ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Nassau Senior, the Whig government, and the Great Irish Famine
Author: Furuya Hiroyuki
John Mitchel (1815–1875) argued in 1861 that Ireland “died of political economy”. For him, famine deaths and emigrations were consequences of British malevolence. Mitchel accused that “the Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine”. While the vast majority of historians of the Great Famine do not take seriously anymore the claim of a genocidal plot on the part of the British, the issue of Irish policy of the time remains controversial. As Mitchel’s words indicate, how did classical political economy, if ever, corrupt the Irish relief measures of the Whig administration at the time of the Great Famine with its laissez-faire policy? This paper aims at clarifying the relationship between the Whigs’ Irish policy and classical political economy, especially that of Nassau William Senior (1790–1864), which is often accused of utterly failing to prevent mass starvation in Ireland. Assessing the relationship and influence between classical political economy and the Irish policy of the Whig government during the Great Famine requires sorting out the complex web of ideas and motivations underlying relief policy and observing the frequently bitter and personalised disputes within governing circles over how to deal with the Irish crisis. It would be crucial not to oversimplify statesmen and mandarins in the Whig government’s planning and managing the relief measures, and classical political economists offering ideas and advising on policy, as one unified group of Whigs. Concerning the Irish relief measures, the theorisation in classical political economy, the refinement of it into a coherent economic policy, and the effective execution of it in the administrative sphere were distinctive processes that were totally different from each other. Mandarins were not always able to grasp precisely and practise effectively what classical political economy prescribed, or they did not necessarily intend to do so. The paper concludes that John Mitchel’s words were, favourably speaking, an overestimation of the influence of political economy, or putting it strongly, an undue accusation of it, and in normal terms, an exaggeration.
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