Wars and ConflictsÌý permalink
Was the Irish Famine an accident?
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Thursday, 19th August 2010
Was the Irish Famine an accident or was it the inevitable consequence of English/British policy over the centuries?
THE DESTRUCTION OF IRISH TRADE :
The early Irish were famous for their excellence in arts and crafts, especially for their wonderful work in metals, bronze, silver and gold. By the beginning of the 14th century trading ships were constantly sailing between Ireland and the leading ports of the Continent.
COMPETITION WITH ENGLAND :
This commerce was a threat to English merchants who tried to discourage such trade. They brought pressure on their government, which passed a law in 1494 that prohibited the Irish from exporting any industrial product, unless it was shipped through an English port, with an English permit after paying English fees. However, England was not able to enforce the law. By 1548 British merchants were using armed vessels to attack and plunder trading ships travelling between Ireland and the Continent (unofficial piracy).
ENGLISH MEN, ENGLISH SHIPS, ENGLISH CREWS, ENGLISH PORTS AND IRISH GOODS :
In 1571 Queen Elizabeth ordered that no cloth or materials made in Ireland could be exported, even to England, except by English men in Ireland. The act was amended in 1663 to prohibit the use of all foreign-going ships, except those that were built in England, mastered and three-fourths manned by English, and cleared from English ports. The return cargoes had to be unloaded in England. Ireland's shipbuilding industry was thus destroyed and her trade with the Continent wiped out.
TRADE WITH THE COLONIES :
Ireland then began a lucrative trade with the Colonies. That was "cured" in 1670 by a new law which forbade Ireland to export to the colonies "anything except horses, servants, and victuals." England followed with a decree that no Colonial products could be landed in Ireland until they had first landed in England and paid all English rates and duties.
Ireland was forbidden to engage in trade with the colonies and plantations of the New World if it involved sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, rice, and numerous other items. The only item left for Ireland to import was rum. The English wanted to help English rum makers in the West Indies at the expense of Irish farmers and distillers.
IRISH WOOL TRADE CURTAILED, THEN DESTROYED :
When the Irish were forbidden to export their sheep, they began a thriving trade in wool. In 1634 The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Stafford, wrote to King Charles I: "All wisdom advises us to keep this (Irish) kingdom as much subordinate and dependent on England as possible; and, holding them from manufacture of wool which unless otherwise directed, I shall by all means discourage, and then enforcing them to fetch their cloth from England, how can they depart from us without nakedness and beggary?"
In 1660 even the export of wool from Ireland to England was forbidden. Other English laws prohibited all exports of Irish wool in any form. In 1673, Sir William Temple advised that the Irish would act wisely by giving up the manufacture of wool even for home use, because "it tended to interfere prejudicially with the English woolen trade."
George II sent three warships and eight other armed vessels to cruise off the coast of Ireland to seize all vessels carrying woolens from Ireland. "So ended the fairest promise that Ireland had ever known of becoming a prosperous and a happy country."
LINEN TRADE REPRESSED :
Irish linen manufacturing met with the same fate when the Irish were forbidden to export their product to all other countries except England. A thirty percent duty was levied in England, effectively prohibiting the trade. English manufacturers, on the other hand, were granted a bounty for all linen exports.
BEEF, PORK, BUTTER AND CHEESE :
In 1665 Irish cattle were no longer welcome in England, so the Irish began killing them and exporting the meat. King Charles II declared that the importation of cattle, sheep, swine and beef from Ireland was henceforth a common nuisance, and forbidden. Pork and bacon were soon prohibited, followed by butter and cheese.
SILK AND TOBACCO :
In the middle of the 18th century, Ireland began developing a silk weaving industry. Britain imposed a heavy duty on Irish silk, but British manufactured silk was admitted to Ireland duty-free. Ireland attempted to develop her tobacco industry, but that too was prohibited.
FISH :
In 1819 England withdrew the subsidy for Irish fisheries and increased the subsidies to British fishermen - with the result that Ireland's possession of one of the longest coastlines in Europe, still left it with one of the most miserable fisheries.
GLASS :
Late in the 18th century the Irish became known for their manufacture of glass. George II forbade the Irish to export glass to any country whatsoever under penalty of forfeiting ship, cargo and ten shillings per pound weight.
