The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 Part 27

"Some persons recommend emigration as a panacea for the distress in Ireland--that is, in plain English, to send the bone and sinew of our country to cultivate foreign lands, when countless acres are at their doors untilled, undrained, and therefore unremunerative."--_The Case of Ireland: in two letters to the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, Chief Secretary for Ireland. By the Rev. Wm. Prior Moore, A.M., Cavan._ Dublin: Wm. Curry and Co., 1847.

[260] The number of persons employed on the public works reached its highest point in March, 1847, viz., 734,000. But this was the average for the whole month. Before the Committee of the House of Lords on "Colonization from Ireland," Captain Larcom, one of the Commissioners of Public Works, said that the Commissioners expected the number employed on those works to rise to 900,000 in June and July, having risen to 740,000 when the first stoppage took place on the 20th of March, at which time they were increasing at the rate of 20,000 weekly.--_Answer_ to _Question_ 2,547, p. 265.

[261] _Freeman's Journal._

[262] Hansard, vol. clv., p. 436.

[263] 1847, March 11--Food riots occurred in the Highlands. May 19: Alarming food riots took place in various parts of England, at Taunton and in Jersey, and also in France and Spain.--_Census of Ireland for 1851, Tables of Deaths. Vol. 1. p. 289._

[264] f.a.gan's "Life of O'Connell," vol. I, p. 111.

[265] f.a.gan's "Life of O'Connell", vol. I, p. 161.

[266] "At length, in seventh month, this system of relief reached its height. In that month, 3,020,712 persons received daily rations. Even under this gigantic system of relief, we found that our distribution could not be discontinued. There were several cla.s.ses of persons whose claims we were bound to recognise, and in these cases relief was still afforded, though on a reduced scale, and with considerable caution."--_Transactions during the Famine in Ireland. By the Society of Friends_.

[267] This was up to the 16th of October only, but on the 31st of December, when the account was finally closed, Mr. Bromley, the head accountant, says,--Total expended to this day, 1,724,631 17s. 3d.

[268] Irish Crisis.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Fever Act--Central Board of Health--Fever Hospitals--Changes in the Act--Outdoor Attendance--Interment of the Dead--The Fever in 1846--Cork Workhouse--Clonmel--Tyrone--Newry--Sligo--Leitrim--Roscommon--Galway-- Fever in 1847--Belfast--Death-rate in the Workhouses--Swinford--Cork--Dropsy--Carrick-on-Shannon--Macroom-- Bantry Abbey--Dublin--Cork Street Hospital--Applications for Temporary Hospital accommodation--Relapse a remarkable feature--Number of cases received--Percentage of Mortality--Weekly Cost of Patients--Imperfect Returns--Scurvy--The cause of it--Emigration--Earlier Schemes of Emigration--Mr. Wilmot Horton--Present Stats of Peterborough (_Note_)--Various Parliamentary Committees on Emigration--Their Views--The Devon Commission--Its Views of Emigration--A Parliamentary Committee opposed to Emigration--Statistics of Emigration--Gigantic Emigration Scheme--Mr. G.o.dley--Statement to the Premier--The Joint Stock Company for Emigration--9,000,000 required--How to be applied--It was to be a Catholic Emigration--Mr. G.o.dley's Scheme--Not accepted by the Government--Who signed it--Names (_Note_)--Dr. Maginn on the Emigration Scheme--Emigration to be left to itself--Statistics of Population--The Census of 1841--Deaths from the Famine--Deaths amongst Emigrants--Deaths amongst those who went to Canada--Emigration to the United States--Commission to protect Emigrants--Revelations--Mortality on board Emigrant s.h.i.+ps--Plunder of Emigrants--Committee of Inquiry--Its Report--Frauds about Pa.s.sage Tickets--Evidence--How did any survive?--Remittances from Emigrants--Unprecedented--A proof of their industry and perseverance.

