CHAPTER VI.-Suggestions of a Remedy for Irish Disturbances. Impossibility of suppressing Whiteboyism by punish- Mode in which the Irish destitute Poor are maintained 309 Irregularity of Employment, not the low Rate of Wages, the Cause of the destitute state of the Irish The Irregularity of Employment makes Land a ne- Transition from Villenage to the state of an Inde- This Transition not effected in Ireland Difficulty of passing from the Cottier to the Labourer Inability of the Landlords to effect the Change The Change can only be effected by a Legal Provi- General Objections to the Principle of a Poor Law 321 Theoretical Objections, good in themselves, but out- weighed by the peculiar circumstances of Ireland 323 Possibility of making a sudden change in the tur- bulent disposition of the Irish Peasantry Necessity of administering Relief in Ireland by means Objections to Workhouses : 1. That they do not pro- vide Employment for the People 2. Expensiveness of Workhouses 3. Prejudice of the Irish Poor against Workhouses 330 4. Liability of Workhouses to be burnt Operation of a Poor Law to be assisted by Colonization 332 Insufficiency of other measures to allay Disturbances in Ireland: 1. Settlement of Church Question. 2. Geographical distribution of the different persuasions Disproportionate increase of Protestants and Catholics System pursued by the State with respect to the dif- Evils of this system - 1st. No provision for the Ca- 2nd. Provision for the Protestants too large Connexion between Church and State Civil and Religious motives for establishing this con- Evils accruing to the State from its connexion with a Religious bigotry caused by the interference of Go- Evils accruing to a Church from its connexion with The State ought not to decide on forms of religious Difference between Establishment, Endowment, and Plan recommended for Ireland, to endow the Clergy Objections to this plan considered Temporal advantages of Protestantism and Catho- Mode of carrying this plan into effect Evils produced in Ireland by the maintenance of the Roman Catholic Church on the voluntary Evils falsely imputed to the voluntary principle 408 Inapplicability of the voluntary principle in Ireland, on account of the poverty of the Catholics Difficulty of providing accommodation for the wor- ship of Roman Catholics in Ireland Defective state of the Roman Catholic Chapels Note (A.) On the Poverty of the Irish Peasantry in the Note (B.) Statistical Account of the Crimes of Ireland Note (C.) On the state of the Scotch Peasantry in the first half of the 18th Century ERRATA. Page 37 line 9, for bodies read body. IRISH DISTURBANCES. INTRODUCTION. For the last seventy years Ireland has been the scene of constantly recurring disturbances; sometimes consisting only of the murder of a few persons, or the burning of a few houses, and sometimes rising to general insurrection. Successive governments have apparently exhausted every means in their power to suppress the evil, but without success. The statutebook has been loaded with the severest laws; the country has been covered with military and police; capital punishment has been unsparingly inflicted ; Australia has been crowded with transported convicts; and all to no purpose. Committees and Commissions have collected piles of evidence; the most various plans of policy have been recommended by different persons ; some have attributed the turbulence of the inferior Irish to their inherent barbarism; some to their religion ; some to their hatred of England ; some to their poverty; some to their want of education. Much new legislation has been tried, and in vain : in a large part of Ireland there is still less security of person and property than in any other part of Europe, except perhaps the wildest districts of Calabria or Greece: and there are persons who altogether despair of establishing permanent tranquillity in Ireland, and who think that it is an exception to all the ordinary rules of government. Such reasoners sometimes even push their political fatalism so far as to conceive that there is an innate and indelible tendency in the Irish to disturbance and outrage; that Ireland has been cut off by nature B from the rest of the civilized world, and been foredoomed to a state of endless disorder; so desponding, indeed, is their language, that they almost seem to view the Irish people in the same light as Don Juan d’Aguila, the Spanish commander, who (as we are told by Lord Bacon) after the battle of Kinsale, "said in open treaty, that when the Devil upon the mount did show Christ all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, he did not doubt but the Devil left out Ireland, aud kept it for himself *." At a time when many questions affecting the welfare of Ireland are under public discussion, and are likely soon to occupy a large portion of the attention of the legislature, it seems desirable that some attempt should be made to ascertain the true causes and nature of the disturbances in question ; and to discover whether there is anything so extraordinary in the character of the poorer classes in Ireland as to bid defiance to the best established rules of legislation ; or whether the appearances alluded to may not be explained without supposing any deviation from the general course of human nature. With this view, I propose, in the first place, to trace the history of the various local disturbances which prevailed in Ireland in the latter half of the last century (so far as the imperfect accounts of them given by contemporary writers will permit), and next, fully to explain, by means of evidence taken by several parliamentary committees, the nature of these disturbances, which have continued, with partial interruptions, but unaltered character, from about the accession of Geo, 1II. to the present day. * Of a war with Spain : Bacon's Works, vol. v. p. 276.-Ed. Montagu. |