other remedies which have been suggested seem utterly inadequate to this purpose. Thus it has been imagined that the settlement of the ecclesiastical questions in Ireland, by reducing the Established Church to a level with the wants of the Protestants, and by making a decent state provision for the Catholic clergy, would suppress the turbulence of the peasantry. Every impartial person acquainted with the state of Ireland must earnestly desire the adoption of these measures, which would unquestionably go far to extinguish the religious dissensions of that country; but from the facts adduced above, it is manifest that Whiteboyism is utterly unconnected with religion: and that it might continue to flourish in a country where all people were of one religion or of no religion. A still more visionary fancy is the supposition of some persons, that the physical condition of the Irish peasantry may be elevated, and their turbulent disposition removed by education. The Irish peasantry are not, on the whole, an ignorant and illiterate class, as compared with the same rank of persons in other countries: the peasantry of Wales, of Belgium, and of Tuscany, who in their general prosperity and tranquillity are not greatly inferior to those of England, are, to say the least, equally deficient in education with the Irish. Education would doubtless tend to instil in the Irish cottier economical habits, if he had the means of saving; and to repress his disposition to outrage, if he did not conceive it to be his only means of guarding against starvation. Another more popular remedy for the distress of the peasantry in Ireland is, the Repeal of the Union with England: it being supposed that the Union is the cause of absenteeism, and that absenteeism is the cause of the want of employment. If, therefore, it is said, the Union is repealed, the landlords will reside and the people will be employed. Of the two assumptions on which this argument is founded, neither appears to have any foundation. The Union is not the cause of absenteeism, and absenteeism is not the cause of want of employment. The true cause of absenteeism in Ireland, is the grants of land to Englishmen who possess other property in England. The true cause of the want of employment is the subdivision of the land, and the absence of a class of capitalist cultivators. It is well known, that the absenteeism of the landlords was as much complained of before as after the Union that lists of the absentees, and the amount of the rent drawn by them from the country, were published several times during the last century; and that motions were made in the Irish Parliament for imposing a tax on absentees*. If, therefore, the Repeal of the Union is to place Ireland in the condition in which it was before the Union, there is no reason to expect that this measure would remove the evil of absenteeism, so far as it affects the agricultural population. If, however, the Repeal of the Union means that Ireland is to be wholly separated from England, and to become an independent state; and if the old game of confiscation is to be retaliated on the Protestant proprietors, there is no doubt that the new Catholic grantees would in great measure reside on their estates. But a sweeping confiscation of this kind could not be carried into effect without a violent armed struggle, of which no one could venture to foretell the result, and by which, at any rate, the peasantry would be the chief sufferers. Moreover, * See note (D.) at the end. if this civil war was composed, and Ireland became an independent state, its agricultural produce would be excluded from the English ports; it would lose the benefit of the trade with the English colonies; it would be forced to maintain a separate army, and to lay the foundation of a separate navy; and it would be deprived of all those advantages which accrue to a poor country from its union with the richest, and, on the whole, the most powerful nation in the world. However, even if the Repeal of the Union was practicable without complete independence, and if this modified separation put an end to absenteeism, it does not follow that any material improvement would take place in the state of the Irish peasantry. The connexion between the prosperity of the peasantry and the residence of the landlords is far less intimate than is often supposed. Some of the best managed estates in Ireland belong to absentees, some of the worst managed to resident proprietors. There is much non-residence in parts of Ulster, where disturbance is unknown; the county of Tipperary, the head-quarters of Whiteboyism, abounds with resident gentlemen. At any rate, it is quite possible that a peasantry may be far less turbulent and miserable than the Irish, where the chief landlords are absent. In parts of Scotland and Wales non-residence is frequent: but though it is much complained of, it does not produce any material influence on the condition of the labourers, who, whether the landlord is absent or present, are equally employed for hire by the farmers in cultivating the soil. If there is any foundation for what has been already stated with respect to the position of the Irish landlord, it is clear that, in whatever place he may be, he is equally unable to resist the pressure of the land-craving necessities of the peasantry, and that he has no means, even if he understands his interest, and is ready to act upon his conviction, of bringing about a state of things, in which the labourer shall live by money received from the farmer, not from land allowed by the proprietor. With the present law, and in the present form of society, the Irish landlords may make a few isolated attempts to struggle against the stream, and some may meet with a partial success: but in the mean time the multiplication of the people goes on with perpetually increasing velocity; every year adds to the number of claimants for potato-grounds, and, by further subdividing the land, diminishes the means of employment; thus tending, slowly, perhaps, but inevitably, to that worst form of civil convulsion, a war for the means of subsistence. |