PRACTICAL LETTERS ON IRELAND.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR. LETTER IIL Sia—I am particularly anxious to avoid even the appearance of supposing that nothing else is wanted for Ireland than an improvement in the phy- sical condition of her people. I must therefore repeat, that I believe very much more to be wanted—much that is in itself far more important. The character of the people has deteriorated, and having plenty to eat will not restore it; the structure of society is defective, and more than high wages is required to cure its defects. But we can do nothing till we improve their condition: in order not merely to avert an agrarian insurrection, and a fiunine this year or next, but to give us a chance of effecting reforms of per- manent and extensive application an interference with what is called, in mockery," the labour-market of Ireland," is absolutely necessary. For ex- ample, it is complained, and with some justice, that the Irish do not work hard in Ireland; that they do not make the most of the opportunities of raising produce which they enjoy, limited as those may be; and that they have no right, therefore, to ask for assistance from the Imperial Govern- ment till they shall have shown practically that it is want of means, and not of industry, which keeps them poor. Now, this is a good argument against continuing the system of "charity to Ireland"; a system which, though temporarily necessary for the purpose of preserving the people from dying of hunger, tends directly to perpetuate the evils which in the first place call for it, and has given rise to such an amount of international animosity and mutual recrimination as it will require years to obliterate. But when the argument is carried so far as to imply that nothing more is necessary than to leave the people to their own exertions, with an exhortation to in- dustry and enterprise, then I answer, that industry and enterprise cannot, as man is constituted, flourish in a country where there are hundreds of thousands who are unable, struggle as they may, to earn their daily bread. The forced idleness and demoralization of these will repress the energy and debase the habits of the rest. I know of many able-bodied men who worked in this neighbourhood throughout the last summer for half a stone of meal per week. Those men, if placed on an English railway or a Canadian clearing, would have bravely sustained the character of their countrymen: but would any man in his senses expect one of them to do a real day's work for three-halfpence ? Again it is impossible to educate the people, either in agriculture or let- ters, while they are desperately struggling for the means of existence. The numbers in our schools have fallen off by one-half during the past year: children who can get work are forced to labour, at an age when labour is injurious both to mind and body; while those who cannot get work are in most instances too badly clothed to attend school, or too much depressed by the want of sufficient nourishment to profit by schooling. Besides, it is really almost a mockery to instruct (in anything but the necessary doc- trines of religion) those who are debarred by inexorable necessity from any use whatever of learning, either for advancement in life or mental en- joyment. As matters are, if a boy is distinguished either for talents or energy, his main object, and that of his family, is to procure for him the means of going to America; because they feel sure that he has no chance of rising in the world here. If they fail to do so, he slinks hopelessly back into the miserable routine of mechanical existence which is pursued by his neighbours, or he turns his abilities and knowledge to the pernicious pur- poses of local agitation. It is not, I trust, profane to say, that it is better for a starving people to be also ignorant.
Again, a poor-law which provides at the expense of the community for the most pressing wants of its less fortunate members, is, in my opinion, a most salutary corrective to the inequalities of fortune, and tends to pro- mote the peace and happiness of a people; but where a poor-law has to deal with pauperism extending over the third part of an entire population, it ceases to be beneficial, it becomes demoralizing and exhausting. The at- tempt to make charity, whether public or private, the ordinary means of
support for able-bodied men, is a complete perversion of its spirit, and can only succeed in incapacitating it from performing its proper duty. Accord- ingly, it is now felt and understood, that in the greater part of Ireland the new Poor-law will be a complete and hopeless failure; unmistakeable symptoms of it have, indeed, already appeared. The particular course of failure which it will run is this. When the workhouses shall be full, and want shall begin to be severely felt among the able-bodied labourers, the Poor-law Commissioners will issue an order to the Guardians to strike a rate for the purpose of relieving them. This the latter will assuredly refuse to obey; for they will be perfectly well aware that the result, if it could be effected, would be merely to extend the condition of pauperism over &large proportion of the rate-payers. It has been found very difficult, and in many cases impossible, to induce Boards of Guardians to strike one rate of 38. in the pound, and there is no doubt that in most instances not one-half of it will be collected. They will therefore, it may safely be said, from the mere instinct of self-preservation, refuse to comply in the case supposed. The next step will be the dissolution of the Board by the Commissioners, and the appointment of paid Guardians; who will strike the required rate, say. of 7s. 6d. or 10s. in the pound: but how much will they collect? Imagine the case of thirty or forty unions administered by paid Guardians with the whole energy and resources of every class of rate-payers combined to pre- vent the collection of rates! It is evident that there can be but one re- sult,—a good number of the respectable and solvent rate-payers will be ruined; a good many more will emigrate, and leave their land waste; the rate will not be collected, and the people will starve as before.
