each way, feed the hungry—on one passage bringing the
corn to the land of famine—on the other, taking the people from
the land of famine to the corn.
Emigration cannot, however, be carried on so as effectually to
relieve the condition of Ireland, without assistance from the
state. Unfortunately in this, as in other matters relating to the
present state of Ireland, time, precious time, has been lost, that
can never be recalled. We know that it is impossible for the
government, as a government, to interfere in emigration to any
but colonies of their own; we know also that government cannot
be expected to undertake to superintend the shipment of emigrants to those colonies, without having made proper provision
for them on their arrival—all this we know and feel, and, therefore, we fear that, in this year, it is vain to look for any very
extended system of colonization from Ireland. To some extent,
even this year, it may be carried. In some, at least, of the colonies, the colonists are even now ready to receive emigrants, as
farm labourers, upon terms upon which our poor people would
be happy to go ; and it is not easy to calculate the number who,
even this year, government might thus locate. But why should
not government at once assist with the means any landlords who
will be willing to give to their cottier tenants the means of emigration, leaving to the parties themselves the entire responsibility
of selecting the place of destination. This, we believe^ might
safely be done this year, supplementary to any direct amount of
colonization which government might take upon themselves.
Valuable opportunities will unquestionably have been lost in
the present year; but next year they will recur. The effects of
the famine will not pass away for years. And next year will witness
a readiness for emigration similar to the present. The administration of the new poor law ought to be so managed that no person
who continues to be the holder of land should be entitled to
relief. The opportunities for promoting voluntary emigration will
not soon pass away. It will rest with the British ministry to be
prepared to avail themselves of them.
In every colony of Great
Britain, preparations should be made to receive as many as possible of those who, next year as well as this, will be prepared to
accept thankfully the means of transit from Ireland. Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, the Cape of Good Hope, and even Ceylon, may all be ready to afford a home to some. But why should
new colonies be formed ? Is the splendid territory at last peaceably secured to us in the Oregon to remain a waste ? Why should

T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

51

not a British and an Irish colony people that splendid country,
which the early habits of those who would emigrate from Ireland
would fit them to till. We expose, perhaps, our plan to the hazard of objections, by entering into these details. It is not possible for any man, without the information of a colonial minister,
to fix the locality or localities to which the surplus population
should be removed. Enough for us to prove that the well-being
of Ireland demands that her agricultural population should be
made less dense—that unless it be so, the measures intended for
her improvement can only perpetuate and deepen her poverty—
and that in the present circumstances of the country an opportunity is offered of removing, with their own full consent, such a
portion of the overcrowded population of Ireland as will leave
room at home for the enterprise and energies of those who are
left, to make Ireland a prosperous nation ; while those who are
thus removed will provide the colonies of Great Britain with a
bold, an ingenious, and as they have ever proved themselves, under happier circumstances, an energetic and industrious race.
It^remains with us to say a few words upon the third class of
measures to which we have adverted :—
I I I . Measures for improving the productiveness or extending
the surface of the cultivated land in Ireland.
Upon the h'rst of these objects we have, in a great degree,
anticipated our comment. The Drainage Act of last year supplies, unquestionably, most valuable facilities for the permanent
improvement of estates; and were the suggestion followed, of
permitting proprietors and farmers to relieve the burden of the
Temporary Relief Act, by taking the labourers to works of profitable occupation, giving some similar security for the repayment
to that which we have suggested, we believe much might be done
this year in making the soil of Ireland more productive. Let
government, however, by offering facilities for emigration, give
the opportunity of removing the cottier paupers, who have
hitherto kept the land less than half tilled—let them increase
the demand for the produce of the soil by a general measure of
railways to facilitate intercourse through the country, and the
permanently improved cultivation of the soil of Ireland may safely
be left to the energies of the people themselves.
The question of the reclamation of the waste lands is one of
difficulty and magnitude. The exact nature of the measure
which ministers intend to propose upon the subject we do not
know. It will involve, probably, the power of taking these lands
from the owners who have not the means or the capacity to improve them, and the improvement of them at the expense of the
state. In the waste lands of the country will be found, to a very
great extent, the means at present of usefully employing the
labour we must purchase, and the means permanently of locating
in comfortable circumstances a portion of that population, wrhich

52

T H E FAMINE I N T H E

LAND.