In antic.i.p.ation of fever and other epidemics resulting from the Famine, a Fever Act was pa.s.sed for Ireland in the early part of the Session of 1846, by which the Lord Lieutenant was empowered to appoint Commissioners of Health, not exceeding five in number, who were to act without salaries. They const.i.tuted what was called the Central Board of Health. He was further empowered to appoint medical officers for the Poor Law Unions, with salaries to be paid by the Treasury; such medical officers to be under the control of the guardians. The Board of Health was authorized to direct guardians to provide fever hospitals and dispensaries, together with medicines and all other necessaries for those hospitals. This Act was to cease in September, 1847, but in the April of that year an Act to amend and extend it to November, 1847, was pa.s.sed. Eventually, it remained in its amended form in force until the end of the Parliamentary Session of 1850.

The changes made by this second or amended Fever Act were of a very extensive kind. By the previous one medical relief was to be given through the guardians of the poor; by the Act as amended, the Board of Health was empowered to certify to the Relief Commissioners, the necessity of medical relief being afforded, in _any electoral division_ in which there was a Relief Committee. It was also to direct such Committees to provide fever hospitals, and every other thing necessary for the treatment of patients. And further: the Relief Commissioners, on the certificate of the Board of Health, were to issue their order to Relief Committees, to provide medical attendance, medicines, and _nutriment_, if necessary, for such patients as were not received into hospital, either because there was not accommodation for them, or because it might endanger their lives to remove them. The Board of Health acted as little as possible upon this clause; holding that, under existing circ.u.mstances, it was impossible to treat patients with advantage in their own houses. Those hospitals and dispensaries were managed by the Relief Committees, under the control of the Relief Commissioners, appointed to carry out the Act 10 Vic., cap. 7. By the 16th clause of the amended Fever Act, provision is made "for the proper and decent interment of the deceased dest.i.tute persons who shall die of fever or any other epidemic disease in any electoral division or district, for which any Relief Committee shall have been const.i.tuted."

Whilst this very extensive system of medical relief was established and carried out under the second Bill, the guardians of the poor continued to use the powers granted to them in the former Bill, of giving medical relief. The returns from these two sources give, respectively, the number of fever cases received into their hospitals, but we have no authentic means of determining the number of persons who died of fever in their own houses, or on the highways and byways, as they wandered about in search, of food. Such cases must have been very numerous.

Although fever or other epidemics did not arise to an alarming extent in 1846, still, that year showed a decided increase of them over previous years. The following summary, derived from circulars issued, shows the origin and progress of fever in 1846. "Fever began in Mitchelstown, County Cork. It attacked equally those in good and bad health; but in some instances, as in Innishannon and in Cove, many, in the best health; while in Mitchelstown, the majority had previously suffered from privation. Young persons appear to have been the subject of the epidemic, more than those of more advanced life. The pressure from without upon the city [of Cork] began to be felt in October; and in November and December, the influx of paupers from all parts of this vast county was so overwhelming, that, to prevent them from dying in the streets, the doors of the Workhouse were thrown open, and in one week, 500 persons were admitted without any provision, either of s.p.a.ce or clothing, to meet so fearful an emergency. All these were suffering from famine, and most of them from malignant dysentery or fever. The fever was, in the first instance, undoubtedly confined to persons badly fed, or crowded into unwholesome habitations; and, as it originated with the vast migratory hordes of labourers and their families congregated upon the public roads, it commonly was termed 'the road fever.' In Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, the fever cases doubled in 1846 what they had been in the previous year. The disease commenced in Clonmel in November. The accounts from the Counties of Limerick and Kerry do not record any increased sickness during this year. The epidemic commenced in the County of Tyrone in the December of 1846. Young persons were those chiefly attacked there. The fever commenced at Loughgall, County Armagh, in the end of this year. The lower cla.s.ses were chiefly attacked; the majority of those affected having been previously in bad health. The epidemic materially declined as the poor were better fed.

