WAS THE IRISH FAMINE A MYTH?

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 166, 22 October 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAS THE IRISH FAMINE A MYTH?

The Irish peasant has often been describe 1 as a born actor. If, however, certain authorities are to be credited, his natural aptitude for the histrionic art is even much greater than has been supposed, and would entitle him to rank among ‘ the best actors iu the world.’ Certainly the triumph achieved by the cleverest professional mimics, either past or present, have, as we arc invited to believe, been entirely eclipsed by the spectacle which lias recently been witnessed iu Ireland. But the most astounding circumstance iu connection with it is, that a -whole host of experts should have been deceived as to its real character, have mistaken for a very dismal tragedy what we are now assured was only an inimitably sustained burlesque. This, at all events, is the inevitable conclusion forced, ou the reader who attentively peruses a series of articles, which recently appeared in the ‘ Pall Mall Gazette,’and which profess to relate ‘ the true story of the Irish famine. ’ The articles are stated to have been written by an Irish correspondent of the journal in which they were originally published. This announcement tvill, doubtless, in some quarters, bo received as a sufficient guaran - tee for the genuineness of the information which they furnish. The ‘true story’ has indeed been referred to by journalists, hot h iu England and Australia, as though it were ‘ confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ’ of insuations, to the same ctlcct which had been vaguely uttered before, Iu his auxiety to make out a good case, however, the narrator of this ‘true story,’ as not unfrequently happens to special pleaders, proves altogether too much. Bis revelations naturally provoke the query—how comes it that thousands of keen observers have been unconscious of the laots which bo alleges are patent to his eyes?—ami, apparently, to bis eyes alone. Iu plain terms, lie tells ns that the ‘famine’ was a gigantic swindle; that the cry was got up by professional agitators to subserve a political purpose ; and that the class which was represented as ‘ steeped iu poverty to the lips’ was, and actually is, in a condition of comparative comfort and prosperity. Iu short, this gentleman would fain persuade us, as we have already remarked, that the Irish labourers and small farmers assumed the ‘ role’ of mendicant ‘ with light hearts, ’ and were chucking in their sleeves all the while at the credulity of their dupes. The landlords, be tells us, wore weli aware of the wholesale imposture which was being perpetrated, and we may infer the reason why they did not expose it was because they dreaded the storm, of obloquy and misrepresentation with which they would have been assailed if they had ventured to make a clean breast of it. Besides ho gives us to understand that they would have been regarded as entirely untrustworthy witnesses, and held up to scorn as cruel tyrants who wore attempting to intercept the generous aid which was being extended to an alilieted people. The writer goes on to say, that though there was undoubtedly severe pressure felt iua few localities in the west of Ireland in consequence of a succession of bad harvests and the failure of the potato crops, 'here was nothing whatever to warrant the fear of a famine supervening. 'The imposition of a slightly increased poor rate, which the country would have been well able to bear, would, in bis opinion, have been sufficient to meet the difficulty which had arisen, and if this course had been adopted there would have been no occasion to seek for eleemosynary assistance elsewhere. It would seem from this scribe’s showing, that the landlords arc the class, of all others in Ireland, most deserving of commiseration. They are the sufferers, he informs us, from a conspiracy entered into bv the small shopkeepers, the farmers, and the demagogues. The story of the famine was a capital pretext for cheating the poor landlords of their rent, and while the hat was being sent round, iu the interests of the above-mentioned trio, they varied the excitiug and exceedingly profitable occupation in which they were engaged by abusing as well as fleecing their innocent victims. If this be truth, it must be coufesseil that it is ‘strange, stranger than fiction. ’ The landlords exhibited a Christian resignation to which frail humanity seldom attains. They meekly submitted to be smitten on both cheeks, and yet made no sign. But whatever motive had previously induced them to remain silent under insult and injury, cue would imagine that the Tenancy Bill would have unsealed their lips. That Bill, it is almost needless to add, presses heavily on the landlords, and has been framed on the assumption that the famine was a grim reality. If, ou the contrary, the famine was a pure myth, we may take it for granted that a hundred witnesses would have come forward to ‘corroborate the true story’ told in the ‘Pali Mall Gazette.’ But, indignantly as the provisions of the Tenancy Bill have been denounced by the Irish landlords, not one of them has undertaken to assert that the distress which that exceptional measure is intended to meet was not very deep and widespread among the rural population of the south and west. It will lie entertaining to hear what a representative man, Mr, \V. R. King Hannan, has to say on the subject. A letter of his on the Irish land question appears in the Times of last month, in this communication Mr. Harman bitterly complains of what he conceives would be the harsh conditions imposed on landed proprietors if the Tenancy Bill should become law. Ho endeavours to show that the position of the tenant is far from being as bad as it has been depicted, and that a great deal of superfluous sympathy lias been lavished on him that might lawfully have been bestowed on the landlord. But in his reference to the famine lie virtually joins issue with the ‘ Pall Mall Gazette’ ‘ I was the first,’ he says, ‘ to call attention to the coming distress of last winter. I have worked hard administering relief, and inquiring personally and otherwise into the real state of affairs and without the aid of the relief funds many persons would have starved.’ Remembering the quarter from' which it comes, an admission of this description is of flic utmost importance. For Mr. Harman, championing the rights of his own order, as against those of the tenant, cannot be suspected of being inclined to deal too tenderly with the latter, and nuth respect to the famine, the temptation. in his case, would be to minimise it. Therefore the passage which we have cited carries great weight, and may be commended to the serious consideration of those who have pinned their faith on the so-called ‘ true story. ’ —Sydney Paper.