Consequences of the establishment of the Free State

Résumé du document

The Irish Free State also wanted to show its modernity to the world. It thus built a huge power plant, the Shannon Scheme, for the electrification of the Free State. It was a symbol of great modernity and an achievement for the Free State, but it nonetheless cost 5M pounds.What is more, the government was willing to lead the land policy at the expense of other areas. Therefore, 10 more land acts were enacted between the Land Act of 1923 and 1933. Are those factors sufficient to explain the following difficulties?

The top problems were infant mortality and bad housing. 25% of the Dublin population occupied 22000 rooms; 13000 were occupied by more than 3 people at the end of the war. On the 27 March 1923, the Adrigole case caused a great emotion in Ireland. It was a medical report describing the terrible conditions of living of a family dying because of hunger and diseases. Nevertheless, we can retrospectively argue that this family was not poorer than the others. Bad harvest in the 1920's led to a widespread hunger, almost to a famine. Absolute poverty persisted long after Adrigole.

Extraits

[...] Consequences of the establishment of the Free State Social and economic realities of the Free State In the 1920's, social and economic conservatism failed. In the same time, many left, migrating mainly to the US. It imposed heavy constraints of the two states: - Northern Ireland: o Limited financial clause of the Government of Ireland act o There was a post-war collapse in the Northern Irish economy. o It had to carry the burden of a huge imperial contribution: 7.9 million pounds - Free State: o Cost of Civil War o Infrastructures damaged by the war o Invested most of its money in the Land Act of 1923 (30M pounds) o It had in the same time to compose with a severe downturn in agriculture, which was the base of its economy. [...]

[...] The experience of work in the Free State is also rich of insights. There was actually a false division between employed and unemployed people. Working conditions were actually terrible in the large cities; in the countryside, work was only seasonal, and monotonous. Women and children also worked. It was hard to survive even when employed. Many workers were working poors (as Franck O'Connor described it). The biggest employer of the Free State was the Civil Service (20000 jobs in 1931), followed by the railways (12000) and the breweries (4200). [...]

[...] Absolute poverty persisted long after Adrigole. What is more, the widely shared impression was that the government was not worried about this poverty. In its defense, we can argue that its possibilities were restrained by the Civil war cost. Nevertheless, the government showed little will to change its obviously inefficient economic policy, focusing on agriculture as the basis of the Irish economy. One would therefore argue that the government pursued such inefficient policies by choice and not because of a lack of alternatives. [...]

[...] No real changes thus occurred. - In 1924, the Minister of Finance reduced the Old Age Pension and the Blind Pension. Nevertheless, despite these reductions, the value in economic terms did not change. The main problem was in the rhetoric. The minister for Local Government P.J. Burke used to talk about the poors in the terms of people with a “tendency to dependence” living a “parasitic existence”. Patrick McGilligan, minister for commerce and industry, said that “people may have to die in this country”. [...]

[...] Less than 50% of single women aged over 14 worked, while 87% of men did. Most of them worked in domestic service or education. On the other hand, the unemployment reached 76000 people by 1932. In were unemployed while it peaked at 12,5% in Britain of this unemployment was due to the declining industry. Therefore, this widespread misery led WT Cosgrave to ask “What has the average man in the street got out of his freedom and self-government?” in 1931. J.J. [...]