The fever was frequently preceded by scurvy. Individuals at the age of p.u.b.erty were chiefly attacked,--females more generally than males. In Newry, dysentery existed as an epidemic during the autumn of 1846, being very fatal among the old and infirm, who, if not carried off, were so debilitated by its effects, as to render them an easy prey to the fever which followed. In Dublin, although the great outbreak of the fever was in 1847, yet, cases were noticed to have occurred in the latter end of 1846, in a greater proportion than usual. Those first attacked were individuals who had been reduced by bad diet or insufficiency of food, and throughout the continuance of the epidemic, the lower cla.s.ses were chiefly affected. In many cases, the fever set in immediately after recovering from the effects of starvation, and although scurvy preceded the disease, neither it nor purpura was noticed to have occurred as a concomitant symptom. In the Province of Connaught, the epidemic commenced in many places during the year 1846, especially in the Counties of Sligo and Leitrim; in the former locality the young were chiefly attacked; in the latter fever broke out so early as June, when upwards of two hundred cases were at one time in the Workhouse of Carrick-on-Shannon; while, in the remote northern hilly districts of the county, it did not appear until December, 1847; those attacked were, for the most part, reduced from want of food. In some parts, the fever was preceded by aphthous ulcers on the tongue and gums; young persons were those chiefly attacked, and females more than males. In the County of Roscommon, the previous health of the population was much impaired; bowel complaints were frequent; the fever commenced in the end of 1846 or beginning of 1847, and was very prevalent. The Workhouse of Castlerea was one of the most severely afflicted during the epidemic, of any similar cla.s.s of inst.i.tution in Ireland--as many as fifty persons a week having died at one period subsequent to this--and, for a long time, all attempt at separate burial was found impossible. In the County Galway the epidemic of both dysentery and fever appeared at Ahascragh and Clifden, separate ends of the district, at the end of this year."[269]

As was antic.i.p.ated, fever rose to a fearful height in 1847. And, say the Commissioners of Health, "the state of the medical inst.i.tutions of Ireland was, unfortunately, such as peculiarly unfitted them to afford the required medical aid, on the breaking out of the epidemic. The county infirmaries had not provision for the accommodation of fever patients. The county fever hospitals were dest.i.tute of sufficient funds; and dispensaries, established for the purpose of affording only ordinary out-door medical relief, could, of course, afford no efficient attendance on the numbers of dest.i.tute persons, suffering from acute contagious diseases in their own miserable abodes, often scattered over districts several miles in extent."

In January, fever complicated with dysentery and small pox became very rife in Belfast, and accounts from various other places soon showed, that it had seized upon the whole country. The week ending the 3rd of April, the total number of inmates in Irish Workhouses was 104,455, of whom 9,000 were fever patients. The deaths in that week were 2,706, and the average of deaths in each week during the month was twenty-five per thousand of the entire inmates--a death rate which would have hurried to the grave, every man, woman, and child in the Workhouses of Ireland, in about nine months! but it gradually decreased, until in October it stood at five per thousand in the week.

On the 19th we read that, "the number suffering from fever in Swinford is beyond calculation." Some idea of the dreadful mortality now prevalent in Cork, may be found from the fact, that in one day thirty-six bodies were interred in the same grave; the deaths in the Workhouse there from the 27th of December, 1846, until the middle of April--less than four months--amounted to 2,130. At this period, dropsy, the result of starvation, became almost universal. On the 16th of April, there were upwards of three hundred cases of fever in the Carrick-on-Shannon Workhouse, and the weekly deaths amounted to fifty.