Ireland, in the existing state of her agriculture, is no longer able
even to feed. In the same waste lands may, perhaps, be found
the means of establishing in the country a class of yeomen proprietors, if it be desirable to establish them—a proposition, we
confess, of which we have serious doubts.
In whatever way, or by whatever tenure, the reclaimed lands
are to be disposed of, their reclamation does appear the plainest
and the most obvious of all remedial measures for Ireland. It
must not be forgotten that almost all the measures which are now
called for for Ireland are, as Mr. P. Scrope observes, the procrastinated measures of former years. Emigration and the reclamation of the waste lands were urged upon the ministry of 1837, as
remedies for the state of Ireland, without which the poor law of
that year would be a mockery—they were urged in the insulted
and discarded report of the Commissioners of Poor Law Inquiry,
the suggestions of which Lord John Russell contemptuously
flung aside, to legislate for Ireland upon the report of a six
weeks' inspection. If out-door relief is now alarming the more
timid of the Irish proprietors—if Irish distress is now embamssing the British ministry, let us remind both of the legislation of
1837. An opportunity then presented itself of improving permanently the condition of the Irish nation. A royal commission
had then deliberately suggested the calm and careful consideration of the very measures of emigration and reclamation of the
waste lands, which will now be carried into effect by an agitated
parliament and a terrified proprietary. From comprehensive
measures, the responsibility of which they feared, the ministry of
that day escaped by Mr. Nicholls and the workhouses ; but look
back to the debates, and see what evidence is there of the Irish
representatives urging upon the nation the measures that then
ought to have been taken to raise the condition of the Irish
people—what do we find ? miserable debates about details, and,
on the part of some, a mere vain attempt—as there is now—to
resist the obligation of a poor-law—an attempt which failed then
as it has failed now, and only damaged the character of those
who made it, and with them, unfortunately, the character of the
Irish gentry.
It is impossible to read the letter of Mr. Poulett Scrope and
the evidence selected by him from that taken by Lord Devon's
commission, without being convinced that in the waste lands of
Ireland, of which there are about a million and a-half of acres reclaimable for tillage purposes, and nearly two millions and a-half
for that of pasture—there is a resource to which we may confidently look for the support of a considerable portion of the population for whom, in the social revolution through which Ireland is
passing, we must provide a subsistence and a home. To believe,
however, that upon those waste lands can be located the whole,
or even anything like a large proportion of her rural surplus

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

53

population, is an exaggeration of the wildest and most mischievous
character. No! we must have—unpleasant, perhaps, as the conclusion is—we must have colonization ahroad. All men who have
turned their attention to the state of Ireland, have felt the evil of
her overburthened agricultural population. Schemes, apparently
the most opposite, all have reference to this one giant mischief of
our state. Home colonization, and foreign colonization, or emigration, however apparently different, are just the same in principle—an attempt to locate that population elsewhere than upon the
soil they now overcrowd. To the sense of the same ever present
evil may be traced the attempts that have been made to turn a
portion of that population to manufacturing pursuits, by reviving
or establishing native manufactures. The mind is slow in receiving the conviction which we have endeavoured in a previous part
of this article to express, that a dense population, steeped in pauperism, can never extricate themselves from the degradation of
their condition, until a portion of them are removed.
We have, however, land at home, upon which some, at least, of
that population may be located; obvious indeed is the policy
which prompts the selection of this home soil for their location,
and collateral with the extensive colonization of our people abroad,
we earnestly hope that measures will be introduced to reclaim and
appropriate to the use of man, the extensive tracts which now lie
waste and unproductive, within the circle of our shores.
We have concluded the task which we assigned to ourselves in
reviewing the sad history of the famine, and suggesting the measures by which the evils of Ireland may be met. Unreasonable
as is, perhaps, the space which this article has occupied of the
pages of this periodical—unreasonable, certainly, were the question we have discussed, one less vital than the very existence of
our country—we feel how wholly inadequate and imperfect has
been our consideration of the matters we have included in our review. We feel, too, that in suggesting so much of detail as we
have done in these pages, we have exposed the plans we recommend to cavils which a more prudent adherence to a general outline might have escaped. If, however, the general outline of the
measures we have suggested be just, and expedient, and right—
let those who quarrel with any particular items of our plan—remember that until the general principles we have put forward
can be displaced, our argument is not affected, by showing that
the writer of those pages has not the information, or perhaps the
capacity, to shape these measures into unexceptionable detail.
No doubt the measures we have pressed will involve an advance, to no inconsiderable amount, of the money or the credit of
the state—a little more, perhaps, as a loan, than Ireland and England jointly gave as a gift to carry out the project of negro emancipation. All our measures are based upon the principle that
this calamity ought to be regarded as an imperial one, and borne

