Alexis de Tocqueville's journey in Ireland, July-August, 1835

Part One: Dublin, 6-18 July, 1835

Part One Dublin, 6-18 July, 1835 I Conversation between Mr. Senior and Mr. Revans, 7 June 1835.1 Mr. Revans is the secretary of the Irish "Poor Law" Commission. He is a very intelligent young man. He belongs to the radical party. S. To what do you principally attribute the poverty of Ireland? R. To a landlord system that profits from the intense competition of laborers [for land] to exact from the farmers an excessive rent. From the moment a farmer begins to make a profit, the landlord raises the price of the lease. The result is that the farmer is afraid to make improvements, for fear of being taxed by his master for a much higher sum than his improvement would be worth to him, and he confines himself strictly to subsisting. * • [This note and all the subsequent notes marked by asterisks are in the original manuscript and in Tocqueville's hand.] "This difficulty arises everywhere when the landlord and the farmer treat each other as strangers. But the evil is even greater with the system of large landlords." I. Though this conversation took place in London more than a month before Tocqueville visited Ireland, it has been placed here because it serves as a very useful introduction to a number of important themes and ideaspoverty , morality, justice, sectarianism, and the insecurity of property-that Tocqueville became very concerned with during his visit to Ireland. Nassau William Senior (1790-1864), classical economist and the first professor of political economy at Oxford, 1825-30, had been appointed in 1832 a member of the royal commission charged with inquiring into the administration and practical operation of the poor laws in England. The commission issued its report in 1834, and its recommendations provided the basis for the Poor Law Amendment Act, or the New Poor Law, in that same year. After Tocqueville's first visit to London in 1833, he and Senior became good friends and continued to correspond and visit until Tocqueville's death in 1859. John Revans had been appointed secretary in 1832 to the same royal 19 20 Dublin, 6-18 July, 1835 S. Do you think that a good poor law would by its nature diminish this evil?2 R. Yes, by diminishing the competition of laborers and by putting the common man in a position to lay down, up to a certain point, the law to the proprietor of the soil. S. Is the poverty as great as they say? R. The poverty is horrible. The people live only on potatoes, and often they lack them. S. The number of children is very great? R. Yes. It has been observed that the poorer they were the more children they had. They believe they have nothing more to fear. They marry in despair, and try to forget the future. S. What is the state of morality in Ireland? R. This requires a great deal of explanation ...1 There is not a people more gentle than the Irish when the moment of anger has passed. They forget offenses easily. They are very hospitable. There is not an Irishman so poor that he does not share his last potato with someone who is in need. Crimes are very rare among them except theft, which occurs only in order to subsist. They steal things that can be immediately eaten. There is the good side. Here is the bad: there is not a commission on the English poor laws on which Senior served. He was subsequently appointed secretary to the royal commission charged with inquiring into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland, which made the first of its three reports in 18.,5. Revans was, therefore, one of the best informed men in England about social conditions in Ireland. 2. Ireland, unlike England, had never had a comprehensive poor law, and for several years before Tocqueville's visit, a considerable debate had ensued about whether a systematic measure for the relief of the Irish poor was necessary. The chief opponent to a poor law for Ireland was Daniel O'Connell, who had emerged as the leader of the Irish people in his successful campaign for Catholic Emancipation during the r820S. O'Connell 's objections were less economic than religious and moral. He felt that compulsory almsgiving was inimical to that charity enjoined by Scripture as a Christian duty. 3. All the ellipses in this text are in...