Again: every avenue leading to the plague-stricken town of Macroom has a fever hospital; persons of all ages are dropping dead in the streets. In May, it is announced that fever continued to rage with unabated fury at Castlebar. "Sligo is a plague spot; disease in every street, and of the worst kind." "Fever is committing fearful ravages in Ballindine, Ballinrobe, Claremorris, Westport, Ballina, and Belmullet, all in the county of Mayo." From Roscommon the news came, that the increase of fever was truly awful; the hospitals were full, and applicants were daily refused admission; "no one can tell," says the writer, "what becomes of these unfortunate beings; they are brought away by their pauper friends, and no more is heard of them." "Seven bodies were found inside a hedge," in the parish of Kilgla.s.s; the dogs had the flesh almost eaten off. Under date of the 18th of May, I find this entry; "Small pox, added to fever and dysentery, is prevalent at Middleton, County Cork; and, near Bantry Abbey, 900 bodies were interred in a plot of ground forty feet square." From the autumn of 1846 to May, 1847, ten thousand persons were interred in Father Mathew's cemetery at Cork--he was obliged to close it. On the 12th of June, the number of fever patients in the hospitals of Belfast was 1,840. "Awful fever," "Fearful increase of fever," were the ordinary phrases, in which the spread of the disease was announced from every part of Ireland.[270]

"Of the extent of the epidemic in Dublin, it would not be easy to give any very correct idea. The hospital accommodation of the city amounted to about 2,500 beds, a greater amount by 1,000, I believe, than were opened in any previous epidemic. It may give some idea of the vast amount of sickness, to state, that, at the Cork Street hospital, nearly 12,000 cases applied during a period of about ten months. At one period there were upwards of 400 outstanding tickets; and as many as eighty applications for admission have been made in one day. Still it may be safely stated, that all this would give a very imperfect idea of the real amount; for all who had to go amongst the poor at their own houses, were well aware, that vast numbers remained there, who either could not be accommodated in hospital, or who never thought of applying. It was quite common to find three, four, and even five ill in a house, where application had been made but for one. I think the very lowest estimate which could be arrived at cannot make the numbers who sickened in Dublin short of 40,000. The greatest pressure on the hospital took place in the month of June, from which time the fever gradually declined, till the month of February, 1848, when the epidemic may be said to have ceased."[271]

In February, 1847, fourteen applications were made to the Board of Health, for providing temporary hospital accommodation; in March, they received fifty-one such applications; in April, fifty-three, in May, fifty-two; in June, twenty-two; in July, sixty; in August, forty-eight; in September the number was ten, and in October only eight. The applications to the Board of Health for temporary fever hospitals in 1847 were 343; the entire number of such applications up to 1850, when the Board closed its labours, were 576, of which 203 were refused.

Relapse was a remarkable feature of this famine-fever. "Relapses were so common," writes Dr. Freke from a western county, "as to appear characteristic of the epidemic; in several cases they have occurred so frequently as three, or even four times in the same individual." At Nohaval, Kinsale Union, out of 250 cases 240 relapsed.

The cases received into the permanent and temporary fever hospitals of Ireland in the year 1845, were 37,604; in 1846 they increased to 40,620; and in 1847 they rose to the enormous amount of 156,824 cases![272] of which, according to the Report of the Board of Health, 95,890 were admitted into temporary hospitals,[273] in which the percentage of deaths was ten two-fifths; more males dying than females, the percentage of deaths among males being eleven one-fifth, and among females nine six-tenths. But the mortality in the fever sheds sometimes rose to fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, and in a few instances to twenty-eight and twenty-nine per cent.; the cause being previous dysentery (on which cholera sometimes supervened) and starvation. In Eyrecourt, Ballinrobe Union, the death-rate rose to twenty-nine one-third per cent.; in West Skull to twenty; and in Parsonstown to twenty-nine five-eighths. The princ.i.p.al complications of this famine-fever, according to the Commissioners of Health, were dysentery, purpura, diarrhoea, and small-pox; and they further say of it that it was, perhaps, unparalleled for duration and severity.[274]

The average weekly cost of each patient in the temporary hospitals, including the salary of the medical officer, was four s.h.i.+llings and one halfpenny.