THE RESULT :
By 1839, a French visitor to Ireland, Gustave de Beaumont, was able to write:
"In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland. To explain the social condition of such a country, it would be only necessary to recount its miseries and its sufferings; the history of the poor is the history of Ireland."
CONCLUSION :
From the 15th through the 19th centuries, successive English monarchies and governments enacted laws designed to suppress and destroy Irish manufacturing and trade. These repressive Acts, coupled with the Penal Laws, reduced the Irish people to "nakedness and beggary" in a very direct and purposeful way. The destitute Irish then stood at the very brink of the bottomless pit. When the potato blight struck in 1845, it was but time for the final push.
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Message 2
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Message 3
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Thursday, 19th August 2010
I'm sure there are more facts and figures in the records which paint a more complex route to 1845, but I believe that it was an act of nature (diseased crops) which failed for a few years.
Down the chain of disaster came the unhelpful and seemingly unsympathetic British Government, who acted too late with too little. The landlords in Ireland thought of their own pockets first.
Let's not also forget that a massive number of those same poor Irish that fled the famine and pestilence in the 1840's, landed in England's ports (Liverpool and London, no less)!
By 1840 one third of the British army...was Irish! -
Message 4
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Thursday, 19th August 2010
Thank you, ShaneONeal, for providing that surprising (to me) list of damning facts. I'm sure I'm not the only one on these boards who was completely unaware of how badly Ireland was treated. Of course, without knowing the close details of the entire history it is difficult to know how strongly the condemnation should be for there may have been mitigating factors that you haven't mentioned.
Certainly I tend to side with Man_Upstairs for his more conventional 'Occam's Razor' explanation of the catastrophe. I speak as a descendant of a family that emigrated to Liverpool from Newry because of the famine. -
Message 5
This posting has been hidden during moderation because it broke the in some way.
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Message 6
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 19th August 2010
BEEF, PORK, BUTTER AND CHEESE :
In 1665 Irish cattle were no longer welcome in England, so the Irish began killing them and exporting the meat. King Charles II declared that the importation of cattle, sheep, swine and beef from Ireland was henceforth a common nuisance, and forbidden. Pork and bacon were soon prohibited, followed by butter and cheese.Ìý
So 'the English' are damned for importing Irish produce and also damned for not importing Irish produce. -
Message 7
Posted by baz (U14258304) on Friday, 20th August 2010
Was the Irish Famine an accident or was it the inevitable consequence of English/British policy over the centuries?Ìý
It was a deliberate policy of extermination fuelled by English fears of a superior Celtic race rising to become the No.1 civilisation in world history.
That's what you wanted to hear, wasn't it? -
Message 8
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Friday, 20th August 2010
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Message 9
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Besides your latent racism Catigern, have you anything to offer re-the points made.
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Message 10
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
How are they damned for importing Irish produce? damned for preventing the importation yes.
Its not just a simple mater of importing either, its the systematic reduction and destruction of Irish trade with the continent and with Britain.
This was policy over many centuries. -
Message 11
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Baz, can you address the points made without attacking the messanger?
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Message 12
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
How are they damned for importing Irish produce? damned for preventing the importation yes.Ìý
How much Irish produce was exported during the Great Famine? -
Message 13
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Besides your latent racism Catigern, have you anything to offer re-the points madeÌý
Besides already having given my serious academic judgement on your infantile tripe, Shane, yes I have...
If the famine had only affected Catholic Gaels, who had been the target of the most severe 'oppression' (ie English/British measures for self-protection*), then that might be a starting point for linking the two phenomena in causal terms...
...but it didn't!
So-called 'oppressors' starved too.
Also, if the Irish economy was restricted so much, how come Huguenot refugees and Quaker migrants did so well for themselves there in the 17th and 18th centuries...?
Crude Brit-Bashing may be 'History' in the eyes of Yankee plastic gobsh!te teachers and their counterparts in the Irish Republic, but they're kidding themselves.
*Somehow, I suspect it'd be news to Shane etc. that, eg, Cromwell's expedition to Ireland was preceded (and arguably provoked) by an Irish invasion of the mainland that was accompanied by assorted atrocities against the British population. That kind of thing doesn't tend to make it into 'The Muppet's Guide to Oirish Whinging', or whatever source Shane and company prefer...
