Grain Prices (England) Jan-Jun 1847

CORN IMPORTATION BILL.

HC Deb 22 January 1847 vol 89 cc273-5273

LORD J. RUSSELL

moved the Second Reading of this Bill.

§MR. MITCHELL

inquired whether it were intended that the suspension of the navigation laws should only last till the 1st of September; and that is country? If that were the case, he had no hesitation in saying that the Government would shut out a very large quantity of corn indeed. The noble Lord had alluded the other night to considerable quantities of grain which might be expected from the Black Sea; but it should be recollected that some of the ports there were not opened until March or May, and no 274 person would venture to ship grain with a chance of its not getting to this country in time to be admitted. His own impression of the state of the corn trade was such as to satisfy him that the noble Lord, before the conclusion of the Session, would have to propose the suspension, not only of the navigation laws, but of every description of restrictive laws. He was convinced that they were likely to see a high price of corn, not only for the next six or twelve months, but for the next two years. He would suggest, therefore, that the period of the suspension of the navigation laws should be extended or left indefinite; or, if the Government were not prepared to do that, some clause might be inserted in the Bill, leaving it discretionary with the Lords of the Privy Council or the Board of Customs to admit any ship with grain arriving here after the 1st of September, provided it was proved that she sailed from the port of loading on or before a certain day, which might be certified by the Consul there.

MR. STAFFORD O'BRIEN

wished to know whether, if it was the intention of the Government to suspend the payment of all the duty on corn till the 1st of September, any steps would be taken to ascertain for statistical purposes the quantity of corn imported?

§The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

replied, that it was intended to suspend the payment of all duty whatever, because, in a case like the present, if anything were done, everything should be done. But, as the corn imported must be entered, there would be means of knowing the quantity brought in for consumption. With reference to the observations which had fallen from the hon. Member (Mr. Mitchell), he had to say that it was intended that foreign ships with grain must enter before the 1st of September; and the object of taking that period was to allow time for the transport here of all the corn which would probably be brought to this country of the late harvest, and not to make provision for the corn of the next harvest. He believed that the period chosen would be found to answer that purpose; but of course, if the state of circumstances towards the end of the Session should turn out as the hon. Gentleman anticipated, the Government would have the opportunity of coming to Parliament for such measures as might be deemed necessary to meet the then exigency. But at the present time, and with the present prospect, be believed that the Bill, as it stood, would effect all 275 that was necessary for allowing the importation of all the corn that was likely to be brought here. The provision had not been drawn up without inquiry. From Odessa the voyage occupied two months, or eight weeks, so that a vessel sailing from there on any day before the 1st of July would be able to enter her cargo of grain in this country before the 1st of September. The navigation of the Black Sea opened at a much earlier period than July—by the end of March, for instance—and from a circular of a merchant at Galatz he learned that, in consequence of the extraordinary prices which prevailed for grain, the probability was, that every effort would be made this year to get the cargoes out of port at an earlier period than usual; and it was anticipated that considerable quantities of grain would be brought down ready for export by the months of May and June. This would allow sufficient time for its import into this country before September.

 

CORN DETAINED AT ANCONA.

HC Deb 05 February 1847 vol 89 cc883-4883

§DR. BOWRING

rose to put a question on the subject of the detention of corn and maize by order of the Pope. The House was aware that the port of Ancona was one of the great receptacles of the corn of all nations; and, it being a free port, a considerable quantity had been collected in the granaries there. Very considerable purchases had been made at that port for English account, and they were intended to be shipped to this country. It was stated, that an order had emanated from the Pope by which the export of grain was prohibited, that many cargoes had been detained in that place, and that in other cases ships had not been allowed to load. He was desirous to ask, whether the subject had come under the consideration of the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary, and whether he had taken, or was likely to take, any measure in regard to it?

§VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

had received several representations upon the subject some little time ago, and had on that very day had an interview with a deputation from the city of London, who came to him upon the same matter. In consequence of the former representations he had issued an instruction on the 22nd of January to the British Minister at Florence, to remonstrate with the Roman Government upon the subject. The interdict proceeded, as he believed, not from the Government at Rome, but from the local authorities at Ancona; and, as he was informed, it applied not to corn coming from other parts of the world and deposited at Ancona, but to corn the produce of the Roman States, purchased on English account, some of it already deposited in the free port of Ancona, and some of it on its way. The matter was of very considerable interest and importance, and he could assure the hon. Member that the Government would use their utmost endeavours to persuade 884 the Roman Government to exempt from that order all corn purchased or intended for this country.

 

THE PRICE OF FOOD.

HL Deb 04 February 1847 vol 89 cc771-2771

§The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE

presented a petition from the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of Cork, praying of their Lordships to take some measures for the purpose of diminishing the price of food in Ireland. The noble Marquess took that opportunity of stating that he concurred in the opinion expressed by his noble and learned Friend opposite (Lord Brougham) the other evening, that the Government ought not to take any measures which would interfere with the market price of food. The system had been tried, and it had been found to operate most injuriously. The result was a grievous scarcity of provisions in every place the very week following that during which it had been tried; and in some instances, the provision dealers were obliged to shut up their shops, in consequence of the losses they had sustained. He was also perfectly ready to concur in opinion with the noble and learned Lord, that it was the duty of the Government, as far as possible, to remit obstructions to supplies of food being obtained by the people.

§The DUKE of RICHMOND

I think it is desirable that it should not go forth to the country that there is likely to be a great dearth of provisions in this country. So much has been stated about famine in Ireland, it is now said in many parts of England that there will be a scarcity of corn, and that all the evils of a famine may be apprehended. Now, I believe that that is not the case, as I believe that there is a great deal of corn in the hands of persons in this country. Besides, when, coupled with this, we see such large imports of grain from the United States, there is little reason for people to consider that the country will encounter a famine. I, for one, have no apprehension of a famine here.

§EARL FITZWILLIAM

had not the slightest doubt that the supply of wheat, both in England and Ireland, was sufficient for those who were consumers of wheat. This would necessarily be absorbed, 772 and certainly the finer qualities of wheat would be scarce, and perhaps there might be a scarcity in the secondary qualities also; but he was anxious to correct one mistake which might be injurious out of doors. An impression had been created by the words of his noble and learned Friend, and he was anxious to correct the notion, that the people of England were suffering anything like the same destitution as that which was experienced in Ireland. The people of Ireland were not consumers of wheat, but of other produce; and as the potato crop had totally failed, want was not only felt in Ireland, but there was absolute destitution. This was a notion which he earnestly desired to correct; for if it were not corrected, it might lead to a relaxation of those efforts which were indispensable to relieve the Irish people from starvation.

 

EXPORTATION OF CORN FROM RUSSIA.

HC Deb 22 March 1847 vol 91 cc264-5264

LORD J. RUSSELL

said, that he was asked by an hon. Member, some time ago, whether there was any truth in the report that the Emperor of Russia had prohibited the exportation of corn from that country. He now begged to inform that hon. Gentleman and the House, that a letter had been received from Lord Bloomfield, stating, that as soon as the report had come to his knowledge, he had a communication with the Minister of Finance at St. Peters-burgh on the subject, and that he had 265 been informed by the Russian Government that the report was without any foundation whatsoever; but that, on the contrary, the exportation of grain from the Russian ports would be facilitated by all possible means by the Government of that country.