"Some approximation to the amount of the immense mortality that prevailed may be gleaned from the published tables, which show that within that calamitous period between the end of 1845 and the conclusion of the first quarter of 1851, as many as 61,260 persons died in the hospitals and sanitary inst.i.tutions, exclusive of those who died in the Workhouses and auxiliary Workhouses. Taking the recorded deaths from fever alone, between the beginning of 1846 and the end of 1849, and a.s.suming the mortality at one in ten, which is the very lowest calculation, and far below what we believe really did occur, above a million and a-half, or 1,595,040 persons, being one in 4.11 of the population in 1851, must have suffered from fever during that period.

But no pen has recorded the numbers of the forlorn and starving who perished by the wayside or in the ditches, or of the mournful groups, sometimes of whole families, who lay down and died, one after another, upon the floor of their miserable cabins, and so remained uncoffined and unburied, till chance unveiled the appalling scene. No such amount of suffering and misery has been chronicled in Irish history since the days of Edward Bruce, and yet, through all, the forbearance of the Irish peasantry, and the calm submission with which they bore the deadliest ills that can fall on man, can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of any people."[275]

An unusual disease on land, scurvy, appeared during the Famine. The Commissioners of Health attribute its appearance (1) to the want of variety of food: the potato being gone, they say, the people did not understand the necessity for variety, and men, such as railway porters, who had wages enough to buy food, took scurvy for want of this variety, coffee and white bread being their common dietary. (2) Another cause was the eating of what was called "potato flour," got from rotten potatoes; it was not flour at all, and did not contain the elements of the potato, but consisted wholly of starch as foecula. (3) The use of raw or badly cooked food also brought on scurvy; and the Commissioners of Health, therefore, strongly recommended the giving of food in a cooked form.[276]

Emigration played a very leading part in the terrible drama of the Irish Famine of 1847; indeed, it was the potato failure of 1822, and the consequent famine of 1823, which first gave emigration official importance in this country. A Parliamentary Committee was appointed in the latter year, before which Mr. Wilmot Horton, the Under Secretary of State, explained in detail a plan of emigration from Ireland, then under the consideration of Government, and which was afterwards carried into effect. The emigrants were sent to Canada; and Peterborough, at the time a very insignificant place, was fixed upon as their head quarters. On two subsequent occasions, Mr. Horton stated this emigration to have been eminently successful, which was fully corroborated by the evidence of Captain Rubidge, before the Lords' Committee of 1847, on "Colonization from Ireland." But this emigration, as well as that of 1825, both of which were superintended by the Hon. Peter Robinson, was on a very limited scale. The number taken out to Canada in the first emigration was only 568 persons, men, women, and children. The Government supported them for eighteen months after their landing, which very much increased the expense; each of those emigrants having cost the country 22 before they were finally settled. In 1825 Mr. Robinson took out 2,024 emigrants under the same conditions, but in this instance the expense was slightly diminished, the cost of each person being 21 10s. These emigrants also prospered, but the money outlay in each case was so considerable, that the experiment could not be extended, nor, in fact, repeated.[277]

From this period, committees continued to sit on the subject of emigration, almost year after year; emigration from Ireland, even in the absence of famine, being considered of the highest importance--and why?

Chiefly, because Irish labourers were lowering the rate of wages in the English labour market--so it is stated in the report of the Select Committee of 1826, in the following words:--"The question of emigration from Ireland is decided by the population itself; and that which remains for the legislature to decide is, whether it shall be turned to the improvement of the British North American colonies, or whether it shall be suffered and encouraged to take that which will be, and is, its inevitable course, _to deluge Great Britain with poverty and wretchedness_, and gradually, but certainly, to equalize the state of the English and Irish peasantry. Two different rates of wages, and two different conditions of the labouring cla.s.ses, cannot permanently co-exist. One of two results appears to be inevitable; the Irish population must be raised towards the standard of the English, or the English depressed towards that of the Irish. The question, whether an extensive plan of emigration shall or shall not be adopted, appears to your Committee to resolve itself into the simple point, whether the wheat-fed population of Great Britain shall or shall not be supplanted by the potato-fed population of Ireland?"[278]

The same reasons are given by the same Committee in 1827, and they are again repeated in 1830, by another Committee, whose duty it was to inquire into the state of the Irish poor.

