In large part, reluctant though I am to admit it, the Irish famine was a product of classic free market economic liberalism.
The Whigs had just got into power after the Tories had been ousted over the question of the “Corn Laws”, ie the protectionist measures that kept British wheat prices high. The imposition of tariffs on cheap American wheat protected Tory landlords while putting up the price of bread for working men.
To the Whigs the market should be allowed to operate and government not intervene. Something I think we would all agree with but with the law of unintended consequences caused a disaster in Ireland.
When the potato crop collapsed the new Whig government couldn’t be seen to intervene and stop exports of other crops from Ireland to feed the starving or to intervene in the market and buy wheat to feed them.
All a reluctant chief secretary of the Treasury Trevelyan (cited in the song) would do was buy “Indian corn” from America, it was virtually inedible as there weren’t the right type of mills to grind it in Ireland and anyway it was too little and too late.
There is no doubt that the free-market Whigs (especially Trevelyan) thought that the market was doing it’s job efficiently, the Irish were lazy, they thought, too dependent on welfare, if the famine cleared the land of their impoverished small holdings and forced them to go to America so much the better.
In hindsight it was an appalling viewpoint but let’s face it, in many ways it is a viewpoint that many of us share today.
The correct term should be the “starvation” instead of the “famine.” There was grain and meat in Ireland but only for export. The Irish who worked the fields were not allowed to eat any of it.
“...an appalling viewpoint but let’s face it, in many ways it is a viewpoint that many of us share today...”
I appreciate your historical response. Well-written, and thank you.
As far as the viewpoint goes, my disagreement is that a government’s first - and ONLY - fundamental job is to protect it’s citizens.
A famine on the scale that hit the Irish is akin, to my mind, of a Hurricane Katrina magnitude. Except hurricanes eventually end. The famine went on and on.
If the citizenry is starving due to some natural disaster or catastrophe, the government has the obligation and duty to move heaven and hell to find a way to help stop it. Otherwise, what good is government?
“...When the potato crop collapsed the new Whig government couldn’t be seen to intervene and stop exports of other crops from Ireland to feed the starving...”
That’s the EXACT moment they should have intervened. Their own PEOPLE were dying; you take care of your own people first; or you are worthless.