FROM THE ARCHIVES:How statistics can misrepresent reality was the subject of this editorial about the amount of food in the country after a succession of bad harvests in the early 1860s. – JOE JOYCE
THE ACCURATE statistics issued periodically by Mr. Donnelly, the Registrar-General, afford the best criterion of the progress or decadence of agricultural Ireland. Unhappily, for the last three years these statistics tell a tale of inclement seasons, of deficient crops, of scarcity, and national loss.
We cannot weary our readers with columns of figures, valuable as they are to the statesman and the landlord: but these will produce the “tables” for themselves. It is enough for the general reader if we put prominently before him the most striking points of Mr. Donnelly’s elaborate report.
Let us put this briefly: Ireland has, in 1861, produced less wheat, oats, beans, peas, barley, bere, ryes and potatoes than in any year except 1847, when the people were dying by hundreds. Mr. Donnelly gives a table exhibiting the quantity of corn, beans and peas, and stones of potatoes, to each family according to the census of 1861. He then calculates that there is in the country 7¾lbs. of corn, beans and peas for each family daily, and three-fourths of a stone of potatoes.
The statement put this way seems to indicate that the people have enough, and to spare; but this was the fallacy of Sir Robert Peel. He argued that because there was food enough in the country, therefore no one could starve. As well might it be said that since there is an abundance of ready-made clothes in Dublin, no one is without a holiday suit.
Bread may be at one penny the loaf, and yet a man may have no penny to buy it. It is an aggravation of suffering, certainly no alleviation of hunger, to starve in the midst of plenty.
Moreover, men do not usually live on beans and peas, and consequently a very large reduction must be made for these articles from that 7¾lbs. for each family in the land. And, again, no account is made for the consumption by horse, poultry, and cattle of this 7¾lbs. of cereal food. The amount given by Mr. Donnelly at 7¾lbs. for each family must also supply every living creature which feeds upon cereals, beans and peas.
All the cattle, horses and poultry in the country are included in the word “family”, without any notice being taken of the large number of which each family would then consist, or of the immense amount each family, including horses, would then consume. We request attention to this. We have no doubt that these statistics will be quoted in the House of Commons as a triumphant refutation of tales of Irish distress.
“See,” some gentleman who only looks on the surface of things will exclaim, “See how false were all stories of hunger and suffering. Notwithstanding the deficiency of the drops, there is in the country for each family daily 7¾lbs. of cereals, beans and peas, and ¾ stone of potatoes.”
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