§ MR. MAGUIREsaid, he rose to call attention to the existence of serious and increasing distress in the western and south-western districts of the County Cork; to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if his attention has been directed to the condition of these localities; and, if so, whether he has taken any steps himself, or advised any steps to be taken, with a view to their immediate or prospective relief? If he could possibly have avoided again bringing forward that painful subject, he would most gladly have done so; but having introduced the subject on former occasions, he felt it to be his duty to persevere, and more especially as he desired to obtain a statement from the representative of the Irish Government in that House, frankly and fairly admitting that the distress in Ireland—but he (Mr. Maguire) would now say in those particular localities to which he now wished to direct the attention of the House—was worthy of every consideration. The principal object which he had in view in again calling attention to this subject was to induce the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland to deal with this question in a fair and kindly spirit and not to check the tide of sympathy which he (Mr. Maguire) asserted was ready to flow in the direction of those unfortunate people, who were suffering from no bad conduct of their own, but from a dispensation of Providence. It was his intention, on the present occasion, to confine himself to one locality in Ireland. He would not ask the right hon. Baronet or the House to follow him even over one entire county; but he should take certain portions of that county, and show such a state of distress as must convince any impartial Gentleman that it was well worthy of the serious attention of the Government and of the commiseration of the people of the United Kingdom. He must tell the House that he had sent a confidential person down to certain districts of the County Cork, with instructions to go into the houses of the people, to observe for himself, make minute inquiry, and to represent the real state of 2100 things without exaggeration, and without any intention of producing effect. Three letters of that gentleman had been published some fortnight since; and these letters he (Mr. Maguire) at once placed in the hands of the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland, with a request that he would institute an inquiry himself, and would send down some person to those localities with a view of ascertaining the real facts of the case—because all he (Mr. Maguire) desired was, that the Government should make themselves masters of the precise state of things. The last letter which he (Mr. Maguire) had received was even more distressing and more pitiable than the others, and that letter he had also placed in the hands of the right hon. Baronet. Therefore every impartial man must acquit him, on the present occasion, of any desire to exaggerate. The facts he stated on the authority of a gentleman who was the chief member of the journal with which he (Mr. Maguire) was connected, and he could answer for his veracity, for his faithfulness, and for his powers of observation. Those districts to which he should confine his observations were Cape Clear, Sherkin Island, the village of Baltimore, in the parish of Rath, in the union of Skibbereen, and two or three places in the union of Castletown. He might mention, with respect to these localities, that as a rule the crops had utterly failed. The potato crop did not last longer than from one month to three months, and in no case had it lasted beyond Christmas. The wheat crop was an utter failure, as was the oat crop generally. With two bad harvests and such a failure of the crops, he asked the right hon. Baronet what could there be in these localities, which entirely depended on the success of the harvest, but misery, wretchedness, and privation? The right hon. Gentleman might say by-and-by, "Thank God, there have been no deaths by starvation." But why had there not been deaths from starvation? Because the poor supported the poor. The people divided amongst each other their own last resources. If the neighbour of a destitute person had a small quantity of meal in his house, half of it was given to the poor neighbour; and wherever credit was possessed by any of this stricken community, that credit was exercised for the benefit of those who were more reduced than himself. The most extraordinary instances of this reckless charity on the part of 2101 the poor could be adduced. He said this to the credit of his countrymen, and to the credit of those who, though stricken, freely reached out the hand of charity to those who were more wretched than themselves. He asked the House to follow him into the cabins of a few of these people. He asked the House, in the name of common humanity, to give their attention to the descriptions given of these poor people by a faithful narrator, and he was sure they could not fail to enlist their sympathy in their behalf. With regard to Cape Clear, his correspondent stated—