54

T H E FAMINE IN T H E

LAND.

by the empire at large. If this be not conceded—if the state be
not, as we have said, our government—if we are not to receive the
assistance which government can render upon such an occasion—
what alternative is there for any Irishman but to feel that the
•united parliament has abdicated the functions of government for
Ireland, and to demand for his country that separate legislative
existence, the necessity of which will then be fully proved.
It is true, no doubt, that the united empire can bring to the
task resources far greater than any which a separate Irish government or parliament could command. But for a partnership in
such extended resources—individuals first, and small communities
afterwards—consent to lose their particular existence, or merge it
in the combination of mighty states. These are the occasions
upon which may be realized the memorable words of Pitt, in advocating that very Union, the first principle of which those who
would throw this burden exclusively upon Ireland assail—that
(<
we have all a greater stake in the strength and prosperity of the
empire at large, than we can have in any petty and separate interest of its component parts."
There is not one of the measures we have proposed which would
not abundantly repay the imperial exchequer twice over—we say
not in the increased strength of the empire—in the changed condition of Ireland—but estimated in pounds, shillings, and pence,
in the increased revenue which, with our improved condition, our
people would pay. No more profitable investment for state expenditure than Ireland now presents, was ever offered to the exchequer of a great nation.
To a liberal and generous policy to Ireland, the next few years
will bring returns in the peace, the content, and the prosperity of
this country, which no calculations of finance can measure, and
for which no expenditure can be too great—but even in the
legers of the financier a very short period will, in the increasedfeontributions to the revenue which rising opulence will bring, blot
out the largest entries of expenditure for which the measures we
have demanded could call, and leave on the other side of the account a perpetual source of income and strength.
\ Estimated even by the low considerations of finance, no draught
which the permanent improvement of Ireland demands upon the
imperial exchequer ought now to be refused. Considerations of a
higher character than these leave no doubt of the course that the
nation is bound to pursue. The first duties of government imperatively require the effort of which present circumstances present the opportunity to raise Ireland in the scale of civilization.
To avert, as far as human efforts can, the terrible calamity of famine, were a task to which one might think we would not summon the government of England in vain, were the sufferers the
inhabitants of the remotest island upon which the flag of England
was ever planted. To raise the condition of Ireland, so that the

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

55

fearful occurrences of last year may never again disgrace the civilized world, is surely an object upon which all the energies of the
empire might be well employed. Contemplate the stupendous
exertions of England in the continental war, and we cannot help
asking, in amazement, whether the nation that made these exertions is now permitting—when her means, with her opulence and
her population, are doubled—is permitting her own subjects and
kindred to perish at her very door ?
When gigantic subsidies were then voted to the allies of Britain abroad—or mighty fleets and armaments fitted out—the arguments were not heard that the raising of the necessary sums
would derange the money market upon 'Change. This was yet
the argument, the only argument by which Lord George Benthick's bill was met. Were Ireland in rebellion instead of famine,
and the money asked for an armament to conquer her, would this
argument have prevailed ? Miserable and short-sighted policy,
even of finance ! It never entered into the calculations of those
who adopted it, to consider whether the ruin of all classes in Ireland would bring no derangement to the money market upon
'Change.
The assistance we ask for is a matter of humanity, of prudence, of duty ; but it is more—it is, by the treaty of Union, a
matter of national faith. To the claims of prudence, humanity,
and duty, are superadded those of good faith—with Englishmen,
perhaps, the strongest of all. All measures that have yet been
proposed by ministers are framed upon the principle that Ireland
herself must bear the burden of this unprecedented visitation ;
while the aid that imperial credit might afford her for the development of her own resources is either altogether refused, or
given in so niggardly and procrastinating a dole that it becomes
useless. A perseverance in this principle, short-sighted, narrow-minded, and unjust as it is, is the sentence of confiscation to
the property of Ireland, and of beggary and ruin to all classes
of her people. If Ireland be left to struggle through the crisis
which now agonizes her, with such measures and such assistance
as have been offered, it is not difficult to foresee the embarrassment and confusion that must come upon all. We have traced
already the process by which the loss of the people's food has
spread upwards through society, until the calamity is now beginning to be felt by all. From the gentry to the tradesman, from
the tradesman to the merchant, embarrassment and distress are,
at this moment, silently perhaps, but surely, spreading. We do
not now reiterate the arguments by which we have shewn the inevitable result of leaving Ireland to grapple, unaided, with the
giant malady that afflicts her. The process of national ruin is
one not difficult to trace. In the ruin of the landed interest, the
downfall of all classes is involved; and at no distant day a uni-

