English genocide in Ireland?

Slavery wasn't a crime then. Everyone enthusiastically supported it, including the African chiefs who unloaded their unwanted prisoners. Took the British to stop it no-one else was interested. The campaign against slavery was started on moral grounds.

Your last innuendo is irrelevant unless you can explain yourself.

Edited by Peteratwar - 21-May-2009 at 13:37

I am not defending mankind of its crimes. Everybody "knows" the China wall was made on human bones, Mongolians killed probably more people than the Holocaust, the crimes of Stalin, and all the crimes of Spaniards are well documented; I also know about Rwanda and Cambodia. For blaming, everyone should be ashamed.

Edited by pinguin - 21-May-2009 at 15:10

I don't know what to make of this anymore. Close it down please, this thread is an embaressment.

I came into this thread questioning whether giving equality with English local government to the Irish in the mid to late 1800s would have prevented the separatist demands and the partition that resulted. My interest is in Passmore Edwards, a radical liberal MP from 1880 to 1885 who opposed Home Rule, because he didn't want the British Empire to be broken up, but did want to see "equality" between England and Ireland. In the 1840s he was lecturing on Temperance issues as well and was a supporter of Father Mathew. In a lecture he gave in Warrington, Cheshire, in 1847, he said "Whilst so many men were starving and dying in Ireland and Scotland and in England, for want, other men were destroying in the process of brewing and distilling the very food which was in such need. There was enough food destroyed to feed all the starving Irish and Scots. There were nearly 8 million quarts of corn so destroyed last year and this was the chief reason why prices were now so high." I reckon that 8 million quarts would be about 10,000 tonnes. Not enough to feed the millions that were starving but enough to effect grain prices as he indicated?

So in the height of the Potato Famine they knew that years later there would be Land Wars? How? 

Yes, those destroyed their economic situation--much deserved in my book not too surprisingly. But how did that mean that they hadn't benefited from crop failures and starvation that took place TWENTY or more years before between 1840s and 1850s during the Great Famine.

They profited in the meantime and had no way of knowing what later events would be (even though they were an outgrowth but it was an unforeseen one). So I'll say the same thing about your argument, Parnell. That might be make sense if they had known they their economy would later be destroyed but they didn't.

And you are also ignoring the fact that mass evictions took their toll as well.  These weren't done because the landowners DIDN'T want grazing land. You know that the Gregory Clause was passed specifically as an estate-clearing device. Even relatively pro-English historians admit they see an agenda in the handling of the Famine by the British Government.

I understand resentment at the use of the word genocide but when a government deliberately decides that letting people starve to death is their best policy and a country is depopulated because of it, I am seriously hard-pressed to find another word for it.
 

Originally posted by Parnell Your post would make sense JRScotia, if the landlord class actually had of benefited from the famine. But they didn't, they went into a long decline as a result of it. The Land War of the 1870s and 1880s completely destroyed their economic situation. No landlord actually benefited from the death and emigration of over 2 million people.

Edited by JRScotia - 24-May-2009 at 03:05

Originally posted by JRScotia So in the height of the Potato Famine they knew that years later there would be Land Wars? How?  Yes, those destroyed their economic situation--much deserved in my book not too surprisingly. But how did that mean that they hadn't benefited from crop failures and starvation that took place TWENTY or more years before between 1840s and 1850s during the Great Famine. They profited in the meantime and had no way of knowing what later events would be (even though they were an outgrowth but it was an unforeseen one). So I'll say the same thing about your argument, Parnell. That might be make sense if they had known they their economy would later be destroyed but they didn't. And you are also ignoring the fact that mass evictions took their toll as well.  These weren't done because the landowners DIDN'T want grazing land. You know that the Gregory Clause was passed specifically as an estate-clearing device. Even relatively pro-English historians admit they see an agenda in the handling of the Famine by the British Government. I understand resentment at the use of the word genocide but when a government deliberately decides that letting people starve to death is their best policy and a country is depopulated because of it, I am seriously hard-pressed to find another word for it.

Edited by pinguin - 24-May-2009 at 15:11

Parnell's right. I can't believe this is still going on. Do people really think that early Victorian Britain was some kind of totalitarian dictatorship?

