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The Famine

In: Historical Events

Submitted By Laureen
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In 1840 he became Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in London and held that office until 1859. This position put him in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a
‘mechanism for reducing surplus population’.
But it was more:
‘The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people’.
Such racist and sectarian views of the Irish were common enough within the English governing classes and were more crudely expressed by others. For the most part, Trevelyan’s views reflected the prevailing Whig economic and social opinion and that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, who held office from 1846 until 1852.
Trevelyan was stiff and unbending. He firmly believed in laissez faire (essentially, the importing of food should be left to the food merchants), he thought that the Government should not intervene, and warned of the danger that people might get into the habit of depending on the state. From March 1846 he controlled the public works through the disbursement of public funds. Under Trevelyan, relief by public works in 1846–7 was too little too late but also it was slow, inefficient and sometimes corrupt. He defended the export of grain from famine-stricken Ireland on the grounds that the Government should not interfere with free trade. When his own administrators described this export of food as ‘a most serious evil’ Trevelyan refused even to consider banning it. When rioting broke out in protest against at the export of corn, he sent 2,000 troops, provisioned with beef, pork and biscuits,
‘to be directed on particular ports at short notice’.
He was against railway construction as a form of relief and successfully opposed Russell’s scheme for the distribution of some £50,000 worth of seed to tenants. The failure of government relief schemes finally became clear to Trevelyan and early in 1847 soup kitchens were organised under a high-level government commission. It worked badly.
In the autumn of 1847, Trevelyan ended government-sponsored aid to the distressed Poor Law districts although there was an outbreak of cholera. He declared that the Famine was over, and that from now on Irish landlords were to be responsible for financing relief works. He gained a well-deserved reputation as a cold-hearted and uncompassionate administrator. On 27 April 1848 he was given a knighthood for his services to Ireland. The Irish Crisis published in 1848 contains his unsympathetic views on the Famine and its victims

