TOPICS OF THE DAY
KILLING OR COLONIZING FOR IRELAND?
ENGLA.ND is advancing Ireland a million a month for the sole purpose of a special poor-law, by which the pauper multitude is maintained ; and that process must go on at least till the next harvest. The English people do not grumble at this ; but they do begin to feel considerable dissatisfaction at observing that they stand pledged to that course without having as yet received the smallest guarantee that the process of advancing money will be stopped at any definite period. It is too late to do anything effectual this year—there is no complaint of that ; but there is a rising impatience to see something done for securinc, a better state of matters next year. It is remarked that Ireland is in itself, as a territory, quite as capable of supporting its own population as England, Scotland, or Wales : the thing wanted is the motive in the people ; and it does not appear that Ministers have yet done i anything, or contemplate anything, to call such motives oto play. On the contrary, Ministers and Irish Members talk of each par- ticular measure as if it might be or might not be pressed—as if there remained some choice in the matter. No time is to be lost, they cry, in supplying "food " ; but they do not seem adequately impressed with the fact that the supply of food from England must depend not only upon the power of this country to con- tribute, but also upon the patience of the English people under demands to help those who might be made to help themselves— under indefinite demands to furnish cash as subsistence-money for the Irish, without corresponding steps to put the Irish in the way of earning their own livelihood. This feeling of dissatisfaction is spreading extensively ; and it is not for the advantage either of the Ministry or of Ireland—it is not safe—to suffer its con- tinuance. It is too late to effect anything this year ; and unless some diligence be used in preparatory measures it will again be too late next year : but next year, neither Ireland nor Ministers would meet with the same munificent patience from the English people. That fact ought to be distinctly understood. The shape in which the want of Ireland presents itself ought also to be kept in view. From whatsoever causes, Ireland has a mass of pauperism consisting at this moment of four or five millions, fluctuating to a lower amount in favourable seasons, but always presenting an army of begging paupers computed by millions. After subdividing land and employment into the minutest fractions, the final result is, that the subdivision can go no further, and that there exists a bulk of millions of paupers, who, whether some part of them nominally have land and em- ployment or not, are all virtually without either. There is a, living mass of human beings disengaged from industrial society, and floating loose about the land, to the utter dissolution of social order. Ireland must continue to be in a state of disorganization until you have disposed of that mass. You must go on feeding it until you have found it some refuge. It is like the dragon in fairy tales, which must be fed at all sacrifice, or it will destroy. You must do something with it, or kill it. If you leave it alone, it will die out,—not without destroying more than itself' but four millions will struggle hard before they bow down to death, and will take a long time in the killing by starvation, even at the present rate of mortality. And that may be checked for a time ; keeping the pauper mass just alive to torment the land. Apart from pity, therefore, the killing process is a bad one. The mere expense of feeding this standing army of paupers is but a small part of the loss incurred. This disengaged surplus population is in itself the proximate cause of the worst difficul- ties in dealing with Ireland. Were the case of Ireland in other respects exactly as it is, but were this voracious burden absent— were two millions of souls extinguished on the instant—the task of extrication for the nation would be comparatively easy. It is this surplus which interferes to prevent improvement. You can- not consolidate the subdivided land, because of the souls that just manage to live upon it, and thus you cannot begin a real system of farming. You cannot introduce the civilized plan of labour by wages instead of the Irish cross betwixt villenage and squatting, because, with such monstrous competition in the labour-market, you cannot force farmers to pay any real wages. You cannot introduce capital, because of this band of paupers, who, in the ab- sence of a law of paupers, are almost beyond the pale of all law except that of rude self-preservation, and so keep the country in that lawless disorder which facilitates subsistence by irregular means. The very mass of pauperism prevents the establishment of an effectual poor-law, because it is too vast for a poor-law to deal with it singlehanded. Before you can get at the root of Irish disease in order to apply a remedy, you must remove that monstrous excrescence.