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Message 14
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
I doubt if many here believe you have a serious acedemic bone in your body.
I never said the famine only affected 'catholic Gaels' you crass moran.
Huguenots and Quakers were more acceptable to the ascendency parliament and to London than the catholic majority were.
It is not Brit bashing to discuss aspects of Irish history, is your racist ranting meant to prevent any discussion of Irish affairs? -
Message 15
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
I doubt if many here believe you have a serious acedemic [sic
] bone in your body.Ìý
Meh! My academic career doesn't depend on your judgement or that of anyone else on these boards...
I never said the famine only affected 'catholic Gaels' you crass moran [sic±Õ.Ìý
No - just gave a list of phenomena from which Catholic Gaels allegedly suffered most, while suggesting that they were the cause of a phenomenon that affected many other groups...
Huguenots and Quakers were more acceptable to the ascendency parliament and to London than the catholic majority were.Ìý
Their trade etc was subject to the same restrictions that applied across the board in Ireland, but we don't tend to hear their descendants bleating on about it.
It is not Brit bashing to discuss aspects of Irish historyÌý
I look forward to the day you post about Irish history, rather merely repeat BS nationalist mythology...
your racist rantingÌý
Oh, the irony! To be accused of racism by an immature bigot who imagines that nations occupy hereditary niches in an imaginary moral hierarchy of ethnicities...
to prevent any discussion of Irish affairs?Ìý
Quite happy to discuss the long-lived Irish traditions of attacking the mainland, sexually abusing the vulnerable, supporting totalitarian regimes, terrorism, murdering the homeless etc, etc... -
Message 16
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Hi ShaneONeal
What did you mean by accident in your opening question? It's a tough concept to square with conventional historiography when it comes to events of the magnitude and complexity of the Great Famine. -
Message 17
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
"What did you mean by accident in your opening question?"
just shorthand... -
Message 18
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
"Meh! My academic career doesn't depend on your judgement or that of anyone else on these boards..."
very lucky for you it doesn't
"Their trade etc was subject to the same restrictions that applied across the board in Ireland, but we don't tend to hear their descendants bleating on about it."
It's not a matter of 'bleating' young man, it's a matter of establishing the facts of history.
If you took the attitude of seriously engaging with these questions, rather than the snide, know it all racist attitude you have adopted maybe we might learn something.
"Oh, the irony! To be accused of racism by an immature bigot who imagines that nations occupy hereditary niches in an imaginary moral hierarchy of ethnicities..."
There's no irony c, you have been down-right racist in your attitude and its not the first time. "imaginary moral hierarchy of ethnicities..." - you're a very silly man catigern.
"Quite happy to discuss the long-lived Irish traditions of attacking the mainland, sexually abusing the vulnerable, supporting totalitarian regimes, terrorism, murdering the homeless etc, etc..."
You're not a historian catigern, you're just a sad racist idiot. -
Message 19
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Shorthand for what, Shane? An unforeseeable event or an unplanned event? The historical evidence suggests an answer of yes to the latter and no to the former.
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Message 20
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Whilst very interesting is it particularly suprising if Britain "loaded the dice" so that her own industries were favoured over Irish ones? I would argue that to some extent most (powerful)countries have probably done it and still do by placing levies and taxes on foreign goods.Also,if you are going to be top dog do you really want to shoot yourself in the foot by allowing your homegrown industries (and people) to face competition close to home within your empire but outside of your homebase?I would also imagine that it would make Ireland easier to govern if they were denied the chance to evolve.Harsh,but then they were different times when empires were the norm.
As for the famine ,from the little Ive read it seems to me that the the British were incompetent and slow to react rather than planning an act of genocide. -
Message 21
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Sunday, 22nd August 2010
"Shorthand for what, Shane? An unforeseeable event or an unplanned event? The historical evidence suggests an answer of yes to the latter and no to the former"
Unplanned and unforeseeable perhaps butwhen you pursue policies which denude a country of resources and trade you are designing for redundancy and impoverishment in a large part of the population. -
Message 22
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Sunday, 22nd August 2010
“Whilst very interesting is it particularly suprising if Britain "loaded the dice" so that her own industries were favoured over Irish ones? I would argue that to some extent most (powerful) countries have probably done it and still do by placing levies and taxes on foreign goods. Also, if you are going to be top dog do you really want to shoot yourself in the foot by allowing your home-grown industries (and people) to face competition close to home within your empire but outside of your homebase? would also imagine that it would make Ireland easier to govern if they were denied the chance to evolve. Harsh, but then they were different times when empires were the norm.