It is quite clear that the limitations of relief given to Ireland at a time when the country was in dire straits were the main reasons for such a human tragedy. To put it in simple terms, in 1845 Ireland was a very weak, destitute country that relied enormously on the potato crop on a daily basis for food. Therefore when this crop was virtually taken away from them they were left extremely economically vulnerable with little food leading to a starving population. A population, whose ordinary food is wheat and beef, can do without it in periods of scarcity and resort to cheaper kinds of food such as potatoes, barley and oats. But those who are entirely dependant on potatoes live upon the extreme verge of human subsistence and when they are deprived of their staple food there is nothing cheaper to resort to.[15] This was the case in Ireland, which led to beggary and starvation in many cases. Due to the Act of Union, Britain and Ireland had strong political ties. Under the Act it was Britain’s duty to help Ireland especially in such circumstances. Britain was one of the richest countries in the world at the time, there was no doubt that the British government was in a good position to offer financial aid. Unfortunately this aid was embarrassingly limited; there was a lack of quick thinking and decisive action on behalf of the British government. The extent of the Famine could have been prohibited if the correct measures were taken by the British government, food supplies should have been delivered without delay and relief work should have been taken more seriously. The next paragraph portrays the relief given by the British government under Peel’s rule.
Britain always believed that it was superior to Ireland, thus fuelling Britain’s down grading perception of the Irish and of Ireland. They looked upon the Irish as being lazy and fond of over-breeding. However due to the Act of Union the British government were responsible for the Irish people in their time of need. The relief given can be considered in four phases, the first phase under Prime Minister Peel and the following three under Prime Minister Russell. Peel was slow to react as he felt that the Irish might be exaggerating their poor conditions. “Peel apparently believed that all reports from the executive in Ireland needed careful scrutiny because a haze of exaggeration covered Dublin Castle like a fog”.[16] Eventually he took action and despite the Corn Laws and import duties he quietly purchased a quantity of Indian corn from the United States, “Among the earliest measures was the secret purchase of 100,000 worth of Indian corn and meal in the United States through the agency of Baring Bro’s and Co.”.[17] The corn was then sold to the Irish at a cheap rate and only in cases of severe hardship was it dole out free. Although this was a great move on Peel’s behalf the corn supplies were inadequate, especially in remote parts of western Ireland. And where it was plentiful, there was a shortage of money to purchase it. Peel also tried to give the Irish people relief through the Public Works Act. Through this he hoped to employ the poor, allowing them to buy food with their earnings. “Public Works was undertaken to provide employment and thus to furnish the money that the destitute need to buy food”.[18] The work carried out by the labourers was very hands on with them developing harbours and piers, and working on roads. The relief worked well with approximately 140,000 people given work at some stage.[19] Some British government officials felt that Peel was spending too much on the Irish and in 1846 Peel went out off office. Peel innocently believed that few if any people died of starvation during his management of the crisis.[20] Although he made many efforts to help the Irish people he did not do enough, more corn was needed and at a much faster rate than was possible. Also food aid was too expensive for many families resulting from them not benefiting from the relief at all. Russell was next to administer the famine relief, however things weren’t looking good. Russell became Prime Minister in 1846. Soon afterwards the potato blight reappeared; there was a complete failure of the potato crop leaving Russell with little time to implement a plan. He decided that he wasn’t going to get involved with the grain markets at this led to too many complications in relation to tariffs. Russell believed that the only way forward for the Irish people was for them to receive employment thus allowing them to earn money. He did so by introducing the Renewed Public works Act. Many felt that this was a bad decision on Russell’s behalf as continuing Peel’s policy of supplying food to the destitute would have been a more intelligent option. “Superficially a more active government food policy would appear to have offered a better solution”.[21] Russell also expected Irish landlords to pay for Irish relief, “Irish property must support Irish poverty”.[22] Although the public Works system generated a lot of employment for the poor, many died as a result of starvation and exhaustion. It was by no means the correct form of action, people were starving and food was their main concern. Disappointedly Russell didn’t agree with hand-outs, he thought that the Irish people should work for their bread.
In the spring of 1847 the British government decided to establish a system of free soup kitchens. From the beginning approximately 944, 372 impoverished people were relieved from starvation by receiving free soup daily. [23] The destitute got soup for free and those earning were allowed to purchase it. The soup kitchens were only slowly established due to bureaucratic regulations[24] . However after a few months the scheme proved to be making progress with thousands of lives being saved. The scheme did have its negative effects. It was usually of poor nutritious value and of poor quality. In some cases the soup was contaminated. This highlights the lack of funds that were pumped into the scheme; thousands of more lives could have been saved if the soup kitchens were more widespread ad if the scheme wasn’t abandoned so abruptly. “Many additional thousands should have been fed, and all should have been fed more generously”.[25] The soup kitchens had huge potential but typically the scheme wasn’t utilised to its greatest advantage.
In 1847 the British government decided to transfer responsibility for relief to the poor law system. Under the poor law system the Workhouse system was introduced. However the workhouses were only designed to cater for a relatively small proportion of the population and if it was to cope with the crisis an expansion of the service was needed.[26] The workhouses provided employment and supplied a small amount of food for the poor. The ‘Gregory Clause’ restricted those owning more than a quarter of an acre of land ineligible for any relief, naturally this had merciless repercussions as many people who needed relief were forced to give up their lands.[27] It was known as a “Death Dealing Instrument”, mass starvation was rising and more and more people were dieing. The system was irritated by a serious fever epidemic in early 1847 with mortality rates increasing.[28] Demand for entry into the workhouse far exceeded their capacity, there was substantial overcrowding and disease was widespread. The work was quite intensive with the pay being very low. The workhouse system emphasises how Russell again believed that the only way to help the Famine sufferers was to provide a source of employment for them rather than food aid. He put far too much stress on the Irish landlords, expecting them to supply a considerable amount of the capital. The British government was determined to keep outdoor relief to a minimum as otherwise it would be too costly, unions would go bankrupt and in a worst case scenario the government would be forced to finance food relief again. In 1852 all outdoor relief had virtually vanished. The general consensus in Britain was that the “The burden of maintaining the Irish poor should be borne by Ireland alone and would not be shared by the British taxpayer”[29]. This alone speaks volumes as to The British stance, they were obliged to supply some sort of relief to Ireland due to the Act of Union, however their relief was calculated. They were more interested in their own economy and keeping it in good shape than they were with supporting Ireland. “The British government and parliament had scandalously abdicated their responsibility for meeting a major share of the costs of famine and relief”.[30]
This essay supports the notion that the Great famine was an ecological accident that became a human tragedy. However it wasn’t solely due to the level of poverty in rural Ireland at the time. It was the enormous failure of the British government to supply adequate amounts of relief that resulted in the famine becoming a human tragedy. According to Donnelly, the British government gave about 7 million pounds in costs to the famine relief with Ireland ironically giving approximately 7.3 million pounds. One million people lost their lives during the Famine, with a large number of people forced to emigrate due to the lack of support. To sum up, a quote by Joel Mokyr puts things in perspective “Britain spent no less than 969.3 million on an utterly futile adventure in Crimea in 1854-1856 and if half that sum was spent in Ireland in the critical years of 1846-1849 hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved”.[31]