The famous Devon Land Commission, which was called into existence in 1842, presented its voluminous report to Parliament in 1845, which was founded on the examination of eleven hundred witnesses, whose evidence was taken on the spot in every county in Ireland; the Commissioners having visited more than ninety towns for the purpose;--that Commission recommended emigration from Ireland, but in a cautious and modified way.

The Commissioners say:--"After considering the recommendations, thus repeatedly made by Committees of Parliament upon this subject, and the evidence of Mr. G.o.dley, in which the different views of the subject are well given, we desire to express our own conviction, that a well-organized system of emigration may be of very great service, as one among the measures which the situation of the occupiers of land in Ireland, at present calls for. We cannot think that either emigration, or the extension of Public Works, or the reclamation or improvement of land can, singly, remove the existing evil. All these remedies must be provided concurrently, according to the circ.u.mstances of each case. In this view, and to this extent only, we wish to direct attention to the subject of emigration."[279]

A Select Committee of the House of Lords, on the operation of the Poor Law in Ireland, spoke approvingly of emigration as a relief to the labour market at home, and it therefore recommended, "that increased facilities for the emigration of poor persons should be afforded, with the cooperation of the Government."[280]

One Parliamentary Committee, at least, condemned emigration in terms both decided and remarkable; it was the Committee of Public Works appointed in 1835. In its second report this pa.s.sage occurs:--"It may be doubted, whether the country does contain a sufficient quant.i.ty of labour to develope its resources; and while the empire is loaded with taxation to defray the charges of its wars, it appears most politic to use its internal resources for improving the condition of its population, by which the revenue of the exchequer must be increased, rather than encourage emigration, by which the revenue would suffer diminution, or than leave the labouring cla.s.ses in their present state, by which poverty, crime, and the charges of Government must be inevitably extended."[281]

Previous to the Famine there was a large and steady emigration from Ireland for many years, independent of Government aid. The total colonial and foreign emigration between 1831 and 1841 amounted to 403,459, to which the returns add 25,012, for probable births, that item being calculated at one and a-half per cent. per annum; making a total of 428,471. These figures give a yearly average of nearly 43,000.[282]

Of these, 214,047 embarked from Irish ports, 152,738 from Liverpool; and ten per cent. was added for imperfect returns. The largest number of those who went from Ireland _direct_ to the colonies or foreign countries, from any one port, embarked at Belfast, viz., twenty per cent. of the whole. From Cork nearly the same. From the ports of Ulster there went 76,905. From the ports of Munster 70,046. From Leinster 34,977, and from Connaught only 32,119. Those emigrants who embarked from Irish ports proceeded as follows:--189,225 to British America, namely, 107,792 males and 81,233 females; to the United States of America 19,775, namely, 10,725 males, and 2,950 females; to the Australian colonies, there went 4,553, in the proportion of 2,300 males and 2,253 females; and 494 persons embarked for the West Indies--300 males and 194 females.[283]

Within the decade of years comprised between 1831 and 1841, emigration was at its minimum in 1838, the number that left our sh.o.r.es in that year being only 14,700; it rose to its maximum in 1841, namely, 71,392. It rose still higher in 1842, the emigrants of that year being set down at 89,686. The year 1843 was named by O'Connell the Repeal year; the people were filled with the hope of soon seeing a parliament in College Green, and to this fact may probably, be attributed the great falling off in emigration; the number for that year being only 37,509. It increased in 1844 to 54,289; and in 1845--the eve of the Famine, to 74,969 persons.

In the year 1846, as might be expected, emigration from Ireland reached a height which it had never attained before in a single year; the number, as estimated by the Emigration Commissioners, being 105,955.

