What was meat to England
was poison to Ireland, and even honest Englishmen, hypnotised by the
economists of the day, were unable to perceive this plain truth. Let me
give another illustration. The capital exploit of Union Economics was,
as has been said, its dealing with the land question, but perhaps its
most pathetic fallacy was the policy with which it met the Great Famine.
Now the singular thing about this famine is that during it there was no
scarcity of food in Ireland; there was only a shortage of potatoes.
"In 1847 alone," writes Mr Michael Davitt in his "Fall of
Feudalism," "food to the value of L44,958,000 sterling was grown in
Ireland according to the statistical returns for that year. But a
million of people died for want of food all the same."
The explanation is obvious: the peasants grew potatoes to feed
themselves, they raised corn to pay their rents. A temporary suspension
of rent-payments and the closing of the ports would have saved the great
body of the people. But the logic of Unionism worked on other lines.
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