 

FREE TRADE IN CORN.

HC Deb 12 March 1847 vol 90 c12411241

MR. BAILLIE

wished to put a question to the noble Lord relative to the state of the corn markets. The noble Lord was probably aware that the Ministry of Belgium had prohibited for some time past the exportation of corn from that country; that both French and Belgian agents had been in England making very large purchases of corn; and, that it was anticipated, if these purchases continued to be made, prices would be very much enhanced, and scarcity would ensue. What he wished to know from the noble Lord was, would Her Majesty's Government feel themselves called upon in self-defence to prohibit the exportation of corn from our ports?

LORD J. RUSSELL

The hon. Gentleman has asked me a question on a very important subject without giving me any notice that he had such an intention. I will, however, at once tell him what is the general intention of the Government on this subject. We are perfectly aware that there is a great demand for corn in France and Belgium, and that prices are rising and are likely to continue to rise in those countries; but we are of opinion, generally speaking, that to prohibit the exportation of corn is a direct mode of preventing corn being brought into this country. We think that, in the case of an importing merchant, if he have a security that he can import his corn here, either for consumption here, or, if he should think proper, to take it afterwards to another market, he will have every inducement to bring it here. We consider, on the other hand, that if he is told if it once comes here it cannot be taken away again, we shall drive him to avoid a market where his corn would be thus locked up, and import it to some other market

EXPORTATION OF CORN.

HC Deb 07 May 1847 vol 92 cc527-8527

§CAPTAIN HARRIS

wished to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government whether it were his intention to propose any measure to put a stop to the exportation of wheat now going on, 134,000 quarters having been exported during the last month, and large exportations were still going on. The price of wheat was rising very rapidly, and he understood a further rise of several shillings had taken place on that day.

LORD J. RUSSELL

I beg to inform the hon. Member that it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to pro- 528 pose any restrictions upon the exportation of wheat.

SUSPENSION OF THE CORN LAWS.

HC Deb 10 May 1847 vol 92 cc598-9598

MR. BAILLIE

said, that the noble Lord at the head of the Government had the other night stated, that it was not his intention to take any steps for prohibiting the exportation of corn from this country; but since the noble Lord made that statement corn had risen in price nearly 30s. per quarter, and there was all probability of a further rise taking place. He now wished to ask, whether the Government had any intention of prohibiting the use of grain in distilleries for a limited period?

 

SUPPLY OF FOOD IN THE COUNTRY.

HL Deb 11 May 1847 vol 92 cc670-7670

§The EARL of HARDWICKE

, in rising to put the questions of which he had given notice, respecting the quantity of corn at present in the country, stated, that it was strongly impressed on his mind that the supply of wheat which we possessed was 671 not sufficient to sustain our population until the next harvest came in. He was led to this conclusion by the rapid decrease of wheat in his own county, and by all the inquiries which he had made as to the general supply throughout the country.

 

 The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE

 

In the month of January, in the present year, 661,000 quarters had been imported; in the month of February 557,000 quarters had been imported; in the month of March 929,000 quarters had been imported; and in the month of April 1,043,000 quarters had been imported: thereby indicating an increase proportioned to the amount of the demand, and that on the appearance of the deficiency, of which at an early period of the year the public were not aware, there were corresponding efforts made to supply the demand; and the result would be, if the supply were continued during the entire year at the same ratio as during the last four months, the amount of supply for the year would be 9,000,000 quarters.

 

LORD ASHBURTON

 

 The only question now was, whether they ought or ought not to place restrictions upon the exportation of corn; and he admitted that it would be with great reluctance that he could 676 agree to such a proposal. At the same time we stood in the singular position of being the only distressed country that did not restrict exportation: and there might come a case of necessity for such a step to be taken even here.         

LORD BROUGHAM

thought this to be a very important subject. Nothing could be worse than concealing the fact of a scarcity. Nothing, on the contrary, could tend more to prevent a dearth from becoming a famine, than to give timely notice of its approach; he therefore thanked his noble Friend for having brought the subject before the House. He wished he could say that he experienced no uneasiness in his mind with respect to the prospects of the country for the next two or three months. He was, however, quite clear upon one subject—that the advice of his noble Friend (the Marquess of Lansdowne) was sound advice, and that it was the imperative duty of all in their Lordships' station and in the middle classses of society to practise and to inculcate in others the most strict and rigorous system of economy, especially in husbanding the great and fundamental resource that constituted the prime staff of life. With respect to the labouring classes, they unhappily required no stimulus to exercise economy, because the rise of prices imposed it upon them as a necessity, and in this respect a rise of price operated usefully to correct the effects of improvidence in a season of scarcity. He felt the great importance of what had fallen from his noble Friend (Lord Ashburton) as to the very great impolicy of interfering with the export trade of this country in corn. It would tend at a time of pressure such as the country was suffering under to frustrate and defeat their own object, by preventing a sufficient supply coming to England from America; for he entertained not the least doubt that the immense supplies of corn which his noble Friend (the Marquess of Lansdowne) had stated had arrived in this country within the last four months—amounting to between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000, of quarters—had been brought hither with the view to re-exportation. And all this corn had come from America, for it was impossible that any portion of it could have arrived from the Baltic, the cold season having shut up that sea. So great was the amount of importation, that within the last four or five weeks there had been sufficient to supply this country with one fifth of a whole 677 year's consumption.

 

FOOD RIOTS (ENGLAND).

HC Deb 17 May 1847 vol 92 c952952

§MR. ESCOTT

, referring to the accounts in the newspapers that large bodies of people in Exeter and Taunton and some other towns in the west of England had proceeded to the markets, and compelled the dealers in provisions, both corn and meat, to sell them at such prices as those bodies of people chose to fix, begged to ask the Home Secretary whether those accounts were authentic, whether there was occasion for that alarm which certainly prevailed throughout the western parts of England, and whether there was any information upon the subject which he was prepared, consistently with his duty, to lay before the House?

§SIR G. GREY

had received communications from the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, and from the civil authorities of Exeter, giving an account of some disturbances which had occurred in the latter part of the week at Exeter and in its neighbourhood, and in several parts of the east of Cornwall, alleged to be in consequence of the high prices of provisions; from Taunton, however, he (Sir G. Grey) had received no official representation of any such disturbances, although he had seen statements respecting them in the newspapers and in private letters. But he was happy to state, that in consequence of the prompt and judicious measures adopted by the local authorities, order had been restored; and he hoped that there was no cause for alarm with respect to the future.

DISTILLATION FROM GRAIN AND SUGAR.

HC Deb 17 May 1847 vol 92 cc952-3952

MR. H. J. BAILLIE

asked whether the Government had now any intention of prohibiting distillation from grain in consequence of the high price of provisions?

