Remittances from North America by Irish Emigrants
Part XLIV April to November 1873 Page 280 IV.-On the Remittances from North America by Irish Emigrants, cosidered as an indication of character of the Irish race, and with references to some branches of the Irish Labourer's Question. By Dr. Hancock. [Read 18th November, 1873.] A quarter of a century has elapsed since the remittances from North America by the Irish settlers there first attracted attention. The late Mr. Robert Murray, a Scotch gentleman of great financial ability, who was so long chief officer in Ireland of the Provincial Bank, in a letter to the late Sir Robert Peel, which was published in January, 1847, first gave a detailed account of these remittances; he says:- "The remittances from Irish emigrants in America have been annually increasing for the last ten years [from 1837 to 1847] until they have attained their present number and amount. In referring to the appendix containing the particulars of the remittances that had come under his own observation, he says:- "These figures are large, powerfully large, in reading letters of instruction to the statesman and the philanthropist in dealing with a warm hearted-people for their good, and placing them in a position of comparitive comfort to that in which they now are." In another passage he says:- "These offerings are send (sent?) from husband to wife- from father to child-from child to father, mother and grand- parents-from sister to brother; and the reverse-and from and to those united by all the ties of blood and friendship that bind us together upon earth." The amount of remittances that so impressed Mr. Murray were those that came under his own notice in the Provincial Bank of Ireland in 1846-œ41,000-and he estimated the entire amount through all channels for one year as œ125,000. The New York correspondent of the Times estimated them at œ160,000. In the same month that Mr. Murray published his letter, Mr. Jacob Harvey of New York (the great promoter of the American contributions for the relief of distress in Ireland, that were entrusted to the Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends) addressed a letter to Mr. Jonathan Pim, one of the secretaries of that committee, dated 30th January, 1847, afterwards published in the transaction of the committee. From that letter it appears that he was as much impressed as Mr. Murray with the large amount of the remittances, and attached an equal importance to them as indications of the character of the people who sent them. He says:- "The small drafts remitted by our Irish emigrants became of importance, and I am glad to tell you that they are sent forward by every packet. Since I wrote last I have received returns of the whole amount sent home by those poor people out of their wages, from Philadelphia and Baltimore as well as New York, and the grand total sums up one million dollars or œ200,000." Such being the earliest accounts of these remittances, I will now proceed to give you the latest account. The Emigration Commissioners, in their 32nd report, for 1871, say:- "The amount returned to us, as remitted from the United States and Canada in 1871, was œ702,000, of which œ311,000 was in the form of pre paid passages.* * Assuming, as we believe to be the case that the above remittances were made almost exclusively bt Irish emigrants to their relations in Ireland.* * the amount remitted in the shape of pre-paid passages would have been sufficient to take out more than three- fourths of the whole. It is obvious that the total sum remitted was much more than was necessary to pay the passages of all the Irish that went last year to north America." In their 33rd and final report, before their duties were transferred to the Board of Trade, the Emigration Commissioners, speaking of the year 1872, say:- "The amount returned to us as remitted from the United States and Canada to persons in this country, during 1872, was œ750,000 of which œ302,000 was in the shape of 58,044 pre-paid passages from Liverpool. This return, however, is more than usually incomplete; some of the principal houses in Liverpool, who have hitherto supplied us with returns of the remittances though their hands, having declined on the present occasion to do so. Even however, with these deductions, it is clear that if the remittances are to be considered as made for Irish emigrants exclusively, they were far more than sufficient to take out the whole number of the Irish who emigrated last year." Assuming that the Emigration Commissioners included in their returns the balance of remittances in post- office orders-as we have every reason to think they must have done (as the money-order business with the colonies commenced as far back as 1856), and the greatest amount of colonial business was with Canada- I do not think the ommission of the returns of some of the Liverpool houses for 1872 really affects the figures, as there is great reason to suppose that the business