A* 
 
IRELAND. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
Works by the same Author. 
 
 FOUR LECTURES on POLITICAL ECONOMY, delivered 
 before the University of Oxford. 8vo. [1852.] 
 
 JOURNAL KEPT in TURKEY and GREECE in 1857 and 
 
 1858. Post 8vo. [1859.] 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Post 8vo. [1863.] 
 
 ESSAYS on FICTION. Post 8vo. [1864.] 
 
 HISTORICAL and PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS. 2 vols, 
 post 8vo. [1865.] 
 
 London : LONGMANS and CO. 
 
JOURNALS, 
 CONVERSATIONS AND ESSAYS 
 
 RELATING TO 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 ET 
 
 NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR 
 
 IB TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 SECOiTU EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, 
 
 1868. 
 
 AND CO. 
 
LONDON: PRINTED BY 
 SPOTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
DA 175 
 
 v. X 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE state of Ireland was a subject of continual 
 interest to Mr. Sexiok. The first of his 
 Journals (written in 1819) contains an account 
 of a visit to Ireland, and the last but one that 
 he ever wrote is a record of his travels in Ireland 
 in 1862. Throughout these forty-three years he 
 advocated mainly the same principles — in pam- 
 phlets, reviews, and finally in the Journals which 
 are now for the first time laid before the public. 
 
 In 1861 he arranged the Papers mentioned in 
 the Preface, with a view to their publication after 
 his visit in 1862 ; but his health gave way before 
 he had leisure to complete his design. As far as 
 it was possible, the original plan has been adhered 
 to in these volumes. 
 
 The lapse of time has, however, rendered some 
 changes expedient. A ' Letter to Lord Howick,' 
 
 2260 
 
vi 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 first published in 1831, and relating chiefly to 
 Irish Poor Laws, with an Appendix published in 
 1832, have been omitted, to make way for matter 
 of more immediate interest ; a short extract, on 
 1 National Property,' from a pamphlet published 
 by Mr. Senior in 1835, has been added; and 
 many parts of the Journals have been retained 
 which could not have been published at an earlier 
 period. 
 
 Archbishop Whately, Lord Eosse, Lord Mont- 
 eagle, and Mr. Stephen Spring Pace revised the 
 conversations in which they took part ; and their 
 representatives have greatly increased the value 
 of the work by permitting the insertion of the 
 names of those distinguished men. 
 
 Mr. Steuart Trench and Mr. Stephen de Vere, 
 and other friends whose names do not appear, 
 have also rendered valuable assistance by revising 
 the portions of the Journals which relate to them. 
 
 To all the friends who have thus contributed 
 to the interest of the book, the Editor desires to 
 return grateful thanks. 
 
 June 16, 1863. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 (WRITTEN IN 1861.) 
 
 THE Papers contained in this volume were 
 written in the years 1831 * 1832,* 1844, 
 1846, 1849, 1852, and 1858. They relate, there- 
 fore, to a period of nearly thirty years. 
 
 My motives for republishing those which have 
 already appeared, and for publishing those which, 
 till now, have remained in manuscript, are these. 
 
 In the first place, I hope that they will be use- 
 ful historical documents. They show what were 
 the prevalent opinions respecting Irish affairs — 
 the wishes, the hopes, the fears, and the expec- 
 tations, which were felt, both in England and in 
 Ireland, at different periods, during a long and 
 anxious portion of Irish history. 
 
 The extracts from the Journals contain facts, of 
 
 * Omitted. 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 which there will soon be no other record, illus- 
 trative of the state of the country at those times. 
 They contain also information, which I believe to 
 be of present practical value. 
 
 Though the aspect of Ireland is somewhat 
 changed since 1852, and much since 1844, I 
 doubt whether any great real alteration in the 
 habits or feelings of the people has taken place. 
 They still depend mainly on the potato. They 
 still depend rather on the occupation of land, than 
 on the wages of labour. They still erect for them- 
 selves the hovels in which they dwell. They are 
 still eager to subdivide and to sublet. They are 
 still the tools of their priests, and the priests are 
 still ignorant of the economical laws on which the 
 welfare of the labouring classes depends. They 
 are still the promoters of early and improvident 
 marriages ; they still neglect to preach to their 
 flocks the prudence, parsimony, industry, clean- 
 liness, and other self-regarding virtues, on which 
 health and comfort depend; they are still the 
 enemies of emigration ; they are still the enemies 
 of every improving landlord ; they are still hostile 
 to a Government which has seized the property 
 of their Church — which refuses, or at least neg- 
 lects, to provide for the spiritual instruction of the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 great mass of the people, and everywhere, except 
 in its workhouses and in its gaols, ignores the ex- 
 istence of a Eoman Catholic clergy. 
 
 The combinations and the trades-unions are 
 little less ferocious than they w T ere in 1838. Ire- 
 land is still governed by two codes, dissimilar, 
 and often opposed : one deriving its validity from 
 Acts of Parliament, and maintained by the magis- 
 trate — the other laid down by the tenants, and 
 enforced by assassination. It is important that 
 the details of the latter code should be known. 
 It is important that an Irish landlord should 
 know what kind of management of his property 
 is safe, what is hazardous, and what is certainly 
 fatal. 
 
 Some information on these points will be found 
 in these Journals. Nearly all the persons whose 
 conversations I extract, were owners or managers 
 of land. They relate their own experience. They 
 tell us what is the conduct which an Irish tenant 
 approves — what he will tolerate, what he will 
 resent, and what he will punish. 
 
 In the second place, I believe that the measures 
 which, from 1831 to 1849, I persisted in recom- 
 mending, are still expedient. Some of them have 
 been adopted. Tithes have been commuted, the 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 absurdly excessive Episcopal Establishment has 
 been reduced (though less perhaps than it ought 
 to be), and the revenues of the suppressed sees 
 have been applied in relieving the people from 
 the vexation of Church cess. Great progress has 
 been made in abolishing the mischievous system 
 on which ecclesiastical property was leased. The 
 niggardly grants by which National Education 
 was rather kept alive than encouraged, have been 
 enlarged, till they bear a fair proportion to those 
 afforded to Great Britain. 
 
 Other measures, perhaps of still greater impor- 
 tance, have been carried into effect, which I can- 
 not claim the merit of having proposed, or even 
 supported. 
 
 A Poor Law has been introduced — I believe 
 the best which any country has ever adopted. 
 
 In 1860, the last year for which we have re- 
 turns, the whole money expended on the relief of 
 the poor — including the large item of medical 
 relief, and the nearly equally large one of the 
 salaries and rations of the officers employed in the 
 administration of the Poor Law — amounted to 
 only 558,778/. 
 
 A Table contained in the Appendix to the 
 Eeport of the Committee of the House of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xi 
 
 Commons on the Irish Poor Law, dated July 9, 
 1861, states that, in 1859, the average daily num- 
 ber of persons in receipt of relief was — 
 
 In England 828,247 
 
 In Scotland 120,906 
 
 In Ireland 41,617 
 
 being, in proportion to the total population — 
 
 In England . . . . 1 in 23f 
 In Scotland • . . . 1 in 25f 
 In Ireland . . . . 1 in 140 
 
 And the same Committee, after an enquiry of 
 nearly four months, reported that the powers of 
 the Guardians to afford relief were sufficient, and 
 that their exercise of those powers was such as to 
 render any interference in their administration 
 inexpedient. 
 
 The Encumbered Estates Court — by simplify- 
 ing legal procedure, and by the bold novelty of 
 giving a Parliamentary title — has made property, 
 nearly thirty millions in value, which the poverty 
 of its nominal owners, and the complication of its 
 title, had rendered almost unsaleable, a valuable 
 and useful subject of investment. 
 
 But these measures, beneficial as they were, 
 would have been powerless if the population of 
 
xii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Ireland had continued to increase, or had even 
 remained stationary at its amount in 1841. 
 
 The causes by which it was reduced, from 
 8,175,124 to 5,764,543, were foreseen by no one. 
 The potato disease, which has now lasted, with 
 varying intensity, for sixteen years, is an event 
 almost unparalleled in agricultural history. That 
 it should be followed by a famine was to be ex- 
 pected, but who could foresee the subsequent 
 emigration ? 
 
 That in eight years, from 1847 to 1854 inclu- 
 sive, a population, not exceeding at the com- 
 mencement of that period 7,000,000, should have 
 sent out more than 1,600,000 persons (nearly 
 one-fourth of its original numbers), to inhabit coun- 
 tries the nearest of which was more than 3,000 
 miles from its shore, was an event still stranger 
 than the potato disease. 
 
 Stranger still is the fact, that the greater part 
 of the expense of this emigration was supplied 
 by previous emigrants : by men who, having — 
 sometimes by their own exertions, but more fre- 
 quently by the assistance of their landlords — 
 obtained a new country, saved year after year, 
 from their hard-earned wages, sums which they 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 sent home, to enable their brothers, their sisters, 
 and their parents to join them. 
 
 I say ' hard-earned wages,' for the life of the 
 Irish emigrant, at least in the United States — the 
 country to which, as the most accessible, Irish 
 emigration has been chiefly directed — is painful 
 and hazardous. In the slave countries he is put 
 to the works which are so unhealthy, that the life 
 of a slave is not risked in them. In the free 
 countries, he is put to those which an American 
 rejects as too dangerous, or too disagreeable, or 
 too severe. 
 
 But he is well-paid ; at a comparatively small 
 price, he is well-fed. In a few years he can 
 accumulate a little capital, not to be spent, not 
 to be invested, but to be sent home to bring out 
 other members of his family. For this purpose 
 he sacrifices enjoyment, and even comfort, and 
 risks health and life. 
 
 It will be seen in the following pages that, 
 earnestly as I desired a large emigration, I did 
 not expect one ; and still less hoped for good 
 from a Poor Law. 
 
 In 1831, when I first wrote on Irish affairs, no 
 Poor Law was known, except the unreformed 
 Scotch Poor Law, and the unreformed English 
 
xiv 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 one. The first was illusory; the second was 
 rapidly destroying the wealth of the richest, and 
 the morality of the most civilised country in the 
 world. 
 
 A Poor Law affording, practically, only indoor 
 relief had not then been tried, or even suggested. 
 And I firmly believe, that if a Poor Law, on the 
 English or on the Scotch system, had been intro- 
 duced into Ireland in 1832 — and one of those 
 models would certainly have been adopted — the 
 ruin which I predicted would have followed. 
 
 Nassau William Senior. 
 
THE 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 ON NATIONAL PROPERTY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Importance of protecting Private Property ..... 1 
 In what Cases and to what Extent Compensation should be given 
 
 when it is interfered with or taken by the State . . 3 
 Subject to the Claims of Individuals, Corporate Property belongs to 
 
 the State ....... 6 
 
 And ought to be employed for the Public Good . . . — 
 
 That is, for the Benefit of the Nation as a Permanent Body . 8 
 The existing Members of a Nation should not be unjust to their 
 
 Successors . . . . . . — 
 
 E.g. should not waste the Capital of the National Property . 10 
 
 Church Property belongs to the State subject to the Rights of 
 
 existing Incumbents . . . . . .11 
 
 Though devoted to Ecclesiastical Purposes by Testamentary Dis- 
 position . . . . . . .12 
 
 IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 Ireland a painful Subject . . . . . .17 
 
 Improved State of English Public Opinion on Ireland . .18 
 
 North and South of Ireland different Countries . . .21 
 
 This Essay principally occupied with the South . . . — 
 
 Evils of Ireland, material and moral . . .22 
 
 Material Evils, Want of Capital and of Small Proprietors 
 
xvi 
 
 CONTENTS OF 
 
 PAGE 
 
 These Deficiencies not very mischievous when separate . .22 
 Most mischievous when united . . . . .26 
 
 Three Remedies : — 
 
 1. A Revolution converting Occupiers into Proprietors 
 
 2. The Generation of Capital by Industry and Frugality 
 
 3. The Introduction of Capital from Abroad . , 
 The First destructive , 
 The Second requires Centuries 
 
 The Third cannot be used by a large Independent Country 
 
 But might be used by Ireland 
 
 Prevented by the Moral Evils of Ireland . . 
 
 These Evils, Insecurity, Ignorance, and Indolence . 
 Insecurity occasioned by the Unpopularity of the Imperial Law 
 Causes of that Unpopularity .... 
 
 Insurrectionary Law substituted for the Imperial Law 
 Ignorance of the Irish ..... 
 
 Indolence ....... 
 
 Causes of Indolence ..... 
 
 Remedy for the Unpopularity — Reform of the Ecclesiastical System 
 Present System an Injury and an Insult . 
 Necessity of endowing the Roman Catholic Church 
 Why opposed by Mr. O'Connell and the Repealers 
 Why it ought not to be taken from the Protestant Endowment 
 What ought to be the Provision for Buildings 
 What for Clergy ...... 
 
 State of Province of Cashel .... 
 
 Congregational System to be substituted for the Territorial 
 Mr. Bingham Barings Clauses on the Bill of 1835 
 Mr. Stanley's Bill of 1832 for Redemption of Tithes 
 Sir Henry Harding's Bill of 1835 , 
 
 Lord John Russell's Bill of 1838 .... 
 
 Proposal as to Cathedral Lands .... 
 
 Proposal that the Irish Prelates should no longer sit in Parliament 
 Education Board ...... 
 
 Opposition to it . . . 
 
 Conduct of the Tory Party .... 
 
 Proposal that the Grant be increased to 200,000/. 
 Proposal that the Violence of Combinations be repressed 
 Character of O'Connell ..... 
 
 Proposal that the Stipendiary Magistracy be increased 
 Proposal that the Lord-Lieutenancy be abolished . 
 Proposal that the Queen visit Ireland . . . 
 
 Why a Tory Government cannot effectually resist, or usefully 
 
 propose, Reforms . . . . . .127 
 
THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 XVU 
 
 PEOPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH 
 POOR LAW. 
 
 [From Edin. Eev. October, 1846.] 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sketch of the Unamended English Poor Law . . .134 
 
 Mr. Scrope's Proposal of a Poor Law for Ireland . .138 
 
 Worse than a Confiscation . . . . . .142 
 
 The Landowners Superintendence the great Check to Population . 143 
 Examples of Estates on which Population has been unchecked by the 
 
 Owner . . . . . . . 145 
 
 "Why such Cases are more numerous in Ireland than in England . 148 
 Dangerous Feelmgs towards Irish Landlords in England . .151 
 In Ireland . . . . . . . .152 
 
 Case of Cholesbury . . . . . .154 
 
 Eecommendations of the Commissioners for Inquiring into the 
 
 Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland . . .156 
 
 Some of them impracticable . . . . .157 
 
 Others have been neglected. . . . . .158 
 
 They opposed the Eight of the Able-bodied to Eelief . .160 
 Opinions of the English Commissioners of Poor Law Inquiry on 
 
 Outdoor Eelief of the Able-bodied . . . .161 
 
 Their Opinions as to Parish Employment . . .167 
 
 The Exportation of Food from Ireland occasioned by Poverty . 170 
 Tone of Mr. Scrope's Book anarchical . . . .171 
 
 Proposal of a Discretionary Power in Guardians to give Outdoor 
 
 Relief. . . . . . . .175 
 
 Differences between Public and Private Charity . . .176 
 
 Objections to the Proposal ..... 179 
 
 Proposal that the State assist Voluntary Charitable Associations . 185 
 Eemarks on the Opposition to the English Poor Law Amendment 
 
 Act . . . . . . . .191 
 
 EELIEF OF IEISH DISTRESS IN 1847 
 AND 1848. 
 
 [From Edin. Eev. October, 1849.] 
 
 Sir E. Peel's Opinion that there ought to be, between England and 
 
 Ireland, Equality of Eights . . . . .195 
 
 Differences between the Two Countries . . . .198 
 
 Yet the Institutions which have been adopted by England have 
 
 been imposed on Ireland ..... 200 
 
 English and Irish Landlords, Farmers, and Labourers contrasted 203 
 YOL. I. a 
 
xviii 
 
 CONTENTS OF 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Effects in England of Potato Disease . . . .208 
 
 Measures proposed for Ireland ..... 209 
 
 Poor Law Extension Act of June, 1847 . . . .213 
 
 Poor Law Commissioners' Eeport of May, 1848 . . . 214 
 
 Evidence as to Indolence of Irish Peasantry . . .215 
 
 Statistics of L T nions of Ballina and Kilrush . . .219 
 
 Statistics of Eelief in 1847 and 1848 .... 220 
 
 Attempts of the Peasantry to force Outdoor Eelief . . 222 
 
 In Balingarry ....... 224 
 
 In Sligo . . . . . . .225 
 
 In Kilrush . . ." . . .226 
 
 In Scariff ........ 232 
 
 In Mohill ........ 233 
 
 General Eesults . . . . . . .234 
 
 Eirst Eemedy, the Improvement of the Priests, by giviDg them 
 
 Salaries ....... 240 
 
 Second, proportioning the Agricultural Population to the Demand 
 
 for their Labour . . . . . .241 
 
 Evidence of Mr. Aubrey de Vere . . . . . — 
 
 Comparative Agricultural Population in Ireland and England . 245 
 Obstacles to extensive Agricultural Improvements . . 247 
 
 Correspondence between Mr. Carter, of Erris, and the Improve- 
 ment Act Commissioners ..... 249 
 
 Mr. Thornton's and Mr. Mill's Proposal? for Colonising the "Waste 
 
 Lands of Ireland . . . . . .253 
 
 Objections —Future Sub-division ..... 254 
 
 Extent of Land required . . . .256 
 
 Practical Eesult . . . . . . .262 
 
 JOURNAL OF A VISIT TO IRELAND IX 1852. 
 
 Sept. 2. — Success of the "Workhouse System . . . 265 
 
 Emigration of Female Paupers . . . . — 
 
 Sept. 3. — Dearness of Irish Labour consequent on the Combina- 
 tions . . . . . . .267 
 
 Sept. 5. — Conversation with Lord Monteagle and Mr. Spring Rice 
 on the Labour Eate Act and the Works undertaken 
 during the Famine ..... 269 
 
 On whom the Expense fell .... 270 
 
 No One derived any Benefit . . .271 
 
 Suffering from Exposure to Cold . . .272 
 
THE FIRST VOLUME. XIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Plan proposed by Lord Monteagle . . .273 
 
 Theory of the English Government as to the Duty 
 of Irish Landlords . . . .274 
 
 Lord Monteagle's Theory of the same . .275 
 Mr. Senior's View on the Subject — Description of 
 Island Magee . . . .275, 276 
 
 Sept. 6. — Contrast between different Portions of Lord Monteagle's 
 
 Estate . . . . . .277 
 
 Table of the Estate . . . . .278 
 
 Instinct of Irish Tenant to sublet and divide . 279 
 Description of a Squatter .... 280 
 
 Lord 31onteagle's Objections to Tenant Rights . 281 
 Injury to Ireland of capricious Legislation . . — 
 
 Burden of the Poor Eate . . . .282 
 
 Sept. 7. — Letters from an Emigrant inviting his Brother to 
 
 come out . . . . . 284, 286 
 
 Evils produced by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act . 288 
 Appointment of Dr. Cullen .... 290 
 
 Strengthening the Radical Party . . .291 
 
 Want of rising Young Men . . . 293 
 
 Conduct of the present Parliamentary Leaders com- 
 pared with that of Canning . . . — 
 Sept. 8. — National Schools— Kind Treatment of an Orphan . 294 
 Model Farm. Favourable Opinion of Mr. Thornbery as to 
 Irish Labour ...... 295 
 
 No Footpaths nor Stiles in Ireland . . . .296 
 
 Sept. 9. — Description of Kilkee . . . . . — 
 
 Sept. 10.— Wreck of the 'Intrinsic' . . . .299 
 
 Wreck of an Emigrant Ship . . . . .300 
 
 Sept. 11. — Relief Work Road from Loup Head to Liscannor . 301 
 Villages deserted in consequence of Poor Rate . . — 
 
 Amount of Poor Rate paid by the Guide . . . — 
 
 Sept. 13. — Bonaparte's accurate Information respecting Tarbert . 302 
 Sept. 15. — Conversation with Mr. Herbert. Squalor of Killarney 
 
 and Causes of its Poverty .... 304 
 
 Sept. 16. — Peculiar Beauty of the Lakes of Killarney . . 306 
 
 Sept. 17.— Spillane, the Killarney Guide . . . .308 
 
 Sept. 19.— Muckross Abbey . . . . .311 
 
 Kenmare ....... 313 
 
JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, &c. 
 
 RELATING TO 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 ON NATIONAL PROPERTY.* (1835) 
 
 THE great object and the great difficulty in govern- 
 ment is the preservation of individual property. 
 All the fraud and almost all the violence which it is 
 the business of government to prevent and repress, 
 arise from the attempts of mankind to deprive one 
 another of the fruits of their respective industry and 
 frugality. Among savages these attempts produce 
 
 * The pamphlet (from which this is an extract) entitled, 
 1 On National Property, and on the Prospects of the Present 
 Administration and of their Successors,' was written by Mr. 
 Senior, at the desire of Lord Lansdowne and of other influential 
 persons, during the short Administration of Sir Robert Peel in 
 January 1835. It went through four editions. To the last, 
 which appeared in the following May (the Government having 
 changed hands in the interval), Mr. Senior wrote a preface, 
 strongly advocating the substitution of the Congregational for 
 the Territorial system in the Irish Church Establishment. 
 This measure, though admitted by Lord Lansdowne to be 
 right, was pronounced by him to be impracticable. The pre- 
 face therefore did not appear. — Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 robbery and theft. To these simple modes of unjust 
 appropriation civilised nations add the less palpable 
 forms of monopoly, combination, and privilege ; abuses 
 which, when of long standing, it is not easy to detect 
 and expose, and which it is still more difficult to 
 remedy, without occasioning much immediate injury to 
 individuals. But the most revolting, and perhaps the 
 most mischievous form of robbery, is that in which the 
 Government itself becomes an accomplice ; when the 
 property of whole classes of individuals is swept away 
 by legislative enactments, and men owe their ruin to 
 that very institution which was created to ensure their 
 safety. It is highly honourable to the honesty and 
 sagacity of the people of England that they have 
 guarded against this evil with almost superstitious 
 care, and have allowed every individual to oppose, his 
 own interests to those of the public to the utmost ex- 
 tent to which, with any resemblance to decency, they 
 can be urged. It may be a question, indeed, whether 
 they have not often gone beyond this point, and 
 allowed pleas of well-founded expectations, or (as they 
 are usually termed) vested interests, to impede the 
 general good to an unnecessary, and, therefore, a mis- 
 chievous decree. But with all our anxietv — and it is 
 a very proper anxiety — to hold the balance even be- 
 tween individuals and the public, or to lean rather 
 towards the weaker party, there are two landmarks 
 which we have never transgressed : the individual in- 
 terests — which, whether in possession or in expectation, 
 we have considered as property, even when inconsistent 
 with the public welfare, and either left untouched or 
 bought up at an ample price — have been, in the first 
 place, lawful ; and, secondly, capable of valuation. 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY. IS 35. 
 
 3 
 
 No interest, however definite and vested, can be 
 respected if it he unlawful. No voice has ever been 
 lifted up in defence of the vested interests of paupers 
 in Poor-law abuses, or of vestrymen and overseers in 
 parochial jobbing. So far, indeed, has this been 
 carried, that a profit, based on an illegal act, is not 
 held entitled to mere ordinary protection against an 
 equally unlawful aggression. The printer who pirated 
 Lord Byron's f Cain ' was allowed to plead his own 
 wrong in his own defence : to maintain, and to main- 
 tain successfully, that 6 Cain,' being an unlawful pub- 
 lication, was not property, and therefore could not be 
 the subject of plunder. 
 
 Nor can any interest, however lawful, be considered 
 property as against the public, unless it be capable 
 of valuation. And for this reason : — if incapable of 
 valuation it must be incapable of compensation, and 
 therefore, if inviolable, would be an insurmountable 
 barrier to any improvement inconsistent with its exist- 
 ence. If a house is to be pulled down, and its site 
 employed for public purposes, the owner receives a 
 full compensation for every advantage connected with 
 it which can be estimated. But he obtains no pretium 
 affect ionis. He is not paid a larger indemnity because 
 it was the seat of his ancestors, or endeared to him by 
 any peculiar associations. His claim on any such 
 grounds for compensation is rejected, because, as the 
 subject-matter is incapable of valuation, to allow it 
 would open a door to an indefinite amount of fraud 
 and extortion : nor is he allowed to refuse the bargain 
 offered to him by the public, because such a refusal 
 would be inconsistent with the general interest of the 
 community. The mere hope of public employment. 
 
4 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 founded on no contract, express or implied, affords 
 another instance of a lawful expectation, too vague to 
 admit of compensation. If such a claim had been 
 allowed, no incumbrance on the public revenue could 
 ever have been removed, or even diminished. The 
 army could not have been reduced, because many who 
 hoped for commissions must have been disappointed. 
 All improvement must have been stopped if it had 
 been admitted that such expectations are property. 
 
 Of course we do not mean to affirm that every 
 lawful interest which is susceptible of valuation is 
 property, and therefore entitled to be either compen- 
 sated or left undisturbed. In legislation we are con- 
 stantly forced to choose between motives acting in 
 opposite directions, and to purchase general advantage 
 at the expense of particular inconvenience. It is an 
 evil that any fair expectation should be disappointed. 
 But there are cases in which the public welfare re- 
 quires this evil to be submitted to. The goodwill of a 
 shop is a lawful interest, and, as it is a frequent subject 
 of sale, is obviously capable of valuation. But the 
 public recognises it as property only under peculiar 
 circumstances. It is not protected in any degree 
 against competition. No one is prevented from in- 
 juring or even absolutely destroying it by establishing 
 a rival shop at the next door. Even the injury which 
 it may receive from legislative acts, is left uncom- 
 pensated if the shop itself is allowed to exist. The 
 shopkeepers and landlords of Bond Street were not 
 compensated for the loss occasioned to them by the 
 erection of Regent Street, though the opening of that 
 street was a public measure. It was felt that the admis- 
 sion of a claim for compensation for the injury arising 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY, 1835. 
 
 5 
 
 from competition would produce greater evils than 
 those which, from time to time, arise from the destruc- 
 tion of the fair expectation of a profitable local trade. 
 If, however, the public interest requires a shop to be 
 removed, the tenant receives the value of its goodwill, 
 though that goodwill was previously at the mercy of 
 any of his rivals in trade. The number of occasions 
 on which such a claim can be made is not so great as 
 to be a serious obstacle to public improvements ; and 
 the objection to its admission is therefore at an end. 
 The hope of eventually succeeding to an estate, the 
 present possessor of which is seised in fee, or, in other 
 words, has the absolute property, is an instance of a 
 lawful interest capable of estimation, and even of 
 alienation, but utterly unprotected. It is left exposed 
 to the extravagance or caprice of the tenant in fee 
 simple. It has recently, and in many thousand in- 
 stances, been taken away by the Legislature, and 
 without compensation. Until January 1, 1834, no 
 person could inherit the freehold property of his lineal 
 descendants. On the death of a person possessed of 
 such property, intestate, and without issue, leaving a 
 father or mother, or more remote lineal ancestor, it 
 went over to his collateral relatives. In 1833, this 
 law was totally altered. In such cases the property 
 now goes to the father or mother, or remoter lineal 
 ancestor, in preference to the collaterals. In many 
 instances this must defeat expectations, not merely 
 well-founded, but approaching to certainties. The 
 brothers, uncles, nephews, and cousins of lunatics, or 
 of minors in such a state of health as to be very 
 unlikely to reach the age at which they would be 
 capable of making a will, had, until the 3rd and 4th 
 
6 
 
 JOURNALS, conversations, etc. 
 
 Will. IV.. cap. 106, was passed, prospects of succes- 
 sion so definite, that in many cases they would have 
 sold for considerable prices. All these interests, 
 though lawful and capable of valuation, have been 
 swept away without compensation. And it was ne- 
 cessary that this should be done; the old law was 
 obviously inconvenient, and to have attempted to com- 
 pensate all those who, if the principle of compensation 
 had been admitted, must have been held entitled to it, 
 would have involved such an expense as to have ren- 
 dered the alteration of the law impracticable. We 
 affirm, not that every lawful interest which is capable 
 of valuation is inviolable, but that no interest can be 
 held inviolable as against the public unless it be 
 capable of valuation. 
 
 All property, so far as it has no lawful individual 
 proprietor, must belong to the nation collectively, or, 
 in other words, to the State. This is the case with 
 respect to the fee simple of all that property which 
 is held in mortmain. The estates of Bishops and 
 Chapters, of the Universities, and their Colleges and 
 Halls, and, generally speaking, of all Corporations, 
 have no owners beyond the life-interests of the existing 
 Bishops and members of Chapters and Corporations. 
 Those life-interests the State is bound to protect : to 
 affect them without the consent of their owners, would 
 be, as we have already stated, spoliation in one of its 
 most odious forms. But, subject to those life-interests, 
 the State is not only justified, but absolutely bound, to 
 employ the property in the way most conducive to the 
 public interest. In many, indeed in the vast majority 
 of cases, the existing application, or at least an appli- 
 cation of the same in kind, is on the whole the best 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY, J 835. 
 
 7 
 
 that can be adopted. Few measures could be more 
 mischievous than a diversion of the revenues of the 
 Universities from the purposes of education. Some 
 modifications, indeed, of the statutes of the different 
 Colleges are necessary to enable them to perform still 
 better their important offices ; but no one who is aware 
 of the extent of their present usefulness, would think 
 for an instant of making a total change in their destina- 
 tion. The same may be said of the Episcopalian 
 and Chapter property in England, and of the benefices, 
 the advowsons of which do not belong to individuals, 
 and which are therefore public property. A better 
 distribution might perhaps be made of their revenues, 
 but there is no mode in which they could be more 
 beneficially employed, than as an ecclesiastical endow- 
 ment. TVith many persons, long habit has blunted the 
 sense of the advantages which are produced by an en- 
 dowed Church ; and there are others who, though 
 aware of the extent of those advantages, or rather, 
 perhaps, in consequence of their knowledge of the 
 benefits conferred by an endowment, are so anxious to 
 increase those benefits, and to make the endowments 
 of the Church as useful as possible, that their attention 
 is more earnestly fixed on the faults and deficiencies 
 of our existing system, than on its far more important 
 merits. But all whose minds are not blinded by party 
 or sectarian spirit must admit that an endowed Church 
 is among the most valuable parts of our political in- 
 heritance. 
 
 But while, on the one hand, we deny the expediency 
 of diverting the estates of the Universities from educa- 
 tional, and those of the sees and chapters and benefices 
 in question from ecclesiastical purposes ; while we 
 
8 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 affirm that such a diversion would be short sighted and 
 barbarous folly ; — on the other hand, we equally deny 
 that, supposing the existing life-interests to be un- 
 touched, and that the diversion could be proved to be 
 expedient, it would be an injustice. In other words, 
 if the expediency can be proved, we affirm the right. 
 
 And not only must the expediency, on which alone 
 the right is founded, be clearly proved, but it must be 
 an expediency with reference to the nation as a per- 
 manent body. A violation of this last rule appears to 
 be the only mode in which a nation can commit an 
 injustice, although no assignable individual has a right 
 to consider himself as unjustly treated. A nation, 
 though it may act with the utmost imprudence or 
 folly, cannot be said to be unjust to the whole of its 
 existing members, any more than a man, however 
 absurd, can be said to be unjust to himself. But if 
 the existing members of the nation sacrifice the welfare 
 of their successors to their own immediate interest, 
 they may be said to be unjust to their successors ; just 
 as a man who wastes his inheritance, or sells it, and 
 lays out the price in an annuity on his own life, is said 
 to be unjust to his children. And this is a species of 
 injustice to which every country is most mischievously 
 tempted. It is as dangerous for a nation as it is for 
 an individual, to have the power of promoting its own 
 apparent immediate interests at the expense of those 
 who are not yet in existence, with whom therefore it 
 cannot sympathise, and who have no assigned pro- 
 tectors. Few countries, therefore, have been able to 
 withstand the temptation. Almost every Government 
 has, to a certain extent, sacrificed posterity, wherever 
 an immediate gain has appeared attainable. One of 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY, 1835. 
 
 9 
 
 the most striking instances was the funding system 
 adopted in this country during the revolutionary war. 
 We do not mean to affirm that it was inconsistent with 
 the permanent welfare of the State, and therefore, in 
 our sense of the word, unjust, to raise by loans a 
 portion of the expense of that war. But the mode in 
 which the greater part of those loans was raised pro- 
 duced a slight immediate advantage, at the expense of 
 a great and permanent evil. They were principally 
 raised by the creation of a three per cent, stock, at a 
 time when the real interest of money was from five 
 to seven per cent. For every 70/. or 60Z., or some- 
 times even for a smaller sum really paid to the Ex- 
 chequer, the nation acknowledged a debt of 100Z. A 
 slight abatement of interest was thus obtained. If 
 the nation had acknowledged itself a debtor for only 
 the sum really borrowed, it would have had to pay, 
 during the war, a rather larger interest — in some cases 
 five per cent., instead of four-and-a-half ; in others, 
 perhaps, six per cent., instead of five-and-a-half, or 
 perhaps even more. But, at the termination of the 
 war, the national debt, instead of amounting to between 
 seven and eight hundred millions, the greater part of 
 it bearing an interest of only three per cent., but re- 
 deemable only by the payment of the nominal prin- 
 cipal sum, would not have exceeded four or five 
 hundred millions, bearing, indeed, a higher rate of 
 interest — some part of it, six, or perhaps even seven per 
 cent. — but redeemable at the expense of four or five 
 hundred millions. The interest of the whole might 
 have been reduced, and a portion of the principal paid 
 off, without any injustice to the public creditor, who 
 would have received every shilling that he bargained 
 
10 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 for; and at this instant we should probably be subject 
 to not more than one half of the debt, which interferes 
 with our internal prosperity and external force, and 
 endangers, more than any other single cause, the sta- 
 bility of our institutions. 
 
 Now, even supposing that it could be shown that it 
 would be expedient, as far as the present generation is 
 concerned, to dispose of the fee simple in reversion of 
 all the national property, and apply the produce for 
 purposes of temporary utility, it is certain that such a 
 conduct would not be expedient as respects our pos- 
 terity. The revenue derived from property held in 
 mortmain is a revenue, and it is the only revenue so 
 circumstanced, which, though it is received by the 
 country, or by those who are trustees for the country, 
 no individual can be said to pay. No assignable indi- 
 vidual is poorer because the beautiful valley in which 
 Dulwich College is situated belongs to a corporation. 
 The revenue arising from that splendid property, is, 
 without doubt, employed less beneficially than it might 
 be ; but in all probability more beneficially, and most 
 certainly not less so, than if Alleyne, instead of found- 
 ing a college, had founded a family. Of this revenue 
 the existing generation is only tenant for life. It is our 
 right and our duty to manage and apply the income, 
 but to preserve the inheritance. The inheritance be- 
 longs to our successors. 
 
 If, by Act of Parliament, the property of Dulwich 
 College were sold, subject to the existing life-interests, 
 and the produce applied in aid of the supplies of the 
 year, the present generation, indeed, would not be in- 
 jured ; but our posterity would be deprived of a revenue, 
 of which we, at present, make little public use, bui 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY, 1835. 
 
 11 
 
 which they may apply to the noblest purposes of im- 
 provement. 
 
 A general conviction of the mischief that would arise 
 from the dissipation, for purposes of immediate utility, 
 of the fee simple of mortmain property, and of the temp- 
 tation to which a government is exposed, particularly 
 in unsettled times, to give present relief, and obtain, or 
 confirm, present power and temporary popularity, by 
 perpetrating this mischief, has induced persons who 
 were not aware of the real grounds on which it ought 
 to be opposed, to support their opposition by all sorts 
 of fallacious arguments. They confound the right, which 
 clearly does exist, to deal with the income, with the 
 right, which does not exist, to waste the fee simple ; 
 and by endeavouring to prove what is false, have failed 
 in establishing what is true. 
 
 Of those who are guilty of this error, some deny 
 the right of the State to deal with the income of pro- 
 perty held in mortmain, on the ground that what they 
 call the Church, as distinct from the existing clergy- 
 men, is the owner of what they call Church property ; 
 that the Episcopal lands belong to the Bench of 
 Bishops, not for the lives of the existing Bishops, but 
 for ever ; and that to declare that no Bishop shall in 
 future be appointed, and that the revenues of the sees, 
 as they become vacant, shall be applied to the support 
 of hospitals, would be an act of spoliation, even al- 
 though it could be demonstrated that such an appli- 
 cation would be more useful, not only at present, but 
 permanently, than the present one. 
 
 The answer to these reasoners is, that to every 
 spoliation there must be two parties, the spoiler and 
 the person despoiled. Now who, under these circum- 
 
12 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 stances, would be the persons despoiled ? Our pos- 
 terity ? — No : for the argument assumes that they 
 would be benefited. The existing Bishops ? — No : 
 for they are untouched. The persons who now have 
 the power to appoint Bishops ? — Their consent must, 
 of course, be obtained. If the Bishopric of Sodor and 
 Man had still belonged to the Athol family, their 
 right to appoint a Bishop could not have been sup- 
 pressed without compensation. But in the present 
 case, the persons who have the right to appoint 
 Bishops are the Government, and their consent is pre- 
 supposed. The persons who might hope to be made 
 Bishops ? — They have no vested interest susceptible of 
 valuation, and therefore, on the grounds already laid 
 down, cannot be heard. They have no more right to 
 protest against the suppression of Bishoprics than sub- 
 alterns have to oppose a reduction of the number of 
 field-officers. Bishoprics no more belong to the Church, 
 as an imaginary entity, distinct from the existing 
 churchmen, than pay and allowances belong to the 
 army, as an equally imaginary entity, distinct from the 
 existing soldiers. 
 
 Others, again, contend that this property, having 
 been originally given to ecclesiastical purposes, can- 
 not be diverted from them without improperly vio- 
 lating the wills of those deceased persons who so 
 dedicated it. 
 
 In Scotland, where a right of perpetual entail is 
 admitted, this argument might have some plausibility. 
 In England and Ireland, where the law 6 abhors per- 
 petuities,' it is almost too absurd for refutation. Our 
 ancestors have had their full swing of posthumous 
 power. Their wills have been obeyed for centuries ; 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY, 1835. 
 
 13 
 
 in some cases, without doubt, most beneficially — in 
 others, more or less mischievously. And will anyone, 
 out of a sentimental regard to their memory, maintain 
 that we have not now the right, or that, having that 
 right, we are not now bound to enquire how far this 
 obedience is now beneficial, how far it is mischievous ? 
 or that we have not now the right, or that, having 
 that right, it is not our duty, to make such changes 
 as may augment the benefit and remove the mischief? 
 
