BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 05:42 PM

Yeah - why not!

His 1848 book The Irish Crisis, in which he claimed that the crisis was over, set forward his thesis as a justification for his Irish policy: "The only hope for those who lived upon potatoes was in some great visitation of providence to bring back the potato to its original use and intention as an adjunct, and not as the principal article of national food and by compelling the people of Ireland to recur to other more nutritious means of aliment, to restore the energy and the vast industrial capabilities of that country."28
This viewpoint had already found its expression in one of The Times's more notorious editorials on the Famine as panic was spreading through Ireland at the realization that the blight was striking again: "For our part, we regard the potato blight as a blessing. When the Celts once cease to be potatophagi, they must become carnivorous. With the taste for meats will grow the appetite for them; with the appetite, the readiness to earn them. With this will come steadiness, regularity, and perseverance; unless, indeed, the growth of these qualities be impeded by the blindness of Irish patriotism, the short-sighted indifference of petty landlords, or the random recklessness of Government benevolence."29
Readers are invited to compare this editorial with Trevelyan's comment to Lord Monteagle mentioned in his letter in chapter 6.
Bolstering the argument, Sir Charles Wood told the House of Commons, "No exertion of a Government, or, I will add, of private char¬ity, can supply a complete remedy for the existing calamity. It is a national visitation, sent by providence." This sentence provides a distillation of the effects of the political economists' debate and the Treasury's justification for allowing the Irish to starve.
The relevance of this exchange of high-sounding economic rhetoric among themselves by English theoreticians who, generally speaking, knew so little about Ireland that they could have found their way to Dublin's Sackville Street only with great difficulty, was that it provided an ominous bank of ideas for Trevelyan and others to draw upon when it came to com¬bating—or not combating—the famine.
As the Famine worsened, Trevelyan would thunder, and I quote for a second time, "every system of poor relief must contain a penal and repulsive
element, in order to prevent its leading to the disorganisation of society if the system is such as to be agreeable either to those who relieve or to those who are relieved, and still more if it is agreeable to both, all tests of destitu¬tion must be at an end."30 The task of the Treasury subsequently would be to insist more strictly on "sound principle."31
The teachings of Adam Smith took on a literally fatal hue when they moved out of the smoking rooms of London clubs and became the prin¬ciples on which the giving or withholding of food was to be based. Every commissariat officer and clerk dealing with the Famine was issued with a special edition of Adam Smith's 'Digression Concerning the Corn Trade and Corn Laws" from his 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The point Trevelyan wanted driven home was that price control—that is, providing cheap food—would produce "instead of the hardships of a dearth, the dreadful horrors of a famine." Staff dealing with relief were also urged along the non-intervention path by being given extracts from Edmund Burke's "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity."
When these utterances fell on what was to Trevelyan "the stony ground of humanitarian objection," he had the offending officials removed. Throughout the crisis he harried dissenting officials like Edward Twiselton with memoranda concerning their performances, seeking better account keeping, more minute reports, and so forth. In short, the armory of the Treasury was deployed to ensure that the dictates of political economy and reform of the Irish land system took precedence over the relief of starvation.
While the foregoing ideas clearly found a strong echo in British famine policy initiatives, The Times wrote complacently in 1848, "A Celt will soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as the red man on the banks of Manhattan."
And so, to sum up, what was the purpose behind all this manipulation of public opinion? Could it be argued that the Whig policy toward Ireland in the Famine years was merely a bungled attempt at relief, that the policies followed had a genocidal outcome but not a genocidal intent? The verdict that should have emerged from these pages by now is an unequivocal no! John Mitchel's stark analysis that God sent the blight but the English created the Famine rings true.
Trevelyan's reliance on "natural causes" and Wood's admission to Monteagle as to what the cabinet really wanted to achieve are only two tiny tips of an iceberg. Whig policy was directed at getting the peasants off the land, and if it took mass death to achieve that objective, so be it.
Behind the rhetoric of The Times editorials and the utilization of eco¬nomic jargon and extreme Protestant prejudice to stem the flow of relief, even for the feeding of children or the provision of clothing for the naked, the underlying thrust of Whig policy had the aim of clearing man from the fields and replacing him with the bullock. Defenders of the Whigs have argued that Trevelyan and Woods could not be accused of a deliberate at¬tempt to commit genocide because they were men of conscience and after the Famine, their consciences did not trouble them. Trevelyan, his defenders would argue, was not a Cromwell, only a civil servant carrying out govern¬ment policy.
The conscience argument is absurd. The Irish peasants, if they were considered at all, rated no higher than Untermenschen. Cromwell regarded the slaughter of Catholics not as a matter to trouble the conscience but as an act for the glory of God. Trevelyan was not a mere civil servant; he was the architect and executor of government policy, a policy that sheltered behind the economic dogma that the laws of business were the laws of God.
Article 2 of the UN Convention on Genocide defines genocide as mean¬ing "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group," by means that include the following:
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part.
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3 includes under "Punishable Acts":
"Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" and "complicity in genocide."
Certainly in the years 1846-1851 responsible Whig decision makers were complicit in genocide and did direct public incitement, as the columns of The Times sadly confirm only too well, toward furthering that end. Just as there are those who still attempt to deny man's role in global warming, there are those who would still attempt to defend the Whigs' role on the grounds that the UN Convention on Genocide stems from 1948, not 1848. To them I end by saying there is another, even older command on which the UN declaration draws, and it is not disputed: Thou shalt not kill.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 05:20 PM

I think the troll's going fro five hundred lads - shall we give him a hand?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 04:11 PM

Yes, but you DON'T go....

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 04:07 PM

What bias and political agenda Greg?

This is the person quoted-
Stephen Davies is a program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies and the education director at the Institute for Economics Affairs in London.
Dr. Davies attended the University of St Andrews from 1972 to 1976, graduating with a First Class degree in History. He also obtained his PhD from the same university in 1984, on the topic of the Scottish criminal justice system before the abolition of private courts.

He formerly taught at the Manchester Metropolitan University where he was senior lecturer. His academic and research interests include the history of crime and criminal justice, history of ideas and political thought, comparative economic history, and the history of the private supply of public goods. He teaches, amongst other topics, courses on the history of crime and punishment in Britain, and the history of the Devil.

He has published a number of books and articles on a range of topics. His books includeThe Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (which he edited with Nigel Ashford) and just recently Empiricism and History. Among his published essays are two in the recently published collection The Voluntary City, on the subjects of the private provision of law enforcement and the use of markets and property to plan urban growth.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 03:51 PM

...most historians...

Ah, Jaysus, here we go again with fuckwit telling us what historians he's never read have to say. Born with a caul, he was.

And do look up fee.org's obvious bias and political agenda, clearly stated on their website.

By the way, fuckwit, you've said you were gone half a dozen times, yet here you are again.

And now, a musical interlude!

Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert & Sullivan:

GENERAL. Away! away! . .
POLICE. (Without moving.) Yes, yes, we go!
GENERAL. These pirates slay.
POLICE. Yes, yes, we go.
GENERAL. Then do not stay.
POLICE. We go, we go.
GENERAL. Then why all this delay?
POLICE. All right! We go, we go;
Yes, forward on the foe! Ho! ho! ho! ho!
We go, we go, we go! _ Tarantara-ra-ra !
GENERAL. Then forward on the foe!
ALL. Yes! forward !
POLICE. Yes! forward!
GENERAL. Yes! but you don't go!
POLICE. We go, we go, we go !
ALL. At last they really go ! Tarantara-ra-ra!

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 03:09 PM

Jim, you are still posting at great length a version of events that you conceded is not endorsed by most historians!

Another historical perpective.
"How culpable were the British ministers of the 1840s? They are charged with having given inadequate, limited relief because of their commitment to a doctrine of laissez faire. However, given the scale of the problem and the acute nature of the crisis once the harvest had failed for a second time in 1846, there was little they could do."

Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/lessons-of-history-the-great-irish-famine#ixzz2Z7fhxnXV

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 01:14 PM

THE POOR LAW COMETH
In vain did Clarendon reply angrily to Grey that "it meant wholesale deaths from starvation and disease, and John Bull won't like that, however cross he may be at paying."
Clarendon's remonstrance, however, produced nothing. Chancellor Wood affected to believe that Clarendon was exaggerating the situation in Ireland. He wrote that "there had been exaggeration last year and there was probably exaggeration now."
Clarendon realized that the hand in the puppeteer's glove controlling Treasury policy was that of Charles Trevelyan. He wrote bitterly to a col-league, the influential Charles Greville, clerk of the privy council, complain¬ing about Trevelyan's influence. Greville noted that "Clarendon attributes a great part of the obstacles he meets with to Charles Wood, who is entirely governed by Trevelyan; and C.W. is to the last degree obstinate and tena¬cious of the opinions which his Secretary puts into him."
Despite Clarendon's pleas, the situation was left to the mercy of "natural causes," and the calamity that he predicted duly ensued.16 Wood struck a note of real hostility toward Ireland in his communications with Clarendon as he sounded the constant refrain of "no money." As the ending of the soup kitchens and the beginning of the implementation of the Poor Law Extension Act approached, Trevelyan was adamant that the new law would have to be financed from Ireland. All the chancellor was prepared to do was to forgive the £4.5 million that had been expended on the road schemes and soup kitchens and that, in theory, should have been repaid by the various re¬lief committees. This was a large sum of money at the time. But, realistically speaking, in view of the necessity to involve the army and the navy in rates collection described earlier in this chapter, there was no hope of collecting it anyhow.
Wood was also prepared to support a minor measure whereby property owners could borrow money to improve their estates at 3.5 percent. He and Trevelyan were ad idem on the subject. Wood told Clarendon that he and Trevelyan "had the most perfect understanding of this subject." His view was that "our rations" had afforded the Irish a "safe and comfortable exis¬tence." However, he added that "they have hardly been decent while they have found their bellies full of our corn and their pockets of our money."

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 12:39 PM

What's a historian? Do you have to roll a trouser leg up or anything?

Check in with Keith. Knows all, tells all.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Musket
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 12:29 PM

What's a historian?

Do you have to roll a trouser leg up or anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 11:50 AM

THE POOR LAW COMETH
"Neither ancient nor modern history can furnish a parallel to the fact that upwards of 3 millions of persons were fed every day in the neighbour¬hood of their homes, by administrative arrangements emanating from and controlled by one central office."1
Charles Trevelyan

The foregoing was the glowing praise that Charles Trevelyan bestowed on the operation of the Soup Kitchen Act, much of which he had diligently overseen and for which he felt entitled to take credit. What he did not state was that he had subsequently moved on to play a leading role in the operation of the Irish Poor Law Extension Act of 1847, which effectively undid much of the ben¬efit of the soup kitchens and brought an incalculable amount of suffering and death upon the starving.
The Poor Law Extension Act was the spawn of two conflicting ideolog¬ical parents: one maintained that Irish property should pay for Irish poverty; die other that, for both ideological and economic reasons, relief should not be given outside the workhouse walls. To provide outdoor relief, according to the moralizing political economists, would be both "demoralizing" and ruinous, given the numbers involved. These doctrines were so rigorously ad¬hered to that in some cases they even led to the ending of food distribution within the workhouses.
The workhouse in Cashel, County Tipperary, was suffering from "fright¬ful overcrowding" as Christmas 1846 approached and they had to turn away five hundred people who were eligible for admission but for whom there was no room. Because of their eligibility, the workhouse authorities, as was done elsewhere, gave the five hundred one meal a day inside the workhouse, arguing that this could not be considered outdoor relief because the food was eaten inside the workhouse. Officialdom would not accept this plea and said the practice had to stop.
However, back in London realization had set in that the work scheme had been a disaster and that something fresh had to be attempted. Barely a month after Cashel was forced to deny the starving five hundred, Lord John Russell announced a policy reversal. It made way for an expansion of the poor law to allow for the introduction of outdoor relief later in the year.
This legislation depended first on an impossibility and second on a cru¬elty. The impossibility lay in the principal assumption underlying the poor law extension, namely that it would be paid for out of the rates (local taxes) collected in Ireland. The doctrine on which this decision was based, that Irish property should pay for Irish poverty, would have been better phrased "Irish poverty must support Irish property."
The ruinous state of the country generally and that of the landlord class in particular has already been described. Even before the failure of the po¬tato, in 1844, the Conservatives, who were never in any danger of being accused of excessive tenderheartedness where the collection of Irish taxes was concerned, had taken part in a spectacular demonstration of the dif¬ficulties of extracting blood from a stone. In Mayo only one-quarter of the rates nominally due were collected even after the rate collectors had been provided with the following backup: two companies drawn from the Sixty-ninth Regiment, one troop from the Tenth Huzzars, fifty police, police inspectors, and two magistrates—backed up by two revenue cutters and a major warship, the Stromboli. This was not an isolated case. In the same year it had taken the deployment of seven hundred troops to collect the rates of neighboring Galway
This use of the army and the navy to collect rates had been debated in the House of Commons. The Whigs were fully aware of the difficulty of rate collection and the general situation regarding destitution in Ireland. What Trevelyan knew, chancellor of the exchequer Charles Wood knew. It would be an absurdity to suggest that the pair somehow managed to keep the prime minister and their cabinet colleagues in the dark over Ireland. Trevelyan, whatever his other faults, could not be accused of laziness. Every detail concerning relief had to be brought to his attention. In order to deal with a mountain of paperwork and the decision making this necessitated, he moved into a flat away from his wife and family so that he could work undisturbed, even over Christmas. He censured Sir Randolph Routh for wanting to take holidays at Christmas so that he could attend the vice-regal festivities, pointing out the "impropriety of appearing in public when the lives of such multitudes of persons depend on your unremitting exertions."2 Events were to prove, however, that Trevelyan's concern on that occasion was based not so much on sympathy with the "multitudes" as on public rela¬tions considerations.
For, as that grisly year of 1847 wore on, Trevelyan decided that the situ¬ation had improved so much that he could now take a well-earned holiday and in mid-August took his family off to France. Before going, in prepara¬tion for the coming into effect of the Poor Law Extension Act, which had become law on June 8, he oversaw the closing down of the soup kitchens and ordered the ending of the sale of meal from government depots. The in¬struction to these depots was clear: "Ship off all, close your depot and come away" Any meal remaining in the depot at the time of closure was either sold at market prices or, if unsold, removed in a government ship.
Trevelyan's view was that government relief had made the people worse, not better, and that the time had come to "try what independent exertion will do." By the beginning of October, the last soup kitchen and food depots in even the most distressed areas had ceased operations. Trevelyan described the cessation as follows: "The multitude was again gradually and peacefully The ringing declaration on rates was in part make-believe, in part a fig leaf for the true Treasury policy of getting rid of surplus population to make way for that longed-for "new ownership" that would create larger farms and would substitute cattle for potatoes. The real situation throughout much of Ireland where rates were concerned was eloquently, if despairingly, described by Colonel George Vaughan Jackson, a good resident Mayo landlord who was doing his best to maintain both his estate and his tenants in appalling circumstances. He wrote, "No men are more ill-fated or greater victims than we resident proprietors, we are consumed by the hives of human beings that exist on the properties of the absentees. On my right and my left are properties such as I allude to. I am overwhelmed and ruined by them. These proprietors will do nothing. All the burden of relief and employment falls on me. 11
The following month, on December 16, 1847, Lord Sligo, another landlord, wrote to The Times explaining what the poor law meant in prac¬tice: "On the express condition that they should make no provision for the future.... There are now therefore, at this moment, in obedience to the law. 26,000 people in Westport who are destitute of food, fuel and clothing.... The long account of money spent will not feed the crowds of destitute, the rates cannot do it, and if the union be left to that fund alone, these myriads must perish by famine."
The government had a most precise and up-to-date awareness of the truth of the situation described by Lord Sligo and Colonel Vaughan Jacksor Lord Clarendon himself bore out the truth of their observations, telling Sir George Grey the home secretary, that unless financial aid was forthcoming, "I dread some calamity . . . some hundreds dying all at once of starvation, which would not only be shocking but bring disgrace on the Government."14
However, he received nothing but contempt in response to his ap¬peal. Grey replied, "It may be that if numerous deaths should occur the Government would be blamed ... but there is such an indisposition to spend more money on Ireland, that the Government will assuredly and severely be blamed if they advance money to pay debts."