56

T H E FAMINE I N T H E LAND.

versal bankruptcy will complete the horrors of Ireland's social
revolution.
Is England prepared for this ? Have English statesmen calculated its effect upon their own people ? Let them not believe
that Ireland can become one wide field of confusion and distress.,
and England not share in the calamity. Little, perhaps, as
Englishmen may be disposed to think of the confiscation of the
estates of the Irish gentry, and the confusion that such a process
must bring upon all property in Ireland, they must not delude
themselves with the idea that the process will not react fearfully
on England herself. The monetary and commercial systems of
this great empire have too many complications to admit of such
a result. If Ireland be now left to her fate, the British empire
itself may not stand the shock by which its stability will be
tried.
In a thousand ways that no man can predict, the contiguity of
such distress as we anticipate in Ireland will produce upon the
sister country its disturbing and dangerous effects. Were we to
look no further than the emigration into England of the destitute
Irish to whom you are refusing to give the means of transportation to more distant lands, but who have not the means of living
at home—take this one instance of the danger of the contiguity
of pauperism. The English people complain of it already. Let
us wait, however^ until the legitimate occasion for such immigration arises with the harvest, when annually the English farmer
has to invoke their aid. What multitudes of reapers will next
autumn see pouring upon your fields ? What power on earth
can prevent this ? The Irish, indeed, are threatened with being
sent back—nay those who send them menaced with persecution.
But statesmen will scarcely be prepared to treat Ireland like' the
ill-fated ship, the Eclaire, and prevent her ill-fated inhabitants
from escaping from the plague.
But these are physical and material instances, or emblems
rather, of the manner in which Irish distress must act upon
English prosperity. But the credit—the commerce of the two
countries, are too deeply involved in mutual complications, to
permit Irish society to be convulsed by an economic revolution,
without shaking the credit of the commercial and monetary system of England to its foundation. Who can calculate the ultimate financial embarrassment that all classes in England may
now escape, by liberality in the expenditure of imperial resources
upon this ill-fated land ? If we be right in the views we have
taken, that a liberal application of the imperial resources is necessary to avert ruin from Ireland, then is it matter of demonstration, that the effect of a niggard policy towards Ireland will
be, in permitting the evils of famine to eat away the fabric of
Irish society, to cause it to undermine the fabric of British prosperity itself.

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

57

Were, then, the advances our plans involve ten times larger
than those which they can possibly require, still all the. considerations of prudence, of duty, of revenue, of good faith—every
sense of the duties of states—every feeling of respect for treaties—nay, every motive of self-interest, should prompt the British nation cheerfully to acquiesce in the measures we propose.
Speaking of a far distant province, to a people comparatively
uncommercial in their character, and in an age when the relations
of commerce were not so complicated as they are now, the Roman orator addressed the Roman people in language which, surely,
is not less applicable to the claims we have urged on the British
nation:
" Erit igitur humanitatis vestrse magnum civium numerum calamitate prohibere, sapiential videre multoriim civium calamitatem a republica sejimctam esse
non posse. * * * Non enim possunt UNA, in civitate multi rematque fortunas
amittere ut non plures secum in eandem calamitatem traherent, a quo periculo
prohibete rempublicam ; et mihi creclifce, id quod ipsi videtis, hasc fides atque hajc
ratio pecuniarum quas Romas quae in foro versatur implicata est cum illis pecuniis
Asiaticis et cohaaret. Ruenre illae non possunt et hasc non eodem motu labefactata
concidant. Quare viclete num dubitandum vobis sit omni studio ad id opus incumbere in quo gloria nominis vestri, salus sociorum, vectigalia maxuma, fort u n e plurimorum civium, una cum republica defendatur."