So only a totalitarian dictatorship was capable of passing and enforcing the Poor Laws including the Gregory Clause?

I simply thought it was an example of a government taking advantage of people's suffering for the profit of large landowners many of whom were the ones passing the legislation, needless to say.

Edit: *sigh* deleting sarcasm

This really has been discussed to death. Those of us who think that the English (sorry I can't say British in this case)  government deliberately let this happen won't be persuaded otherwise. I am convinced there is ample evidence. Those of you who think the opposite will say the same thing and I suspect we will continue to each declare the others' sources to be biased or simply wrong.

Originally posted by gcle2003 Parnell's right. I can't believe this is still going on. Do people really think that early Victorian Britain was some kind of totalitarian dictatorship?

Edited by JRScotia - 26-May-2009 at 09:46

Originally posted by drgonzaga Now, now, Parnell...it is for certain that some people in London did blame the government. Here is an excerpt from the Illustrated London News of 15 December 1849:

Which is a fine example of my point that you refuse to look at sources that show you're wrong. How can you continue claims of ignorance on the part of the government? (And bringing in an argument like Katrina is a mere attempt at distraction--very poor debating technique)

Political or not, you cannot say that the government involved in such a debate didn't KNOW what was happening and that their policies were making the situation worse. Yes, to respond to your post that followed: continuing Poor Laws that forced the poor off the land and prevented those in Poor Houses from even being allowed to raise food (no productive work remember)  knowingly LET people starve to death.

I could see if they enacted those laws and a short time later rescinded them that being an argument. But instead, they continued those policies year after year, so people starving was either the intended result or at least that they didn't CARE that that was the result. They couldn't plead ignorance.

Yes, they changed the Corn Laws. However, that was in 1846 at the START of the Famine. They had years to change other policies and didn't do so.

So enlighten me please:

How did they not know that their policies were causing people to starve to death?

How many people starved WHILE in Poor Houses? There was so much more--Trevelyan's acts (or lack of them), the questions about the grain that was supplied and not replenished, etc. but I just don't even want to think about people who could do such things.

How about an administrator like Trevelyan who wouldn't even go to Ireland because it might cause him to want to DO something for the thousands after thousands of people who were starving? Damn it, he KNEW what the results of his actions were and just didn't want to see them.

If it had been a ONE year or even a TWO year disaster, I could buy your argument. How in God's name can you say this going on for year after year with no change in policy wasn't deliberate? *sigh* You claim to "enlighten" but haven't shown a thing except insisting that policies that they continued while deaths in Ireland INCREASED didn't count because they were only "political".

Believing in their policies doesn't absolve them from guilt any more than Hilter or Stalin. THEY believed in their policies, too. (Ok, I see you having a hissy-fit on the extremely harsh comparison and not a great comparison since their killings were active rather than passive. But I have to repeat my point: Believing in a policy does NOT absolve you from the RESULTS of the policy--not when you know the results and have ample opportunity to change it)

Edit: Why I refuse to call the actions "British" is because legally the victims were "British" even though they certainly weren't treated like it. Thus, calling the actions or lack of actions "British" in effects blames the victims and I refuse to do so. I admit this is a purely emotional reaction, but it's something that I absolutely will not do. These people were NOT at fault in the horrible conditions and fate they endured.

With great effort I'll not refer to any current political issues except to say:

Saor Alba! 

Originally posted by gcle2003 Originally posted by drgonzaga Now, now, Parnell...it is for certain that some people in London did blame the government. Here is an excerpt from the Illustrated London News of 15 December 1849: It's already been pointed out that there was a great deal of opposition to the government in Britain, though your quote illustrates the point appropriately.   The government switched between Peel's conservative one to Russell's Whig/Liberal one shortly after the start of the famine. Conservatives thought the government should interfere in the economy, Liberals didn't. So the former accused the latter of heartlessness. All part of the ongoing political process.   Like Democrats accusing Republicans of using Katrina to help get rid of racial minorities in New Orleans.

Edited by JRScotia - 27-May-2009 at 15:50