John Kells Ingram

“ 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. ”

“ But it is encouraging to know that in endeavouring, by our researches and discussions, to overthrow error and to establish truth, we are labouring at no unpractical—no hopeless—task; that any wise suggestion developed here may one day become a beneficent reality, a living agency for good; and that thus, without sitting in the councils of the State, or mingling in the strife of parties, we may, each of us, do something towards the improvement of the institutions of our country. ”

“ The question is not now whether a particular arrangement is tolerable or not, but whether, for the future, successful competition will be possible, with all the disadvantages of Irish climate, with any but the best arrangements that social science can devise for the application of capital to agriculture. It is vain to assert that the land question is settled; the most thoughtful men in the country, and those who have most deeply studied its economic condition insist, and are able to prove, that it is not settled ”

“ 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. ”

“ Recollect the circumstances under which the industry of the country will go on: intense competition, limiting a rise in prices, and an increasing rate of wages, steadily raising the cost of production. The burden of loss cannot now, as under the reign of monopoly, be transferred to the shoulders of the consumer. If agriculture be unsuccessful, the farmer himself will first suffer, and next the landlord. ”

“ The small farmer has clung to his little holding, because when employment is not continuous, he is not safe against the workhouse without the possession of a patch of land. He cannot be induced peaceably to let go his hold of it, and trust himself the life of a labourer, unless, when he has thus altered his condition, he be protected against what is to him the worst result of temporary distress. ”

“ Within the last few days, a Practical Farmer, writing in that journal, says: "The question of a tenant's security for the outlay of his capital on his landlord's property, is second in importance to none; landlord and tenant are alike interested in its settlement on just terms; and on it hinges all future improvement of the soil of England. * * * The greatest portion of England always will be farmed by tenants; to farm badly at present prices is ruinous; to farm well, which the spirit of the times demands, is to run a risk. ”

“ As any nation that wishes to maintain its position must provide against the possibility of warfare by possessing the most improved military weapons—the Minie rifle and the Armstrong gun; as, in the competition of manufacturing industry, the country that does not wish to lag behind its fellows must adopt without delay all the latest improvements in machinery: so it will not do for Ireland, in the race of agricultural competition, to be impeded by any imperfections in the security of capital employed in agricultural improvement. ”

“ Now, in these attempts to conform the Irish system of land management to the English model, one essential circumstance has been generally overlooked, namely, the intimate connexion between the land system of England and the English Poor-law.
The English labourer is contented with his situation, not only because his wages are good, and his employment in general constant, but because he knows that if he should be overtaken by calamity, he will be liberally assisted until the crisis has past away. ”

“ The prospects of Ireland must in the main depend upon the success of her agricultural industry; and for this, an adaptation of the laws affecting land to the new economic conditions of production is absolutely necessary. Giving up tillage will not meet the difficulty; for the competition affects the provision trade as well as the immediate products of the soil; and English cattle farmers have discovered that herds and flocks cannot take care of themselves, but that for their proper tending and feeding a large amount of human labour is necessary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The local customs favouring agriculture, and the good understanding between landlord and tenant, which sufficed heretofore, are not considered to afford a sufficient security under the new circumstances of production. In the esteemed treatise on Modern Agricultural Improvements, published as an appendix to the "British Husbandry" of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, you will find forcible expression of the growing opinion of English farmers, that a more positive and better defined security is necessary for their success. ”

“ Many of our people spend part of their lives in one country, and part in the other. An army of Irish labourers goes over annually to assist in the work of the harvest. They cannot be unaware of circumstances open to obsrvation, and deeply affecting the condition of the poor; and they must be struck by the inferiority of their own position at home to that of the English labourer. ”

“ Nothing can show more plainly how natural and spontaneous the movement is, than the results of the starting of the Atlantic steamers from Galway. The persons who were zealous for the success of that enterprise regarded it as likely to do something towards enriching Ireland, and so improving the condition of the population at home. But wherever the vent is opened, the people begin to stream out through it, and the astonished Times complains that the most important branch of trade which the establishment of the packet station has developed is the export of Irishmen. ”

“ The extraordinary increase of communication between different parts of the world, which has made so large an emigration possible, is leading to the further result of a far more intense competition between the agricultural products of different countries. The corn and flax that are grown in our fields must compete with imported produce; the stock that is reared on our farms, with the cattle of continental Europe and the provision stores of America. In the first six months of 1862, the number of sheep and lambs imported from abroad into the United Kingdom was 49,332 ”