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 11:13 AM

such media nonsense is not limited to the past or to a single geographic area...

we have similiar BS used about "welfare queens" and the undeserving "entitlement" leeches... you know them... the smucks that paid into a system such as social security and medicare their entire working careers and have the audacity to expect some return on their investment.

or how about the hatred used against migrant workers? makes you want to cringe and at the same time shout out... That's not me speaking! That's a group of not very nice people who don't care who they hurt, as long as they get what they want.

call it yellow journalism or Fox News... its sole purpose is to divide and conquer. and to the "real" victors, go the spoils

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 11:03 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 11:02 AM

More propaganda of Famine
Jim Carroll

Punch cartoons constantly portrayed "Paddy" as a simian in a tailcoat and a derby, engaged in plotting murder, battening on the labor of the English workingman, and generally living a life of indolent treason. This concept of the Irishman was implanted in the popular mind as a given, not merely throughout the Famine but during the Fenian movement that grew out of the Famine and the home-rule campaign some forty years later.
Punch did not rely merely on its cartoons for its simian imagery and an allied anti-black prejudice. It could also write things like the following:
A creature manifestly between the Gorilla and the Negro is to be met with in some of the lowest districts of London and Liverpool by adventurous explorers. It comes to Ireland, whence it has contrived to migrate; it belongs in fact to a tribe of Irish savages; the lowest species of the Irish Yahoo. When conversing with its kind it talks a sort of gibberish. It is moreover, a climbing animal and may sometimes be seen ascending a ladder with a hod of bricks. The Irish Yahoo generally confines itself within the limits of its own colony, except when it goes out of them to get its living. Sometimes, however, it sallies forth in states of excitement, and attacks civilized human beings that have provoked its fury. The somewhat superior ability of the Irish Yahoo to utter articulate sounds, may suffice to prove that it is a development, and not, as some imagine, a degeneration of the Gorilla.
While the simian motif was not confined to Punch, the journal should be regarded as the principal procreant cradle of the species.
A point to be noted about the foregoing type of writing is that many of the Punch contributors were Irish, their contributions to the magazine validating the old axiom that whenever the British needed a stage Irishman for a West End part, they could always be certain of getting an Irishman to portray him. When M. A. Busteed and R. I. Hodgson spoke of "multi-layered Irish demonology" to describe the continuing strain of anti-Irish prejudice in influential English circles, they spoke truly.10 Where the era of the Famine is concerned, a particularly virulent strain of anti-Irish prejudice may be traced throughout the nineteenth century from the first failing of the potato in 1845 to the end of the century, when the ugly growth of prejudice could be seen flourishing in the unlikely setting of the writings of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, influential socialist economists and co-founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science. "Multi-layered" accurately describes this strain, for it was not merely anti-Irish, but contemptuous of blacks, Catholicism, and Celts as well.
The historian James Anthony Froude bolstered the Punch image by writing in 1845 that the people in Catholic Ireland were "more like tribes of squalid apes than human beings."
Such theories were given a pseudo-scientific patina of respectability by the writings of people like Robert Knox, a Scottish anatomist and zoologist and a popular lecturer about race, who wrote, "The Celtic race does not, and never could be made to comprehend the meaning of the word liberty. ... I appeal to the Saxon men of all countries whether I am right or not in my estimate of the Celtic character. Furious fanaticism; a love of war and disorder; a hatred for order and patient industry; no accumulative habits; restless; treacherous; uncertain; look at Ireland."
Charles Kingsley, an Anglican clergyman, historian, and novelist who is best remembered today as a writer of children's fiction including Hereward the Wake and The Water Babies, wrote after a visit to Ireland, "I am daunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country. I don't believe they are our fault. I believe that there are not only many more of them than of old, but that they are happier, better and more comfortably fed and lodged under our rules than they ever were. But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours."13
Thomas Carlyle chose a lower place in the animal kingdom to describe the Irish. He wrote, "Ireland is a starved rat that crosses the path of an elephant: what is the elephant to do? Squelch it, by heaven! Squelch it!"
Apparently not convinced that the squelching process would be sufficient. Carlyle also suggested that the best course for England in dealing with the Irish was to "lead them and put them over with the niggers."
Carlyle's rat reference and his repellent anti-black sentiments could be dismissed as vulgar abuse, but his description of the workhouses and of outdoor works were more damaging and played straight into the hands of people like Trevelyan and Wood, who were looking for ways to stop spend¬ing money on Ireland and increase the clearances from the land. Carlyle first visited Ireland for four days in 1846, during which he saw the blackened potato fields and met with the Young Ireland leader Charles Gavan Duffy, who introduced him to John Mitchel. Carlyle made a comprehensive tour of Ireland in 1849 during which he visited a Westport workhouse. After witnessing the conditions, he wrote, "Human Swinery has here reached its acme, happily; 30,000 paupers in this union, population supposed to be 60,000. Workhouses proper (I suppose) cannot hold 3 or 4,000 of them, subsidiary workhouses, and outdoor relief the others. Abomination of deso¬lation; what can you make of it! Outdoor quasi-work; 3 or 400 big hulks of fellows tumbling about with shares, picks and barrows, 'levelling' the end of their workhouse hill; at first glance you would think them all working; look nearer in each shovel there is some ounce or two of mould, and it is all make believe; 5 or 600 boys and lads, pretending to break stones. Can it be charity to keep men alive on these terms? In face of all the twaddle on the earth, shoot a man rather than train him (with a heavy expense to his neighbour to be a deceptive human swine."
