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Famine - Factors Shaping the British Government's Response - Coggle…
Famine - Factors Shaping the British Government's Response
Orthodox economic beliefs: lassiez faire
Ideas were strongly supported by British politicians
Idea of a 'political economy'
Little state intervention as it would 'undermine market prices'
Free trade economic theory of the 1840s
'it is no mans business to provide for another' - James Wilson (founder of the Economist')
Associated with the government's ministers Nassau Senior and Charles Trevelyan who was a strong influence under Russell
Malthusian ideas
Thomas Malthus 'An Essay on the Principle of population' 1978
He argued population growth often exceed growth in food productions
Extensive relief to the Irish population might exacerbate the problem
Reinforced principle that the government should avoid direct interventions
Aim to let the market forces regulate population resource distribution
Modernisation of the Irish Economy
Many in Britain saw famine as an oppotunity to modernise the Irish economy
Reorganisation of land was good as they though large scale capitalist farming on the English model could be efficient
There was economic necessity of evictions
Brough new breed of more efficient entrepreneurial capitalit landowners
British welcomed bankruptcy of Irish landlords
Religious beliefs
Moralism follows providentialism that the Irish suffered a moral deficiency
Infused with evangelical piety
Providentialism and moralism was embraced by the Whigs
Providentialism was the belief that human affair are regulated by divine agents (evangelical protestants)
Financial crisis
Raised interest restricting credit
Created fiscal and ideological environment hindering relief
Stained financial institutions and investors
Capital was tied up in long run with no immediate returns
'railway mania' led to the crisis
Anti-Irish prejudice
Upsurge of agrarian violence in late 1847
Repetition of 1948 further convinced British they were 'too generous'
Radical stereotypes portrayed them as inferior and backwards
Assertions that the Irish were lazy, prone to overpopulation and incapable of self-sufficiency