J. S. Mill and Irish Land: a Reassessment

Abstract

Lynn Zastoupil, in his article ‘Moral Government: J. S. Mill on Ireland’, (Historical Journal, 26, 3 (Sept. 1983)), has made an important contribution to our understanding of the sources and character of Mill's views on Ireland. He is right to suggest that insufficient attention has been paid to the lengthy series of Morning Chronicle leaders written by Mill in response to the Famine. No less instructive is his emphasis on the centrality of moral regeneration to Mill's political and ethical enterprise. Ably analysing the evolution of Mill's opinions on Ireland between the 1840s and late 1860s, Mr Zastoupil effectively demonstrates the way in which Mill's changing position on the issue was at each stage informed by a fundamental moral purpose. What his article does not fully convey, however, is the extent to which the expression of that purpose was shaped and conditioned not only by Mill's assessment of Irish circumstances at any particular time, but also by a certain tension and ambivalence in his attitude towards Ireland and her people.