There is no disputing the efforts that the contemporary opinion makers, the Whig spin doctors, exerted in making the Famine seem not so bad. Their propaganda took quite extraordinary forms. In one humiliating tableau designed to show that the government was taking active steps to improve the diet of the starving in April 1847, Alexis Soyer, the French chef at the Reform Club in London, which at the time was the Liberals' own bastion, was brought over to Ireland to add luster to the opening of a soup kitchen in Dublin. Soyer was regarded as one of Europe's leading chefs, and he had garnered considerable publicity in London for devising a soup for the poor that he averred was sufficient to sustain a healthy diet when consumed with a biscuit. The ingredients were "quarter lb leg of beef; costing 1d, to 2 gallons of water, the other ingredients being 2 oz. of dripping; 2 onions and other vegetables 2d; a quarter of a Lb of flour, seconds; quarter lb of pearl barley; 1 quarter; 3 oz. salt and V2 oz. brown sugar; total cost ls.4d. 100 gallons could be made for under £1 including an allowance for fuel.
There was subsequent controversy as to the nutritional value of Soyer's soup. Critics pointed out that it ran through the recipients almost immediately and thus provided little lasting energy, but the most telling criticism of the Soyer performance came from Sir John Burgoyne, who commented on the methodology employed by the authorities in staging the Soyer demonstration. Bowls affixed to chains were provided in the wooden structure erected for this piece of dietary theater. A bell rang and a hundred starving persons were admitted at a time, drank their soup, received a piece of bread, and left the building. Then the bowls were rinsed, a bell rang again, and another hundred of the destitute shuffled forward. Sir John complained that this was treating the poor like "wild animals."15
Various medical experts contested Soyer's estimate of the value of the soup, which, as Mr. Dobree of Sligo wrote, "was no working food for people accustomed to 141bs. of potatoes daily." A liquid diet in itself could not pro¬vide all the essential nutrients required to maintain a healthy body. Experts in Skibbereen who had all too much firsthand acquaintanceship with starvation wrote that the soup "passed through people dangerously quickly and in fact gave rise to dysentery." However, as we have seen in the chapter on souperism and soup kitchens, soup based on more nutritious foundations than Soyer's, when accompanied by bread, did keep people alive, and the use of the chef by the government provided a gala public relations exercise in Dublin, at which members of high society were quoted as finding Soyer's recipe tasty and sustaining.
But the most extraordinary coup was a royal visit paid by Queen Victoria in August 1849. The visit highlighted the nearly incomprehensible, but con¬tinuing, popularity of the British Royal Family (evidenced yet again by the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in 2011) in a nation upon whom such suffering had been heaped in the name of that same crown. Queen Victoria was welcomed in Cork by displays of loyalty that included coating the
waterfront buildings in sumptuous red cloth. The leitmotif of her visit was symbolized by the banners that greeted her saying, "Hail Victoria, Ireland's hope and England's Glory." Her route was carefully stage-managed. She saw Cork but nothing of the famine-stricken West of the county wherein lay Skibbereen, and she traveled by sea to Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) in County Dublin without seeing any other afflicted part of the country. Her drives through Dublin lay through the imposing main squares, and she saw nothing of slums although she perceptively recorded in her diary that she saw more ragged people in Dublin than anywhere else. But, overall, the queen was struck by the beauty of the women and the huge welcome evi¬denced everywhere by cheering crowds and triumphal arches. At Kingstown an old woman shouted, "Ah, Queen dear, make one of them Prince Patrick and Ireland will die for you."17
Needless to say, all this provided endless opportunities for gushing re¬ports in the press depicting an "Ireland of the Welcomes" in which famine did not occur and there were glamor and merriment on a scale not seen in Ireland since the days when she had her own parliament.
John Mitchel has left us a vivid description of another form taken by the influencing of public opinion—straightforward intimidation at election time, when voters who wished to vote against a landlord candidate had to run the gauntlet of bailiff, policemen, soldier, and, if they persisted in disobeying their orders, eviction, with fatal results to themselves and their families.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 10:57 AM

The Irish, whom we have welcomed to all the comforts of old England


Now THAT really IS amusing. Not.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 10:33 AM

THIRTEEN
THE PROPAGANDA OF FAMINE

The propaganda of the Famine
"The English are very well aware that Ireland is a trouble, a vexation, and an expense to this country. We must pay to feed it, and pay to keep it in order ... we do not hesitate to say that every hard-working man in this country carries a whole Irish family on his shoulders. He does not receive what he ought to receive for his labor, and the difference goes to maintain the said Irish family, which is doing nothing but sitting idle at home, basking in the sun, telling stories, going to fairs, plotting, rebelling, wishing death to the Saxon, and laying everything that happens at the Saxon's door.... The Irish, whom we have admitted to free competition with the English labourer, and whom we have welcomed to all the comforts of old England, are to reward our hospitality by burning our warehouses and ships and sacking our towns."
—The Times, July 26,1848
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 09:51 AM

Keith: I have nothing more to say.

Ooops.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 09:47 AM

Why did it take so many weeks and so much abuse?

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 08:50 AM

Now perhaps we can continue uninterrupted by the stalker
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 08:43 AM

I have nothing more to say.

Now, THERE'S a lie ........

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 07:55 AM

I have apologised and withdrawn my opposition to your overwhelming evidence - puyt it down to a lifetime of brainwashing
You promised to go away
Go away
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 04:40 AM

You have produced nothing;

I have produced quotes by historians disputing culpability.
I did so in my very first post to you on this.
The quotes were given with links so they could be seen in context.

I have produced actual historians disputing culpability, and Kinealy refers to others and confirms they are dominant.

