The Irish CrisisTrevelyan, Charles E. (Charles Edward)
History
The Irish Crisis
Trevelyan, Charles E. (Charles Edward)
Ireland -- Economic conditions; Ireland -- History -- 1837-1901; Ireland -- History -- Famine, 1845-1852
It must also be observed, that from an early period of the present
distress, two modes of meeting the calamity presented themselves,
which have since acquired greater distinctness in people’s minds, and
have been acted upon in a more and more systematic manner. The first
of these was to stimulate the industry of the people, to augment the
productive powers of the soil, and to promote the establishment of new
industrial occupations, so as to cause the land once more to support
its population, and to substitute a higher standard of subsistence,
and a higher tone of popular character, for those which prevailed
before. This plan aimed at accomplishing the object without the pain or
risk of wholesale expatriation; and the result proposed by it was to
increase the strength and prosperity of the country and the happiness
of the people, by enabling the present population to maintain itself
comfortably at home by the exercise of its industry. The Government
adopted this plan from the first, and has since promoted its success
by every means in its power. The other plan was to relieve the
mother-country by transferring large masses of people to the Colonies;
and great efforts were made to obtain the command of public funds to
assist in paying the expense of this emigration.
The main pointy therefore, is, that by taking an active part in
assisting emigration, the Government would throw their weight into the
scale with the last of these two plans. They would assist it by their
means; and, what is of far more consequence, they would countenance
it by their authority: and in the same degree, they would discourage
and relax the efforts of those who are exerting themselves to carry out
the opposite plan. In order to appreciate the full ultimate effect of
such an interposition, it must be remembered that the solution of the
great difficulty by means of emigration carried out on the scale and
in the manner proposed, offers to the promoters of it the attraction
of accomplishing their object by a cheap and summary process; while
the other remedy, of enabling the population to live comfortably at
home, can be arrived at only by an expensive, laborious, and protracted
course of exertion: and it therefore behoves the Government, which
holds the balance between contending parties, to take care to which
side it lends its influence on a social question of this description.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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