of many houses must have been entirely replaced by the post-office money orders with the United States. The Postmaster-General in the report for 1871 (Par. Pap. 1872, C.645) states that the money order convention with the United States commenced on the 1st of October, 1871. In the first quarter the remittances from the United States was œ48,000, and to the United States œ11,000-showing a balance of œ37,000, or at the rate of œ148,000 a-year. For 1872 the Postmaster-General reports that the greatest amount of colonial business was still with Canada, where orders amounting to above œ100,000 were sent home against œ29,000 sent out, showing a balance remitted from Canada of œ71,000. Of foreign business of 1872 the Post Master General reported that the greatest amount was with the United States, from whence œ215,000 was received, and to which œ36,000 was sent; leaving a balance of œ179,000 remitted home. This makes the total emigrants' remittances protected by the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, in 1872 amount to at least œ250,000. If the Emigration Commissioners' estimate of the cash remittances (above the œ302,000 in pre- paid passages) be correct, viz œ448,000, it follows that the establishment of the money order system between this country and the United States has been so rapidly successful, as in a year and a-quarter, ended 31st December, 1872, to protect more than half the remittances. To the courtesy of Mr. Henry B. Hammond, the United States Consul in Dublin in the years 1861- 65, we, are indebted for having the subject of international money orders brought under the notice of the American government. When Mr. Monsell (our President) was appointed Post-General the council of this Society brought the subject of post-office orders with the United States under his notice, and the convention was completed by him. It is a matter of satisfaction to all those who have taken an active part in promoting this reform, to learn that it has so promptly succeeded in protecting the emigrants' remittances. In the present financial crisis in America, when thousands of American citizens travelling in Europe have suffered the most serious inconvenience, from their circular letters on American firms turning out worthless, it is a matter of no small importance to have secured for the Irish emigrant a means by which his remittances to whatever commercial crisis occurs, and be paid as certainly as the dividends on the funds of the United Kingdom, or as the coupon of a band of the United States. Having noticed the earliest and latest accounts of the remittances, I propose now to supply the intervening variations from the statistics of the Emigration Commissioners. To simplify the figures I take averages for five years-giving, however, the first three years and the last two years separately, so as not to interrupt the usual decennial division. Table showing Remittances from settlers in North America to their friends in the United Kingdom. 1846, Times Correspondent's estimate, Average Annual Amount. With œ40,000 added for Canada. œ200,000 1848-50, average of 3 years œ652,000 1851-55 5 years 1,287,000 1856-60 5 614,000 1861-65 5 386,000 1866-70 5 587,000 1871-72 2 726,000 The first matter to notice in this table is the very large amount of the remittances. Mr. Murray was surprised at his own estimate of œ125,000 in 1846, he lived to see them reach ten times that amount. The averages, for a period of five years, from 1851-1855, being œ1,287,000. In the years 1871-72 they have, after the fall in 1861-1865 to œ356,000, again risen to a higher figure-an average of œ726,000, or about six times Mr. Murray's estimate. In order, however, thoroughly to appreciate the largeness of the figures, we have to select some standard of comparison. For this purpose I will first compare the amount with what has been expended by the Irish Guardians of the Poor in aid of emigration out of local rates. Table showing amount expended on Emigration out of Irish Local Taxes. Years ended 25th March. Average Annual Amount 1851-55 average of five years, 17,000 1856-60 3,000 1861-65 2,000 1866-70 2,000 1871-72 2,000 It appears from the comparison of this table of remittances, that when the assistance from local taxes was at the highest point, in the five years 1851-55-œ17,000 a-year-the remittances varied from two hundred to three hundred and fifty times the assistance from local taxes. In order to get figures at all comparable with the emigrant's remittances we have to take such large figures as the whole of the expenditure on poor relief in Ireland. Taking the expenditure on relief of the poor, given in the last report of the Local Government Board for twenty-one years from 1852 to 1872 inclusive, it amounted to œ13,167,000. The emigrants' remittances for these twenty-one years were œ14,830000, or nearly a million and three- quarters above the entire expenditure on relief of the poor. If the expenditure under the Medical