The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 Part 12

One of the proofs brought forward that the Irish people were not so badly off as they pretended--in fact that in many instances they were concealing their wealth, was, _the increase of deposits in the Savings Banks_. At a superficial glance there would appear to be much truth in this conclusion; but we must remember that the millions whom the potato blight left foodless, never, in the best of times, had anything to put in Savings' Banks. They planted their acre or half acre of potatoes, paid for it by their labour; they had thus raised a bare sufficiency of food; and so their year's operations began and ended. An official of the Irish Poor Law Board, Mr. Twistleton, gave a more elaborate and detailed answer to the Savings' Banks argument. Writing to the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, under date of the 26th of December, he calls his attention to leaders in the _Times_ and _Morning Chronicle_ on the subject. One of those articles is remarkable, he says, since it "seemed to treat the increase in the deposits as a proof of _successful swindling on the part of the Irish people_, during the present year." So far from this being true, an increase, in Mr. Twistleton's opinion, might show "severe distress," inasmuch as when times begin to grow hard, deposits would increase for the following reasons:

1. People in employment, who were thoughtless before and did not deposit, would begin to be depositors in bad times.

2. People in employment, who were depositors before, would increase their deposits.

3. Thrifty people, who would at other times have gone into little speculations, would now be afraid to do so, and they would become depositors instead.

4. Persons of a higher cla.s.s, say employers, in such times cease to be employers and become depositors.

An increase of deposits, Mr. Twistleton admits, may arise from prosperity; he only wishes to show that such increase is not always a certain sign of it. We know too well now, that the increase of deposits in some of our Savings' Banks during the Famine, was no sign whatever of prosperity; yet the _journals_ named above, at once built upon the fact a theory most damaging to the existing dest.i.tution of our people, and most injurious to their moral character; basing this theory on one of those general principles of political economy, which often admits of grave exceptions, and sometimes breaks down utterly, when put to the test of practical experience.

Amongst the minor difficulties with which the Board of Works had to contend, were scarcity of silver, and the impossibility of having suitable tools manufactured in sufficient quant.i.ty. Gold and bank notes were of little or no use on pay day,--and where works were opened in wild out-of-the-way places, there was no opportunity of exchanging them for silver coin. Representations on this head having been made by the Inspectors, the "Comet," a government vessel, was sent to deliver as much silver as was required, to the various banks in the towns round the coast of Ireland; but this system was not long persevered in. Towards the end of October, Mr. Secretary Trevelyan announced that the Treasury would return to the ordinary mode of supply. The Bank of England, he informed the Board, is the appointed distributor of silver coin, which is supplied to it for that purpose by the Treasury; but as there might be some inconvenience in sending to England, the Board of Works are to apply to the Bank of Ireland, which is authorized to give silver coin when they have it, and when it is not in their own vaults, they will procure it for the Board from the Bank of England.[156] In this manner the want was met, but there is very little in the official correspondence about the channels through which it reached the various parts of the country where it was required; secrecy on the subject being, no doubt, thought necessary to avoid danger.

The public works projected and carried on by the Government to meet the distress of 1845-6 were brought to a close on the 15th of August of the latter year. The Treasury Minute, empowering the Board to begin anew public works in Ireland under the provisions of the Labour-rate Act, was published on the 31st of the same month; so that the officials whom the Board had added to their ordinary staff, when entrusted with the management of the previous public works, were, we may a.s.sume, still in their hands, when they received their new commission from the Treasury.

Although numerous, they were miserably insufficient for the vast and terrible campaign now before them. Indeed, throughout those trying and marvellous times, a full supply of efficient officers the Board was never able to secure; the pressure was so great, the undertakings so numerous and extensive, that this is by no means matter for surprise. A few figures selected from their accounts and reports, will serve to show the sudden and extraordinary expansion of their operations.

The baronies to which loans had been issued up to the 31st of December, 1846, under the Labour-rate Act, numbered _three hundred and twenty-two_, and the total sum issued up to the same time was 999,661 4s. 2d.--a million of money, in round numbers. Besides this, many of those baronies (but not all) had obtained loans under previous Acts; whilst baronies, which had as yet made no application for loans under the Labour-rate Act, were also indebted to Government for money borrowed under previous Acts. The number of baronies which had taken out loans under the Acts of 1 Vic., cap. 21, and 9 and 10 Vic., cap. 124, was four hundred and twenty-four. The account between the baronies and the Government stood thus on the 31st of December, 1846:

Loans to baronies under Acts pa.s.sed previous to the Labour-rate Act ... 186,060 1 5 Grants ... 229,464 8 0 Loans to baronies under the Labour-rate Act 999,661 4 2 -------------- Making in all ... 1,415,185 13 7

229,464 8s. 0d. being the amount of grants, and 1,185, 721 5s. 7d.

being the amount of loans; besides which there was expended by the Board of Works under various drainage Acts, for the year ending 31st December, 1846, a sum of 110,022 14s. 4d.