Even now, what is the case in the union where I reside? Out of a lute of 3,6001.—about lg. 3d. in the pound on an average—struck last Decem- ber, 1,6001. is now uncollected, and, in spite of all exertions, the greater part of it appears likely to remain in arrear: much of it is due by persons residing out of the country, against whom it is impossible for the Board of Guardians to proceed effectually, and much of it is =collectable in conse- quence of land remaining waste and unoccupied; the rest is in districts so lawless as to make collection of money for any purpose almost impossible. A distress of cattle and corn was made by the collector with great diffi- culty in this neighbourhood last week; but on the day of sale no bidders appeared; so that the sale has been adjourned. Baffled in every direction, the collectors have given notice of resigning their offices, though receiving 28. in the pound for collecting; and we cannot procure, at any price, suc- cessors to them. We owe about 2,0001., and are threatened with actions by all our contractors; so that there appears every chance of our being obliged to close the workhouse. We have now struck a rate of 3s. in the pound; of which, of course, a much smaller proportion will be collected than of the last.
Such is the state of things with which we have to deal at the commenoe- ment of an extended system of relief; this is our starting-point. Surely, to one who is personally acquainted with these facts, it cannot but appear a very palpable delusion to suppose that the Poor-law is to be the germ of our social regeneration. We are attempting to make it do too much, and the result is that it will do nothing. If our pauperism were once brought within a manageable compass, a poor-law would work admirably both as a corrective and as a preventive, as a measure of humanity and a measure of police. Now, it will simply break down, and the attempt to persevere in enforcing it will produce universal anarchy. I need not proceed with a catalogue of measures which I believe to be good and necessary in themselves, but which are rendered useless or per- nicious by the poverty of the people—in other words, by the vicious pro- portion between resources and population. Now, if I had ever seen any tolerably plausible suggestion for altering that proportion, I should be bound to admit that it ought to be considered before that which I advocate: I ask any one to produce a plan which promises an end, except mine— whether mine be practicable, is another thing, which we will discuss hereafter. All I ask to be conceded now is, that, if practicable, it would be effectual; that if by an emigration sufficiently large employment at good wages were placed at the command of every remaining labourer, we should then have room and opportunity to effect all other necessary reforms; and that even if we failed to do so, a country in which such a position should be enjoyed by the masses, could bear without serious inconvenience the want of such reforms. A distinguished living statesman once said, in my presence, speaking of a large measure of emigration, "If it could be done with the stroke of a pen, there would be an end at once of the Irish difficulty." Without going quite so far, I think there would be good reason for hoping that we had arrived at "the beginning of the end." The benefits of ex- tensive and systematic emigration as a remedy for the evils of a large able- bodied population dependant on alms for subsistence, are so natural and obvious, that it is hardly worth while to support the instinctive assent which the majority of mankind yield to the arguments of its advocates, by quoting the opinions of those statesmen and economists who have treated the subject scientifically. Besides, I wish to obstain from the repetition of truths with which everybody is now familiar. Mr. Charles Buller's speech in 1843 exhausted that part of the subject, and left nothing new to be said by the advocates of systematic colonization in the abstract. I will rather confine myself to offering such answers to the objections which are urged against its application to the present circumstances of this country, as con- siderable personal knowledge of both Ireland and the Colonies may sug- gest to me. But I must not altogether pass over the remarkable fact, that the Lords Colonization Committee have been enabled to adduce in favour of national emigration every authority of weight to whom a consideration of the state of Ireland has been referred during the last twenty-five years; a list comprising the names of Whately, Nicholls, Senior, and Lewis. It is also worthy of notice, that Malthns, with whose favourite theory the no- tion of emigration being a sufficient remedy for over-population is so incon- sistent as naturally to prejudice him against it, has described by anticipa- tion the present economical crisis in Ireland so exactly, and pointed out the remedy so forcibly, that I cannot avoid quoting his words. "if," says Malthus, 'from a combination of external and internal causes, a very great stimulus should be given to the population of a country for ten or twelve /ears together, and it should then comparatively cease, labour will continue flow- mg into the market with almost undiminished rapidity, while the means of employ- ing and paving it have been essentially contracted. The only real relief in such a case is emigration; and the subject at the present moment is well worth the attention of Government, both as a matter of humanity and policy." On the other hand, I cannot remember that any one economist of emi- nence has pronounced against the principle of national emigration; and that not only as a means of replenishing and subduing new countries, or of improving the condition of the emigrants—for these objects are, though imperfectly, accomplished by the present system of emigration—but also as a means of improving the condition of the population in the mother- country, which that system has hardly even a remote tendency to become. I admit, that while all have perceived that we do not make the most of the fertile and unoccupied land which belongs to us, and while all deplore the anomalous distribution of people over the different portions of our empire, there has been a general disposition to avoid the responsibility of making practical suggestions for remedying this state of things by an improved system of emigration: the usual expression has been one of regret, that in ancient times it was otherwise; that while the Greeks and Phoenicians knew how to give to emigration a national character—to transplant a perfect type of the parent society, with its various classes and institutions, and to re- move in this way sufficient numbers for the relief of the mother-country- the art of colonization has, apparently, not descended to us, and that the attempt to revive it is hopeless. Such is the general tone of the "Chapters on Emigration" which are to be found in the works of our leading econo- mists. But surely it is most unworthy of a great and enlightened people to rest satisfied with such a conclusion; surely such an universal recognition of the principle, coupled with such a lamentably defective practice, should incite us to an earnest, persevering, and unanimous effort to discharge our heavy responsibilities in a more effective and satisfactory manner. Above all, we have now an opportunity of doing so, such as never before occurred in the history of nations. We have the contingency which Malthus de- scribed before our eyes. In Ireland there are, by the acknowledgment of all, 500,000 labourers whom we do not know what to do with, and whom an unprecedented calamity has deprived of their food; we have 2,000,000 of people loosened from their native soil, and frantically asking for means to go to any country where they may work and live. Of the British empire, in the midst of which this is occurring, it is well said that it is its appointed mission to people and civilize the boundless regions of America and Australia: we have more ships, more waste lands, more pecuniary re- sources—above all, more political aptitude, experience, wisdom, and energy— than any other people ever had. If out of such materials we cannot construct smutually beneficial system of colonization, then systematic colonization is, for moderns, an Utopian dream, and never, in all human probability, will be realized again.