As for the famine, from the little I’ve read it seems to me that the British were incompetent and slow to react rather than planning an act of genocide.“
I wouldn’t disagree with that vf; by pursuing such policies of denuding the Irish of trade and export opportunities for centuries there were inevitable consequences.
In a sense the policy towards Ireland by successive English/British governments was one of active (harsh, as you say) intervention where Irish industry, agriculture and trade was being successful , combined with one of laissez- faire where the inevitable consequences were one of impoverishment, destitution and starvation.
This is not a thought out policy of genocide, but more like genocide by default. -
Message 23
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 22nd August 2010
... but when you pursue policies which denude a country of resources and trade you are designing for redundancy and impoverishment in a large part of the population.
Ìý
"You" would be if that's what you're doing. However the economic history of Ireland is not that simple, and the policies pursued definitely not as you describe them if you are inferring intent, especially not so if you are inferring continual intent.
One could argue that something approaching those policies prevailed between 1690 and 1780 but even then an attempt to portray them simply as vindictive and anti-Irish is misleading, all the more so if by Irish one infers the Catholic majority. The biggest casualty in terms of trade during this period, for example, could be said to be Ireland's potentially lucrative linen industry (a largely Huguenot and Presbyterian enterprise). Controls placed on livestock exports led to a massive switch to what later became known as "money crops", and a subsequent increase in export valuation calculated by M.R. O'Connell to have been in the region of several thousand percent over the entire century. Of the revenue generated an impressive fifty percent went into infrastructural and agrarian improvements, a figure way in excess of anything achieved prior or subsequent to that time.
The establishment of free trade legislation in 1780, and in particular the famous Irish Trade Dispute with Portugal which started that year, actually saw Britain (after some political pressure from the Irish) not only supporting Ireland's right to trade internationally and with the colonies but even at the expense of English exports in particular cases, hardly a policy designed to "denude a country of resources and trade". It has even been argued by economic historians that this in effect retarded Ireland's later inclination towards industrialisation, and in the mid nineteenth century this retardation was to play a major causal role in the famine itself.
I make these points not to exonerate Britain from any contributory role in the famine but simply to illustrate that the factors which contributed to such a disaster were ones which transcend attempts to imply that Britain's economic and political policies towards Ireland were in hindsight "genocide by default", as you put it. The economic situation in Ireland in 1845 was as much the result of failure to intervene as of interventionist politics in operation.
When, through the failure of the staple crop, the whole economy and society itself began quickly to unravel, it was again a lack of intelligent intervention which accelerated the process of decay, disease and mass death. But even that is to deflect from the very real possibility that Peel's initial policy, had it not been discontinued by Russell, might well have averted disaster on the scale which subsequently transpired.
The famine as an issue is one which even today is difficult to discuss without certain people degenerating such exchanges to the level of insult and sectarian bigotry, as Catigern's contributions above so amply demonstrated. But neither is discussion of the issue served well by opening it with an invitation to discuss guilt (or lack of it) on anyone's part, I have found. Equally disingenuous is to invite an association between responsibility where it lies with an agenda founded in prejudice and bigotry. These factors regrettably played a role, but to ascribe them as a sole root cause precludes intelligent investigation of the others which pertained. Britain has much historically by way of fault to answer for in its conduct towards Ireland, but to collectively ascribe its own role in creating factors which led to the Great Famine as "anti-Irish" is itself a conclusion, not an exploration of those factors. As an opening gambit in debate it will inevitably simply lead to bigoted rubbish such as Catigern's and rejoinders such as his now deleted link to fellow sectarian bigotry in its current Glaswegian form.
As an Irishman who appreciates history and has some understanding of the utter devastation the famine wreaked on Ireland and its people's prospects over the next century and a half, I expect the subject to be treated with rather more seriousness and respect than that. -
Message 24
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010
Good post, Nordman.
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Message 25
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010
This ought to be on History Hub rather than War & Conflict.
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Message 26
Posted by Docbrinsley (U6638310) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010
How much Irish produce was exported during the Great Famine?