§The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

entertained very great doubt whe- 953 ther any considerable advantage would arise from adopting such a measure; and the hon. Member must see that, unless very great advantages would arise, much inconvenience could not but result from putting a violent stop at once to a large branch of commerce. Nothing gave so great a stimulus to illicit distillation as putting an end to the legal traffic. In Ireland, at this moment, illicit distillation prevailed, where it certainly might have been supposed that the wants of the people would have prevented it. The measure alluded to by the hon. Member could produce very little good effect just now. About 1,300,000 quarters were used in distillation in the year, but 1,000,000 of them had been already used; only about 300,000 more would be used before the harvest, and 100,000 of these had been already prepared; and, therefore, the utmost advantage that would be derived from stopping distillation from grain would only involve about 200,000 quarters, which had probably been already bought by distillers, and which they would be compelled by such a course to sell. Distillation from sugar was already carried on in Glasgow and other parts of the country; and notice had been given by some large distillers in the metropolis, that they were about to commence it on a large scale. Any obstacles that stood in the way of distillation from sugar would be removed, and he believed it would be carried on to a very great extent, and would have a very considerable advantage in price. Some further reports had been laid before the Board of Excise upon the subject, fully corroborating the report laid on the Table early in the Session, and showing the very great advantage which would arise from the use of sugar

 

PUBLIC GRANARIES.

HL Deb 17 May 1847 vol 92 cc890-1890

The EARL of WINCHILSEA,

pursuant to notice, rose to bring under the consideration of the House the expediency of establishing public granaries. He had every reason to suppose, from the information he had received, that if the coming harvest were late, the quantity of corn now in the country would be inadequate to the wants of the people in the meantime. In the year 1835, he remembered that the price of wheat was as low as 35s. a quarter; and if public granaries had been established at that time, 2,000,000 of quarters might have been bought for 3,500,000l., and a sufficient stock might always have been kept on hand. What he wished, then, to advocate was this—that there should be national granaries in the hands and under the control of the Government, and that as long as the agricultural interests or the corn trade should supply the best quality of wheat at a reasonable price, those granaries should be kept closed; but that if the time should arrive when, from any danger of the crops at home, or unfair speculation, the corn traders should withhold a supply at a price at which the great body of the labouring classes could afford to buy, then the doors should be opened, and the price of corn kept as level and low as possible. We could not rely upon the harvest: it depended upon the will and bounty of a superior Power, and no foresight could assure us of an adequate supply. If, then, with our existing scarcity of corn, we allowed the stock we now possessed to be poured out to the assistance of our foreign neighbours (and he understood that within the last few days the French Government had bought in this country flour and wheat to a great extent), considering the dense mass of our population in the manufacturing districts and in the metropolis, a frightful state of things must be the consequence. He did not intend, however, to conclude with any Motion on the subject, but would 891 be satisfied with having called the attention of the Government to it

THE USE OF FLOUR IN CALICOES.

HC Deb 18 May 1847 vol 92 cc1055-61055

§MR. FERRAND

rose to put a question of which he had given notice. As it was calculated that 183,120,000 lbs. weight of the best flour was annually used merely for the purpose of dressing the warps for weaving, besides an immense quantity for the purpose of daubing cottons with flour paste to defraud the public, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he would bring in a Bill to prohibit the use of flour for such purposes? Very strong opinions had been expressed on the subject by the working population; and 1056 having received the calculations on which he proceeded from a person practically acquainted with the subject, he had every reason to consider them as perfectly correct.

LORD J. RUSSELL

replied, that he would not bring in a Bill for any such purpose

 

DISTILLING FROM SUGAR.

HC Deb 21 May 1847 vol 92 cc1167-8

 

The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

observed, that the hon. Gentleman was correct in stating that he had said, on a former evening, that it was not the intention of the Government to bring in any measure for prohibiting the use of grain in distilleries. He could only give the same answer to the inquiry of the hon. Gentleman which he had before given to a question on the same subject from the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume). What he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) undertook to do was to give every facility consistent with the existing law for the use of sugar in distillation. The Chairman of the Board of Excise had stated to a deputation from the distillers, who had waited upon him on this subject, that he would be happy to afford them any facilities consistent with the law which they 1168 could point out to him. Beyond this he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) could not go, because, in the present state of the expenditure of the country, he felt it his paramount duty to keep up the revenue. He might state, in reply to the questions which the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Barkly) had placed upon the Notice Paper, that it was not his intention to propose to repeal any portion of the Act of Parliament which forbade distillation from sugar in combination with grain. The hon. Gentleman was entirely mistaken in the statement he had made with regard to the period which was required to elapse between the use of grain and sugar in distilleries. All that was necessary was that such an interval should elapse between distillation from sugar and grain as should allow the work made from the one to be cleared off the premises before distillation from the other was commenced. The hon. Gentleman seemed to suppose that under the existing law the permission to distil from sugar was perfectly nugatory. He could assure the hon. Gentleman this was not the case, for there were three large distilleries in Dublin, Glasgow, and London, where distillation from sugar was now extensively carried on.

 

 

 

Russell Administration (Phase One - Public Works under the Labour Rate Act)

1846

June - Russell denounces Young Ireland in the Commons; "A group who, if I read rightly their sentiments as expressed in a newspaper - I shall name it - called the Nation, which has a great circulation in Ireland, who go beyond that question of the Legislative Union - who would wish not merely to have such a parliament as that which it was the boast of Grattan to have found, and which legislated under the sceptre of the same Sovereign as the Parliament of Great Britain, but a party which exerts every species of violence, which looks to disturbance as its means, and which regards separation from England as its end."

Tensions first appeared between the Repeal movement and Young Ireland after the aborted 'monster meeting' at Clontarf (1843) with many of the more radical younger generation of Repealers decrying it as a lost opportunity for a successful revolution. When O' Connell emerged from prison some ten months later they were further perplexed & horrified by his brief flirtation with 'federalism' wherein 'the Liberator' cited the US Constitutional arrangement as an acceptable template for Irish conditions. This diluted form of independence they found unacceptable but O' Connell, it was clear, was simply working towards another means of tying the Whigs into a further liberal package of reforms. Nevertheless, the fact that he could compromise on the principle issue of repeal left many disillusioned and looking elsewhere for guidance.

After the death of Thomas Davis in June 1845 a vital moderating force was lost and John Mitchel, now de facto political editor of the Nation became increasingly strident in his anti-government rhetoric. His 'seditious' railway article commenced a government crackdown on the paper but the state prosecution of Gavan Duffy (held culpable as proprietor) was brilliantly defended by the veteran United Irishman barrister Robert Holmes in February 1846. O' Connell was outraged as the article implied Repeal wardens could be used were excessive coercion applied by the state by ripping up railway tracks and making pikes out of them. The article was written after the first blight had struck in Autumn 1845 and when it emerged Peel's government were  contemplating another coercion bill for the country. O' Connell for his part had long experience of successive Emancipation and Repeal organisations being proscribed by the Tories on far flimsier grounds.

25th June - Tories lose vote on the Irish Coercion Bill.

27th June - Peel resigns

June - Daily average number of labourers throughout the month on Board of Works is 21,000.

End of June - Russell forms his cabinet.Two most influential figures aside from Russell himself are Palmerston and Lansdowne. The Gray/Hilton taxonomy of Whig allegiance/influence are posted in brackets while major Irish landowners are underlined.