""^^^T^^oression of this is inapplicable to the present
circumstances of tins ^ ,
e y e n t h ^ a s t ? « una cun f r
b.
lica ( In the fortunes of Ireland itow, ^ believe the destinies
of the British empire itself to be involved. It is, alas, too possible that, by the policy of ministers, Ireland may be ruined or
lost—it is NOT possible that it can be either without shaking
British power to its base. If weakness, and unwise and wasteful parsimony, and an ungenerous spirit to Ireland, now govern
the councils of the nation—the theories which have been mistaken for the doctrines of science may be adhered to—immediate
outlay may be saved—the favourite plan of those whose liberality knows nothing more liberal than a scheme to ruin the Irish
landlords, may be triumphantly carried out; but in the misery
and starvation of the poor that is present, and the confusion and
beggary of all classes that must follow in no distant day, will be
the sure forerunners of the dissolution of the British empire.
Time, indeed, has been lost, that can never be recalled—lives
have^ been sacrificed that might have been saved—pangs and
agonies endured, the remembrance of which humanity might
have been spared. But the worse calamities that are yet to
come, it is, even now, in the power of a bold, a liberal, and a
generous policy to avert. No nobler object was ever yet proposed to statesmen than that which the state of Ireland now
presents. Like all tremendous crises in the history of nations,
it has brought with it deep calamities and peril; but with them,
like all such crises, to those who know how to use them, also

58-

T H E FAMINE IN T H E LAND.

great openings for good. Singular, indeed, is the law in the history of nations which ordains that social or physical calamities
should seldom visit communities without removing, in their fearful progress, obstacles to improvement, and opening up, with
new vigour, scenes and new feelings, opportunities for amelioration of whatever was defective in their state. These opportunities are the compensation by which national calamities, that
threaten utter destruction to a people, have been often more than
atoned for, in the results for which they made way. Let Ireland
now be dealt with by no ignorant, no procrastinating, and no
niggard hand; let all the energies of the empire be directed to
do all that her necessities require, and an opportunity is presented for altering her social condition, for which centuries might
have waited in vain. From the results of the very calamity that
oppresses her, it is possible for British statesmen to make her an
ally and support of England's honour and strength, no longer
the cause of her shame and weakness, and in elevating her people from their prostrate condition, to a state of comfort they
never knew before, to conciliate the affections of an entire population, and thus increase the strength, and extend the resources
of what will then be, in heart and affection, this united empire.
It is for the British Ministry, and the British House of Commons, to decide whether obiects like these should "»-- "T^-u- £
Ae-TltelaEei of an unwise and U P * - -•"*? P ™ c m y , of which
even the experience ^ *uo present troubles has already taught
us, that it is always the most expensive in the end.
QUAKE VIDETE NUM DUBITANDUM SIT YOBIS OMNI STUDIO
AD I D OP^JS I N C U M B E R S I N QUO GLORIA N O M I N I S N O S T R I
SALUS SOCIORUM VECTIGALIA MAXIMA, F O R T U N E P L U R I M O RUM CIVIUM UNA CUM R E P U B L I G A D E F E N D A N T U R .

We cannot close this article without pausing, earnestly to thank
the ministry for an act which has drawn on them rebuke from
some of whom we had hoped better things—we mean the appointment by the Sovereign's proclamation of a day of solemn
humiliation and prayer.
Never, perhaps, was the lesson so fearfully taught, as m the
recent visitation, how vain is all the wisdom and the strength of
man, to secure happiness to a people. Never was there an occasion upon which it was more fitting that our Sovereign and her
people should bow in submission to the mysterious will of the
great Being who rules us all—and earnestly implore his mercy
for a suffering land; and that blessing, without which the wisest
of human legislation is in vain. And believe it sincerely and
reverently we do, that the supplications, in which millions of our
fellow-countrymen have fervently and earnestly joined, have not

T H E F A M I N E IN T H E L A N D .

59

ascended up to heaven in vain. Just now, perhaps, the subject
is too sacred and solemn for controversy—alas, that it should
call forth any. But we could not close this article without expressing our deep gratitude to the advisers of our Sovereign, for
this step, conceived and carried out in a manner worthy of a
Christian nation, without recording our deep and earnest conviction, that the solemn offering up of a nation's confession and
prayer to God, is not the mere homage of a ceremony and a
form, hut a reality, from which, with the deepest reverence, and
without daring in presumption to point out how the prayers of
the people and the Sovereign may be answered, we yet may humbly and confidently look for an answer, and a blessing on the
nation from on high.

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