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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Let them eat the Gross National Product (the Irish famine)
Message-ID: <195@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 14:15:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.195
Posted: Wed Sep 18 14:15:18 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 06:34:31 EDT
References: <3476@topaz.UUCP> <28200078@inmet.UUCP> <1790@psuvax1.UUCP> <192@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 77

In case anyone is inclined to doubt my statements about the great
Irish famine, here are some passages from *The Great Hunger* by C.
Woodham-Smith.  
______________

One of the reasons why the British Government did not feel bound to
send food to Skibbereen [an Irish town] was that ample food was to be
found there already.  "On Saturday, notwithstanding all this
distress," wrote Major Parker, the Board of Works' Relief Inspector,
on December 21, "there was a market plentifully supplied with meat,
bread, fish, in short everything."  This extraordinary contradiction
occurred all over Ireland during the famine years, and was not
understood by the British Government.  Trevelyan insisted that the
"resources" of the country should be "drawn out", failing to realize
that those resources were so utterly inaccessible to the unfortunate
wretches dying in the streets and by the roadsides that they might as
well never have existed.  The starving in such places as Skibbereen
perished not because there was no food but because they had no money
with which to buy it.  [p. 165]

...the subsequent value to Ireland of [Robert] Peel's boldness,
independence and strength of mind was unfortunately outweighed by his
belief in an economic theory which almost every politician of the
day, Whig or Tory, held with religious fervour.

This theory, usually termed *laissez faire*, let people do as they
think best, insisted that in the economic sphere individuals should
be allowed to pursue their own interests and asserted that the
Government should interfere as little as possible.  Not only were the
rights of property sacred; private enterprise was revered and
respected and given almost complete liberty, and on this theory,
which incidentally gave the employer and the landlord freedom to
exploit his fellow men, the prosperity of nineteenth-century England
had unquestionably been based.

The influence of *laissez faire* on the treatment of Ireland during
the famine is impossible to exaggerate.  Almost without exception the
high officials and politicians responsible for Ireland were fervent
believers in non-interference by Government, and the behaviour of the
British authorities only becomes explicable when their fanatical
belief in private enterprise and their suspicions of any action which
might be considered Government intervention are borne in mind.

The loss of the potato crop was therefore to be made good, without
Government interference, by the operations of private enterprise and
private firms, using the normal channels of commerce.... The flaw in
the plan was the undeveloped state of the food and provision trade in
a great part of Ireland.  [pp. 54-55]

It has been frequently declared that the parsimony of the British
Government during the famine was the main cause of the sufferings of
the people, and parsimony was certainly carried to remarkable
lengths; but obtuseness, short-sightedness and ignorance probably
contributed more.

To take only a few instances, it did not occur to Lord John Russell
and his advisers that, by forcing the famine-stricken applicant for
relief to give up every possession, they were creating fresh armies
of paupers, even though Lord Clarendon had inquired if it were wise
to compel a man to become a pauper, when he was not one already, in
order to be saved from starvation.... Even the self-evident truth,
that Ireland is not England, was not realized by the Government in
Whitehall; the desolate, starving west was assumed to be served by
snug grocers and prosperous merchants and to be a field for private
enterprise....

Much of this obtuseness sprang from the fanatical faith of
mid-nineteenth century British politicians in the economic doctrine
of *laissez faire*, no interference by government, no meddling with
the operation of natural causes.  Adherence to *laissez faire* was
carried to such a length that in the midst of one of the major
famines of history, the government was perpetually nervous of being
too good to Ireland and of corrupting the Irish people by kindness,
and so stifling the virtues of self reliance and industry.  [pp.
410-411]
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes