utterly inconsistent with all notion of a legal provision for the destitute. Moreover, it will be observed that the very ground on which a poor-law for Ireland has been above recommended is, that it will ultimately lead to the introduction of a system under which there will be employment for the poor; and that a poor-law can alone lead, though indirectly, to the creation of a class of labourers independent of their potato-ground.

But even those who take a more modest view of the

objects of a poor-law, and the capacities of a government, will say, that the expense of a workhouse system in Ireland is an insuperable bar to its adoption. It is true that in England the existence of a large number of workhouses has afforded great facilities for the introduction of the late reform: whereas in Ireland no workhouses exist. But this objection can only come from one who is altogether hostile to the principle of a poor-law for Ireland: for it is clear, that however expensive the erection of workhouses might be, it would be a far less grievous burden than a poor-law unprotected by workhouses. The construction of fever-hospitals on a large scale has not been found impossible in Ireland; and the same principle might doubtless be further extended. A workhouse might perhaps be required for about each barony; and if the barony was unable at once to defray the expenses of the building, money might be advanced to it by government upon adequate security.

Another objection which will probably be urged is, that in most parts of Ireland there is a prejudice among the poor against workhouses; and that as they now in some instances even refuse to go into hospitals, so they would be still more disinclined to enter a workhouse.

To this it may be answered, that the disinclination of the people to be the inmates of a workhouse is the best security which can exist against the evil anticipated by the opponents of an Irish poor-law, viz., that the whole peasantry will throw itself on the rates for support. If the poor are in real want, they will doubtless soon discard their sentimental antipathies to relief in a public establishment, and be eager applicants for the bounty proffered to them. When the general distress of the Irish peasantry is considered, there seems little fear that the candidates for relief will not be sufficiently numerous, in however unacceptable a shape it may be administered. It may perhaps be with some reason supposed that the danger is rather on the other side. But, besides this, it ought not to be overlooked that the main ground on which a legal provision has been above recommended, is not so much that the peasantry will be actually relieved, as that they will feel that they may be relieved: that the prospect of relief will give them security, not the receipt of it save them from destitution. A poor-law in Ireland might therefore dissolve the Whiteboy spirit, by opening the doors of the workhouse to all, although but a few might be admitted into it.

The only remaining objection on this subject which it seems needful to notice is, that the same spirit of combination which has been busied in regulating the terms on which land is to be held, would be turned against workhouses; and that they would be burnt and destroyed by the Whiteboys. If a workhouse in Ireland was built of good materials and slated; if it was placed near a police station; and if it was insured, it is not likely that the public would have much to fear

from the incendiary. But it ought not to be forgotten, that although in England the workhouses have been the objects of attack, as being the means of passing from a laxer to a stricter system, in Ireland they would be a step in advance; they would be, so far as they went, an amelioration of the state of the poor: in England, if the workhouse is destroyed, the parish is thrown back upon the allowance system and domestic relief: in Ireland, if the workhouse was destroyed, the poor would simply remain unrelieved.

The operation of a system of relief in facilitating the transition of cottier farmers into labourers ought at the same time to be assisted by COLONIZATION, and this on as large a scale as the means of the country would permit. The redundancy of the Irish population is so great, that no one measure can in a short time be expected to produce even an approximation to the great desideratum, the maintenance of the peasantry out of wages. An extensive emigration managed by government, and in combination with agents in Canada and the United States, would at any rate assist in bringing about this consummation. If Ireland (as it was once remarked to me) could be stretched out like a piece of India rubber, the peasantry would be as tranquil and contented as that of England. But as this is impossible, we must strive to do what is possible. As we cannot make more land to the inhabitants, we must make fewer inhabitants to the land.

There is one consideration which ought not to be overlooked, with respect to the introduction of poorlaws in Ireland; viz., that it is possible for a peasantry to be in a state, as regards physical comfort, far inferior to the English, and yet superior to the Irish; that the

strength of the motives which impel the Irishman to Whiteboyism might be broken, without giving him the food, the clothes, and the house even of an English pauper. There are parts of Ulster where the state of the agricultural labourer is much inferior to that of the Englishman in the same rank of life; but his condition is sufficiently good to raise him above Whiteboyism. The food of the Belgian peasant consists almost exclusively of potatoes, together with a little rye bread; very rarely does he eat meat: yet his dwelling is good, himself and his family are well clothed, nor is there any symptom of misery among the class of agricultural labourers. The cottier population of Scotland seem, even after the middle of the last century, to have been lodged and clothed little better than the modern Irish peasant *; but as they were not exposed to the danger of starvation, they were as tranquil and orderly as their richer successors at the present day.

All the more prominent evils in the political state of Ireland have been redressed, without materially diminishing the tendency to disturbance among the peasantry, or improving the condition of the cottier tenantry. The civil disabilities of the Catholics have been removed; the disposition to subdivide land has been counteracted by the abolition of the 40s. freeholders and the subletting act; the trade with England has been opened, and all commercial restrictions repealed; the jobbing of magistrates and grand juries has been mitigated by the appointment of assistant barristers, and the late grand jury act; the burden of tithes has partly been removed by the refusal to pay

* See note (C) at the end.

them, and partly has been thrown directly on the landlord. Moreover, the annual grant for the education of the poor has been taken out of the hands of private and irresponsible societies, who used it for the promotion of their own religious views, and has been intrusted to a board, impartially constituted, and responsible to government for their acts. That these measures have not produced all the good which their authors and supporters expected of them is unhappily true; but though they may have in some cases not allayed dissension, and in other cases even temporarily increased it, we are not to suppose that so much benevolent legislation has been bestowed in vain; that so many good intentions have produced only bad effects. Unquestionably there is not now in the higher and educated classes of Ireland that distrust of the government and that hatred of England which prevailed at the end of the last century; if the French revolution of 1789. had fallen in 1830, we should not have seen the Wolfe Tones and Lord Edward Fitzgeralds of the present day intriguing with France and organizing an armed rebellion in order to make Ireland an independent republic. There is no reason now to anticipate any serious commotions in Ireland of a political or even of a religious character: all its disturbances arise from the local and limited causes which have been above described as continually urging the peasantry to measures of selfdefence.

For this peculiar evil there seems to be no remedy except a legal provision for the poor, accompanied with systematic colonization, as affording the only means of passing into a state in which the agricultural population will consist of employers and labourers.

The