Senior, the Irish Poor Law and the Famine
A few months after he was called to the Bar, Senior made a tour through Scotland and Ireland. In the latter, he travelled from Belfast to Wexford and was shocked by the economic and social conditions he saw.
The problem of poor relief in Ireland in the early years of the nineteenth century was considerable and assistance was almost entirely based on private charity. An Act passed in 1772 proposed the setting up of corporations with the responsibility of poor relief with funds raised from lands and estates. Funding was difficult and the scheme was only partially successful especially outside the cities (see Cousins 2013). The issue came to the fore after the end of the Napoleonic Wars with the partial famine in Ireland in 1817. There was some discussion about poor relief at this time but the real public debate did not begin until after 1828 (see Black 1960: 89-90).In 1830, the Whigs took office and in 1831 Lord Howick suggested to Senior that he examine the question of the advisability of enacting legislation for compulsory relief of the poor (Poor Laws) in Ireland. As a result, Senior wrote A Letter to Howick in July 1831 dealing with the matter and in it the role of government is seen in a different light (Senior 1831). Senior began by asserting that evidence from earlier reports indicated that a large proportion of the inhabitants of Ireland were in a state of habitual privation and subject occasionally to severe distress. Senior was opposed to the introduction of the Poor Law in Ireland on the grounds of the existing conditions, not on principle. The Law had been introduced in England to assist the poor affected by the accidents and contingencies of life, not to raise the general standard of living, which is what was required in Ireland. While Senior was sympathetic to the poverty of the able-bodied due to illness or crop failure, he was against the use of allowances which, under the English Poor Law, had created the greatest difficulties.
Senior maintained that the effects of the Old Poor Law in England had been bad enough, but to introduce them to Ireland would be worse. The fundamental problem was the deep poverty of the labouring population; the introduction of the English system would have no impact on this while bringing with it a host of other difficulties.Senior further argued that the wages fund was the result of workers' industry and is ‘in a great measure proportioned to it' (ibid.: 52). If effort is reduced so will be the wages fund while the number to be maintained by it grows. Senior went on to outline a series of proposals the aim of which was enlarging the wages fund and lowering the number of claimants. The specific measures were the building of roads, railways, harbours, docks and canals; the draining of bogs; and the reclamation of waste. The principal aim was not to provide employment directly but to increase the productive capacity of the country so that the workforce would be more productive, although employment would also be created in the process. In addition, Senior advocated emigration to reduce the size of the population in order to take pressure off the wages fund while it was being regenerated. He realised that these measures would not solve Ireland's problems quickly, but the aim was to break the vicious circle of poverty. Fundamentally, Senior was, unlike Malthus, an optimist who believed that continuous progress was possible.
In 1833, after the passage of the Great Reform Act in 1832 and the debate on the Poor Law in England from the same year onwards, pressure grew for some official consideration of the introduction of a Poor Law in Ireland. A commission was established in 1833 with Archbishop Whately in the chair. The final report did not appear until 1836 and in it Whately and his colleagues rejected the idea of following the New Poor Law in England, preferring to rely on emigration to relieve the labour market and public works to promote employment. Russell, at that time Home Secretary, was not entirely convinced by the Report and consulted Senior who was broadly sympathetic given that the new document resembled his earlier report in 1831.