In the week ending the 3rd of October, there were 20,000 persons employed on the public works in Ireland; in the week ending the 31st of the same month, there were over 114,000. In the very next week, the first week of November, there were 162,000 on the works; and in the week ending the 28th of November, the returns give the number as something over 285,000! A fortnight later, in a detailed account of the operations of the Board, supplied to the Treasury, this remarkable sentence occurs: "The works at present are in every county in Ireland, affording employment to _more than_ three hundred thousand persons."[157] The increase went on rapidly through December. In the week ending the 5th of that month, there were 321,000 employed; and in the week which closed on the 26th, the extraordinary figure was 398,000![158]

The number of persons employed was greatest in Munster, and least in Ulster. At the beginning of December, they were thus distributed in the four Provinces: Ulster, 30,748; Leinster, 50,135; Connaught, 106,680; and Munster, 134,103. At the close of the month the same proportion was pretty fairly maintained, the numbers being: for Ulster, 45,487; for Leinster, 69,585; for Connaught, 119,946; and for Munster, 163,213.

According to the Census of 1841, there were in Ulster 439,805 families; in Leinster, 362,134; in Connaught, 255,694; and in Munster, 415,154.

From these data, the proportion between the number of persons employed on the relief works in each Province, and the population of that Province, stood thus at the close of the year 1846: in Ulster there was one labourer out of every nine and two-thirds families so employed; in Leinster there was one out of about every five and a quarter families; in Munster, one out of every two and a-half families; and in Connaught, one out of every two and about one-seventh families.

At the end of November, the number of employees superintending the public works were: 62 inspecting officers; 60 engineers and county surveyors; 4,021 overseers; 1,899 check clerks; 5 draftsmen; 54 clerks for correspondence; 50 clerks for accounts; 32 pay inspectors, and 425 pay clerks--making in all 6,913 officials, distributed over nine distinct departments.

The gross amount of wages rose, of course, in proportion to the numbers employed. At the end of October, the sum paid weekly was 61,000; at the end of November, 101,000; and for the week ending the 26th of December, 154,472.

The number of Relief Committees in operation throughout the country at the close of 1846, was about one thousand. Indeed, everything connected with the Public Works and the Famine tends to impress one with their gigantic proportions;--even the correspondence, the state of which is thus given by the Board in the middle of December: "The letters received averaged 800 a-day, exclusive of letters addressed to individual members of the Board, on public business; the number received on the last day of November was 2,000; to-day, (17th December,) two thousand five hundred."

All this notwithstanding, the Famine was but very partially stayed: on it went, deepening, widening, desolating, slaying, with the rapidity and certainty which marked the progress of its predecessor, the Blight. The numbers applying for work without being able to obtain it, were fearfully enormous. From a memorandum supplied by the Board of Works to Sir Randolph Routh, the head of the Commissariat Department, dated the 17th of December, we learn that the labourers then employed were about 350,000, whilst the number on Relief Lists (for employment) was about 500,000,--that is, there were 150,000 persons on the lists seeking work, who could not, or at least who did not, get it. Those 150,000 may be taken to represent at least half a million of starving people;--how many more were there at the moment, whose names never appeared on any list, except the death-roll!

FOOTNOTES:

[139] Commissariat Series of Blue Books, Correspondence, vol. I., pp. 80 and 83.

[140] _Ib._ p. 98.

[141] _Morning Chronicle_ quoted in _Freeman's Journal_ of October 7th, 1846. The _Standard_, commenting on a letter which appeared in the _Times_ shortly before on the same subject, and written in the same spirit of hostility to the Irish people, says it would be "indecent" at any time; at present it is "intolerably offensive" and "greatly mischievous." "That the Irish are not naturally an idle race," continues the _Standard_, "every man may satisfy himself in London streets, and in the streets of all our great towns, where nearly all the most toilsome work is performed by Irish labourers."

[142] Letter in Commissariat Series of Blue Books, vol. I., p. 360.

