Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes 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