Charities Act, œ2,239,000, be added, the total sum expended on Medical Charities added to direct relief (œ15,406,000), on slightly exceeds the amount of the remittances. The extraordinary proportion of the remittances, as compared with the total expenditure on poor relief, is as true for the year 1872 as of the early years when Ireland was suffering from the effects of the famine. The total expenditure on relief of the poor in Ireland was in that year œ729,000, whilst the estimated remittances were œ750,000. We have to add the expenditure under the Medical Charities Act, œ142,000, to get a larger figure (œ871,000). It is impossible not to perceive what a gigantic social force these remittances are; whether we look at them as a characteristic of the Irish emigrants, who, according to the Emigration Commissioners alone make remittances in such amounts as to require notice, or whether we look at them as affecting many questions connected with the labouring classes in Ireland. Having got a definite conception of the absolute amount and importance of the remittances, it is necessary in the next place to notice the variations that have occurred in the amounts. The high average for 1851 to 1855 of œ1,287,000, was the result of the prosperity of the emigrants, as contrasted with the pressure of the famine, which affected the agricultural classes in Ireland, from poverty, arrears of rent, and of taxes for some years after 1848. The diminution in the amounts from 1861 to 1865, when the remittances reached a minimum, was entirely unconnected with anything in Ireland (as the years 1861, 1862, and 1863 were years of great pressure here), and arose entirely from the civil war in America, which had a serious effect in discouraging emigration. In corroboration of the view that the increase of remittances arises from the prosperity of the emigrant classes in America, and not pressure here, I may refer to the Reports of the Emigration Commissioners for the remarkable fact that the number of Irish emigrants in 1871-72 (72,000 on an average), are about half the annual number in 1863-4 (115,000), while the remittances have almost doubled, œ362,000 being the average in 1863-4, against œ726,000 in 1871-72. The attractiveness of America at the latter period, is further shown by the change in the proportion of Irish and English emigrants. In 1863-64 the English emigrants were 59,000 (and the Irish 115,000), or about one-half the number of the Irish; but in 1872, when the Irish were only 73,000, the English were 118,000, so that the proportions were reversed. This change took place in 1868; up to that year; since the statistics were collected, the Irish emigrants had always exceeded the English; but in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872 the English have exceeded the Irish, and the excess has now reached the proportion I have referred to, of the English being nearly double the Irish. The increase of remittances in recent years differs from the increase which took place in 1851- 1855 in a marked feature, indicating absence of pressure now. The former increase was concurrent with an increased stringency in the administration of poor relief in Ireland. Under the pressure of high poor rates, out-door relief in Ireland was greatly restricted. The expenditure was reduced from œ11,100 in 1851 to 3,640 in 1854, whilst the remittances increased from œ990,000 in 1851, to œ1,730,000 in 1854. The present increase of remittances from the minimum of œ332,000 in 1864 to œ750,000 in 1872 has been accompanied by an increase of expenditure in out-door relief from œ25,000 in 1865 to œ80,000 in 1872. The most conclusive statistics however to test whether the increase of remittances arises from pressure in Ireland or prosperity in America is the number of able-bodied men relieved in the workhouses. In the case of able-bodied women it is necessary to take into account the increase of out-door relief to widows with two or more children; in the case of young persons, it is necessary to allow for not only the increased out-door relief to orphans with their mothers but the increased relief to children boarded out, and the number of children in industrial schools. Number of able-bodied men Emigrants' in receipt of relief remittances 1852 14,918 œ1,404,000 1853 10,569 1,483,000 1854 7,114 1,730,000 1862 3,039 361,000 1863 3,237 383,000 1864 2,849 382,000 1870 2,037 727,000 1871 1,852 702,000 1872 1,769 750,000 The contrast shown by this table is very great. In the ten years between the first group of years with 1853 for a centre, and the group with 1863 for a centre, the number of able-bodied men that were driven to seek the shelter of the workhouse decreased, while the remittances also decreased. In the eight years between the second and third group of years, the number of able-bodied forced to seek the shelter of the workhouse is reduced to a very low amount-the number in 1872 being the lowest in any year since the famine; and yet