M'Culloch put forward his views on Irish Absenteeism. He was
asked this question: "Supposing the largest export of Ireland were in
live cattle, and that a considerable portion of rent had been remitted
in that manner, does not such a mode of producing the means of paying
rent, contribute less to the improvement of the poor than any extensive
employment of them in labour would produce?" He replies: "Unless the
means of paying rent are changed when the landlord goes home, his
residence can have no effect whatever." "Would not," he is asked, "the
population of the country be benefited by the expenditure among them of
a certain portion of the rent, which (if he had been absent) would have
been remitted (to England)?" "No," he replies, "I do not see how it
could be benefited in the least. If you have a certain value laid out
against Irish commodities in the one case, you will have a certain value
laid out against them in the other. The cattle are either exported to
England or they stay at home. If they are exported the landlord will
obtain an equivalent for them in English commodities; it they are not he
will obtain an equivalent for them in Irish commodities; so that in both
cases the landlord lives on the cattle, or on the value of the cattle:
and whether he lives in Ireland or England there is obviously just the
very same amount of commodities for the people of Ireland to subsist
upon.
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