Of plans, and plans too constructed by ingenious and able men, we have enough; but, though almost tempted to say that the worst of them is better than no plan at all, I am not prepared to maintain that any one of them is perfect, or satisfactory, or that to all of them very many plau- sible, nay real and grave objections, do not apply. Difficulties, of course, must be met with in carrying out so vast an undertaking as a sufficient emigration would be; but what I complain of is, that official people are contented to dwell upon those difficulties with a sort of malicious exultation, instead of considering them as obstacles to be re- moved out of a path which is clearly in the right direction—to place them- selves in the attitude of a garrison whose duty it is to defend inch by inch the policy of laissez-faire, and in every way to discourage those who are endeavouring to discover a better line of conduct. It must, I should think, be abundantly clear by this time, that the policy of laissez-faire is not only inadequate, but absolutely pernicious: the cry of complaint against it is not less loud from the Colonies than from Ireland.
I have just received a copy of a resolution moved at the close of the -last session of the Canadian Legislature, in which the continuance of emi- gration like the present is deprecated in the strongest terms; and the entire press and people of Canada respond to the feeling therein expressed. No- thing, indeed, can be more lamentable than the accounts received of the condition in which the emigrants of this year have reached the shores of Canada; but it is absurd to found thereupon arguments against any large emigration, and to infer that if it were conducted in a very dif- ferent, indeed precisely opposite manner, it would have similarly evil results. As long as the business of removing the redundant population of Ireland is left in the hands of those who personally suffer from its effects,— that is, of the labourers themselves, or their landlords,—so long it cannot be performed otherwise than in a manner calculated to do the least possible amount of good here, with the greatest possible injury to the Colonies into which they are" shovelled."
Colonization differs from emigration, inasmuch as it involves a twofold function—removal and settlement; and individuals in the old country could not if they would, and would not if they could, take any effectual steps to provide for the latter. Immediate relief is all that they look to; and that is secured as soon as the emigrant is on board ship. It is only by intrusting the whole business to an authority which possesses power of deal- ing with and regulating both branches of the subject—of providing means of employment and facilities for settlement in the Colonies, as well as of superintending the telection and removal of the people from hence—that we can avoid the danger of merely transferring, at great expense, the evils of a superabundant population from one part of the empire to another. This is the chief argument to be used against those who object to a scheme of national emigration as a device for relieving landlords from the expense of improving their own properties. I have no objection whatever to make land- lords, collectively, contribute their full proportion to the expense of emigra- tion; and there can no stronger proof that such a feeling is very general, than the fact that a very large and influential body of Irish Peers and Com- moners signed, this year, a memorial to Lord John Russell, praying to be subjected to an income-tax for the purpose of emigration. But even if we assume that individual landlords could afford to pay the sums required for relieving their estates respectively, and that such a number could be induced to join in doing so as would produce an emigration sufficient for national purposes, the objection would still remain, that the Colonies would not be prepared for such an operation, and that to carry it out upon such princi- ples would therefore be simply impracticable.
But it is to be remembered, besides, that the proprietors of estates relieved by the removal of paupers are by no means the only class benefited by suc- cessful colonization. The colonial, manufacturing, and trading interests of the empire, are hardly less intimately concerned in the operation, and are therefore called upon to contribute some portion of the expense. Indeed, the subject of colonization is favourably distinguished from almost every other which has lately engaged the attention of our statesmen, in this re- spect, that men may differ as to the practicability of the means, but they must all agree as to the desirableness of the end. The very principles, for example, on which Parliamentary Reform, Free Trade, and Roman Catho-
lic Emancipation, are founded, were distasteful, and supposed to be in- jurious, to large and powerful classes of the community: to Colonization
on an extensive scale there are but two classes, as I believe, who have what may be called a valid right to object. The first is the Ultra-National party in Ireland; who, contemplating the possibility of an appeal to physical force, naturally dislike any measure calculated to diminish the raw material of rebels. The second consists of the tenants of the Colonial Office; who feel themselves already incapable, whatever may be their talents and industry, of doing the ordinary business of their department effectually, and who cannot be expected to regard with favour anything which threatens an addition of trouble and an infraction of routine.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, J. R. G.
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