Chapter X (3)

This clause met with more opposition than the former one, but only from a small band of kind, good-hearted men, Smith O'Brien called it a cruel enactment; but as he had heard the Government were for it, he knew, he said, to remonstrate against it was useless. Mr. Curteis, the member for Rye, said the clause was meant for the benefit of Irish landlords--a class that deserved little sympathy from the House or the country. Sir George Grey, one of the Secretaries of State, supported the clause, because he had always understood that small holdings were the bane of Ireland; from which observation it is clear he accepted it as an exterminating clause. Now, suppose it is admitted that small holdings were the bane of Ireland, who, we may be permitted to ask, created them? The very landlords who now sought to abolish them, at the expense of millions of lives. Again, if small holdings were the bane of Ireland, was the midst of an unparalleled famine the proper time to remove the bane? Ought not such a bane be the subject of legislation, when society was in its normal state? Sir George thought not, and hence he virtually says to the landlords, "Now is your time to get rid of the people; they have served your purpose; they are useful to you no longer; why should they cumber the ground?" Mr. Poulett Scrope objected to carrying the clause so suddenly into execution, as it would be a complete clearance of the small farmers of Ireland, and would amount to a social revolution in the state of things in that country. Mr. Sharman Crawford said he would divide the House against the clause, which he did. Strange as it may seem, some Liberal Irish members present supported the clause. Mr. Morgan John O'Connell said he looked on it as a valuable alteration in the bill. Alderman Humphrey said the phrase "quarter-acre" ought to be changed to five acres; whereupon he was told, almost in terms by Sir George Grey, that he did not understand what he was talking about. Sir George said "he was afraid his honourable friend, Alderman Humphrey, did not really see the effect of his own amendment. All holders of land, up to 4-3/4 acres, would, according to such an amendment, be enabled to obtain relief without selling their land." "Giving up to the landlord," not "_selling_," is the phrase in the clause. In spite of Sir George Grey's opinion to the contrary, it would seem to ordinary readers that the worthy Alderman knew quite well the force of his amendment; it was meant to feed the starving people, even though they happened to have a little land. Mr Gregory, replying in defence of his clause, used these words: "Many honourable members insisted that the operation of a clause of this kind would destroy all the small farmers. If it could have such an effect, he did not see of what use such small farmers could possibly be;" because, I suppose, they could not survive a famine that threatened the lords of the soil with bankruptcy or extinction, as they were constantly proclaiming. Mr. Gregory's words--the words of a liberal, and a pretended friend of the people--and Mr. Gregory's clause are things that should be for ever remembered by the descendants of the slaughtered and expatriated small farmers of Ireland. On a division, there were 119 for the clause and 9 against it. Here are the nine who opposed the never-to-be-forgotten quarter-acre-Gregory clause: William Sharman Crawford, B. Escott, Sir De Lacy Evans, Alderman Humphrey, A. M'Carthy, G.P. Scrope, W. Williams. Tellers: William Smith O'Brien and J. Curteis.[204]

FOOTNOTES:

[192] So given, in the daily _journals_, but in _Hansard_ the passage is much modified, and the hit at the Irish landlords disappears.

"Allow me an opportunity of correcting the error which is widely diffused among the public, and even in Parliament itself, that in _Hansard's Debates_ we have the means of obtaining an authentic report of parliamentary proceedings. This is an entire delusion. _Hansard_ is a private publication, dependent on the ordinary newspaper reports, supplemented by such corrections as members make themselves."--_Letter of Mr. Mitchell Henry, M.P., to the Times of July 14th_, 1873.

[193] _The Morning Chronicle_.

[194] In some reports of the speech the words are "beggars enough for all Europe."