My only case is that culpability is disputed, and it is.
Stop denying that truth, and I have nothing more to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 03:56 AM

"Stop denying that truth, and I have nothing more to say."
Sorry - cross posted
Yoou are totally right - we are all totally wrong - sincerest apologies
Go away
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 03:37 AM

You have produced nothing; you have attempted to show that what happened didn't happen, you are attempting to re-write history.
You and your mate will not respond to the facts that have been presented to you - not even to dispute them with 'facts' of your own.
In the course of your missions you have both let slip the same hatred for Irish peoples that you have for other nationalities and religions in the past.
This time you really have gone too far by turning your hatred on other members of this forum; Irish men and women, Anglo Irish people like myself and American Irish citizens, all "brainwashed" to hate Britain.
If we don't agree with your Messianic claims we have all been conditioned by corrupt and manipulating education systems.
In the past you expressed your contempt for us by saying you are "casting pearls before swine" by arguing with us; you have claimed "infallibility" for your arguments
Now you go the whole hog - the whole world is wrong but yourself.
When you attacked Pakistanis you gathered together a mythical army of social workers and politicians who inspired you (by divine visitation presumably, you never managed to produce an actual statement by one of them) to claim that "all Pakistanis are culturally implanted to have underage sex" (deny this and I'll put it up again).
Here you claim the support of a mythical army of historians who (again by divine visitation - you admit to having read none of them) to rewrite Irish history.
Each of them has crumbled before your eyes and you ask us to "forget" them, as apparently you have - gone in a puff of divine smoke at your command "OK, forget him." abracadabra - your latest knight in shining armour gone in a puff of magic smoke.
Your breathtaking arrogance in declaring that you don't need to read to know what you claim to know really does it - divine visitation again?
You have no serious support here; the only way you manage to cling on to this and other threads you leech onto is by ignoring what is put in front of you.
You work by filibustering these discussions to death until we all walk away in despair and disinterest.
Your friend, the aptly named 'Terpsichore', dances and dodges around the subjects, trying to bluff his way with bluster, bullying and bullshit, insulting us all as he goes (including in his thuggish efforts at one time, one of my long-dead parents, my mother, who he described as a prostitute).
He behaves like a thug, permanently talking down to everybody who opposes us, your technique is a wheedling drip-drip-drip war of attrition.
You are both characters out of Dickens - you, the hand-wringing Uraih Heep, he the thuggish Bill Sykes.
I sincerely hope you have not killed yet another interesting thread with your dogged fanaticism.
It is an interesting topic; I have learned a great deal from this discussion and have been introduced to new facts and new experts in the course of it.
I have no idea how you can possibly know of a subject to appear to be proud to admit you have never read about and have never shown enough interest to rectify that omission.
Now I'll leave you to your Dalek-like repetition of what your voices are telling you and hope to be joined later by somebody a little more sane.
You are a very disturbed, and disturbing individual whose aim in life seems to be to let the British Empire off the hook for all its wrongdoings
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 02:19 AM

I have produced actual historians disputing culpability, and Kinealy refers to others and confirms they are dominant.

My only case is that culpability is disputed, and it is.
Do you know of any book that says that it is not Jim?

Stop denying that truth, and I have nothing more to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:07 PM

"You said he was not a historian Jim."
He isn't he's an historical economist.
You grabbed him as you grabbed every other historian because you believed he would back your manic hatred of the Irish - he, like all the others exploded in your face.
"The dominant view among actual historians is that the government was not culpable"
The dominant, virtually overwhelming view among historians is that the government was culpable, by its decision to adopt a policy of 'emigrate or die'.
What is under discussion is whether that was a deliberately thought out and adopted policy to solve the "Irish Question" or whether it was the inevitably result of a laissez-faire policy which withdrew famine aid from the dying Irish and forced them to leave the country in order to save their lives.
Trevelyan - who you have still not mentioned, was the advisor they appointed and whose advice they acted on.
He made is own position quite clear when he described the famine described the famine as an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population" as well as "the judgment of God".
His was the governing voice throughout the Famine - even when the Russell Government proposed sending more relief, he advised against it and it wasn't sent.   
If you can produce a single historian who denies that happened - feel free to do so.
The Irish agrarian economy was one that existed under British rule - a peasant economy which suited the Empire so it was never modernised.
The blight was unstoppable - the consequences of the blight were serious but the Russell Government tore down the structure of aid Peel had set up in order to let the market flourish.
The British assisted absentee landlords to take over the lands of evicted small farmers.
They adopted a technique of 'cabin-tumbling' (very popular here in Clare). When a tenant was evicted, the bankrupt farmers' homes were systematically destroyed so none of the starving Irish could move into them to shelter - they starved in their thousands at the side of the roads - some of them managed to scrape out shelters in the earth and live like the animals ("the non-racist") Punch Magazine described them as.
The evictions continued through into the early twentieth century and the effects of those enforced evictions became part of the Irish culture.
One of the side effects were the 'Grazier' wars - land wars
The Irish are the people you have described as hating Britain because - to quote you "Generations of school children have been brainwashed to believe Britain should be blamed, keeping hate alive. Irish schools at least since 1922 and NY State schools since 1996 by decree - Massachusetts?".
Ironically they do not hate Britain, certainly not as much as you hate them.
Who on earth do you think you are telling us you don't need to read in order to understand these subjects - you seem to had developed a Messiah complex.
Please drop us a line the next time you intend to walk across your local duck-pond or turn tap-water into bottles of Chianti - I can't wait.
Sleep well - or should I say - I hope you had a restful night - I have no doubt it wasn't disturbed by your non-existent conscience.
Happy hating!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:07 PM

"You said he was not a historian Jim."
He isn't he's an historical economist.
You grabbed him as you grabbed every other historian because you believed he would back your manic hatred of the Irish - he, like all the others exploded in your face.
"The dominant view among actual historians is that the government was not culpable"
The dominant, virtually overwhelming view among historians is that the government was culpable, by its decision to adopt a policy of 'emigrate or die'.
What is under discussion is whether that was a deliberately thought out and adopted policy to solve the "Irish Question" or whether it was the inevitably result of a laissez-faire policy which withdrew famine aid from the dying Irish and forced them to leave the country in order to save their lives.
Trevelyan - who you have still not mentioned, was the advisor they appointed and whose advice they acted on.
He made is own position quite clear when he described the famine described the famine as an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population" as well as "the judgment of God".
His was the governing voice throughout the Famine - even when the Russell Government proposed sending more relief, he advised against it and it wasn't sent.   
If you can produce a single historian who denies that happened - feel free to do so.
The Irish agrarian economy was one that existed under British rule - a peasant economy which suited the Empire so it was never modernised.
The blight was unstoppable - the consequences of the blight were serious but the Russell Government tore down the structure of aid Peel had set up in order to let the market flourish.
The British assisted absentee landlords to take over the lands of evicted small farmers.
They adopted a technique of 'cabin-tumbling' (very popular here in Clare). When a tenant was evicted, the bankrupt farmers' homes were systematically destroyed so none of the starving Irish could move into them to shelter - they starved in their thousands at the side of the roads - some of them managed to scrape out shelters in the earth and live like the animals ("the non-racist") Punch Magazine described them as.
The evictions continued through into the early twentieth century and the effects of those enforced evictions became part of the Irish culture.
One of the side effects were the 'Grazier' wars - land wars
The Irish are the people you have described as hating Britain because - to quote you "Generations of school children have been brainwashed to believe Britain should be blamed, keeping hate alive. Irish schools at least since 1922 and NY State schools since 1996 by decree - Massachusetts?".
Ironically they do not hate Britain, certainly not as much as you hate them.
Who on earth do you think you are telling us you don't need to read in order to understand these subjects - you seem to had developed a Messiah complex.
Please drop us a line the next time you intend to walk across your local duck-pond or turn tap-water into bottles of Chianti - I can't wait.
Sleep well - or should I say - I hope you had a restful night - I have no doubt it wasn't disturbed by your non-existent conscience.
Happy hating!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 05:51 PM

You said he was not a historian Jim.
OK, ignoring him, the dominant view among actual historians is that the government was not culpable.
I have produced actual historians, and Kinealy refers to others and confirms they are dominant.

