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Page 17
Where we are to begin is another matter. We are, as has been so often
suggested, in presence of a situation in which one cannot see the trees
for the forest. The principle of the government of Ireland is so
integrally wrong that it is difficult to signalise any one point in
which it is more wrong than it is in any other. A timber-chaser, that is
to say a pioneer for a lumber firm, in the Western States of America
once found himself out of spirits. He decided to go out of life, and
being thorough in his ways he left nothing to chance. He set fire to his
cabin, and, mounting the table, noosed his neck to a beam, drank a large
quantity of poison, and, as he kicked over the table, simultaneously
shot himself through the head and drew a razor across his throat. Later
on the doctor had to fill in the usual certificate. At "Cause of Death"
he paused, pondered, and at last wrote, "Causes too numerous to
specify." The fable possesses a certain suggestive value upon which we
need not enlarge. How, one may well ask, are we to itemise the retail
iniquities of a system of government which is itself a wholesale
iniquity? But since we must begin somewhere let us begin with the
Economics of Unionism.
In this often-written, and perhaps over-written story there is one
feature of some little comfort. Whatever quarrel there may be as to
causes, the facts are not disputed. Pitt and his friends promised that
the Union would be followed by general prosperity, development of
manufacturers, and expansion of commerce.
"Among the great and known defects of Ireland," he declared in a
typical statement, "one of the most prominent features is its want
of industry and of capital. How are these wants to be supplied but
by blending more closely with Ireland the industry and capital of
Great Britain?"
It was a Witches' Promise making smooth the path to damnation. In every
point in which Pitt had prophesied white the moving finger of history
began, from the very day of the Union, to write black. The injury to the
whole economic tissue of Ireland was immediate, cumulative, in the end
crushing.
We have at hand authoritative figures of the decline collected by
various Commissions and private inquirers. Let us note some of these as
summarised by Monsignor O'Riordan in his remarkable book, "Catholicism
and Progress":
"Again, in 1800 there were 91 woollen manufacturers in Dublin and
4938 hands employed; in 1840 there were only 12 manufacturers, and
682 hands employed; in 1880, only 3 manufacturers in Dublin and
around it. In 1800 there were 56 blanket manufacturers in Kilkenny,
and 3000 hands employed; in 1840 there were 12 manufacturers and
925 hands employed. In 1800 there were 900 hands employed on
ratteens and friezes in Roscrea; in 1840 the industry had
completely disappeared. In 1800 there were 1000 flannel looms in
County Wicklow; in 1840 there was not one. In 1800 there were 2500
looms at work in Dublin for the manufacture of silk and poplin; in
1840 there were only 250. In 1800 there were 27,000 cotton workers
in Belfast and around it; in 1840 there were only 12,000. In 1800
there were 61,075 tradesmen in Dublin for the woollen, silk, and
cotton industries; in 1834 there were only 14,446, and of these
4412 were idle, showing a decrease of 51,041 in the employed."
There was, we must add, an increase in other directions. For instance,
whereas there had been only seven bankruptcies decreed in Dublin in 1799
there were 125 in 1810. The number of insolvent houses grew in seven
years from 880 to 4719. These figures are not random but symptomatic. Mr
Pitt had promised to blend Ireland with the capital and industry of
Great Britain; he blended them as the edge of a tomahawk is blended with
the spattered brains of its victim. We have glanced at the condition of
manufacture. Lest it should be assumed that the tiller of land at least
had profited by the Napoleonic Wars, with their consequent high prices,
let me hasten to add that the Grey Commission, reporting in 1836, had to
inform the Government that 2,385,000 persons, nearly one-third of the
population, were "in great need of food."
"Their habitations," the Report proceeds, "are wretched hovels;
several of the family sleep together on straw, or on the bare
ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes not even so much to
cover them. Their food commonly consists of dry potatoes; and with
these they are at times so scantily supplied as to be obliged to
stint themselves to one spare meal in the day.... They sometimes
get a herring or a little milk, but they never get meat except at
Christmas, Easter, and Shrovetide."
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