Vickipedia

ABSENTEE’, a term applied, by way of reproach, to capitalists who derive their income from one country, and spend it in another. It has been especially used in discussions on the social condition of Ireland. As long as Ireland had its own parliament, a great portion of the large landed proprietors lived chiefly in the country during summer, and passed their winters in Dublin; thus spending a large portion of their incomes among their dependents, or at least among their countrymen. The Union changed the habits of the Irish nobility and gentry, who were attracted to London as the political metropolis, or were induced, by the disturbed condition of Ireland, to choose residences on the continent. Such Irish landed proprietors were styled ‘ absentees;’ and it was argued that their conduct was the great source of Irish poverty, as it drained the resources of the land, or, in other words, sent money out of Ireland. One class of political economists�among them M’Culloch�maintain that, economically viewed, absenteeism has no injurious effect on the country from which the absentee draws his revenue. An Irish landlord living in France, it is argued, receives his remittances of rent, not in bullion, but in bills of exchange; and bills of exchange represent, in the end, the value of British commodities imported into France. The remittance could not be made unless goods to the same amount were also drawn from Britain. Thus, although the landlord may consume, for the most part, French productions, he causes, indirectly, a demand for as much of British productions; and his income goes, in the end, to pay for them. His residence abroad, then, does no harm to the industry and resources of the country at large, although it is admitted that it may be felt as an evil in a particular locality. The truth of this doctrine, however, in its full extent, is disputed. Among other objections to it, it is argued, that whatever may be true of the amount actually consumed, all the tradesmen and others who supply the absentee’s wants have their profits, and have thus the means of accumulating; and that these accumulations which are thus added to the national wealth of a foreign country, would have been added to the wealth of his native country had he been living at home. The result of the controversy would seem to be, that absenteeism does, to some extent, act injuriously on the wealth of a country, though it is not true that the whole revenues thus spent are so much clear loss, there being several indirect compensations.�On the evil of absenteeism, in a moral point of view, all are agreed; especially in a country in the condition of Ireland, where nearly the whole wealth is in the hands of extensive landed proprietors, with almost no middle class.