My only case is that culpability is disputed, and it is.

Stop denying that truth, and I have nothing more to say Jim.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 05:07 PM

"OK, forget him."
Piss off Keith
You can't5 piull hsitorians out of hats likerabbits and walk away from them when they don't fir as you have throughout this thread
You have shafted yourself on your own arrogance
Now keep your promise and go
You wnated out - you're out
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: pdq
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:27 PM

"Mokyr is an historical economist, not a historian and he refers to the causes of the famine, not the consequences. His argument is that Ireland's problems were not, as Malthus had propounded, due to overpopulation, but because of a reliance on the potato as a staple diet due to an economy developed under British rule."

You took one statement that the professor made and added two that you made from whole cloth.

Most important point is that Irish subsistance farming produced very little value or wealth for the country.

Several large cities like London, Belfast, Glasgow and Edenburg had industrialization that added great wealth to the society for the number of manhours worked.

The Irish were the ones who insisted in keeping their country rural, picturesque and largely free from major roads, indusrtraliazation and sewage treatment projects and even from modern farming techniques.

Their choices, not the Brits.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 03:56 PM

OK, forget him.
I have produced actual historians and Kinealy identifies others who dispute culpability.
My only case is that culpability is disputed, and it is.

Stop denying that truth, and I have nothing more to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 03:52 PM

"Jim, I do not need a book to tell me I am right that culpability is disputed."
No you haven't.
Mokyr is an historical economist, not a historian and he refers to the causes of the famine, not the consequences.
His argument is that Ireland's problems were not, as Malthus had propounded, due to overpopulation, but because of a reliance on the potato as a staple diet due to an economy developed under British rule.
He in no way attempts to explain the cause of so may deaths or emigrants - that was not his field.
Grasping for straws doesn't hack it.
The breathtaking arrogance of someone who insists on dominating thread after not having read a book and then declaring "I do not need a book to tell me I am right" is staggering - infallibility indeed; how can
one possibly compete with such genius!
I'll gladly tell you what I think - I think you are a very disturbed, arrogabt and not very bright individual who need help.
I WANT OUT!
Tarry not upon your going but go - **** off, you won't be missed.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 03:44 PM

I WANT OUT!

So go already & don't let the door hit you on your fuckwit arse as you leave.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 03:32 PM

Jim, I do not need a book to tell me I am right that culpability is disputed.
I have actually produced historians disputing it and so has pdq tonight.
I do not need a book to tell me that Kinealy says they are dominant.
YOU posted her into the thread saying it.

IF YOU DENY DISPUTE YOU ARE WRONG!
TELL US IF YOU DO OR NOT.
I WANT OUT!

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 11:45 AM

"results of the peculiar political and social structure of Ireland,"
Brought about by the way that Ireland's economy was designed to be part of the British Imperial economy
The same was the case throughout the Empire with each colony acting as part of the Imperial jigsaw puzzle - India, Ceylon, Malaya..... and so ad infinitum
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:55 AM

And by the way - would it be too much trouble for you to make up your mind over Trevelyan? - one minute his opinions were the opinions of one man and don't matter - the next minute they do matter and he's a nice feller - now that's what I call waffle.
Your continuing belligerent approach more or less confirms that you have nothing concrete to offer by way of reasoned argument
It's a little like having sand kicked in your face by a Charles Atlas advert.
Grow up
As you were corporal
Whatever you say Keith - I'm sure you believe you are right and will continue to do so until you read a book, or get someone to read one for you.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: pdq
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:51 AM

"Professor Mokyr maintains that the 'Hungry Forties' were caused by the overall underdevelopment of the economy during the decades which preceded the famine. In Why Ireland Starved he tests various hypotheses that have been put forward to account for this backwardness. He dismisses widespread arguments that Irish poverty can be explained in terms of over-population, an evil land system or malicious exploitation by the British. Instead, he argues that the causes have to be sought in the low productivity of labor and the insufficient formation of physical capital – results of the peculiar political and social structure of Ireland, continuous conflicts between landlords and tenants, and the rigidity of Irish economic institutions."

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:34 AM

"I would love to hear your case in support of your claim that Charles Edward Trevelyan hated the Irish"
You've had it - the fact that you choose to ignore it is your problem, not mine.
You want more, go and but the book and get someone to read the ten-page letter he wrote to the Morning Chronicle
Fake - you would say that, wouldn't you.
As far as I am concerned, 'God's contribution' and his welcoming the famine as a convenient way of solving The Irish question - a well enough known and widely quoted statement to make it true - to all other than those who would have it moved off centre-stage of course.
There's no waffle, even though you choose to describe it as such -
British policy exacerbated starvation in Ireland leaving the occupants with the choices to either emigrate or die.
The appointment of Trevelyan, the carrying out of his policies and the honouring of him when the job was completed makes it British culpability and indicates that the outcome met with their approval - no waffle there - a simply stated opinion.
The confirmation of that policy came in the mass evictions that turned the arrable land over to absentee landlords.
The only waffle here is your refusing to address the uncontradictable policy of closed warehouse, closed workhouses, export of enough food to feed the indigenous population four times over (according to the "definitive" Mrs Woodham Smith), the refusal to stop racketeering of the famine relief (again according to the "definitive" Mrs Woodham Smith), and the military backed mass evictions.
Justify those policies or show they didn't happen and you might have a case, your ignoring them only confirms that they did - now that's what I understand as "waffle".
Are you really suggesting that the Russell Government didn't close Peels warehouses or the workhouses - damn - we've all been brainwashed - Keith was right.   
"Emigrate or die" - that was the decision taken and that is what happened.
All of Keith's witnesses have said so and all have blamed the laissez-faire policy and callous indifference for the calamity.
Hiding behind the blight is a load of garbage - it was how the blight was dealt with - or not dealt with caused a million plus deaths and te depopulation of Ireland - not an inevitable catastrophe - not even the most hardened Empire loyalists can hide between that one any more.
Ireland was Britain's responsibility and Britain renaged on that responsibility
End of story
At ease corporal
Jim Christmas

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 09:05 AM

You've had the historian's (which you haven't read) discussion on the Famine, summed up by Christine Kinealy - you choose to ignore them
You have offered nothing but unqualified denial

I do not deny anything the historians say Jim.
I merely point out that they disagree on culpability, and most deny it.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:40 AM

After checking out Mokyr's creds, I decided to check out some of his books. They are on order since these aren't on Oprah's list... lol

And before some start disputing his crediblity, if he's good enough for Oxford he should be good enough for Mudcat:

Joel Mokyr (born 26 July 1946) is an American and Israeli economic historian. Mokyr was born in the Netherlands and raised in Israel. He is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University.