 If this argument were successful, the land would in- 
 deed belong, not to the living, but to the dead. Every 
 successive generation would find itself more and more 
 confined by testamentary enactments, in many in- 
 stances the result of vanity, caprice, or ignorance ; in 
 others, framed to meet the wants of an obsolete state 
 of society, but in all cases immutable as the laws of 
 the Medes and Persians. One testator might direct 
 his estates to lie fallow for 10,000 years ; another, that 
 they should be cropped alternately in thistles one cen- 
 tury, and in nettles the next ; and a third might order 
 (as indeed has been done), that the successive life- 
 owners should for ever be chosen by lot. 
 
 It cannot be necessary formally to prove that the 
 right of a person who is in possession of a piece of 
 land to direct what shall be done with it after his 
 decease, does not belong to that class of rights which 
 have been called natural, but is altogether the crea- 
 tion of law. In some nations, as was the case through- 
 out Europe at the commencement of the feudal system, 
 no such right exists. In others, such as France, it 
 exists, but within very narrow limits. The Scotch law 
 denies testamentary power, unless by means of an eva- 
 sion, but allows a power of perpetual entail by deed. 
 
14 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 The English law upon the subject is full of incon- 
 sistencies. It allows property to be settled on indi- 
 viduals, either by deed or will, for the lives of persons 
 in being at the execution of the deed, or at the death 
 of the testator, and for twenty-one years afterwards, 
 being an average of rather less than seventy years, 
 but no longer. It absolutely prohibits devises in 
 mortmain, and subjects conveyances in mortmain to 
 restrictions intended, and very skilfully framed, for the 
 express purpose of diminishing their frequency ; and, 
 by a strange anomaly, it ordains that those mortmain 
 appropriations, which it allows still to be made, and 
 those devices which were made before the prohibition 
 was enacted, and which belong therefore to a class 
 which it has expressly stated to be mischievous, shall 
 exist for ever, unaltered in their objects and their 
 machinery. But all laws are, of course, intended for 
 the advantage, not of past, but of present and future 
 generations. The wills and conveyances of the dead, 
 are, to a certain extent, to be respected, not because 
 our obedience or neglect will benefit or injure those 
 whom the grave has rendered unsusceptible of either ; 
 but partly because a testamentary power is an induce- 
 ment to industry and frugality ; and partly because 
 it is supposed, at least in this country, that property 
 is likely to be more beneficially distributed by a 
 testator, than by the general rules of an Act of Par- 
 liament. 
 
 The former ground has nothing to do with the pre- 
 sent question. Industry and frugality would not be 
 sensibly diminished if all power to become the founder 
 of a corporation were taken away. The latter ground 
 becomes obviously less applicable as the period of post- 
 
ON NATIONAL PROPERTY, 1835. 
 
 15 
 
 humous power is extended. A testator may be the 
 best person to decide how his former property shall 
 be enjoyed for twenty, or forty, or even seventy years 
 after his decease ; but we can scarcely conceive his 
 prescience to extend beyond a century. We can 
 scarcely conceive that we, who are now living, are not 
 better judges what application of the revenues of a 
 given estate will be best suited to the wants of 
 the present generation, than the person who hap- 
 pened to possess that estate 500 years ago. The only 
 plausible ground for giving to a person, who gives 
 or devises his estate to a corporation, power to direct 
 the specific application of its revenues for a longer 
 period than when he settles it on individuals, is to pro- 
 mote settlements in mortmain. It is said, that if we 
 interfere with such settlements at any period, however 
 remote from the decease of the testator, they will cease 
 to be made. But why then is the Mortmain Act left 
 unrepealed ? The preamble of that Act is in the fol- 
 lowing words: — ( Whereas alienations of lands, tene- 
 ments, and hereditaments in mortmain are prohibited 
 or restrained by Magna Charta, and divers other whole- 
 some laws, as prejudicial to and against the common 
 utility ; nevertheless this public mischief has of late 
 greatly increased.' For remedy of which it absolutely 
 prohibits devises in mortmain, and subjects settlements 
 in mortmain to very strict regulations, all intended, 
 and most of them successful, in destroying the prac- 
 tice. A greater absurdity cannot be imagined than to 
 submit to inconvenience in order to encourage disposi- 
 tions in mortmain, and at the same time to j>rohibit or 
 impede them by statute. 
 
 In the case to which we have just alluded, the ex- 
 
16 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 isting individual interests are lawful. A bishop has 
 precisely the same right to the revenues of his see 
 which a landlord has to those of his estate. But there 
 are cases in which the existing individual interests are 
 unlawful — in which the advantages derived by the 
 owners for the time being are a breach or an evasion 
 of the law. 
 
 This is the case with respect to those corporations, 
 the members of which, though mere trustees for the 
 public, yet, in violation of their duty, turn their offices 
 to their private advantage. Property so abused belongs 
 to the State, not merely in reversion, subject to the 
 existing life-interests, but in possession. The existing 
 owners are wrongdoers, and the injustice would con- 
 sist not in arresting but in permitting their unlawful 
 gains. 
 
17 
 
 IRELAND W 1843. 
 
 [Edinburgh Review, January 1844.] 
 
 FOR many years past Ireland has been the most 
 painful subject on which a liberal writer could 
 employ himself. It was not merely that he had to 
 describe great misery and great danger: not merely 
 that he had to dwell on a state of society in which all 
 the means of good seem turned to evil ; — in which a 
 fertile soil and a temperate climate have produced a 
 population in want of all the decencies, and of most of 
 what are elsewhere thought the necessaries, of life ; — 
 in which a free Constitution is perverted into an 
 instrument of legal oppression by one class, and of 
 organised sedition by another ; and in which religion 
 itself is the source of cruelty, hatred, and crime. — It 
 was not merely this state of things that made Irish 
 questions repulsive. It was the feeling that there were 
 means by which the existing misery might be relieved, 
 and the approaching dangers averted; but that the 
 prejudices and passions of England and of Scotland 
 rendered it useless to suggest, because they rendered 
 it impossible to apply them. Everyone who calmly 
 and impartially considered our situation, saw that we 
 were advancing every year nearer and nearer to civil 
 war, foreign war, and revolution ; — saw that it depended 
 merely on ourselves whether these calamities should 
 tall on our own heads, or on those of our children, or 
 VOL. i. c 
 
18 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 be altogether prevented; and saw that thoughtless- 
 ness, pride, or bigotry rendered the bulk of the British 
 people blind to their danger, and the remainder ready 
 to incur it ; — kept the former ignorant of the resent- 
 ment which they were provoking, and made the latter 
 obstinate rather to endanger the welfare of the whole 
 Empire, than to make the smallest sacrifice of their 
 own party attachments and sectarian animosities. 
 When Irish questions, or rather the Irish Question 
 (for there is but one), has been forced on our attention, 
 we have felt, like a dreamer in a nightmare, oppressed 
 by the consciousness that some great evil was rapidly 
 advancing — that mere exertion on our part would 
 avert it, but that we had not the power to will that 
 exertion. 
 
 The last nine months have been a period of great 
 anxiety and great evil. The improvement of Ireland 
 has been arrested, all the bad passions and mischievous 
 prejudices of her people have been inflamed and 
 strengthened, and it has often appeared that any un- 
 foreseen incident, any trifle not provided for, might 
 light up a civil war throughout the island. But we 
 believe that one effect has been produced, which, if it 
 really has been produced, we accept as cheaply pur- 
 chased, even at the price which has been paid for it. 
 
 We believe that the majority of the people of England 
 and Scotland are beginning to perceive the outline of 
 the rocks that lie across their course, and to enquire 
 into the means of altering it. They see the bulk of the 
 people of Ireland united in blind subservience to a 
 single leader,* and they believe that leader to be utterly 
 
 * O'Connell.— Ed. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 19 
 
 unscrupulous. They see that he has proposed to his 
 followers an aim unattainable without civil war, and 
 which, if attained, would destroy the security of one 
 island, and the property, the education, and the civilisa- 
 tion of the other. They know that, if he were to pro- 
 pose to the millions of his adherents merely to hold as 
 proprietors the lands which they occupy as tenants, the 
 Irish revolution would be accomplished. As Majendie 
 said of cholera, it would be a disease beginning by 
 death; it would be a revolution beginning by that 
 general confiscation in which other revolutions have 
 ended. They see that he has ventured to promise, as 
 the result of Repeal, ' fixity of tenure' — words which, 
 if they have a meaning (and assuredly they are not 
 used without one), must mean legal confiscation ; and 
 they begin to calculate how soon he is likely to urge 
 his adherents to seize, without Repeal, the object for 
 which Repeal is demanded. 
 
 Some persons believe that this will occur a year 
 hence, some three years, and some expect it within six 
 months; but if the Imperial Government permit the 
 real grievances of Ireland to remain unredressed, while 
 the imaginary ones are inflated and coloured, until 
 they stimulate an ignorant and passionate people as 
 forcibly as if they were real — if no means are used to 
 detach from the anarchical party those whom just re- 
 sentment, or error, or intimidation has added, or is 
 adding to it ; — all calm spectators of events must admit 
 that, within a period longer, perhaps, than the shortest 
 of those that we have mentioned, but shorter than the 
 longest, though the rights of the Landlord, the Church, 
 or the Government may still be recognised at law, yet 
 throughout Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, they 
 
20 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 will be suspended in practice ; and be recoverable only 
 at the expense of a war, which would certainly destroy 
 the prosperity of the British Empire, perhaps its insti- 
 tutions, and possibly even its independence. It is to 
 those who are determined to preserve the integrity, 
 the institutions, and the public faith of the United 
 Kingdom — to those who are determined to avert na- 
 tional degradation and national bankruptcy — and to 
 those who, though careless of the public, wish to save 
 themselves or their families from ruin, that we address 
 the following pages. 
 
 They contain an outline of the principal social evils 
 to which Ireland is subject, and of the most important 
 of the measures which we believe to be necessary for 
 removing the portion of evil which is capable of imme- 
 diate or early remedy, and of palliating what admits 
 only of gradual cure. On subjects which have been 
 so long and so frequently before the public, it is 
 scarcely possible that there can be much that is 
 entirely new, either of truth or error. But the 
 events of the last few months, and particularly the 
 effects of the substitution of a Tory for a TYliig Go- 
 vernment, though not unexpected, are confirmations 
 or illustrations of much that was once conjecture. 
 And we trust that we are not too sanguine when we 
 add that, in the altered state of public opinion, much 
 that, a year ago, was hopeless speculation — was a mere 
 vision of what a wise and benevolent Government, 
 armed with absolute power, might effect — may now be 
 urged as positive and practical recommendation. 
 
 We feel the responsibility which we incur by sug- 
 gesting, or by promoting measures, of which the effect, 
 whether for good or evil, must be great and permanent. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 21 
 
 But from this responsibility we see no escape. We 
 certainly should not shake it off if, at one of the most 
 critical periods of our national existence — when error 
 may be fatal, and inaction may be error — we were to 
 allow this journal to remain silent. And we beg the 
 reader to recollect that he also is responsible, if on any 
 ground, excepting their inexpediency or utter imprac- 
 ticability, he refuses his assent to our propositions, or 
 his co-operation in their execution. 
 
 It may, however, be necessary to inform a portion 
 of our readers that, under the general term ( Ireland/ 
 are included two countries, very different in their social 
 conditions — namely, the province of Ulster, or, as it is 
 usually called, the ' North of Ireland f and the provinces 
 of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, which together 
 constitute what is usually called the 6 South of Ireland.' 
 There are indeed, as might be expected, many districts 
 in the North of Ireland which partake of the general 
 character of the South, and there are a few in the South 
 which resemble that of the North ; but, subject to these 
 exceptions, the state of the population in the North 
 and in the South is not merely dissimilar but opposed. 
 In the following pages we shall devote our attention 
 almost exclusively to the South; and when we use the 
 word 6 Ireland ' without further explanation we must 
 thus be understood as speaking of Leinster, Munster, 
 and Connaught. It may be necessary also to state, 
 that we use the nomenclature which is usual in Ire- 
 land, though incorrect, and call the Roman Catholics 
 simply ' Catholics,' and the Protestant Episcopalians 
 simply [ Protestants.' 
 
 The evils which affect Ireland may, like all other 
 
22 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 causes of national misery or happiness, be divided into 
 two classes — those which are Material, or (to use a 
 more common but less correct expression) Physical, 
 and those which are Moral. The Material evils are 
 the want of Capital, and the want of small Proprietors ; 
 the Moral evils are Insecurity, Ignorance, and Indo- 
 lence. The concurrence of the two circumstances 
 which we have called Material evils, assisted by un- 
 favourable accidents, produced the Moral evils, and 
 these in their turn have aggravated the Material ones ; 
 and the result has been a population more unhappy in 
 itself, and the cause of more unhappiness to all who 
 have to deal with it, than any other civilised and free 
 community in existence. 
 
 We will first consider what we have called Material 
 evils — the want of Capital and of small Proprietors. 
 Neither of these deficiencies, occurring alone, is incon- 
 sistent with the substantial welfare of a community. 
 A people, indeed, ill-provided with capital cannot enjoy 
 much division of labour. Its labour, therefore, cannot 
 be productive, its manufactures must be few and rude ; 
 the bulk of its members must be agricultural, and the 
 produce of its fields — unless assisted by a soil and 
 climate which do not belong to Europe, though it may 
 be great compared with the extent of land in cultiva- 
 tion — generally bears a small proportion to the number 
 of persons employed on it. Such a people may consist 
 almost exclusively of small proprietors — as is the case 
 in some portions of France and of the United States : 
 or it may consist almost exclusively of great proprie- 
 tors and of their dependents — as is the case in many 
 parts of Russia and Spain ; but it scarcely can possess 
 a middle class, for a middle class is the creature of 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 23 
 
 capital. But though without a middle class, and with- 
 out the diffusion of moral and intellectual cultivation 
 which a middle class produces, such a population, if it 
 consist of proprietors, may be happy. If it have 
 a good government — that is to say, a government 
 under which person and property are secure, and edu- 
 cation is promoted — it will have intelligence and self- 
 respect. It will so regulate its numbers, as not to 
 subdivide its holdings into portions minuter than 
 those which will maintain a family in the comfort 
 which the habits of the people require. Each family, 
 secure of its estate, will improve it with the industry, 
 and endeavour to add to it by the frugality, which the 
 feeling of property inspires. In time it will acquire 
 capital, and with capital will come towns, manu- 
 factures, large estates — an aristocracy, a middle class, 
 a labouring class, and the complicated social relations 
 which belong to a rich civilised community. 
 
 On the other hand, in a country possessing abundant 
 capital, the absence of small proprietors of land, though 
 attended by considerable political inconvenience and 
 danger — inconvenience and danger, perhaps, outweigh- 
 ing its economical advantages — is not inconsistent with 
 general comfort and prosperity ; and perhaps is a con- 
 dition necessary to the greatest productiveness of 
 labour, and to the greatest accumulation of wealth. 
 In such a country, if the territory be considerable, a 
 great, perhaps the greater portion of the existing 
 capital is employed on the land, and the remainder in 
 manufactures and commerce. The land is occupied in 
 the divisions, and in the manner most conducive, not 
 to the largest possible amount of produce, but to the 
 largest in proportion to the labour employed on it. 
 
24 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Agriculture becomes a business requiring considerable 
 capital, both fixed and circulating ; and as the landlord 
 is unwilling to devote himself to the unremitted super- 
 intendence and constant bargaining which are required 
 from a practical farmer, and the farmer will not sink 
 his capital in the permanent improvement of another 
 man's land, it becomes usual that almost all the build- 
 ings, drainage, and planting, and, in fact, the greater 
 part of the fixed capital, should be supplied by the 
 landlord, and only the circulating and perishable capital 
 by the tenant. 
 
 The ownership of land becomes, in a great measure, 
 the luxury of the rich — of those who can afford to 
 possess a property requiring great occasional outlay, 
 and therefore, unless when held in large masses, giving 
 an uncertain revenue. The occupancy of land falls 
 into the hands of a class more numerous and less 
 opulent than its owners, but who still, when compared 
 with the bulk of the community, are few and wealthy. 
 In England and Scotland, a farm of 250 acres, even of 
 rich land, is not considered large : yet such a farm can 
 seldom be well farmed by a tenant whose capital is 
 much less than 2,000/. ; and it will generally be found 
 that a much larger capital has been expended on it by 
 the owner, in buildings and other works, which must 
 from time to time be renewed by him. The landlord 
 and tenant are partners: they have common feelings 
 and common interests. The tenant is anxious to in- 
 duce the landlord to add to the fixed capital, in order 
 that his own circulating capital may be more produc- 
 tive ; the landlord is anxious to see the tenant's circu- 
 lating capital increase, as it is the instrument by which 
 his own fixed capital is made serviceable. The great 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 25 
 
 body of the rural population are in the state which, in 
 poor countries, is one of want almost approaching to 
 destitution. They are labourers dependent on daily 
 or weekly wages, with scarcely any property except 
 their clothes and furniture, and perhaps a pig, or a 
 small deposit in the savings-bank ; and without any 
 land, except perhaps a small garden or allotment to 
 cultivate in spare moments. Such a labouring popu- 
 lation, however, if well-educated, and undepraved by 
 the follies or the frauds of ill-administered Poor-laws, 
 may, in a rich country, attain a degree of comfort 
 superior to that of the small proprietors of a poor 
 country. The agricultural labourers of the best parts 
 of England are better clothed, better fed, better 
 lodged, and better warmed, than the small proprietors 
 of France, or even of Switzerland. 
 
 They form, however, only a small minority of the 
 whole population of such a country. In the advanced 
 state of agriculture, in which the labour of one family 
 can raise the raw produce required by three or four, 
 those who are not wanted in the country naturally 
 collect in the towns, and devote themselves to manu- 
 factures and commerce. The productiveness of the 
 labour of women and children in such occupations 
 generally enables the workpeople in towns to obtain, 
 per head, a much larger income than can be obtained 
 by an agricultural family ; and this opens to them, if 
 prudent and frugal, an indefinite prospect of advance- 
 ment. Some of the richest families in Britain were, 
 two Generations or one Generation a^o, mere work- 
 people, on daily or weekly wages. 
 
 Though the difference between the extremes is vast, 
 the gradations of wealth are insensible. TVTio can say 
 
26 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 where the middle class in Great Britain begins or end - ? 
 Every separate employment has within itself a higher, 
 a lower, and an intermediate order. Every individual 
 is striving to reach the step that for the time is imme- 
 diately above him, and the whole community is in a 
 state of ferment and struggle incompatible with content, 
 and possibly unfavourable to happiness, but eminently 
 productive of wealth, power, and intelligence. 
 
 But where there is little capital, and there are few 
 small proprietors, society is divided into the very rich 
 and the very poor, with scarcely any intermediate 
 class. The land is cut into small holdings, because it 
 is only in small holdings that a tenant without capital 
 can cultivate it. And this very subdivision renders 
 the landlord often unable, and almost always unwilling, 
 to employ on it capital of his own. The productive- 
 ness of his estate might be doubled by an extensive 
 drainage, but the consent, perhaps the co-operation, of 
 the tenants is necessary ; and a poor, ignorant, and 
 suspicious population believe either that what is bene- 
 ficial to their landlord must be mischievous to them- 
 selves, or, at least, that, if their consent is to be asked, 
 it must be paid for. Their health and efficiency might 
 be improved by improving their residences ; but he 
 finds them ready to inhabit the hovels which they can 
 raise with their own hands, and doubts whether, if he 
 were to build for them, he would be repaid. The land 
 which a family with little capital can cultivate does 
 not, except during a small part of the year, afford 
 profitable employment for their whole time. If it were 
 their own indeed, they might, and probably would, 
 keep -constantly at work on it, and so gradually im- 
 prove it ; but they have no motive to treat thus another 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 27 
 
 man's land. As the supply of labour, except during 
 the short busy seasons, is great, and the demand 
 almost nothing — in other words, as almost everybody 
 is willing to be hired, and scarcely anybody willing or 
 able to hire — the wages of labour are very low, and em- 
 ployment, at any wages at all, is scarce and precarious. 
 The whole rural population, therefore — and, where 
 there is little capital, this is nearly the whole popula- 
 tion — is thrown for support on the occupation of land. 
 
 It is absurd to complain that, under such circum- 
 stances, rents are excessive — that everything beyond 
 a miserable subsistence is extorted from the tenant. 
 The price of the use of land, like the price of every 
 other commodity of limited supply, is fixed not by the 
 seller, but by the purchaser. In England and Scot- 
 land the competition of the bidders for farms is limited 
 by the amount of capital and skill required, and is 
 further limited by the general rate of profit. No one 
 will knowingly offer a rent which does not allow him 
 an average return for his capital. And as to the 
 labourers, to them a bit of land is a luxury, like the 
 possession of a small estate to a shopkeeper. If it 
 comes in their way, they take it ; but they will make 
 no sacrifices to obtain it, and never look to it as a 
 means of subsistence. 
 
 But, in a country in which everyone who can find 
 a landlord to accept him can be a farmer, and scarcely 
 any one can be a labourer ; where the three only 
 alternatives are, — the occupation of land, beggary or 
 famine — where there is nothing to repress competition, 
 and everything to inflame it — the treaty between 
 landlord and tenant is not a calm bargain, in which 
 the tenant, having offered what he thinks the land 
 
28 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 worth to him, cares little whether his offer be ac- 
 cepted : it is a struggle like the struggle to buy bread 
 in a besieged town, or to buy water in an African 
 caravan. It is a struggle in which the landlord is 
 tempted by an extravagant rent ; the agent by fees or 
 by bribes ; the person in possession, by a premium to 
 take him to another country ; and rivals are scared 
 away by threats, or punished by torture, mutilation, 
 or murder. The successful competitor knows that he 
 has engaged to pay a rent, which will swallow the 
 surplus beyond the poorest maintenance for his family 
 that, with his trifling stock, he can force the land to 
 produce. He knows that if he fails to pay he must 
 expect ejectment, and that ejectment is beggary. He 
 calculates how small a portion of his tenement, devoted 
 to the most abundant variety of the most abundant 
 species of food, will feed his family. He grows on 
 that portion, in our climates, lumper potatoes, and 
 cultivates on the remainder something better, not to 
 consume, but to sell, in order to meet his rent. If, as 
 is frequently the case, he has not been able to obtain 
 land more than enough to supply his family with 
 potatoes, he works out his rent by hiring himself to 
 his landlord. Though his labour is rated at an almost 
 nominal sum, it is generally dear to the landlord even 
 at that price — partly because it is reluctant and ineffi- 
 cient, and partly because the landlord has little use for 
 it, though he accepts it as the only substitute for his 
 rent. If the potatoes of an individual fail, he sends 
 out his wife and children to beg ; if those of a district 
 fail, there is a famine. 
 
 It must, we think, be admitted, that we have now 
 described the state of the greater part of the South 
 
ICELAND IN 1843. 
 
 29 
 
 of Ireland ; and, consequently, that we have made out 
 our first proposition — that the Material evils of that 
 country are owing to the want of Capital, and the want 
 of small Proprietors. 
 
 When a country has fallen into this state, there seem 
 to be three means, and only three, by which it can be 
 extricated. First, a revolution, subversive not merely 
 of its government and of its institutions, but of almost 
 all its social relations — a revolution which should de- 
 stroy or banish its aristocracy, confiscate their property, 
 and convert the occupiers into proprietors ; or, secondly, 
 the generation of capital, by the industry and frugality 
 of individuals ; or, thirdly, the introduction of capital 
 from abroad. 
 
 The first involves the certainty of the destruction of 
 the happiness and morals of the existing generation. 
 It involves the risk of a succession of revolutions, ter- 
 minating in anarchy, despotism, or subjugation — pro- 
 bably partition by foreign powers. 
 
 The second might require centuries. There are no 
 classes that accumulate capital so slowly as small occu- 
 piers and landlords. The first want the power, the 
 second the motive. 
 
 The third — the introduction of capital from abroad 
 — if it could be adopted, would effect all that the 
 optimist could desire. It would be a remedy operating 
 tuto, cito, et jucunde. But it is a remedy to which 
 scarcely any country has ever been able to have re- 
 course. No great country, indeed, forming a separate 
 community, with a government and institutions of its 
 own, could resort to it. A sufficient number of capi- 
 talists willing to trust their property to foreign laws 
 and foreign management could not be found. 
 
30 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 But if the community in question were a member of 
 a large empire, of which the other portions were over- 
 flowing with capital seeking employment ; if it pos- 
 sessed rivers and harbours for commerce, and mineral 
 wealth and water-power for manufactures ; if, with an 
 abundant supply of labour, and a fertile soil, its lands 
 were only half-cultivated, — it seems, at first sight, pro- 
 bable (we had almost said certain) that its Material 
 evils would rapidly find a remedy in the natural course 
 of events. 
 
 This, again, applies to Ireland. When her Material 
 condition alone is considered, she appears to afford a 
 field in which the surplus capital of England and Scot- 
 land might set to work her own surplus population. 
 The supply of labour, in proportion to the demand, is 
 so much greater in Ireland than in England or Scot- 
 land, that after allowing for the inferiority, for a time 
 at least, of Irish labour, a considerable profit might be 
 obtained by the establishment of manufactures. The 
 land affords equal opportunities for profitable invest- 
 ment. The evidence collected, in 1836 and 1837, by 
 the Poor Law Commissioners, shows that at that time 
 the land of Ireland, though four times as much labour 
 as in England was expended on it, yet gave per acre 
 only half what would have been the English produce. 
 And when we recollect that the Irish husbandry is of 
 the kind most favourable to a large gross produce ; 
 and, further, that the agriculture of England is still 
 lamentably imperfect — .far inferior to the ordinary 
 agriculture of the Scotch Lowlands, which itself is fir 
 inferior to the best that is now practised, and still more 
 to what may be expected — it must follow that the land 
 of Ireland does not return a fourth, perhaps not an 
 
IRELAND IX 1843. 
 
 31 
 
 eighth, of what might be obtained from it by fair in- 
 dustry and competent skill. 
 
 And yet these elements of wealth are left to waste. 
 TVhen British capitalists — omnibus modis trahunt, vex- 
 ant pecuniam* nequeunt tamen vincere — send it to Spain, 
 to Greece, to Turkey, to South America, and to the 
 United States, at the mercy of barbarous, unsettled, or 
 fraudulent governments, and of laws intended for the 
 protection rather of the debtor than of the creditor ; Ire- 
 land, under the same government and laws as England, 
 and within a day's post of London, has received, during 
 the last twenty years, a less amount of British capital 
 than that which has crossed the Atlantic. It is obvious 
 that some deep-seated obstacle must intervene. It is 
 obvious that there is something in the institutions of Ire- 
 land, or in the habits of her people, which deters British 
 capital from one of its most natural, and apparently 
 one of its most productive employments. It is obvious, 
 in short, that it must be the Moral evils of Ireland 
 which exclude the remedies for her Material evils. 
 And to these Moral evils, therefore, we now address 
 ourselves. 
 
 We have already said that they are — Insecurity. 
 Ignorance, and Indolence. The insecurity of person 
 and of property in Ireland arises from the tendency to 
 violence and resistance to law which is the most pro- 
 minent, as well as the most mischievous, part of the 
 Irish character. It is the quality which most distin- 
 guishes Ireland from Great Britain. In England and 
 Scotland the great majority of the population are loyal, 
 in the primitive sense of that abused word — that is, 
 they are the friends of the law. They may wish por- 
 tions of it to be altered : but so far are they from 
 
32 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 resisting it, that they unite to prevent it from being 
 resisted by others. Opposition to the civil law is 
 almost unheard of. The decisions of the courts in all 
 questions between man and man are so silently sub- 
 mitted to, that few persons are aware of the machinery 
 by which they are enforced. It is by means of the 
 law that the misconduct of those who administer the 
 law is corrected. If an officer of justice is supposed to 
 have exceeded his powers, the person who thinks him- 
 self injured applies to the courts of law for damages 
 and redress. A breach of the criminal law arms the 
 whole society against the offender. Prosecutors and 
 witnesses come forward ; juries are ready to convict ; 
 and the judge is so frequently required to restrain 
 them, that he has been called the ' prisoner's counsel.' 
 
 This is accounted for, when we recollect that in 
 England and Scotland the law interferes in favour of 
 the poor far more frequently than in favour of the 
 rich. Where the bulk of the population live on wages, 
 the poor are the creditors, and the rich and the middle 
 classes the debtors. All that the workingr-man in 
 general knows of the civil courts is, that they are places 
 to which, if he is wronged, he may summon his em- 
 ployer. He never fears their being used against him, 
 for he knows by experience that the higher and the 
 middle classes would think it waste of time and of 
 money to bring an action against a man without pro- 
 perty. It is true that, in the criminal courts, the 
 culprit is generally a poor man, but so is generally the 
 prosecutor. It is the person of the workman that is 
 most exposed to assault ; it is his property that is most 
 exposed to depredation. Offences against the combi- 
 nation laws, the game laws, and the revenue laws, are 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 33 
 
 exceptions ; for there the prosecutor is the Crown, the 
 landlord, or the employer — but there, on the other 
 hand, public sympathy is with the offender. 
 
 In Ireland, on the contrary, the poor are the debtors, 
 and the rich the creditors. The 1,000,000 families who 
 now occupy the soil of Leinster, Munster, and Con- 
 naught, scarcely know the existence of the civil law- 
 courts, except as the sources of processes, distresses, 
 and ejectments. There are many parts of Ireland in 
 which a driver and a process-server — the former a man 
 whose profession it is to seize the cattle of the tenant 
 whose rent is in arrear, the latter an agent for the 
 purpose of ejecting him — form regular parts of the 
 landlord's establishment. There are some in which 
 the driver, whether employed or not, receives an annual 
 payment from every tenant. On many estates every 
 tenant is served every year with a notice to quit, for 
 the mere purpose of keeping him at the landlord's 
 mercy ; and on still more, the abatements from rent, 
 which every landlord must occasionally make, instead 
 of being absolutely remitted, are kept in legal force, to 
 be used when any motive, pecuniary, political, or per- 
 sonal, may induce the landlord to exact them. We 
 have now before us (in Supplement XI. to the Appen- 
 dix to the Third Report on the Poor-law Inquiry) a 
 return of the ejectments actually tried in thirteen out 
 of the twenty-three counties constituting the South of 
 Ireland, during the seven years ending in 1833 ; and 
 they amount to 10,336. The mere names of the causes 
 form a folio of 213 closely-printed pages. 
 
 It is impossible that a law of which these were the 
 effects could be popular, even if its objects were just, 
 and its execution were impartial. It is scarcely neces- 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 sary to remind the reader how far these suppositions 
 are from the truth. During many generations — a 
 period sufficient to form the character of a nation — 
 the principal object of the civil law of Ireland was, not 
 to render justice between man and man, but to seduce 
 or to force the great majority of its inhabitants to 
 change their religion. For this purpose the Catholics 
 were excluded from the liberal professions, from the 
 universities, from public offices — forbidden to educate 
 their children, to purchase lands, to engage in trade, 
 by being excluded from the corporations which had a 
 commercial monopoly ; — forbidden, in short, to be any- 
 thing but the serfs of a Protestant aristocracv. The 
 meekest, humblest people would have hated a law which 
 seemed to exist merely for the purpose of oppressing 
 or converting the Catholics ; and for securing to the 
 Protestant landlord his rent, to the Protestant clergy- 
 man his tithe. 
 
 The criminal law is, if such a thing be possible, an 
 object of still bitterer detestation. In the first place, 
 it is the support of the civil law. When the one orders 
 a distress, or an ejectment, the other compels obe- 
 dience. In the second place, the criminal law has long 
 been the punisher of acts in themselves innocent, or 
 even meritorious. AVithin living memory, it punished 
 the Catholic priest for performing the offices of re- 
 ligion — the Catholic teacher who ventured to give 
 instruction — the Catholic parent who sent a child 
 abroad to receive the education which was denied to 
 him at home — and the Catholic pilgrim who visited a 
 spot sacred to him by its associations. In blind imita- 
 tion of the English model, the ordinary jurisdiction, 
 both civil and criminal, was given to the local aristo- 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 35 
 
 cracy, and thus the Catholic tenant found in his judge 
 a Protestant landlord. It is probable that injustice 
 was often perpetrated — it is certain that it was always 
 suspected ; and, as far as public opinion is concerned, 
 there is little difference between the reality and the 
 suspicion. 
 
 Hatred of the law naturally tends to attempts to 
 render it inefficient; and the mode which the Irish 
 have almost always adopted, has been the establishing 
 a rival law, with rules and sanctions of its own. What 
 have been, or what are, the provisions of that law 
 cannot be accurately stated. It is not a code, but a 
 sort of common law, of which those who carry it into 
 effect are the interpreters, and which must be inferred 
 from precedents. Its general objects are, to elude 
 those parts of the real law, or to prevent that conduct 
 in the higher classes, which the labouring classes or 
 the peasantry think injurious to themselves. It varies 
 therefore from time to time, and from place to place. 
 It may be divided, however, into two great classes — 
 the insurrectionary law of the country, and the insur- 
 rectionary law of the towns. 
 
 In rural districts the particular object has been, 
 sometimes to lower rents, sometimes to lower or to 
 abolish tithes, sometimes to abolish rates, sometimes 
 to reduce the dues of the Catholic priests, sometimes 
 to raise the price of labour, sometimes to prevent the 
 employment of strangers — but always to prevent any 
 diminution in the number of holdings. Nor has the 
 rural insurrectionary law ever been universal. It 
 has been a partial disorder, and generally an inter- 
 mittent one. It must be remembered, however, that 
 the absence of such a law cannot be inferred from the 
 
36 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 absence of outrage. That absence may arise merely 
 from implicit obedience. The usual cause of outrage 
 is some act by an owner of land, or an employer of 
 labour, which the peasantry consider mischievous. 
 Those who think themselves wronged, or who fear the 
 influence of the example, proceed from cottage to cot- 
 tage, and seduce or terrify the men to swear to obey 
 their orders, and to force their neighbours to take a 
 similar oath. The confederates probably possess some 
 arms, and obtain others by plundering the houses which 
 are known to contain them. The leaders then order 
 the torture, mutilation, or death of those who have 
 been guilty of conduct which they think injurious to 
 their order, and sometimes also that of their families 
 and of their relations. The sentence is generally in- 
 flicted by persons summoned from a distance, who 
 receive their travelling expenses and a small fee for 
 their services. 
 
 These punishments have the peculiar attribute which 
 distinguishes legal executions from the violences of 
 private resentment. They are directed, not against 
 the person, but the act. They are exemplary rather 
 than vindictive. They fall less on the instigator of 
 the conduct which is intended to be repressed, than 
 on the instruments through whom he has acted. In 
 general, the victim is not the proprietor who has 
 ejected a tenant, but the peasant who has succeeded 
 to the vacant tenement ; it is not the landlord who 
 exacts a rent which the self-appointed legislators think 
 too high, but the tenant who pays it ; it is not the 
 farmer who has hired a stranger, but the stranger who 
 has ventured to be hired; it is not the priest who 
 makes what they think an improper demand, but the 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 37 
 
 parishioner who submits to it. Regardless too, as they 
 appear to be, of human suffering, they prefer preven- 
 tion to punishment. After having struck terror by 
 their first executions, they proceed to send or publish 
 notices requiring certain things to be done, or to be 
 forborne, and leave unmolested those who immediately 
 obey. 
 
 The insurrectionary law of the towns differs from 
 that of the country only in its immediate object. It 
 aims at influencing the relation between employer and 
 labourer, instead of that between landlord and tenant. 
 It differs from the combinations which our careless, or 
 indolent, or timid Legislature still permits to injure 
 the welfare, and destroy the morality, of the Scotch 
 and English workpeople, only by the still grosser folly 
 of its immediate ends, and the still more sanguinary 
 ferocity of its means. To prevent the use of machinery 
 — to force the materials of labour to be imported in 
 the least finished state — to prohibit piece-work — to 
 equalise the wages of the skilful and the ignorant, of 
 the diligent and the idle, of the strong and the weak 
 — and generally to force the manufacturer to employ 
 his capital, and the mechanist and chemist his know- 
 ledge and talents, only under the dictation of his 
 shortsighted and rapacious workmen ; — such are the 
 objects of the combined workpeople who now govern 
 every town in Ireland in which any manufacturing 
 capital still lingers. The means are those used in the 
 country — torture, mutilation, and murder. 6 In Cork,' 
 said Mr. O'Connell — in the speech in which, on Feb- 
 ruary 13, 1838, he moved for a Committee on Trades 
 Unions — 6 within the last two or three years, thirty- 
 seven persons have been burned with vitriol, so as to 
 
38 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 lose their eyesight ; and in Dublin there is not a day 
 in which some such crime is not committed. On 
 January 4th a man was dreadfully beaten, only be- 
 cause, not belonging to the combination, he could not 
 give the sign of recognition. On the 11th, a man and 
 his wife were violently beaten merely because the 
 man was not a combinator. Some of those who have 
 not murdered with their own hands, have paid three 
 shillings a week out of their wages for the hire of 
 assassins.' 
 
 It is thus that not merely is the introduction of 
 capital prevented, but the capital formerly existing 
 and employed in many of the towns of Ireland has 
 been driven away. It is thus that shipbuilding, once 
 a flourishing trade in Dublin, has been utterly de- 
 stroyed ; it is thus that the bargemen have rendered 
 the canals almost useless. 
 
 6 Ireland,' says one of the witnesses in the Poor-law 
 Inquiry, 6 is the dearest country in the world for 
 labour. Every description of artisan demands at least 
 one-third more than in England ; there is even a com- 
 bination among the common porters on the quay, who 
 would rather starve than work under the regulated 
 price. Bribery has no effect on my men, and if I 
 remonstrate they stop directly.'* One of the most 
 intelligent witnesses examined by the House of Com- 
 mons' Committee on Combinations, in 1838, was Mr. 
 Murray, formerly eminent in Dublin as an architect 
 and builder. He had been thirty-seven years in busi- 
 ness, at the head, or nearly the head, of his profession. 
 During that time he had been severely beaten himself. 
 
 * Irish Poor-law Inquiry, Appendix C, pp. 2, 35. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 39 
 
 He had been forced for two years to carry arms. One 
 of his men had been beaten to death in broad daylight, 
 at six o'clock in a summer evening, in a crowded 
 street ; another had been shot. At three different 
 times his workmen had been attacked, beaten, and 
 maimed in his own yard. At other times they had 
 been waylaid and injured on their way to him, and his 
 whole establishment had been maliciously set fire to 
 and burned down. To some questions respecting his 
 workmen, he answers — 6 They have all gone from me 
 now, for I am going to leave the country.' — ( Why ? 1 
 — ( I am sroino; to leave it altogether. I have two 
 little boys that I waht to rear up to industry, and I 
 do not like to rear them up in Ireland.'* 
 
 Whether in the country or in the towns — whether 
 the object be to affect the relations between landlord 
 and tenant, or those between capitalist and workman 
 — there is one offence which the insurrectionary legis- 
 lators and administrators always punish with the most 
 pertinacious ferocity ; and that is, the assisting their 
 natural enemies, the legal courts of justice. Here 
 again is shown their tendency to attack the instrument 
 rather than the principal. The judge, the jury, the 
 public prosecutor, even the policeman, is generally 
 safe, but nothing but flight can secure the informer or 
 the witnesses. Any man, woman, or child who has 
 had the misfortune to be called on, and to be able to 
 give evidence respecting what is called an outrage, 
 must elect between perjury, expatriation, and death. 
 Crimes may be committed in the presence of hundreds, 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, Questions 5882 — 5883. [See also 
 Senior's 1 Historical and Philosophical Essays ' (Combinations 
 and Strikes), vol. ii. p. 148, et seq. — Ed.] 
 