[143] _Ib._ p. 349.

[144] Afterwards Sir Thomas Redington, Knt.

[145] Mr. Brett, County Surveyor of Mayo to the Board of Works. Board of Works Series of Blue Books, vol. L, p. 125.

[146] "_Employment_, with wages in _cash_ is the general outcry."--_Com.

Gen. Hewitson to Mr. Trevelyan; Commissariat Series, p. 12._

[147] "Those at taskwork had fivepence, and in some cases as low as threepence per diem. In other cases, again, an opposite extreme existed, and as much as two s.h.i.+llings and twopence per diem was found in two instances to have been paid ... I fear there was not, in all cases, sufficient sympathy for the present sufferings of the poor--a feeling quite compatible with a firm and honest discharge of duty. This inflames the minds of the people against the system generally, and they become victims alike to their own intemperance, and the mismanagement of those placed over them. Throughout the country, in the majority of cases, disturbances are attributable wholly, or in a great degree, to such errors, overseers acting more as slave-drivers than as the messengers of benevolence to an afflicted but warm-hearted people."--_A Twelvemonth's Residence in Ireland during the Famine and the Public Works, with suggestions to meet the coming crisis. By William Henry Smith, C.E., late conducting Engineer of Public Works. London, 1848; p. 94._

Again: "I much regretted leaving, and but for the circ.u.mstance of some imperative engagements recalling me to London, my intended sojourn of two or three months, which I originally named to the Commissioners, would probably have been prolonged even beyond what it eventually was, amongst a people whom I saw no reason to fear, even when using necessary severity, but on the contrary every reason to admire, from their strongly affectionate dispositions and resignation in deep suffering: they treated it as the will of G.o.d, and murmured, 'Thy will be done.'"--_Ibid. p. 18._

[148] "In cases where disturbances arose in any one district, the works of the whole barony were suspended, inflicting injury upon all, the guilty and innocent indiscriminately."--_Ibid. p. 93._

[149] See Note p. 203, from Mr. Smith's valuable book, _A Twelvemonth's Residence in Ireland_.

[150] Board of Works Series, vol. L, p. 53.

[151] On the 8th of February, 1847, during the debate on the "Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill," in the House of Commons, Lord Duncan said, "He found it stated in the Blue Book he had referred to, that the two members for Clare had put tenants upon the relief-rate who were paying them considerable rents. He trusted that they would be prepared to deny this serious imputation."

Major M'Namara rose and said:--"Sir--As one of the members for Clare, I beg to say, that every sentence in Captain Wynne's letter is a malicious falsehood. (Some sensation, amid which the hon. member resumed his sat)."

[152] He thus complains in italics: "_None of the gentry will take our part except one_." Board of Works Blue Books, vol. L, p. 352, Appendix.

[153] "The works under 9 and 10 Vic., c. 107, are sanctioned for sake of the relief and not for sake of the works themselves." Mr. Trevelyan to Lieut.-Colonel Jones, 5th October, 1846.

[154] The duty of check clerks was to visit the works frequently, to count the labourers, and prepare the pay lists.

[155] Memorial to Lord John Russell, Dec. 14, 1846.

[156] Letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, 28th October, 1846.

[157] Board of Works' Series of Blue Books, vol. L (50), p. 352.

[158] Another account makes it only 376,133. It is easy to see that perfect accuracy with regard to the number of persons employed on the works at any given time was, for obvious reasons, not to be attained.

The figures given above from the official returns are, therefore, only an approximation to the truth, but they may be accepted as substantially correct.

CHAPTER VIII.