Prime Minister, Lord John Russell (Foxite)
Lord President of the Council, Marquis of Lansdowne (Bowood)
Foreign Secretary, Viscount Palmerston (Bowood)
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood ('Moralist')
Home Secretary, Sir George Grey ('Moralist')
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl of Bessborough (Foxite)
Chief Secretary of Ireland, Henry Labouchere (Bowood)
President of the Board of Trade, Earl of Clarendon (Bowood)
Secretary for War and the Colonies, Earl Grey (Foxite 'Moralist')
President of the Board of Control, John Cam Hobhouse (Bowood)
Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham
Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Minto (Foxite)
First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl of Auckland (Bowood)
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Campbell
First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, Viscount Morpeth (Foxite)
Postmaster- General, Marquis of Clanricarde (Bowood)
Paymaster-General, Thomas Babbington Macauley ('Moralist')

15th July - 71,000 the daily average of labourers on the Board of Works schemes.

17th July - Routh to Trevelyan; "The reports of the new potato crop are very unfavourable. All letters and sources of information declare disease to be more prevalent this year than last in the early crop." The fate of the main, or 'people's crop' wouldn't be known until the first week of August.

21st July - Treasury minute demands all public works to be wound down by 15th August at the latest. This is to prepare for the new public works scheme about to be introduced.

28th July - Secession of Young Ireland from the Repeal Association after the 'sword speech' of Francis Meagher. John O' Connell had attempted to impose 'peace resolutions', demanding members abjure violence in the push for Repeal under all circumstances. Smith O' Brien joins Meagher & Mitchel in the definitive split. Notably, at least three prominent priests gave vocal support to the Young Ireland camp; Fr O' Carroll, Fr. Meehan, & Fr. Kenyon, the latter remarking; "to say that no force but moral force should ever be employed was fanatical and ... in his opinion, monstrous folly". Articles appeared in the following weeks in the Pilot and Freeman's Journal attacking the seceders, particularly Smith O' Brien while Richard O' Gorman, Thomas Darcy McGee & John Martin (a Protestant landlord friend of Mitchel's) are expelled from the Association for not supporting the resolutions.

1st August - Internal memorandum issued to the new Whig government by Trevelyan outlines the fault's of last season's relief effort and suggests means of improving them. This will form the basis of the new Labour Rate Act, the cornerstone of the Whig's response to the crisis. In it he stated that 'the supply of the home market may be safely left to private entrepreneurs'.

4th August -  Routh to Trevelyan; "You cannot answer the cry of want by a quotation from political economy. You ought to have 16,000 tons of Indian corn .. you ought to have half the supply which you require in the county before Christmas"

5th August - In Limerick, labourers tear up a stretch of road they had just built in anger of being told the works were to end.

6th August - Board of Works were employing a daily average of 98,000 labourers. This would be the peak amount employed under the old Public Works Bill began by the Conservatives. It has been estimated that an additional 30,000 persons obtained work on grand jury schemes or on pier and harbour projects and perhaps another 10,000 on schemes set up by local relief committees thus making at it's peak a total of around 148,000 persons employed by various agencies set up by the Peel government. Assigning four dependents to each worker this would amount to around 700,000 beneficiaries.

7th August - Almost complete loss of the potato crop is reported. Times declares 'total annihilation'. "I shall never forget the change in one week in August. On the first occasion, on an official visit of inspection I had passed over thirty-two miles thickly studded with potato fields in full bloom. The next time the face of the whole country had changed, the stalk remained bright green, but the leaves were all scorched black. It was the work of a night." Capt. Mann, Coastguard Relief Officer. Only 3,000 tons of Indian meal are left in the food depots, the residue of Peel's earlier purchase.

7th August - Fr Matthew, the 'apostle of temperance' writes to Trevelyan of rumours that  'the capitalists in the corn and flour trade are endeavouring to induce government not to protect the people from famine but to leave them at their mercy'

17th August - Fr. Matthew's fears are confirmed. Charles Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, declares in the House that merchants had promised 'not to import food at all if it were the intention of the government to do so', that they (the government) had, in turn, given them assurance they would not interfere 'with the regular mode by which Indian corn and other grains were brought into the country but to leave that trade "as much liberty as possible"

                                     The Labour Rate Act of 1846

17th August - Russell introduces a Bill 'to facilitate the employment of the Labouring Poor for a limited period in distressed districts in Ireland' ie the Labour Rate Act.

The major difference with the previous works bill under Peel was that;

(a) the 'half-grant' system was to be abolished and all costs were now to be borne locally by Poor Law ratepayers (ie anyone holding land worth £4 or more annual rental). Works would be organised by the Board of Works and loans to pay for them would be advanced by the Treasury repayable in ten years at 3.5 % interest.

(b) the government would not interfere in the market. No food depots would be set up and no Indian meal or grain of any other description would be purchased abroad except for the West of Ireland; Kerry, Donegal, impoverished areas west of the Shannon, West Cork & the Dingle Peninsula, places in general where no trade in food provisions apart from the potato previously existed.

(c) local relief committees were no longer elected but nominated by the county Lieutenant & government would now contribute only half the money subscribed as opposed to matching it as they did the previous season.

- also, £50,000 in free grants were to be made available to those districts too poor to support themselves.

"Fifty thousand pounds to save a starving people! ..  Although twenty million pounds of public money were spent by England to emancipate the negroes of West India, £50,000 was all that was to be allotted to save Ireland from death." - Archbishop John MacHale to Russell.

The act was a body blow to the landed interest in Ireland;

Stephen Spring Rice (son of Lord Monteagle) - "rushed through in ten days after all the Irish members had left London, ... it is enough to make a man turn Repealer"

Lord Palmerston - "if the Act were to remain in force for any length of time, the landlords will be in the end as well qualified as their cottiers to demand admission into a Union workhouse".

Trevelyan had little sympathy - "the backwardness of landlords had made compulsory measures inevitable".

18th August - A 'mob' of 400 labourers marched into Cork city carrying spades, saying they were starving and demanding work.

28th August - Numbers on works less than 38,000. Food stocks in depots now dwindled to 2,100 tons of Indian meal and 240 tons of oatmeal.

4th September - Presentment sessions under the Labour Rate Act begin.

19th September - Commissariat General Routh to Trevelyan; "It would require a thousand tons to make an impression, and that only a temporary one. Our salvation of the depot system is in the importation of a large supply. These small shipments are only a drop in the ocean.".

22nd September - "Large sums are voted at baronial sessions as though there were no such thing as repayment in the memory of the ratepayers", reported The Times.

Many of the sessions were chaotic; "All persons had a right to attend and make proposals without stint, mobs beset and crowded the session- houses until there was scarcely space to sit or air to breathe. Hundreds of proposals drawn up by illiterate and interested persons - labourers, petty farmers or whiskey sellers - were thrust before the persons appointed to preside, and supported by threats within doors and sometimes by violence without". - Stephen Spring Rice.

26th September - Numbers on works less than 15,000.

1847

23rd January - Bessborough to Russell; "I cannot make up  my mind entirely about the merchants. I know all the difficulties that arise when you begin to interfere with trade, but it is difficult to persuade a starving population that one class should be permitted to make fifty per cent profit by the sale of provisions, while they are dying in want of these."

