The Irish Land Acts/Movement of Population during the last half of the 19th Century
SECTION III.
The Movement of Population during the Half Century.
The emigration from Ireland which commenced with the Famine affected the part of the country that was suitable for grazing far more than the poorer and lighter lands that required to be tilled in order to make them productive. The explanation is simple. The adoption of the policy of Free Trade in England, and the repeal of the Corn Laws, opened up English markets to the commerce of the world. Grain could be brought in from all countries, and the practical monopoly that formerly protected the agriculturists of the British Isles came to an end. The policy of Free Trade was introduced just as steam transport began to develop. Wheat-growing and its subsidiary industries became unprofitable in Great Britain and Ireland. The change did not vitally affect England or Scotland, as the rural inhabitants of these countries were able to get employment in the great industrial centres that the new Free Trade policy fostered and developed. In Ireland it was different. Here there were, practically speaking, no industries to give work to the unemployed people. The landowners were thoroughly alarmed by their experience of the Famine years. They found that the system of letting the land by competition to a tenantry living on the margin of subsistence, with the lowest possible standard of comfort, meant total loss if lean years came, when the owners not alone failed to recover their rents, but became liable for the payment of an enormous poor rate. Those who weathered the storm, and the successors of those who went under, began to look around for a new method of dealing with the land. They found that the old tillage system had ceased to pay—foreign competition had killed it. A new industry, however, appeared above the horizon, fostered by the changed conditions that prevailed in Great Britain. Corn could be brought from across the seas in quantities, and with an economy, that made home competition impossible. But with meat it was different. The existing means of transport, improved though they had been, did not permit of cattle being brought into England—in fact, there was no country from which they could be sent so as to compete with those reared in Ireland. Large districts in Leinster, Munster and Connaught were admirably suited for live stock, and if turned into pasture would yield a profit which they had failed to produce under tillage. Obviously the first step in the process of transformation was to get rid of the existing tenant farmers. Emigration was accordingly encouraged, and the exodus began that has lasted to the present day. For, although the conditions that started emigration have been modified, the habit continued. The enormous industrial development that began in the United States gave unlimited employment to the Irish emigrants, whose numbers never appeared to" overcrowd the labour market.
The question has constantly been debated whether, the great decrease in the number of people in Ireland has been a benefit or a disaster. The answer to this obviously depends upon the answer to the previous question: What population is sufficient tor the prosperity of the country? But as much difference of opinion is caused by tacit and contradictory assumptions on this point, It may be as well if we pause here for a moment to discuss it explicitly.
It is clear that the mere number of inhabitants per square mile IS no immediate proof of the well-being of a country; for Devonshire, with 175 persons to the square mile, may be as densely populated as Lancashire with 1,000, having regard to their relative capacities. So Belgium, with 580 persons to the square mile, may not be over-populated; while China, with 292 to the same space, may have a larger population than she can decently or economically support. A closer test which has found some favour at different times is to divide the total estimated wealth of the country under consideration by the number of its inhabitants, and thus to arrive at the average amount possessed by each; if this amount is adequate to maintain the individual in a state of physical efficiency (to keep him, in fact, just above what Mr. R. S. Rowntree calls "the poverty line") the population is deemed "sufficient." The validity" of this test, however, is very doubtful. In the first place, if it is pushed to its logical conclusion, it results in a reductio ad ahsurdum. By this method of calculation every decline in the total number of the people will show an increase in their individual wealth until the maximum national wealth coincides with the complete extinction of the nation! In the second place, it assumes that the "sufficient" population for a country is the maximum number for which it could provide a bare living.
A little consideration will show us that such a definition is far from satisfactory. The supreme ideal is not that every rood of ground should maintain its man. The world in those circumstances would lose much of its desirability as a place of residence. Teeming millions with a low standard of living, such as are found in some Asiatic countries, are no proof of prosperity. A healthy life and good social conditions are the most important elements in the well-being of a people; and it is to these we must look to decide whether the country is in a satisfactory condition or the reverse.
Where the national standard of living is low, and the population has multiplied to the limits of subsistence, there is no margin of economic safety. The lives of the people are at the mercy of the thousand accidents of human affairs; a war cutting off their markets, a new invention cheapening some competitive product of other countries, the removal of trade restrictions—it may be on the far side of the world—involves them at once in ruin. When, on the other hand, population is very sparse and too widely scattered to enjoy the benefits of social organisation, the country suffers equally. It requires a certain concentration of humanity to reap the full advantages of social life and the economy of time and effort produced by the division of labour. No one would deny, for example, that Canada, with less than two persons to the square mile, is much underpopulated. In the remoter districts the lack of the common conveniences of civilisation constrains many of the inhabitants to expend all their energies in the daily quest for bread, and leaves them no opportunity for developing their faculties or leading a full life. Between these two evils the population of a country may, I would suggest, be considered as having come to a happy equilibrium when it has reached the maximum number that will allow to each person a proper standard of living, that will give to everyone who can work good food, clothing, and housing, and a reasonable amount of leisure and enjoyment of existence. Measured in this way, there may have been an excessive population in Ireland in 1844, while at the present day it may be much less than the country is capable of supporting in comfort.