the remittances have undergone a remarkable increase. It is impossible to account for this increase in the past three years on any other hypothesis than the extraordinary welfare and prosperity of the Irish emigrants in North America. Before tracing the conclusions which naturally follow from the statistics of remittances, I wish to notice some very erronous impressions commonly existing as to the results of emigration. The first is that the population in Ireland is undergoing a decrease at an accelerated ratio, and that the accelerated decrease is still going on. It is exactly twenty-eight years since the population of Ireland attained its maximum in 1845. The total average annual reduction in each seven years since is shown in the following table:- Years Estimated Population Decrease in each Average Of Ireland seven years Decrease in Population per Annum 1845 8,595,000 1852 6,337,000 2,258,000 323,000 1859 5,862,000 475,000 68,000 1866 5,523,000 339,000 48,000 1873 5,337,000 186,000 27,000 It is impossible to consider this table without seeing that all ground of alarm at accelerated reduction of the population may be dispensed with. The great reduction took place in the first seven years. The reduction has now come to so low a figure that with the checked tendency to emigration, notwithstanding the large remittances, it would at the present rate of decrease, take twelve years to reduce the population to 5,000,000. When the country is in a satisfactory state as to investments, and as to poor requiring relief at the present population, the necessity of a reduction to 4,000,000, as advocated by some writers, and 3,000,000 as advocated by others some years since, appears to be unsupported by the statistics of the past seven years. The tendency now is towards a stationary limit at or about five millions. Another common impression of the result of emigration has to be cosidered. It is supposed by some that the emigration has been confined to the ancient Irish race, and to the members of the Roman Catholic Church, and that consequently the proportions of race and religion in Ireland are so changed as to simplify the solution of all the questions into which these elements enter. Some ten years ago I pointed out, from a comparison of the religious census of 1861 and 1834, how mistaken this impression was. The religious census of 1861 and 1871 corroberates the view I then put forward: that the proportions of Protestants (taken, notwithstanding some exceptions, as representing, the English and Scotch races in Ireland), to Roman Catholics, (taken with like exceptions, as representing the ancient Irish race), had been very slightly changed by emigration. The proportion of Roman Catholics in Ireland was, in 1834, 80.9 per cent., in 1861, 77.7 per cent, and in 1871, 76.6 per cent. Such changes of proportions are too slight to affect any important question. The tenacity of the Irish race in holding and maintaining their position in Ireland, is very marked even in the Ulster plantation. Notwithstanding the policy of favouring English settlers in the towns adopted by the early planters, and subsequently favoured by the corporation laws for so many years, the Roman Catholics are now a majority in Londonderry, in Enniskillen, and in Armagh, and they form nearly one-third of the population in Belfast; the largest town in Ulster. The migration of the Roman Catholics in to the towns of Ulster is only a part of the movement consequent on the education they have received for a whole generation in the National schools, which has led the Irish to form an appreciable Irish quarter in so many of the cities and manufacturing towns of England and Scotland, and which led to the existance of 602,000 of Irish birth in England and Wales in 1861. Allowing for those in Scotland, and for descendants of earlier settlers, there are probably not less than 1,500,000 of Irish race in Great Britain. The remittances of these and the harvest labourers through the post office alone, for 1872, may be estimated at œ648,000. The English and Scotch orders paid in Ireland being œ919,481, and the Irish paid in Great Britain, œ523,944 * *(Footnote) The small remittances on account of a retail trade or private payments from England to Ireland are not likely to be any more than half those from Ireland, or œ262,000. This deducted from œ292,000 gives œ658,000 for remittances from irish labourers in Great Britain. The result of all these changes of a generation since 1834 is that we have to deal with a population of which 76.6 per cent are of ancient Irish race, instead of with one of which 50.9 per cent are of that race in 1834. The 76.6 per cent., however, are in a much more stable position; they are taking more advantage of the National schools than the Protestants, as they form 80.46 per cent of the scholars. The speaking of Irish only, which extended to 2,000,000 in 1821, has diminished to a few thousand old people. The wholly ignorant are confined