Peel Administration's timeline

1845 - First appearance of the blight.

Mid-July - Potato blight is first reported in Belgium, quickly spreads to Holland & France and by mid August is found in Southern England. Makes it's first appearance in Ireland along the east coast in Wexford & Wicklow. By mid-September there are widespread adverse reports. [The recently published Devon Commission Report asserted 4.7 million Irish rely on the potato as their principle source of subsistence and some 3 million eat 'nothing but potatos and water'.]

Early August - Prompted by the release of the Devon Inquiry Thomas Campbell Foster is dispatched by the Times as 'an independent commissioner' to report on the agrarian situation in Ireland. His articles were more widely read and reviewed than the Devon report itself and constituted an important framework within which the Irish situation was appraised by the public and policy makers alike in the early months of the famine. In summary, he argued social change could only be affected by a resident and active landlord class as nothing could be expected from 'the corrupt middleman' and 'degraded tenantry'. Pre-existing property rights were sacrosanct and no tenant rights should be extended beyond some degree of compensation for improvements (ie Sharman Crawford's proposal of an extension down south of the 'Ulster Custom' was rejected out of hand), Change must come from above, landed classes had hitherto neglected their duties for reasons of 'wilful negligence', 'financial embarassment' and 'intimidation'; further prohibitions on subdivision would compel remaining middlemen to give up their positions & legislation should be introduced to deal with 'embarassments' to facilitate the transfer of land. Such measures would " ...let the life blood and energy, and enterprise of capitalists into the lifeless masses of large, encumbered, unimproved, helpless estates. The will become real owners of the land, and will give employment upon it, and stimulate industry. Employment will bring peace. Industry will bring wealth." Only the state could provide the required security wherein these measures may be enacted and this enatiled necessarily strong coercive action.

9th August - Parliamentary Session for 1845 closes. Proroguing of parliament was to be a consistent source of grievance for many Repeal M.P's and the Irish nationalist press; the crisis for them evidently requiring the ongoing attention of Westminster.

13th October - Peel to Sir James Graham (Home Secretary); "The accounts of the state of the potato crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming. Lord Heytesbury says the reports which reach the government are very unsatisfactory .. there is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting upon them is always desirable, but I foresee the necessity that may be imposed upon us at an early period of considering whether there is not that well grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption of every means of relief which the exercise of of the prerogative of legislation may afford. I have no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of exports or the stoppage of distilleries. The removal of the impediments to import is the only effective remedy."

17th October - Peel to (Protectionist) Lord Lieutenant Heytesbury; "The remedy, is the removal of all impediments to the import of all kinds of human food - that is the total and absolute repeal for ever of all duties on all articles of subsistence".

"What the Irish puplic thought about the impending famine, and what they said about it was, that the oat crop was unusually fine and more than sufficient to feed the whole population, and that it should be kept in the country for that purpose. A most obvious remedy; but the Premier had other plans in his head, and could not see this one, because he would not. Like Nelson on a memorable occasion, he persisited in keeping his telescope to the eye that suited his own purpose. He does not condescend to give a reason for his views, he only expresses them. He had no confidence in the old-fashioned remedy of keeping food in the country, but he did put his trust in the remedy of sending 3,000 miles for Indian corn - a food which, he elsewhere admits he fears the Irish cannot be induced to use. He thought it quite right, and in accordance with political science, to allow, or rather to compel Ireland, threatened with famine, to sell her last loaf and then go to America to buy maize, the preparation of which she did not understand. Political economists will hardly deny that people ought not to sell what they require for themselves - that they should only part with surplus food. But to sell wheat and oats, and oatmeal and flour with one hand and buy Indian corn with the other to avoid starvation could be hardly regarded as the act of a sane man. "There had been - it was hinted, and we believe truly, In Lord John Russell's letter from Edinburgh - some talk in the cabinet, and there was some discussion in the press, about opening the Irish ports by proclamation. Opening the Irish ports! Why the real remedy, had any interference with the law been necessary, would have been to close them - the torrent of food was running outwards." So did the leading Tory periodical (Quarterly Review) put this obvious truth some months later."

- from Canon John O' Rourke's History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847, Ch. III, pg 98. [First published in 1874, O' Rourke's account long remained the standard academic study of the famine and was eclipsed in popularity, in Ireland at least, only by Mitchel's Last Conquest of Ireland (perhaps).]

28th October - First meeting of the Mansion House Committee set up by Dublin Corporation to investigate and suggest remedies to the imminent crisis. O' Connell proposes the following resolutions be adopted and presented via special delegation to the Lord Lieutenant (Heytesbury);

(1) the immediate cessation of all distilling and brewing,
(2) the export of provisions of every kind to foreign countries should be imediately prohibited adducing examples of Belgium, Holland, Russia and Turkey who had all closed their ports for export in analogous circumstances. [He excluded England and the rest of the UK from this criterion]
(3) A loan of £1.5 million to be raised on the proceeds of Irish Woods and Forests (estimated at £74,000 per annum) to be used as a 'sinking fund' from which to purchase food on international markets.
(4) Further monies to be raised by taxing absentees 50% and resident landlords 10% [Value of absentee rental is estimated at between £3m and £6m. There doesn't appear to be any reliable figures available but the gross rental of Ireland at this time is about £14m and the rate of absenteeism reckoned at between a fifth and a third.]
(5) Relief works to be  established in each county &
(6) Projected railway works to be commenced forthwith, 'so that the people be put to work from one end of the country to the other, and let them be paid in food'
(7) That public granaries ought to be established in various parts of the country, the corn to be sold to the people at moderate prices.

31st October - Emergency cabinet meeting called by Peel; "Can we vote public money for the sustenance of any considerable portion of the peopleon account of actual or apprehended scarcity and maintain in full operation the existing restrictions on the free import of grain? ... I am bound to say, declared Peel, "my impression is we cannot".

3rd November - Mansion House deputation to the Viceroy's residence in the Phoenix Park is received 'coolly'. As O' Rourke describes it (Ch.II, pg.75); "As they were about to withdraw, O' Connell made an observation about distilleries. Lord Heytesbury, not condescending to mention him by name, said, that the observation of the gentlemen who had spoken was one deserving of much consideration, and one which had not been overlooked by the government, when it had the matter under discussion; and again began bowing them out, "which", writes one of those present, was distinctly understood, and the deputation retired."

4th November - 'They may starve! Such in spirit, if not in words, was the reply given yesterday by the English Viceroy to the deputation which prayed that the food of this kingdom be preserved, lest the people thereof perish" - Following day's leader from the Freeman's Journal.

Early November - Peel secretly authorises purchase of £100,000 worth of American Indian corn (maize) via Baring Bros. These supplies would eventually arrive between February and June 1846 to be released onto the market to coincide with the traditional 'hungry months' of June, July & August. £46,000 of maize and oatmeal were also purchased in England. Between freight, kiln-drying and grinding the total outlay amounted to £185,000. Government supplied food thus secured amounted to some 44 million lbs (20,000 tons) of Indian corn and oatmeal, a quantity thought sufficient to feed 490,000 persons for three months at a rate of 1lb per day.