Everywhere a picture of misery met the eye. Most of the houses were of the most miserable description, and in scarcely one was a bit of fuel to be seen. Everywhere want and destitution seemed to have reached their extremest limits; the only food to be seen anywhere being yellow Indian meal, and in some houses there was none even of that. Unwholesome as such food must be when badly cooked, it was made still worse by the mixture of a kind of seaweed, which was gathered on the rocks for the purpose of eking out the insufficient quantity of Indian meal.The correspondent then narrated his visit to several houses on the island, in all of which he described the same misery as existing. One was that of a woman named Shea, a widow, whose stock of food consisted of five quarts of Indian corn, which she had borrowed from the charity of her neighbours; the correspondent observing that he could scarcely credit the extent of this charity of the poor towards each other, if he had not seen it. Another house visited was that of a small farmer who paid£6 a year for his land; but having been unable to pay last year's rent, the only one which he owed, an ejectment was served on him. The condition of the family of that poor man was thus described—When we entered this man's house, his wife and children were there before us. A description of the house would only be a repetition of what I stated before regarding others, but the children and the mother herself appeared to be in a very advanced state of starvation. The children were sitting silently on rude seats near each other. Their faces were deadly pale, their eyes without lustre, and the appearance of the limbs was absolutely frightful—they were literally skin and bone. The lower parts of the legs had lost all human shape, the calves having disappeared altogether, and leaving nothing but the bone tightly covered with a coat of skin. A more complete picture of starvation could not be seen. Their whole food that day—it was then late in the afterneen—had been a basin of Indian meal, which a neighbour, who perhaps was little better off than themselves, had given them, and a morsel of food was not in the house when I visited it.2102 Several other families were also visited, and with all the destitution was equally great. In most cases the information as to their circumstances was obtained only in answer to direct questions, and the correspondent added that it appeared to him they were on the verge of starvation. He (Mr. Maguire) would only state with reference to Cape Clear that the population was about 600, and, as a rule, all these people were in the most abject misery. They had no fuel properly so called, and the only fuel with which they were able to cook a scanty meal was some firs or dried cowdung. He next came to Sherkin Island. The correspondent discribed similar scenes on this island to those which he witnessed on Cape Clear. He stated that as he was about leaving the mainland for this island, he saw a man named James Driscoll, whom he found leaning against a wall, exhausted, on his way home to Cape Clear from Skibbereen, whither he had gone to get a bag of Indian meal, but without success. He was a fisherman, but his gear had been worn out, and he had no means of replacing it. The writer said "he (Driscoll) had eaten nothing since Saturday morning, and when I saw him it was near two o'clock in the afternoon (Sunday). As he was walking away, his knees were bending under him from weakness." One of the houses visited was that of a man named William Sullivan, who with his wife and five children, had his father and mother also living with them. They were all crouching near the hearth, and the children were wasted and shrunk to skeletons. He had been engaged last year as a fisherman, and had an acre of ground planted with potatoes, but the bad season had reduced them to destitution. When visited there was not a morsel of food in the house. Another family was that of the name of Cadogan, who had often been for days without food, once from Tuesday until Friday. The same was the case with a Protestant family named Connell, consisting of the husband and wife, two sons, and four daughters. Most of the children had only just recovered from fever, and all presented the most wretched appearance. The next case was that of the family of Florence Driscoll, on Sherkin Island—He has four children, and when I entered, his wife and two of his daughters were within. The wife was a respectable-looking woman, of an appearance superior to the generality of her neighbours. The daughters, who were seated at spin- 2103 ning-wheels, were young girls of about fourteen and sixteen years of age, and both remarkably good-looking, but thin and miserably clothed. The mother stated that they had earned some money to buy clothes, but had been obliged to expend it on food for themselves and the other members of the family. They all appeared to be suffering under the deepest privation, and the mother stated that on more than one occasion they had been several days without food—once from Tuesday until Friday.It might be said there had been no deaths from starvation; the reason was the extreme charity of the poor people towards each other. Here was an instance of it—One man, whose own appearance bespoke anything but the possession of wealth, but who had some little credit left, had gone security for about a score of bags of Indian meal for families who have at present no visible means of raising a shilling, nor any prospect of it, unless something is done for their