40 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 the criminals may be notorious throughout a whole dis- 
 trict, and no voluntary evidence be obtainable. The 
 administrators of justice are therefore forced to rely, al- 
 most exclusively, on the testimony which in Scotland or 
 in England is cautiously received even as supplement- 
 ary — the testimony of accomplices. When an outrage 
 has been perpetrated, all those suspected to have been 
 concerned in it are arrested, in the hope that some one 
 of them may be induced to betray the others. If all 
 are firm, all escape, and one more is added to the 
 mass of undetected crimes. If one of them yield to the 
 fear of being anticipated in his revelations by another, 
 he is detained in prison, for his own sake, until his 
 testimony has been used, and then he and all his family, 
 perhaps his relations, must leave Ireland for ever. 
 
 Of course, the imperial law is most detested when 
 it comes into collision with the insurrectionary law, 
 and attempts to punish what that law has commanded ; 
 but, as we have already stated, all real law is an object 
 of hatred to the mass of the Irish people. c If a man 
 picks your pocket,' says Mr. Barrington, 6 the by- 
 standers will hustle you to let him escape. They think 
 it an honour to protect anyone who is charged with an 
 offence.' He is asked whether that feeling is not pecu- 
 liar to cases of agrarian outrage — whether, in cases of 
 robbery, the peasantry are not anxious to have the 
 robber apprehended ? He answers — 6 1 have known 
 some few cases in which the farmers have pursued rob- 
 bers, and the consequence was, it being so unusual, that 
 they were handsomely rewarded. They do not like to 
 see a man prosecuted ; they will assist him to escape 
 if they can. You will find it very difficult to get a 
 witness against a person ; while hundreds will be found 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 41 
 
 to swear an alibi, or anything else, to save him.'* 
 Those who have assisted in giving effect to the law 
 are not safe even in England, if they are surrounded 
 by an Irish population. A remarkable instance is 
 mentioned in the Report on the Irish Poor in Great 
 Britain. A young Irishman in Wigan informed the 
 magistrates, that two men then in the town had com- 
 mitted a rape and robbery in Ireland, and had fled 
 from justice. Repeated attempts were made by the 
 Irish in Wigan to murder both him and his brother. 
 He was severely wounded, and at length driven from 
 the place.f 
 
 It is obvious that the insecurity of a community in 
 which the bulk of the population form a conspiracy 
 against the law, must prevent the importation of capi- 
 tal ; must occasion much of what is accumulated there 
 to be exported ; and must diminish the motives and 
 the means of accumulation. Who will send his pro- 
 perty to a place where he cannot rely on its being pro- 
 tected ? Who will voluntarily establish himself in a 
 country which to-morrow may be in a state of disturb- 
 ance ? — a state in which, to use the words of Chief 
 Justice Bushe, ' houses and barns and granaries are 
 levelled, crops are laid waste, pasture-lands are 
 ploughed, plantations are torn up, meadows are thrown 
 open to cattle ; cattle are maimed, tortured, or killed ; 
 persons are visited by parties of banditti, who inflict 
 cruel torture, mutilate their limbs, or beat them almost 
 to death ; men who have in any way become obnoxious 
 
 * Cited in Lewis's 4 Irish Disturbances/ p. 253. 
 j* Appendix to Report on Irish Poor in Great Britain, 
 p. 87. 
 
42 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 to the insurgents, or opposed their system, or refused 
 to participate in their outrages, are deliberately assas- 
 sinated in the open day ; and sometimes the unoffend- 
 ing members of a family are indiscriminately murdered 
 by burning the habitation.' * A state in which even 
 those best able to protect themselves — the gentry — are 
 forced to build up all their lower windows with stone 
 and mortar ; to admit light only into one sitting-room, 
 and not into all the windows of that room ; to fortify 
 every other inlet by bullet-proof barricadoes ; to station 
 sentinels around during all the night, and the greater 
 part of the day ; and to keep firearms in all the bed- 
 rooms, and even on the side-table at breakfast and 
 dinner-time, t AVell might even Bishop Doyle exclaim 
 — 6 1 do not blame the absentees ; I would be an ab- 
 sentee myself if I could ! 1 
 
 The state of society which has been described may 
 be considered as a proof of the grossest ignorance : 
 for what can be a greater proof of ignorance than a 
 systematic opposition to law, carried on at the constant 
 risk of liberty and of life, and producing where it is 
 most successful, in the rural districts, one level of 
 hopeless poverty, and in the towns weeks of high 
 wages, and months without employment : — a system in 
 which tremendous risks and frightful suffering are the 
 means, and general misery is the result ? The ignor- 
 ance, however, which marks the greater part of the 
 
 * Charge on the Maryborough Commission, p. 5. (Cited in 
 Lewis's 1 Irish Disturbances/ p. 227.) 
 
 | See the evidence of Mr. Blacker, House of Commons' 
 Report on the State of Ireland (1824), p. 75; that of Mr. 
 Griffiths, ibid. p. 232 ; and that of Mr. Blacker, House of 
 Lords' Report (1824), p. 14. 
 
IRELAND TS 1143. 
 
 43 
 
 population of Ireland is not merely ignorance of the 
 moral and political tendency of their conduct — an 
 ignorance in which the lower orders of many more 
 advanced communities participate — but ignorance of 
 the businesses which are their daily occupations. It 
 is ignorance, not as citizens and subjects, but as culti- 
 vators and labourers. They are ignorant of the pro- 
 per rotation of crops, of the preservation and use of 
 manure — in short, of the means by which the land, for 
 which they are ready to sacrifice their neighbours" lives 
 and to risk their own. is to be made productive. 
 Their manufactures, such as they are. are rude and 
 imperfect : and the Irish labourer, whether peasant or 
 artisan, who emigrates to Great Britain, never pos- 
 sesses skill sufficient to raise him above the lowest rank 
 in his trade. 
 
 Ixbolexce — the last of the causes to which we 
 have attributed the existing misery of Ireland — is not 
 so much an independent source of evil, as the result of 
 the combination of all the others. The Irishman does 
 not belong to the races that are by nature averse to 
 toiL In England, or Scotland, or America, he can 
 work hard. He is said, indeed, to require more over- 
 looking than the natives of any of these countries : 
 and to be less capable, or ( to speak more correctly > 
 to be less willing, to surmount difficulties by patient 
 intellectual exertion; but no danger deters, no dis- 
 agreeableness disgusts, no bodily fatigue discourages 
 him. 
 
 But in his own country he is indolent. All who 
 have compared the habits of the hired artisans, or of 
 the agricultural labourers in Ireland, with those of 
 
44 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 similar classes in England or Scotland, admit the in- 
 feriority in industry of the former. The indolence of 
 the great mass of the people, the occupiers of land, is 
 obvious even to the passing traveller. Even in Ulster 
 — the province in which, as we have already remarked, 
 the peculiarities of the Irish character are least exhi- 
 bited — not only are the cabins,, and even the farm- 
 houses, deformed (within and without) by accumula- 
 tions of filth which the least exertion would remove, 
 but the land itself is suffered to waste a great portion 
 of its productive power. We have ourselves seen field 
 after field in which the w r eeds covered as much space 
 as the crops. From the time that his crops are sown 
 or planted until they are reaped, the peasant and his 
 family are cowering over the fire, or smoking or 
 lounging before the door — when an hour or two a 
 day, employed in weeding their potatoes, or oats, or 
 flax, would perhaps increase the produce by one- 
 third. 
 
 The indolence of the Irish artisan is sufficiently ac- 
 counted for by the combinations which, by prohibiting 
 piece-work, requiring all workmen to be paid by the 
 day, and at the same rate, and prohibiting a good 
 workman from exerting himself, have destroyed the 
 motives to industry. 6 I considered it,' says Mr, 
 Murray, 6 a very hard rule among them, that the 
 worst workman that ever took a tool in his hand 
 should be paid the same as the best — but that is the 
 rule and regulation of the society ; and that there was 
 only a certain quantity of work allowed to be done, so 
 that, if one workman could turn more work out of his 
 hands, he durst not go on with it. There is no such 
 thing as piece-work ; and if a bad man is not able to 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 45 
 
 get through his work, a good workman dare not go 
 further than he does.'* 
 
 The indolence of the agricultural labourer arises, 
 perhaps, principally from his labour being almost 
 always day-work, and in a great measure a mere pay- 
 ment of a debt — a mere mode of working out his rent. 
 That of the occupier may be attributed to a combina- 
 tion of causes. In the first place, a man must be 
 master of himself, to a degree not common eyen among 
 the educated classes, before he can be trusted to be his 
 own taskmaster. Eyen among the British manufac- 
 turers, confessedly the most industrious labourers in 
 Europe, those who work in their own houses are com- 
 paratiyely idle and irregular, and yet they work under 
 the stimulus of certain and immediate gain. The Irish 
 occupier, working for a distant object, dependent in 
 some measure on the seasons, and with no one to con- 
 trol, or eyen to advise him, puts off till to-morrow what 
 need not necessarily be done to day — puts off till next 
 year what need not necessarily be done this year, and 
 ultimately leaves much totally undone. 
 
 Again, there is no damper so effectual as liability to 
 taxation proportioned to the apparent means of pay- 
 ment. It is by this instrument that the Turkish 
 Government has destroyed the industry, the wealth, 
 and ultimately the population, of what were once the 
 most flourishing portions of Asia — perhaps of the 
 world. It is thus the taille ruined the agriculture of 
 the most fertile portions of France. Xow the Irish 
 occupier has long been subject to this depressing in- 
 
 * House of Commons' Committee on Combinations (1838) 
 — Questions 5872 — 5876. 
 
46 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 fluence, and from various sources. The competition 
 for land has raised rents to an amount which can be 
 paid only under favourable circumstances. Any acci- 
 dent throws the tenant into an arrear, and the arrear is 
 kept a subsisting charge, to be enforced if he should 
 appear capable of paying it. If any of the signs of 
 prosperity are detected in his crop, or his cabin, or his 
 clothes, or his food, some old demand may be brought 
 up against him. Again, in many districts, a practice 
 prevails of letting land to several tenants, each of 
 whom is responsible for the whole rent. It is not 
 merely the consequence, but the intention, that those 
 who can afford to pay should pay for those who 
 cannot. 
 
 Again, it is from taxation, regulated by apparent 
 property, that all the revenues of the Irish Catholic 
 Church are drawn. The half-yearly offerings, the fees 
 on marriages and christenings, and — what is more im- 
 portant — the contributions to the priest, made on those 
 occasions by the friends of the parties, are all assessed 
 by public opinion, according to the supposed means of 
 the payer. An example of the mode in which this 
 works occurred a few months ago, within our own 
 knowledge. 300/. was wanted by a loan-fund, in a 
 Catholic district in the North of Ireland. In the night 
 one of the farmers, a man apparently poor, came to his 
 landlord, the principal proprietor in the neighbour- 
 hood, and offered to lend the money, if the circum- 
 stance could be kept from his priest. His motive for 
 concealment was asked, and he answered that, if the 
 priest knew that he had 300/. at interest, his dues 
 would be doubled. Secrecy was promised, and a 
 stocking was brought from its hiding-place in the roof. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 47 
 
 filled with notes and coin, which had been accumu- 
 lating for years until a secret investment could be 
 found. 
 
 Again, for many years past, a similar taxation has 
 existed for political purposes : the Catholic Rent, the 
 O'Connell Tribute, and the Repeal Rent, like every 
 other tax that is unsanctioned by law, must be ex- 
 acted, to a larger or smaller amount, from every cottier 
 or farmer, as he is supposed to be better or worse able 
 to provide them. 
 
 Who can wonder that the cultivator, who is exposed 
 to these influences, should want the industry and 
 economy which give prosperity to the small farmer 
 of Belgium? What motive has he for industry and 
 economy ? It may be said that he has the same motive 
 in kind, though not in degree, as the inhabitants of a 
 happier country, since the new demand to which any 
 increase of his means would expose him probably would 
 not exhaust the whole of that increase. The same 
 might be said of the subjects of the Pasha. There are 
 inequalities of fortune among the cultivators of Egypt, 
 just as there were inequalities in that part of France 
 which was under the taille. No taxation ever ex- 
 hausted the whole surplus income of all its victims. 
 But when a man cannot calculate the extent to which 
 the exaction may go — when all that he knows is, that 
 the more he appears to have the more will be de- 
 manded — when he knows that every additional comfort 
 which he is seen to enjoy, and every additional pro- 
 ductive instrument which he is found to possess, may 
 be the pretext for a fresh extortion, he turns careless 
 or sulky — he yields to a strong temptation of indo- 
 lence and of immediate excitement and enjoyment — 
 
48 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 he becomes less industrious, and therefore produce- 
 less — he becomes less frugal, and therefore, if he save 
 at all, saves a smaller portion of that smaller product. 
 
 We trust that it will not be supposed that we have 
 attempted a portrait of the Irish people. We have 
 attended only to those parts of their character which 
 most affect their economical condition. Other qua- 
 lities, and these very admirable — such as parental, 
 filial, and conjugal affection and fidelity, liberality, and 
 readiness to assist one another in distress — they pos- 
 sess in a high degree. But these have nothing to 
 do with the matter before us. We must add, that if 
 any of our readers think that, with respect to the points 
 which we have treated, our picture has been unfavour- 
 able, we refer them to Bishop Doyle, who certainly 
 cannot be accused of ignorance of his countrymen, or 
 of any wish to misrepresent them. We recommend 
 to them his Pastoral Letter on Tithes — a production 
 containing some theories from which we dissent, and 
 betraying some feelings with which we do not sym- 
 pathise, but which no one can read without admiring 
 the genius of the writer, and feeling convinced of his 
 sincerity. The drunkenness which he ascribed to 
 his countrymen has ceased, we hope permanently, to 
 deform them, but we doubt whether they have much 
 changed in other respects during the twelve years that 
 have passed since that letter was written. 
 
 ' What,' says Bishop Doyle, ' are the sources of 
 your evils? — A disregard of yourselves, springing out 
 of your own worthlessness, your own idleness, your own 
 drunkenness, your own want of energy and industry 
 in improving your own condition. These are your 
 vices, the fruits of long and grinding oppression — the 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 49 
 
 almost hereditary vices of the Irish people. Your situ- 
 ation never can or will improve until unceasing in- 
 dustry succeed to idleness— until obedience to the laws 
 and self-respect become the character of the Irish 
 people. Till then, you may complain of oppression , 
 but it will not cease; you may rail against the law, 
 but it will always persecute you ; you may hate the 
 magistrate, but he will always have his foot upon your 
 necks. You complain of rackrents and tithes, and 
 want of employment, and of the ejectment of poor 
 tenants. You complain of all these, and you complain 
 of them most justly. But no power on earth can at 
 once remedy these evils. The Government and Legis- 
 lature are endeavouring to heal them ; but time is 
 necessary for the accomplishment of so great, so good, 
 and so difficult a work. More, however, depends on 
 you than on the will of kings, or on the acts of a par- 
 liament. All the laws that ever were enacted would 
 not render an idle or a vicious people rich or happy. 
 And if men become sober and industrious, abstaining 
 from evil and doing good, each in the state of life or 
 calling wherein Providence has placed him, such a 
 people, without almost any aid from law or govern- 
 ment, would enjoy comfort and happiness.' * 
 
 So far our task has been easy. It is easy to de- 
 scribe the Moral and Material defects of Ireland. It 
 is easy to show how mutually they act and react. It 
 is easy to show how insecurity occasions want of 
 capital — how want of capital occasions idleness and 
 misery — and how idleness and misery lead to turbu- 
 
 * Appendix to Lords' Eeport on Tithes (1832), vol. ii. p. 52. 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 lence and insecurity, until the result is a circle of 
 calamities, each in turn creating, aggravating, and re- 
 creating the others. It may appear, at first sight, 
 equally easy to point out the appropriate remedies. 
 The debates of the last session seem to have exhausted 
 the subject, and to have left to us merely the task of 
 selection and repetition. To a great extent this is 
 true. We have little to add to what has been stated 
 by Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell, Lord Pal- 
 merston, and Lord Howick ; and we do not hope to 
 improve the clearness of their statements, or the force 
 of their arguments. Our real difficulty lies in the 
 necessity of compression. It lies in the necessity of 
 bringing within the compass of an article of reasonable 
 extent, subjects which, if adequately treated, would 
 require volumes. We shall attempt, however, to indi- 
 cate the principal remedies, in the hope that our brief 
 exposition of them may awaken the interest, and direct 
 the enquiries of those who are not conversant with 
 Irish questions, and may serve as memoranda to those 
 to whom they are familiar. 
 
 We have already said that the great evil of Ireland 
 — the evil which creates or perpetuates all her other 
 calamities — is the insecurity of person and property ; 
 arising from the detestation, by the mass of the people, 
 of her existing institutions, and their attempts to sub- 
 stitute for them an insurrectionary law of their own. 
 
 It is obvious that the first step towards the cure of 
 this detestation must be to remove its causes : the 
 first step towards making the institutions of Ireland 
 popular must be to make them deserve to be so. 
 If, indeed, they were already deserving of popularity 
 — if the existing law were odious in Ireland, from 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 51 
 
 causes unconnected with its defects, the remedy would 
 be difficult — and, if these causes were irremovable, 
 would be hopeless. But this is an impossible supposi- 
 tion. No population hates the mass of its existing 
 laws without sufficient reason. The tendency is in the 
 opposite direction. The tendency is to cling to whatever 
 is established, merely because it is established ; although 
 the motive for its original adoption was erroneous, or has 
 ceased to exist. A single good institution may indeed 
 be unpopular, if it be new, as is the case in some En- 
 glish districts with the amended Poor-law ; or a bad one 
 may be hated though it be old, as was the case with the 
 unreformed Franchise : but no long-established system 
 was ever the subject of popular dislike unless it deserved 
 to be so ; unless it were not merely imperfect — all 
 human institutions are imperfect — but obviously, and 
 in important matters, unjust and mischievous. 
 
 No one, whatever be his party, whatever be his reli- 
 gion, has been able, while he read the last sentence, to 
 prevent his thoughts from turning to the provision 
 made in Ireland for the religion of the people. That 
 the episcopal palaces, the episcopal estates, the chapter 
 estates, the parsonages, the glebes, and the tithes of 
 the whole country should be given over to one-tenth 
 of its population ; that another tenth should receive a 
 regular provision for its clergy from the imperial re- 
 venue ; and that the remaining four-fifths should obtain 
 no public aid in supplying their spiritual wants, except 
 a trifling annual vote for a seminary ; that the endowed 
 minority should be the richest, and the unassisted ma- 
 jority the poorest portion of the community ; that the 
 minority should be the intruders into an endowment of 
 which the majority were the ancient founders and pos- 
 
 K 2 
 
52 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 sessors, — all this some may think an injury, others an 
 insult, and others (among whom we find ourselves) may 
 think it an insult and injury combined. Some may 
 suppose that it is the unhappy but necessary link by 
 which Great Britain and Ireland are united ; others, 
 that it is the wedge that is to separate them : some 
 may believe that it is one of the outworks of the 
 Church of England ; others, that it affords the plat- 
 form from which that Church can be most easily at- 
 tacked. But no British statesman, whether Tory or 
 Whig, Conservative or Radical, however he may think 
 it ought to be dealt with in practice, dares to defend, 
 or even to palliate it in principle. No one ventures to 
 affirm that, if the past could be recalled, he would pro- 
 pose such an institution — no one would tamely submit 
 to the imputation of such folly and such injustice — no 
 one conceals his regret that our ancestors were guilty 
 of such an absurdity and such a crime. If such are 
 the feelings of bystanders, what must be those of 
 sufferers? If Protestants are filled with shame and 
 remorse, what can be expected from Catholics but 
 indignation and hatred ? 
 
 We have said that the ecclesiastical system of Ire- 
 land is both an injury and an insult. As an insult it 
 has no parallel in history. Oppression and robbery in 
 matters connected with religion have been unhappily 
 frequent ; but in all other cases the oppressed and 
 robbed have been the minority. That one-tenth of the 
 population of a great country should appropriate to 
 themselves the endowment originally provided for all 
 their countrymen; that, without even condescending 
 to enquire whether there were or were not a congre- 
 gation of their own persuasion to profit by them, they 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 53 
 
 should seize the revenues of every benefice, should 
 divert them from their previous application, and should 
 hand them over to an incumbent of their own, to be 
 wasted as a sinecure if they were not wanted for the 
 performance of a duty — this is a treatment of which 
 the contumely stings more sharply even than the in- 
 justice. 
 
 It is important, however, that they should be ac- 
 curately distinguished. The insult consists not in the 
 absence of an ecclesiastical provision for the Catholics, 
 but in the transfer of the Catholic endowment to a 
 small Protestant minority. If that endowment, in- 
 stead of being transferred, had been confiscated ; if it 
 had been given up to the landlords, or sold for the 
 benefit of the imperial revenue, and no public provi- 
 sion made for any religion whatever, a grievous injury 
 would have been inflicted, but no insult. On the other 
 hand, the injury consists not in the provision made for 
 the Protestants, but in the absence of a provision 
 for the Catholics. If, when Protestant bishops were 
 appointed to every Irish diocese, Protestant dignitaries 
 to every chapter, and Protestant incumbents to every 
 benefice, an equivalent stipend had been paid out of 
 the imperial revenue to the Catholic clergy, the Ca- 
 tholics would have been insulted, but not injured. 
 
 Those who undertake the miserable office of defending 
 the existing ecclesiastical arrangements in Ireland, are 
 forced to confound these separate grievances. When 
 the Catholics complain of the injury inflicted by the 
 absence of a public provision for their spiritual wants, 
 they are told that the absence of such a provision is 
 not an insult. They are told that they have no more 
 right to complain than the Protestant Episcopalians 
 
54 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 have in Scotland, or the Presbyterians in England. 
 When they complain of the insult offered to them by 
 the endowment of the Protestant Church, they are 
 told that the Protestant endowment is not an injury. 
 They are told that tithes are merely a form of rent ; 
 and that the Protestant incumbents and dignitaries 
 are merely landlords bound to residence, and generally 
 distinguished by the knowledge and the morals on 
 which the usefulness of a resident landlord depends. 
 
 It is on the insult alone that the Irish revolutionary 
 party has fastened. They adopt what has been called 
 the 6 voluntary system ; 9 and therefore not merely 
 deny that the absence of an endowment for the Catholic 
 clergy is an injury, but maintain that it is a benefit. 
 Their motives for expressing this opinion we shall 
 explain hereafter ; but admitting — what we are ready 
 to admit — that there may be certain states of society 
 in which the 6 voluntary system' may be advantageous, 
 every impartial person must feel that, when applied to 
 the Catholic population of Ireland, it is eminently mis- 
 chievous. 
 
 For this purpose, it is sufficient to recollect, That 
 the frequent ceremonial observances of Catholicism re- 
 quire a much more numerous clergy than would be 
 necessary in an equal number of Protestants ; That 
 the Irish Catholics form the poorest part of the poorest 
 civilised population in the world — a population with 
 little division of labour, little exchange and scarcely 
 any use of money ; That to extract a regular income 
 in money from a congregation so composed, must 
 require a constant urging of small demands — a con- 
 stant contest with poverty and fraud, to which no 
 man with the birth, the education, or the feelings of a 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 55 
 
 gentleman could readily submit ; That an exaction not 
 sanctioned by law must be enforced by influence, and 
 that the easiest modes of obtaining influence among 
 the uneducated, are to inflame their passions, to aggra- 
 vate their antipathies, and to exaggerate their super- 
 stitions ; and That, under such circumstances, the spi- 
 ritual instruction of the people must fall into the hands 
 of a clergy little raised, by birth or by connection, above 
 the mass of their flocks ; — living among the peasantry, 
 participating in their feelings and prejudices ; — popu- 
 lar, powerful, and comparatively rich, while they obey 
 the will of the people, by appearing to lead it; but 
 poor, weak, and defenceless — without authority, with- 
 out sympathy, without subsistence, and (what in that 
 country is equally important) without protection — as 
 soon as they oppose it. 
 
 But we will not let this matter rest solely on in- 
 ference from general principles. We will support and 
 illustrate our views by the direct evidence of Mr. 
 O'Croly, for many years the parish priest of Ovens 
 and Aglis, in the South of Ireland. As Mr. O'Croly 
 has since quitted the Catholic communion, it is pro- 
 bable that, at the time when he wrote, though he was 
 outwardly a member of that communion, it had even 
 then lost its hold on his respect and his affection. His 
 mere inferences, therefore, must be cautiously examined, 
 as they may be tinged with anti-Catholic prejudices ; 
 but Ave see no reason to doubt the accuracy of his facts, 
 when he speaks from his own knowledge. 
 
 6 The revenue,' he says, 6 of the parish priest is de- 
 rived from a variety of sources. There are confession 
 dues, marriage dues, baptism dues, mass dues, and 
 dues for anointing. He is also paid at times for at- 
 
56 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 tendance at funerals. Confession furnishes the most 
 steady and constant source. Twice a year he collects 
 confession-money, under the denomination of Christmas 
 and Easter offerings. The priest selects one or two 
 houses in every ploughland or neighbourhood, where 
 he holds, according to appointment what are called 
 u stations of confession ; 99 and it is required that the 
 families all about should meet him, make their confes- 
 sions, receive the holy sacrament, and finally pay the 
 customary dues. It sometimes happens that this busi- 
 ness is not transacted quietly. If increased dues are 
 demanded — a tiling of occasional occurrence — disagree- 
 able and sometimes scandalous altercations ensue. 
 Similar scenes occur when individuals attend and 
 crave time for payment ; while such as absent them- 
 selves, unless they send the dues as an apology, are 
 generally made the subject of public exposure. 
 
 ' Come we now to another item of ecclesiastical re- 
 venue — marriage-money. The first thing done, when 
 there is question of marrying a couple, is to make a 
 bargain about the marriage-money. The priest drives 
 as hard a bargain as he can, and strives to make 
 the most of the occasion. But this is only a pre- 
 liminary proceeding. Demands of money are made 
 upon such as are present at the marriage — at least 
 upon the male portion of the assembly. In general 
 the demands are considered unreasonable. Some en- 
 deavour to evade the payment of any contribution — 
 others give little, and the few that please the priest 
 are exceptions. What is the consequence? The 
 clergyman, after entreating some time to little pur- 
 pose, gets at length into a rage — utters bitter in- 
 vectives — abuses, perhaps, the whole company, and is 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 57 
 
 abused himself in turn, until the house becomes a scene 
 of confusion and uproar. 
 
 6 Baptism-money comes next. The general rule is 
 to baptize at private houses, or at the priest's house or 
 lodgings. The father of the infant pays, as they say, 
 for the baptism ; the gossip-money is demanded of the 
 sponsors, and, if not satisfactorily paid, scenes of abuse 
 and recrimination frequently ensue — similar, indeed, to 
 what takes place on occasion of marriage, only upon a 
 smaller scale. 
 
 ' The custom of anointing is considered, in this 
 country, to be of the last importance, so that no mis- 
 fortune is accounted greater than to depart this life 
 without its reception. This rite is often administered 
 under most distressing circumstances — amidst sickness, 
 lamentation, destitution, and want : yet money is de- 
 manded. 
 
 6 Other bad consequences arise out of the present 
 system of Church support. Let us view the conduct 
 of the priests as instructors of their people. Their 
 congregations everywhere have shown an utter dis- 
 regard to law and to the constituted authorities ; 
 nothing among them but sedition and insubordination 
 — burning and maiming — murder and massacre. What 
 did the priests, the guides and pastors of the people, 
 do under these circumstances ? It would be too much, 
 perhaps, to say that the priests themselves were the 
 original instigators of the misguided multitude. There 
 is no doubt that many of them acted a prominent part 
 in the business ; and the impression on the minds of 
 the common people was, and is, that the priests gave 
 it their full and unqualified sanction. But many of 
 them yielded reluctantly to the torrent, and appeared 
 
58 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 to give their approbation to that which they in reality 
 condemned. Can it be said that the present state of 
 clerical dependence had no share in determining this 
 conduct ? The multitude held the strings of the 
 clerical purse, and woe betide the unfortunate priest 
 who would set himself in opposition to their wishes ! 
 The common cry was, that they would not uphold any 
 priest who would not back them in their proceedings. 
 The dread of poverty, and of being cast off by those to 
 whom they looked for subsistence, contributed power- 
 fully to make the body at large become mere time- 
 servers. It was a kind of general apostacy, arising 
 from base considerations of self-interest ; accordingly, 
 they either preached or countenanced lawless combi- 
 nation.'* 
 
 It is not to be supposed that we believe this to be a 
 true representation of the whole body of the Catholic 
 priesthood of Ireland. We know that there are among 
 them men as pure, as sincerely pious, and as high- 
 minded as in any priesthood in Europe. But though 
 we are satisfied that Mr. O'Croly's representation does 
 not apply to even a majority of the Irish Catholic 
 priests — though we believe that there are but few 
 marked by all the bad qualities and degrading charac- 
 teristics which he has imputed to the general body — 
 Ave, at the same time, believe that his inferences, 
 though much too sweeping, are deduced from facts — 
 from instances observed by himself — and that his tes- 
 timony as to the existence of such facts is worthy of 
 credit. 
 
 We do not believe that the priests often preach 
 
 * Essay on Ecclesiastical Finance, by the Eev. D. O'Croly, 
 pp. 28—40 (3rd edit. 1834). 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 59 
 
 actual outrage ; but we do believe that there are many 
 cases in which they do not do their utmost to prevent 
 it, and many in which they share the opinions and 
 feelings from which it proceeds. They belong to the 
 peasants by birth ; they are connected with them by 
 social intercourse ; and they come little in contact 
 with any others, either during their education or 
 during their ministry. The only public opinion which 
 they fear is that of their own congregations, and of 
 their own body; and there certainly is nothing in their 
 position to make them less hostile than those around 
 them to the institutions of their country. They owe 
 nothing to the existing law. The theory of that law 
 is, that there is in Ireland neither a Catholic laity nor 
 a Catholic priesthood. It does not secure them in 
 their revenues or in their benefices ; they have no 
 property for it to protect ; they have no families whom 
 its subversion might ruin ; it offers no prizes to their 
 vanity or their ambition; the only notice which it 
 takes of them is to allow them to be chaplains to jails 
 and workhouses, and to prohibit their being Poor-law 
 guardians. They feel more deeply than any other 
 portion of the people the recollection of old and the 
 presence of existing wrongs. Their predecessors were 
 legally murdered, and they see every day the churches 
 and cathedrals from which those predecessors were ex- 
 pelled. While they are forced to wring their subsis- 
 tence from a half-starved peasantry, they see in every 
 benefice an Anglican incumbent enjoying — often for 
 doing nothing, or what they believe to be worse than 
 nothing — the parsonage, the glebe, and the revenue 
 which they think ought to belong to themselves. 
 
 We have already said that no permanent improve- 
 
60 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 raent in the physical condition of the Irish people, no 
 increase in their capital, or in the productiveness of 
 their industry, can be hoped while their present hos- 
 tility to the law, and the consequent insecurity of 
 person and property, continue. But, while this is the 
 position, and these are the feelings, of those specially 
 set apart to teach the people, what is the sort of in- 
 struction and advice which is to be expected ? AVhat 
 is to be hoped when to the misery of the flock is added 
 the hostility of the pastor — a pastor, too, armed with 
 confession, penance, and absolution ? — when the priests 
 attribute their degradation, and the people their 
 wretchedness, to one common enemy, the law ? 
 
 So far we expect no material disagreement among 
 that portion of the public w T ho are our readers, AYe 
 believe that the great majority admit, that the first 
 effectual step towards the recovery of Ireland, is to 
 relieve the Catholic population from the irritating and 
 misdirecting influences to which both the laity and the 
 clergy are subjected, by the loss of the original endow- 
 ment of their Church. But while the necessity of 
 supplying that loss, at least to a certain degree, is 
 conceded, there are differences of opinion — first, as to 
 the expediency of obtaining the previous consent of 
 the Catholic clergy ; secondly, as to the fund from 
 which the proposed provision should be taken ; and, 
 thirdly, as to the principles on which the amount 
 should depend. 
 
 Some persons maintain that no arrangement of this 
 kind can be made without the active co-operation, or 
 at least ther expressed acquiescence, of the priesthood ; 
 others, that no such co-operation, or even acquiescence, 
 can be obtained, but that the offer can be made in a 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 61 
 
 form in which it will be ultimately and beneficially 
 accepted. Some have proposed that the intended 
 endowment should be taken from a part of that which 
 is now appropriated to the Protestant Establishment — 
 others, that it should be taken from the general revenue 
 of the State. And, lastly, some have proposed that 
 the State should supply the whole, or the far greater 
 part, of the necessary provision — others, that it should 
 supply only a portion, and that not necessarily the 
 greater portion. 
 
 We will consider these three questions separately. 
 
 On the first question, no one can doubt the advan- 
 tage of obtaining the co-operation of the Catholic clergy, 
 and we believe that, until within a short period, it was 
 obtainable. In 1825, when, on the motion of Lord 
 Francis Egerton, the House of Commons resolved — 
 6 That it is expedient that a provision should be made 
 by law towards the maintenance of the Catholic clergy 
 exercising religious functions in Ireland ' — many of the 
 most eminent of the Catholic clergy and laity were 
 examined on this subject. It will be worth the reader's 
 while to consult the evidence published in that year 
 by the Commons' Committee on the State of Ireland, 
 — particularly that of Mr. O'Connell, and of the Catho- 
 lic Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Tuam, and 
 of the Catholic Bishops of Kildare and Ardagh. 6 1 
 beg to state,' said Mr. O'Connell, ' that I am thoroughly 
 convinced that the object of the Catholic clergy and 
 laity in Ireland is sincerely and honestly to concur 
 with the Government in every measure that shall in- 
 crease the strength of the Government in Ireland, so 
 as to consolidate Ireland with England completely.'"* 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 120. 
 
02 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 And for effecting this consolidation his two measures 
 were — first, Emancipation ; and, secondly, a provision 
 for the Catholic Church. His evidence on the latter 
 subject is remarkable, not only in itself, but as having 
 been volunteered. Not a suggestion, not a hint as to 
 such a provision, had been given to him, when, after 
 disposing of a question on a different subject, he 
 added : — 
 
 6 1 think it would be unwise in the Government, if 
 Emancipation were carried (and until it was carried 
 the Catholic clergy would not accept of a provision), 
 to leave the Catholic priesthood unprovided. I think 
 it would be extremely wrong in the Government to 
 give them any part of the revenue of the present Church 
 Establishment, and they would not accept of it ; but 
 I think a wise Government would preserve the fidelity 
 and attachment of the Catholic clergy by what I call 
 the golden link, by pecuniary provision, so that the 
 Government should be as secure, in all its movements 
 towards foreign Powers, of the Catholic clergy, as they 
 now are of the Protestant clergy ; that they should be, 
 in short, a portion of the subjects of the Government 
 and the State, identified with them. Our wish would 
 be, that the Government should have proper influence 
 over them, which a certain pecuniary connection would 
 give. Our wish would be, that the Government should 
 be strong by the combination of the subjects. Our 
 anxiety is to become subjects out-and-out, as the Pro- 
 testants are.' 
 
 c Have you had communication on this subject with 
 the clergy high in the Roman Catholic Church of Ire- 
 land?' — 'I have spoken upon the subject with those 
 gentlemen : without pledging myself for all of them, I 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 63 
 
 understand that their sentiments coincide entirely with 
 those which I have had the honour to express. The 
 late Catholic Bishop of Kerry was a cousin-german of 
 mine — a man of very clear and distinct intellect. He 
 was anxious for that arrangement, and, I am sure, 
 anxious for it from the purest motives.' 
 
 6 Your opinion is, that, coupled with Emancipation, 
 that would be accepted by the Catholic clergy ?' — 6 My 
 opinion is that, coupled with or following Emancipa- 
 tion, it would be acceptable, but not preceding it ; and 
 my humble opinion is, that it would be a most desirable 
 thing to have that species of settlement take place after 
 Emancipation. The consequence would be, that the 
 Catholic clergy would become in the nature of officers 
 belonging to the Crown, forwarding the views of Go- 
 vernment in every case where there was not something 
 that revolted in general, such as harsh or unconstitu- 
 tional illegal measures ; but that the general tenor of 
 their conduct would be decidedly in support of the 
 Government, and perhaps even in instances that theo- 
 retic friends of the Constitution would not wish for. 
 I believe the propensity of the Catholic clergy is very 
 much towards an unqualified submission to the law, 
 and to the Government, whatever it may be.'* 
 
 We believe that this opportunity has been lost. 
 When the Wellington Cabinet conceded Emancipa- 
 tion, they conceded only what they felt themselves 
 unable to refuse ; and as a provision for the Catholic 
 clergy was not demanded — as the only motives were 
 its utility and justice — they did not choose even to 
 consider a proposal which could benefit only the Em- 
 pire, and might probably injure the party. The omis- 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, pp. 81-82. 
 
64 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 sion did not arise from inattention. 6 1 fear/ said the 
 Duke of Wellington, in the debate of June 10, 1828, 
 6 that Catholic Emancipation will not be found a 
 remedy, unless we could find a means of connecting 
 the Roman Catholic Church with the Government of 
 the country.'* In 1829, the Duke chose to forget this 
 fear, or at least to suppress it ; but Sir Robert Peel, 
 speaking in the same room in which the House of 
 Commons, only four years before, had resolved, t That 
 it is expedient that a provision should be made for the 
 Roman Catholic clergy,' could not refuse to comply 
 with that resolution, without alluding to the subject. 
 He escaped, however, under a cloud of unwarranted 
 assumptions, unmeaning generalities, and cowardly ob- 
 jections. He assumed that such a provision implied a 
 negotiation with the Court of Rome, and he thought 
 'that such a negotiation would be revolting to the 
 feelings of Englishmen, and to the pride and inde- 
 pendence of this country. He thought that such a 
 provision would be a departure from the great prin- 
 ciple which insures the inviolability of the doctrine and 
 discipline of the Church of England, and repugnant to 
 the feelings of the country. 'f 
 
 The busy Administration of Lord Grey was filled by 
 matters perhaps equally important and more urgent ; 
 and it would have been useless, perhaps mischievous, 
 for the Melbourne Cabinet, with a small majority in 
 one house, and a small minority in the other — never 
 allowed to carry a measure which their adversaries 
 
 * 1 Mirror of Parliament,' p. 1906. 
 
 f See his speech, March 5, 1829, 'Mirror of Parliament.' 
 p. 428. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 65 
 
 thought likely to be popular — to make a proposal, 
 which, if it escaped the sectarian and factious opposi- 
 tion of one house, was sure to perish by that of the other. 
 
