490
Chapter 25
In fact the misery of Ireland is again the topic of the day in England. At the end of 1866 and the
beginning of 1867, one of the Irish land magnates, Lord Dufferin, set about its solution in The
Times. “Wie menschlich von solch grossem Herrn!”
From Table E. we saw that, during 1864, of £4,368,610 of total profits, three surplus-value
makers pocketed only £262,819; that in 1865, however, out of £4,669,979 total profits, the same
three virtuosi of “abstinence” pocketed £274,528; in 1864, 26 surplus-value makers reached to
£646,377; in 1865, 28 surplus-value makers reached to £736,448; in 1864, 121 surplus-value
makers, £1,076,912; in 1865, 150 surplus-value makers, £1,320,906; in 1864, 1,131 surplus-value
makers £2,150,818, nearly half of the total annual profit; in 1865, 1,194 surplus-value makers,
£2,418,833, more than half of the total annual profit. But the lion’s share, which an inconceivably
small number of land magnates in England, Scotland and Ireland swallow up of the yearly
national rental, is so monstrous that the wisdom of the English State does not think fit to afford
the same statistical materials about the distribution of rents as about the distribution of profits.
Lord Dufferin is one of those land magnates. That rent-rolls and profits can ever be “excessive,”
or that their plethora is in any way connected with plethora of the people’s misery is, of course,
an idea as “disreputable” as “unsound.” He keeps to facts. The fact is that, as the Irish population
diminishes, the Irish rent-rolls swell; that depopulation benefits the landlords, therefore also
benefits the soil, and, therefore, the people, that mere accessory of the soil. He declares, therefore,
that Ireland is still over-populated, and the stream of emigration still flows too lazily. To be
perfectly happy, Ireland must get rid of at least one-third of a million of labouring men. Let no
man imagine that this lord, poetic into the bargain, is a physician of the school of Sangrado, who
as often as he did not find his patient better, ordered phlebotomy and again phlebotomy, until the
patient lost his sickness at the same time as his blood. Lord Dufferin demands a new blood-letting
of one-third of a million only, instead of about two millions; in fact, without the getting rid of
these, the millennium in Erin is not to be. The proof is easily given.
NUMBER AND EXTENT OF FARMS IN IRELAND IN 1864
140
No.
Acres
(1) Farms not
over 1 acre.
48,653
25,394
(2) Farms over 1,
not over 5 acres.
82,037
288,916
(3) Farms over 5,
not over 15 acres.
176,368
1,836,310
(4) Farms over 15,
not over 30 acres.
136,578
3,051,343
(5) Farms over 30,
not over 50 acres.
71,961
2,906,274
(6) Farms over 50,
not over 100 acres.
54,247
3,983,880
(7) Farms over
100 acres.
31,927
8,227,807
(8) TOTAL AREA.
–
26,319,924
491
Chapter 25
Centralisation has from 1851 to 1861 destroyed principally farms of the first three categories,
under 1 and not over 15 acres. These above all must disappear. This gives 307,058
“supernumerary” farmers, and reckoning the families the low average of 4 persons, 1,228,232
persons. On the extravagant supposition that, after the agricultural revolution is complete one-
fourth of these are again absorbable, there remain for emigration 921,174 persons. Categories 4,
5, 6, of over 15 and not over 100 acres, are, as was known long since in England, too small for
capitalistic cultivation of corn, and for sheep-breeding are almost vanishing quantities. On the
same supposition as before, therefore, there are further 788,761 persons to emigrate; total,
1,709,532. And as l’appétit vient en mangeant, Rentroll’s eyes will soon discover that Ireland,
with 3½ millions, is still always miserable, and miserable because she is overpopulated.
Therefore her depopulation must go yet further, that thus she may fulfil her true destiny, that of
an English sheep-walk and cattle-pasture.”
141
Like all good things in this bad world, this profitable method has its drawbacks. With the
accumulation of rents in Ireland, the accumulation of the Irish in America keeps pace. The
Irishman, banished by sheep and ox, re-appears on the other side of the ocean as a Fenian, and
face to face with the old queen of the seas rises, threatening and more threatening, the young
giant Republic:
Acerba fata Romanos agunt
Scelusque fraternae necis.
[A cruel fate torments the Romans,
and the crime of fratricide]
1
Karl Marx, l. c., “A égalité d’oppression des masses, plus un pays a de prolétaires et plus il est
riche.” (Colins, “L’Economie Politique. Source des Révolutions et des Utopies, prétendues
Socialistes.” Paris, 1857, t. III., p. 331.) Our “prolétarian” is economically none other than the wage
labourer, who produces and increases capital, and is thrown out on the streets, as soon as he is
superfluous for the needs of aggrandisement of “Monsieur capital,” as Pecqueur calls this person.
“The sickly proletarian of the primitive forest,” is a pretty Roscherian fancy. The primitive forester is
owner of the primitive forest, and uses the primitive forest as his property with the freedom of an
orang-outang. He is not, therefore, a proletarian. This would only be the case, if the primitive forest
exploited him, instead of being exploited by him. As far as his health is concerned, such a man would
well bear comparison, not only with the modern proletarian, but also with the syphilitic and scrofulous
upper classes. But, no doubt, Herr Wilhelm Roscher, by “primitive forest” means his native heath of
Lüneburg.
2
John Bellers, l. c., p. 2.
3
Bernard de Mandeville: “The Fable of the Bees,” 5th edition, London, 1728. Remarks, pp. 212, 213,
328. “Temperate living and constant employment is the direct road, for the poor, to rational
happiness” [by which he most probably means long working days and little means of subsistence],
“and to riches and strength for the state” (viz., for the landlords, capitalists, and their political
dignitaries and agents). (“An Essay on Trade and Commerce,” London, 1770, p. 54.)
4
Eden should have asked, whose creatures then are “the civil institutions"? From his standpoint of
juridical illusion, he does not regard the law as a product of the material relations of production, but
conversely the relations of production as products of the law. Linguet overthrew Montesquieu’s
illusory “Esprit des lois” with one word: “ L’esprit des lois, c’est la propriété.” [The spirit of laws is
property]
5
Eden, l. c., Vol. 1, book I., chapter 1, pp. 1, 2, and preface, p. xx.