to the very poor and the neglected. Through the family and clan instincts the 40,000,000 ancient Irish in Ireland are guarded against the vicissitudes of their lot, and have a chance of advancement and of assistance through the aid of the 1,500,000 of their race in Great Britain and 5,000,000 * (*The Irish born in United States in 1870 were 1,855,827) in the United States. The clanship of the Irish is, like the Jewish, as much a matter of race as of locality. The Scots, when they colonized Argyle and the Highlands from Ulster, carried over their name and gave it to Scotland. The Irish exiles, after the revolution of 1688, maintained for near a century an Irish brigade in the service of France; they fromed an Irish college at Paris, and a similar feeling founded an Irish college at Rome. The Irish cling together in The English and Scotch towns; their movements in the United States is the subject for a distinct column in the American census. The gigantic proportions of the remittances of the Irish emigrants, and which they alone of emigrants send in such proportions, is thus not an ephemeral or passing movement arising from temporary pressure; but is a consequence of the wonderful and strong family and clan feeling of the race. It remains to state the conclusions I would draw from the various matters I have referred to for the solution of some branches of the Irish labourers' question. One of the great difficulties of dealing with this question is the prevalence amongst influential classes of the remains of the old theory that has caused so much bitterness in Ireland, that the evils of Ireland are to be ascribed to the peculiar tendency to over population in the ancient Irish race. Because the Irish race, when deprived of education and oppressed. by unjust laws, multiplied in poverty, and were unable by that very ignorance and poverty to emigrate, then it came to be received as a theory, that no matter what education or improvement in their circumstances would effect, the tendency to over population was so fatal, that it would require the constant and active interference of others to check it. Mr. Nassau Senior, who adopted this view so strongly in 1852, admits in his preface written in 1861, that he did not expect the cost to be so largely defrayed by emigrants' remittances. When the passage to New York costs œ6 10s, when ninety-eight per cent of the emigrants go in steam-ships, and œ300,000 is contributed in pre-paid passages, it is in vain to have any exaggerated or undue fear of Ireland suffering from over population. If this logical consequence of the facts of the emigration and remittances could be only completely received and acted on by all persons of influence, one of the chief remaining causes of bitterness between classes in Ireland would be removed. Connected with the theory of over population was another theory, that it was the specific duty of the proprietors of land to keep down population. To stimulate them to perform this supposed duty, the principle of electoral division rating was grafted on the Irish Poor Law in 1838, against the views of the English Poor Law reformers of that period, who were prompting the Irish Poor Law. After elaborate inquiries the English Poor Law authorities were able to carry union instead of parochial rating for England and Wales in 1865. The extension of union rating to Ireland is supported by the Poor Law authorities in Ireland, and was recommended for Ireland by a select committee in 1871, though by a narrow majority. It was in the interest of the labouring classes in England, and to prevent their habitations being removed too far from their work, that union rating was adopted in England. The importance of the adoption of union rating in Ireland, as a condition precedent to all successful legislation on the labourers' dwelling question, is strongly pointed out by Mr. W.P. O'Brien, one of the Poor Law Inspectors, in his official Report on Labourer's Dwellings in Ireland. He says:- "In my Report in 1870, I took occasion to observe that the wretched condition of the house accommodation of the labouring classes, and the extent to which they were crowded into the lanes and lodgings of the towns, was largely attributable to the opposition manifested since the famine period by the landlords of the country to the existence of the cottier tenemants of old of the rural districts; and when I had the honour of being examined as a witness before a Committee of the House of Commons on the subject of Poor Law Rating in Ireland, I stated that I attributed this unhappy state of things, in a great part, to the baneful effects of that system. "Since then I am glad to think that the Committee referred to recommended that union should henceforth be substituted for electoral division rating, and it appears to me not to be out of place that I should here, before closing this Report, reaffirm the opinions I have already expressed on this subject, and add my firm conviction