Quite alot.Grain, cattle, pigs & other dairy products & all to England. -
Message 27
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010
Not sure if it 'all' went to 'England' but - yes - that was the main point of the question. (See Messages 6, 10 and 12.)
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Message 28
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 25th August 2010
Hi Vizzer
A simple answer would be that enough was exported to ensure economic solvency in Ireland (and even that was perilously close to meltdown).
Ireland was an agrarian society with no prospect to industrialise except in certain small pockets. Its only exports of significance were food products and its only market of significance was the rest of Britain. Stopping this export to feed people in 1845 would have required legislation of an almost revolutionary nature (equivalent to nationalising agriculture). Buying it at market prices out of British tax revenues would have had a catastrophic economic effect and in any case was politically inconceivable (I'm not sure it would even pass modern sensibilities). Even a slight drop in export would lead to an exponentially higher degree of hardship in Ireland, which is why attempts by Irish factions (not always militant) to seize exports were resisted with determined military means.
In 1846 all of these contingencies were just too difficult to imagine on everyone's part, but in 1847 the latter is exactly what happened (due not to seizure but to a depletion in workforce and a bad harvest), and as landlords suddenly began going out of business their assets were seized by agencies for whom tenants were simply a liability. As if starvation was not bad enough eviction then became also a commonplace and a starving population became a straving itinerant population - the worst nightmare of anyone attempting to administer relief. It was this which prompted even Russell eventually to do a U-turn with regard to his strict implementation of the Poor Law - to his minister Devereaux's disgust.
A dispassionate look at the total amounts of produce exported therefore reveals little or nothing regarding the actual plight of Ireland at the time. Nor does it assist much in assessing British policy or the intelligence (or lack of same) at work behind it. Starving people understandably watched with incredulity as food sailed from their shores, but when that food failed to sail in such quantities later their plight actually worsened. This was economics in operation at as basic and heartless a level as one can get. The tragedy was that the famine affected so many people so suddenly that the then known methods of "fine tuning" understood economic forces just couldn't hope to rectify the situation. Peel's policy (give them return for their exports in addition to food relief) was probably the best hope. Russell's was disastrous. -
Message 29
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 25th August 2010
Re: Message 28.
Nordmann,
thank you very much for this thought-provoking post as by the way the message 23 too.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 30
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 25th August 2010
hello Nordmann
good post - thanks. I hadn't appreciated that there had been such a difference in the approach of the Peel and of the Russell ministries. (I also have to plead ignorance as to who exactly Devereaux was in Russell's administration.) But, as you say, the sliding scales of economics, varying contemporary socio-economic attitudes and combined with the suddenness and magnitude of the natural disaster contrived to create something of a 'perfect storm'. A true historical tragedy if ever there was one. -
Message 31
Posted by Mike Waller (U4782937) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
What seems to me particularly sad is our inability to learn lessons from the past. I have several times heard that the current Somali pirates were, up until very recently, fishermen. Then, as elsewhere, what passes for their central authorities did a deal with the EU whereby European factory ships could hoover up the fish in Somali waters to the economic advantage of those at the centre. The fishermen, having lost their livelihoods, turned to piracy. Eventually this all got too much for the EU to stomach so they placed a prohibition on member states launching such vessels. An Irish vessel then under construction should have been caught by this ban, but in went the key Irish politicians, twisted the appropriate arms, and it was granted an exemption. Like England in its dealings with Ireland, Irish domestic trade took primacy over starving Somalis. 'Twas ever thus and, no doubt, always will be.
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Message 32
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
Apologies Vizzer - I promoted Devereaux somewhat. He was in fact a secretary to Sir Charles Trevelyan, who himself was Assistant Secretary to the Treasury during the famine and with responsibility for administering relief. Trevelyan was the lad who described the famine at the time as "a mechanism for controlling surplus population" and that it had been "sent by God to teach the Irish a lesson". When Russell backtracked somewhat and set up soup kitchens in 1847 (which fed three million people for six months)Trevelyan was strongly opposed and Devereaux voiced this opposition for his master in a series of letters to the Times. It is said that this rather public display of dissent within the Whig government was what prompted Russell to "backtrack on his backtrack" and end the soup dole in September 1847 in a bid to display a rigorous adherence to the party's stated principles. That decision led to a steep upturn in fatalities and the highest winter death toll of the famine years.