 The result was, that the Catholic clergy, feeling as 
 bitterly as the rest of their countrymen the insult of 
 the Protestant Establishment, and still more bitterly 
 the injury of their own destitution — r:ceiving neither 
 aid, nor countenance, nor even protection from the 
 Government — were partly tempted and partly terrified 
 into taking part in the resistance to tithes. And 
 having once joined in an insurrectionary movement — 
 having once proclaimed that those who disapprove a 
 law are justified in breaking it, and in forcing others 
 to break it — they betrayed (what till then had been 
 unknown) that they could be used as instruments by 
 any party which could turn upon them the opinion of 
 their flocks. 
 
 Among the parties which distract Ireland, the most 
 active, and (in proportion to its numbers) the most 
 powerful, is the revolutionary party — a party to which 
 we know no counterpart in the history of these islands. 
 All other parties (we are speaking now not of mere 
 demagogues, or agitators for individual and personal 
 purposes, but of parties) seek as their ultimate object 
 the public good, however they may mistake the means 
 of promoting it. The Chartists and the Ultra- Tories, 
 the Anti-Corn-law League and the Farmers' Friends, 
 all really believe that their success would be a public 
 blessing. But the object of the Irish revolutionary 
 party is not the general welfare of the United Empire ; 
 it is not even the general welfare of Ireland, either as 
 a part of the United Empire, or as a separate Re- 
 public: their real objects are to overthrow the Pro- 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 testant Church, to confiscate the Protestant estates, 
 and to retaliate on the Protestant party the injuries 
 and insults of centuries. As they know that this can- 
 not be effected under a British sovereign, they strive 
 to separate themselves from Britain ; as a means of 
 effecting that separation, they strive to repeal the legis- 
 lative union ; and, as a means to that repeal, they strive 
 to make the united government work ill. 
 
 By confirming the prejudices, misleading the expecta- 
 tions, aggravating the antipathies, and inflaming the 
 malevolent passions of the least educated classes, this 
 party has obtained great influence among those on 
 whom the priests are dependent for their incomes, and 
 for their popularity. The priests have now again, as 
 they had when the anti-tithe war was raging, to choose 
 between their duty and their immediate interest. But 
 they have to choose under circumstances still more 
 unfavourable. Having already become parties to a 
 combination to defeat by violence and terror a law, 
 unjust indeed and mischievous, but still a law ; and 
 having succeeded in so defeating it — having sanctioned 
 the frightful doctrine, that the end justifies the means, 
 and having obtained by atrocious means a useful end 
 — they have lost the power to oppose the popular will 
 by arguments founded on the principles of Christianity, 
 or even of mere morality. 
 
 We suspect, indeed, that there are few among them 
 who wish to oppose it. It is probable that some are 
 sufficiently ignorant to believe that Repeal may be 
 peaceably obtained, and when obtained will be bene- 
 ficial. Others know that the path to it is through 
 civil war, but try to think that the gain will be worth 
 the sacrifice, and perhaps comfort themselves with the 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 67 
 
 reflection that their profession will exempt them from 
 its dangers ; and a few, we fear, share the ambitious 
 and malignant passions of the anarchical party, and are 
 willing to encounter any risks and any calamities, in 
 the hope of inflicting ruin and subjugation on the Pro- 
 testant and the Saxon. The greater part, however, 
 we believe, have no clear notions either as to the 
 objects or the means of the Repealers ; but they see 
 that they are the majority — they feel that they can 
 be opposed only at the risk of fortune, reputation, and 
 even life — and they join in the popular cry without 
 knowing or much caring what it signifies. 
 
 The same motives which urge us earnestly to desire 
 a public provision for the Catholic clergy, urge the 
 revolutionary party fiercely to oppose one. In order 
 to convince the people of Ireland that they cannot 
 prosper under the Imperial Government, it is their 
 business to take care that they shall not prosper — it 
 is their business to perpetuate and exasperate every 
 grievance. Nothing, therefore, excites their anger 
 more than a proposal to remove by one measure both 
 an oppression and an irritation. 
 
 We do not reckon Mr. O'Connell among the sincere 
 Repealers. He knows too much to believe that Repeal 
 can be obtained except by force ; and he has too much 
 to lose to desire a sanguinary contest, in which power 
 would accompany not the qualities which he possesses 
 — popular eloquence and legal knowledge ; but those 
 which he wants — military skill and indifference to 
 danger. We believe, too, that he has too much poli- 
 tical sagacity not to be aware that Repeal, even if 
 obtained, must produce separation — that separation 
 would be followed by war between the North and the 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 South of Ireland, and between the South of Ireland 
 and Great Britain; until all the calamities of the 
 seventeenth century would be repeated, and Ireland 
 thrown back into the state of abject hopeless misery 
 under which she lay torpid for nearly a century. 
 
 But though he cannot be a sincere Repealer, though 
 he must despise the credulity and fear the violence of 
 those who are ; yet, unfortunately for himself and his 
 country, all his angry and all his selfish passions appear 
 to drive him to manifest the same feelings, and to 
 express the same opinions, as the revolutionary party. 
 He appears to be inflamed, by all the religious and 
 national antipathies of his least civilised countrymen ; 
 and he has to avenge his own failure in the British 
 Parliament, and — what is more stinging — in British 
 society. On most points his immediate objects and 
 those of the Repealers coincide. Unless Ireland can 
 be kept in a state of chronic discontent, they must 
 abandon, or at least suspend, their schemes; and he 
 must submit to a diminution of his power, of his wealth, 
 of his patronage, and — what perhaps is still more im- 
 portant — of the admiration and applause which habit 
 has made an excitement necessary to his happiness. 
 He is as earnest, therefore, as the sincerest Repealer, 
 in obstructing a proposal, which by rendering Ireland 
 tranquil might render her prosperous, and by rendering 
 her prosperous render her contented. 
 
 Under such circumstances it would of course be 
 useless to negotiate with the priests as to a measure 
 which, whatever may be their own opinions or their 
 own wishes, their masters require them to oppose. We 
 believe, indeed, that the mere attempt at such a nego 
 tiation would, for a time at least, defeat the plan. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 69 
 
 Propose to them, as a body, to accept a provision — 
 they would spit upon it. Attempt to starve them into 
 compliance, by prohibiting dues and fees — their con- 
 gregations would, for a time, make to them larger pay- 
 ments, and more readily. It would be represented as an 
 attempt to bribe the sheep-dogs in order to make havoc 
 of the flock. Nothing could more effectually cement 
 the union of the priest and the people against the law. 
 
 But if the provision were offered as a part of a 
 general system of conciliation — if it were offered in 
 such a way as to be a mere act of bounty or of justice 
 — if it implied no interference between the priest and 
 his congregation, or between the bishop and the priest 
 — if the money were issued to Government Commis- 
 sioners, whose duty it should be to distribute it among 
 those whom they had ascertained to be the Catholic 
 officiating clergy, and each priest were simply informed 
 that his share was at a banker's, ready to be drawn for 
 as soon as he thought fit — we have no doubt that it 
 would ultimately be accepted, though perhaps tardily, 
 reluctantly, and ungraciously. And when once people's 
 minds had become accustomed to it, the laity would 
 feel the blessing of the diminution of a heavy and 
 irregular tax, and the priests that of escaping from a 
 state of uncertainty, of dependence, and of pecuniary 
 strife, which must interrupt their comfort, wound their 
 self-respect, and obstruct their usefulness. Contrarily 
 to what is commonly the case, the obligation would be 
 much more felt than expressed. 
 
 We now come to the second question — namely, the 
 fund from which the provision for the Catholic Church 
 should be made. The proposal that that provision 
 should be taken, altogether or in part, from the existing 
 
70 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 endowment of the Protestant Establishment, necessarily 
 assumes that that endowment affords a surplus not only 
 large, but immediately available. But as no British 
 statesman ever will propose to interfere with the in- 
 comes of the existing Established clergy, many years 
 must elapse before any considerable assistance could 
 be derived from the property which they now enjoy. 
 The provision for the Catholic clergy must not be a 
 reversion to take effect on the deaths of the existing 
 Protestant incumbents. It is obvious that to postpone, 
 for the sake of a pecuniary saving, equal perhaps to 
 the imperial revenue for three days, a measure once 
 admitted to be right — once admitted to be necessary to 
 the morality, the peace, and the prosperity of Ireland 
 — would be an insult Avhich not even the fiercest 
 Orangeman would venture, or would desire, to offer. 
 
 And even if it were possible to take from the Pro- 
 testant endowment a large and immediately available 
 fund, the division of the endowment between the two 
 Churches, unless it were final, would add a new ele- 
 ment to the dissensions of Ireland. It would throw 
 down the endowment as a prize to be fought for by 
 proselytism, by patronage, by exclusive dealing, by 
 persecution ; in short, by all the weapons which, in a 
 chronic civil war, are likely to be seized by an ignorant, 
 bigoted, and sanguinary population — a population which 
 poverty, idleness, party-spirit, religious and national 
 animosity, carelessness of human life, and indifference 
 to human suffering, mark out for envenomed agitation. 
 And on what principle could a final division be founded ? 
 On the relative numbers of Catholics and Protestants ? 
 — That proportion is constantly changing, and, what is 
 more important, it may be made to change. In one 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 71 
 
 district the Protestants, in another the Catholics, may 
 be seduced, or frightened away, or rooted out. On 
 property ? — That is still more changeable than numbers. 
 
 But perhaps it may be said, the division should be 
 grounded on numbers, or on property, or on a com- 
 bination of both, such as they stand now ; and should 
 be declared irrevocable, however its original elements 
 may subsequently vary. 
 
 This is what Canute did when he placed his throne 
 at low-water mark. How is this generation to fetter 
 the will of its successors ? How is it to provide that 
 its edicts shall be adhered to, when the circumstances 
 which justified them are altered ? 
 
 Nothing; is more common than a law which, though 
 intended to be temporary, has become permanent. 
 Nothing is more rare than a law which, professing to 
 be unalterable, has continued unaltered. The reason 
 is clear. In ordinary cases legislators take their 
 chance. They enact what they think convenient for 
 the time, leaving their successors to modify or re- 
 peal it. But when an institution is the result of a 
 compromise, the party that has been on the defensive 
 naturally fears that the concession which it makes may 
 be followed by further demands. In the hope of pre- 
 venting, or at least delaying, such demands, or of 
 providing a further argument to oppose to them, it 
 requires that the existing arrangement shall be declared 
 to be final. And the other side never objects, for it 
 well knows that such a proviso is mere waste-paper ; 
 and that it is not on its presence or absence, but on 
 the interests of the two parties, and on their relative 
 strength, that the durability of the arrangement de- 
 pends. Between individuals, or between federal states, 
 
72 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 where the sanction of a court of justice or of a diet can 
 be invoked, such stipulations are efficient. But their 
 insertion, when there is no superior by whom they can 
 be enforced, is merely an evidence that the parties to 
 the compromise do not believe in its permanence. 
 Like the engagements at the beginning of every treaty, 
 that peace and friendship between the two contracting 
 powers shall be eternal, instead of affording strength, 
 they are mere indications of weakness. 
 
 If the Catholic clergy are to receive any portion of 
 the Protestant endowment, we believe that the best 
 course — the course best not only for the tranquillity of 
 Ireland, but for the safety of the Protestant Establish- 
 ment — will be to give to them the whole, and to let 
 the Protestant Establishment depend altogether on the 
 State. But even if such a measure could be carried, 
 w T hich we are convinced that it could not be, it is open 
 to the decisive objection, that a provision for the Irish 
 Catholic clergy, arising from land in Ireland, would 
 not tend to produce the intimate union between the 
 British Islands which is essential to the welfare of both. 
 The object of every statesman must be that the Irish 
 Catholics, and particularly the most influential portion 
 of them, the priests, should feel themselves, to use Mr. 
 O'Conn ell's words, 6 subjects out-and-out, as the Pro- 
 testants are.' This feeling will be produced by a 
 provision derived from the imperial revenue, and can 
 be produced by nothing else. 
 
 On the third question — the extent to which the Ca- 
 tholic endowment should be carried — if it were possible 
 to relieve the people from the whole burden, and to give 
 to the priesthood complete independence, we should 
 prefer it. But, even in England, the Established 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 73 
 
 Church receives, from fees, offerings, pew-rents, rates 
 voted in vestry, and subscriptions — all of them sources 
 of income independent of its endowment — more than 
 one million and a half a-year. If one of the richest 
 ecclesiastical endowments which the world has ever seen 
 requires a large voluntary aid, it can scarcely be ex- 
 pected that any which we can give to the Irish Catholic 
 Church will in itself be sufficient. We propose to 
 make a provision which shall remedy its most pressing 
 wants, and protect its ministers from the temptations of 
 dependence ; but on no occasion to prohibit, and in 
 some important matters to facilitate, its receiving vo- 
 luntary assistance. 
 
 The three wants of the Catholic population, as Ca- 
 tholics, are — churches for the laity, and residences and 
 stipends for the priests. They possess, indeed, accord- 
 ing to the return made by the Commissioners of Public 
 Instruction, 2,105 places of worship ; but, even if these 
 2,105 buildings were as capacious as the average of 
 English churches, they would be insufficient for six- 
 and-a-half millions of people, distributed in unequal 
 proportions over a large country. This is obvious 
 when we compare the Catholic church-room with the 
 1,534 places of worship provided for only 850,000 Pro- 
 testant Episcopalians, or even with the 855 chapels of 
 the 660,000 Dissenters. But, in fact, a large number 
 of what are called Catholic chapels are places affording 
 shelter only to the priest and those immediately around 
 him, while part of the congregation are kneeling out- 
 side in the rain or the snow. And even these chapels, 
 miserable and inadequate as they are, the Catholic 
 Church holds by no certain tenure. The churches, the 
 cathedrals, the glebes, the tithes, and the estates of the 
 
74 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Established Church are vested in corporations. The 
 property of the Catholic Church is not recognised by 
 law as public property. It is obliged, therefore, to be 
 left in the hands of individuals, at the risk of loss by 
 accident or fraud, and subject to the constant expense 
 of the appointment and reappointment of trustees. As 
 to residences appropriated to the priests, there are none. 
 They must hire houses or lodgings, and, to a great ex- 
 tent, are domesticated in the farmers' families — a domes- 
 tication always objectionable, and peculiarly so when 
 the population is imperfectly civilised, and the priest 
 in many respects resembles them. 
 
 The first remedy is obviously the removal of mere legal 
 obstacles. For this purpose we recommend the creation 
 of a Corporation aggregate, to be depositaries of the 
 legal estate in the public property of the Irish Catholic 
 Church, and to be empowered to acquire — by purchase, 
 donation, devise, or bequest — lands or money for Catho- 
 lic ecclesiastical purposes. If the express co-operation 
 of the Catholic clergy could be previously obtained — of 
 which we have already stated our disbelief — this Cor- 
 poration might be constituted principally of the Catho- 
 lic prelates. As things are, it must be selected from 
 the most eminent of the Catholic laity. We further 
 recommend that a sum be annually issued to this 
 Corporation, to be employed in the purchase of sites ; 
 in the erection, enlargement, and repair of Catholic 
 chapels ; in the purchase of glebes and erection of 
 glebe-houses ; and in providing the requisites for the 
 celebration of divine service — in fact, to be employed 
 for the purposes for which church-rates are raised in 
 England. 
 
 In its disposal of the fund, the Commissioners would 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 75 
 
 probably follow the plan of which experience has shown 
 the economy. They would proportion their grants to 
 the sums contributed from other sources. In England, 
 indeed, this plan is subject to the inconvenience, that 
 the richest district receives the most assistance, and the 
 poorest the least. But in Ireland there are not the 
 congestions of wealth which belong to tranquil coun- 
 tries. A dense population will, indeed, be able to con- 
 tribute more than a scattered one; but, in the same 
 proportion, it will want more accommodation. Con- 
 sidering the importance of the object, the strong religi- 
 ous feelings of the Irish, and the sympathy which the 
 destitution of their Church excites throughout the 
 Catholic world, we have no doubt that large sums would 
 be voluntarily contributed. If 50,000/. a year were 
 issued to the Commissioners, we believe that nearly as 
 much, including the value of lands and buildings, might 
 be expected from the public, especially from testamen- 
 tary dispositions, or donations to take effect after the 
 donor's death. 
 
 The provisions of the 59 Geo. III. c. 134, and of 
 the 3 Geo. IV. c. 72, authorising the drawback of 
 duties on materials used in building, rebuilding, or en- 
 larging the churches of the Establishment, must of 
 course be extended to Catholic chapels. The amount 
 of this drawback in England alone amounted, during 
 the last twenty years, to 244,196/. 13s. 2d. — a sum 
 more than equal to the expense of building 250 chapels, 
 affording the modest accommodation with which the 
 Irish Catholics are contented. 
 
 It is a striking instance of the indifference with which 
 their spiritual wants have been treated, that this tri- 
 fling favour — if the not exacting a tax from the hardly- 
 
7G 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 wrung efforts to support their religion, made by the 
 poorest part of a poor nation, can be called a favour — 
 should now for the first time be suggested. To have 
 refused it would indeed have been bigotry ; but not to 
 have thought of it was much worse — it was negligence 
 originating in contempt. 
 
 We believe that if two-thirds of the aggregate 
 amount thus contributed by the State, and by indi- 
 viduals, for building purposes, were devoted to chapels, 
 and the remainder to residences, sufficient church ac- 
 commodation, and glebe-houses sufficient for the email 
 wants of an unmarried priesthood, might be provided. 
 The keeping-up the chapels, however, and the supply 
 of the requisites for divine service, would necessitate a 
 considerable expense — an expense likely to receive much 
 less voluntary aid. In England, though the repairs of 
 the parsonage and of the chancel fall on the rector, 
 more than 500,000/. is annually raised by church-rates ; 
 and yet the part of the population which adheres to the 
 Established Church can scarcely exceed thirteen mil- 
 lions. The annual expenditure of the Irish Ecclesias- 
 tical Commission, for similar purposes, for the benefit 
 of the 850,000 Protestants, amounts to more than 
 75,0007. a year; and is stated by the Commissioners to 
 be grossly inadequate. We doubt, therefore, whether 
 the wants of 6,500,000 Irish Catholics can be adequately 
 supplied, unless the State will continue to assist them, 
 to the extent of at least 50,0007. a year ; being one- 
 tenth of the church-rates of England, and not two-thirds 
 of what is received from it for similar purposes by the 
 Protestant Episcopalians of Ireland. 
 
 Let us now consider the amount of provision requi- 
 site for the personal wants of the Catholic clergy. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 77 
 
 In 1825, Lord Francis Egerton estimated the paro- 
 chial clergy at 2,000, and the dignitaries at 56 — that is 
 to say, 1,000 parish priests, 1,000 coadjutors or curates, 
 4 archbishops, 22 bishops, and 30 deans ; and this esti- 
 mate appears to have been nearly accurate, as the 
 Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction 
 states the whole number of the Catholic clergy to be 
 2,074. He proposed to give annually to each arch- 
 bishop 1,500/., to each bishop 1,000/., and to each dean 
 300/. ; and to divide the parochial clergy into three 
 classes — to allot to 200 of them 200/. a year each, to 
 800, 120/. a year; and to the remaining 1,000, 60/. a 
 year each, making a total expense of 233,000/. a year. 
 As respects the dignitaries, such a provision would 
 much exceed their present incomes. Bishop Doyle, in 
 1825, said that his income was less than 500/. a year. 
 It seems, however, to have been inadequate. 6 At the 
 same time,' he added, 6 I may be permitted to state that 
 the income of a bishop is charged with very heavy in- 
 cumbrances, considering its quantity ; for I am obliged 
 to contribute to every charitable institution — to assist 
 in the erecting and supporting of schools — to feed a con- 
 siderable number of the poor ; in fact, if it were not 
 for some help I occasionally receive from friends, I could 
 not afford to keep a horse or a servant.' * Dr. Kelly, the 
 Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, states that his revenues 
 never had amounted to 700/. in a year, and, on an ave- 
 rage, did not exceed 500/. ; f yet each of these prelates 
 held, besides his diocese, two benefices. 
 
 When we consider the incumbrances (to use Bishop 
 Doyle's words) to which all ecclesiastical revenues, and 
 
 * Commons' Keport (1825), p. 185. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 246. 
 
7S 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 peculiarly those of an Irish Catholic ecclesiastic, are 
 subject ; when we consider the importance of attracting 
 into the Catholic Church some persons of better educa- 
 tion and higher connections than those by whom it is 
 now filled ; and, lastly, when we recollect that the in- 
 comes of the Catholic dignitaries will always be com- 
 pared with those enjoyed by the Protestants, — in the face 
 of all these considerations, we do not think Lord Fran- 
 cis Egerton's proposition excessive. The whole amount 
 — the whole provision for the dignitaries of a Church, 
 whose members exceed half the number of the members 
 of the Established Church in England — is not much 
 greater than the revenue of the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. It may be observed that the scale appears to 
 have been suggested by Mr. O'Connell, who recom- 
 mended from 800/. to 1,000/. a year to be the stipend 
 of a bishop, and from 1,400/. to 1,500/. to be that of an 
 archbishop. 
 
 The amount of the provision proposed by Lord 
 Francis Egerton for the parochial clergy appears also 
 to have been suororested bv Mr. O'Connell. The asrore- 
 gate is 196,000/. a year, founded on the assumption 
 that 1,000 parish priests, and 1,000 coadjutors or 
 curates, are to be provided for ; which gives, within a 
 fraction, 200/. a year to be divided between each parish 
 priest and his coadjutor — 200/. a year being the sum 
 which Mr. O'Connell stated to cover the expense of 
 both priest and curate.* Bishop Doyle's estimate is 
 nearly the same ; and, being founded on examination, 
 is more to be relied on. He stated (in 1825) that there 
 were forty-four parishes in his diocese ; that in four of 
 
 * Commons Report (1825), p. 83. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 79 
 
 them the priest's income amounted to 400/. a year; 
 that in fourteen others it somewhat exceeded 200/.; 
 and in all the rest varied between 200/. and 100/.* 
 This would give about 190/. per parish, to be divided 
 between the priest and coadjutor ; and his was a poor 
 diocese. 
 
 How much of this income arises from annual, and 
 how much from occasional payments, it is difficult to 
 say. In one case Bishop Doyle estimates the occa- 
 sional payments at one-fourth. The Catholic bishops, 
 priests, and laymen, who were examined in 1825, all 
 stated their belief, that if a provision were given by 
 the State, the annual payments would be nearly dis- 
 continued, and the occasional ones diminished in amount. 
 We think it certain that, eventually, the aggregate re- 
 duction would not be less than three-fourths. If, then, 
 Lord Francis Egerton's scale were adopted, the average 
 income of each benefice would be about 250/. a year, 
 of which 200/. would be contributed by the State, and 
 50/. by the people. This sum, divided between the 
 priest and his coadjutor — each of whom, it must be 
 recollected, must keep a horse; for the calls on a 
 Catholic clergyman are too numerous, and the parishes 
 too extensive, to allow him to go to his duties on foot — 
 would afford a decent maintenance, but certainly not 
 an excessive one. The priest would remain dependent 
 on his congregation for superfluities, and for money to 
 be expended in charity, but would not be driven by 
 necessity to subservience or to extortion; and the 
 peasantry would be relieved from a charge which is 
 still more injurious from its uncertainty than from its 
 amount. 
 
 * Commons' Report (1825), p. 186. 
 
80 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 The whole expense of what we have recommended 
 — including the expenses of management, and also in- 
 cluding not only the usual but an increased grant to 
 Maynooth College — would not exceed 320,000/. a year, 
 a sum scarcely exceeding three-fifths of the church- 
 rates annually raised in England, and extorted from 
 Catholics and from Dissenters as well as from Church- 
 men. 
 
 But we must express, as strongly as words can 
 express it, our conviction, that the proposed provision 
 must be made — not by a revocable grant, not by an 
 annual vote involving an annual discussion, an annual 
 effusion of bigotry and spite, an annual publication of 
 mischievous falsehoods and still more mischievous truths 
 — but by one perfect donation. The Catholics form so 
 insignificant a minority, both in the Commons and in 
 the Lords, that they cannot be expected to trust any 
 arrangement which a single vote by either house might 
 interrupt. Whether the object be to obliterate the 
 insult or to remove the injury of which we have been 
 guilty towards the Catholic laity, or to raise the cha- 
 racter and increase the usefulness of the priesthood, 
 the means must be as permanent as we wish the effects 
 to be. We recommend that a three per cent., or (to 
 mark more clearly its durability) a two per cent, stock, 
 of which the dividends should equal the intended pro- 
 vision, be created, and placed in the name of the Com- 
 missioners. The Irish Church will then have the best 
 security which exists in Europe — the security possessed 
 bv the public creditor of Great Britain. 
 
 TTe have already stated our wish to attract into the 
 ranks of the Catholic clergy men of a higher station 
 than that of those by whom it is now supplied. We 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 81 
 
 agree with Mr. O'Connell that it is dangerous that the 
 priests should be 6 so much under the influence of very 
 low people, as they necessarily are when all their rela- 
 tions are in the very lowest stage of society.'* We do 
 not expect indeed that, under any circumstances, many 
 of the gentry will become priests. No man, certainly 
 no young man — unless he be an enthusiast, or be 
 tempted by the immediate prospect of some consider- 
 able ecclesiastical dignity, or be in such a station as to 
 feel that the priesthood will raise him into a decidedly 
 superior rank, or have an invincible dislike to manual 
 labour — will take orders subject to the restrictions and 
 observances which Catholic orders impose. In no part 
 of Europe do the working Catholic clergy belong to 
 the highest classes. 
 
 But it is to be wished that they should not belong to 
 the lowest. It is to be wished that they should not 
 enter on their mission — that they should not become 
 the guides, the directors, and, in many respects, the 
 absolute masters of the consciences of their flocks — 
 with no experience and no associations but those of the 
 cabin and the seminary. An endowment will do much. 
 The sons of the greater farmers and shopkeepers, and 
 the middle classes generally — when the progress of im- 
 provement shall have given to Ireland middle classes — 
 will be ready to enter into a profession which will offer 
 the certainty of a decent maintenance, and the prospect 
 of considerable and alluring prizes. This will be a great 
 advantage. What a boy sees and hears at home — the 
 feelings and habits which he acquires before he quits 
 his father's house — form the most important ele- 
 * Commons Eeport (1825), p. 125. 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 
 
 JOURNALS j CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 ments in his character; and, within limits which do 
 not apply to the present subject, the higher the 
 station of the parent the better is this parental educa- 
 tion. 
 
 But we are anxious to improve not only the domestic 
 but the collegiate education of those who are designed 
 for the Catholic ministry. At present the only public 
 institutions open to them are Trinity College, Dublin, 
 where they may take degrees, but cannot be admitted 
 on the foundation ; and Maynooth, where about 250 
 pupils receive nearly gratuitous maintenance and in- 
 struction, and about 200 more pay about 21/. a year 
 apiece, being somewhat below the cost of their main- 
 tenance. The private seminaries are more numerous. 
 The largest, we believe, is at Carlow; where, in 1825, 
 from sixty to eighty candidates for the priesthood were 
 lodged and boarded at an expense (as far as we can 
 infer it from Bishop Doyle's evidence) of 25 guineas a 
 year apiece, but paid nothing specifically for instruction. 
 
 We do not recommend, however, that any additional 
 facilities be given to eleemosynary clerical education. 
 Such an education has a double tendency to degrade 
 the clerical character. In the first place, the intro- 
 duction of a large proportion of men of the humblest 
 class throws, especially among so aristocratic a body as 
 the Irish gentry, a general discredit on the whole pro- 
 fession ; and, secondly, the additional number of com- 
 petitors renders the profession less attractive to those 
 who have any other prospects, by lessening the chance 
 of advancement. When the expense of the English 
 Universities was kept so low, and the supply of founda- 
 tions, in proportion to the establishment, was so great 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 83 
 
 that a large proportion of the English clergy were 
 gratuitously educated, they generally belonged to the 
 lower orders. Notwithstanding the high prizes of the 
 English Establishment, the gentry would not enter a 
 profession in which the majority were of inferior birth. 
 The clergy of the Church of England have risen to 
 their present rank — the highest which any clergy, as a 
 body, has ever held in Europe — only since the pro- 
 visions for their eleemosynary education have become 
 unimportant. 
 
 But we recommend that Maynooth be incorporated, 
 be allowed to grant degrees, be allowed to take money 
 and lands by donation, devise, or bequest; and that 
 the present parsimonious annual grant of 8,9 2 8 Z. be 
 augmented by a sum specifically appropriated to the 
 increase of the salaries of the officers, who are now 
 absurdly underpaid; to the purchase and keeping-up 
 of a good library, and proper instruments and collec- 
 tions for the study of the physical sciences ; to prizes 
 for compositions, which should be printed as well as 
 recited; and — what is of more importance — to the 
 erection of rooms for a new class of students, to be 
 admitted on such terms as may render their residence 
 profitable to the establishment. 
 
 At present, the Catholic clergy are almost excluded 
 from the society of the gentry, and the exclusion 
 rankles in their minds. They probably attribute it to 
 religious antipathy. But before Maynooth and the 
 other Irish seminaries were instituted, when the priests 
 were educated abroad, and possessed the knowledge 
 and the manners of the higher classes, they lived with 
 them familiarly. It is impossible to force men into a 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 society for which they are unfit ; and it is not easy to 
 exclude them from one in which they have the power 
 of pleasing. If Maynooth were raised to the rank of 
 a University — if free scope were given to all those 
 who might wish to be its benefactors — if its professor- 
 ships were made objects of ambition, and the means of 
 receiving students of a better order were secured, and 
 the Irish Catholic Church rendered a more eligible 
 profession, we have no doubt that, in a short time, a 
 considerable portion of its members would belong to a 
 higher class than that which now supplies them, and 
 would form, in the social chain, the link of which Mr. 
 O'Connell, though with apparent reluctance, admitted 
 the utility and the want.* 
 
 The measures which we have proposed would remove 
 the injury of which the Irish Catholics, as Catholics, 
 have to complain; but they would not even palliate 
 the insult. The Protestant Church would remain a 
 memorial that Ireland is not a part of the United 
 Empire, but a dependent province — a province in 
 which one of the most important institutions is mis- 
 managed, and a large portion of the national property 
 is wasted, with an insolent carelessness, of which no 
 domestic legislature — we may say no domestic tyrant 
 — could be guilty. The details of the Report of the 
 Commissioners of Public Instruction in Ireland show 
 a capricious misdistribution of the existing ecclesiastical 
 endowment, more resembling the freaks of madness 
 than the acts of legislators. We copy those relating 
 to the province of Cashel : — 
 
 * Commons' Report (1825), p. 125. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 85 
 
 Benefices. 
 
 Roman 
 
 Esta- 
 blished 
 
 Chur- 
 
 Clergy of the 
 
 Catholics. 
 
 Church. 
 
 
 E sta blishment. 
 
 Archdeaconry of Cashel 
 
 4,767 
 
 158 
 
 1 
 
 2 One resident 
 
 Athassel 
 
 7,375 
 
 215 
 
 1 
 
 1 Besident 
 
 Ballingarry . 
 
 6,048 
 
 136 
 
 1 
 
 2 One resident 
 
 Ballintemple 
 
 4,597 
 
 231 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Ballymurreen 
 
 1,242 
 
 56 
 
 
 
 2 Non-resident 
 
 Bally sheehan 
 
 3,117 
 
 75 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Brickeendown 
 
 421 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Cahercorny . 
 
 1,593 
 
 15 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Castletown . 
 
 1,500 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 2 Non-resident 
 
 Clogher 
 
 5,612 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 4 Non-resident 
 
 Clonbeg 
 
 5,695 
 
 159 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Clonoulty 
 
 3,729 
 
 60 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 The Deanery of Cashel 
 
 12,906 
 
 542 
 
 1 
 
 2 One resident 
 
 Erry .... 
 
 756 
 
 55 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Fennor 
 
 2,121 
 
 67 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Fertiana 
 
 1,229 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 Non-resident 
 
 Fethard 
 
 9,977 
 
 408 
 
 1 
 
 2 Resident 
 
 Fithmore 
 
 2,077 
 
 78 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Geal .... 
 
 729 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 2 Non-resident 
 
 Glankeen 
 
 6,807 
 
 124 
 
 1 
 
 2 Resident 
 
 Hoare Abbey 
 
 496 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 2 Non-resident 
 
 Killenaule . 
 
 8,401 
 
 343 
 
 1 
 
 4 Two resident 
 
 Kilmore 
 
 1,080 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Kilvemnon . 
 
 4,692 
 
 75 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Knockgraffon 
 
 3,706 
 
 96 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Loughmoe . . 
 
 3,014 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 2 One resident 
 
 Mogorban . 
 
 1,243 
 
 115 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Mealiffe 
 
 3,028 
 
 53 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Moyne 
 
 2,482 
 
 63 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Newchapel . 
 
 1,593 
 
 31 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Bedcity 
 
 St. John's, Newport 
 
 887 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 2 Non-resident 
 
 11,933 
 
 558 
 
 2 
 
 3 Resident 
 
 Shronell 
 
 1,018 
 
 32 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Templemore 
 
 9,241 
 
 710 
 
 3 
 
 2 Resident 
 
 Templeneiry 
 
 9,605 
 
 126 
 
 1 
 
 3 One resident 
 
 Templeree . 
 
 1,480 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Templetonhy 
 
 4,388 
 
 86 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Thurles 
 
 12,155 
 
 294 
 
 1 
 
 2 One resident 
 
 Tipperary . 
 
 12,361 
 
 630 
 
 1 
 
 2 Resident 
 
 Treasurership of Cashel) 
 Cathedral . . J 
 
 7,775 
 
 292 
 
 1 
 
 2 One resident 
 
 Ardmayle 
 
 1,9/0 
 
 37 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Holycross 
 
 3,224 
 
 113 
 
 1 
 
 1 Resident 
 
 Ballycahill . 
 
 1,904 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Boytonrath . 
 
 344 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 Carry forward . 
 
 190,324 
 
 6,155 
 
 32 
 
 70 
 
86 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Benefices. 
 
 Roman 
 Catholics. 
 
 Esta- 
 blished 
 Church. 
 
 Chur- 
 ches. 
 
 Clergy of the 
 Establishment. 
 
 Brought forward 
 Co^lmundry 
 Killeenasteena 
 Kilteynan . 
 Templeontragh 
 Kilmicklin . 
 Templebeg . 
 
 190,324 
 393 
 212 
 1,267 
 . 2,771 
 173 
 1,116 
 
 196,256 
 
 6,155 
 6 
 
 12 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 6,178 
 
 32 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 70 . i 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 1 Non-resident 
 
 
 
 
 
 — /37 Resident 
 74 ] 37 Non-resi- i 
 \ dent 
 
 That a district containing 196,256 Catholics and 
 6,178 Protestants, or more than thirty Catholics to one 
 Protestant, should be divided, for the exclusive benefit 
 of less than one-thirtieth part of the population, into 
 50 benefices, provided with only 32 churches, but 
 affording incomes to 74 clergymen, leaving the 196,256 
 Catholics without any spiritual instruction, except that 
 which they provide for themselves, is an insult to the 
 Catholic population such as a dominant minority never 
 before dared to inflict on the bulk of a people. 
 
 It is obvious, however, that this misclistribution was 
 not the intentional act of any Government. The 
 statesmen who gave over to Protestant incumbents 
 the benefices into which they found Ireland divided, 
 assumed, and probably believed, that all the Irish 
 either were Protestants, or would speedily become so. 
 And the events which they had witnessed in England, 
 indeed throughout Europe, seemed to warrant such a 
 belief. The folly and the wickedness rest with those 
 who, when they found that Ireland, instead of becom- 
 ing Protestant, was becoming every year more and 
 more Catholic, obstinately maintained the arrange- 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 87 
 
 ments which had been made on the opposite supposi- 
 tion. Our fathers were guilty of this folly and of this 
 wickedness; but, from the weakness of those whom 
 they oppressed and insulted, they escaped its punish- 
 ment. If the present generation persist in it, they can 
 hardly hope for the same impunity. 
 
 It appears to us, that the first thing to be done is to 
 substitute, as the principle of the religious instruction 
 of the Protestants in Ireland, the Congregational for 
 the Territorial system. By the expression 6 Territorial 
 system,' we mean that under which a whole country is 
 divided into districts, each possessing a minister en- 
 dowed with a portion of its ecclesiastical revenues, 
 whatever be their amount, and bound to afford his 
 services to its inhabitants, whatever be their number 
 — whether that number be so large as to force him to 
 employ one or more curates, or so small as to make 
 his duties almost a sinecure. By 6 Congregational 
 system,' we mean that under which, not the territory, 
 but the number of members of a given Church is 
 divided into cures, to each of which a minister is 
 appointed, with an endowment proportioned to the real 
 demand for his services. The Territorial system is a 
 natural one, where the whole population which adopts 
 it professes the same form of religion; and where 
 the endowment, arising from land, is, in fact, an 
 expense to no one, but is a mere substitution of a 
 clerical for a lay landlord — the substitution of a person 
 bound to perform certain services for one legally subject 
 to no duties whatever. Even in such a country, how- 
 ever, the Territorial system, if persisted in without 
 material change for centuries, must in time produce 
 great inconvenience. 
 
88 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Of the 15,535 parishes of England and Wales, there 
 are 1,907, each with a population of less than 20 
 families; 6,681 (including the 1,907), each with a 
 population of less than 60 families ; 363 have each a 
 population of more than 10,000 persons, but less than 
 50,000; and 10 have each a population exceeding 
 50,000 persons. To a very small degree this has been 
 remedied, by the consolidation of very small and the 
 division of very extensive cures. But it is generally 
 true, that a large majority of parishes have too small a 
 population to fill adequately the time of a conscientious 
 minister; and that a great number are so populous 
 that the most energetic clergyman, assisted by all the 
 curates whom his endowment will allow him to employ, 
 cannot even attempt to attend to the wants, or even to 
 know the names, of the majority of his parishioners. 
 These inconveniences are, indeed, augmented by the 
 nature of the endowment which we have adopted, con- 
 sisting almost exclusively of a revenue derived from 
 agricultural produce. As soon as a parish becomes 
 covered with houses, and therefore the seat of a large 
 population, requiring perhaps ten or twenty times as 
 many clergymen as before, it almost ceases to afford a 
 revenue ; and thus the means of supplying religious 
 instruction diminish in proportion as the want of it 
 increases. But, under any mode of endowment, a ter- 
 ritorial distribution of the clergy, unless frequently 
 revised, must in time become excessive in some districts, 
 and deficient in others. 
 
 It is obvious that these evils must be aggravated if 
 a territorial distribution should be applied to the clergy 
 of a minority of the inhabitants. 
 