Besides which between the 13th of January and the 1st of November, 278,005 immigrants arrived at Liverpool from Ireland; but the Irish labourers who, at that time, annually visited England, and who were variously estimated at from 10,000 to 30,000, are included in the number. For the protection of the emigrants, additional agents were appointed by the Government at Liverpool and some Irish ports; and the annual vote in aid of colonial funds, for the relief of sick and dest.i.tute emigrants from the United Kingdom, was increased from 1,000 to 10,000.[284]

In the spring of 1847, a gigantic emigration scheme was launched. It was said to have emanated from, and was certainly patronized by members of the so-called Irish party, which, with so few elements of cohesion, was inaugurated at the Rotundo meeting; but the father of the scheme seems to have been Mr. J.E. G.o.dley. By it, two millions of Irish Catholics were to be transferred to Canada in three years; it being a leading feature in the scheme to send none but Catholics. It was, the promoters said, to be an Irish Catholic colony, with a distinct and well marked Irish nationality,--in fact, a New Ireland! There was a memorial on the subject which extended over fifty one pages of a pamphlet, and which was prepared by Mr. G.o.dley with much ability. It went very fully into the whole scheme. This, accompanied by a short explanatory letter, was presented to the Prime Minister on the last day of March.

The memorialists a.s.sumed that the cultivation of the potato could not be persevered in, and that Ireland, in her existing condition, could not grow enough of corn food for six millions of people. Hence the necessity for an extensive emigration. They are not, they say, to be ranked among those who believe Ireland incapable of supporting its existing population in comfort, under other circ.u.mstances; far from it. On the contrary, they do not doubt that if "the social economy" of Ireland were made to resemble that of England, the population of Ireland might be larger than it then was. It was only under existing circ.u.mstances that the population of Ireland was redundant, and all they desired was a temporary decrease.

In the letter which accompanied the memorial to the Premier, the memorialists put their views, shortly, as follows:--1. The present condition of Ireland is such, that there must be, for some years, a vast increase of emigration, they, therefore, urge the necessity of what they call "systematic colonization," both for the advantage of the emigrants themselves, and the good of the colony to which they would emigrate.

They think this colonization, "on a very large scale," ought to be made from Ireland to Canada, and that the State ought to lend its a.s.sistance to promote it. 2. In the second place they lay it down as an essential part of their scheme, that religious provision must be made for the emigrants. 3. They think there would be great advantage in enlisting private enterprise, in the form of agency, to carry out the plan. 4.

Furthermore, there must be a willingness on the part of the nation to accept an income and property tax, for the purpose of defraying the cost of emigration: and, 5. To help the emigrants to settle on the land, "aids to location," as Mr. G.o.dley called them, must be provided.

How was this vast scheme to be carried to a successful issue? A joint-stock company, to be called "The Irish Canadian Company," was to undertake the entire management of it. This Company was to be legalised by Act of Parliament, and recognised by the Canadian Government. It was to transmit to Canada and settle there a million and a half of the Irish people in three years, being at the rate of half a million a year. To do this, 9,000,000 was to be lent by the Government, at the rate of 3,000,000 each year, on the security of Irish property and an Irish income tax. This tax was to be one per cent. the first year, two per cent. the second year, three per cent. the third year, and to stand at three per cent. until the first instalment of the loan could be paid, and was, of course, to cease altogether when the last instalment was paid. Repayment was to be made at the rate of six and a half per cent., per annum, which would extinguish princ.i.p.al and interest in twenty two years.

The 9,000,000 so lent and to be so repaid, was to be expended in this manner: The pa.s.sage money of each individual was computed at 3; of this the Government was to advance one pound, the emigrants themselves finding the other two in some way--to be given by friends--saved from wages--obtained from their landlords--however the 2 was to be found,--that sum was to be provided by the emigrant. One pound to each of one million and a-half of emigrants would absorb 1,500,000 of the 9,000,000. The joint-stock company that was to work the concern must, of course, have profits, and be paid for its labours; it was, therefore, to have a bonus of 5, or a sum of about that amount, for each emigrant it would prove to the satisfaction of Government that it had located in Canada. It was to have other profits. It was to be empowered to lend money to the district councils in Canada, to effect local improvements, and the interest of this money was to be a portion of its profits. All the emigrants were to be settled on the land in Canada; this would be bought in its rude state by the company, and resold at a profit, when it had improved it, and established upon it those "aids to location"

enumerated further on. This bonus of 5 on each, emigrant would amount to 7,500,000, which, together with the 1,500,000 mentioned above, would absorb the 9,000,000.

