WI: Irish Potato Famine Becomes British Potato Famine

@Finbarr the Fair
I didn't really think you had either and I found your comments insightful and fairminded. However I do think that most people don't really understand how novel this situation was for the Government of the day and how unprecedented most of the measures they took were. It wasn't a question of the will to act not being there but the bureaucratic and logistical mechanisms not being present. No experience, no precedent, no lessons learned to fall back on. They buggered up quite a lot but they also learned quite a lot. So I suspect Cornwall or Cumbria might not have fared that much better. Kent or Hertfordshire might have galvanised greater activity but, in many ways, the problem was with directing aid efficiently rather than not recognising that it had to be directed. Don't know much about the 1890s Bengal famine but presumably again it was a learning experience? Alleviation or prevention of famine was reasonably decent in Edwardian and later British India up until 1943 (when the Government had a few other minor preoccupations). It is the rare government that gets things right the first time. And this was an era where they had only just started compiling the necessary statistics to inform their decisions. From our modern perspctive it is hard to appreciate the extent to which these Ministers and officials were groping in the dark (absolutely no reference to contemporary politics intended;)).
Thanks for response. IIRC from past study of the Empire, the 1890s Bengal Famine was worse than in Mughal times because the British officials did not take actions to force merchants to open storehouses. Nor did they cap prices. Both measures that had been used in earlier famines by the Mughals. So laissez faire ideology restricting actions I'll go back to my sources if you wish for further details.

Obviously the subject is an emotive one in Ireland and India so there have been exaggerations of British culpability in both cases. I'd say in Ireland the problems were structural but to a large extent caused by British rule. In Bengal it seems more unwilling to learn what worked earlier from native sources. So some blame in each case but (Trevelyan always excepted) not so much on persons but institutions.
 
It wasn't a question of the will to act not being there but the bureaucratic and logistical mechanisms not being present. No experience, no precedent, no lessons learned to fall back on.
Ahem.

On top of that, there'd been reports basically saying Ireland was always close to famine, in years past, but acting on them, oh, we can't do that.
 
It'd make it more accessible for them.

But the Potato famine isn't "the merchants are charging too much" it was "the harvest sucked"

Now as bad as the Irish Potatoes famine was, a lot of famers produced enough for themselves and family for a substance level eating. The harvests were "only" down 70% or something like that. The British government had a bright idea. "Go ask your landlords to not charge rent this year, that way you can feed your family."

I imagine the conversation went like this

Farmer "So we're starving. Can I not pay rent this year so my family doesn't..."

Landlord: "No"
 
But the Potato famine isn't "the merchants are charging too much" it was "the harvest sucked"
No, that was partially it.

The other issue was, past the first year, when you could potentially get food in shops, it was just priced out of range. First year, there was a supply of cheap maize the government had on hand, if price moved up too much, cheap stuff goes out, price drops.

Anyway, year passes, merchants bitch to London about not being able to charge their full price, IE, arm and leg price, London sends down memos, no more cheap maize.

This, as you can imagine, was not very popular to anyone IN Ireland who couldn't afford it.
 
First year, there was a supply of cheap maize the government had on hand, if price moved up too much, cheap stuff goes out, price drops.

But that's not a price cap, or at least not what the economists would consider a pure price ceiling. A pure ceiling would be a hard ban on high prices. Storing and releasing excess grain (adding supply) is a soft cap since any merchant dumb enough to price high isn't going to get sales (even if he bought the best quality grain, there isn't any way to sell high quality wheat at higher prices than passable quality wheat). The first policy doesn't add tot he supply the second does. In other words, the cap itself is irrelevant to solving a famine, using a storage to add supply can help
 
But that's not a price cap, or at least not what the economists would consider a pure price ceiling. A pure ceiling would be a hard ban on high prices. Storing and releasing excess grain (adding supply) is a soft cap since any merchant dumb enough to price high isn't going to get sales (even if he bought the best quality grain, there isn't any way to sell high quality wheat at higher prices than passable quality wheat). The first policy doesn't add tot he supply the second does. In other words, the cap itself is irrelevant to solving a famine, using a storage to add supply can help
*Shrugs*

I'm just saying what my book told me.
 
