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X. Preventing Another Black ’47: The Cork People’s Food Committee 1917–18 168 Food grown by the farmers of Ireland was the property of the Irish nation, and the Irish people had the first claim upon it. Diarmuid Fawsitt, People’s Food Committee, January 19181 Reflecting on his First World War leadership, David Lloyd George wrote, ‘The food question ultimately decided the issue of this war.’2 Though wartime Great Britain escaped the bread riots experienced by other combatants , a food shortage crisis emerged in Ireland during late 1917. Food scarcity stemmed largely from the German submarine blockade of Britain, the diversion of merchant shipping to transport American troops to France, North America’s poor 1916 harvest, and the British government’s ideological reluctance to intervene in the free market.3 In early 1917 Lloyd George’s new coalition ended government laissez-faire policy, introducing price regulations and a Food Controller. Rationing followed at the beginning of 1918. However, amid deteriorating food supplies in late 1917, fear grew that the shortages rocking continental Europe would reach Britain. Ultimately, the 1918 food deficits were made up by the introduction of the convoy system that helped defeat the submarine menace, increased domestic agriculture production, and (especially) economy measures in the production of flour and other grains that improved yields. Before Britain’s food crisis passed, it created near revolutionary conditions in Ireland just weeks prior to the conscription crisis. Cork residents had expressed concern about food supplies and prices since late 1915.4 In September 1915, the Cork Poor Law Guardians asked the Local Government Board to intervene to control local bread prices. The LGB refused, naively suggesting that Cork bakers would not ‘take advantage of the present crisis to make an exorbitant profit’.5 In January 1916, the Guardians requested an inquiry into inflated milk prices, but once again the LGB baulked.6 Two months later, the Guardians condemned excessive oat exports from Ireland, reminding government officials of the ‘cruel famine’ of 1846–8 and their duty ‘to protect the food of their subjects’.7 In November 1916, the Consumers’ League asked the corporation for price controls over milk, potato and coal supplies.8 The corporation declined, but requested government price regulations, ‘to keep want, if not actual starvation, from the homes of the poor this winter’.9 Complaining again of high prices at the beginning of 1917, the Cork Examiner wrote, ‘Acute distress does, in fact, exist in the city, and that distress can be attributed to the war’, while Poor Law Guardian Marie Lynch demanded action to prevent the urban poor, ‘slowly starving to sickness or to death’.10 During 1917 and 1918, numerous Cork public officials made pointed references to the possibility of a new famine striking Ireland. Seventy years after Black ’47, the Potato Famine remained a living memory that cast a shadow over Irish public life. Most of the population seemed to have accepted the orthodox nationalist interpretation of the calamity: that Ireland starved because the government allowed farmers to ship food out of the country. During three years of war, the Irish public experienced unsettling food shortages and read persistent newspaper accounts of wartime starvation in places like Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary.11 This seems to have raised anxiety among the population. Across the political spectrum, Irish leaders expressed concern about possible mass starvation. Though such warnings might be dismissed as panic or political opportunism, they were understandable in a country with a collective memory of catastrophic famine. While the Irish people quietly abided with poverty, illness, emigration and political violence, the threat of starvation could not be ignored. As the food situation worsened, Sinn Féin cries of ‘Never Again’ resounded across the country. ‘The Food Crisis’ Throughout 1917 Cork Corporation repeatedly debated measures to alleviate food shortages.12 A sense of crisis mounted during February 1917 after food price controls were introduced in Britain and Ireland, which led city grocers to immediately spike their prices. ‘This is unnecessary ,’ wrote the RIC county inspector, ‘and an unjustifiable increase of price of the necessities of life will press very hard on the poor who already have a hard struggle due to the high price of food.’13 The failure of local authorities to prevent food profiteering remained a potent political issue in Cork during 1917 and 1918.14 Facing what he called ‘The Food Crisis’, Lord Mayor T.C. Butterfield called a public meeting the same month (February 1917), attended by town councillors...

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