Trevelyan received the Order of the Bath in 1848 for his sterling work. I assume Deveraux also received an appreciation for his part in it. -
Message 33
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
Surely the drift of the initial thread reflects the fact that historically England consistently regarded at least sections of the population of Ireland as a real or potential threat. And the historical reasons for those policies- whether over-riding or not- are not hard to find in the relations between the two countries/regions.
But the "economic policies" of the English Crown right up to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, from really quite early on in the Middle Ages, were based upon the need to promote English strength, not Irish weakness. Such policies were often opportunistic and related to the "parleys" that led to the emergence of parliament. Kings wanted taxes, and commoners, especially from the developing urban centres, brought forward requests for royal approval for schemes that would promote local interests, and thereby promote the ability of the English people to create the economic activity that would underpin a viable state capable of guaranteeing English peace.
An important element in this peace was the element of opportunism connected with the existence of a kingdom capable of being strong and united kingdom when it needed to be, and able to defend itself, while negotiating and navigating the dangerous waters of very difficult and turbulent times, not least by trying to make sure -as under Elizabeth I- that people could think of themselves as Englishmen rather than Catholics or Protestants.
As Jack Lindsey wrote in the introduction to his survey of "1764",however, the "Glorious Bloodless Revolution of 1688-9" was certainly none of those things in Ireland or Scotland. But then in 1688-9 what seemed incredible was that any country within the European sphere could recover from the disunity that had been engendered by the earl Stuarts, and had sunk the country into the kind of civil war so common across Europe, and achieve such a major political, constitutional and economic change in such a pragmatic and practical way. Common cause with the Dutch- also vigorously resisting the efforts of absolutist monarchy to bring the Netherlands back into the European mainstream- also helped a great deal.
But the conflict with France- one of England's/Britain's other neighbours- was even more intense than that with Ireland- or Scotland. As an economic history of Europe written in 1930 pointed out, as the age of Adam Smith dawned, France was still the number one power in Europe. Subsequently the industrial revolution and the Union with Ireland were just part of the way that England- now part of Great Britain- responded to the threat of yet another European "Grand Design" that would reduce the common people of these islands [like most of Europe] to Jean Jacques Rousseau's idea of a Europe in chains.. As a French man told me last year Napoleon was more or less just an earlier version of Hitler.
By 1930 France had slipped to forth place in Europe and Great Britain was fast slipping from the top spot. But, during the crucial period when world leadership to some extent hung in the balance between Britain and France, British economic policy of "Mercantilism" was not based upon mere economic growth and wealth creation, but upon the age-old idea of the English Commonweal.
Mercantilism was related to a complex of economic, social, political and military considerations that were much broader than Adam Smith's pre-Marxist view that wealth is all that counts. Protectionist policies were not aimed at protecting parts of the economy but providing for local communities and the systems that helped those mixed communties to survive and prosper independently. And the Navigation Acts were shaped and applied with the over-riding priority that England's existence as a fortress "sceptred isle" depended upon the existence of a fleet and the men who could man such a fleet and defeat any power in the World.
So Adam Smith's arguments in favour of "the invisible hand" etc were a direct challenge to the previous English politics of action for "the common good"- and the preservation of that English tradition of "Good Naturedness" that Lord Clarendon called for at the Restoration.
Unfortunately, however, this was a time when the genius of Scottish "philosofers" [as William Cobbett complained] was promoting a new kind of inhuman and scientific approach to politics. T.B.Macaulay, proud of his own Scottish inheritance in that regard, was confident that with the new reformed Parliament in 1832 such learned and scholarly men, working within the strong English tradition of reform would very quickly solve the political problems of the age.
Others were not so sure. [a]John Newman, vicar of the university Church of St. Mary's at Oxford wrote his first Tract -the start of the Tractarian movement- in which he argued against the "National Apostacy" involved in this new politics of capital- material and intellectual. He urged students at Oxford- like W.E. Gladstone and Matthew Arnold- to embrace the English tradition of the traditional duty of care that had always been accepted by the more favoured members of English society. As Arnold was to write later when Newman was a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, that Oxford Movement was not truly a lost cause- just ahead of its time.