Ahem.

On top of that, there'd been reports basically saying Ireland was always close to famine, in years past, but acting on them, oh, we can't do that.

The famine of 1740 was a. over a century before and b. due to an extreme climatic event that saw Ireland get literally Artic weather for several years in a row. There were no lessons to be learned.

As for pre famine food shortages there was a great deal of debate across the UK of GB&I about the fact that frequently food was too expensive for the poorest to afford e.g. Oliver Twist and there was a great deal of debate about what to do about it. The fact that the Corn Laws remained points to the dominance of the rural gentry in Parliament and the fact that despite the Great Reform Act urban areas were underrepresented. Though before we get on our high horses the fact that Protectionism is still a major political force in a great many Democracies suggests not much has changed.
 
Anyway, year passes, merchants bitch to London about not being able to charge their full price, IE, arm and leg price, London sends down memos, no more cheap maize.

This, as you can imagine, was not very popular to anyone IN Ireland who couldn't afford it.

I don't know which book you read but that's simply not true. Throughout the famine charity and relief shipments of grain came into Ireland even during the Trevelyan period (he stopped the make work schemes). The issue as I've said above was that there was an economic collapse alongside and triggered by the Blight and the weather. The Blight meant instead of largely feeding themselves the Cottars had to buy all their food but the poor weather and Blight meant that commercial farmers were not hiring and in some cases not paying back wages. Now if the welfare system has been capable of stepping in it wouldn't have been a total disaster but unfortunately it couldn't, locally based it simply didn't have the scale to cope with the enormous expansion in demand. All of which left a large number of people with no money to buy food at any price and the Workhouses which ran soup kitchens simply didn't have the capacity to feed everyone.
 
Any recommendations?

Irish Freedom by Richard English is a very good history of Britain in Ireland and obviously touches very heavily on the Famine. There are a few other general Irish history books I'd recommend as well but most are good. The problem with so many Famine specific books is that they are exclusively about the Famine, whereas imho the details of what aid was available when and where aren't that relevant to understanding what happened, the broader historical context matters more, which you get best from a broader book.
 
If the subordinate pre-1800 Irish Parliament had still been around you would probably have got a much better government response.

Wait, wasn't that parliament dependent on the not-yet-powerless crown for authority and didn't it need crown support (which wasn't a guaranteed rubber stamp)?
 
Wait, wasn't that parliament dependent on the not-yet-powerless crown for authority and didn't it need crown support (which wasn't a guaranteed rubber stamp)?

Not really, pre 1800 the governance of Ireland was a three way cooperation between the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (a senior British politician), the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons (an Irish MP) and the Chief Secretary for Ireland (a British civil servant). Royal influence was actually lower than England because by 1800 Royal influence was mainly social and informal and that didn't translate well over distance. Though the Lord Lieutenant needed a more than pro forma Royal approval. It wasn't an ideal set up by any measure but the three key figures were all in Ireland with no non Irish responsibilities to distract them and the two British figures needed their time in Ireland to be a success if they were going to keep climbing the greasy pole at home.
 
But the Potato famine isn't "the merchants are charging too much" it was "the harvest sucked"

Now as bad as the Irish Potatoes famine was, a lot of famers produced enough for themselves and family for a substance level eating. The harvests were "only" down 70% or something like that. The British government had a bright idea. "Go ask your landlords to not charge rent this year, that way you can feed your family."

I imagine the conversation went like this

Farmer "So we're starving. Can I not pay rent this year so my family doesn't..."

Landlord: "No"

Yes, but when harvests suck, price goes up due to the same amount of demand and less supply. The smart thing to do is to increase supply and cut demand in a way that doesn't starve people. i.e. import more grain to Ireland and ban exports. In terms of Bengal, I also note that the commitment to laissez faire ideology didn't go as far as to breaking up the monopsonies buying up produce below the price of production.
 
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