The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150911   Message #3612875
Posted By: Jim Carroll
26-Mar-14 - 07:27 AM
Thread Name: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
Smoke and mirrors Terminus
Britain simply refused to deal with a famine which had was the consequence of an economy it had imposed on Ireland - a peasant economy based on subsistence existence.
The link you are studiously ignoring shows how Britian, in the midst of the Famine, took the decision to pursue that economy via its laissez-faire policy and use the effect that this had on the Irish population to thin out the dissidents in order to create an "efficient" (subservient) workforce which benefited the Empire - this is exactly what was behind Trevelyan's (3 times repeated) statement that the Famine was an opportunity to rid Ireland of its undesirables.
It was well within the Empires economy and power to ride out the effects of the Famine simply by the continuance and development of Peels' humanitarian policy - instead they decided to depopulate Ireland by (once again), closure of workhouses and warehouses, continuance of food exports, continuance of the laissez-faire policy which had already created subsistence-level conditions among the rural population, forced emigration - finally, the coup de grace - a military-backed, long term policy of mass evictions - it was a calculated plan to bring Ireland to heel - and Trevelyan stated that in so many words.
The long term effects of the Famine could have been overcome with a reformed agrarian economy, instead, the vacated lands were turned over to absentee landlords to continue to exploit them for personal gain and recreation.
No effort was made to feed the starving Irish population, there was no cessation of food exports, no attempts to stop profiteering - just a policy of 'starve or emigrate' - simple as that.
Trevelyan quote from Woodham Smith.
"The greatest evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people"
I assume you will ignore this as you have ignored all the other points put before you -that's what you do best, in fact, it is the only thing you do
Jim Carroll (Christmas to you)