“ Now observe the difference between this state of things and that which exists in Ireland. In this country it is contrary to law to give outdoor relief to any able-bodied man, unless the workhouse be full, or severe infectious disease prevail in it. And the guardians of the poor and the Central Board are deprived by statute of the power of relaxing the prohibition, no matter what may be the hardship of any individual case or class of cases. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the constitution under which we live, to carry any measure essential to the general welfare—whatever special interests may be arrayed against it—it is only necessary to appeal, by well established facts and sound reasoning, to the intelligence and equity of our statesmen. The members of this Society do not, as such, seek to intrude into the province of the politician. Our business is to discover and demonstrate, by the application of scientific principles, the legislative action appropriate to each phase of society and each group of economic conditions. ”

“ The cheapness and abundance of the potato had alone enabled the Irish working classes to exist on the wretched wages which prevailed before 1846. Its failure, therefore, accelerated the emigration which was already in progress. Liberal contributions were sent over from America in the period of the greatest distress, and it is worthy of observation that these contributions came in the form, not of money, but of food. Nothing could more strongly affect the imagination of a starving people than the large supplies of wheat and Indian corn which then arrived from the United States. ”

“ The aspiring Irishman must observe with interest, that the absence of an aristocracy in America and the British colonies leaves far more open than in our older community the avenues to the highest distinctions of the State. ”

“ Must not the economic conditions, already adverted to, affect the other portions of the United Kingdom? Undoubtedly, I reply, they are coming into operation there as well as here. The influx of the English agricultural labourers into the large towns, is a phenomenon quite similar to the Irish migration to England and Scotland. There is, besides, a large emigration going on from the rural districts of Great Britain. The rapid introduction of agricultural machinery is an index of the rise of wages, and the consequent growing necessity of economising labour. ”

“ We are all familiar with the story of the remittances which the Irish emigrants, with a noble and touching self-forgetfulness, have sent to their relations in the old country—remittances which, in the single year 1853, amounted to nearly a million and a-half. These gifts, arriving from time to time, have a double effect: they supply the most convincing evidence of the prosperity of those who have gone before, and they facilitate the movements of those who wish to follow. ”

“ Now, in the face of these facts, there is an end to the pretence that the Irish and English poor live under the same laws; and it is the height of absurdity to expect from the one the same loyal attachment to the government, which may reasonably be expected from the other. ”

“ In England, children and young persons can be relieved out of the workhouse without distinction of age. In Ireland, by an act of the session of 1862, children under five years of age, if orphan or destitute, can be put to nurse out of the workhouse at the discretion of the guardians, but after that age they must be brought into the workhouse, or the relief is discontinued. ”

“ We cannot expect our harvests to be uniformly good; and when the labourer is better off, as America will be to him more accessible, he will be less patient of any reverse. While wages are actually rising, he will perhaps be disposed to remain; but the first slight turn in the fortunes of the country and the first temporary decline in wages thence arising will set the emigration going more rapidly than now. ”

“ There is a rising rate of wages in Ireland, which increases the cost of production of home commodities; concurrently with this, there is an intense and growing competition on the part of foreign producers, which will more and more have the effect of limiting the rise of prices. How are the agricultural classes to meet the grave crisis arising out of these new economic conditions? ”

“ On the other hand, as we have seen, the force of foreign competition is beginning to be felt—foreign products are flowing steadily into the markets, and prices are effectually prevented from following the rise of wages. The action of these causes has been hitherto in a great degree obscured by the abundance of other resources which are wanting in Ireland, by the great mineral wealth of the country, and by the continual demand for land for the purposes of manufacturing enterprise. ”

“ It is well ascertained that wages in Ireland have considerably risen. From a paper by Mr. Frederick Purdy, Principal of the Statistical Department of the Poor Law Board in England, communicated to the Statistical Society of London in April, 1862, it appears that the advance in the wages of men for the whole of Ireland between 1843-4, and 1860, was equal to more than 57 per cent.—the highest rise, amounting to 87 per cent. ”

“ The old narrowness of view, timidity, and want of enterprise rapidly disappeared, and large numbers of the people desired to try their chances in a new country. While their fitness for emigration was thus increasing, and their wish for it becoming strong, the wonderful increase of trade and communication between different nations stimulated the arts of shipbuilding and navigation; and the cost of the passage to America and Australia gradually fell. ”

“ It is running a risk to trust to any man's honour not to turn you out, because the owner of the land may die, and another Pharoah may reign who knew not Joseph. To run a risk is not only foolish; but, where a man is risking the money on which his family are dependent, it is wrong. ”

“ The emigration has greatly reduced the population, the poor rates have fallen to a very low amount, wages are rising, and the time seems to have arrived when the law in this country should be made identical with that of England. The legislature will then be free from responsibility in the matter, and it will remain for the guardians in each district to administer, under the same regulations as in England, their own rates according to their own discretion. ”