John Kells Ingram

“ But it is not so well understood that slavery discharged important offices in the later social evolution—first, by enabling military action to prevail with the degree of intensity and continuity requisite for the system of incorporation by conquest which was its final destination; and, secondly, by forcing the captives, who with their descendants came to form the majority of the population in the conquering community, to an industrial life, in spite of the antipathy to regular and sustained labour which is deeply rooted in human nature. ”

“ This great movement, though its dimensions cannot fail strongly to impress the imagination, we can yet see to be a perfectly natural consequence of economic laws acting under the new conditions of human societies. If in former times the Irish peasant squatted from year to year on his poor little patch of land, or toiled on for miserable wages in a state of chronic semi-starvation, when in other countries he and his children might have earned, with no greater effort, a comfortable livelihood, it was not because he wished to remain, but because he was unable to go. ”

“ In the frequent visits which Leslie made to the continent, especially to Belgium and some of the less-known districts of France and Germany, he occupied himself much in economic and social observation, studying the effects of the institutions and system of life which prevailed in each region, on the material and moral condition of its inhabitants. In this way he gained an extensive and accurate acquaintance with continental rural economy, of which he made excellent use in studying parallel phenomena at home. ”

“ One of the greatest evils of Ireland is the disaffection to the government which undeniably exists, and it is our duty to do everything in our power to correct this state of feeling, by removing all just causes of complaint. ”

“ In its action on the slave it marred in a great measure the happy effects of habitual industry by preventing the development of the sense of human dignity which lies at the foundation of morals. On the morality of the masters—whether personal, domestic, or social—the effects of the institution were disastrous. The habit of absolute rule, always dangerous, was peculiarly corrupting when it penetrated every department of daily life, and when no external interference checked individual caprice in its action on the feelings and fortunes of inferiors. ”

“ In this, after exposing the inanity of the theory of the wage-fund, and showing the utter want of agreement between its results and the observed phenomena, he concludes by declaring that “political economy must be content to take rank as an inductive, instead of a purely deductive science,” and that, by this change of character, “it will gain in utility, interest and real truth far more than a full compensation for the forfeiture of a fictitious title to mathematical exactness and certainty.” ”

“ As witness, the slave was still subject to the question; as criminal, he was punished with greater rigour than the freeman. If he accused his master of a crime, unless the charge was of treason, he was burnt. But he could maintain a legal claim to his own liberty, not now merely through an odsertor, but in person. A female slave was still held incapable of the offence of adultery; but Justinian visited with death alike the rape of a slave or freedwoman and that of a free maiden. ”

“ Many Irish proprietors, desirous of assimilating the agricultural economy of Ireland to that of England, have endeavoured to effect a consolidation of the smaller holdings. A tendency in that direction is, indeed, the inevitable result of the social circumstances to which I have been calling your attention, namely, the diminution of our population and the rise of wages. Great difficulty, however, has been experienced in effecting the transition, and this difficulty is commonly attributed to the perverse character of the Irish people. ”

“ The prodigal, encroaching on his capital, diminishes, as far as in him lies, the amount of productive labour, and so the wealth of the country; nor is this result affected by his expenditure being on home-made, as distinct from foreign commodities. Every prodigal, therefore, is a public enemy; every frugal man a public benefactor. The only mode of increasing the annual produce of the land and labour is to increase either the number of productive labourers or the productive powers of those labourers. ”

“ It is peculiarly difficult for agricultural labourers to make provision against industrial crises or private calamity. From their dispersion over the country they find it impossible to set on foot and maintain the provident societies and other organisations for mutual assistance, which are more easily established where labour is concentrated. Common sense dictates that, if temporary relief is to be given, it should be given in such a way as to be most effectual for its purpose, and to disturb as little as possible the domestic life of the labourer. ”

“ Thus he cites the assertions that rent depends on the difference of fertility of the different portions of land in cultivation; that the labourer always receives precisely the necessaries, or what custom leads him to consider the necessaries, of life; that, as wealth and population advance, agricultural labour becomes less and less proportionately productive; and that therefore the share of the produce taken by the landlord and the labourer must constantly increase, whilst that taken by the capitalist must constantly diminish; and he denies the truth of all these propositions. ”

“ What, then, must be the feelings of the Irish working man, when he ascertains that in relation to every one of these questions, the law deals much more liberally with the English labourer than with himself? Those of my hearers who have followed the discussions of this Society do not need to be informed that such is in fact the case.
Every destitute person in England has a legal right to relief on submitting to the prescribed tests. In Ireland no such right exists; the guardians are the sole judges whether a person is destitute, and from their decision, there is no appeal. ”

“ It is on the Wealth of Nations that Smith’s fame rests. But it must at once be said that it is plainly contrary to fact to represent him, as some have done, as the creator of political economy. The subject of social wealth had always in some degree, and increasingly in recent times, engaged the attention of philosophic minds. The study had even indisputably assumed a systematic character, and, from being an assemblage of fragmentary disquisitions on particular questions of national interest, had taken the form, notably in Turgot’s Reflexions, of an organized body of doctrine. ”

“ For those who remain, it means higher wages and more continuous employment. I think those persons who honestly deplore the emigration do so under the influence of a very common illusion, arising from the softening effect produced by distance in social retrospect as in a physical landscape. While intensely alive to the immediate material inconvenience and moral pain which the emigrants feel in leaving their homes, they forget the far worse miseries which lie but a little way behind us in our national history. ”