[1] Kinealy, C. The Great Irish Famine. Impact, Ideology and Rebellion. 2002. Page 1
[2] Ibid. Page 2
[3] Kinealy, C. A Death Dealing Famine. 2002. Page 30
[4] Kinealy, C. The Great Irish Famine. Impact, Ideology and Rebellion. Page 18
[5] Kissane, N. The Irish Famine-A Documented History. 1995. Page13
[6] O’Grada, C. Ireland before and after the Famine. Page 10
[7] Kinealy, C. The Great Irish Famine. Impact, Ideology and Rebellion. Page 18
[8] O’Grada, C. Ireland before and after the Famine. Page 14
[9] Daly, M. The Famine in Ireland. Page 32
[10] Kissane, N. The Irish Famine-A Documented History. 1995.Page 8
[11] Donnelly, J. A New History of Ireland. Page 272
[12] Kinealy, C. The Great Irish Calamity. Page 6
[13] Daly, M. The Famine in Ireland. Page 53
[14] Ibid. Page 52.
[15] Kissane, N. The Irish Famine-A Documented History. 1995.Page 18
[16] Daly, M. The Famine in Ireland. Page 67
[17] Donnelly, J. A New History of Ireland. Page 278
[18] Ibid. Page 282
[19] Ibid. Page 284
[20] Ibid. Kissane, N. Page 27
[21] Ibid. Daly, M. page 85
[22] Ibid. Donnelly, J. Page 299.
[23] Ibid, Page 310.
[24] Ibid. Kissane, N. Page 75.
[25] Ibid. Donnelly, J. page 314.
[26] Ibid, Kissane, N. Page 89.
[27] Ibid, Page 89.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid, Donnelly, J. Page 326
[31] Ibid. page 329.

Essay

Most of the Irish countryside was owned by the English and Anglo-Irish hereditary ruling class. Many landlords were absentee and used agents. These plots of land were confiscated from Irish Catholics by British conquerors such as Cromwell and given to mainly Protestant owners who lived off of the rent paid by Catholics whose ancestors once owned the land. The fertile farm land was found in the north and east of Ireland, whereas the least fertile farm land is in the south and west, which situates the mass of the population. Before the famine, it was found that the density of people living on cultivated land was about 700 people per square mile.
Ireland’s population grew dramatically and doubled to over 8 million. Bountiful harvests meant that the population was generally well fed but there were still very few employment opportunities. The Act of Union in 1800 meant that Ireland’s economy had been absorbed by Britain and rapid industrialisation meant that Ireland’s linen and woollen industries collapsed. The British 'Poor Enquiry' survey conducted in 1835, revealed that 75 percent of Irish labourers were without any regular work and that begging was very common. (HistoryPlace.com)
Poverty was widespread in Ireland in the pre Famine period, official reports confirmed the perception that Ireland was poor and getting poorer, yet showed no sign of curtailing its population growth”.

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