[195] Mr. D'Israeli, in his _Political Biography_ of Lord George Bentinck, quotes this passage, and, as it seems to me, manipulates it unfairly, by ending it at the word "decimated," as if there were a full stop there, whereas the sense in the original only requires a comma, and so it is in _Hansard_. To make the sense terminate at "decimated," he moulds a sentence and a half into one, thus: "The Chief Secretary says, that the ministers did wisely in this decision, but I differ from him when I hear, every day, of persons being starved to death, and when he, himself, admits that in many parts of the country the population had been decimated;" the censure on the Government contained in the words immediately succeeding, is omitted. The reason why Mr. D'Israeli did this is obvious from what follows, which shows he did not agree with Lord George, in censuring the Government for not opening depôts, and he undertakes to prove that they should not have done so. He uses, amongst others, the old trite argument, when he says: there is reason to believe that the establishment of Government depôts at the end of '46, however cautiously introduced, tended in the localities to arrest the development of that retail trade, which was then rapidly extending throughout Ireland."--_Lord George Bentinck, a political Biography, 5th Ed., pp. 360, 363_.

_There is reason to believe_, says Mr. D'Israeli; yes, there is the best reason to believe, that tens of thousands died of starvation in Munster and Connaught, because food depots were not introduced, or, at least, because they were not opened for the sale of food to the public. The word "development" which he uses, sufficiently refutes his whole theory. There was no time for development; millions were starving who must die or get food within a few days. What a time to begin to develop a trade in articles of food among a people without capital, who never had such a trade before! The effect of Government not interfering in the sale of food is shown by the prices Lord George quotes a little further on.

[196] Mr. D'Israeli took good care not to quote this passage in his Biography of Lord George Bentinck.

[197] It was more than hinted that he did not follow the advice of the Irish Government in other important matters concerning the Famine.

[198] In the middle of November, Mr. Smith O'Brien commenced a series of letters to the landed proprietors of Ireland. Whilst he was preparing the first of these, which was introductory, and intended to awaken the class he was addressing to a sense of their danger and their duty, the Agricultural Society of Ireland published their objections to the system of carrying out reproductive works laid down in the Chief Secretary's letter; and it was in commenting on their views that he wrote the passage quoted above by the Prime Minister. His second letter dealt with the knotty question of land tenure. In it he urges strongly and well a principle which has become a part of the Land Act of 1870, namely, the tenant's right to compensation. He says: "I begin with the subject of tenure: uniform experience of human nature teaches that men will not toil for the benefit of others as they toil for themselves. You are very sensitive about the maintenance of the due rights of property.... The same feelings influence your tenant; he will not expend his capital upon your land unless the return of such capital be guaranteed to him." His third letter is devoted to the question of drainage, and the reclamation of waste lands. He undertook to show how advantageous a peasant proprietary would be, changing, as it would, numbers of persons from the catalogue of those who have little to gain by maintaining the rights of property, to that of those who have everything to lose by their violation. He, however, tells the landlords plainly that they will not obtain from the Imperial treasury the money necessary for the undertaking he recommends, unless they mortgage their estates, and pledge the county rates first. "An Irish member," he writes, "who would propose to apply ten millions of money to the reclamation of land in Ireland, would be laughed to scorn in the British legislature. Yet Parliament would consent almost without a question--perhaps amidst the cheers of all parties--to the expenditure of this amount in piratical incursions, such as those made upon the inhabitants of Affghanistan, Scinde, Syria, and other nations, who have never injured us." The fourth letter is a continuation of the same subjects. The fifth discusses the railway question, then in its infancy. The sixth deals with public works and public instruction. The public works which he specially discusses and recommends are--internal navigation, and fishery piers and harbours; he does not enter into systems of education, he only calls for more liberal grants. The seventh and concluding letter of the series is devoted to what the writer calls fiscal arrangements. These letters showed much practical ability, and knowledge of the true wants of the country. They were written in a calm moderate spirit, but, emanating from a man of his political views, they do not seem to have received the attention they deserved.

No doubt, the difficulty stated by Smith O'Brien, and approvingly quoted by the Prime Minister, did exist in the townland boundary scheme; it was, perhaps, as great a one as the boundary scheme in the Chief Secretary's letter; but sacrifices should have been cheerfully submitted to on such a terrible occasion; and the greatest and realest difficulty of all was, that the landlords, as a body, had little or no sympathy with the people, and were not prepared to make sacrifices to save their lives.