Mokyr holds a joint appointment in economics as well as a Sackler Professorial Fellow at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. He is particularly interested in the economic history of technology and population, but considers himself a general-purpose economic historian. A former editor of the Journal of Economic History and President of the Economic History Association, he served as the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, and continues to be editor in chief of a book series published by Princeton University Press, The Princeton University Press Economic History of the Western World. A former chair of the Economics Department and President of the Economic History Association, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a number of comparable institutions in Europe.

His bibliography:
1976: Industrialization in the Low Countries, 1795-1850
1983: Why Ireland Starved: An Analytical and Quantitative Study of Irish Poverty, 1800-1851
1985: The Economics of the Industrial Revolution (ed.)
1990: Twenty Five Centuries of Technological Change: An Historical Survey
1990: The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress
Review article: "The Great Conundrum," The Journal of Modern History Vol. 62, No. 1, March 1990
1991: The Vital One: Essays in Honor of Jonathan Hughes (ed.)
1993: The British Industrial Revolution: an Economic Perspective (ed.)
2002: The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy
2003: The Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Economic History (Editor in chief)
2009: The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times (Co-editor)
2009: The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850

He hardly sounds like someone with a grudge or axe to grind, but appears to be someone who understands that life is not simplistic and is trying to gain better understanding of the social and economic underpinings of historical events.

I would term him a history geek... LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:30 AM

You have provided no answers at all Christmas just pointless waffle. So far, you have provided no evidence whatsoever to back-up or support any case that the "Famine" was used and manipulated by the British Government to carry out any deliberate act of genocide (It is you who keep using the word "genocidal" isn't it). Not only do you not have the courage of your own convictions it would appear that you don't have any convictions, or if you have you cannot even state what those convictions are.

I would love to hear your case in support of your claim that Charles Edward Trevelyan hated the Irish. That he stated some pretty blunt and unflattering comments about them, particularly the land-owners is without doubt but that does not in itself indicate that he hated anybody, it only indicates that he was being brutally truthful about them. I remember asking you to provide some evidence to back up your accusation of him being a religious fanatic - still waiting for that. You keep wittering on about this "Providence of God" thing, as somehow being important, the way you present it, you infer that Trevelyan was the originator of this belief and you are only prepared to recognise Trevelyan as holding this view, when I have provided you with evidence that such a belief was widespread in Ireland among both the people and the clergy who ministered to them - so did that mean that they all hated the Irish as well?

You keep prattling on about closed down workhouses yet cannot offer any rational explanation as to how over the period in question the number of workhouses in Ireland rose from 128 in 1845 to 163 in 1851 - all that inaction especially considering that in Ireland in 1838 there were none.

Another of your "platforms" is the export of food from Ireland during the period in question, yet you seem to deliberately refuse to put that in context by conveniently forgetting to mention that those exports declined during the famine and the amount of imports increased dramatically - Had Peel not repealed the 1815 Corn Laws (That had benefited all farmers in the British Isles) then cheap food could not have been imported into Ireland between 1845 and 1851. What food in diminishing quantity that Ireland did produce just simply could not be transported to where it was needed - i.e. the people could not be fed in situ, they HAD TO MOVE. Post modern day famines Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, etc, the various UN agencies now know that you do not hand out food to successfully counter a famine you hand out money, it is much easier to transport and distribute - and history and track record shows conclusively that no matter how severe the famine there is always food available for purchase at the right price.

You continually accuse the British Government of doing nothing. I would like to see who your candidates were for those who did do something. The relief programme mounted by the British Government in terms of cost amounted to £9.95 million, yet you do not even acknowledge it ever existed, and before you come back and tell me that you did, if that was the case then you can hardly accuse them of doing nothing - can't have it both ways.

Famines and food shortages were endemic in Ireland, and their frequency was increasing as the population grew without any corresponding improvement either in commerce, in industry or in agriculture - funding for which had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Government of the day in the United Kingdom, or in any other country in the world at that time. So the condition that Ireland found itself in, in 1845 was very much down to the landed gentry of Ireland and those who farmed for them.

You look at the Irish Famine in isolation and blithely state that the British Government should have done this or done that, yet you ignore the scale of what had to be done, you ignore that the blight did not just strike and have an effect in Ireland its effects were felt all over the United Kingdom (Particularly in Scotland that received barely a fraction of the relief allocated to Ireland) and all over Europe, where cereal crop production suffered as well (rye & oats). You then use this blinkered and narrow vision to bolster up your condemnation of the effort made. You ignore, or completely dismiss the difficulties faced and attempt to portray what was unfolding as deliberate acts all planned and carefully worked out and orchestrated to destroy a nation. I shudder to think what the death toll would have been had the British Government at the time actually had done what you accuse them of.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:14 AM

You've had a list of British actions during the Famine - you choose to ignore them
You've had the historian's (which you haven't read) discussion on the Famine, summed up by Christine Kinealy - you choose to ignore them
You have offered nothing but unqualified denial
Your case is complete and )(apart from the belligerent Chocolate soldier - once again you are on your own.
A friendly word of advice on your racism.
I have taken the first teetering steps in an attempt to stop your gallop, which has now got out of hand - nothing definite yet, but if you continue, so will I.
It is one thing to attack ethnic groups the way you have - that seems to be the way of some parts of the world nowadays.
It is quite another to make swingeing racist generalisations about racial groups who are part of a discussion forum.
I find your disgusting "brainwash" suggestions deeply offensive - they include members my family, friends and neighbours and they include members of this forum.
I would feel quite justified in asking for a public apology and a withdrawal of your deeply offensive racist remarks, but from past experience I realise I would be wasting my time - so I'll just have to settle for it never happening again, which I trust, it won't.
I once considered requesting the same of your friend when he informed me that my mother was "on the game" - or some such sewer behaviour, but I thought it better to allow him to show us what he's made of.
So - as I say - continue with your racist diatribes on this forum and I will step up my efforts to stop you.
Done here Keith
Have a good day; I'm off into the garden   
Best
Jim, Jimbo, Christmas - whatever

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 07:43 AM

This historian, in my first post, disputes culpability so you are wrong and I am right Jim.
(And remember, such historians are dominant)

15 Jul 13 - 10:04 AM
Another historical perspective.
"How culpable were the British ministers of the 1840s? They are charged with having given inadequate, limited relief because of their commitment to a doctrine of laissez faire. However, given the scale of the problem and the acute nature of the crisis once the harvest had failed for a second time in 1846, there was little they could do."

Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/lessons-of-history-the-great-irish-famine#ixzz2Z7fhxnXV

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 07:33 AM

You have challenged the fact that culpability is disputed??
I must have missed it!

How could you have when it is a plain, simple fact?