 If Methodism were made the established religion of 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 89 
 
 England, and endowed with the tithes, and a Methodist 
 clergyman appointed to every parish, without any 
 reference to the number of its Methodist inhabitants, 
 it is obvious that a great number of the benefices 
 would be sinecures. Such a supposition may appear 
 absurd, — it certainly could not happen unless Eng- 
 land had previously become a province of some 
 Methodistic empire. But the example of Ireland is a 
 proof that, under such circumstances, it could happen ; 
 for (changing only the word Methodism into Church 
 of England) such is precisely the treatment which we 
 have inflicted on Ireland. 
 
 Suppose now that England became sufficiently strong 
 to demand that the provision for the Methodist Church 
 should be reduced to the real wants of the members of 
 that Church. The natural conduct would be, to aban- 
 don the Territorial for the Congregational system. To 
 divide England into cures, proportioned principally to 
 the numbers of the Methodist population — we say 
 principally, because even the Congregational system 
 must have some reference to territory — 1,500 indivi- 
 duals, or 300 families, inhabiting a small parish, might 
 be attended to by one minister; whereas the same 
 number, scattered over a wide district, especially if 
 separated by natural obstacles, such as mountains or 
 streams, might require four or five. 
 
 Such a plan would not imply that the salaries of all the 
 clergy should be equal, or even their duties. It would 
 only imply that salary should be always connected 
 with duty ; in short, that the previous system should 
 be reversed — that, instead of the benefice being consi- 
 dered as the principal, and the duty the accessory, 
 the first thing enquired into should be the amount 
 
90 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 of service required, the next the means of remune- 
 rating it. 
 
 We have said that this would be the natural conduct, 
 because it is the conduct which, with one single excep- 
 tion, has been adopted for every Church whose tenets 
 have been embraced by only a minority of the people. 
 It is in this manner that the clergy of all the different 
 classes of Dissenters in England, of the Episcopalians 
 in Scotland, of the Presbyterians in Ireland, of the 
 Protestants in the Catholic portions of Europe, and of 
 the Catholics in the Protestant portions, are provided 
 for. In the whole history of the world, Ireland affords 
 a solitary instance in which the Territorial system has 
 been persisted in as the provision for the clergy of a 
 minority ; and the wisdom of the attempt may be in- 
 ferred from its results. 
 
 We say persisted in, because Ireland is not the only 
 country in which the experiment has been made. The 
 Stuarts endeavoured to treat Scotland in the same 
 way. They gave the benefices into which they found 
 the country divided, to an Episcopalian clergy ; and if 
 Scotland had not been strong enough to throw off the 
 yoke, Sir Robert Peel would probably, at this instant, 
 have been talking of the United Church of England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, and denouncing as sacrilege 
 any interference with the sinecures of the diocese of 
 St. Andrews. 
 
 What we propose, then, is that the system which has 
 been adopted with respect to the Church of a minority 
 in every country in the civilised world, be now at last 
 extended to the Protestant Church of Ireland; and 
 that the Congregational system be substituted for the 
 Territorial. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 91 
 
 Such is the carelessness of the British public for 
 Irish matters, that many of our readers will be surprised 
 to be told that, eight years ago, this change was pro- 
 posed in Parliament, by a member of the present 
 Government ; that it was approved by the principal 
 members of the present Opposition ; and that, as far 
 as can be inferred from the debate, it would have passed 
 the House of Commons, if Sir Robert Peel, without 
 disapproving the principle, had not objected to the time 
 at which it was introduced. 
 
 It will be recollected that Lord Morpeth's Tithe Bill 
 of 1835, nearly the first measure of the Melbourne 
 Administration, contained clauses sequestering, on 
 vacancy, all benefices not containing fifty Protestant 
 Episcopalians, and vesting the revenues in the Eccle- 
 siastical Commissioners. On the bringing-up of the 
 report on this Bill, on August 7, 1835, Mr. Bingham 
 Baring moved the insertion of some clauses which 
 are to be found in the House of Commons' papers of 
 July 1835 (0—84). These clauses did not deal 
 with the sequestered benefices, but as to all others pro- 
 vided — 
 
 6 That as they became vacant, they and all their 
 emoluments should vest in the Ecclesiastical Com- 
 missioners, and form an Endowment Fund. 
 
 6 That the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should have 
 power, from time to time, to alter the limits of benefices 
 (the consent of the incumbent being obtained if the 
 benefice were full), and to endow them from the En- 
 dowment Fund. 
 
 i That the altered or newly-created benefices should 
 be termed vicarages, and be in the patronage of the 
 bishop ; or, if in the dioceses of more than one bishop, 
 
92 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 in the patronage of such one of those bishops as the 
 Commissioners should appoint."* 
 
 ' And, lastly, that the Commissioners should purchase 
 the advowsons which are private property, and be 
 empowered to borrow for that purpose on the security 
 of the Endowment Fund.' 
 
 The debate is ill reported — better in Hansard's 
 Debates than anywhere else, but even there very 
 briefly. Every speaker approved of the principle. 
 Lord Morpeth apologised for its omission in his 
 own Bill, only by the probability that the extensive- 
 ness of the change would have provoked opposition. 
 Mr. Spring-Rice was ready to adopt the clauses at 
 once, and to adopt them as a duty to the Protestants. 
 Lord John Russell expressed so decided a concurrence, 
 that Sir Robert Peel got alarmed, and asked, 6 Would 
 the noble lord, at this late period of the session, and 
 when he had not even read the clauses, press the dis- 
 cussion of this important question ? ' f and the result 
 was, that Lord John said, that though he was glad 
 that the clauses had been brought forward, he thought 
 that a better opportunity would arrive for effecting 
 their object. The measure was admitted to be just, to 
 be beneficial, to be necessary ; but it was found to be 
 important, and on that ground, and on that ground 
 only, it was rejected. 
 
 It is difficult to avoid the painful conclusion, that the 
 excellence of the proposal was the real motive of Sir 
 Robert Peel's opposition. The plea that he had not 
 had time to consider it was obviously futile. The 
 
 * The only lay patron to be retained was Trinity College, 
 which was to have new vicarages assigned to it. 
 f ' The Times ' of August 8, 1835^ 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 93 
 
 notice of motion had been in the book for weeks ; and 
 no one can believe that so material a step could 
 have been taken by one of his most accomplished 
 followers, the son of one of the members of his Cabinet, 
 without his privity, we might almost say without his 
 concurrence. But he felt that it would improve a Bill 
 which he had resolved that the House of Lords should 
 throw out; and to this miserable party feeling he 
 sacrificed, according to his custom, the utility and 
 safety of the Irish Protestant Church, and the morals 
 and instruction of the Irish Protestant people. As for 
 Lord J ohn Russell, he, without doubt, believed that 
 a better opportunity would come. He was at that 
 time in the first months of his restoration; he had 
 beaten down the Tory rebellion in a Parliament of 
 their own choosing, and could look forward to an 
 indefinite duration of power. 
 
 The opportunity never came ; and this is one of the 
 many instances which prove that in politics, as in war, 
 nothing should be left for to-morrow that can be done 
 to-day. If Mr. Baring's resolutions had been in- 
 corporated in the Tithe Bill of 1835, they would pro- 
 bably have passed in that of 1838. By this time they 
 would have been nearly six years in operation. In 
 that interval, a fourth of the Irish benefices have be- 
 come vacant, and probably another fourth might have 
 been remodelled, with the assent of the incumbents. 
 By this time, half the anomalies of the Irish Church 
 — half of what Lord Morpeth denounced as 6 livings 
 without duties, clergy without flocks, and pay without 
 work, the worst gains of the sinecurist kept up on the 
 worst principles of the bigot ' — might have disappeared. 
 Diis aliter visum est. 
 
94 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Something more, however, must be done, before we 
 arrive at what the Whig leaders have boldly and truly- 
 declared to be essential — the equality of the two reli- 
 gions. The liability of every cultivated acre in Ireland 
 to contribute towards the support of the Church of the 
 Protestant minority, is necessarily felt by the Catholic 
 majority as a badge of subjugation. That the land 
 belongs chiefly to the Protestants is not a defence, 
 scarcely a palliation. In the first place, though the 
 land may belong to the Protestant landlord, the* tithe 
 does not. It is not his, it never was his, and — unless 
 he obtain it by purchase or by robbery — it never will 
 be his. It is a portion of the public property, which 
 no domestic legislature would employ as it is now em- 
 ployed. And, in the second place, the disproportion 
 between Protestant and Catholic land is an anomaly 
 which is diminishing every year, and which everyone 
 must wish to see extinct ; it is the mischievous result, 
 and the dangerous memorial, of British spoliation and 
 oppression. It is monstrous that we should attempt to 
 profit by our own wrong, and plead as a justification a 
 state of things which we ought to be eager to remedy, 
 and almost ashamed to confess. 
 
 If we look at the history of the Irish tithe question, 
 from its commencement down to the Act which created 
 the tithe rent-charge in 1838, w T e shall find that the 
 complete redemption of tithes, and the substitution of 
 a new and totally different fund as an endowment for 
 the Protestant Irish Church, have been supported by 
 every party, and, with only one exception, formed part 
 of every measure. The Committee of the House of 
 Commons, in 1832, recommended that the State should 
 purchase the rights of the clergy, should become the 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 95 
 
 proprietor of the tithe rent-charge, and should sell it to 
 the landowners on the principle on which the land-tax 
 is redeemed in England. Of the three Bills which 
 Mr. Stanley,* as Irish Secretary, introduced in pursu- 
 ance of the recommendations of this Committee, the 
 third, which he described as the most important, pro- 
 vided for the redemption, by the landlords, of tithe- 
 composition at sixteen years' purchase, and gave a 
 further power of purchase to the State. With the 
 usual fate of Irish measures, this Bill was allowed to 
 stand over till the next session. In the next session, 
 Mr. Stanley ceased to be Secretary for Ireland, and 
 the Redemption Bill lay untouched. In 1834 it was 
 resumed. Mr. Littleton, Mr. Stanley's successor, 
 brought in a Bill making the tithe-composition redeem- 
 able at prices varying, according to the value of land 
 in each county, from fourteen years' purchase to 
 twenty. In the debate, Mr. Stanley and Sir Robert 
 Peel dwelt, in words for which we wish that we had 
 room, on the necessity of complete redemption. Mr. 
 Stanley referred to a letter from himself to Lord Grey 
 in 1831, in which that necessity was urged. Sir Robert 
 Peel said that redemption alone could give peace, and, 
 as usual, supported his reasoning by a long string of 
 authorities. The Bill was materially altered during 
 that stormy session ; and before it passed the House of 
 Commons, a clause was introduced, reducing the tithe- 
 composition by forty per cent. This clause occasioned 
 its rejection in the Lords. 
 
 In 1835, Sir Henry Hardinge, as Irish Secretary in 
 Sir Robert Peel's Administration, proposed and carried 
 a resolution preparatory to an Irish Tithe Bill. That 
 
 * The present Earl of Derby. — Ed. 
 
96 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 resolution was, 6 That composition for tithes should be 
 abolished, in consideration of a rent-charge of 75/. for 
 every 100/. of composition; That such rent-charge 
 should be redeemable ; and, That the redemption- 
 money should be invested in land or otherwise, for the 
 benefit of the persons entitled to such composition.' 
 About three weeks after this resolution had been 
 agreed to by the House of Commons, the Administra- 
 tion was dissolved, and with it perished almost the 
 only good measure of the hundred days. 
 
 Lord Morpeth's Bill of 1835 was again a Redemp- 
 tion Bill ; and, as a Redemption Bill, it was passed by 
 the House of Commons, and would have been passed 
 by the House of Lords, if it had not contained the 
 celebrated clauses appropriating to general education 
 any surplus of the Protestant endowment. 
 
 The unsuccessful proposal made by Lord Morpeth 
 in 1836, and repeated by him in 1837, was the excep- 
 tion to which we have alluded, and was the only mea- 
 sure which did not contain clauses for redemption ; 
 and this was one of the principal objections dwelt on 
 by Lord Stanley in 1836, and one of the most material 
 points in which his rival Bill differed from the minis- 
 terial measure. 
 
 Even the Act of 1838 was founded on Resolutions 
 agreed to by the House of Commons, which would 
 have separated the Protestant Church from the land 
 of Ireland. These resolutions were, in substance — That 
 the tithe-composition should be commuted for a rent- 
 charge of seventy per cent., charged on the owner of the 
 first estate of inheritance ; That it should be collected 
 by the Government, and applied to certain local pur- 
 poses, and to education, and the surplus form part of 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 97 
 
 the Consolidated Fund ; That a sum equal to the rent- 
 charge should be paid out of the Consolidated Fund to 
 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to be by them paid 
 over to the clergy ; but that the State should have 
 power to redeem this payment, by paying to the Com- 
 missioners a sum equal to sixteen years' purchase of 
 the original composition, to be by them invested and 
 managed for the benefit of the clergy ; and, That pro- 
 vision should be made for the regulation of ecclesiasti- 
 cal duties, and the better distribution of ecclesiastical 
 revenues in Ireland. 
 
 Had these Resolutions been carried out, the tithes 
 would have become a mere land-tax, distinguished 
 from the county cess merely by being a charge on the 
 owner instead of on the occupier. The parochial 
 clergy of Ireland would have been maintained out of 
 the Consolidated Fund until their revenues were pur- 
 chased by the State ; and then out of the funds man- 
 aged for their benefit by the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners, and protected from jealousy and spoliation by 
 being merged in the general mass of national and indi- 
 vidual property. And, finally, the new distribution of 
 duties and revenues would have made their revenues 
 correspond with their duties, and their duties with the 
 real wants of the Irish Protestants. 
 
 Mr. O' Conn ell was well aware of the importance of 
 these Resolutions. 6 The real question,' he said, ' is, 
 shall the people of Ireland be amalgamated with the 
 people of England? Refuse to receive us into that 
 amalgamation, and abide the consequences !' * 
 
 But the evil genius of Ireland was awake. Sir 
 Robert Peel, who in 1834 declared that nothing but 
 
 * May 15, 1838. 
 VOL. L H 
 
98 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 the complete redemption of tithes would give peace 
 to Ireland — who in 1835 allowed redemption at only 
 fifteen years' purchase, and required the tithe rent- 
 charge, if not redeemed within three years, to be sold 
 in the market — now saw ' that there were great diffi- 
 culties with respect to redemption.' He now saw that 
 the ( proposal for investing the purchase-money ' was 
 by no means ' free from embarrassment.' The governor 
 of the majority in the House of Lords was an irresis- 
 tible opponent. Nothing could pass against which he 
 thought fit to ' hesitate dislike.' It had become abso- 
 lutely necessary that a Tithe Bill should at length be 
 carried; and the Act of 1838, therefore, was passed, 
 with the omission of those portions which would hare 
 most contributed to the safety and to the efficiency of 
 the Protestant Church. 
 
 What we recommend is, that the arrangement which, 
 for nearly a quarter of a century, has been exposed to 
 all the criticism of prejudice and party spirit, and has 
 not met with any stronger censure than that it is 6 by 
 no means free from embarrassment ' — which has been 
 earnestly supported by every party when in office, and 
 by the leaders of every party when in opposition — be 
 now at length adopted. We will not tease our readers 
 with details, for this is not one of the measures of which 
 the result depends on the details. Whether the Reso- 
 lutions moved by Sir Henry Hardinge in 1835, or by 
 Lord John Russell in 1838, be adopted as the basis, 
 the principle is the same — namely, That the ecclesi- 
 astical tithe rent-charge be vested in Commissioners ; 
 That, subject to existing interests, or with the consent 
 of the incumbents, they be required to dispose of it on 
 terms just sufficiently advantageous to ensure its sale ; 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 99 
 
 That the usual facilities be given to raise money for 
 the purchase, by the sale or mortgage of settled pro- 
 perty ; and, That the produce, after compensating the 
 private owners of advowsons, be invested in the Funds, 
 or on real security, as a part of the endowment of the 
 Protestant Church. The substitution of the congrega- 
 tional for the territorial distribution of the Protestant 
 clergy, implies further that, subject to existing incum- 
 bencies, the glebes be also vested in Commissioners, in 
 order that those which are not wanted may be disposed 
 of, and the purchase-money be added to the Endowment 
 Fund. 
 
 These measures would nearly complete the separation 
 of the Protestant Establishment from the land of Ire- 
 land, and from what w r as once the Catholic endowment. 
 It would retain only the glebes of the remodelled 
 benefices, and the lands of the Archbishops, Bishops, 
 and Deans and Chapters. With the first of these, of 
 course, we would not interfere ; but the second offers 
 the subject of a reform, remarkable for its facility, and 
 for its immediate and unmixed utility. 
 
 These lands are generally let, like cathedral property 
 in England, at nearly nominal rents, on leases for 
 twenty-one years, renewable on payment of a fine. 
 In England, however, the renewal takes place only at 
 fixed periods. A Bishop of Rochester once adopted 
 the system of renewing all the leases of his episcopal 
 lands, and repeating that renewal every year, so that 
 his successor necessarily found the whole property in 
 lease for twenty years. The Court of Chancery held 
 this to be fraudulent, set aside every lease, and obliged 
 the representatives of the Bishop to compensate the 
 lessees. But the conduct which the English courts 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 stigmatised and cancelled as fraud, is the custom of 
 the Irish dignitaries. They habitually renew every 
 year, receiving as a fine about one-fifth of what would 
 be the annual rental if the property were in hand ; and 
 from this habit they cannot escape, except by the sacri- 
 fice of their revenues for twenty years. Every year, 
 therefore, the leases of all the cathedral and chapter 
 lands have to be surrendered and renewed. Every 
 year there is the vexation of a new bargain, and the 
 expense of a new lease. Sometimes, however, the 
 Bishop, if young and strong, ventures to run his life 
 against the lease, and refuses to renew ; in the hope 
 that, when the twenty years are expired, he may have 
 the land in hand, and either obtain a large fine, or be 
 able to make a lease to a trustee for himself. More 
 frequently, the tenant is unprovided with the money, 
 or believes that the Bishop — from his age, or from 
 want of money, or from the probability of his being 
 translated — may be driven to renew at less than the 
 value, or perhaps the parties really differ in their 
 opinions as to the value. 
 
 The necessary consequence is, insecurity and injury 
 to both parties. The tenant does not venture to im- 
 prove ; for he knows that improvement may diminish 
 his chance of renewal, and will increase his fine — and 
 that not (as is the case with ordinary tenures) at the 
 end of his lease, but the very next year, and for ever 
 after. No lands are so ill-cultivated, and there are 
 none of which the price, as compared with the annual 
 value, is so low. The average value of fee-simple 
 lands in Ireland is about twenty-two years' purchase ; 
 the average value of a bishop's lease is twelve It 
 ought, after deducting the annual fine, to be nearly 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 101 
 
 eighteen years. The difference, equal to one-third of 
 the whole value, is a pure loss, occasioned by the 
 trouble, expense, and insecurity of the tenure. 
 
 We recommend that, subject to the interests of ex- 
 isting dignitaries, or with their consent, the remainder 
 of the cathedral lands be vested in the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners, or in some other permanent Board, to 
 be by them sold, and the produce added to the Endow- 
 ment Fund. It is not a necessary part of this scheme 
 that a new distribution among the Protestant digni- 
 taries should take place ; but when we consider the 
 gross anomalies and absurdities of the Irish cathedrals, 
 the discrepancies as to income and as to duties — and, 
 with respect to the majority of the members of the 
 Chapters, the absence of any real duty whatever — it 
 is impossible to suppose that a different arrangement- 
 would not be made ; and, whatever might be its 
 defects, it could not but be an improvement on that 
 which now exists. 
 
 The only relic of Protestant ascendancy would now 
 be the presence of the Irish Bishops in the House of 
 Lords : and if the two sects are to be put on a com- 
 plete equality, either the Irish Catholic Bishops must 
 also be admitted to that House, or the Protestant 
 Bishops be excluded. To the first there are objec- 
 tions, which, whether well founded or not, would, we 
 believe, be found insurmountable. In theory, the 
 Pope nominates the Catholic Bishops of Ireland; in 
 practice, he selects one out of three candidates pro- 
 posed to him by the clergy, or by a part of the clergy, 
 of the vacant diocese ; and this is a real selection. We 
 know that cases have occurred recently in which the 
 selected candidate was not the candidate whom the 
 
102 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 proposers desired. Now, neither the people of Eng- 
 land nor of Scotland, in their present state of feeling, 
 would bear to see men sit as Peers by the Pope's 
 nomination. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enquire as to the grounds of 
 this feeling, or as to the means of removing it, if the 
 other alternative, the exclusion of the Irish Protestant 
 Bishops, be free from objection. AVe believe the ex- 
 clusion in question to be not only free from objections, 
 but desirable. The vote in the House of Lords, pos- 
 sessed by the Irish Archbishops every other year, and 
 by the Bishops every sixth year, takes them from their 
 dioceses, exposes them to considerable expense, makes 
 it necessary that the income of every see should be 
 much greater than would be otherwise required, and 
 returns no advantage whatever. What can a man do 
 in an assembly of which he is a member only for about 
 twenty-five weeks every sixth year — an assembly care- 
 less, fastidious, and eminently intolerant of everything 
 new or unusual, and of every speaker whose opinions, 
 or social relations, or even manner, may differ from 
 those to winch it is accustomed ? By the time that an 
 Irish Bishop has learned something of the tone, and 
 the forms, and the business of the House, his session 
 is over, and he is succeeded by a recruit as raw as his 
 predecessor. Something more might be exj)ected from 
 the Archbishops ; but their absence every other year 
 seems, as far as we can judge by the experience of 
 about ten years, to destroy their influence. 
 
 Few men have personal qualifications superior to 
 those enjoyed by the two present Archbishops. One 
 is a man of high rank, and possesses the confidence of 
 the whole Tory party ; the other enjoys a high reputa- 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 103 
 
 tion, and precisely the reputation that gives most 
 weight — reputation for honesty and knowledge, as well 
 as for talents ; and, besides this, he is an effective 
 speaker. But what results has either of them pro- 
 duced? No measure can be carried through that 
 House by an independent member, unless he can de- 
 vote his whole attention to it ; unless he can bring it 
 forward, session by session, and gradually soften the 
 prejudices of one side of the House, and excite the 
 attention and interest of the other. But this is in- 
 consistent with a mere occasional attendance. It would 
 therefore be better that no Irish Archbishop or Bishop 
 should, as such, vote in the House of Lords. And if 
 a reduction of the incomes of the Protestant Bishops 
 were the consequence, we should think it an additional 
 advantage. 
 
 But what, it may be asked, is to be done with the 
 surplus revenue of the Protestant Establishment ? We 
 see no reason for changing the appropriation which was 
 proposed by the Melbourne Government — paying it 
 over to the Consolidated Fund. If it were specifically 
 appropriated to any other purpose — if it were given, 
 for instance, to the Poor-law Commissioners, or to the 
 Education Board — it would expose the institution so 
 favoured to the hatred of the whole Protestant party in 
 Ireland, or — what is nearly the same thing — of the 
 violent and irrational portion of that party. It would 
 be said to be fed with the spoils of the Church. The 
 Consolidated Fund can never be unpopular. 
 
 At the same time, we must admit that the arrange- 
 ments which we have recommended will diminish the 
 apparent surplus. In Ireland, land is sold for about 
 twenty-two years' purchase, and tithe for about sixteen, 
 
104 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 and the interest on the best mortgages is about four- 
 and-a-half per cent. We have not at present accurate 
 information as to the revenues of the Irish Church, but, 
 for the mere purpose of illustration, we will suppose 
 that revenue to be 550,0007. a year. The sale of the 
 property producing that revenue (principally tithe), 
 could not be expected to produce more than twenty 
 years' purchase, or 11,000,000/. This sum could not 
 be satisfactorily invested in Great Britain, so as to 
 produce a net revenue of more than 350,000/. a year. 
 Invested on land or mortgage in Ireland, it might pro- 
 duce, perhaps, 475,000/. a year. But we should be 
 sorry to see much of it invested in the purchase of land 
 there. We do not wish to add to the number of great 
 or of non-resident proprietors in that country. Nor 
 would it be advisable to lend it on mortgages at a high 
 rate of interest. It is important that the Protestant 
 Church should incur no avoidable unpopularity, and 
 should not have to sue, to eject, to distrain, or to fore- 
 close. We think that the best investment would be 
 picked Irish mortgages, at a rate just below the usual 
 level — perhaps four-and-a-quarter per cent. The 
 Church would thus obtain the best security that Ire- 
 land can give, and would come forward, as the friend 
 of the landowner, to relieve him from more onerous 
 creditors. 
 
 It would be absurd, however, to treat the whole 
 difference between the sums of 550,000/. and 475,000/. 
 as a loss, even to the Establishment. What was taken 
 away in income would be added in security. A man 
 who gets the whole value of what he parts with, is not 
 a loser because he exchanges a precarious, uncertain, 
 and troublesome revenue, for a smaller one that is 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 105 
 
 secure and regular. To sell a West Indian estate and 
 buy a Scotch one, to sell American securities and buy 
 English ones, is no loss, though the transaction must 
 be followed by an immediate decrease of income. If it 
 be wise in an individual, who has to provide for the 
 contingencies of only twenty or thirty years, to select 
 the investment which is the dearest because it is the 
 safest, still more evidently is this wise on the part of an 
 institution which looks forward to an indefinite dura- 
 tion. An annual risk, where the danger at the begin- 
 ning is as 1 to 100, is trifling for the first year, and not 
 great for the first ten years, but amounts to certainty 
 in a hundred years. But while the Church could 
 scarcely be said to be a loser, the country would be a 
 great gainer. It would be a blessing to all the land- 
 owners of Ireland to be able to relieve themselves from 
 a variable tax — a tax which they must pay whether 
 they receive their rents or not. It would be a great 
 advantage — an advantage, in fact, equivalent to an in- 
 crease of the land of Ireland — that the estates of the 
 Bishops and Chapters should not continue subject to a 
 divided ownership, which destroys, as we have seen, 
 nearly one-third of their value. And the sale of these 
 estates, and the power given to incapacitated persons to 
 sell portions of their lands to redeem the tithe rent- 
 charge on the remainder, would throw many small pro- 
 perties into the market, and thus tend to remedy — 
 what we have already stated to be the great physical 
 evil of Ireland — the want of small proprietors. 
 
 We now come to a subject on which we expect little 
 difference of opinion among intelligent persons — the 
 provision to be made in Ireland for the education of the 
 young. Among the many benefits conferred on Ire- 
 
106 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 land, between 1830 and 1841, we believe the Educa- 
 tion Board to be the greatest. We even believe that 
 it has done more to raise and improve the people than 
 the Repeal agitation has done to barbarise them. The 
 general ignorance of Irish affairs which we are forced 
 to impute to our readers, renders it necessary that we 
 should employ a few lines in describing the constitution, 
 duties, and powers of this Board. 
 
 Its members — at present eleven persons, of whom the 
 Protestant and Catholic Archbishops of Dublin are the 
 most prominent — sit by virtue of a commission from the 
 Lord-Lieutenant. Their proceedings are governed by 
 an admirable letter from Mr. Stanley, as [rifih Secre- 
 tary, dated in October 1831, which directs them to 
 employ their funds in promoting a combined literary 
 and a separate religious education. For this purpose 
 they are to require from the schools, which, by accept- 
 ing their assistance, submit to their influence, that 00 
 four or five days of the week, and during appointed 
 hours, moral and literary instruction be given to all the 
 children; the remaining one or two days of every 
 week, and the remaining hours of every other day, 
 being left open for the separate religious instruction of 
 the children of each persuasion, by the teachers whom 
 their parents may approve. The schools which they 
 assist are to be open to their inspection, the books used 
 are to receive their sanction, and the masters are to be 
 liable to be fined, suspended, or removed by their 
 authority. They are to employ their funds in granting 
 aid to the erection of schools, supplying them at half- 
 price with books and other school necessaries, granting 
 salaries to teachers, paying inspectors, editing and 
 printing school-books, maintaining a model school in 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 107 
 
 Dublin and a training-school for masters, and defraying 
 their own contingent expenses. For these purposes, 
 they have for some years past received an annual 
 Parliamentary grant of 50,000/. * 
 
 The last Report of their proceedings is dated the 21st 
 March, 1843. At that time, 2,721 schools were under 
 the superintendence of the Board, attended by 319,792 
 children ; and they had undertaken to make grants 
 to 200 more schools, to be attended by 25,703 more 
 children— making a total of 2,921 schools, and 345,585 
 children. They had trained 980 teachers, they had 
 established a model school and a normal school — that 
 is to say, a school for training masters — in Dublin, and 
 an agricultural school and model farm in the neigh- 
 bourhood ; they had created an establishment of district 
 inspectors of schools ; and they had edited a set of 
 elementary school-books, which we have no hesitation 
 in pronouncing the very best in the English language. 
 Their expenditure that year was 58,500/. — thus 
 divided : about 4,500/. for their model, normal, and 
 agricultural schools ; 10,000/., contributed in aid of the 
 building and fitting-up of schools ; 30,000/. in salaries 
 and gratuities to schoolmasters ; 5,000/. in inspection ; 
 3,000/. loss on their publications ; and 6,000/. in esta- 
 blishment charges. 
 
 All this, however, we are ready to admit, is little 
 when we compare it with the wants of the Irish popu- 
 lation. But it is much when we consider the limited 
 powers and funds of the Commissioners, and the bitter- 
 ness, extent, and power of the opposition which they 
 have had to encounter. It must be confessed that 
 both Lord Grey's and Lord Melbourne's Governments 
 managed the details of the measure with the timidity 
 
108 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 which they constantly, perhaps unavoidably, showed 
 when they had to meet the sectarian prejudices of the 
 Tory majority in the Lords. It was timid to refuse 
 them a Charter, and thus to leave them apparently the 
 mere creatures of the Lord-Lieutenant — liable to be 
 annulled, or altered in character or in functions, at the 
 will of a provincial executive. The smallness of the 
 original grant may perhaps be defended. All the 
 previous attempts at the combined education of Pro- 
 testants and Catholics had failed. They had failed, 
 although all parties had anxiously desired and earnestly 
 endeavoured to promote their success. It would have 
 been presumptuous to rely with confidence on a fresh 
 experiment, made under far more unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances ; — an experiment of which an active and 
 powerful party in Ireland and in England eagerly 
 wished the failure, and which had to encounter, there- 
 fore, not merely honest prejudices, but calumny, mis- 
 representation, intimidation, and all the other poisoned 
 weapons which Faction seizes when she calls herself 
 Religion. 
 
 A Board consisting of Catholics, Protestants Epis- 
 copalians, and Presbyterians — a Board which prohibited 
 the use of the ible as a common school-book during 
 common school-hours — a Board which published ex- 
 tracts from the Bible, in some passages of which the 
 Douay version was preferred to the Anglican, and to 
 which notes were appended, acknowledging that it was 
 a version from the Hebrew or the Greek, and acknow- 
 ledging that there were various readings in the copies 
 of the original — a Board which allowed the children of 
 Catholic. Protestant, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian 
 parents to receive religious instruction each from their 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 109 
 
 own clergy, and in such manner as the parents might 
 think fit — and, what was the worst, a Board created by 
 a Whig: Government — such a Board was sure to be 
 assailed by all that was ultra-Tory in England, by all 
 that was Orange in Ireland, and by all that was fanatical 
 in the British Islands. 
 
 It was objected that the Board contained members of 
 different religious denominations — as if the members of 
 one persuasion could have superintended a combined 
 system, or have obtained the confidence of a population 
 religiously divided. 
 
 It was objected that the Board deprived the clergy 
 of the Establishment of the exclusive right of superin- 
 tending the education of the people — as if that right 
 had not been the creature of the penal laws, and 
 had not been taken away when the penalties on 
 Catholic schools and on Catholic teachers were re- 
 pealed. 
 
 It was maintained, that permitting the Catholic clergy 
 to give separate instruction to Catholic children was 
 an encouragement of Popery, and that it would be 
 better to leave them uneducated — as if this alternative 
 existed — as if, in three-fourths of Ireland, the alterna- 
 tive for the national school were not the Catholic 
 hedge-school, with its vice, its ignorance, its supersti- 
 tion, and its rebellion. 
 
 It was objected that, under the rules of the Board, 
 Catholic children might be refused access to the whole 
 Bible — as if the denial of that access were not a rule 
 of the Catholic Church, and necessarily incident, there- 
 fore, to the education of the children of all sincere 
 Catholics. 
 
 It was objected, that the Scripture extracts were 
 
110 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATION'S, ETC. 
 
 mutilations of Scripture — as if the lessons of the dav, 
 the Epistles and Gospels of the Church of England, 
 were not equally mutilations of Scripture — as if any 
 educated parent ever placed before his child the whole 
 set of books to which we give the collective name of 
 The Bible, and expected him to construct a faith out of 
 its contents. 
 
 Protestant owners refused sites, and then complained 
 that schools were built on the only available spots — the 
 yards of chapels. The Protestant tenants who should 
 venture to assist the national schools were threatened 
 by their landlords, the Protestant clergy were discounte- 
 nanced by their Bishops, and the Protestant parish- 
 ioners were rebuked by their clergy, and then land- 
 lords, bishops, and clergy proclaimed that the combined 
 system had failed, for that the Protestants refused to 
 support it. 
 
 The leaders of the Tory party, while in opposition, 
 followed their usual policy : they neither attacked the 
 Board nor defended it. but looked on in silence, while 
 more and more of their followers entangled themselves 
 in irretrievable hostility to it. At length they accepted 
 office and the first question in Ireland was — How will 
 thev treat the Education Board ? It would have been 
 absurd to suppose that their minds were not made up. 
 For more than two years, office had been within their 
 crrasp : and no one could believe that they had not con- 
 sidered and decided what should be their course on all 
 important matters which were not liable to be affected 
 by unforeseen events. The first session and the first 
 recess, the second session and the second recess, passed 
 over, and they had not yet in words declared their 
 intentions. But their acts appear to be significant. 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The previous Irish Chancellor and Irish Secretary had 
 been members of the Commission ; the new Chancellor 
 and Secretary were not. A person, now a member 
 of a society which denounces the National Board of 
 Education as unscriptural and anti-Protestant, was 
 made Lord-Lieutenant. Nearly all legal and all eccle- 
 siastical promotion was given to its virulent opponents. 
 Everything, in short, was done which could intimidate 
 its friends and give confidence to its enemies. 
 
 The time, however, came when the Government 
 could no longer conceal its decision ; and the decision 
 was, that the Board must be supported. If that 
 decision had been promulgated a year before, though 
 the fanatical opposition might have continued, the 
 factious one would have ceased. It has been delayed 
 until all the waiters on Providence — all those who 
 look to the Government for their opinions — have been 
 deceived into expressions of religious disapprobation 
 and pledges of conscientious hostility, from which all 
 will find it difficult, and many impossible, to extricate 
 themselves. For the Government there is no escape. 
 Neither the present Administration, nor that which is 
 to succeed it, if it be merely prudent, can refuse to 
 support the Education Board ; or if it really desire the 
 welfare of Ireland, can refuse to extend its powers and 
 its means. 
 
 What we recommend is, that the Board be incorpor- 
 ated, and allowed to accept, by donation, devise, or 
 bequest, money and lands to be applied to the same 
 purposes as the Parliamentary grant. Their present 
 precarious state has prevented their receiving any 
 private assistance, except two donations of 1,000/. each 
 from Lord Morpeth and Mrs. Drummond, 400/. from 
 
112 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 an unknown lady, and some trifling sums. We 
 further recommend that the usual powers be given to 
 incapacitated persons to convey to them sites for schools; 
 and that, under certain circumstances, they be enabled 
 to purchase sites from unwilling proprietors. One of 
 the most usual and (where property is in few hands) 
 the most effectual modes of opposition is to refuse a 
 site. We do not tolerate this conduct where it interferes 
 with a railroad or a canal — a school deserves at least as 
 much protection. 
 
 We would further recommend that they receive the 
 annual grant, whatever it may be (it is likely to vary 
 from year to year), which may be necessary to enable 
 them fully to carry out a really national system of 
 education. It appears, by the late Census, that while 
 there were on June 6, 1841, 2,057,156 persons between 
 the ages of six and fifteen, and therefore in want of 
 education, only 502,900 were attending schools. But 
 whatever the expense may be — even if it amount, as it 
 probably will, to 200,000/., the sum asked by the Com- 
 missioners in 1835, — it ou^ht not to be ^rud^ed. The 
 ignorance and folly of Ireland cost us as many millions 
 directly in expenditure, and twice as many, indirectly, 
 in loss of revenue, as it would cost hundreds of thou- 
 sands to give to her adequate means of moral and in- 
 tellectual education. 
 
 Another duty of the Legislature, as to which we 
 expect little difference of opinion, is to repress the vio- 
 lence of the combined artisans in Ireland ; to free 
 industry and knowledge from the tyranny of an igno- 
 rant, rapacious, and unscrupulous minority ; and to 
 enable the workman to use his labour and skill, and 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 113 
 
 the employer his capital and science, in the way which 
 is most beneficial to themselves, and therefore to the 
 public. The combinations in Scotland and England 
 are, without doubt, intensely mischievous. We believe 
 that they do more to depress our manufacturing and 
 commercial prosperity than all foreign tariffs put 
 together. We believe that if they continue unchecked 
 by law or by education, they will in time destroy it ; 
 and leave Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester seats of 
 involuntary idleness and loathsome poverty. This 
 calamity, however, appears still to be distant. The 
 disease is debilitating and growing, but has not yet 
 destroyed our general manufacturing superiority. But 
 in Ireland it has run its course and proved fatal. Xo 
 business requiring, as all great manufacturing opera- 
 tions must, that many hundred workpeople should obey 
 a single capitalist, can be carried on in Ireland. 
 Xothing to which great division of labour is applicable 
 can be profitably made there. A few poplins, Guin- 
 ness's porter, and some linens, are therefore almost all 
 her exports. And as the productive power of machinery 
 and of the division of labour, are every day advancing 
 in Great Britain, the number of commodities which 
 Ireland must import, because she can no longer afford 
 to make them, is constantly increasing. It is this that 
 occasions absenteeism to be economically injurious to 
 Ireland. When a Scotchman goes to London or Paris, 
 his rents go to Paisley to purchase the exportable com- 
 modities which are to answer his bills. When an Irish 
 landlord crosses St. George's Channel, his rents follow 
 him in the form of cattle, or oats, or some other raw 
 produce ; and a portion of the produce of Irish land, 
 which should otherwise be consumed in Ireland, is con- 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 sumed in England. If Ireland exported manufactures 
 she might care no more about absentees than Scotland 
 does. If the measures which have been suggested 
 should be adopted, and should cure the insecurity of 
 the rural districts of Ireland, British capital would be 
 invested in Irish land ; but the great source of civilisa- 
 tion, manufacturing capital, would still shun a country 
 in which, so far as respects the manufacturing popula- 
 tion, the whole power* both legislative and executive, 
 is in the hands of self-appointed rulers, as ignorant, as 
 ferocious, and as despotic as the petty tyrants of 
 Ashantee. No one knows this better than Mr. O'Con- 
 nell. When he wished Ireland to prosper, no one 
 more earnestly demanded an amendment of the combi- 
 nation laws. 
 
