The “drawbacks” of the system are the over-work of the children and young persons, the enormous marches that they make daily to and from the farms, 5, 6, and sometimes 7 miles distant, finally, the demoralisation of-the gang. Although the gang-master, who, in some districts is called “the driver,” is armed with a long stick, he uses it but seldom, and complaints of brutal treatment are exceptional. He is a democratic. emperor, or a kind of Pied Piper of Hamelin. He must therefore be popular with his subjects, and he binds them to himself by the charms of the gipsy life under his direction. Coarse freedom, a noisy jollity, and obscenest impudence give attractions to the gang. Generally the gangmaster pays up in a public house; then he returns home at the head of the procession reeling drunk, propped up right and left by a stalwart virago, while children and young persons bring up the rear, boisterous, and singing chaffing and bawdy songs. On the return journey what Fourier calls “phanerogamie,” is the order of the day. The getting with child of girls of 13 and 14 by their male companions of the same age, is common. The open villages which supply the contingent of the gang, become Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and have twice as high a rate of illegitimate births as the rest of the kingdom. The moral character of girls bred in these schools, when married women, was shown above. Their children, when opium does not give them the finishing stroke, are born recruits of the gang.
The gang in its classical form just described, is called the public, common, or tramping gang. For there are also private gangs. These are made up in the same way as the common gang, but count fewer members, and work, not under a gang-master, but under some old farm servant, whom the farmer does not know how to employ in any better way. The gipsy fun has vanished here, but according to all witnesses, the payment and treatment of the children is worse.
The gang-system, which during the last years has steadily increased, clearly does not exist for the sake of the gang-master. it exists for the enrichment of the large farmers, and indirectly of the landlords. For the farmer there is no more ingenious method of keeping his labourers well below the normal level, and yet of always having an extra hand ready for extra work, of extracting the greatest possible amount of labour with the least possible amount of money and of making adult male labour “redundant.” From the exposition already made, it will be understood why, on the one hand, a greater or less lack of employment for the agricultural labourer is admitted, while on the other, the gang-system is at the same time declared “necessary” on account of the want of adult male labour and its migration to the towns. The cleanly weeded land, and the uncleanly human weeds, of Lincolnshire, are pole and counterpole of capitalistic production.
F. Ireland
In concluding this section, we must travel for a moment to Ireland. First, the main facts of the case.
The population of Ireland had, in 1841, reached 8,222,664; in 1851, it had dwindled to 6,623,985; in 1861, to 5,850,309; in 1866, to millions, nearly to its level in 1801. The diminution began with the famine year, 1846, so that Ireland, in less than twenty years, lost more than ths of its people. Its total emigration from May, 1851, to July, 1865, numbered 1,591,487: the emigration during the years 1861-1865 was more than half-a-million. The number of inhabited houses fell, from 1851-1861, by 52,990. From 1851-1861, the number of holdings of 15 to 30 acres increased 61,000, that of holdings over 30 acres, 109,000, whilst the total number of all farms fell 120,000, a fall, therefore, solely due to the suppression of farms under 15 acres – i.e., to their centralisation.
Table A
LIVE-STOCK
Year Horses Cattle
Total Number Decrease Total Number Decrease Increase
1860 619,811 — 3,606,374 — —
1861 614,232 5,993 3,471,688 138,316 —
1862 602,894 11,338 3,254,890 216,798 —
1863 579,978 22,916 3,144,231 110,659 —
1864 562,158 17,820 3,262,294 — 118,063
1865 547,867 14,291 3,493,414 — 231,120
Year Sheep Pigs
Total Number Decrease Increase Total Number Decrease Increase
1860 3,542,080 — — 1,271,072 — —
1861 3,556,050 — 13,970 1,102,042 169,030 —
1862 3,456,132 99,918 — 1,154,324 — 52,282
1863 3,308,204 147,982 — 1,067,458 86,866 —
1864 3,366,941 — 58,737 1,058,480 8,978 —
1865 3,688,742 — 321,801 1,299,893 — 241,413
The decrease of the population was naturally accompanied by a decrease in the mass of products. For our purpose, it suffices to consider the 5 years from 1861-1865 during which over half-a-million emigrated, and the absolute number of people sank by more than 1 of a million. From the above table it results: –
Horses Cattle Sheep Pigs
Absolute Decrease Absolute Decrease Absolute Increase Absolute Increase
72,358 116,626 146,608 28,819
Let us now turn to agriculture, which yields the means of subsistence for cattle and for men. In the following table is calculated the decrease or increase for each separate year, as compared with its immediate predecessor. The Cereal Crops include wheat, oats, barley, rye, beans, and peas; the Green Crops, potatoes, turnips, marigolds, beet-root, cabbages, carrots, parsnips, vetches. &c.
Table B
INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE AREA UNDER CROPS AND GRASS IN ACREAGE
Cereal Crop Green Crops Grass and
Clover Flax Total Cultivated Land
Year Decrease Decrease Increase Decrease Increase Decrease Increase Decrease Increase
Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres
1861 15,701 36,974 — 47,969 — — 19,271 81,373 —
1862 72,734 74,785 — — 6,623 — 2,055 138,841 —
1863 144,719 19,358 — — 7,724 — 63,922 92,431 —
1864 122,437 2,317 — — 47,486 — 87,761 — 10,493
1865 72,450 — 25,241 — 68,970 50,159 — 28,218 —