Famines and floods: the times that test civic institutions of a society.

When calamities hit a sizable segment of the population, threatening their survival, the society has to face the decision in what form and to what extent assistance should relief be provided to those who were afflicted. Should the individuals be left to make their own arrangements and to bear the cost for their rehabilitation? If not, should assistance be purely voluntary and done through religious and charitable institutions or should the state take a lead role? Will the general taxpayer be willing to bear the tax burden for the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of natural disaster? If negligence or risk taking by those affected created the loss, will providing relief program encourage more of such actions in the future? Such concerns conditioned the British response to Irish Potato Famine that resulted in the death of one million and the emigration of two million from Ireland. It can be contrasted with the response to recent natural calamities in the United States like Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. The hostility of the British to the Celtic population of Ireland that remained Catholics after Henry VIII broke with Papacy in 1532 resulted in British imposition of penal laws in Ireland. Catholics were confined to villages and denied opportunities for education and other means of advancement. Most of the arable land was owned by absentee British and Anglo-Irish landlords. The Irish rest had to eke out a living as agricultural workers or cottiers who cultivated a small piece of land around a cottage in which they lived. Potato crept into the Irish menu as a supplementary food for the rich but soon became the staple food of the farmers. The cottiers relied on potato as it alone provided a yield from their small patches to support the families through the winter. This made the Irish vulnerable to the potato blight that reduced its output by more than 80 percent between 1844 and 1847.1 Measures taken by the British government under Sir Robert Peel during the early years of the famine like importing corn was effective. Lord Russell who followed him was a believer in an extreme version laissez-faire philosophy and assumed that market will solve the food shortage. In the British version of free trade, export of food from Ireland was not restricted but importers faced many hurdles. Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, the administrator of the Irish relief, was uniquely unfit for that position. In one of the early remark, he expressed the belief that God had sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson . . .[and it] must not be too much mitigated.2 English moralists believed that aid to a poor person will reduce his impetus to be self-reliant, industrious and sober. As the famine continued, English government claimed that it cannot continue to afford Irish relief and the Irish property owners should pay for it. 3 Poor Laws provided for the destitute workhouses which were financed to a great extent by a tax, poor rate, and the famine led to increase in the rate. This gave an incentive to absentee landlords to evict the farmers and the poor, now without even the cottage they lived in, was exposed to the elements just when they were selling off their clothes to feed themselves. The starved, under-

clothed and sick Irish became a target of satire in English press; disgust turned into loathing when the Irish revolted against British administration. Helpless at home, the Irish saw hope in immigration to Canada and the United States. Unfortunately the reception they got there was less than a rousing. The Bengal famine in the 1943 was also due to the policies of the British government that focused on winning the Second World War than meeting the essential needs of those living in its Empire. Food was exported from India even as starvation eventually killed three million in Bengal, a north-eastern state in British India.4 Such callousness to the suffering of the populace is no more acceptable in democratic nations but has occurred in many areas like China and SubSaharan Africa. In the United States, severe loss to life and property came from Hurricane Katrina that struck New Orleans in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy that hit New Jersey and New York in 2012. When misfortune hits a large number, there is need to provide for immediate relief to those affected. It must then be followed with measures to rebuild the area. In the United States, the responsibility for providing assistance now rests with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), currently under the United States Department of Homeland Security. In addition making disaster assistance available to state and local authorities, it administers national flood insurance programs. Private insurance will cover the losses other than due to flood but many individuals and commercial operations do have insurance as is too costly for them. Hurricane Katrina resulted in an overall loss of $147 billion of which insured losses was only $73 billion; the corresponding numbers for Hurricane Sandy are $50 and $20 billions. 5 It does not mean that the U.S. approach is insulated from the issues noted in the discussion of Irish famine. When disaster strikes everyone living in the area is affected. But the poorer among them that lives in the low lying areas and staying in flimsier structures needs most assistance and many of them are from minority communities.6 This creates tension as when the police blocked Crescent City Connection bridge from New Orleans to the Gretna on the other side of the river; the allegation is that racial prejudice played a role in the decision.7 Another issue is moral hazard; individuals knowing their losses will be covered by insurance or public assistance will take undue risk. This is a modern version of the moral argument raised during the Irish famine that aid encourages the continuation of a lifestyle that is the source of poverty. U.S. flood insurance, it is argued, is encouraging construction of costly structures in beach fronts and U.S. Treasury incurs billions of dollars loss due to periodic claims of damage to the residences.9 Footnotes:
1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29

2.

John Kelly, The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010), p.91.

3.

For a discussion of debate about property rights and social welfare in England in the eighteenth century, see Opportunities and Choices, http://www.scribd.com/doc/49513234/Opportunities-and-Choices pp.13-14.
4.

Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchills Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II(New York: Basic Books, 2010).
5.

Insurers wait for Sandys full force, Financial Times, November 9, 2012. p.17.

6.

California fires destroy many fancy houses built by the rich in hilltops with exclusive views and many beachfront houses belong to millionaires. On this see Footnote 8.
7.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/16/nation/na-gretna16 Moral hazard is discussed in http://www.scribd.com/doc/49513234/Opportunities-and-Choices http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/13/opinion/safina-rebuild-sandy/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 pp.165-167.

8.

9.

Rama V. Ramachandran
http://www.visualeconomicanalysis.info/index.html Facebook: Ramanomics
Copyright 2012 Rama V. Ramachandran