 Now, of course, he is silent.* 
 
 * The original sketch of this article contains the following 
 character of O'Connell : — 
 
 1 He has a vivid imagination, ready invention — great energy 
 of mind and body, great industry, great practice. Intellectually, 
 he wants comprehensiveness of mind, patience in the investi- 
 gation of truth, and consequently Knowledge. 
 
 1 Morally, he wants Honesty, in its two senses of veracity, 
 and the performance of promises. He Las an intense desire 
 of power, and intense selfishness. His merits and defects 
 unite to make him a perfect mob-orator. Until Catholic 
 Emancipation was carried, his defects were concealed. His 
 own interest and that of Ireland coincided, and he addressed 
 unrefined audiences. But in the House of Commons he failed. 
 His dishonesty, ignorance, and utter want of taste, moral and 
 intellectual, render him, of all great speakers, the least agree- 
 able to a British audience. 
 
 i The same faults almost excluded him from good society. 
 His wounded vanity and ambition drove him back to Ireland. 
 To supply the funds necessary to feed or pay his sub-agitators, 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 115 
 
 We shall not enter into the details of the necessary 
 amendments. We have not room for them ; and, if we 
 had, we could only extract the essay on that subject 
 contained in the Handloom Weavers' Report.* But 
 we must express our deep conviction, that while the law 
 remains what it now is, utterly inefficient for the pro- 
 tection of the property, the persons, or the lives of 
 either masters or workmen, Ireland will remain almost 
 at the bottom of the nations of Europe — without capi- 
 tal, without manufactures, without commerce, the 
 miserable country of a poor half-employed population. 
 
 The length at which Ave have discussed the Irish 
 questions which appear to us to be the most urgent 
 and the most difficult, forces us to run rapidly over the 
 
 he invented the Eent. To obtain a further means of power, 
 he supported the Melbourne Administration. As a bond for 
 his party he selected Kepeal, — an object unattainable, and 
 therefore not to be worn-out like Emancipation, and attractive 
 to the ignorant from the vagueness of its consequences. Under 
 the Melbourne Administration his influence decreased. The 
 prosperity of the country increased, and the Government was 
 known to have only a limited power, but to exercise that 
 power for the benefit of Ireland to its utmost extent. Such a 
 Government could not be successfullv attacked, and his share 
 of the patronage was a compensation for the diminution of 
 Eent. 
 
 1 The accession of Peel opened a new field. 
 
 M. The Government had a great majority in each house, 
 therefore could do anything. — 2. The principal members were 
 the avowed supporters of the wrongs most complained of, and 
 therefore would voluntarily do nothing. — 3. Experience showed 
 that from fear they would do everything.' 
 
 * See that report, from pp. 98 to 108. [Now published in 
 Senior's 1 Historical and Philosophical Essays,' vol. ii. — Ed.] 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 remainder. On some of them, such as the Franchise 
 and the extension of Public Works, we shall at present 
 say nothing. They are too large to be disposed of in 
 an article which has already extended to such a length. 
 But there are some so simple in their elements as to ad- 
 mit, not indeed of being exhausted, but of being consi- 
 dered in the short space that is left to us. One of these 
 is the Local Magistracy. 
 
 Among the errors (to use a very mild term) which 
 disgrace the Irish policy of the present Government, 
 one of the worst — one of those for which it is most dif- 
 ficult to assign a plausible motive — is their diminishing 
 the already inadequate number of professional magis- 
 trates. When they had resolved, by their Arms Bill, 
 to put the comfort, the safety, and the reputation of all 
 the inhabitants of the country at the discretion of the 
 local magistracy, they chose that very time to reduce 
 that portion of the body in whose knowledge and impar- 
 tiality the people confided. 
 
 The details of the administration of justice and police 
 in a country may be usefully committed to the srratui- 
 tous superintendence of the resident gentry, in three 
 dissimilar states of society. One is the feudal state, 
 where the bulk of the land is in the hands of a small 
 and comparatively rich aristocracy, and the central 
 government is weak and poor. Such was the state of 
 feudal Europe. The Barons obtained jurisdiction over 
 their vassals because there was no one else to exercise 
 it. Another ca:e is, when, from the poverty of the 
 State, and the depression of the learned professions, the 
 central government cannot provide a sufficient number 
 of trustworthy persons. We believe this to be the case 
 in many parts of the Austrian Empire. The Govern- 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 117 
 
 ment requires the great landlords to provide for the ad- 
 ministration of justice on their own estates, in order to 
 exempt itself from the expense and the responsibility. 
 A third case is, where the country is rilled with 
 numerous, opulent, and intelligent residents, coming in 
 contact with the middle and lower orders, principally 
 in the agreeable relations of employers and customers 
 — sprung from the same origin, speaking the same lan- 
 guage, generally professing nearly the same religious 
 and political opinions, and sufficiently at leisure to be 
 able to devote the necessary time to the performance of 
 judicial and administrative duties. Such is the casein 
 the best parts of England and Scotland. 
 
 But nothing of this applies to Ireland. The central 
 government is strong and rich. It can choose its instru- 
 ments from the whole legal profession of Ireland, Eng- 
 land, and Scotland, perhaps the largest, and certainly 
 the most eminent, body of lawyers — the most remark- 
 able for integrity and station— that exists in Europe. 
 On the other hand, the greater part of the resident 
 gentry of the South of Ireland are regarded by the 
 majority of their neighbours almost as enemies. Most 
 of them are poor ; many of them speak a different lan- 
 guage ; and the principal social relation between them 
 and the peasantry, that of landlord and tenant, much 
 more resembles that of creditor and debtor, or that of 
 taskmaster and slave, than the patriarchal form which 
 it assumes in feudal countries, or than the connexion, 
 cemented by mutual interest, which it creates in Eng- 
 land and Scotland. 
 
 It is improbable, as we have already said, that an aris- 
 tocracy standing in such a relation to the bulk of the 
 people can always distribute justice impartially, and 
 
118 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 impossible that they can do so satisfactorily ; and if our 
 object were mere immediate improvement, we should 
 wish to see the removal of the unpaid, and the substitu- 
 tion of stipendiary magistrates in the greater part of the 
 South of Ireland. But, besides the practical difficulties 
 of such a change, it would not be easy, after having 
 adopted a centralised system, to return to one of local 
 government. And a highly centralised government, 
 though it is consistent with a considerable amount of 
 prosperity, intelligence, and practical freedom, seems to 
 have a tendency to keep a nation unprogressive, when 
 that point has been reached. Without doubt, the pre- 
 sent state of Lombardy is far better than that of 
 Ireland. But we believe that if Ireland could be made 
 tranquil and loyal, her free institutions would enable 
 her to attain a material, moral, and intellectual supe- 
 riority over Lombardy, and even over Prussia, if 
 Prussia continues to be governed as she now is. We 
 recommend, therefore, merely that a considerable num- 
 ber of professional persons be added to the present 
 magistracy of the South of Ireland ; that the practically 
 obsolete custom of appointing a quorum be revived, and 
 that the quorum consist exclusively of the stipendiary 
 magistrates, so that the presence of one of them should 
 be necessary to every magisterial act. In the pre- 
 sent state of Ireland, we should consider the patron- 
 age which this would give to the Government as an 
 advantage. 
 
 The last proposal would be an expense. We proceed 
 to one that would be a saving, though that is not its 
 principal merit — we mean the abolition of the Lord- 
 Lieutenancy. When Ireland was practically farther 
 from London than Nova Scotia is now, it might be 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 119 
 
 necessary to have a Lord-Lieutenant on the other side 
 of St. George's Channel, as it is thought necessary to 
 have a Governor on the other side of the Atlantic ; but, 
 now that London is nearer to Ireland than to many parts 
 of England, or to any part of Scotland — now that a man 
 can go from Dover to the Giant's Causeway in six- 
 and-thirty hours, there seems to be no more necessity 
 for a Viceroy in Dublin than in Edinburgh. 
 
 If, however, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland resem- 
 bled our Colonial Governors, who do not change with 
 the changes of Ministry — who are merely the organs of 
 the imperial executive — who represent no party in the 
 mother-country, and belong to no party in the depen- 
 dency — the chief inconvenience of the office, besides a 
 considerable amount of public money uselessly squan- 
 dered, would be its preparing the way for disunion, by 
 exhibiting to the people a quasi king, a court, a privy 
 council, palaces, guards — in fact, all the appearances of 
 a separate kingdom, except a parliament. 
 
 Conferred, as it always is, on a political adherent — 
 on a man who represents a party in England, and 
 belongs to a party in Ireland, and armed with con- 
 siderable patronage, direct and indirect — it makes 
 Dublin the nucleus of faction and intrigue, and 
 brings the political warfare 6 home to men's business 
 and bosoms.' 
 
 A Tory Lord-Lieutenant comes over — Orange flags 
 are hung over his head — Orangemen crowd to his 
 levees — the lay candidates for preferment sneer at Whig 
 doctrines and Whig institutions — the clerical expectants 
 denounce the Catholics as idolators, mixed education as 
 a compromise with error, and Scripture extracts as a 
 surrender of the Bible. All the tradesmen employed 
 
120 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 by his late Excellency are discharged, and those who 
 have voted the right way are substituted. 
 
 Then comes a Whig — a new mob shouts at his heels 
 — a new set form his levees — those who have not irre- 
 trievably committed themselves to coercion and in- 
 tolerance, back out : those who are desperate, revenge 
 themselves by misrepresenting, with inventive malignity, 
 all that he says or does, and all that is said and done 
 by his friends. Party spirit is carried into the ball- 
 room and to the dinner- table ; the Tory tradesmen are 
 displaced, often to their sudden and utter ruin. Then 
 comes a Tory again, and the same miserable practice 
 is repeated ; and these tides, differing from sea-tides 
 in being irregular and utterly uncertain, are a fresh 
 ingredient among the causes of agitation. 
 
 The very nature of the office — a temporary kingship, 
 partly for business and partly for parade — has a ten- 
 dency to render Royalty unpopular, and almost ludi- 
 crous. The real Sovereign of the British Islands, 
 whatever be his vices or his follies — and we have had 
 kings deeply stained with both — scarcely ever loses 
 the affection or the respect of the people. The errors 
 of the Government are all attributed to his ministers ; 
 his personal defects do not penetrate beyond the narrow 
 dense circle which conceals him from the public. The 
 deference with which all bow before him is his birth- 
 right. There never was a time when he was not a 
 royal personage, whom no one thought of treating as 
 an equal. But a Lord-Lieutenant has not the immu- 
 nity or the prestige of Royalty ; all the faults of the 
 executive are attributed to him, and all his private 
 defects are notorious and exaggerated. The forms, 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 121 
 
 the observances, and the etiquette of a court are absurd, 
 and almost degrading, when the object of so much 
 reverence is a sort of lord-mayor — who, a year ago, 
 was a mere ordinary nobleman, and a year hence 
 (perhaps a week hence) will be an ordinary nobleman 
 again — who is known, perhaps, to have been selected 
 for his wealth, and is expected to be dismissed for his 
 unpopularity or his incapacity. 
 
 The duties now performed by the Lord-Lieutenant 
 and by his Secretary must, however, be provided for. 
 They ought not to be thrown on the Home Office. 
 The present duties of that office — -if we include among 
 them an amount of vigilance and precaution, which 
 shall save the Home Secretary from being unexpectedly 
 roused by fires like those which desolated the South of 
 England in 1830, or outrages like those of South 
 Wales in 1843 — require the whole time of the most 
 energetic administrator. We believe that a fourth 
 Secretary of State must be appointed; and this will 
 remove one great inconvenience of the present arrange- 
 ment—namely, that either the management of Ireland 
 is divided between two persons, neither of whom is 
 a member of the Cabinet; or that the Lord-Lieu- 
 tenant's Secretary, as a cabinet minister, is raised above 
 his own official superior. 
 
 Of course the abolition of the office will be de- 
 nounced by the revolutionary party. A measure that 
 is useful, and that tends to the consolidation of the 
 Empire, has a double claim to their detestation. It 
 will be unpopular, too, with a certain class of Dublin 
 tradesmen; but we wish to see it accompanied by 
 another measure, which will be equally unpalatable, 
 
188 
 
 JOCRNJLLS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 indeed, to the Repealers — and perhaps more so, and 
 for the same reasons — but eminently agreeable to the 
 mass of the Irish people. 
 
 We earnestly wish that Her Majesty mav be advised 
 to pay an annual visit to Ireland. We do not mean a 
 mere royal progress, from one great house to another, 
 to receive shouts from mobs and addresses from cor- 
 porations, but a real residence of several weeks — a 
 residence long enough to make the presence of the 
 Sovereign no unusual element in Irish life. Phoenix 
 Park and the Castle are very good substitutes for 
 Pimlico and St. James's. The situation of Dublin 
 is far more agreeable than that of London — indeed, 
 than that of any considerable English town, except 
 perhaps Plymouth — and the climate in autumn is de- 
 lightful. The distance from London is practically less 
 than that of Weymouth, when it was the residence of 
 George III. 
 
 Important, however, as we consider it to be, that 
 the Sovereign of Ireland should not be a permanent 
 absentee, we do not wish her to be a permauent resi- 
 dent during the present state of excitement. The 
 real grievances of Ireland must be redressed — her real 
 wants must be relieved, so far as legislative and ad- 
 ministrative measures can relieve them — and a general 
 wish to conciliate the people must be manifested, by 
 deeds as well as by words, and by words as well as by 
 deeds, before a remedy, addressed more to their feelings 
 than to their interests, can be efficient. That a mere 
 visit from Her Majesty would do some good may, 
 indeed, be inferred from the pains taken by Mr. 
 O'Connell to prevent one, by threatening her with 
 
IRELAND TS 1843. 
 
 123 
 
 300,000 petitioners for Repeal ; but we had rather 
 that it should be deferred until it can have its full 
 operation. 
 
 Another measure of a similar character has been 
 suggested — the holding, from time to time, a Parlia- 
 mentary Session in Dublin, We are quite aware, 
 as we shall immediately show, that there are opposed to 
 this proposal many — perhaps insuperable — obstacles. 
 But the advantages would be great. The principal 
 cause of misgovernment, particularly of the misgovern- 
 ment which irritates rather than injures, is ignorance. 
 Things are done and said which the proposer, or the 
 utterer, would have carefully avoided if he had sus- 
 pected the feelings which they would excite ; but no 
 one can understand the feelings of a people who does 
 not, for a time at least, live among them. The great 
 majority of the Members of each House — that is to 
 say, of the two Assemblies which govern Ireland — 
 know less of that country than they know of Belgium 
 or of Switzerland. Even the inhabitants of the Xorth 
 and South of Ireland know little of one another. 
 
 As things are, this ignorance does not seem likely to 
 diminish. Ireland is not on the road to any other place ; 
 and the greater part of it is not, at present, an inviting 
 country to travel in. There are scarcely any railroads — 
 the climate is wet and uno;enial — the inns are crenerallv 
 bad — the greater part of the inland scenery is un- 
 interesting, and almost all the moral objects are painful. 
 Until it has been greatly altered, nothing but necessity 
 will make it frequented by those who belong to happier 
 countries. 
 
 Such a necessity would be imposed by a Parliamen- 
 tary Session in Dublin. The presence of Parliament 
 
124 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 would, of course, attract many who do not belong to 
 it — the increased resort of travellers Avould improve 
 the means of accommodation and communication — the 
 Members would not confine themselves to the capital 
 — they would spread themselves over the country in 
 the intervals of business. They would see with their 
 own eyes the nature of the relations between the land- 
 lord and the tenant, and between the peasant and the 
 magistrate, whose claim to his high office rests on hid 
 estate. They would distinguish between the improve- 
 ments which are to be effected by legislative or 
 administrative measures, and those which must follow 
 or accompany advancing civilisation. Irish questions 
 would be no longer left to be discussed by only the 
 Irish Members, though the English and the Scotch must 
 take part in deciding them ; and if once the country 
 were secure — if once life and property were safe in it 
 (and until this has been effected real improvement is 
 impossible) — the capacity of Ireland to afford invest- 
 ments for capital would be perceived : many that came 
 as visitors would remain as manufacturers, merchants, 
 or proprietors ; and the fusion of the people, the 
 amalgamation which Mr. O'Connell in his better days 
 demanded, would begin. 
 
 On the other hand, the obstacles are also very great. 
 The Ministers must elect between absence from their 
 official subordinates, and their official documents, and 
 absence from Parliament. There would be little 
 difficulty with the House of Lords : three Peers make 
 a house, not more than twenty or thirty are regular 
 attendants, and the absent may, to a considerable extent, 
 vote by proxy. But a large and valuable portion of 
 the House of Commons — the bankers, merchants, and 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 125 
 
 lawyers of London — would be almost excluded, and 
 their places would not be supplied by the half-dozen 
 Dublin Members of similar occupations. If a period 
 of balanced parties should recur — and nothing is more 
 likely than such an event, perhaps immediately after 
 the very next general election — the majority might 
 depend on the situs of the Parliament, and tne Whigs 
 might be entitled to govern when the House sat in 
 College Green, and the Tories as soon as it returned 
 to Westminster. 
 
 We have now enumerated the principal points in 
 which legislative reform is wanted in Ireland ; and, with 
 respect to most of them, we have stated what we think 
 the reform ought to be. A few years ago such a body 
 of recommendations, if presented as a whole, would 
 have been dismissed as a mere ' devout imagination.' 
 We believe that now the public mind is prepared for 
 them ; and that if Sir Robert Peel were to introduce a 
 set of Bills for providing glebes and churches for the 
 Catholic laity, and stipends for their clergy — for the 
 redemption of the tithe rent-charge, the sale of the 
 ecclesiastical property in Ireland, and the investment 
 and better distribution of the proceeds — for an increased 
 grant to the Education Board — an amendment of the 
 Combination Laws, and an addition to the Stipen- 
 diary Magistracy — he would, probably, be joined by a 
 portion of the Opposition sufficient to enable him to 
 carry these measures. 
 
 It may be supposed that, if we are right as to their 
 intrinsic utility, they would be beneficial under what- 
 ever circumstances they were enacted — whether their 
 intrinsic qualities were a motive or an obstacle — 
 
126 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 whether they were eagerly brought forward by a 
 triumphant Government, or reluctantly acquiesced in by 
 an alarmed one ; and, as to many of these measures, this 
 is true. But who can suppose that, in either set of cir- 
 cumstances, they would be equally beneficial ? Who 
 can affirm that, under the latter supposition, they would 
 not carry with them peculiar evils, which would be 
 a set-off, and a formidable set-off, against their ad- 
 vantages ? 
 
 If the measures to which we have alluded were all 
 demanded by Ireland, and formed her ultimatum, the 
 only evil arising from a reluctance in their concession 
 would be, that they would be less advantageous. They 
 would lose a great deal of their moral utility, they would 
 produce less good ; but they would not, on that ground, 
 produce any positive evil. But, unfortunately, neither 
 these measures, nor any others that are practicable — 
 are the ultimatum of Ireland. The numerical majority 
 of the Irish, perverted by the revolutionary party, have 
 made a demand which it is impossible to concede, 
 because it cannot be conceded without their ruin and 
 our own. Repeal must be resisted to the utmost 
 extremity of civil war, because it would certainly be 
 followed by civil war, and the contest, occurring later, 
 would be longer and more calamitous. The multitudes 
 who cry for Repeal will never be convinced of its mis- 
 chievousness. They are too ignorant to comprehend 
 even the outline of the real question ; and too blindly 
 confident in the veracity and patriotism of the agitators, 
 who use them as the tools of their own vanity, avarice, 
 and ambition. 
 
 The only way to make them subside into tranquil- 
 lity is to convince them, not that their object is mis- 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 127 
 
 chievous or even that it is valueless — for they will not 
 listen to the proof, nor could they understand it — but 
 that it is unattainable. And, to be convinced of this, 
 they must believe the Government to be sincere and 
 firm. Such a Government would say — 6 We do not 
 deal in boons, or grants, or concessions. To the 
 measures, whatever they may be, which will, on the 
 whole, produce more good than evil, the country which 
 we govern, and Ireland as a part of that country, is 
 entitled, and is entitled as a matter of right, not of 
 favour. Whatever would produce more evil than good 
 the country ought not to have ; and while we are 
 Ministers, it shall not have. All measures of the first 
 kind we will, as far as we are able, propose and carry. 
 Those of the second we will resist, and, if our resistance 
 is ineffectual, we will resign.' 
 
 Such has been the language, and such has been, on 
 the whole, the conduct of the Whigs. The principle 
 of every Tory Government of which we have had 
 experience, has been to estimate arguments, not by 
 their truth, but by their plausibility ; to yield, indeed, 
 everything to menace, but nothing to reason ; and to 
 adopt or reject each measure according to its probable 
 influence, not on the welfare of the country, but on the 
 divisions of the session. No one believes, therefore, 
 in their firmness or in their sincerity. No one believes 
 in their declarations of opinion, or in their promises 
 of conduct. Both the one and the other pass for 
 rhetorical instruments, to be abandoned when they 
 have served their purpose at the hustings, or in the 
 debate. 
 
 It is this general distrust of their sincerity and of 
 their promises which renders the Tories incapable of 
 
128 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 either effectually resisting, or usefully granting, the 
 demands of any democratic party. It was by this 
 mixture of obstinacy and timidity that they infused 
 even into Catholic Emancipation an active principle of 
 evil. Nothing can describe better what have been, in 
 one respect, the results of that measure, than Sir Robert 
 Inglis's prophecy of what they would be. In his speech 
 on the third reading of the Bill on March 30, 1829, 
 he contrasted the probable effects of the measure, as 
 carried by a willing, and by a reluctant Government. 
 6 Mr. Canning,' he said, ' would have conceded Eman- 
 cipation, open-hearted and open-handed. Concession 
 from him would have been a gift ; concession from the 
 right honourable Secretary is privilege surrendered to 
 intimidation. Concession from Mr. Canning would have 
 been alms from the merciful — a debt from the just ; con- 
 cession from the right honourable gentleman is his purse 
 surrendered to a footpad. I am unwilling to impute 
 more to any person than he himself chooses to incur ; 
 but, I will ask, has not the rio'ht honourable gentleman 
 himself said, that he yields unwillingly — that the party 
 to whom he yields has no right — and that he yields 
 because die is afraid of being knocked down if he 
 resists any longer ? But let me tell him that, while 
 alms may silence a beggar, or payment silence a 
 creditor, the surrender of his purse to a highwayman is 
 not the best way to preserve his watch. This surren- 
 der to the Roman Catholics is a direct premium to 
 intimidation. Henceforth the principle of intimidation 
 will almost become a common rule-of-three sum, and 
 the class-books of Maynooth will state it thus : — If a 
 given degree of agitation will procure seats in Parlia- 
 ment, what degree will be necessary to procure any 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 129 
 
 other concessions — the abolition of tithes, for example, 
 or the dissolution of the Union ? ' * 
 
 The consequence is, that we can scarcely wish to see 
 the present Government propose to satisfy even the 
 just demands of Ireland. Whatever they do, be its 
 merits in other respects what they may, will be value- 
 less as conciliation, and hurtful as encouragement. 
 They have little power to do good, and we doubt their 
 ability, or at least their skill, even to resist evil. They 
 have now abandoned the Fabian policy of the session. 
 At first sight their conduct seems inexplicable. 
 Having come to the conclusion that the meetings were 
 illegal, that they must be put down, and that Mr. 
 O'Connell must be prosecuted, the only rational course 
 appeared to be to suppress, in their beginning, pro- 
 ceedings which they held to be both unlawful and 
 mischievous. To allow such proceedings to go on, week 
 after week, and month after month, until all the evil 
 which they could effect had been completed ; and then, 
 when the people had become tired of their fruitless 
 waste of time, of money, and of strength — when bad 
 weather and short days had arrived ; when even the 
 Agitator had announced that the intended great meeting 
 was to be the last ; — then at last to interfere, and to 
 enable those who seemed in danger of having to play 
 to empty houses to drop their curtain in triumph — -all 
 this seems to be the madness with which Jupiter is said 
 to blast those whom he intends to destroy. 
 
 We believe the real explanation to be, that they 
 were willing to run any risk, and to make any sacrifice, 
 if they could thereby avoid, or even put off, an un- 
 pleasant discussion in the House of Commons. They 
 * 'Mirror tf Parliament '(1829), p. 918. 
 
 YOL. I. K 
 
130 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 felt that, while they were quiescent, they need not fear 
 one. The Opposition approved that policy, and they 
 could force their own friends to be silent. But the 
 instant they moved, a long and angry debate was 
 inevitable. They remained torpid, therefore, until that 
 formidable House was closed, and — what was the in- 
 evitable consequence — until the time for useful inter- 
 ference, if any such time there was, had passed by. 
 
 At length the long ignominious session had done its 
 worst, and was over, and they could venture to govern 
 without the embarrassing consciousness that they might 
 be tried for their conduct in twenty-four hours. But, 
 with the fatality wdiich pursues pusillanimous persons, 
 having? been afraid to act while action might have been 
 useful, they were afraid to be quiet when action was 
 positively mischievous. The curse of timid dilatoriness, 
 however, still pursued them. The meeting at Clontarf 
 was announced. If they were resolved to prohibit a 
 meeting, they must prohibit that — for it was to be the 
 (ast. It was advertised for weeks : the very day before 
 it was to be held had arrived. The silence of the 
 Executive was a pledge that they believed it to be 
 lawful. Thousands — tens of thousands — were on their 
 way to it ; it might be said to have almost begun, when 
 the Government announced their determination to 
 suppress it — relying, for the means of preventing a 
 collision between the assembled multitude and the force 
 sent to disperse them, only on the influence and the 
 energy of Mr. O'Connell. 
 
 With respect to the probable issue of the State 
 Prosecutions, of course we say nothing. But, what- 
 ever be their immediate event, we do not see how they 
 can produce any useful result. We see how they may 
 
IRELAND IN 1843. 
 
 131 
 
 do harm, indeed, and enormous harm,, but not how 
 they can do good. The diseases of Ireland are not 
 topical. What the patient requires is not the cautery 
 or the knife, but repose, regimen, and confidence in 
 her physician. And these she will not obtain, until 
 she is in the hands of abler, more decisive, and, above 
 all, of honester men. 
 
 If we believed in the permanence of the present 
 Government, we should believe in the permanence 
 of Irish discontent, turbulence, and misery. Their 
 political relations — their dependence oil the minority, 
 and hostility to the majority of the people — render 
 them incapable of acting in the spirit of the Emancipa- 
 tion Act, or even of the Union. What were Mr. Pitt's 
 promises when he proposed the Union? That the 
 avenue to honours, to distinctions, and exalted situa- 
 tions in the Empire, would be opened to all those 
 whose abilities enabled them to indulge an honourable 
 ambition.* What was the ground on which Sir 
 Robert Peel, in 1828, opposed Emancipation? That 
 the admission to office must follow eligibility. ( The 
 Crown,' he said, 6 it is true, would possess a discretion. 
 It would not be obliged to confer offices on Roman 
 Catholics. But if they were not conferred, the exclusion 
 would be much more pernicious and offensive ; resting 
 as it would then do, on the discretion of the Crown, 
 than resting, as it now does, on legislative enactment. 
 Exclusion proceeding from the Crown would be pro- 
 ductive of jealousy and discontent much greater than 
 have hitherto existed.' f 
 
 * Pitt's Speeches, vol. iii. p. 30. 
 
 f < Mirror of Parliament ' (1828), p. 1433. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Never was a truer prediction ; and it is the mis- 
 fortune of the prophet that he has been himself the 
 grand cause of its accomplishment. His subserviency to 
 the Protestants has forced him to refuse office to the 
 Catholics. It has forced him to close against them the 
 avenue which Mr. Pitt promised to all whose abilities 
 enabled them to indulge an honourable ambition. And 
 the exclusion has proved as 6 pernicious and offensive,' 
 as productive of 6 jealousy and discontent,' as he fore- 
 told that it must be. 
 
 But it may be said, this is essential to our institu- 
 tions: the British Government must always be the 
 government of a party, and the party that is in must 
 exclude from its patronage the party that is out. This 
 is true, but it is also essential to this very complicated 
 and very difficult system of government, that the party 
 in power should be formed out of all the classes of the 
 people. To use a geological metaphor, party must cut 
 the strata perpendicularly, not horizontally. It is the 
 crime or the error, certainly the misfortune, of the 
 Tory party, that it has converted into bitter enemies 
 four-fifths of the Irish people. It is forced to exclude 
 four-fifths of the inhabitants of Ireland from all the 
 dignities and all the emoluments which it has to bestow. 
 In this, as in many other instances, it must pay 
 the penalty of its selfish and immoral, and therefore 
 shortsighted policy. It must afford one more ex- 
 ample of the general truth, that parties suffer for their 
 misdeeds as certainly as individuals. 
 
 Towards the latter end of the last century, when that 
 party came into office, it found the Irish Catholics a 
 despicable populace. Its whole attention was paid to 
 the depositaries of political power, the Protestants. It 
 
IRELAND IN 1843 
 
 133 
 
 gave indeed to the Catholics the elective franchise, but 
 that was for the sole benefit of their Protestant land- 
 lords. For a time this policy answered. Ireland be- 
 came the stronghold of Toryism. The Irish Peerage 
 was swamped with Tories ; the increase of its numbers 
 was then prohibited ; and thus a permanent addition 
 of twenty-eight Tories was made to the House of 
 Lords. The Irish members formed the Tory reserve 
 in the House of Commons — the Old Guard, the Sacred 
 Band, the veterans in misgovernment, whom no folly 
 alarmed, and no injustice revolted. 
 
 These days have passed away. The Irish Catholics 
 have become a nation ; and no party can satisfactorily 
 govern Ireland which does not receive the support, we 
 will not say of the whole, or even of a majority, of the 
 Catholics, but of a minority sufficient to enable it to 
 give to Catholics a fair share of its patronage. Ireland 
 can never be contented while to be a Catholic is a 
 badge of exclusion. Unless the promises made at the 
 Union, and implied by the Emancipation, are fully and 
 fairly kept — unless Catholics are admitted to equal 
 rights, and to a full participation in the benefits of the 
 Constitution — unless they are chosen for office as well 
 as eligible — unless eminence in Parliament and at the 
 Bar lead the Catholic as readily as the Protestant to 
 the Privy Council and to the Bench — if the only 
 passions left unsatisfied are their vanity and their am- 
 bition : not the wisest Acts of Parliament — not the 
 kindest language or the kindest conduct to all portions 
 of the society, except its active and energetic members 
 — no benefits conferred on all, except the leaders of the 
 people, will produce more than a palliative effect. 
 
134 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 PKOPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE 
 IRISH POOR LAW.* 
 
 MONG the English laws from which Ireland as yet 
 
 -XJL is in a great measure free, there is one of which 
 both the good and the evil are enormous. Such are 
 its powers of mischief, that it threatened, not twelve 
 years ago, to destroy the industry of the most laborious, 
 the wealth of the richest, and the morality of the most 
 civilised nation in Europe. Our readers are of course 
 aware, that we allude to the English Poor Law. In a 
 former article,! we traced the history of this institu- 
 tion. We showed that its origin was an attempt to 
 restore or preserve the expiring system of praedial 
 slavery. From the Statute of Labourers, passed in 
 the year 1349, down to the 39th of Elizabeth, passed 
 in 1597, the Legislature strove, by restrictions more 
 vexatious than those of any Continental police, and by 
 punishments more savage than those of Russia — by 
 chaining, whipping, branding, mutilation, and death — 
 to prevent the labouring population from changing 
 
 * Letters to th< j Eight Honourable Lord John Eussell, on 
 the Expediency of enlarging the Irish Poor Law to the full 
 extent of the Poor Law of England. By Gr. Poulett Scrope, 
 Esq., M.P. 8vo. London : 1846. 
 
 •J* ' Edinburgh Review ' for October, 1841. [Now published 
 in Senior's ' Historical and Philosophical Essays,' vol. ii. — Ed.] 
 
 [Edinburgh Review: October 1846.] 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 135 
 
 their employ ers, or leaving their parishes ; and to force 
 them to do the work and accept the wages which the 
 justices (that is to say, their employers, the landlords) 
 should fix. To be ' a person able to work, not having 
 a lord or master ' — that is to say, to be an ablebodied 
 person out of work ; or to be a 6 loiterer ' — that is to 
 say, a person searching for employment out of his parish, 
 was a crime for which a man or a woman was to be 
 whipped, on the first offence ; sold as a slave, 6 to be 
 fed on bread and water and refuse meat, and caused 
 to work by beating, chaining, or otherwise,' for the 
 second ; and hanged for the third. 
 
 Of course, persons thus confined to their parishes 
 must be supported there. The earlier statutes assumed 
 that the ablebodied slave would be made to earn his 
 maintenance, and the impotent would receive alms. 
 But, in the sixteenth century, the practice of alms- 
 giving was checked by the suppression of convents, the 
 diminished influence of the clergy, and by the preva- 
 lence of a religion which do^s not, like the Roman 
 Catholic, treat blind indiscriminate charity as a virtue. 
 And the increase of manufactures and of agricultural 
 improvement required the employer of labour to possess 
 capital. The labouring classes were in a worse con- 
 dition than that of ordinary slavery. If they left their 
 parishes they were whipped, branded, and chained. If 
 they stayed there, no fund was set apart for their 
 maintenance. To provide such a fund was the prin- 
 cipal object of the legislation of Henry VIII., Edward 
 VI., Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth. The 27th of 
 Henry VIII. enacted, that it should consist of volun- 
 tary alms, to be collected and applied by the church- 
 wardens, and two others of every parish. The 1st of 
 
136 
 
 J0UB5ALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Edward VI., cap. 3, associated with them the curate. 
 The 5th and 6th of Edward VI. cap. 2, followed by 
 the 2nd and 3rd of Philip and Mary, cap. 5, invoked 
 the aid of the Bishop. All these attempts seem to have 
 failed ; and the consequences of so brutal an oppres- 
 sion are strikingly shown in the preamble of the 14th 
 of Elizabeth, cap. S s which recites, 1 That all parts of 
 this realm of England and Wales be presently with 
 rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars exceedingly 
 pestered ; by means whereof daily happeneth in the 
 said realm horrible murders, thefts, and other great 
 outrages : '' — these rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beg- 
 gars being persons who ventured to seek abroad the 
 maintenance which was not afforded to them at home. 
 Elizabeth was not to be trifled with. After enacting 
 that rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars shall, for 
 the first offence, be grievously whipped, and burnt with 
 a hot iron of the compass of an inch ; for the second, 
 be deemed felons ; and for the third, suffer death ; the 
 statute orders the ' justices of the peace, by their good 
 discretion; to tax and assess all the inhabitants of their 
 divisions at such weekly charge as shall be sufficient 
 to maintain the impotent, and " settle to work the 
 rogues and vagabonds/' and to commit those who refuse 
 payment to gaol, until they be contented with the 
 orders of the justices, and perform the same.' The 
 principal difference between this Act and the celebrated 
 43rd of Elizabeth is, that by the latter the duty of 
 assessing, collecting, and applying the parochial fund, 
 is transferred from the justices to the churchwardens, 
 and two or more householders to be appointed by them 
 — the modern overseers. The purposes to which that 
 fund was to be applied remained unchanged ; they were 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846, 137 
 
 f the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, and 
 blind poor, not able to work ; and the setting to work 
 all persons having no means ' (a word then signifying 
 property), 6 and using no ordinary or daily trade of 
 life to get their living by.' 
 
 We shall not fatigue our readers by enumerating the 
 steps — some of them actual enactments, and others 
 administrative abuses — by which the simple and com- 
 paratively safe provisions of this Act (the 43rd of 
 Elizabeth) were perverted and extended ; until at 
 length, in the pauperised portions of England, the 
 overseer was the distributor of employment, and the 
 justice the regulator of wages. We ought not indeed 
 to use the word wages, for in the proper sense of that 
 word there were none. Wages imply a contract ; they 
 imply an exchange of values, in which a given amount 
 of labour is purchased by an equivalent in money. 
 When a man was paid by the overseer eight shillings 
 for standing six days in the pound — when he was put 
 up to auction and received threepence a day from his 
 employer, and one shilling and ninepence a day from 
 his parish — when he was billeted on a farmer, who was 
 required to pay him two shillings and sixpence a week 
 if single, four shillings if married without children, and 
 eighteenpence more a head if he had children — these 
 payments were not w r ages. Such, however, in the be- 
 ginning of 1834, was the condition of the labouring 
 population in many thousand English parishes. Such 
 was the regimen which was to train them to the in- 
 dustry, the providence, and the honesty on which the 
 prosperity of a country depends. 
 
 Is a law, of which such were the practical effects, a 
 law which can safely or justly be transferred to Ireland ? 
 
138 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 We shall be told, perhaps, that we are fighting with 
 shadows, and combating dangers of our own creation ; 
 that no one proposes anything so monstrous, as the 
 inflicting on any other portion of the empire the English 
 Poor Law, as it existed before the Poor-law Amend- 
 ment Act. We hope that this is true. But, when we 
 see that many of those who demand an Irish Poor Law, 
 demand also the repeal of the Poor-law Amendment 
 Act, or (what is the same thing) the abolition of the 
 Commission which alone gives it life, we cannot but 
 suspect that, whether they know it or not, this mon- 
 strous proposal is the real measure for which they are 
 clamorous. Mr. Scrope, however, whose ' Letters to 
 Lord John Russell ' we have taken as the text of this 
 article, has endeavoured to exempt himself from this 
 reproach. He demands for Ireland the Elizabethan 
 Poor-law. But the Elizabethan Poor-law extended its 
 charity only to the ' lame, impotent, old, and blind/ 
 As regards the ablebodied, it was not a law of charity 
 or of economy, but of police. It required that persons 
 having no property and using no trade should be Bet to 
 work. We have already shown that under the previous 
 Acts such persons were criminals — liable to punish- 
 ments more cruel than any which the existing law can 
 bear to inflict. The ablebodied industrious labourer — 
 the man who has an ordinary or daily trade of life, but 
 loses his employer, or finds the produce of his hands or 
 of his fields unequal to his support — is not within the 
 43rd of Elizabeth; he cannot under that statute be 
 relieved as impotent, or set to work as a rogue. He 
 was left by the Act to voluntary charity, which was 
 soon largely assisted by permanent funds provided by 
 the donations or testaments of individuals. Most of 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 139 
 
 the charities established generally 6 for the poor' of a 
 given parish were created in the seventeenth and the 
 early part of the eighteenth century — that is, while 
 the provisions of the 43rd of Elizabeth were substan- 
 tially enforced. Of course persons who could be re- 
 lieved under the Act were not to participate in them ; 
 for that would have been a mere diminution of rates — 
 a charity not to the poor but to the rich. They were 
 intended for a class who, as Lord Hale remarks, are 
 excluded from the Act — the industrious poor w T hose 
 wages are insufficient. 
 