[b]William Cobbett, visiting Ireland at the invitation of his good friend Daniel O'Connell in 1834, urged the Irish people to join his struggle against the arguments of the political establishment that seemed determined to sweep away the old idea of parish support for the poor that had been such a feature since Tudor times. But Ireland like Scotland had no such tradition of commonweal and real community solidarity. In times of hardship people were issued licences to beg, and in really terrible times like the late 1690's it was estimated by one Scottish nationalist, Fletcher of Saltoun, that as many as 20% of the whole population of the country were roaming the countryside as "soarners" or sturdy beggars. Fletcher's solution was that they should be turned into slaves: and, of course, it was to some extent this kind of thinking applied by the Stuart plantations in Ireland that led to the early eighteenth century situation in which Roman Catholics were condemned to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water."
But, as I have explained many times before, the build up to the Irish Famines would appear to be heavily influenced by the opportunities that were offered by the Union. Because of the bitter history of two communities efforts to really take advantage of the economic potential of Ireland within the UK, were undermined by the export of Irish Labour to the mainland, where Irish workers- either permanently migrating, or just going for temporary work. This often involved menfolk planting their potato plots before going off, leaving the rest of their families behind. Three things contrived to bring out the fatal potential within this dynamic situation.
(A)The New Poor Law of 1834 was based on the assumption that the economic good times would continue and that Labour would continue to be in short supply in the industrial areas. Within two years there was a trade slump, and there were riots at Stockport when the Poor Law authorities would not give outdoor relief. It had become something of a tradition for Irish migrant workers to have their fare home; preferable to even more Irish 'paupers' over-wintering.
(B)The economic collapse of 1835-42 meant a loss of money income either directly from migrant work or from extended family support, and an even greater dependence upon the potato patches. A late nineteenth century economist argued that as bread prices went up the poor would end up buying more bread. As the potato plot became increasingly important in household survival the dangers inherent in mono-cultivation were accentuated and the conditions for the spread of disease were maximised.
(C) But the potato blight was general. On the British mainland there was starvation and hardship, and General Napier was sent with the army, complete with cannon, just in case things turned really nasty. As the Webbs noted in their history of trade unionism in 1837, the Glasgow unions within the cotton weaving industry imposed a "reign of terror" over the working population that almost certainly went as far a murder, while trade union activity in Dublin and Cork also produced reigns of terror. During what they called "the Revolutionary Period" the economic hardship coincided with the great Chartist movement, and Feargus O'Connor, the great "Northern Star" journalist and orator recommending that the peace-loving English working classes needed to join forces with the "warlike" Scots and Irish. These "Warlike" populations had not the same traditions of community and commonweal as much of England, and no basis of having pursued collective and communal prosperity and in the interests of the whole population. As G.M. Trevelyan quoted in from one of the Border Ballads in his beloved North-East "marches", a "nearest neighbour" receiving an appeal for help could reply "What have you ever done for me that I should now help you?" The crops that commercial farmers had struggled to produce in the face of terrorism, arson and murder, especially during the 1820's, would have been assessed and sold while ripening in the fields before harvest, long before the starving population that had never planned to buy this food saw it being shipped abroad to its lawful owners.
But Macaulay in Parliament was scathing about the inefficiency of the government handling of the developing situation. The shortfall in food production was predictable some time before the great hunger began; and the Government should have acted much sooner to make sure that emergency supplies of food would be adequate. But then the adminstration may have been misled by the English tradition and perhaps a conviction that really the Irish needed to learn a "One nation" philosophy.
As it was they did. But it was not a One Nation philosophy that could include and embrace all the people of Ireland.
Cass -
Message 34
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 29th August 2010
Shane
Going back to your original statement, and picking up on the "lessons of history" comment, surely one of the depressing features of the current times is that we have a culture in which events may be treated either as accidents that defy the best will and efforts of humankind OR are in fact the result of some incredible conspiracy in which puppet masters are pulling all the strings.
It is a great philosophy for an apathetic age which is disillusioned with politics and collective/comunal life.
Surely what detailed historical analysis usually reveals is that human affairs are shaped by the resultant forces that are produced by the all of the various factors of dynamism including human intent and the sins of commission and ommission. TB Macaulay said as much in 1828 when he asserted that historical truth could only be established as science rather than art if everything was known about what everyone did. And a clever people learn how to make sure that the best laid plans of mice and men gang awry.
Cass
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