An Emniricist Study On The Public Opinions Of The British Capitalists' Purchases Of The Irish Land Under The Encumbered Estates Act(1849-1858)

This thesis analyzes the British and Irish public opinions of the issue of British capitalists' purchases of the Irish land under the Encumbered Estates Act in Ireland in the first post-Famine decade.This thesis adopts the historical empiricist approach which stresses the sufficiency and effectiveness of the relevant primary sources for excavation of evidence and reformulation of reality.The term "public opinions" originally refers to the viewpoints of the general public,which was usually presented in the publicly circulated printed materials of any given time.Through locating relevant information in the digital databases which contained complete collections of the mid-nineteenth-century British and Irish printed materials,this thesis finds out that the contemporary British and Irish newspapers as well as the travelogues and pamphlets on Ireland by writers of miscellaneous professional background most completely revealed and deeply influenced the viewpoints of the literate middle-and upper-class population in Britain and Ireland on the issue during the time.Therefore,this thesis analyzes the public reports and accounts on the issue as well as the ideological trends reflected therein mainly based on the three categories of the public primary sources of newspapers,travelogues and pamphlets,supplemented by the archival primary sources such as parliamentary records and politicians' hand-written correspondence.During the time,Ireland was still a part of the Union governed by the Westminster central government.The British capitalists' purchases of the post-Famine Irish land answered Westminster politicians'appeal for introducing British capital to ease the indebtedness and impecuniousness of the Irish landed estates,as well as introducing British farming modes to save Ireland from agricultural backwardness.The agenda,which embodied Britain's pride in its economic power and distrust of Ireland in realizing economic self-salvation,was inseparable from the ideological context of mid-Victorian British nationalist superiority and post-Famine anti-Irish racism.As public opinions were embedded in and in turn helped further spread ideology,it was no surprise that the contemporary British and Irish public opinions during the time paid close attention to the ideology-tinged phenomena of British capitalists' purchases of the Irish land.However,previous historical studies on Ireland during the time have not paid attention to how the ideological discourse influenced the public opinions' representation of the phenomena.This thesis explores this question,which sheds new lights on studies of the interrelations between the public opinions and economic reality in the mid-nineteenth-century Ireland.Apart from the introduction and conclusion,this thesis is comprised of four chapters.The introduction reviews the existent literature on the historical studies on British capitalists' purchases of the Irish land as well as public opinions of Ireland during the decade when the Encumbered Estates Act was carried out,summarizes the selection of primary sources and outlines the structure of this thesis.As public opinions were inseparable from Westminster's political discussions,the first chapter traces the origin and development of Westminster politicians' agenda of introducing British capital into the Irish land from parliamentary records and politicians' correspondence.The second chapter analyzes how the British public propaganda encouraged British capitalists to buy in the Irish land based on the British newspapers and travelogues by British writers.The third chapter explores how the Irish public presented and interpreted the statistical information on British purchases of the Irish land by scrutinizing the tables,reports and commentaries printed in official pamphlets and newspapers.The fourth chapter evaluates how the British and Irish public reported and represented British capitalists'impact on the Irish land based on the reports and accounts published in contemporary newspapers,travel writing and pamphlets.The arguments of this thesis are that politicians'interest in introducing British capital onto the Irish land was actually limited and ephemeral.However,the British public firmly believed in the promising prospect of British investment on the Irish land long after politicians' interest had gone.They propagated that British investment on the Irish land was not only imperative to moralize the racially inferior Irish people,but also economically profitable.The more actively British capitalists participated in buying the Irish land,the more public attention was paid to their investment amount,agricultural practice,as well as the concomitant economic and social impact.Even though the eventual contribution British capitalists made to the Irish land management turned out to be insignificant,the relevant public reports and accounts in both Britain and Ireland intentionally magnified their positive role in improving Irish agricultural productivity,while chose to ignore the exacerbation of the local interclass relations due to their arrival.British travel writers,Irish newspaper reporters as well as both British and Irish officials were more concerned with the security and economic profits of the incoming British capitalists,rather than the well-beings of the native Irish people.The mainstream public propaganda and reports produced by the literate middle-and upper-class,be it British or Irish,chose to speak for British capitalists rather than the native Irish people.The public discourse was fermented in,and in turn further intensified the ideological bias of mid-Victorian imperial nationalism and post-Famine anti-Irish racism.This thesis's analysis unveils the unreliability and narrow-mindedness of the British and Irish public opinions in representing the economic reality of Ireland immediately after the Famine,within which Ireland's status was equivalent to a quasi-colony within the Union,while the subjectivity of the Irish people was severely subdued.In essence,such public opinions unveiled that in the 1850s when British imperialism was hegemonic and Irish nationalism still did not rise,it was impossible to either defend the interest of the Irish people or faithfully reflect and solve the Irish land question,which also indirectly proved the necessity of the rise of Irish nationalism.