The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-12-23
IRELAND sCOURGED BY FREE
TRAnE

prospered there was only one Irish in
dustry that was protected. That was
agriculture. When Irish manufacturers
disappeared in consequence of English
competition, there was nothing left for
the Irish people to do but till the land
for living. England was the great
market for the products of Irish farms,
and that was protected market for
many years after Ireland had witnessed
the destruction of her manufactures.
The natural fertility of her soil made
ireland the great storehouse from which
England drew the larger part of her food
supplies When the Irish farmer sent
the products of his farm to the English
market, he did not find there cOmpeti
tors from all parts of Europe, as the
Corn Laws that were in force before the
advent of Free Trade protected Irish ag
rculture from destructive competition.
The time came, however, when the last
vestige of protection was wiped out.
The British manufacturers wanted cheap
raw material and cheap food to prepare
the way for making England the work
shop of the World. There was NO
thought of the effect the abolition of the
Corn Laws would have upon Ireland,
That country had seen her wooden, hNr
carpet, her blanket, her silk, her calico,
her flannel, her stocking and many other
manufactures destroyed by Free Trade
with England, and now she was on the
point of seeing her agricultural interests
receive a disastrous blow from Free
Trade with the whole World.
Isaac Butt, in a speech delivered April
both, 1851, before the National Associa-
ton for the Protection of Industry
throughout the British Empire" gives
graphic picture of the suffering entailed
on ireland by the Free Trade experiment
of 1916. A report of the speech will be
found in the London Times of April 30th
1851, page seven. The following ex-
tracts from that report we commend to
the careful reading of those Irish-Ameri-
cans who may feel tempted to vote at
future elections for the party of Free
Trade. Here is Isaac Butts description
of the penalty Ireland had to pay for the
Free Trade experiment:
81 have said that Ireland had suffered
more than any other part of the British
dominions from Free Trade.
have seen judges ordering the lowest
diet in the jails that could sustain exist
ence, because it was proved that crime
was committed in order thas the prisoner
might obtain the prison allowance and
thereby escape the suffering which had
been brought on by Free Trade"
Let us try and get this picture well
fixed in our minds. Here were men of
our race and our blood willing and anx-
ious to work, but shut out from work by
the operation of the Free Trade system,
and in their dire necessity committing
petty offences against the law in order
that they might, to quote the words of
Isaac Butt, obtain the prison allow
ance and thereby escape the suffering
which had been brought on by Free
Trade"
In the course of his speech, Isaac Butt
gives the reason why lriShmen were
forced to seek prison fare to save them
selves from starvation. The blow struck
at Irish agriculture by Free Trade de-
stroyed field after field as elfectually as
ii they had been wiped out by an earth
quake. Here is Isaac Butts story of
how it was done:
in 1916 there were cultivated 1000,
600 acres of wheat; in 1S4S the number
of acres had fallen exactly one-half, viz:
100000 acres. l have seen the returns
made by eight relieving officers to the
Chalrman'of the BOARD of Guardiansas to
the growth of wheat last year US5O) in a
union in the South of Ireland-ome of
the best wheat growing parts of Ireland
and the result showed that in the first
two years of the Free Trade system the
cultivation of wheat in that favored To-
cality had fallen away one-half, and that
in the second two years (from 1S4S to
1850, it had diminished one-half from
that"
The depopulation of Ireland vas the
natural result of this curtailment of the
only Industry Free Trade with England
had left to the Irish people. Thousands
driven by despair, fed from the land of
their love to begin life over in strange
land. The horrors of this forced exodus
have been described Ovor and over
again. There are thousands of Irish
men in the United States to-day who
have vivid recollection of these first
fruits of Free Trade in Ireland. Their
story of what they have seen with their
own eyes would, if it appeared in print,
be the most damning Indictment of the
economical system that they and their
sons were asked to endorse at the ballot
box on the Sth of November.
The rapidity with which Ireland was
depOpulated under the workings of this
system is thus described by Isaac Butt:
SIN about two years no less than 230,-
600 small farms, persons holding about
thirty acres, had disappeared from that
country Qreland) under this system of
Free Trade. The agriculturists in
Ireland were either exterminated or be-
ing eXtei minated. Let them look at the
emigration tables. In 1915 1.-THE year be-
fore Free Trade went into effeot), the en-
tire amount of the emigration from the
United Kingdom was 10000. In 1849 it
had risen to POS, 498, and why? Persons
who had thus left their country were not
led 10y hope, but driven out by despair"
About a month after Isaac Butt de-
livered this speech the London Times
special correspondent at Dublin supplied
cOnfirmatory proof that he had not ex-
aggerated the effects of Free Trade so
far as Ireland was concerned. In this
issue of May Goth, 1851, the London
Times published letter from this core.
spondent in which he refers to the
scarcity of able-bodied laborers through
out Ireland. lie quotes from the Lin
erick Reporter to show how the Celt, as
the London Times once put it, was $50
ing with a vengence." Here is the ex-
tract from the Limerick Reporter:
'ln the neighborhood Of Gort there
are no labOrers. In one night about
three weeks ago, no less than 120 persons
left the estate of LOughcooter and pro-
ceeded to Limerick, Galway and other
parts to take shipping for America. In
the once popular village of ToOmevara,
levelled to the ground this time, two
under the superintendent of a person
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