A Central Relief Commission was next set up to oversee the distribution of this meal co-ordinating with (it was assumed & expected) locally raised landlord-led relief committees. Peel was pinning his hopes on a vigorous response from the landed gentry; "Our main reliance must be placed on the co-operation of the landed interest with local aid". The precedents were not favouable however. In the last food crisis, the partial famine of 1839, Capt Chads, officer in charge of relief, wrote; "after having visited the most distressed areas from Bantry to Lough Swilly .. there had hardly been a single instance in which adequate relief might not have been afforded to the poor without calling for aid from Government but the landlords were looking to their future rents only and setting aside the calls of justice, duty and humanity"

The government were not to bear the burden of charges, rather the meal would be distributed from special depots at cost price to the local relief committees who would in turn sell it on to the poor - free distribution was only to be considered in cases of extreme want. The money for food purchases was to be rasied locally by voluntary subscriptions. An estimated 3 million tons of potatos had been lost so this amount of Indian corn was never going to adequately replace the deficit; the intention all along was to reign in prices by providing an alternative food supply through slow release of quantities of grain during the crucial three month gap before the early August potato harvest. Indian corn was also extremely cheap, costing 50% than oatmeal (roughly £15 a ton) during the summer months of 1846.

15th November - Peel appointed Lindley and Playfair Commission to investigate the extent of loss to the potato crop report that 'one half of the actual potato crop of Ireland is either destroyed or remains in a state unfit for the food of man'. They also noted that one eigth of the crop would be required for seed to plant next season's crop, leaving only 3/8 of the 1845 crop available for consumption.

 [This 'pessimistic' report went a long way to speedily mobilise relief efforts as noted by Irish academic P.M. A Bourke (A Visitation of God?) but a dire prognosis would certainly suit Peel's next gambit to try and convince Parliament that the loss of the potato crop necessitated a complete repeal of the Corn Laws. Throughout this marathon debate which consumed Westminster from January to June 1846 Peel had to contend with Tory protectionist assertions that (a) the extent of the blight's damage was exaggerated and (b) even were it the case, it did not logically follow that the only recourse was to lift import duties across the British Isles; in other words the threat of food price inflation was exaggerated.]

19th November - The Mansion House Committee to which hundreds of respondents around the country had sent letters claims to have ascertained 'beyond the shadow of doubt that considerably more than one third of the entire potato crop has been entirely destroyed'. [Roughly one third has been the generally accepted figure]

.................................................................................................

Value of Irish Agricultural Output at current prices c. 1845 :

Crops

Wheat - £4.9m, Oats - £8.1m, Barley - £1.8m, Flax - £1.3m, Potatos - £8.8m, Other - £2m.
Total value of crops: £26.8m

Livestock

Cattle - £4.7m, Butter and milk - £4.8m, Pigs - £3.4m, Sheep - £.8m, Eggs - £.9m, Other - £.8m
Total value of livestock: £15.9m

Total Output: £42.7m

(figures from Cormac O' Grada, Poverty, Population and Agriculture, 1801-45, A New History of Ireland, Vol V, Ireland Under the Union, pg.123.)

Taking the loss of one third of an enlarged potato crop estimated at £3m (marginally more acres were sown for potato production in 1845 than previous years [6% more according to constabulary returns]) this gives us a total percentage loss in overall agricultural value of about 7%. Was this, or should this have been enough to cause widespread famine?

"Understanding hunger and starvation as consequences of shifting social and political relationships does not deny their reality.  Rather, it examines the context of these phenomena in search of an explanation in structural terms, of class, mode of production, political power, or change in these relationships".  - Louise Tilly, "Food Entitlement, Famine and Conflict", Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14, no.2 (1983): 333-49.

...............................................................................................................

3rd December - Freeman's Journal reports retail potato prices had more than doubled and grain prices were at least a third higher than the averages for 1843 and 1844.

Mid-December - Peel presses the Irish executive to draft a coercion bill to combat the expected rise in agrarian tension. Notices had already been posted on church doors in Clare, Limerick, Louth and Cavan telling the people to pay no rent and thrash no corn on account of the potato failure. In Ennis,"resident aristocracy and absentee noblemen" were threatened if they did not come forward with plans to help and in Tipperary bands of men visited tenants instructing them to pay no rent. This was the bill that would bring down his government; though the majority who voted against it had no real interest in what was transpiring in Ireland, rather they wished to give Peel the boot for betraying a core tenet of Conservative politics; the protection of the English agricultural interest. Opposition within his own cabinet, led by Stanley, against his proposals to repeal the Corn Laws forces Peel to tender his resignation. Russell is unable to from a government and Peel is recalled by the Queen. The weeks of uncertainty led to much speculation in nationalist circles with Archbishop MacHale, Young Ireland and the Irish Chartist leader Feargus O' Connor pre-emptively denouncing any future alliance between O' Connell and the Whigs. The seeds were already being sown for the future secession of Young Ireland from the O' Connellite Repeal movement.

22nd January - "Sir, the immediate cause which led to the dissolution of the Government in the early part of last December, was that great and mysterious calamity which caused a lamentable failure in an article of food on which great numbers of the people in this part of the United Kingdom, and still larger numbers in the sister kingdom, depend mainly for their subsistence. That was the immediate and proximate cause, which led to the dissolution of the Government.  But it would be unfair and uncandid on my part, if I attached undue importance to that particular cause. It certainly appeared to me to preclude further delay, and to require immediate decision—decision not only upon the measures which it was necessary at the time to adopt, but also as to the course to be ultimately taken with regard to the laws which govern the importation of grain." - Peel rising in the House to address the issue of Corn Law Repeal, framed here as a necessary measure in light of the Irish (and English) potato blight.  Bitter and acrimonious exchanges would characterise this debate over the course of the next several months.

23rd January - First of Peel's four remedial measures for Ireland are introduced into parliament; these are the Public Works (Ireland) Bill, the County Works Presentments (Ireland) Bill, the Drainage (Ireland) Bill and the Fishery Piers and Harbours (Ireland) Bill. The first two provided the framework within which ameliorative public works would be carried out under the directing auspices of the Board of Works and the grand juries (county-level authorities). Projects carried out by the Board of Works would be supplemented by a 'half-grant' whereby the government would provide a donation half the value of the estimated cost; the rest would have to be paid back by the ratepayers over thirty years. Grand jury projects would be funded entirely by government loans - £134,000 was advanced under this scheme while the more generous terms offered by the schemes under the Board of Works atrracted work proposals worth £434,000. The Drainage Bill, while passed, turned out to be a dead letter and projects to renew piers and harbours only attracted £10,000 worth of investment. The other direct measure relating to Ireland, the Protection of Life (Ireland) was kept alive artificially until the 25th June until it was axed by the anti-Peel coalition.