Operations of the Commissariat Relief Department--Not to interfere with Mealmongers or Corn Merchants--Effects of this Rule--Deputation from Achill (_Note_)--Organization of the Commissariat Relief Department--Reports on the Potato Crop--The Blight in Clare--Commissary-General Hewetson's Opinion--Commissary-General Dobree's Report--Depots--Universality of the Blight--Rules with regard to Food Depots--Fault of the Treasury--Scarcity of Food--Depots besieged for it in the midst of harvest--Depots to be only on the West Coast--What was meant by the West Coast--Coroner's Inquests at Mallow--Rev. Mr. Daly--Lord Mountcashel--Famine Demonstration at Westport--Sessions at Kilmacthomas--Riot at Dungarvan--Capt. Sibthorpe's Order--Mr. Howley's Advice--Attempt to rescue Prisoners--Captain Sibthorpe asks leave to fire--Refused by Mr. Howley--Riot Act read--Leave to fire given--People retire from the town--Two men wounded--The carter's reason for fighting--Lame Pat Power--Death of Michael Fleming, the carter--Formidable bands traverse the country--Advice of the Clergy--Carrigtuohill--Macroom--Killarney--Skibbereen--March on that town by the workmen of Caheragh--Dr. Donovan's account of the movement--The military, seventy-five in number, posted behind a schoolhouse--Firmness and prudence of Mr. Galwey, J.P.--Biscuits ordered from the Government Store--Peace preserved--Demonstration at Mallow--Lord Stuart de Decies--Deputation from Clonakilty to the Lord Lieutenant--s.h.i.+ps prevented from sailing at Youghal--Sir David Roche--Demonstrations simultaneous--Proclamation against food riots--Want of mill-power--No mill-power in parts of the West where most required--Sir Randolph Routh's opinion--Overruled by the Treasury--Mr. Lister's Account of the mill-power in parts of Connaught--Meal ground at Deptford, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Rotherhithe; also in Ess.e.x and the Channel Islands--Mill-power at Malta--Quant.i.ty of wheat there--Five hundred quarters purchased--The French--The Irish handmill, or quern, revived--Samples of it got--Steel-mills--Mill-power useless from failure of water-supply--Attempt to introduce whole corn boiled as food.

Two Governmental departments were told off to do battle with the Irish Famine; namely, the Board of Works and the Commissariat Relief Office.

The duty of the former was to find employment for those who were able to work, at such wages as would enable them to support themselves and their families; the latter was to see that food should be for sale within a reasonable distance of all who were necessitated to buy it, and at fair market prices; but more than this the Commissariat Office was not empowered to do. Corn merchants, food dealers, and mealmongers were not to be interfered with; on the contrary, they were to be encouraged in carrying on their trade. It was only where such persons did not exist, or did not exist in sufficient numbers, that the Commissariat depots were to sell corn or meal to the people. No food was to be given away by Government; none was to be sold under price, it being a.s.sumed that the people could earn enough to support themselves. Government feared that, if they began to undersell the merchants and dealers, those cla.s.ses would give up business, which, in the Government's opinion, would be a very great evil. Mealmongers and food dealers are generally very shrewd men; and it was believed, with much reason, that they succeeded in raising prices when it suited them, and in many cases in realizing even large fortunes, by working on the apprehensions of the Government in respect to this very matter.[159]

The Commissariat Relief Department was organized at the close of 1845, for the purpose of managing the distribution of Indian meal, imported at that time by Sir Robert Peel, to provide against the antic.i.p.ated scarcity of the spring and summer of 1846. Its head-quarters were in Dublin Castle, and its chief was a Scotch gentleman, Sir Randolph Routh--a name which, like some others, must occur pretty frequently in these pages. The Commissariat people, as is usual in such cases, began by inst.i.tuting extensive inquiries. They ordered their subordinates to furnish reports of the state of the potato crop throughout the country.

The a.s.sistant Commissaries-General and others employed in this service, in due time, made their reports, which in the main agreed with the statements in the public journals, and with the opinion prevalent everywhere among the people; thus differing with those officers of the Board of Works who held that there were more sound potatoes in Ireland than was generally admitted. So early as the 11th of August, Mr. White, writing from Galway to a.s.sistant Commissary-General Wood, makes a most unfavourable report of the state of the crop in Clare; the Blight, he says, was general and most rapid in its effects, a large quant.i.ty of the potatoes being already diseased, and a portion perfectly rotten. "I am, therefore, clearly of opinion," he continues, "that the scarcity of the potato last year will be nothing compared with this, and that, too, several months earlier."[160] Commissary-General Hewetson sent specimens of diseased potatoes to the Secretary of the Treasury in the middle of August, with this information: "The crop seems to have been struck almost everywhere by one sweeping blast, in one and the same night. I mentioned a hope that the tubers might yet rally, many of the stalks having thrown out fresh vegetation; I fear it is but a futile hope."[161] Just about the same time, a.s.sistant Commissary-General Dobree reports to the same quarter: "It is superfluous to make any further report on the potato crop, for I believe the failure is general and complete throughout the country, though the disease has made more rapid progress in some places than in others. In a circuit of two hundred miles, I have not seen one single field free from it; and although it is very speculative to attempt a calculation on what is not yet absolutely realized, my belief is that scarcely any of the late potatoes will be fit for human food."[162]