 Now, these are the persons for whose supposed 
 benefit Mr. Scrope wishes to legislate. It is an abuse 
 of words, therefore — it is an attempt to seduce the 
 judgment by using one term to express ideas essen- 
 tially distinct — to call his scheme the Elizabethan 
 Poor-law. The only known example of his plan was 
 Paraguay, under the Jesuits. Under that govern- 
 ment, the country was divided into districts, or (as we 
 call them) parishes, each under the superintendence of 
 its priest. The priest, or rather the officer whom he 
 appointed, assigned to every inhabitant his task, and 
 distributed among them, according to their numbers, 
 the whole produce of the land. As the ordinary mo- 
 tives to exertion were wanting — as no one could 
 increase his share by industry, or diminish it by inac- 
 tivity — idleness and indolence were made crimes, and 
 punished by imprisonment or stripes. The system, 
 like all systems of the kind, became a mitigated 
 slavery ; and this we firmly believe would be the re- 
 sult of Mr. Scrope's proposal, if it were possible that it 
 could be adopted and maintained. 
 
 His plan, as far as we can understand it, is contained 
 
140 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 in the following passages: — 'Make a law/ he says, 
 1 enacting that every man willing to work shall have 
 work and wages.'* 1 Give a title to relief to everyone 
 in danger of starving, and require it to be given to 
 the able-bodied in the form of work. Let the terms be 
 Ins willingness to work for such wages as will support 
 his family.' f 1 My purpose/ he says, in a subsequent 
 letter, 6 is the compulsory employment of the labourers, 
 by means of the English Elizabethan Poor-law, not in 
 bone- crushing in workhouses, but in works of public 
 and general advantage to the district, such as are not 
 likely to be undertaken on private speculation, and 
 also in the cultivation of waste lands. That the works 
 of which I speak — whether the improvement and erec- 
 tion of piers, harbours, bridges, roads, embankments, 
 public buildings, &c, or the reclamation of waste lands 
 — have not been hitherto effected to anything like 
 the extent to which they might be usefully carried, 
 none will deny. Here, then, is a vast field for the em- 
 ployment of the surplus labourers of Ireland.' % ' The 
 tax imposed for this purpose will be shared by the 
 landlord, if not entirely placed on him ; to which I see 
 no great objection, as such a shifting of burthens has 
 answered admirably in the case of tithes.' § 
 
 We agree with Mr. Scrope, that, except where 
 tenant-right prevails, the whole tax will ultimately fall 
 on the landlord, as long as such a class exists ; and we 
 will now see what is likely to be the relation of the 
 proposed burthen to the means of supporting it. The 
 gross rental of the land of Ireland was estimated by 
 the Commissioners of Inquiry, on evidence supplied by 
 the Masters in Chancery, at less than 10,000,000/.; 
 
 * P. 17. t p - 18 - t p - 39 - § p - 29 - 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR IAW, 1846. 141 
 
 the net rental at less than 6,000,000/. We suspect 
 that this estimate is now too low, and that the net in- 
 come derived from the land and houses of Ireland is 
 not less that 10,000,000/. Mr. Scrope says that Ire- 
 land contains a population of 6,000,000 of persons 
 existing on potatoes, 2,500,000 of them in absolute 
 destitution, for want of employment.* These 2,500,000 
 are to be employed in public works, out of the clear 
 rental of the land. When the public undertakes to main- 
 tain a man and his family, they must receive a sufficient 
 maintenance. Their dietary cannot be lower than that 
 of an Irish workhouse : if they are to labour, it must 
 be higher. Their clothing cannot be worse than that 
 of the workhouse : if they are to be exposed to the 
 seasons, it must be better. In the year 1844, the last 
 for which the returns are before us, the average cost 
 of providing maintenance and clothing for the 67,971 
 paupers relieved in Ireland, was 1 s. 9d. per head per 
 week, or 41. lis. per year. This, for Mr. Scrope's 
 2,500,000 of absolutely destitute persons, would be 
 11,375,000/. a year for mere maintenance and clothing, 
 to which must be added lodging, which is excluded 
 from the workhouse expenditure. The public works 
 proposed by Mr. Scrope are to be e such as are not 
 likely to be undertaken by individuals ; ' that is, such 
 as are not likely to afford a profit to the undertakers. 
 Such, indeed, is the character of those which he enu- 
 merates. Piers, harbours, bridges, and public buildings 
 may be profitable to the public, but certainly not to 
 the builders. The reclamation of waste lands, without 
 doubt, may be profitable ; but where we have to deal 
 
 * P. 15. 
 
142 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 with materials so intractable as the bogs and mountains 
 of Ireland, the return must be very blow . Even sup- 
 posing the population, which lias just received this in- 
 exhaustible right to employment, at ' wages sufficient 
 to maintain a family,' not to increase under such a 
 stimulus ; — supposing all the expenses of superinten- 
 dence, all the expense of procuring, repairing, and 
 replacing the tools and materials to be provided from 
 some other source ; supposing that no part of the fund 
 is wasted by carelessness, or diverted by fraud, — still, 
 for many years, 11,375,000/. must be paid every year 
 in mere wages to this nation of pauper labourers, the 
 rental which is to meet it being at most 10,000,000/. 
 Austria, with 37,000,000 of inhabitants, and 250,000 
 square miles of territory, is crushed by the expense of 
 a standing army of 400,000 men. Prussia; with 107,000 
 square miles, and 15,000,000 of the most industrious 
 people on the Continent, maintains with difficulty an 
 army of less than 130,000 men. Mr, Scrope proposes 
 to throw on the 30,000 square miles of land, and 
 10,000,000/. a year rental of Ireland, the support of 
 a standing army of paupers, far exceeding in number 
 the whole military force, not of Austria or of Prussia^ 
 or even of France, but of Europe ! 
 
 He complains that his scheme is called a confiscation. 
 We really know of no word that, as far as the land- 
 lords of Ireland are concerned, more adequately ex- 
 presses the case. But that word does not adequately, 
 or nearly adequately, represent the whole mischief of 
 the proposal. Confiscation signifies merely a forced 
 ademption of property — literally, an ademption by the 
 State. Such an ademption, of course, is a severe evil 
 to the possessor. It probably destroys his whole hap- 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 143 
 
 piness ; but there the injury ceases. If the estates of 
 all the Orangemen were taken from them and given to 
 Repealers, or if those of all the Repealers were seized 
 and made over to Orangemen, a great wickedness 
 would be perpetrated, and great misery would be in- 
 flicted ; but the misery would be confined to the per- 
 sons despoiled. The estates might be as useful to the 
 public in the hands of one class as in those of the 
 other ; but if the rental of Ireland, instead of being 
 transferred, were exhausted — if the ownership of land 
 ceased to be worth having — if estates were abandoned 
 to avoid payment of rates — the consequence would be, 
 not the ruin only of the proprietors, but of the whole 
 island. 
 
 The existence of rent, that is to say, of individual 
 property in land, is the only means by which the popu- 
 lation of a country is proportioned to the demand for 
 labour. In this, as in many other cases, nature has 
 provided that the interests of the landlord and of the 
 public shall coincide. It is the interest of the landlord 
 that his estate shall be occupied by precisely the 
 number of persons which will produce the largest 
 surplus above their own consumption ; or, in other 
 words, by the number of persons whose labour can be 
 beneficially employed. The proportion, of course, varies 
 according to the habits of the people. A labouring 
 population eating meat must be more thinly scattered 
 than one eating corn; and a potato-fed community 
 might be denser than one eating wheat. On the other 
 hand, a skilful and laborious peasantry would be more 
 productive, and therefore might be denser, than one idle 
 or unskilful. A population thus proportioned to the 
 demand for labour never can be in want of employment. 
 
144 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 If it be frugal it cannot, except from unforeseen mis- 
 fortune, want public assistance. This is the state of 
 things in the best parts of Scotland and England, 
 in Switzerland, in Norway, in the eastern parts of 
 Belgium, and in France. It is, indeed, the natural 
 state of things in the absence of misdirected legislation, 
 since it is the state of things to which the interests of 
 all parties lead them. And if property, according to 
 Mr. Drummond's celebrated aphorism, has its duties 
 as well as its rights — if the great duty of the landlord 
 be so to manage his estate, as to render it the seat of 
 prosperous tenants, and moral, industrious, and well- 
 paid labourers — the first step in the performance of 
 this duty is to prevent it from being occupied by an 
 excessive population. 
 
 Nowhere is this duty more vigilantly or more effec- 
 tually performed, than where the ownership of the 
 land is minutely subdivided. The owner of twenty 
 thousand acres, especially if they form separate and 
 dispersed estates, knows little of what is going on in 
 the greater part of them. While he is taking care 
 that the number of tenants and labourer- residing on 
 the property under his own eye, shall not be greater 
 than that which will give the largest proportional pro- 
 duce — that is to say, the largest fund to be divided 
 between him and them — some outlying estate may be 
 invaded by intruders, or subdivided by an unwatched 
 tenantry, until it is covered by a horde of miserable, 
 half-civilised, and therefore improvident beings, whom 
 it seems cruel to remove, and it is certainly cruel to 
 retain. The owner of twenty, or thirty, or fifty acres 
 keeps watch over them himself. He allows no tenants 
 or labourers to reside on them unless, their presence be 
 
PROPOSALS FOB, EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 145 
 
 useful. There is no country in Europe in which 
 population increases so slowly as in France, because 
 there is none in which the ownership of land is so 
 subdivided. 
 
 On the other hand, if this restraint be withdrawn — 
 if the landlords lose the motive, or the power, to pro- 
 portion the number of their tenants to the demand for 
 their services — what is there to prevent the whole 
 country from becoming a warren of Yahoos, populating 
 to the greatest numbers for which the soil will afford the 
 coarsest food — subdividing the land until each human 
 being squats on the smallest fraction by which life can 
 be sustained — living miserably in ordinary years, and 
 swept away by famine and fever in times of scarcity ? 
 The instant any portion of Ireland is neglected by its 
 owner, this is the state to which it tends. Bad as an 
 1 exacting landlord is, a careless or over-indulgent one 
 is still worse. 
 
 As specimens of the misery and vice into which the 
 tenants of a neglected property may fall, we extract, 
 out of many instances mentioned in the Appendix to 
 Lord Devon's Report, the following, as to the state of 
 a part of Donegal : — 
 
 ' A great many proprietors ' (says Mr. Otway, the 
 Poor-law Commissioner for Donegal), 6 requested I 
 would not join their properties to Tanawilly. I found, 
 on enquiry, that the property thus sought to be 
 avoided consisted of lands belonging to the Diocesan 
 school of Raphoe. It was extremely subdivided, and 
 the people were in a state of the most extreme poverty 
 1 ever witnessed ; most of them were in a state of ema- 
 ciation from want, and were confined to their beds from 
 xcant of clothing? 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 ' Do you know from what the great poverty of those 
 people has arisen?' — f From the incompetency of the 
 land to afford to so large a number the means of sub- 
 sistence. I think, if properly cultivated and held, the 
 rent now, nominally payable in Tanawilly, would be 
 very moderate. If I had time to manage it, and had 
 it all to myself, and could put the tenants on their 
 farms as I chose, and could make such arrangements 
 as I chose, I would give the amount of the present 
 rent-roll for it; but, as it is now, it is worthless. The 
 people cannot get food enough off it, let alone pay rent 
 out of it.' * 
 
 Our other instance is taken from Lord George Hill's 
 account of the district of Guidore, barony of Kilma- 
 crennan, county of Donegal, in 1838 : — 
 
 c A wild mountainous district, divided into small 
 properties. No resident proprietors. The estates of 
 such small value, that no gentleman, or scarcely re- 
 spectable person, would act as agent for them. Xo 
 schools — no dispensary. 
 
 6 Rents very small ; no regularity as to collecting 
 them ; — small sums taken at fairs, or wherever they 
 could be got ; no receipts given, and no regular account 
 kept — consequently the greatest confusion prevailed as 
 to what was due. 
 
 6 Upon some of the properties, there were arrears of 
 eight, ten, and even twenty years' standing. Much 
 illicit distillation carried on. Successful resistance to 
 tithes ; upon one occasion sixty police were beat off. 
 A great deal of fighting at fairs. Much drunkenness. 
 
 ' The goodwill, or tenants' right, of a farm, is gene- 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, part i. p. 79. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 147 
 
 rally very high, often amounting to forty or fifty 
 years' purchase, land being the thing most coveted — 
 as, indeed, it has been the only means of subsistence, 
 employment being uncertain, and as, till of late, no 
 support was provided for the poor and helpless, every 
 penny was carefully put by, with a view of purchasing 
 land. This took all their little capital, and very often 
 left them in debt to some money-lender, who had made 
 up the required sum, at an enormous rate of interest ; 
 by this means, nothing was left them for the purchase 
 of cattle and seed. Many never contemplate anything 
 beyond potatoes sufficient to feed their families (the 
 little corn grown being enough to meet the demands of 
 the landlord, not amounting, in most instances, to more 
 than 10s. or 1Z. per annum) ; a cow or some goats, five 
 or six half-starved sheep, to supply the family with 
 clothing, or furnish wool for making stockings for sale, 
 to buy tobacco. 
 
 6 The total neglect of these mountain districts is in 
 a great measure the reason of their present wild con- 
 dition. The people, left entirely to themselves, to do 
 as they pleased, divided and subdivided the land, and 
 sold it also, without being interfered with by either 
 landlord or agent, till the greater number considered 
 that they might dispose of it as they pleased, provided 
 they paid the landlord a just rent, and thought it hard 
 that anyone should interfere with their arrangements. 
 The holdings were in many cases reduced to such 
 small patches as to be incapable of producing sufficient 
 food for the family, or scattered in so many bits, here 
 and there, in eighteen or twenty different places. One 
 man (a tailor by trade) had his land in forty- two dif- 
 ferent places, and gave it up in despair, declaring that 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 it would take a very keen man to find it. One field, 
 of half an acre of oats, near the police barrack.-, was 
 held by twenty-two persons. The people were in the 
 habit of trafficking in their land, and would sell small 
 portions of it as they wanted money — either for ever, 
 or for a term of years. These bargains were of the 
 most complicated nature; and, by the majority of the 
 tenants, great dislike was manifested to the land being 
 divided into farms, and to matters being put straight, 
 and made easy of apprehension; many appearing to 
 pass their whole time in concocting schemes for over- 
 reaching their neighbours, disliking plain dealings and 
 matters of fact. The land is not let by the acre, but 
 by the cow's grass, and even by the cow's foot (cosbo) ; 
 the fourth of a cow's grass varying in value, according 
 to the quality of the soil, from Is. &d. to 17s. uV. 
 There being little or no fencing after harvest, the 
 sheep and cattle are brought from the mountains, and 
 allowed to run everywhere, so that no man would 
 venture to grow turnips, clover, or any kind of green 
 crop. For want of a landlord's care, those already 
 small farms were divided, at the death of the occupiers, 
 among his children, leaving to each a small skibberlen 
 or small garden.' * 
 
 These are extreme cases ; but, we repeat, that this 
 is the condition into which an Irish tenant popula- 
 tion, uncontrolled by their landlord, has a tendency 
 to fall. 
 
 In England the danger is much less. The cottage 
 of the poorest labourer must be built for him. It must 
 be the work of a mason and a carpenter. It cannot 
 
 * Pp. 711 and 798. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 149 
 
 be finished for less than 30/., and generally costs 50/. 
 A farmhouse, for what we think a very small farm, 
 that is, one of forty or fifty acres, costs 200/., and the 
 outbuildings half as much more. Such an expenditure 
 is beyond the means of the labourer or the farmer. It 
 always, therefore, falls on the landlord. The buildings 
 on his estate cannot multiply without his knowledge — 
 in fact, they increase only by his direct interference. 
 Unless he will build for them, the number of families 
 cannot be added to, except by the residence of more 
 than one family under the same roof, a mode of life 
 disagreeable to the English peasant. 
 
 In Ireland the cottier can build his own cabin. 
 Loose stones or mud, which he collects himself, form 
 the walls, a few sticks and sods the roof; a chimney 
 he can do without, and drains he never thinks of. The 
 cottage can be built for him for 40 shillings. Even 
 the man who calls himself a farmer is often not much 
 better lodged, and his outbuildings are hovels even more 
 wretched than his house. 
 
 This has made it possible for the Irish landlord to 
 throw on his tenants the whole expense of building. 
 And, unhappily for himself and for his tenantry, he 
 almost always does so. We know some estates that 
 are exceptions, — we know landlords who contribute 
 towards the expense of the buildings on their land, 
 and prevent the erection of any which they have not 
 sanctioned. But, for this purpose, they must employ 
 agents to look out for the first rise of an unauthorised 
 hovel, and pull it down before it has been slept in. 
 They are forced even to watch over the use which is 
 made of the buildings which they have assisted in 
 erecting. The landlord disapproves of the presence 
 
150 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 of the cow and the pigs in the cabin. He assists in 
 building a cowhouse and a pigsty. If he leave the 
 cottier to take his own course, in three months the cow 
 and the pigs will be again in the cabin ; and the new 
 buildings will be tenanted by other men, women, and 
 children, with perhaps cows and pigs of their own. 
 
 It is sometimes reckoned as an advantage belonging 
 to the possession of property in Ireland, that it affords a 
 clear and certain income. In England, repairs, rebuild- 
 ings, fences, drains, and the other deductions classed 
 under the general name of 6 outgoings,' often swallow 
 up a half-year's rent. The greater part of what is 
 called in England rent, is not rent in the technical 
 sense of that word. It is not payment for the use of 
 the original productive powers of the land. It is in- 
 terest on the capital which the landlord, or those from 
 whom he purchased or inherited, have expended : and 
 which he must continue to expend, in fitting the land 
 for the farmer's habitation and use. In Ireland the 
 landlord's income is pure rent. He receives it merely 
 for permitting his tenants to use his land. In most 
 cases, it is only through their exertions that the land 
 has been made productive of rent. They first enclosed 
 their patches of cultivated ground from the hillside or 
 the waste, cleared the surface bog, cut the absolutely 
 indispensable drains, and erected the absolutely indis- 
 pensable places of shelter. They created their holdings 
 without his aid, and do not require his aid to maintain 
 them. 
 
 The necessary consequence is, that his means of con- 
 trolling them are few. They consist merely of distress 
 and ejectment. He must use constant vigilance, and 
 occasional severity. One man divides his farm of ten 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 151 
 
 acres, in order to sell the tenant-right of half of it ; 
 another partitions it among his sons, or portions a 
 daughter with an acre. The ejected tenantry from 
 cleared estates crowd it as squatters, purchasing from 
 the residents the tenant-right of the site of a cabin and 
 a potato-garden, A hovel is erected in a night, and in 
 a few months the inhabitants call it an improvement, 
 and consider themselves tenants entitled to sell their 
 tenant-right, and to avenge ejectment by assassination. 
 The misery inflicted by a clearance, without doubt, is 
 dreadful ; the injustice of ejecting, without compensa- 
 tion, a man who has made a real improvement, is 
 revolting. But any law which should deprive the 
 landlord of the power of arresting the subdivision of 
 the land, or even should materially weaken it — by 
 enabling the ejected tenant to claim compensation, as 
 improvements, for cottages built without the landlord's 
 consent, and injurious to the property — would un- 
 doubtedly produce a state of misery more extensive 
 than that which now exists in Ireland, and less reme- 
 diable. 
 
 And we must add, that there are at work feelings, 
 both in England and in Ireland, which lead us to fear 
 that a very dangerous course of legislation would be 
 popular in both countries. The English public seem 
 to believe that it is the fault of an Irish landlord, that 
 the tenants and cottiers on his estate are not as com- 
 fortable as the farmers and labourers of Yorkshire. 
 They forget the capital of the Yorkshiremen. It is 
 not so much the material capital — the money and live 
 and dead stock of the tenant — as the intellectual and 
 moral capital — the skill, and industry, and submission 
 to law, both of farmers and of labourers — which produce 
 
152 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 the comfort of the unpauperised districts of England. 
 Take away these elements of prosperity — cut up York- 
 shire into holdings of from six to twelve acres, — let it- 
 population, instead of being collected in towns, b* 
 spread over the country, deprive them of diligence an 
 of skill, let neither property nor life be secure — am. 
 then see whether the landlord can make them com- 
 fortable. A few instances have occurred in which men 
 of large means, and with great courage and energy, by 
 making it the business of their lives, have raised a 
 Connaught or a Munster population, not indeed to the 
 average English standard, but to a state which, when 
 compared with that of their neighbours, was one of 
 prosperity. But to produce this prosperity, and to 
 maintain it, they must eject and consolidate. 
 
 This disgusts the English public. With a perverse- 
 ness which, if it were not the result of ignorance, 
 would be intolerable, and if it be the result of wilful 
 ignorance, is inexcusable — they execrate the landlord 
 for his harshness if he be vigilant, and for the wretched- 
 ness of his tenants if he be careless. They hold him 
 responsible for the misery produced by habits the 
 results of centuries of misgovernment, — operating on 
 a race, kindly indeed, but not largely endowed with the 
 qualities necessary to resist mischievous impressions. 
 And the result, in England, is a degree of unpopularity 
 of which Mr. Scrope's pamphlet is an exponent. Un- 
 less the landlords of Ireland had been already outlawed 
 by the public opinion of England, no one would have 
 seriously proposed to confiscate their estates. 
 
 The feeling in Ireland is not against the landlord, 
 but against the absentee. The comparatively few who 
 can afford to leave the country, are objects of jealousy 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 153 
 
 to the resident proprietors. They enjoy many of the 
 advantages of property without its dangers and its 
 troubles. The landlord who resides on his estate, 
 constantly contending with the importunities of his 
 tenants, which he cannot grant without injuring both 
 them and himself, and must refuse at the risk of assas- 
 sination, thinks with envy of his former neighbour, 
 who is spending his rents in safety, in England or 
 France. And, in the bulk of mankind, the passage 
 from envy to hatred is short. We fear that there is 
 no law that could be directed against absentees which 
 would not be popular in Ireland. We believe that 
 many of the resident proprietors would not unwillingly 
 sanction measures that would be injurious to them- 
 selves, if they hoped that they would be still more 
 injurious to the absentees. 
 
 When men's conduct is influenced by passions like 
 these — when they are anxious not to benefit but to 
 punish, not to do good but to do harm — what sort of 
 legislation is to be expected? With such persons 
 neither we nor our readers can have anything in com- 
 mon. We address ourselves only to those who desire 
 the welfare of the whole Irish people — of the rich 
 as well as of the poor, of the landlords as well as 
 of the tenants. And if among them are some who 
 treat the land as an inexhaustible fund — who think, 
 with Mr. Scrope, that landlords, ratione tenures, are 
 bound and are liable to provide every man with em- 
 ployment, at wages which will support a family — we 
 wish that they would familiarise their minds with 
 the details of a real case of confiscation. We request 
 their attention to the following letter, addressed, in 
 1833, by Mr. Jeston, the rector of Cholesbury in 
 
154 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Buckinghamshire,* to the English Poor-law Commis 
 sioners : — 
 
 ' I am inforrqed by the very oldest of my parish- 
 ioners, that sixty years ago there was but one per- 
 son who received parish relief ; but it should seem 
 that the parish, for many years past, has been an over- 
 burdened one, though within the last year the burdens 
 have been much increased by the land going out of 
 cultivation, and the whole of the population being 
 thrown upon the rates. 
 
 ' About October last the parish officers, not being 
 able to collect any more funds, threw up their books, 
 and from that time their duties have fallen upon myself ; 
 for the poor, left without any means of maintenance, 
 assembled in a body at my door, whilst I was in bed, 
 and applied to me for advice and food. 
 
 6 My income being under 140/. a year, rendered my 
 means of relief small ; but my duty was to keep them 
 from starving, and I accordingly commenced support- 
 ing them by daily allowances of bread, potatoes, and 
 soup. In the meantime I made several (as many as 
 eight or ten) journeyings to the magistrates at petty 
 and special sessions, in company with the parish officers, 
 and, after a delay of three weeks, succeeded in obtain- 
 ing a " rate in aid " for 50/., on Drayton, an adjoining 
 parish. 
 
 * The present state of the parish is this: — The land 
 almost wholly abandoned (sixteen acres only, including 
 cottage-gardens, being now in cultivation); the poor 
 thrown only upon the rates, and set to work upon the 
 roads or gravel-pits, and paid for this unprofitable 
 
 * 1 Administration of the Poor Laws/ p. 87. 
 
PROPOSALS FOE EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 155 
 
 labour at the expense of another parish ! I have given 
 up a small portion of my glebe (the rest is abandoned, 
 on account of the rates assessed on it) to the parish 
 officers, rent-free, for the use of the poor, on condition 
 that spade-husbandry only be made use of, and the 
 work done by married men with large families ; but 
 the employment this can afford must be of short con- 
 tinuance. The 50/. will be expended in less than two 
 weeks ; and I have apprised the magistrates of the 
 hundred that I shall be compelled to apply, on Monday 
 the 14th inst., at the petty sessions, for another 66 rate 
 in aid." 
 
 6 At present, I confess, I see no prospect of im- 
 provement ; and it is to be feared this parish must 
 continue dependent for support on the parishes in the 
 hundred, by means of rates in aid ; for there appears 
 no probability of the land being reoccupied, and the 
 longer it remains uncultivated the greater will be the 
 difficulty and expense of re-cultivation, and the less 
 the produce ; whilst the wants of the parish will be in- 
 creasing. The abiebodied poor and the boys are dete- 
 riorating, physically and morally, by reason of the want 
 of useful and productive employment, and of their 
 receiving parish allowance without any chance of better- 
 ing themselves by any exertion or good conduct.' 
 
 6 It is obvious,' add the Poor-law Commissioners, 
 6 that the instant the poor-rate exceeds the net surplus 
 produce — that is to say, exceeds that surplus which, if 
 there were no poor-rate, would be paid in rent — the 
 existing cultivation becomes not only unprofitable, but 
 a source of absolute loss. And that, as every diminu- 
 tion of cultivation has a double effect, in increasing the 
 rate on the remaining cultivation — the number of un- 
 
JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 employed labourers being increased at the same instant 
 that the fund for payment of rates is diminished— the 
 abandonment of property, when it has once begun, is 
 likely to proceed in a constantly accelerated ratio. 
 Accordingly, it appears, from Mr. Jeston'fl statement, 
 that scarcely a year elapsed between the first laud 
 o-oino* out of cultivation, and the abandonment of all 
 except sixteen acres.' 
 
 We have inserted this remarkable statement, not 
 only for the sake of the instruction which it affords, but 
 in order to append to it, in a subsequent part of this 
 paper, the comment of the Commissioners of Inquiry 
 into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland. 
 Mr. Scrope expresses his regret that, in 1836, ' the 
 Whicr Government refused to act on the recommenda- 
 tion of their own Poor Inquiry Commissioners, and, 
 instead of doing so, sent over Mr. Nicholls, to make 
 out a case for a more stinted kind of Poor Law than 
 that recommended by the Commissioners — disregard- 
 ing also, altogether, the other valuable recommenda- 
 tions of the Commission.' 6 The consequence,' he 
 adds, s has been the loss of ten years of Irish misery 
 and crime, and the whole question has now to be 
 argued and fought over again, on which the public 
 mind was made up at that time.' * 
 
 The Report of the Commissioners contains, without 
 doubt, many suggestions of great value. With a 
 Commission containing some of the most eminent men 
 in Ireland, it could not be otherwise. We are inclined 
 to think the principle which runs through it — that of 
 requiring relief to be given to all those comprised in 
 
 * P. 4. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 157 
 
 certain classes — such as lunatics, the deaf and dumb, 
 the blind, the maimed, and orphans, and to be given in 
 the manner applicable to their condition — in some 
 respects better than that of the actual Irish Poor Law, 
 which allows the guardians at their discretion to relieve 
 all the destitute poor ; but does not absolutely require 
 them to relieve any peculiar class, or enable them to 
 vary materially the treatment of those whom they do 
 relieve. 
 
 But it also contains proposals which we believe that 
 the Commissioners would have abandoned, if they had 
 put them to the severe test of expanding and limiting 
 them in a Bill. Many schemes look well in the vague 
 form of a recommendation, which are found imprac- 
 ticable as soon as it becomes necessary to create the 
 machinery which is to work them, and to define the 
 details of execution. Such was their recommendation as 
 to emigration. ' We propose,' say the Commissioners, 
 6 that arrangements for carrying on emigration shall be 
 made between the Commissioners of Poor Laws and 
 the Colonial Office. And that all persons whose cir- 
 cumstances shall require it, shall be furnished with a 
 free passage, and with the means of settling themselves 
 in an approved British colony to which convicts are not 
 sent. We propose, too, that the means of emigration 
 shall be provided for the destitute, of every class and 
 description, who are fit subjects for emigration ; that 
 depots shall be established, where all who desire to emi- 
 grate may be received ; that those who are fit for emi- 
 gration be there selected for the purpose, and those 
 who are not, shall be provided for under the directions 
 of the Poor-law Commissioners ; that all persons who, 
 having entered an emigration depot, withdraw from 
 
158 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 it without discharging such expenses as they may have 
 occasioned, or who refuse to emigrate, shall be removed 
 as free labourers to such colony, not penal, as shall be 
 appointed for them by the Colonial Department ; and 
 that those who may be unfit for removal to a colony 
 shall remain for such time in a penitentiary, and be 
 there kept to such work as the Court of Quarter Ses- 
 sions shall by law be authorised to appoint.' 
 
 Now, in what plausible enactments could these sug- 
 gestions have been embodied ? How could the Co- 
 lonial Office have been required to furnish, to an 
 indefinite number of destitute persons, the means of 
 settling themselves in an approved British colony? 
 How could the Poor-law Commissioners have been 
 required to provide for all candidates for emigration 
 who, on examination, proved to be unfit ? By what 
 words could this new offence, 6 refusal to emigrate/ 
 have been defined ? If a man with his wife and chil- 
 dren entered the depot, and the husband refused to 
 emigrate, must the wife and children be considered as 
 participating in the offence, and subjected with him to 
 involuntary exile? The draftsman would have thrown 
 down his pen. 
 
 On the other hand, the suggestions of the Commis- 
 sioners for the compulsory improvement of the land 
 now under cultivation, by drainage and fencing, and 
 the removal of umvholesome cabins, mio;ht without 
 much difficulty have been turned into positive enact- 
 ments. Until it came into operation, the mischief of 
 the attempt to improve private property, partly at the 
 expense of the proprietor, and partly at the expense of 
 the public, would not have been obvious. There 
 would have been no difficulty, indeed, in finding a field 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 159 
 
 for the exertions of the Commissioners of Improve- 
 ment. The South and West of Ireland consist of un- 
 drained fields, ill-fenced properties, and unwholesome 
 cabins. But the struggles of some proprietors to im- 
 prove their estates at the expense of their neighbours ; 
 those of others to escape a burthen from which they 
 were not to profit; the resistance of the uncivilised 
 occupiers of the cabins sentenced to removal, against a 
 clearance which they could not appreciate, or even 
 understand the motive for ; and the general cessation 
 from voluntary improvement, owing to the hope of 
 obtaining public assistance, and the fear of incurring 
 additional rates, would soon have occasioned so much 
 fraud, so much jobbing, so much injustice, so much 
 loss — in short, so much evil of every kind — that the 
 Act could not have lasted for a year after it had been 
 enforced. We cannot join in Mr. Scrope's regret 
 that these suggestions have been disregarded. But 
 we lament, with him, that the practicable and useful 
 parts of the Report should have received the same 
 treatment. 
 
 Among its detailed recommendations, one of the 
 most important was, that the Vagrant Law of Ireland 
 should be revised, or rather that an efficient Vagrant 
 Law should be enacted ; for the present law, which 
 subjects all who wander about demanding victuals to 
 seven years' transportation, is too monstrous to be 
 enforced. Lord Melbourne's Government endeavoured, 
 in 1840, to give effect to this recommendation. Sir 
 Robert Peel, as far as his wishes can be inferred from 
 his conduct, was then unwilling that a useful measure 
 should be carried by a Whig Government. He with- 
 held his co-operation, and the attempt necessarily 
 
160 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATION'S, ETC. 
 
 failed. We trust that it will now be renewed with 
 success. We endeavoured to call to it the attention of 
 the public, and suggested the outline of a Vagrancy 
 Law, in the number of this journal published in April, 
 1843. 
 
 Another portion of the Report, perhaps equally im- 
 portant and equally fruitless, is that which recom- 
 mends that voluntary charitable associations be super- 
 intended by the Commissioners, and aided by the 
 public. It has been met, not by opposition, but by 
 total neglect. Another large measure, that fur par- 
 titioning and improving the waste lands of Ireland, has 
 not been acted on, though it cannot be said to have 
 been wholly neglected. As is too often the case in 
 Irish matters, it has been talked about, admitted to 
 be useful, and dropped. We shall recur, in a subse- 
 quent part of this paper, to the second of these pro- 
 posals. 
 
 But we own that we are astonished, when we find 
 Mr. Scrope citing, as an authority for his own specu- 
 lations, the Report of the Irish Commissioners of 
 Inquiry. Of all the measures which they consider, 
 that which they most firmly, we had almost said, most 
 fiercely, reject, is Mr. Scrope's nostrum — a right to 
 relief in the ablebodied ! 
 
 They cite, from the English Poor Inquiry Report, 
 the history, as we have already given it, of Choles- 
 bury, — adding this memorable comment : 6 As the 
 parish of Cholesbury became to other parishes in 
 England, so, we are persuaded, would very many of 
 the parishes of Ireland be to the residue at the end of 
 a year 3 from the commencement of any system for 
 charging the land indefinitely, with the support of the 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 161 
 
 whole labouring part of the community ; and, as these 
 parishes must shortly bring down all others to their 
 level, the whole of Ireland would shortly have to lean 
 on Great Britain for support. It may, however, be 
 said that England, with the Poor-law system we con- 
 demn, has become a great and flourishing country ; 
 while Ireland, without it, is in a state of semi-bar- 
 barism. The fact is undoubtedly so. But because 
 extraordinary strength has withstood poison, it does not 
 follow that poison should be prescribed as a remedy for 
 weakness. The true cause of the greatness of England 
 is to be found in her free Constitution. Unfortu- 
 nately, it is only of late years, and by slow degrees, 
 that it has been allowed to diffuse itself through the 
 mass of the people of Ireland. For nearly the whole 
 of the last century, they were governed by a code, the 
 policy of which was to keep them in poverty and igno- 
 rance, and which was perfect for its purpose. Although 
 it is now no more, it has left behind it habits and dis- 
 positions which are opposed to improvement ; and we 
 should consider ourselves accessories to a continuance 
 of them, if we attempted to guarantee to the labourer 
 pauper support, instead of endeavouring to render him 
 independent of it.' 
 
 We cannot understand how Mr. Scrope, holding 
 opinions irreconcileably opposed to those of the Com- 
 missioners, should regret that their recommendations 
 have been disregarded. He endeavours to support his 
 scheme by the authority of the English Commissioners 
 of Inquiry. He quotes the following passage from 
 their Report : — 
 
 c If we believe the evils stated in the previous part 
 of the Report, or evils resembling or even approaching 
 
 VOL. i. M 
 
162 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 them, to be necessarily incidental to the compulsory 
 relief of the ablebodied, we should not hesitate in 
 recommending its entire abolition. But we do not 
 believe these evils to be its necessary consequences. 
 We believe that, under strict regulations, adequately 
 enforced, such relief may be afforded safely, and even 
 beneficially. 
 
 6 In all extensive communities, circumstances will 
 occur in which an individual, by the failure of his 
 means of subsistence, will be exposed to the danger of 
 perishing. To refuse relief, and at the same time to 
 punish mendicity, when it cannot be proved that the 
 offender could have obtained subsistence by labour, is 
 repugnant to the common sentiments of mankind : it 
 is repugnant to them to punish even depredation, appa- 
 rently committed as the only resource against want. 
 
 ' From the evidence collected under this Commission, 
 we are induced to believe that a compulsory provision 
 for the relief of the indigent can be generally adminis- 
 tered on a sound and well-defined principle : and that, 
 under the operation of this principle, the assurance 
 that no one need perish from want may be rendered 
 more complete than at present, and the mendicant and 
 vagrant repressed by disarming them of their weapon — 
 the plea of impending starvation.' 
 
 But what is this ' sound and well-defined principle'? 
 It is this : — That a marked line be drawn between the 
 pauper and the independent labourer. ( We do not 
 believe,' they observe, ' that a country in which this 
 line has been effaced, can retain its prosperity, or even 
 its civilisation.' Further, that the situation of the 
 person receiving assistance, shall not be made really 
 or apparently so eligible as that of the independent 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 163 
 
 labourer — c Every penny ' (they add) ' that tends to 
 render the situation of the pauper more eligible than 
 that of the independent labourer, is a bounty on indo- 
 lence and vice.' Moreover, as the mode by which this 
 principle is to be enforced — their first recommendation, 
 the keystone of their whole plan, is — c That, except as 
 to medical attendance, and subject to an exception 
 respecting apprenticeship, all relief whatever to able- 
 bodied persons, or to their families, otherwise than in 
 well-regulated workhouses (t. e., places where they may 
 be set to work according to the spirit and intention of 
 the 43rd of Elizabeth), shall be declared unlawful, and 
 shall cease.' They say, that 6 outdoor relief contains 
 in itself the elements of an extension, which may ulti- 
 mately absorb the whole fund out of which it arises.' 
 On the results of such an absorption they do not dwell, 
 feeling probably that it requires no illustration. But 
 they explain at some length a less obvious part of the 
 subject — its effect on the labouring class, for whose 
 benefit it is supposed to be extended. 
 
 6 Under its influence ' (they say) 6 piece-work is re- 
 fused to the single man, or to the married man if he 
 have any property, because they can exist on day- 
 wages ; it is refused to the active and intelligent 
 labourer, because he would earn too much. The 
 enterprising man, who has fled from the tyranny and 
 pauperism of his parish to some place where there is a 
 demand and a reward for his services, is driven from a 
 situation which suits him, and an employer to whom 
 he is attached, and forced to receive as alms a portion 
 only of what he was obtaining by his own exertions. 
 He is driven from a place where he was earning, as a 
 free labourer, 125. or 14s. a week, and is offered road- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 work, as a pauper, at sixpence a day, or perhaps to 
 be put up by the parish authorities to auction, and 
 sold to the farmer who will take him at the lowest 
 allowance. 
 
 ' Can we wonder if the labourer abandons virtues of 
 which this is the reward? — if he gives up the economy 
 in return for which he has been proscribed, the dili- 
 gence for which he has been condemned to involuntary 
 idleness, and the prudence (if it can be called such) 
 which diminishes his means just as much as it dimi- 
 nishes his wants ? Can we wonder if, smarting under 
 these oppressions, he considers the law, and all who ad- 
 minister the law, as his enemies, the fair objects of his 
 fraud or his violence ? Can we wonder if, to increase 
 his income, and to revenge himself on the parish, he 
 marries, and thus helps to increase that local over- 
 population, which is gradually eating away the fund 
 out of which he and all the other labourers of the 
 parish are to be maintained ? ' 
 
 But this is not the worst. 
 