The quickest, handiest, most effectual, and most humane way, would be to colonize. This huge mass of surplus population is not mere inert life, not mere embodied hunger ; it is also labour— good, effective labour, such as is highly productive elsewhere, and makes not poverty but wealth. It only needs the locus in quo. It is labour "unattached," on half-pay, but quite available for work if you provide it with a field of action. You have such a field, to any needful extent, in your Colonies. No doubt, it is true that you cannot take a raw two millions and throw it on raw waste lands, without waste of life and wealth. Preparation is needed; but experience has proved that, with preparation, the process of colonizing is effectual and facile. Experience in several colonies has now shown that, with due preparation and adjust-
moat, a given number of people can be taken and placed upon the proportionate breadth of land, and that the process can be made to pay itself out of the wealth accruing from the application of the unemployed labour to the vacant land. As that result de- pends upon the sufficiency of the labour, land, and capital at starting, it can of course be attained with any number of people provided there be adequate proportions of land and credit : practi- cally, the land and credit of the British empire are unlimited: the question therefore resolves itself into one of circumstances and arrangement—into one of detail. Any amount of colonization that might be needed for the relief of Ireland would be practi- cable: the only requisites are, due ingenuity to contrive the de- tails, and time for the necessary preparatives. We are surprised to see a contemporary, who, though obstinate in prejudices against colonization, is shrewd and well-informed, repeating at this day the exploded argument that " the strength of the labouring population would be drawn off" ; applying it to Ireland, where labour is redundant ! It needs no profound in- quiry to perceive, that by subtracting a large portion of Irish la- bour, the available force of labour would be positively increased. This is not matter of speculation, but is indicated with sufficient distinctness by the actual state of the labour-market in Ireland. The comparative statistics of England and Ireland show palpably what is the proportion of excess in the labour applied to cultiva- tion in Ireland—say one-half. Taking into account the produce per acre, the Irish farmer, or rather the employing occupant, whoever he is, pays as much for labour as the English farmer. But, to begin with, the wages of two men are divided among four : the pittance allowed to each of the four is not worth work- ing for, the labourers have no heart in their work ; they produce less, earn less, and all lose—labourers, employer, landlord, and all. Subtract the two labourers in excess, and at a blow the price of labour rises in the ratio of 4 to 52,-2s. Gd. becomes 5s. ; the prize is worth more, the labour is stimulated, produce increases, and the positive amount of dividend in the shape of wages is augmented. Subtract one half of the labour, and you have two labourers valued at the English rate instead of four valued at the Irish rate, —that is, the numerical diminution of labourers gives you an in- crease of productive labour.*
Nor is that all. A poor-law becomes practicable, further to re- lieve the labour-market of what does not belong to it—the help- Jess, and the pauper pretender to work. Consolidation of farms is possible, and real farming. With working classes pledged to order by a decent collective share of wealth, peace begins, and capital flows in. Employments multiply ; and Ireland becomes capable of supporting a much larger population in comfort instead of misery. But all these processes, with their results, are ulterior to the removal of the great disengaged mass of pauper surplus population. Before you can do any of these things, you must remove that ; and the question is, in sober earnestness, whether you will kill, or colonize?
• The materials for exact comparison of this kind do not exist; but practically there is no lack of evidence. In England, less than one in three of the population are engaged in agriculture; in Ireland, more than two in three—say two labour- ers in Ireland' to one in England. Mr. M'Culloch mentions 3 1. 158. as an ap- proximation to the value of the produce per acre, tillage and pasturage, in Ireland; fignares in the same author would give about Si. as the average in England; but the difference is no doubt greater. We will take the produce, however, as being in the ratio of 4/. in England to Si. in Ireland, and the number of labourers as 2 to 1. Now, supposing the employer to pay 2s. 6d. a week each to two labourers, he could pay 5s. to the single English labourer without paying a farthing more of wages. But, supposing that the labourer also produced 4/. instead of 31., the farmer could pay Gs. 8d. instead of 2s. 6d., without being a farthing more out of pocket, but on the contrary being the more in pocket by the transaction. This 6s. 8d. is a cicse approximation to the is. of the poorest agricultural districts in England. It is curious to observe, with these allowances, bow nearly Irish wages, in the aggregate, approximate to English wages. We see, as it were, in posse, the same proportionate fund to be divided in Ireland as in England; but in Ire- land the share of the individual labour is diminished by two deductions: one is the diminished value of the crop, caused by the inefficiency of the labour; the other is the fact that the wages-fund has to be divided among double the num- ber of recipients. This consideration clearly shows, what might have been pre- umed.I priori, that the process which would diminish the number of labourers and increase the efficiency of the labourer would raise wages without obliging the employer to " pay" any more than he does at present. Of course the competition of a thinner market would tend to exact a yet higher ratio of wages for the la- bourer; though the rate would still be limited by the bound at which the payment would cease to be profitable to the farmer.
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