that, unless legal effect be given to that recommendation of the Committee, any enactment that may be passed, however well devised for encouraging the construction of improved dwellings for the labouring population of the country will, as a general rule, prove perfectly delusive and inoperative." It appears plainly from this report that the removal from the public mind of the fear of over population, and the adoption of union rating, are the two steps that lie at the root of all legislation for the improvement of labourers' dwellings. They lie too at the root of the still unsettled question of poor-removals-the frequency and harshness of which has been much mitigated by the adoption of uniform rating, so far as workhouse relief is concerned, in the metropolitan unions in London, a reform much wanted in Dublin. They lie also at the root of the other poor law reforms that have been proposed for securing equal treatment of the labourers under the poor law in all parts of the United Kingdom. The continuance of the fear of over population explains some of the delay in adopting reforms so long advocated in this society, for complete cheapening and facilitating the transfer of the land in small portions suited to the Labourer and the peasant. The character of the Irish labouring classes, as shown by these remittances, has no small bearing on the unsettled parts of the Irish education question. The satisfactory economic results of the policy of the State, now pursued for an entire generation, of encouraging education of the labouring classes, shows the importance (apart from all higher views of the connection of religion with education) of extending that encouragement to the classes not similarly provided for. When it appears that 56 per cent of the children committed to reformatories can neither read nor write, there is some great want in the provision for the education of the helpless and neglected classes. Again for the development of our resources, for the pursuit of agriculture in the same degree as in Scotland, some provision is required for the encouragement and organization of the education of those capitalists and employers of labour, where education lies as intermediate between the labourers' education of the national schools, and the professional education of the universities. The complete education of all the poor is the true way to check the economic results from the growth of the population. The education of the capitalist is the true way to secure the full development of our resources, so as to maintain the balance between production and population at a high level of comfort and prosperity. Some twenty years ago, in a paper published in the transactions of this Society, I referred to the remittances of the Irish emigrants at their commencement, to refute the prevalent fallacy that there was a want of self-denial and saving power in the Celtic race, and that Ireland was consequently suffering from want of capital. When the statistics of investment were collected in 1863, my favourable opinion of the economy and savingness of the Irish race, placed under favourable circumstances, was bourne out, as it had been in the statistics of investments of each subsequent year. To the remittances of the Irish emigrants for the past quarter of a century I again appeal to refute the notion, that with the Irish people, educated as they now are, there is now any tendency to over population in Ireland that requires any legislative provision or any active interference to control. If I can succeed in influencing public opinion, and in removing the fears of over population, which are now so groundless, as successfully as I have succeeded in removing the fears of want of capital in Ireland that prevailed twenty years ago, I will have the satisfaction of having done all that is in my power to facilitate the legislation that is required to promote the welfare of the labouring classes, who, with those supported by and dependent on them, we must never forget form the majority of the population of the country. The great English tribune, who has recently been restored to public life, tells his fellow countrymen that measures only can be passed in Parliament, as to which, after full discussion, public opinion has been somewhat well founded. It is on this principle that our Society, since its formation twenty six years ago, has so generally acted. We endeavour on the questions whhich perfectly fall within the province of the statist, the economist, or thr jurist apart from all party, political, or religious bias or prejudice-to impart the knowledge we can acquire, and opinions we arrive at as contributions to the formation of a calm but still deliberate and strong public opinion so as to facilitate the statesman's task in dealing with the deep social questions, such as labourers' dwellings, poor laws, and education upon which, no less than the more markedly political ones, the welfare of our country so largely depends.Close