[199] The following is Mr. D'Israeli's account of the waste land reclamation proposal: it does not, by any means, seem to be in accord with the spirit with which that proposal was received by Parliament:--"In the course of the next ten days the Government measures of relief distinctly transpired. One of these was a public undertaking to reclaim a portion of the waste lands of Ireland: but it was finally proposed by the first Minister, sneered at a few days after by his own Chancellor of the Exchequer, and finally fell prostrate before a bland admonition from Sir Robert Peel, who was skilful always in detecting when the Cabinet was not confident in a measure, and by an adroit interposition often obtained the credit with the country of directing the Ministry, when really he had only discovered their foregone conclusion."--_Lord George Bentinck: a political biography, p. 367, 5th Edition_.

[200] In the _Utopia_.

[201] "The people are not indolent. Of that there has been abundant proof. Give them a definite object, a fair chance of profit, and they will work as well as the people of this or any other country. Of this I have had ample opportunity of judging, on works where thousands have been employed, both here [England] and in Ireland."--_A twelve months' residence in Ireland, during the Famine and the Public Works in 1846-7, by Wm. Henry Smith, C.E., late conducting Civil Engineer of Public Works_.--London, 1848; p. 120.

"A foreign railway company, a few months ago, advertised in the English papers for Irish labourers to work on their lines, where they would receive one-third more wages than the French people themselves were receiving. He [the Irishman] would do the same amount of work at home, if properly fed; but the principle is much the same as keeping a horse without his oats, and expecting him to get through his work the same as if well fed. The Irishman at the English harvest, or as a railway labourer, and the London heavy goods or coal porter, is not excelled in his willingness or industry."--_Ib._ 196.

"It is a mistake to suppose the Irish people will not work. They are both willing and desirous to work, and, when in regular employment, are always peaceable and orderly."--_His Excellency Lord Clarendon's Letter to the Lord Mayor of London, on the "Plantation Scheme," dated Viceregal Lodge, June 26, 1849._

[202] _Freeman's Journal_, 23rd June, 1847.

[203] Armagh could be scarcely said to have had any manufactures at this time, as machinery, erected in the large factories of Belfast and other places, had abolished the hand-looms at which the people worked in their cottages, and the linen trade had been greatly depressed for years before; but no doubt there was a time when it was a material help to the inhabitants of that and other Northern counties.

[204] Immediately after the above clause was added to the "Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill," Lord George Bentinck made the following attack upon the Irish-famine policy of the Government: "The noble Lord," says the report, "proceeded to contend that, if the Government had had recourse to the system he had recommended, it would have raised the condition of the people, and the House would not have heard of the tens of thousands and the hundreds of thousands of deaths; but they could not learn from the Government how many, for there was one point upon which the Irish Government were totally ignorant, or which they concealed, which was, the mortality which had occurred during their administration of Irish affairs (hear, hear). They shrink (continued the noble lord, energetically) from telling us; they are ashamed to tell us. They know the people have been dying by thousands, and I dare them to inquire what has been the number of those who have died through their mismanagement, their principles of free trade (oh, oh). Yes, free trade; free trade in the lives of the Irish people (laughter, cries of 'oh, oh, oh,' and great confusion); leaving the people to take care of themselves, when Providence has swept away their food from the face of the earth. There were no stores, nor mills, nor granaries. Then why (the noble Lord continued, with much vehemence) don't he give us the information, if he don't shrink from it? Never before was there an instance of a Christian government allowing so many people to perish--(oh, oh)--without interfering (great confusion and cries of 'oh, oh'). Yes, you will groan; but you will hear this. The time will come when we shall know what the amount of mortality has been; and though you may groan, and try to keep the truth down, it shall be known, and the time will come when the public and the world will be able to estimate, at its proper value, your management of the affairs of Ireland (murmurs and confusion)."