The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1880.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 491, 14 February 1880, Page 2

The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1880.

There is no subject that occupies more of the attention of the English speaking world just now than the Irish famine. On looking through Mr Walford’a work on ‘ The Famines of the World,' we find that since A.D. 1100, there have, including the present one, been thirty-six famines, or seasons of severe distress in Ireland. In the same period there have been fifty-two such crises in England. The reason of the higher number in the case of England is probably to be found in the more accurate record, and in the fact that England would naturally suffer more in continental wars than Ireland did. But if we take a shorter period, namely, from A.D, 1600 to the present, we find that while England suffered from seven famines, more or less severe, Ireland suffered from eleven, including that of 1880. In 1601, so great was the distress that cannibalism was reported in Ireland, as it had been in 1586 ami in 1116. In 1816 wo are told that the Irish devoured eight Scots whom they captured at the siege of Carrickfergus. But in none of the ten famines that have taken place within the last 270 years, has any eating of human flesh been recorded. In the present century there have been two years of great scarcity of food in the United Kingdom; they, however, were occasioned by the great war with Napoleon. But besides these, there, have been in this century, three famines in Ireland, exclusive of the present one. The first of these occurred, in 1822, when, owing to the “ failure of the potato crop, and to her staple of food differing from that of other nations, and - 'to the limitation of hor commercial' exchange with her neighbours,” terrible suffering was experienced by her people. In 1832 Ireland was again in distress; Parliament voted £40,000 for relief, and £74,500 were raised by subscriptions in England. Then came the famine, extending over three years, 1845-6-7. In ihe first year the Government expended £850,000 in relieving sufferers. In 1846 the potato famine set in in earnest. So terrible was the calamity that, although the Government advanced ten millions, and vast sums were subscribed all over the world, the victims were numbered by hundreds of thousands. During the famine, the population of the country was reduced by two millions and a half. Nearly half of these emigrated to America, whore it is believed that 25 per cent, of them died from exposure, want, and disease, within a few months. Some accounts would make the deaths resulting from the famine to amount to a million and a half, and the most moderate estimate cannot make them fall short of a million. Mr O'Connor Power, a leader among the Home Rulers, says that these multitudes did not die because Ireland did not produce enough food for tbera, but “ the people perished in the midst of food twice sufficient to sustain them, because the food they produced had to be exported in immense quantities to pay the exorbitant rents of the landlords,” He goes on to maintain that the reason why the Irish peasant lives upon potatoes is, that all that is saleable in animal and vegetable food, has to be sold to pay rack-rents; and so, as the potato produces more food per acre than any other plant, the Irish are driven to subsist ou it. Now we have no doubt there is muhh truth in this; for the Irish in the colonics show a very fuir appreciation of good living, and no man dares say that they are a pzy, or uninventive race. Whatever charge of laziness or want of enterprise may be brought home to them in Ireland, is easily explicable by the fact that if they improve their holding the rent is immediately raised. If a farmer works his life oat to drain a bog, as soon as it is fit for use he must pay an exorbitant rent, with the alternative of leaving his home. It is evident, then, that the common explanation of the extended use of the potato in Ireland, namely, that lazy people cultivate that which requires least labour, and that Irish are laay and have uo longing for better living which can prevent laziness having its course, is a piece ot that English uncharitable-, net* and want of sympathy that lias been a chief obstacle to the harmonious union of Saxon and Celt, Bat we are bound to add that the canse of this nncharitablene-s and want of sympathy has Ikhmi ignorance. The English Press has fed the prejudices of Inc English people, and if an odd case ceucuT O' - a Irishman joining in the cry of distress who found In let guilty of p.:,!:s<--siu£ a f-<f scores of pounds, be is

itiiiiji aniw>M«wiw■ 1 1 paraded in Punch, and elsewhere, as a sample t of the Irish,poor.. Suelvj&icts ,aa those stated in the Freeman's Journal, to the effect that ,on many estates the tehant is not allowed to harbor a stranger or pbor relation about his house, and may not consummate a-imarriagp without the, consent of the landlord, or his agent,are but little known or believed.jn England, or there would speedily be another abolition of slavery. It will probably be news to many people that immense quantities of grain are grown in Ireland, and that the Irish do not eat the potato solely because they grow nothing else. If it be only remembered that the rack-rents, at times, amount to £lO an acre, it will ho evident that to pay this, or even half, or a quarter of it, something has to be grown ami sold. Three millions, or more than half of the population of Ireland, are tenant farmers, and the great majority of the remainder are as poor, or pooler,, ami live in the same poor way, as is clear from the fact that there is an acre of potatoes grown for every six of the whole population. The rest of the food is exported to provide luxury for the fow thousands in whose hands the soil of the country lies. No les?, also, than £6,000,000 per annum is withdrawn from the country in the shape of rents to absentees. These facts will place the question of Irish famines in its true light, and will lay the fault at the right door. The barbarous and wicked system olTaud tenure, which has its very worst development in Ireland, is almost solely responsible. Can a system be righteous which allows people to starve in a country that produces more than enough to maintain them ? When we see that this is the case in Ireland, can we wonder at Irish agitation, or oven at Irish outrages? Is it not natnralthat a whole nation, seeing and suffering this injustice, should appeal to Heaven and to Hell, to prayers and to murders, for vengeance and redress ?

Mr O’Connor Power proposes that the State should adopt a kind of “ bag and baggage” policy with the Irish landlords, buy them out, and' then distribute the land, among the peasant farmers, ou deferred payments that would cover interest and principle in a certain number of years. This scheme would require, at least, two hundred and fifty millions of pounds. As an alternative course, the same gentlemen proposes that two million acres of hogs be reclaimed and divided, on deferred payment, among 100,000 tenants. The existence of these bogs, amid a dense population, is a striking evidence of the blind avarice which directs the present owners of the soil. What course will finally be adopted to make sound what now is rotten in the State of Ireland, we cannot venture to say, but if. there is any virtue, or any sense of justice extant something must be done, and that soon. The famines of 1845-6-7 did more for free trade in grain than a generation of controversy and debate could have done. We hope that out of the present evil also, some good may come.