Importantly, the promised Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Bill which was to arrive on the foot of the Devon Commission's Report never materialised until late in the session. It was then shelved by Russell's incoming administration citing the lack of remaining house time to consider it properly. As will be seen it fared no better in the 1847 session. For many of it's supporters (Sharman Crawford, Smith O' Brien, Poulett Scrope) this bill could have provided direly needed legislation to guarantee some sort of fixity of tenure in the face of ever increasing famine related evictions. It's earliest introduction in the house had been in the 1844 session (usually referred to as Stanley's Tenant Compensation Bill) but was 'auto-sabotaged' by it's unsympathetic framer (Stanley held extensive estates in Ireland) through the mechanism of introducing a stipulation whereby the legal standing of improvements would be asessed by an independent Dublin-based commission; a move very much anathema to a typical landlord's conception of proprietorial rights. It is widely acknowledged that Stanley himself was aware that such a clause would never pass the landlord-dominated House of Lords and so, as predicted, it disappeared into a select committeee.

17th February -  (from Hansard)

MR. O'CONNELL rose to call the attention of the House to the state of famine and disease in Ireland. His intention was to move— That this House will, on Monday next, resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House, to take into consideration the State of Ireland, with a view to devise means to relieve the Distress of the Irish People;"—and it was a Motion to which he respectfully demanded the utmost attention of the House. ... It was certain that there was a fearful prospect of a most calamitous season before the people of Ireland. The extent of that calamity had been disputed, and there had been a time when there was a prospect of some portion of it being possibly averted; but he believed that hope had now quite vanished. The calamity was pressing, was imminent—more pressing, more imminent, and more fearful than that House was aware of. In order to understand it, it was right that the House should be made aware of the state of Ireland before the calamity, had impended.

[Which O' Connell proceeds to do over the course of a lengthy speech outlining the vulnerability of the small tenant farmer, the rise of agrarian crime, the questionable policy of maintaining food exports, the willingness of Ireland to raise revenue from it's own resources (tax absenteeism etc), the inevitable impact of fever and typhus, the conditions faced by evictees, the alarming rise in food prices & basically critiquing the overall lack of preparedness of the government to face the oncoming crisis. Tory protectionists at this time were downplaying 'alarmist' reports from Ireland in order to undermine Peel's argument that Corn Law repeal was rendered necessary by an incipient food crisis that could embrace the entire United Kingdom]


.......In no part of Europe, I repeat, is there such suffering as in Ireland. There there are five millions of people always on the verge of starvation. I have shown you from Government documents—from an enormous load of documents, taken from, and referring to, all parts of Ireland, that its people are threatened—that they  are in the utmost danger of a fearful famine, with all its concomitant horrors. I may be asked what I propose? I answer, that I call upon all the Members of this House to join in the most energetic measures to stop the impending calamity. You cannot be too speedy—you cannot be too extensive in your remedies. It may be said that I am here to ask money to succour Ireland in her distress. No such thing. I scorn the thought. I am here to say Ireland has resources of her own. You have a revenue from the woods and forests of Ireland. You spent 74,000l. within the last few years on Trafalgar-square. Let that revenue represent a capital of a million or a million and a half. .... The workhouses would make very good hospitals for the sick. That fever prevails in Cork, Tralee, and Killarney, I have proved to you; it has raged to a frightful extent in Limerick; the number of patients in the infirmaries has increased; the lanes of Dublin are full of fever. You are not to be guided in such a case as this by ordinary rules. It is a case beyond every rule. The people are not to blame. It has pleased Providence to inflict this calamity upon them; it is your business to mitigate that calamity as much as possible.......

Great evils require great remedies; the remedy ought to be commensurate with the evil; and I am speaking from the depth of my conviction when I declare that in my conscience I believe the result of neglect on the part of this House in the present instance will be deaths to an enormous amount. On the grounds which I have stated, I request the appointment of a Committee of the whole House, if with no other effect, at least for the purpose of convincing the Irish people that their calamities are not disregarded. I don't blame the Government for what they have done, and for what they purpose to do. They have had my humble support. I have not been peddling for objections to their measures. I am prepared to give an honest support to any plans which the Government may bring forward for the purpose of mitigating the effects of the scarcity. Yet, those which have been propounded are miserable trifles; they would do for ordinary times and for an ordinary scarcity; but they will not answer when death is abroad. The details into which I felt it my duty to enter have made my statement necessarily a dry one; and, for the extreme patience with which I have been heard, I beg to express to the House my own thanks and the thanks of the Irish people. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by proposing his Motion.     

13th March - Sir James Graham announces in the Commons the establishment of a Board of Health in Dublin. Fever hospitals were required to be set up in Unions were the need existed. This was not a permanent measure and was designed to expire in September. "In all the provinces, almost in every county .. dysentery has made it's appearance attended by fever in many instances".

On the same day, 300 tenants are evicted from the Gerrard Estate in Ballinglass, Co. Galway, to make way for a bullock pasture.

17th March - Subscriptions to local relief committees were so slow coming in that Trevelyan directed that lists of landlords who failed to subscribe should be sent to the Lord-Lieutenant. Few relief committees did so, partly out of fear of provoking the ire of the resident magnate & partly because of residual tensions related to their composition; many RC priests & repealers were on local committees and were naturally distrusted by landlords who instead averred that they were taking personal steps to ensure their tenants security. In all, the relatively small sum of £98,000 was raised by the local committees during Peel's administration, a fact which further emboldened the Whig administration to shift the burden of relief more squarely (and compulsorily) on their shoulders.

23rd March - "Condition of Ireland" debate commences in the Lords.

Earl Grey's opening salvo is worth recording;

"The noble Earl opposite, in bringing forward on behalf of Her Majesty's Government the different measures that have been proposed with respect to Ireland, has disclosed to us a state of society which it is indeed awful to contemplate; a state of society in which there is no security for life or property; a state of society in which the usual wretchedness of the population has been so aggravated by the partial failure of the potato crop, that famine and pestilence must stalk through the land, unless those measures which Parliament has adopted  to counteract those evils should fortunately arrest their progress.

This is the state of things described by Her Majesty's Government; and unhappily this is no accidental, no extraordinary, no unlooked-for calamity. It is but an aggravation, and perhaps no very great aggravation, of the habitual condition of Ireland. The evils of that unhappy country are not accidental, not temporary, but chronic and habitual. The state of Ireland is one which is notorious. We know the ordinary condition of that country to be one both of lawlessness and wretchedness. It is so described by every competent authority. There is not an intelligent foreigner coming to our shores, who turns his attention to the state of Ireland, but who bears back with him such a description. Ireland is the one weak place in the solid fabric of British power—Ireland is the one deep (I had almost said ineffaceable) blot upon the brightness of British honour. Ireland is our disgrace. It is the reproach, the standing disgrace, of this country, that Ireland remains in the condition she is. It is so regarded throughout the whole civilized world. To ourselves we may palliate it if we will, and disguise the truth; but we cannot conceal it from others.

There is not, as I have said, a foreigner—no matter whence he comes, be it from France, Russia, Germany, or America—there is no native of any foreign country different as their forms of government may be, who visits Ireland, and who on his return does not congratulate himself that he sees nothing comparable with the condition of that country at home. If such be the state of things, how then does it arise, and what is its cause? My Lords, it is only by misgovernment that such evils could have been produced: the mere fact that Ireland is in so deplorable and wretched a condition saves whole volumes of argument, and is of itself a complete and irrefutable proof of the misgovernment to which she has been subjected. Nor can we lay to our souls the "flattering unction" that this misgovernment was only of ancient date, and has not been our doing. It is not enough in our own excuse to say, "No wonder this state of things exists: the Government of Ireland before the Union was the most ingeniously bad that was ever contrived in the face of the world; it was the Government of a corrupt minority, sustained by the superior power of this great country in oppressing and tyrannizing over the great body of the nation; that  such a system of government could not fail to leave behind it a train of fearful evils from which we are still suffering at the present day."

