the British people to send assistance to Ireland, the editors of
The Economist
wrote, “appears like calling on us to unlearn the first rules of arithmetic, and do our sums by the assertion that two and two make five.” 13 Within seventy years of its publication, Adam Smith’s theory of monetary society had attained the status of scientific—indeed, mathematical—truth.
Since virtually every official and politician dealing with Ireland was a devoted acolyte of these doctrines, they dictated British policy. Sir Robert Peel managed to have Parliament authorise a lone consignment of £100,000-worth of American maize before his government collapsed and with it any further hope of significant relief. The consequences of this inaction were catastrophic. Throughout the winter of 1845 and the spring of 1846 there was famine on a scale unprecedented in Ireland’s history. By the summer of 1846 large bands of the poor were to be found roaming the countryside, living off weeds and nettles. The country was close to a breakdown of civil order: military rule was installed in all but name. Yet worse was to come. In August, to universal horror, the potato crop failed for a second year. None of this was secret; all of it was widely and vividly reported—on 2 September, a leader-writer in
The Times
of London described the situation simply but clearly as “total annihilation.” 14
Incredibly, the policy debate in London continued at the level of abstract principles. Smith and his followers had proved that interferencewith the natural operation of monetary society can only be bad: it was essential not to heed the siren song of those calling for government intervention. “We have no knowledge of any theoretical or scientific deduction whatever, so amply confirmed as this of Smith,” thundered the editors of
The Economist
on 2 January 1847. Morality had nothing to do with it: it would be a travesty of reason itself if the government were to “turn back to the old discredited principles of interference, and adopt practices the most unscientific and the most decried.” 15 This editorial was published less than a fortnight after the following account of conditions in the district of Skibbereen had been submitted in desperation by Nicholas Cummins, a magistrate of Cork, to the Duke of Wellington, and published in
The Times
:
My Lord Duke, Without apology or preface, I presume so far to trespass on your Grace as to state to you, and by the use of your illustrious name, to present to the British public the following statement of what I have myself seen within the last three days … I was surprised to find the wretched hamlet apparently deserted. I entered some of the hovels to ascertain the cause, and the scenes which presented themselves were such as no tongue or pen can convey the slightest idea of. In the first, six famished and ghastly skeletons, to all appearances dead, were huddled in a corner on some filthy straw. I approached with horror, and found by a low moaning that they were still alive—they were in fever, four children, a woman, and what had once been a man. It is impossible to go through the detail … The same morning the police opened a house on the adjoining lands, which was observed shut for many days, and two frozen corpses were found, lying on the mud floor, half devoured by rats … A mother, herself in a fever, was seen the same day to drag out the corpse of her child, a girl about twelve, perfectly naked, and leave it half covered with stones. In another house, within 500 yards of the cavalry station at Skibbereen, the dispensary doctor found seven wretches lying unable to move, under the same cloak. One had been dead many hours, but the others were unable to move either themselves or the corpse. 16
There could be no more searing indictment of a mistaken policy and of the terrible intellectual error that had led sensible and humane people to persevere with it unquestioningly. And unlikely as it may at
The Economist
wrote, “appears like calling on us to unlearn the first rules of arithmetic, and do our sums by the assertion that two and two make five.” 13 Within seventy years of its publication, Adam Smith’s theory of monetary society had attained the status of scientific—indeed, mathematical—truth.
Since virtually every official and politician dealing with Ireland was a devoted acolyte of these doctrines, they dictated British policy. Sir Robert Peel managed to have Parliament authorise a lone consignment of £100,000-worth of American maize before his government collapsed and with it any further hope of significant relief. The consequences of this inaction were catastrophic. Throughout the winter of 1845 and the spring of 1846 there was famine on a scale unprecedented in Ireland’s history. By the summer of 1846 large bands of the poor were to be found roaming the countryside, living off weeds and nettles. The country was close to a breakdown of civil order: military rule was installed in all but name. Yet worse was to come. In August, to universal horror, the potato crop failed for a second year. None of this was secret; all of it was widely and vividly reported—on 2 September, a leader-writer in
The Times
of London described the situation simply but clearly as “total annihilation.” 14
Incredibly, the policy debate in London continued at the level of abstract principles. Smith and his followers had proved that interferencewith the natural operation of monetary society can only be bad: it was essential not to heed the siren song of those calling for government intervention. “We have no knowledge of any theoretical or scientific deduction whatever, so amply confirmed as this of Smith,” thundered the editors of
The Economist
on 2 January 1847. Morality had nothing to do with it: it would be a travesty of reason itself if the government were to “turn back to the old discredited principles of interference, and adopt practices the most unscientific and the most decried.” 15 This editorial was published less than a fortnight after the following account of conditions in the district of Skibbereen had been submitted in desperation by Nicholas Cummins, a magistrate of Cork, to the Duke of Wellington, and published in
The Times
:
My Lord Duke, Without apology or preface, I presume so far to trespass on your Grace as to state to you, and by the use of your illustrious name, to present to the British public the following statement of what I have myself seen within the last three days … I was surprised to find the wretched hamlet apparently deserted. I entered some of the hovels to ascertain the cause, and the scenes which presented themselves were such as no tongue or pen can convey the slightest idea of. In the first, six famished and ghastly skeletons, to all appearances dead, were huddled in a corner on some filthy straw. I approached with horror, and found by a low moaning that they were still alive—they were in fever, four children, a woman, and what had once been a man. It is impossible to go through the detail … The same morning the police opened a house on the adjoining lands, which was observed shut for many days, and two frozen corpses were found, lying on the mud floor, half devoured by rats … A mother, herself in a fever, was seen the same day to drag out the corpse of her child, a girl about twelve, perfectly naked, and leave it half covered with stones. In another house, within 500 yards of the cavalry station at Skibbereen, the dispensary doctor found seven wretches lying unable to move, under the same cloak. One had been dead many hours, but the others were unable to move either themselves or the corpse. 16
There could be no more searing indictment of a mistaken policy and of the terrible intellectual error that had led sensible and humane people to persevere with it unquestioningly. And unlikely as it may at
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