relief, and he will be obliged to pay for all, should those who got it not meet with some piece of good fortune which will enable them to pay, but of which there seems little or no prospect. But this is not all he did. The extent to which the man was involving him self for others seemed to have frightened the dealers, for they finally refused to accept his security any further, and he then handed over to the poor man, on whose behalf he had tendered it, a bag of meal which he had purchased for his own use. This man has a wife and children, and when asked why he ran the risk of involving himself to such an extent, and, perhaps, of plunging his family into destitution, his reply was, that he could not find it in his conscience to see others starving while he could procure them food.He now came to the village of Baltimore, which was situated on the mainland, and though the destitution there was not so great as in the islands, yet the description given of it showed that the people were in a chronic state of misery. The correspondent stated that the people exhibited singular charity towards each other. A widow of the name of Brown, the holder of a small farm, had gone security for some twenty-six bags of meal for those living near her, although she did not expect that ten would be paid for; and she stated that if she had not done it many of them would have died in a week, adding that she could not abandon them to such a fate while she was able to assist them. Here was an other case of misery from the village of Baltimore—In the next house we visited, a young woman, remarkably handsome, with features beautifully-chiselled, but pale, wan, and depressed-looking, was sitting on the ground, with a pale, sickly-looking infant in her lap, and another child, a little older, lying asleep in some rags at her side. Near her was seated an old woman, her mother-in-law. The young woman's husband, Timothy 2104 Driscoll, was the occupier of the house, which was without a chair or table, or even a bed, except some straw or rags thrown on the floor. He had held a small lot of land, at a rent of £4 12s., but had been ejected at the last Bantry Sessions. The young woman was crying as she answered the inquiries put to her. She had often been two days with but one meal; and such was the weakness to which she had been several times reduced that she was unable to hold her baby in her lap, but had been obliged to lay it on the ground alongside her.The poor people had not brought this misery on themselves by intemperance; and one publican stated that he had received only 2s. 6d. in two days. In the parish of Aghadown, which was five or six miles to the west of Skibbereen, the condition of the people was not so bad as in other districts. There was, however, little or no employment, and the credit on which the best-circumstanced of the people had lived was fast failing. There was, he was glad to say, an abundance of food in the country; but it was very fine to say there was plenty of cheap food to a man who had not sixpence in the world, and no present means of earning it. You might as well tell a man who solicited alms in a London street, and who was hungry and almost naked, that there was plenty of food and clothing in the shops about him. In the cities of Cork, Limerick, Dublin, Waterford, and Belfast, food was cheap; but when it travelled sixty or seventy miles, and reached the poor people in small quantities, and especially those whose credit was broken down, it was at famine price; it rose in price nearly 100 per cent between the city of Cork and the places he had named, and the rate of interest charged by small dealers was exorbitant. They charged 24s. or 25s. for a bag of meal which would be sold for nearly half that price in the city of Cork; and they charged 4d. or 6d. a month for every month the money remained unpaid. The writer, however, remarked—In justice to the dealers, it should be added that the risk is very great, and that there are many debts now in their books of which they will never get a farthing. To one of them alone small sums are due amounting altogether to about£4,000, and his prospects of payment depend principally on the next harvest.And he (Mr. Maguire) was speaking a few days since to a gentleman from the district, who told him that to three meal merchants in two unions debts to the amount of £26,000 were due—which sum represented half the annual Poor Law valuation of those unions. In the parish 2105 of Clanlaurence, in the union of Castletown, Berehaven, the correspondent whom he had named described the people as living wholly on credit obtained from small shopkeepers at exorbitant interest, and having the greatest abhorrence to enter the workhouse. He visited, amongst others, in the village of Inchintaglin, a family named Harrington, whom he represented as literally dying by inches of starvation. The description given of this unhappy man was painful in the extreme—The first house I entered there was that of Darby Harrington. Harrington himself was within before us, and the first glance was sufficient to show the extent to which he must have suffered from hunger. He was the very impersonation of famine. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, and there was a wild scared expression in his eyes, which told clearly that his mental faculties were giving way under the strong pressure of hunger. As to his physical powers, they had already very nearly departed, and he was actually dying by slow stages of starvation. A wife, two children, and his mother-in-law composed his family, and all they had to eat was what little the mother-in-law could get among the neighbours. None of them had eaten anything that morning, and over the fire—which was fed by green furze—was a pot in which; a small quantity of Indian meal was boiling. A man would have eaten the entire of it with ease, and this was to be the sole meal of the family for the day. It had been collected shortly before by the mother-in-law, but for whose exertions in this way the entire family would have starved. Harrington holds a small plot of ground at a yearly rent of £4. He paid a portion of the last gale with some money which he had earned in Waterford. He could not get work at home; and even if employment were offered to him, when I saw him he could not avail of the offer, for his strength was entirely gone. He had planted some potatoes in his land; but though he had manure for it lying near his house, he was unable, through weakness, to take it to the lard and spread it. His appearance bespoke the truth of the statement, for, as I have already remarked, it was that of a man dying of starvation. The only furniture in the house was two chairs. The bed consisted of some straw, with one small thin quilt.In the village of Derrilough the state of a family named Crowley was described—The children were the very pictures of famine, and a little girl, the child of a neighbour, who had come to the Crowleys' house in the hopes of finding a spark of fire there to warm herself, was a really horrifying spectacle. She was literally reduced to skin and bone; her lower limbs, which were left to a great extent uncovered by her scanty frock when she stood up, were without the slightest appearance of calves, and the bones, covered tightly with skin, were all that remained.He (Mr. Maguire) could have given hundreds of cases of the same kind, but he had said enough to show that in the islands 2106 of Cape Clear and Sherkin, on the mainland of Baltimore, and in the parish of Clanlaurence, there was actual famine; that there was no food except what was obtained by credit; and that the people were steeped to their eyes in poverty and debt. What demand did he make? He wished, in the first place, that the right hon. Baronet the Irish Secretary would frankly admit the existence of grievous distress, and not prevent those who were willing to relieve it doing so. In Ireland the existence of this distress was believed; and so impressed were the merchants and traders of Cork by the statements of the parish priest of Rath, in which Cape Clear, Sherkin, and Baltimore were situated—that in a few hours he collected £100 from them. The people of England believed there was no such distress in Ireland. They were ready to send their money to the artisans of Lancashire, and he wished that those people could obtain more of the bounty of those who had money to spare, for he believed they stood in need of it. He would not charge the Government with wilful cruelty or insensibility to the miseries of the people in Ireland, but they had turned back the tide of human sympathy from Ireland. Many a man who had sent £20 for the relief of the distress in Lancashire, buttoned his pocket tight and hardened his heart when he heard the statement of the right hon. Baronet, that there was no distress in Ireland that could not be met by the ordinary resources of the law. The Poor Law did not touch the distressed people, and it was not that they would not avail themselves of what it offered on account of the Roman Catholic bishops having advocated the amendment of the law. Let not the right hon. Baronet deal with one narrow case for the purpose of disproving his statement; but let him attempt to disprove, if he could, that the general features of the localities referred to were misery and privation of the most extreme nature. Let him deal with this matter as a statesman and as a man with a heart in his bosom. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, a few nights ago, proposed a very questionable plan, which would entail an expenditure of£1,000,000, for building receptables for whales and mammoths of various kinds. That right hon. Gentleman would do much more good by consenting to advance a loan of money for the completion of the railway from Bandon to Skibbereen, the works on which had been stopped by the present 2107 depression in that district. That money might be perfectly secured on the baronies, the county, and the line itself. If the Government would make an advance, the contractors would commence work next week or the week after, and thus employment would be given to a large number of the distressed, who would be able not only to support themselves and families, but to relieve those who were more distressed than themselves. It was with a feeling of reluctance and humiliation that he brought this subject again before the House, but when lives were at stake he need not apologize for having done so. He hoped it would be seen that he had stated the case fairly, and he trusted that the Government would now admit that distress did prevail in Ireland.
