[BITList] The potato famine

[HUGH]

Frank,

The aftermath of the Irish potato famine was nothing less than a holocaust, but Adam Smith neither caused the famine nor the aftermath. The tendentious crap uttered by The Economist and others of that ilk was also applied to those affected by the famine in Scotland - it wasn't only Irish potatoes that were blighted. The effect was less in Scotland, given there wasn't the same dependence on the potato as a food, but great swathes of land were cleared of people, willing to move or not. I'm writing a piece on the history of the poor in our area, and from the preamble I offer this - (my underlining - the second paragraph was a footnote):

"The various Parliamentary reports from committees set up in the 1800s to study the problem of poverty in Scotland show a society in which the poor were seen by the decision makers as an alien, and sometimes inconvenient, race.  One report in 1841 concluded: "The Committee heard that between 45-80,000 people on the west coast of Scotland were considered surplus to the country's needs, and that £70,000 was needed in the winter of 1836-37 to feed and clothe them." It went on: "The Committee believed the best solution lay in mass emigration to Upper Canada with Government checks to stop the population increasing again." Another in 1841 gives a chilling picture   "In Canada careful planning was necessary as extra labour was only needed in the interior. Also some of the new immigrants would be old and sick or young, and of little use to the colony.

This "mass emigration" was part of what is now referred to as The Clearances.  A report in 1852 gave a graphic picture of what life was like for 1,681 poor who'd had emigration thrust on them.  "The emigration agent in Quebec reported that immigrants had arrived from South Uist in a very poor condition. They had been existing on the island by eating shellfish and seaweed collected from the rocks at low water before being sent to Canada; their passage had been paid by the proprietor, Colonel Gordon. Upon arriving at Quebec it was found that they had insufficient funds or food for travelling across Canada to their final destination. On the voyage from Scotland, the wife of the captain had spent her time organising the making of clothes for the emigrants. One man leaving the ship was found to have no other clothes than a woman's petticoat. The Quebec Emigration Agent was very scathing concerning some of the proprietors for sending out tenants unable to fend for themselves, and at a time of the year when no employment existed for them."

Hugh.

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