1 - The sources of financial and political instability

Summary

I acted as Chairman of the great London Committee in connection with the Irish Famine … And when afterwards we looked back … more harm than good had resulted from our interference.

Overstone to Merivale (civil servant at India Office) January 1874(?) (copy).

The background in Ireland to the Irish famine has been copiously described by many able historians. However, the political and economic background to the decisions made by politicians in Britain in relation to the famine has been neglected, in favour of religious and cultural explanations, in particular those relating to the grip of providentialism on policymakers. This approach – which has provided many interesting and valuable insights in recent decades – has nevertheless obscured the role that political and financial instability played in determining events. This chapter introduces the background to how these insecurities arose in the 1840s and explains why they need to be understood by historians to create a more complete picture of public policy during the famine.

During the famine, the Parliamentary system reached a stalemate position in which theoretically, on a party basis, Irish MPs held the balance of power in deciding what legislation was passed. Therefore, in theory, no legislation should have been passed that harmed Ireland where there was discord between the parties. Of course, in practice, the position was far more complex because of the extent to which parties were divided between and within themselves.

Political instability had reached its summit in the 1840s from its roots in the 1830s. The Reform Act of 1832 still had not brought the vote to most working men (let alone women). Although it may seem by today’s standards modest in its consequences, in its own period the Act ‘could scarcely have caused a more drastic alteration in England’s political fabric’, in the words of John A. Phillips and Charles Wetherell. The old party system was quickly destroyed and reshaped. Politicians became more partisan, and the articulation of ideas became more important in their campaigning.

The new party system that arose in stages between the 1830s and the 1850s was thus not a more stable one. Parties split into factions, and their members of Parliament often refused to vote along party lines.