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:37 AM

Or any "brainwashed Irishman or Irish American" for that matter
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:02 AM

"Jim, I am an opponent of racism."
Yeah sure you are - ask any "implanted" Pakistani
I have challenged your version of the truth - you choose to ignore it
Go away
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 05:43 AM

Jim, I am an opponent of racism.
"Racist" is just what you accuse when you can not challenge what I actually say.
I say that culpability is disputed.
You can not challenge that truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 05:33 AM

"
Do you believe that the British Government carried out a deliberate policy of genocide in Ireland between the years 1845 and 1851?"
You've just had your answer to that - get somebody to read it to you.
"Contains not one single word written by you Christmas -"
It was my coup de grace of Keith's claim that she supported his case - I have expressed my own opinion throughout this discussion - unlike Keith's cut-'n- pastes - what's your point?
It was not "cherry-picked" - it was taken from fully-linked articles already up on this thread - the fact that you haven't bothered to read erither of them is an indication of your disinterest and ignorance of the subject in hand
"Ah so not deliberate then? Why not just say so?"
I have just answered tat question - get someone to read it for you.
"To state that they did nothing is ludicrous"
I didn't say they did nothing - what they did do left the alternative - "emigrate or starve"
Just said that - get someone to read it for you
"Ireland had up until 1801 been self-governing, the fact that it was corrupt and inefficient through a mixture of indolence and ignorance was no fault of mainland Britain, or it's Government."
Ireland waws under Brittish rule and its economy was completely under British control - British bulinessmen and landlords made sure of that - this is how Empire worked - go read a book
My respect for Mitchel is limited to his fight for Irish independence - if you care to read the notes to our Travellers CD on Musical Traditions you will find my attitude to his support for slavery - get someone to read it for you.
"Ah so now it was deliberate, then it may not be? Are you totally incapable of making your mind up on anything?"
The question of whether Britain's behaviour was deliberate or not is in contention everywhere and I have said so - gets someone to read what I have written instead of distorting what I believe.
Blaming the Irish for the results of the Famine just about sums up you pair of clowns
Morcambe and Wise are dead - why not set up a comedy team to replace them - though your inability to conduct a simple discussion without bullshit and bluster doesn't auger well for your chances.
Keith
You are a long established racist on this forum - live with it
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:46 AM

Christmas:

Do you believe that the British Government carried out a deliberate policy of genocide in Ireland between the years 1845 and 1851?

No vast tracts of cut'n'pastes just a simple YES or NO.

Example of your cut'n'paste contributions:

Jim Carroll - Date: 30 Mar 14 - 11:20 AM

Contains not one single word written by you Christmas - If I wish to discuss the subject with Christine Kinealy then I will write to her - she will at least be capable of discussing what she wrote in context - not just snippets cherry-picked for effect. So much for your:

"(D)on't you dare suggest I have hidden behind cut-'n-pasted you distorting shit."

Examples of your mealy-mouthed waffle in response to a fairly direct and simple question:

1: "I believe the policy adopted by the British Government gave rise to the outcome - one million plus deaths and mass emigration for generations to come."

Ah so not deliberate then? Why not just say so?

2: "Whether the British Government had thought through their policies of non-action to their logical conclusion remains a moot point - the fact that those policies wrought the holocaust that it did does not - that's what Britain did (or didn't do - that's what happened)"

Well did they or didn't they? To state that they did nothing is ludicrous, it is a deliberate lie that can be clearly shown as such as the relief given is a matter of record.

3: "There is a logic behind the claim that what Britain did was deliberate - it suited Britain to have s subservient colony as a neighbour, but even if it was not a deliberate act of Genocide, it was an act of Genocide through malicious inaction - take your pick."

Ah so now it was deliberate, then it may not be? Are you totally incapable of making your mind up on anything?

As for this one - I will repeat the complete sentence:

"Ireland had up until 1801 been self-governing, the fact that it was corrupt and inefficient through a mixture of indolence and ignorance was no fault of mainland Britain, or it's Government."

Well up until 1801 Ireland did have it's own Parliament didn't it? It passed laws, set taxation, raised revenue didn't it? So who then could be held accountable for the state of the country, it's lack of investment, it's corruption, it's way of doing business, it's lack of engagement in any attempt at improvement? Certainly NOT the British Government - on mainland Great Britain all investment, improvement and innovation was PRIVATELY funded.

"There we go - Trevelyan writ large" - Are you surprised? Here we have a senior Civil Servant repeating what every commission that had looked into the state of affairs in Ireland had previously stated - Doubt that Christmas then read the findings of the Devon Commission 1845.

On the charge of racism this man John Mitchel famous for his 1861 work "The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)" that gave rise to the often quoted phrase - "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." Is the same John Mitchel who in 1857 founded the "Southern Citizen" to promote - "the value and virtue of slavery, both for negroes and white men", advocate the reopening of the African slave trade and encourage the spread of slavery into the American West." Yet this is a man that you say commands your respect - more evidence of your hypocrisy and double standards.

By the way, can you explain why with Ireland blight free in 1847 the death toll was so great? Something to do with the Irish eating all the potatoes, including those distributed as seed potatoes? That the British Government's fault as well?

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:41 AM

I am an opponent of racism.

"political not racist"
That was my opinion of a cartoon that portayed Ireland as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

The book was a sensation at the time.
The message was that British policies in Ireland would create a monster that would turn on its creator.
Political not racist.

That is a side issue.
My case in all this is that culpability for the famine is disputed.
It is.
Do you challenge that Jim, because if you do not I have nothing else to add.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:07 AM

"Racism is a form of hate."
To defend past racism as not being racist, as you have done, "Political not racist" is to lend support to racism - doesn't come any more complicated as that.
To describe Irish and Irish American people in terms such as "Not surprising when generations of school children have been brainwashed to believe Britain should be blamed, keeping hate alive. Irish schools at least since 1922 and NY State schools since 1996 by decree. Massachusetts?" is a racist attack on those people and an insult to a large number of members of this forum
If this is not your posting, and someone has faked the posting I withdraw my accusation and apologies (or maybe that should be "grovel") - other than that, you have made a racist attack on millions of people - it doesn't come any more complicated than that either.
As far as your spurious claims on historians, every single one I have read holds Britain as culpable for the the Famine - not one has denied that their policies brought about millions of deaths - not one single one.
Not one has attempted to claim that; the closed workhouses and warehouses, the financial corruption surrounding famine relief, policy of exporting food out of starving Ireland, the mass evictions, the enforced emigrations; were not responsible for the million plus deaths and the depopulation of Ireland.
If you have an example of one historian denying any of this, please produce it - I have failed to find it.
What the vast majority have said is that Britain's culpability was due to callous indifference in putting the interests of The British Empire before before the lives of the Irish - all but one (a British historian based in Belfast) have claimed that this was an inhuman decision and that there were alternatives.
All this has been specifically stated by the people you have produced.
The only thing in dispute is whether or not this was a deliberate act aimed at the Irish - deliberate genocide.
As far as Britain's representative of Irish policy, Trevelyan, there is no question - he hated the Irish, he believed the Famine to be "God's retribution", and he urged a policy of 'emigrate or starve' - that is the policy Britain adopted - that is their culpability - it never becomes more complicated than that.
I haven't read enough to make up my mind one way or the other as to whether it was deliberate, or just Imperial profiteering, but it is one or the other - or maybe a mixture of both.   
You refuse to address the actions taken by the British government - you have been requested to do so several times.
You refuse even to acknowledge Trevelyan's advice to the British Government - you have been requested to do so several times.
Until you do both you have no case - one more time, it never becomes more complicated than that.
Have a good day
Jim Carroll