As already stated, it was a marked characteristic of this systematic emigration, or colonization, that it was to be exclusively Catholic, and that a number of priests, proportioned to the number of emigrants, should be appointed to accompany them and settle down with them. This Mr. G.o.dley held to be absolutely necessary. Before the Lords' Committee on Colonization he is asked: "Has any mode occurred to you by which a more compacted social organization might be given to emigration, carrying with it more of the characteristics and elements of improved civilization than at present exists?" He answers: "Yes. I have explained my views upon the subject at considerable length elsewhere. I think that the nucleus of an Irish Roman Catholic emigration must be ecclesiastical, I think they are debarred from going upon the land and settling socially, by the want of the ordinances of their church; I think that the first and most important element, in an Irish social settlement must be religious and ecclesiastical."[285] Again he is asked: "At the present moment, has it come within your knowledge, that the want of such spiritual care and a.s.sistance checks the progress of settlement among Irish emigrants, and, consequently, to a certain extent, discourages emigration?" "Certainly," Mr. G.o.dley answers, "it prevents them from going upon the land all over America." "How does it,"

he is further asked, "prevent them from going upon the land?" "In this way," he replies, "they being too poor to take the priest with them to the wilderness, in order to partake of the ordinances of their church, and to enjoy spiritual advice and comfort, remain in the towns, where they are simply labourers, and are checked in going upon the land as rural settlers."[286] _Question_ 1819: "How do you propose that the priests should be paid?" _Answer_: "By a grant from this country or from Ireland." _Question_ 1820: "Do you mean simply the expense of their emigration, not as a permanent endowment in the colony?" _Answer_: "I never entered so exactly into the detail as to say in what manner I thought the endowment might be best effected, and, consequently, I do not consider myself as committed to any particular plan of endowment.

The probability is, that the most effective way of endowing them would be, to a certain extent, in money, and to a certain extent by land in Canada; but that is a part of the plan which I did not consider necessary to draw out in detail." The following question and answer explains what Mr. G.o.dley meant by "aids to location:"--_Question_ 1848: "What is the practical mode in which you would set about the establishment of a colony?" _Answer_: "I would open the country by means of roads and bridges, build mills, endow a clergyman, and build a school. Those are the leading features of a social settlement to which I think a company, or any body that wanted to establish a settlement, ought to attend first."

The memorial to Lord John Russell, praying that the Government would give its sanction and support to Mr. G.o.dley's scheme of colonization, was signed by one archbishop, four marquises, seven earls, three viscounts, thirteen barons, nine baronets, eighteen members of parliament, some honourables, and several deputy-lieutenants. The memorialists were, in all, eighty--that is, eighty of the leading peers, members of parliament, and landowners approached the First Minister, to beg that he would aid them in sending two millions of Irish Catholics to Canada, to reclaim the land in that colony. Everybody knows that the statement of Sir Robert Kane is accepted as a truth, that there are in Ireland four and a-half millions of barren acres, the greater portion of which would richly, and promptly, repay for their reclamation. Yet the Government Bill for beginning that reclamation was withdrawn by the Prime Minister, and no single voice was raised in favour of going on with it; moreover, he said his reason for withdrawing it was, the opposition which the House of Lords offered to it. Yes; they would have no reclamation of Irish lands, but they would submit to bear increased taxation in order to send the Celtic race by the million to delve in Canada!--yet, even for that it became the Irish people to be duly grateful, inasmuch as it was a decided improvement upon the older colonization scheme of "To h----or Connaught."[287]