A Modest Proposal
Swift laments that the number of female nationals and their children who spend their time begging in the streets and roads was a serious problem in the kingdom’s deplorable condition. In his opinion, anyone who could come up with “…a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation,” (Swift, 1729). Swift starts his article by providing a solution on how the English could do things differently and solve the problem of overpopulation and mistreatment of nationals in Ireland. He however finishes by providing the solution that internal change in the Irish government would best solve the problem of overpopulation and citizens victimized by its own government. The possibility of a surprise ending in Swift’s article becomes apparent when he points out that he was aware that his proposed solution to the problem of overpopulation would not be acceptable to many. In the following sections, the paper briefly summarizes Swift’s proposed solution and then demonstrates how he later twists the plot of his article.
According to his scheme, one hundred and twenty thousand children are born annually by poor parents. In his take, the big question is how this big number of children shall be brought up and provided for. Under the then prevailing state of affairs Swift was convinced that none of the proposed methods would provide an amicable solution. In his scheme, Swift offers a rather astonishing solution to the problem of overpopulation. He suggests that out the one hundred and twenty thousand born of poor parents, twenty thousand would be put aside for breeding out of which only twenty-five percent would be males (Swift, 1729). In his understanding since the children who turn out to be burden on the kingdom are rarely born in marriage one man will be enough to serve four women. The remaining one hundred thousand he proposes would be sold off while one year old to rich men through the kingdom. According to Swift, the mothers would always be advised to allow those children on sale to suck plentifully during the last month in order to make them plump and fatty for a good meal (Swift, 1729; Baker, 1999). In this scheme, Swift enumerates even the advantages that his country would accrue from it.
The first benefit is that it would provide poorer tenants with something valuable that would assist them to pay rent and provide for other needs. Secondly, since the maintenance of one hundred thousand children since when they are two years old is more than ten shillings per annum, the country’s treasury is increased fifty thousand annually. This money would then circulate among the nationals and goods would be completely being of their own manufacture and growth (Swift, 1729). Thirdly, the poorer parents apart from getting eight shillings annually from selling their children they would also get rid off maintaining children after one year. He says there are many other advantages that can be enumerated concerning his proposed solution to the problems of overpopulation facing the kingdom.
Swift however argues that as far as his country was concerned no other proposed method would provide remedies to the ills facing his country (Hollis, 2001; Chubb, 1970). He renounces that improving methods such as taxation, consuming homemade products, or rejecting foreign luxury goods among others would be a potential remedy to the country’s problems. Swift argues that all these methods have proven to be unable to solve the overpopulation problems facing Kingdom of Ireland.
The surprise ending of this article becomes even more apparent when the author argues that he is not violently bent on his own opinion so that he can reject any solution proposed by prudent men for the sake of it. As long as such proposals would be found to be effective, cheap, innocent and easy, he would not reject them. However, he contends that before something of that sort is put forward to contradict his scheme that provides a better solution, two considerations should be made. Firstly, given the current deplorable state of affairs advocates of other better solutions should propose how more than a hundred thousand useless mouths would be fed. Secondly, given the appalling conditions under which majority of people live, supporters of a contradictory solution should find out whether majority of children would not find it a great idea to have been traded for food when they were one year old. For Swift, they would find his prescription a noble idea because having been sold at the age of one year would have enabled them to avoid continuous scenes of misery such as oppression of landlords (Swift, 1729). Swift’s article is a prime example of political satire in a society where conditions are deplorable and there is no hope particularly for the poorest of the poor. His real motive was contribute towards the improvement of the public good through advancement of the country’s trade, providing for children, cautioning the poor and assuring the rich of some pleasure.
References
Hollis, D. (2001). The History of Ireland. New York, NY: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Chubb, B. (1970). The Government and Politics of Ireland. London: Stanford University Press.
Swift, J. (1729). A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick (1729). Retrieved from http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/modest.html
Baker, L. A. (1999). Conditions in Early Eighteenth-Century Ireland. Retrieved from http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/english320/sg-Swift-18thC.htm
