I've done some reading on the famines that occurred in the Scottish highlands & islands shortly after the Irish one, and was interested to see the name Charles Trevalyan cropping up as one the British govt thought able to best manage the situation, albeit indirectly by pulling the strings of the Glasgow & Edinburgh aid agencies behind the scenes. Again, it was a case of not upsetting the 'free' flow of capital, involving much shipping of grain & potatoes out of the region to English markets who would pay a higher price, and sending armed troops to put down the rebellions that tried to stop this from happening. And relief couldn't be offered without strings attached, often including works that benefited the lairds by improvement of roads, drainage, bridges etc. - effectively a subsidy of their already dominant position using the labour of starving ppl w/ no alternatives to accomplish it. And, while there were genuine philanthropists among their ranks, more often the lairds exploited the situation to continue evictions & clearances for sheep farmers, and encouraged emigration (after the failure of the kelping industry especially) to Canada or Oz. I'm astonished none of them were assassinated, to be frank, but the attitude seems to have been that the poor old clan leader has been misled by associations with evil lowlanders and unscrupulous merchants, and we still owe him allegiance even if he violates the old norms & responsibilities at every turn, and profits the most from our degradation. Probably something I'm not getting, but it seems pathetic & subservient to me - though there was plenty of dissent, protest, rioting, land occupations etc to follow, as well as the crofting movement which built on that to secure the common ppl rights of tenure...

Shows you just how pitiless & anti-human the ruling elites are, and the system of capitalism which serves their interests while it forces the rest of us to scrabble in the dust for a pittance.

cheers,
I