§ SIR ROBERT PEELSir, it is not my intention to occupy the attention of the House for more than three or four minutes, because upon three or four occasions I have had the opportunity of answering the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, and showing, that however the Government may regret the distress which they have never denied existed in some portions of the south and south-west, it was still impossible for the Government to foresee all the circumstances to which he has referred. The cases to which the hon. Gentleman has now directed attention, appear to have been brought under his notice by a special correspondent whom he has sent to the district. The Government cannot, how ever, pay attention to the accounts in every local newspaper, but must gather its information from those sources and from the ordinary operation of the Poor Law. Out of courtesy to the hon. Member, I requested the Poor Law Commissioners to send down an Inspector to inquire specially into the cases to which he referred. The Inspector, Mr. Horsley, stated, that although there was a certain amount of distress and suffering in the islands off the village of Baltimore, it did not exceed that which prevailed in ordinary seasons. Mr. Horsley further reported on May 21—
The sanitary condition of the population is, upon the whole, excellent; and that, notwithstanding the privations and hardships to which a considerable portion of it has lately been subjected, fever and sickness, the usual concomitants of a want of sufficient food and other necessaries of life, have not hitherto manifested themselves to any appreciable extent. I do not apprehend that any deaths will occur from actual starvation. Such a calamity will be averted by prompt and liberal action on the part of the Board of Guardians, and by the benevolent exertions now being made.2108 I would submit it to the House, that it is only through the legitimate operation of the Poor Law Board that the Government can interfere. Of course, if the Government bestow money on the people, it will be a direct assistance to the landlords, who are bound, under the operation of the Poor Law, to contribute what is necessary for the locality. To show the hon. Member that I am not unmindful of the particular districts to which he has referred, I may state, that as far back as October I requested the Commissioners to write to the board of guardians at Skibbereen, expresing my belief that probably one relieving officer would not be sufficient, and urging the necessity of appointing a second officer. The board replied, that in their opinion there was no necessity for appointing a second relieving officer; but that if they found it was desirable, they would immediately do so. Again, in February, I urged on the board the propriety of increasing their staff; but, of course, when representations are made that they have at command sufficient means of meeting the pressure which may arise, the Government must act accordingly. I am glad to hear the hon. Member acknowledge that there is an abundance of food in the country. I believe that throughout the west and south-west of Ireland food was never more, plentiful than during the past season. The hon. Member has referred to several cases of distress. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board would also be able to point out many severe cases of privation and suffering in Lancashire, but it is impossible for the Executive to prevent altogether the misery which is endured by those who dwell in very poor cabins and are exposed to great hardships. I trust the House will believe what I have stated on former occasions, that we have done all we could, by earnest attention to the matter, by urgent representations to local boards, and by other means, to alleviate individual cases of distress. I am happy to be able to assure the House that during the six weeks from the 5th of April to the 10th of May there has been a progressive decrease in the numbers receiving relief, amounting in the total to 3,284. Both in Skibbereen and Castletown Unions there is abundance of accommodation for the poor. Not half of either union-house is full. We have given directions to the board of guardians when to give outdoor relief, and I do not see that the Government can do more than 2109 urge on the local boards the necessity of taking every possible measure to meet the pressure of the occasion. Great charity has been shown by the landed gentlemen towards the poor, and also by the poor towards each other. With every respect for the hon. Gentleman, I believe his assertions are exaggerated. I have just received a telegram with reference to Aghadown.
§ MR. MAGUIREIt is very important I should remind the House that I stated that Aghadown was not in so bad a condition as other places.
§ SIR ROBERT PEELI sent Mr. Horsley to inquire into the statements of the Special Commissioner of the Cork Examiner, and he reports as follows on the 22nd of May:—
The statements of the Cork Examiner correspondence with the paper of the 14th of May, as to the condition of the population of the marshes of Aghadown, give a grossly overcharged picture of the actual state of the district.
§ MR. MAGUIREWhat of the other districts?
§ SIR ROBERT PEELI have already spoken of Skibbereen and Castletown. I have received the following communication from the board of guardians of the latter union, dated the 8th of May:—
This Board further states that it disbelieves the very exaggerated reports of destitution spread by a party, and which have had the effect of encouraging idleness and discontent at imaginary wrongs among the poor. They cannot too highly blame the promoters of these false reports; this (Mary Murphy's case) being the only case of alleged destitution, it will hardly support the views of those who had raised this cry of distress.I think, therefore, I have shown that in the cases of Castletown, Skibbereen, and Aghadown that degree of suffering does not exist which the hon. Gentleman, being no doubt himself misled, asks the House to believe. I have received the following statement from the county of Cork as to the condition of the crops:—From all quarters the most cheering accounts of the prospects of the entire crop in the county of Cork have arrived. For many years there has not been so good a likelihood of an abundant yield of cereals and green crops.The prospect for the future is therefore encouraging. I hope the hon. Member will not repeat the allegations which he has brought against the Government. From September to the present time I have myself endeavoured to ascertain the real circumstances of every case which has been brought under the notice of the Government. I do not believe the hon. 2110 Member will persuade the House that we have neglected the interests of the poor, or been unmindful of those duties which; are entailed on us by the position which we occupy.