To a certain extent, no doubt, this is true. No man has a stronger opinion than I regarding the iniquitous system of misgovernment in Ireland prior to the Union. But the Union is not an event of yesterday. It is nearly half a century since that measure passed. For nearly fifty years, now, Ireland has been under the immediate control of the Imperial Parliament. Since it has been so, a whole generation has grown up, and is now passing away to be replaced by another; and in that time, I ask you, what impression has been made upon the evils of Ireland? It is true some good has been done. I gladly acknowledge that many useful measures have been adopted, which have, I hope, contributed in some respects to the improvement of Ireland; but none of these measures have gone to the root of the social disease to which Ireland is a prey; in the worst symptoms of which no amelioration whatever can be observed: the wretchedness and misery of the population have experienced no abatement.

Upon that point I can quote high authority. I find that the Commission presided over by a noble Earl, whom I do not now see in his place (the Earl of Devon), reported the year before last, that "improvement was indeed beginning to take place in agriculture; but there had been no corresponding advance in the condition and comforts of the labouring classes." By the Report of that Commission we are informed, that the agricultural labourers are still suffering the greatest privations and hardships, and still depend upon casual and precarious employment for their subsistence; that they are badly fed, badly clothed, badly housed, and badly paid for their labour; and the Commissioners conclude this part of their Report by saying— We cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of any other country have ever endured. This is an authentic statement, and comes from a Commission appointed only the other day to inquire into the state of the people of Ireland.

It is a Report describing the state of things in that country before the failure of the potato crop, and the Commissioners tell you that the sufferings of the great mass of the people of that country are greater than those of  the population of any other country in Europe. This is indeed a fearful statement, coming from such authority. But there is another symptom of the condition of Ireland, which seems to me even more alarming than the prevalence of distress—I mean the the general alienation of the whole mass of the nation from the institutions under which they live, and the existence in their minds of a strong deep feeling of hostility to the form of government under which they are placed. This feeling, which is the worst feature in the case, seems to be rather gaining strength than to be diminishing. I am led to that opinion by what I heard two years ago fall from the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the House of Commons. I heard that right hon. Gentleman—and it was a statement which made a deep impression upon me—I heard the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a speech made by a noble Friend of mine, distinctly admit that we had military occupation of Ireland, but that in no other sense could it be said to be governed; that it was occupied by troops, not governed like England. Such was the admission of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

And now, my Lords, I ask you, is that a state of things which ought to continue? And I ask is not such a state of things, so clearly established by authorities so high and indisputable, a good ground for inferring that there is something wrong in the policy which has been hitherto pursued towards Ireland; and that some measures different in character, and more effectual than those we have been in the habit of trusting to, are necessary to meet the exigency?" (He goes on in this vain for another two hours! - as Secretary for War and the Colonies under Russell, Grey would go on to introduce important reforms granting greater local autonomy and self-government to the colonies).


23rd March - In response to angry criticisms against the Gerrard evictions and the mooted revival of a landlord/tenant bill Lord Brougham speaks out in defense of landlord prerogatives in the House of Lords;

"Their Lordships could not interfere with the rights of property, the most sacred of all rights, on which society itself depended, the corner-stone of the whole social edifice—the line of demarcation which separated the savage from the civilized state of society. ... But then he found that there were speculators, and practical speculators too, who not only suffered to pass across their imagination the abstract idea that property might be interfered with; but who so far carried that idea into execution as an object of their desire, or used it for the purpose of deluding their dupes in their own country—ignorant men as compared with them, but hardly more thoughtless and unreflecting than they—as to propound Bills on the subject in Parliament, of which he had heard for the first time that night. He could hardly have believed it possible that in the middle of the 19th century, and in a British House of Commons, there should have been propounded what was called by the gentle and euphonious term of fixity of tenure, but which meant thereby an Act of Parliament to rob the owner of land of his property, and to confer it on the occupant his tenant."

25th June - Corn Law repeal is passed by the House of Lords & marshalled by Disraeli and Bentinck Tory Protectionists helped by Whigs and Irish Repealers bring Peel's government down on the Irish coercion bill (Protection of Life in Ireland Bill). Old Tory party now split into 'Peelites' and 'Protectionists'.

"In the simplest terms the purpose of the Corn Laws was to keep up the price of home-grown grain. Duties on  imported grain guaranteed English farmers a minimum and predictable price, and the burden of a higher price for bread was borne  by the labouring classes, in particular by the millions of factory workers and operatives toiling in the new great industrial cities. It was asserted that if the Corn Laws were repealed all classes connected with the land would be ruined and the traditional social structure of the country destroyed, and in the "rising wrath of Tories and landlords" all interest in Ireland was submerged"". - Cecil Woodham Smith, The Great Hunger

"The importance of bread in British economic history has recently been highlighted in a monograph by Christian Petersen who describes the period 1770-1870 as 'the age of the wheat loaf'. Although the (Anti-Corn Law) League is hardly mentioned by Petersen, bread was an omnipresent theme in its publications and speeches. Leaguers read the Anti-Bread Tax Circular; over and over again they saw replicas of the three loaves that showed the British to be less well fed than Poles and Frenchmen; and they sang hymns that condemned the bread-taxers. In our own day it is difficult to understand the importance of bread when it is not only an optional but a problematic item of diet. In his study of bread riots during the eighteenth century E.P. Thomson has shown how crucial bread was, not only in the national dietary, but in the popular culture of England; the labouring poor, he wrote, 'lived very largely on bread', especially of the wheaten and white varieties that were commonly believed to be necessary for a working man's diet. The purchase of bread, John Burnett writes, became more difficult for the town dweller in the nineteenth century when 'up to half the earnings of working class families went on bread alone' and the price 'fluctuated widely within short periods'."

- Paul Pickering, The People's Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League

" the misfortune of the workers in the summer insurrection of 1842 was precisely that they did not know whom to fight against. The evil they suffered was social - and social evils cannot be abolished as the monarchy or privileges are abolished. Social eveils cannot be cured by the People's Charter, and the people sensed this.. Social evils need to be studied and understood, and this the mass of workers has not yet doe up until now. The great achievement of the uprising was that England's most vital question, the final destiny of the working class, was, as Carlyle says, raised in a manner audible to every thinking ear in England. The question can no longer be evaded. England must answer it or perish."   - Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class of England (1844)

"Too often the Chartists have been assessed solely on the issue of the vote. In fact the Chartists wanted much more than this. What they fought for was il-defined and even at times contradictory. But to the extent they had a vision, it was alwqays of a different kind of society, one in which workers controlled their own lives without a constant sense of anxiety about how they might feed themselves and their children or survive the next economic slump. Many Chartists spoke of the Charter as being a 'knife and fork'question and of the 'Charter and something more'. "

Mark O' Brien, Perish the Priviliged Orders: A Socialist History of the Chartist Movement