However, there was significant support for the workhouse system to be introduced and pressure from England to do something to reduce the possibility of increasing numbers of Irish migrants into England. George Nicholls, formerly a member of the Poor Law Commission in England, put forward a set of proposals in January 1836, recommending the adoption of the New Poor Law system in Ireland. After an investigatory tour of Ireland, Nicholls submitted another report to Russell urging the building of workhouses but removing any possibility of outdoor relief. Russell introduced a Bill based on that report in February 1837 and, after some delay, the Irish Poor Law Act based on the Bill was passed in July 1838. Commenting later in 1846, Senior was very positive about the 1838 legislation, arguing that it was a system of legal charity carefully restricted.In the winter of 1845-1846, there was a failure of the potato crop in Ireland which was seen as a temporary problem. As Black argued, there was nothing in the 1838 Act that considered even the possibility of a partial famine let alone the calamity which was to come. However, previous experience with famines had established an ad hoc policy relief via public works plus private charity; action along these lines was now deemed to be urgent (see Black 1960: 112-113). There was no suggestion that relief should be given via the Poor Law. In this context, Senior wrote a somewhat extraordinary note to the Comptroller General of the Exchequer Lord Monteagle on 14 th November 1845 once again arguing for public expenditure:
A portion of the Irish population must be considered to be an army to be fed and employed—and fortunately the means of employing them are ready. We need not dig holes and fill them in again or look out for public works. The railways are ready. Could not Government contract for finishing certain lines, and be entitled to participate in the profits (ibid.: 113, fn. 4; italics added) (Senior to Monteagle, 14 November 1845, Monteagle Papers, National Library of Ireland; italics added).
The government did not carry out Senior's proposal, although had they done so immediately there could have been benefits (see Black 1960: 189-202). Peel did however did introduce a system of public works and in November 1845 authorised the purchase of £100,000 of Indian corn by the Treasury to be sold at low prices at depots in Ireland so that those on low wages from public works could be provided for.
The Whigs came into power at the end of June 1846 and maintained Peel's policy until the corn ran out at the end of the year. In the winter of 1846-1847, the crop failed very seriously. Russell's policy was that public works were to be maintained and food was to be supplied by private dealers. The result was rising prices and an inability of the poor to purchase an adequate diet leading to starvation and disease which produced widespread mortality. The idea of the Irish Poor Law being extended to become the main channel of relief was gaining some traction. George Julius Poulett Scrope MP wrote a number of letters to Russell in May 1846 (see Scrope 1846: 3-91). In the series of seven letters, he argued that the Poor Law should be extended to all destitute persons and that relief need not necessarily be provided in the workhouse. There should also be a programme of public works focusing on the reclamation and reallocation of wastelands. Senior argued strongly against this in an article in the Edinburgh Review in October 1846 claiming that it would necessitate the levying of rates which would put an end to all private schemes of employment (see Senior 1846b: 267-314). As Black pointed out, the 1846 article was at odds with Senior's attitude in his earlier letter to Lord Howick and his correspondence with Monteagle (see Black 1960: 123).
The situation which Senior had foreseen subsequently came about when from the autumn of 1847 the whole burden of relief was placed on the ratepayer under the Poor Law Extension Act. Use was made of the “quarter-acre clause” which prevented any person holding more than a quarter of an acre of land from claiming relief until he gave up the land; this was a powerful force for the process of clearance.
The workhouses were full to capacity by the summer of 1847 and resort to outdoor relief increased. The potato harvest was poor again in 1848 and by 1849 there were 215,000 people in the workhouses and 769,000 on outdoor relief (see ibid.: 120-133). Senior wrote another article in the Edinburgh Review in October 1849, reviewing the events of 1847 and 1848. He was very pessimistic about the situation and feared that ‘if we allow the cancer of pauperism to complete the destruction of Ireland, and then throw fresh venom into the already predisposed body of England, the ruin of all that makes England worth living in is only a question of time' (Senior 1849: 268).In 1861, Senior wrote a preface to Journals, Conversations and Essays Relating to Ireland, which was in fact published posthumously in 1868. He took the opportunity to review his role in the events that had taken place in Ireland, stating that:
A Poor Law has been introduced—I believe the best which any country has ever adopted.. In 1831, when I first wrote on Irish affairs, no Poor Law was known, except the unreformed Scotch Poor Law and the unreformed English one. I firmly believe, that if a Poor Law, on the English or on the Scotch system, had been introduced into Ireland in 1832—and one of those models would certainly have been adopted—the ruin which I predicted would have followed (Senior 1868: x-xiv).
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