 ' Though the injustice ' (they add) 'perpetrated on 
 the man who struggles, as far as he can struggle, 
 against the oppression of the system — who refuses, as 
 far as he can refuse, to be its accomplice — is at first 
 sight the most revolting, the severest sufferers are those 
 that have become callous to their own degradation ; 
 who value parish support as their privilege, and demand 
 it as their right ; and complain only that it is limited 
 in amount, or that some sort of labour or confinement 
 is exacted in return. X o man's principles can be cor- 
 rupted without injury to society in general ; but the 
 person most injured is the person whose principles have 
 been corrupted. The constant war which the pauper 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 165 
 
 has to wage with all who employ or pay him, is de- 
 structive to his honesty and his temper ; as his subsist- 
 ence does not depend on his exertions, he loses all that 
 sweetens labour, its association with reward, and gets 
 through his work, such as it is, with the reluctance of 
 a slave. His pay, earned by importunity or fraud, 
 or even violence, is not husbanded with the carefulness 
 which would be given to the results of industry, but 
 wasted in the intemperance to which his ample leisure 
 invites him.' 
 
 Even this is not the worst. 
 
 6 In all ranks of society ' (say the Commissioners), 
 'the great sources of happiness and virtue are the do- 
 mestic affections, and this is particularly the case among 
 those who have so few resources as the labouring 
 classes. Now, pauperism seems to be an engine for the 
 purpose of disconnecting each member of a family 
 from all the others ; of reducing all to the state of do- 
 mesticated animals, fed, lodged, and provided for by 
 the parish, without mutual dependence or mutual 
 interest. 5 
 
 ' At the time of my journey ! (says Mr. Cowell), 'the 
 acquaintance I had with the practical operation of the 
 Poor Laws, led me to suppose that the pressure of the 
 sum annually raised upon the ratepayers, and its pro- 
 gressive increase, constituted the main inconvenience 
 of the Poor-law system. The experience of a very few 
 weeks served to convince me that this evil, however 
 great, sinks into insignificance when compared with the 
 dreadful effects which the system produces on the 
 morals and happiness of the lower orders. It is as diffi- 
 cult to convey to the mind of the reader a true and 
 faithful impression of the intensity and malignity of 
 
166 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 the evil in this point of view, as it is by any descrip- 
 tion, however vivid, to give an adequate idea of the 
 horrors of a shipwreck or a pestilence. A person must 
 converse with paupers — must enter workhouses, and 
 examine the inmates — must attend at the parish pay- 
 table — before he can form a just conception of the 
 moral debasement which is the offspring of the present 
 system ; he must hear the pauper threaten to abandon 
 his wife and family unless more money is allowed him 
 — threaten to abandon an aged bedridden mother, to 
 turn her out of his house, and lay her down at 
 the overseer's door, unless he is paid for giving her 
 shelter — he must hear parents threatening to follow 
 the same course with regard to their sick children — he 
 must see mothers coming to receive the reward of their 
 daughters' ignominy, and witness women in cottages 
 quietly pointing out, without even the question being 
 asked, which are their children by their husband, and 
 which by other men previous to marriage — and when 
 he finds that he can scarcely step into a town or parish 
 in any county without meeting with some instance or 
 other of this character, he will not longer consider the 
 pecuniary pressure on the ratepayer as the first in the 
 class of evils which the Poor Laws have entailed upon 
 the community.'* 
 
 It may be said, however (and so says Mr. Scrope), 
 that these calamities arose, not from outdoor relief, but 
 from the form in which much of it was given ; and, 
 6 that to prevent them it is only necessary to draw a 
 broad line between parish or pauper labourers, and 
 independent labourers working for private employers, 
 
 * Appendix (A.), part i. p. 583. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 184*5. 167 
 
 by prohibiting any relief to the ablebodied on any ac- 
 count, except in the shape of work on account of the 
 public — which is, in fact, only returning to the true 
 principle of the law of Elizabeth.'"* 
 
 This is not returning to the law of Elizabeth ; it is 
 returning to the fourth of the five modes of relief, enu- 
 merated by the English Commissioners of Inquiry, and 
 termed by them 6 parish employment.' Under this 
 system, as the transaction is not voluntary on the part 
 of the employer, the terms of the contract, if contract 
 it can be called, must be fixed by some third party ; 
 that is to say, by an agent delegated by the govern- 
 ment, or, in other words, by a magistrate. As the em- 
 ployment is eleemosynary — as it is a duty thrown on 
 the ratepayers, not for their benefit, but for that of the 
 labourer — the wages, or rather the allowance, must be 
 regulated by principles totally different from those 
 which regulate natural wages. The magistrate cannot 
 permit less to be paid than the sum which he thinks 
 necessary for the support of the applicants, and can- 
 not require that they shall receive more. The weak 
 must have as much as the strong, the ignorant as the 
 skilful, the careless as the diligent, the dissolute as the 
 well-conducted. The only principle of distinction is 
 the number of persons constituting the family. The 
 unmarried receive the minimum ; the man with only a 
 wife somewhat more ; and where there are children 
 they are paid for by the head. As the ordinary mo- 
 tives to exertion and good conduct are wanting — as no 
 parish or union labourer has any hopes or fears from 
 his employer, the magistrate again must interfere. He 
 
 * P. 44. 
 
168 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 cannot indeed reward diligence, but for that very reason 
 he must punish indolence, since the fear of punishment 
 is the only stimulus left. How he ifl to punish it is not 
 easy to say. The offender cannot lose his place, hifl 
 allowance cannot be reduced, and public opinion would 
 not allow him to be flogged. If a sufficient number of 
 prisons can be built, the punishment will probably be 
 imprisonment. 
 
 If the experiment had never been tried, we might 
 infer, from the known principles of human nature, that 
 such a moral regimen as this must be corruptive. It 
 is obviously impossible that a man can be subjected to 
 the hopelessness and the irresponsibility of a slave, 
 without incurring the vices of slavery. But, unhap- 
 pily, the experiment has been tried, and tried for 
 nearly half a century, on the widest scale, and under 
 peculiarly favourable circumstances. It has been tried 
 in a country possessing the most industrious peasantry, 
 the largest and most intelligent middle class, and the 
 ablest, the most active, and the most practical aris- 
 tocracy in Europe. Its result was shown in the fires, 
 riots, and outrages of 1830. It was on the parish 
 roads, and in the parish gravel-pit, that the almost 
 treasonable robbery and devastation of that unhappy 
 period were organised. It was in those ergastula that 
 the labourer acquired his hatred of work, and his hatred 
 of his employer. It was there that he found himself 
 treated as a mere incumbrance — fed, lodged, and 
 clothed, because the magistrate so ordered it — and 
 kept to work, not because the work was profitable to 
 his parish, but because it was painful to him. It was 
 there that he learnt the revolutionary doctrine, that 
 society is divided into the rich and the poor, and that 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 169 
 
 it is the duty of the rich, out of their inexhaustible 
 funds, to provide for the comfortable subsistence of the 
 poor — however large their number, however reckless 
 their improvidence, and however valueless their labour. 
 It was there that he was taught to feel every task as a 
 punishment, every privation as a robbery, and all the 
 evils of life as wrongs inflicted by his superiors. The 
 fourteen folios of the English Commissioners are a 
 small part of the evidence which shows that, corrupting 
 and degrading as all pauperism is, the most corrupt 
 and the most degraded of paupers is the man on parish 
 employment. This is the state to Avhich Mr. Scrope 
 would reduce the bulk of the Irish labourers ; and he 
 cites, as an authority in his favour, the great denoun- 
 cers of this system, the English Commissioners of 
 Inquiry. 
 
 Before we finally part from Mr. Scrope, we must 
 add some remarks on the few argumentative parts of 
 his pamphlet, and some on its general tone, 
 
 6 Ireland,' he repeats over and over, 6 now supports 
 her entire population — badly enough, but still some- 
 how, and by somebody, they are now supported. My 
 proposal is to put the burthen on the right shoulders. 
 So, because the Irish labouring population are now 
 supported — because, by severe economy, they get a 
 maintenance so poor that he calls it starvation, he 
 infers that it is practicable to give them an adequate 
 maintenance; — such a maintenance as the State, if it 
 undertake the business at all, must provide ; and to 
 give then that maintenance at the expense of a single 
 portion of the community — the landlords. Because, 
 
 * P. 33. 
 
170 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 with the foresight, the privations, the shifts, and the 
 expedients by which an independent labourer earns 
 and applies his pittance — getting sixpence a day and 
 living on it — he infers that the landlords can, and 
 therefore ought to be compelled, to give them as a 
 matter of right, in return for labour which will not be 
 remunerative, ' sufficient wages to support a family/ 
 As well might he say, ' England now supports 
 18,000,000 persons. Why should she not have a 
 standing army of 1,500,000 men? She supports them 
 as labourers ; why should she not support them as 
 soldiers?' But this comparison would be too favour- 
 able to Mr. Scrope. First, because, instead of costing 
 more, it costs less to maintain an English soldier than 
 an English labourer. To represent fairly the absurdity 
 of Mr. Scrope's proposal, we must suppose, that while 
 an English labourer costs 2s. a day, a soldier costs 4s. 
 And, secondly, because the expense would be thrown 
 on the whole income of England — that is to say, on a 
 fund amounting annually to about 300,000,000/. —Mr. 
 Scrope's two-and-a-half millions of poor are to be main- 
 tained by a fund of about 10,000,000/. a year. 
 
 Another ground on which Mr. Scrope rests the 
 practicability of his scheme, is the export of food from 
 Ireland. ' A country,' he says, ' which exports an- 
 nually from fourteen to sixteen millions' worth of food, 
 in corn, butter, pork, swine, sheep, and cattle, can 
 hardly be said to be deficient in food.'* As well 
 might he have said, ' The handloom weavers of Dublin, 
 who annually export many thousand yards of costly 
 tabinets, cannot be said to be in want of clothing. 
 
 * P. 15. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 171 
 
 There can be no want of food in the Highlands of 
 Scotland, or they would not export their black cattle. 
 The Poles must have an abundance of wheat, or the 
 warehouses of Dantzic would not be filled with it.' It 
 is precisely because they want food that the Scotch 
 export their cattle, the Poles their wheat, and the 
 Irish their swine and sheep. To export its raw pro- 
 duce may sometimes be the privilege of a rich country, 
 which produces, like America, more than it wants, but 
 is always the necessity of a poor country. Poland 
 does not produce more wheat than her people could 
 consume. She does not produce so much ; but they 
 cannot afford to eat it — they export it, and live on 
 rye. So the occupier of a rood of land near a town 
 may be miserably poor, yet send to the town every 
 year 10/. worth of food. He may grow asparagus 
 while he is starving. As long as Ireland continues to 
 be agricultural, and to feed on potatoes, and as long 
 as property in land is allowed to exist there, Ireland 
 will export corn, butter, swine, sheep, and cattle. But 
 this exportation shows not her riches, but her poverty. 
 So far from showing her power to support the burthen 
 which Mr. Scrope would throw on her, it shows her 
 inability. 
 
 We said that we had some remarks to make on the 
 general tone of Mr. Scrope's 6 Letters. 9 That tone we 
 cannot avoid calling anarchical. If his advice be re- 
 jected, insurrection and revolution are not only pre- 
 dicted, but justified. We are told that — 
 
 6 The Irish people must be fed from the resources of 
 Ireland, and employed in providing those very re- 
 sources from her fertile but neglected soil. The Irish 
 landlords will not do this — cannot do it — at any rate 
 
172 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 have not done it, or shown any disposition to do it. 
 Then the State must step in and compel them to do it y 
 or do it for them at their expense?* 
 
 * Let the landlords of Ireland ' (he adds) c not force 
 the friends of justice and humanity to enquire too 
 closely into their title to unconditional sovereignty 
 over the fair fields and native population of Ireland. 
 Let them remember that their claim rests in most 
 cases upon confiscations, not very remote, for the 
 benefit of the few. Let them beware of provoking a 
 real confiscation for the benefit of the many. Salus 
 POPULI suprema lex est No vague declamation about 
 the sacredness of title-deeds and grants will satisfy the 
 public mind. Every day these u sacred " rights are 
 invaded by Parliamentary legislation, at the iustance 
 of speculating companies, pleading only a very remote 
 public interest in their favour. 
 
 e But we live in an ao;e when interferences on a 
 must larger scale have been frequent. Do you, does 
 any intelligent Irish landlord, with a knowledge of the 
 recent examples of violent, but ultimately most beneficial 
 revolutions in the tenure of land through the greater 
 part of Europe — with a knowledge of the still unfor- 
 o-otten and traditionary memories current amon^ the 
 Irish peasantry, of the forcible dispossessions, at no 
 very remote historical periods, of former races of pro- 
 prietors — with a knowledge of what is passing now in 
 Ireland, of the tone of its most popular periodicals, the 
 temper of its masses, the difficulty with which they are 
 at present restrained by their cautious leaders, and still 
 more active, unwearied, and influential priesthood, 
 
 * P. 12. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 173 
 
 from actual insurrection, or a combined resistance to 
 the law, the end of which none can foresee : — I ask, can 
 you, or anyone, expect to be able long to maintain the 
 present state of the territorial law? If no milder means 
 can be obtained from the prude?ice and sense of justice 
 of the Legislature, for relieving the people of Ireland 
 from the grinding oppression and shocking misery they 
 now endure, you will erelong find many friends of 
 humanity advocate and justify a division of the lands 
 of the country among its inhabitants, as fraught with 
 less evil than the continuance of the present frightful 
 state of society there. 
 
 6 My advice to the landlords of Ireland is, to " set 
 their house in order," in preparation for what may 
 happen. Secure, at least, the masses in support of law 
 and order, by an act of bare justice that ought never 
 to have been denied to them — that should have formed 
 a primary element in your judicial code — by affording 
 them a legal guarantee for existence on the surface of 
 their native land.' * 
 
 Mr. Scrope's doctrine is this — That it is the duty of 
 the landlords of a country to provide employment and 
 subsistence for all whom they find on the surface of 
 their land. It does not matter whether their residence 
 there be useful or mischievous, whether their number 
 be adequate or excessive — whether they be prudent or 
 improvident, frugal or wasteful, industrious or idle. 
 It does not matter whether their presence have been 
 invited or connived at, or even forbidden, by the 
 person who chooses to call himself owner of the soil. 
 They may have multiplied there while the land was in 
 
 * Pp. 59, 60. 
 
174 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 the hands of a middleman, or have been introduced in 
 defiance of covenants against subletting, or may be 
 mere squatters without a pretence to title. But they 
 are there; and 'the due maintenance of the population 
 is a primary condition inherent in the principle of the 
 iaw under which the owners of landed property hold 
 their estates.'*" It may be impossible to find for them 
 remunerative employment. Then, let them be em- 
 ployed on what is not remunerative — piers, harbours, 
 and public buildings. The expense of maintaining 
 them swallows up the whole rent. Then let the estate 
 be divided among them. fc The people are to be fed 
 and employed. If the landlords have the power and 
 the will to perform this duty, well. If they will not 
 do it, or cannot do it, or have not done it, the State 
 must step in and compel them to do it, or do it for 
 them at their expense. If the State refuse or neglect 
 to perform this office, the people must right themselves 
 by a Revolution.' Doctrines more subversive of pro- 
 perty, and therefore more subversive of government, of 
 civilisation, and of human morality and happiness, were 
 never proclaimed by Fourrier or by Owen, by Robes- 
 pierre or by Babeuf. 
 
 We do not accuse Mr. Scrope of being consciously 
 an anarchist. We believe him — indeed we know him — 
 to be a man whose intentions are excellent, and whose 
 views and opinions on subjects unconnected with Poor 
 Laws are enlightened. But living among the abuses 
 of the English Poor Laws has pauperised his mind. 
 He belongs to the class described by the English 
 Commissioners of Inquiry as unfitted, by their fami- 
 
 * P. 40. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 175 
 
 liarity with the vices of the English system, to under- 
 stand the principles on which a Poor Law ought to be 
 based. 
 
 ' To suppose ' (say the Commissioners) 6 that the 
 poor are the proper managers of their own concerns ; 
 that a man's wages ought to depend on his services, 
 not on his wants ; that the earnings of an ordinary 
 labourer are naturally equal to the support of an ordi- 
 nary family ; that the welfare of that family naturally 
 depends on his conduct ; that he is bound to exercise 
 any sort of prudence or economy ; that anything is to 
 be hoped from voluntary charity — these are views 
 which many of those who have long resided in pau- 
 perised districts seem to reject as too absurd for formal 
 refutation.' 
 
 It may be said, however, that there is a mode of ex- 
 tending the Irish Poor Law, to which the objections 
 which we have opposed to Mr. Scrope's scheme do not 
 apply. Some of those who admit that to give a right 
 to relief would be ruinous, think that a discretionary 
 power to afford outdoor relief, out of the rates, might 
 be entrusted to the Guardians. It is true that the 
 objections to this plan and to Mr. Scrope's are not the 
 same ; but, though different in kind, they are not less 
 in degree. If we had to choose between the two, we 
 had rather, on the whole, pass an Act embodying Mr. 
 Scrope's proposal. The mischief of such a law would 
 be apparent the instant it was attempted to be executed. 
 Rates of fifteen or twenty shillings in the pound must 
 immediately be levied. Improvement would cease, 
 farms would be given up, those who now pay rates 
 would have to receive relief instead of contributing to 
 it, voluntary employment would be at an end, estates 
 
176 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 would be abandoned, the Boards of Guardians would 
 be besieged, like Mr. Jeston at Cholesbury, by the 
 applicants for food — numbered not by hundreds but by 
 thousands, demanding it not as a favour but as a right; 
 and after a period of misery, and probably of riot and 
 outrage, such as even Ireland has never suffered, the 
 law would be repealed by acclamation. The evils of a 
 discretionary power of outdoor relief would be gradual. 
 They would advance in Ireland, as they did in Eng- 
 land, by steps — with this difference only, that their 
 progress would be far more rapid. But, though com- 
 paratively rapid, the progress would be slow enough 
 to render the mischief irremediable. The disease 
 would have time to become organic before it became 
 alarming. 
 
 The difficult problem how public relief may be best 
 afforded, has exercised the minds of all reflecting men 
 for the last two hundred years. On no question in 
 political science have the facts been so abundant, or so 
 carefully collected and arranged, or made matter of 
 such diligent comment. The subject is far from ex- 
 hausted, but a few leading principles have been esta- 
 blished. 
 
 One is, that public and private charity must be 
 governed by rules so different as to have little in 
 common. Both indeed may be misdirected, but only 
 one of them can be corrupt. A man who gives from 
 his own purse may be mistaken : he may be too indo- 
 lent, or too busy, to enquire as to the facts which form 
 the case of the applicant, or too ignorant to know 
 how to deal with them ; but his motives at least must 
 be pure. 
 
 All that he gives is taken from his own means of 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1346. 177 
 
 enjoyment. The man who gives out of his neighbour's 
 purse makes no sacrifice whatever. He indulges his 
 sympathy without expense. It is obvious that this 
 alone may be the source of unbounded profuseness. 
 Nemo tarn parous quin prodigns ex alieno. But other 
 motives soon step in. He finds that popularity and 
 influence can be obtained; that his dependents or 
 relations can be provided for ; that his tenants and 
 debtors may be rendered solvent ; that his customers 
 may be supplied with funds, and his labourers with 
 wages. Hence came the maladministration which 
 brought England to the brink of ruin. Experience 
 has now taught us a further principle — namely, that 
 the check must be imposed, not on the giver, but on 
 the receiver; that the extension of relief to unfit 
 objects must be prevented, by requiring it to be ac- 
 companied by conditions to which none but fit objects 
 will submit ; and, for this purpose, that public relief 
 must be so administered as to render the situation of 
 its recipient less eligible than independence. 
 
 This is one of the points on which private and public 
 charity most remarkably differ. Private charity strives 
 to prevent its gifts from occasioning pain. It hides 
 them from the world, and even from the object himself. 
 It disguises them in the form of loan, or of employ- 
 ment. It wishes him to believe that what is really a 
 gift is a payment, the result, not of his poverty, but of 
 his industry and good conduct. 
 
 Public charity, on the contrary, must necessarily be 
 open and avowed. Its distributors deal with other 
 men's property ; they are the guardians of a public 
 fund. To escape the grossest jobbing and partiality, 
 they must act on fixed principles. Their duty is not 
 
 VOL. I. *N 
 
178 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 to reward industry or good conduct, but to relieve 
 indigence. In attempting to perform this duty, they 
 incur two great dangers : first, that indigence will be 
 simulated ; and, secondly, that when real, it will have 
 been occasioned or promoted by the prospect of relief. 
 
 The labouring population of every country is con- 
 demned by nature to a life which is one struggle against 
 want: 
 
 ' Si brachia forte remisit, 
 Atque ilium in praeceps prono rapit alveus amrnV* 
 
 Hunger and cold are the punishments by which she re- 
 presses improvidence and sloth. If we remove those 
 punishments, we must substitute other means of re- 
 pression. The pauper must purchase by some other 
 sacrifice his immunity from the ordinary obligations of 
 life ; or, in other words, we repeat it, his situation must 
 be rendered less eligible than that of the independent 
 labourer. 
 
 It is obvious that this is not done, if the relief is 
 afforded to him as a supplement to his other means of 
 subsistence. If the Union pay the rent of his cottage, 
 or give him allowance in aid of his wages, or head- 
 money for his children, such relief is all pure gain 
 to him. Without adverting to its other fatal conse- 
 quences, it is sufficient to say that it renders his situ- 
 ation, instead of less eligible, more eligible than that 
 of the independent labourer. The Union, therefore, 
 must take possession of him. It cannot allow him 
 to be a farmer or a labourer on his own account. It 
 must provide, therefore, for his whole maintenance, 
 and that of his family. And that maintenance cannot, 
 even in England, be less abundant than that of an 
 * Virg. Georg. i. 202. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1S-16. 179 
 
 average labourer. In Ireland public opinion would 
 require it to be even more abundant. The standard 
 of wants, to which the low civilisation of the Irish 
 labourer has accustomed him, is so depressed, that the 
 Guardians would be execrated if they used it as 
 a scale. What other modes then remain, by which 
 the object may be effected? Only two have been 
 suggested — confinement in a workhouse, and public 
 labour. 
 
 The propriety of enabling the Guardians at their 
 discretion, to afford relief to the ablebodied and their 
 families in the workhouse, need not now be consi- 
 dered. They have that power by the existing law. 
 The question is, can they, without sacrificing the 
 principle that relief must be made less eligible than 
 independence, be allowed to relieve them on the terms 
 of their being employed on public labour ? 
 
 To render that labour less eligible than indepen- 
 dence, it must be worse-paid, or more severe, or de- 
 grading. AVorse-paid we have shown that it cannot 
 be. More severe it may be made in a few instances. 
 A tailor may be easily fatigued by setting him to 
 break stones, or a weaver by forcing him to dig ; but 
 an agricultural labourer — and such are the bulk of the 
 Irish poor — cannot be forced to work for the public 
 harder than he works for a master, or so hard. Even 
 the convicts in our dockyards, who laboured under the 
 eye of vigilant superintendents, and with the lash 
 always before them, never did more than one-third of 
 the work which would have been performed by work- 
 men stimulated by wages. Degrading, without doubt, 
 the employment might be made. The paupers might 
 be harnessed, as our own were, to carts; they might 
 
 a 2 
 
 m 
 
180 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 be sent, as our own were, ten miles to carry an ear of 
 wheat, and bring back an ear of barley ; they might 
 be set, as our own were, to dig holes and fill them 
 up again: but are these the terms on which a nation 
 ought to offer its charity? If it were morally right, 
 would it be safe, would it be practicable, to do bo in 
 Ireland? We know that it was not safe to do BO in 
 England. If it were safe, would it be justifiable? 
 We have shown that parish employment under any 
 form is corrupting. What must it be when it is in- 
 tentionally an instrument of degradation ? 
 
 In fact, the experiment of providing relief by public 
 labour has recently been tried in Ireland. The late 
 Government endeavoured to provide against the failure 
 of the potato-crop by issuing a large sum of money to 
 local relief-committees — to be expended in employing 
 on public works those who could be proved to have no 
 other means of subsistence ; the wages in every ease 
 to be fixed below the usual rate of wages in the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 We have now before us an extract from a Treasury 
 Minute of the 21st July 1846. It states that the 
 ordinary resort of Irish labourers to England, for the 
 purpose of participating in the high wage s consequent 
 on the getting-in of the hay and corn harvest, has been 
 in some parts of the country suspended ; that the great 
 public works for the improvement of the Shannon, and 
 for the drainage of the country, have, to a consider- 
 able extent, been left without workmen ; and that the 
 people employed on the relief-works have indulged in 
 habits of indolence — preferring the receipt of an elee- 
 mosynary allowance, under the name of wages, to 
 higher wages proportioned to the labour performed. 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 181 
 
 The alarm of the Treasury, as the following passage 
 will show, was not without foundation : — 
 
 6 We have delightful summer weather since Wed- 
 nesday last, and the fast-ripening crops of grain are 
 bending in all the fields around us under their glorious 
 burden. Many acres of corn are ripe for the sickle, 
 which is but partially at work ; the harvest-helpers 
 are employed by all the district relief-committees, 
 making roads, filling gripes, and cutting hills. The 
 farmers are unable to save the crops, wanting those 
 labourers who have left their ordinary service to seek 
 temporary work upon hills and roads. We seriously 
 recommend the relief-committees to reduce the number 
 of hands, and, were it only for a fortnight, to stay all 
 further progress on public works, until the harvest- 
 crop is saved from impending danger. Country gentle- 
 men, magistrates, and clergymen of both persuasions, 
 will see the absolute necessity of attending to this 
 caution, and let the ablebodied labourers return, for 
 one month at farthest, to their usual field-work.' * 
 
 We wish that the preference of employment as alms 
 to independent labour — base as such a preference is — 
 had been the worst fault exhibited by the Irish in their 
 new state of ablebodied paupers. The same paper 
 relates three distinct cases of outrage and riot, pro- 
 duced either by a diminution of the supply of elee- 
 mosynary employment, or by the exaction of the 
 conditions on which it was supplied : — 
 
 ' Mr. Thomas Dowling, steward to the Board of 
 Cumass, in this county, was dragged out of his bed 
 
 * "We copy this passage from the ' Limerick Chronicle ' of 
 the first week of August last. 
 
182 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 last night by a strong party of armed men, who beal 
 him without mercy, inflicting several wounds on his 
 head and body. His sister, who strove to save him 
 from their vengeance, received two severe blows on the 
 head, and one of the ruffians broke the stock of a pistol 
 in striking their unfortunate victim on the head. Dr. 
 Samuel Bennett was called up, after the party left, to 
 attend the wounded man, whose life is in imminent 
 danger. Dowling's presumed offence was, that he 
 acted the part of a faithful and impartial steward. 
 
 c A number of armed men, on Tuesday night, assem- 
 bled at Coonagh, and set to work, cutting a trench 
 across the public road; after which they set up a stile- 
 stone, and affixed thereto a notice, of which the fol- 
 lowing is a copy: — " Take notice, that Lady of Currafin 
 has given a visit to the Thenorth libertie, to see how 
 they are situated in labour ; and now she sees that 
 there are no public works carrying on there, and if it 
 don't be carried on, that she must rebel against them, 
 and if the put her to trouble of coming again, the may 
 remark the consequences. Any man that Lays a hand 
 to this job, that is Done by her Ladyship, he may 
 remark the consequences after; but if the Fanners of 
 this place enterfare, as they did before in this Business, 
 Heavins and Mighty the will Get the Death of * * Let 
 no person touch this job untel the work is laid out/' 
 
 6 A serious row was anticipated on the public works 
 at Kilmallock, on Thursday last, several hundreds of 
 persons having assembled on Quarry Hill, outside the 
 town, shouting out " Blood or work ! " — forcing the 
 implements out of the hands of persons employed there. 
 The engineer, Mr. Dorman, finding it impossible to 
 check their violence, aided by the police, under Con- 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 183 
 
 stable Adderly, found it expedient to send for John 
 Freke Evans, Esq., J.P., who was promptly in attend- 
 ance. He called on the multitude to desist, and con- 
 cluded, amidst shouts of applause, by promising them 
 that their wants should be immediately attended to. 
 Works to a large amount have been since ordered for 
 this locality, by the Board of Works.' 
 
 In the last case, it will be observed, that the Justice 
 of the Peace rewarded the rioters by a promise, ' that 
 their wants should be immediately attended to.' It is 
 no wonder that he concluded amidst shouts of applause. 
 
 We do not believe, however, that this is the manner 
 in which a discretionary power to afford outdoor relief 
 would be exercised. The Guardians would be deterred 
 by its danger, its trouble, and its expense. They 
 would abandon the principle of making relief less 
 eligible than wages; and resort to the popular, the 
 easy, and (as they would consider it) the comparatively 
 cheap expedients of allowance in aid of wages, pay- 
 ment of rent, and head-money for children. 
 
 We know what were the results of these abuses in 
 England. Have we any reason to suppose that they 
 would be different in Ireland ? Have we not irre- 
 sistible grounds for affirming that the only difference 
 would be that they would be less gradual, but if pos- 
 sible more calamitous ? The numbers apparently re- 
 quiring relief would be much greater, the means of 
 affording it would be much smaller, and the motives to 
 fraudulent and profuse administration more powerful. 
 In England the awarders of relief were the Justices. 
 They had no pecuniary motive to sanction abuse. 
 Their interest lay the other way. They suffered as 
 ratepayers or landlords, and did not gain as employers 
 
184 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 or tradesmen. The overseer, indeed, if a farmer or 
 shopkeeper, might profit by the relief which he gave 
 to his labourers or customers ; but he acted under a 
 strict responsibility, and had to bear the loss if his 
 payments were disallowed. 
 
 The bulk of the Irish guardians are small farmers, 
 little removed from the class from which the applicants 
 will come. In three out of the four provinces of Ire- 
 land — that is to say, in those in which tenant-right 
 does not exist — they are tenants, forced, by the com- 
 petition for land, to pay the utmost rent which the 
 existing state of cultivation will allow. The rates, 
 therefore, on whomever assessed, will really be paid 
 by the landlords — landlords generally of a different 
 race, of a different religion, and of different politics 
 from their tenants, with whom they have little inter- 
 course and no sympathy. Will the elected guardians 
 resist the temptation of assisting their friends, at the 
 expense of those whom they have been taught to think 
 their enemies ? If they are proof against solicitations, 
 will they also be proof against threats? Will a guar- 
 dian whose house is roofed with thatch, feel sale in 
 belonging to the economical party? What scenes will 
 every annual election of guardians produce, when the 
 landlord, feeling that his whole property is at stake, 
 strives to coerce his tenants to vote for his nominee-, 
 and the priest heads the partisans of charity ? 
 
 Although we believe, on grounds which we have 
 endeavoured to explain, that to attempt to provide 
 relief or employment for the Irish poor, by any of the 
 means which we have considered, would be most mis- 
 chievous, we yet think that there are measures by 
 which those purposes might, to a certain extent, be 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 185 
 
 safely effected. These are founded on the recommen- 
 dation, to which we have already alluded, of the Irish 
 Commissioners of Inquiry, as to the assistance of 
 voluntary charitable associations. 
 
 The Commissioners recommend that all associations 
 for charitable purposes be empowered to put themselves 
 in connection with the Poor-law Commissioners ; that 
 they then be bound to conform to all such regulations 
 as the Commissioners may make for their guidance ; 
 that each association annually transmit to the Com- 
 missioners, together with the accounts of its past ex- 
 penditure, an estimate of its probable expenditure and 
 probable funds for the ensuing year; and that the 
 Commissioners be authorised to award to it, in aid of 
 its own funds, such grant as they may think proper. 
 The grant to be provided out of a rate, to be levied 
 over the whole landed property of Ireland, and called 
 in the Report 6 The National Rate,' to distinguish it 
 from other rates imposed on each district for its own 
 local purposes. 
 
 It may be objected to this recommendation, in the 
 form in which we have stated it, that it gives to the 
 Commissioners a power of directing the application of 
 a national fund to local purposes ; which, in the hands 
 of a central body, necessarily ignorant of details, and 
 liable to fraud, would always be suspected of abuse, 
 and not unfrequently with reason. This is true ; and, 
 instead of enabling the Commissioners to aid such 
 associations to an unlimited extent out of a national 
 rate, we think that the aid ought to be supplied to the 
 associations in each union, out of the rates of the 
 union, to an extent not exceeding one-third of the sum 
 voluntarily raised — and only on the vote of a majority 
 
186 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 of the guardians present. The Commissioners ought 
 to be empowered to disallow or to reduce the vote, but 
 not to increase it. Such a measure could not do harm. 
 The amount of the sum to be raised by rate would be 
 limited — first, by the amount voluntarily given — se- 
 condly, by the will of the guardians — and, thirdly, by 
 the controlling power of the Commissioners — and the 
 Commissioners would prevent its being applied mis- 
 chievously, or merely uselessly. But we think we can 
 show that it would do good; and as that good would 
 be unmixed, even if it were not great, it would be a 
 sufficient motive. 
 
 It is a strong proof that this world is a place of 
 trial, that none of our affections are absolutely good 
 or absolutely evil. The medium in which excellence 
 consists may, as to some emotions, be nearer to one 
 extreme, as to others to the other ; but it always is a 
 medium. Even the malevolent passions may be defi- 
 cient, and the benevolent excessive. Charity is no 
 exception to the general rule. Subjectively considered 
 — that is to say, as respects the person from whom 
 relief is asked — we believe that the more mischievous 
 extreme is deficiency. We believe that the man who 
 systematically rejects every application, injures his 
 own mind more than he whose bounty is careless, and 
 therefore indiscriminate. But, objectively considered 
 — that is to say, as respects the applicants for relief, 
 and the society of which they form part — Ave have 
 no doubt that the balance of evil is on the side of 
 profuseness. 
 
 The mass of mankind will not work for themselves, 
 save for themselves, or even think for themselves, if 
 they can get others to do it for them ; many will give 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 187 
 
 up, and almost all will relax, their industry, activity, 
 and forethought, if they believe that a substitute for 
 their results is to be obtained from charity. Some- 
 times indigence will be counterfeited in the hope of 
 relief, but more frequently it will be actually incurred. 
 The candidate for alms lives from hand to mouth. 
 Whatever he gets he wastes in immediate sensual en- 
 joyment, or hoards in the form of money about his per- 
 son. His claim would be diminished if he or his 
 family showed an appearance of comfort. It would be 
 diminished if he were known to be in regular work as 
 a labourer, or successful as a little farmer or cottier. 
 Indeed the professed mendicant, who relies on volun- 
 tary alms for his whole or his principal support, has 
 seldom a fixed habitation. He would quickly wear out 
 the charity of his neighbours ; he becomes therefore a 
 wanderer, and hence mendicancy and vagrancy are 
 often treated as synonymous. The wish to be what, 
 in the language of the labouring classes, is called re- 
 spectable — to appear to be above indigence, and even 
 on the way to comparative wealth, is the great source 
 of their improvement. It is the great source of their 
 diligence, their frugality, their cleanliness, and their 
 health. When this motive is not merely absent, but is 
 replaced by an opposite desire — when the object of the 
 family is to appear miserable, no one can doubt the 
 certainty or the rapidity of its degradation. 
 
 To check mendicancy is, therefore, one of the most 
 anxious tasks of a government which strives to im- 
 prove the condition of its people. One expedient is to 
 punish vagrancy ; for vagrancy, as we have remarked, 
 is the most profitable form of mendicancy. In many 
 parts of the Continent the vagrant is what he was for- 
 
188 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 merly in England — an outlaw, hunted down, whipped, 
 and perhaps enslaved for life. 
 
 Sometimes the State endeavours to prevent the 
 imprudence which leads to it, by prescribing to the 
 labouring classes the employments which it thinks most 
 for their benefit — by punishing idleness and by impeding 
 marriage. This is what is called paternal government, 
 under which the people are treated as children, and 
 denied freedom of action lest they should abuse it. 
 
 When these expedients fail, and they always do fail, 
 the State sometimes tries to restrain the donor, as well 
 as the recipient, by prohibiting indiscriminate alms- 
 giving. This attempt also uniformly fails. Men will 
 not co-operate as prosecutors, or witnesses, or judges, 
 in punishing benevolence, however misdirected. 
 
 Another expedient is to give to all the destitute a 
 legal right to relief, and thus, in the words of the Poor- 
 law Commissioners, to disarm the mendicant of his 
 weapon — the plea of destitution. This is certainly a 
 powerful damper of indiscriminate almsgiving. It en- 
 ables the really charitable to confine their assistance to 
 the cases which they have an opportunity of examin- 
 ing, and which on investigation appear to deserve re- 
 lief different from that which the law affords. And it 
 gives to the busy, the indolent, and the penurious, an 
 excuse for indiscriminate refusal. 
 
 But we have seen that these advantages, such as 
 they are, are generally purchased at an extravagant 
 price. We have seen that — unless accompanied by 
 conditions which, whether capable or not of being en- 
 forced in England, are certainly inapplicable in Ireland 
 — a right to relief depending simply on destitution 
 must in time destroy the propertj and the civilisation 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 189 
 
 of the community which has been blind enough to 
 grant it. The mendicancy of Ireland is frightful. It 
 scatters contagion, moral as well as physical, through 
 the country. But its mischiefs seem small, w r hen we 
 compare them to those which the pauperism of Eng- 
 land actually produced. They disappear, when we com- 
 pare them to those which that pauperism would have 
 occasioned, if it had not been checked by the Poor-law 
 Amendment Act ; or to those which it will occasion, if 
 the influence of that Act be materially impaired. 
 
 If, then, the evils of indiscriminate charity cannot, 
 at least in Ireland, be checked merely by laws attack- 
 ing it directly ; if it be impossible, by direct legisla- 
 tion, effectually to prohibit mendicancy, or to prevent 
 idleness and imprudence, or to punish almsgiving ; and 
 if to grant a legal right to relief would be ruin, the 
 only remaining course seems to be that which we have 
 proposed — viz., to encourage private charity, but also 
 to regulate and direct it. 
 
 There exists, probably, no European community in 
 which the tendency to charity is so strong as it is 
 among the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It is strength- 
 ened by inveterate habit, by the constant presence of 
 distress, by the consciousness in the mass of the popu- 
 lation that they themselves may have to implore it, by 
 a sense of religious obligation, by a belief that, through 
 a constant intervention of Providence, it never im- 
 poverishes the giver, by a reliance on the efficacy of 
 the beggar's prayers, and by a fear of Divine ven- 
 geance attendant upon his curse. It has not been 
 checked by the existing provision for the poor, nor 
 does it appear that any law can effectually restrain it. 
 But, though it cannot be opposed, we believe that it 
 
190 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 may be guided. We believe that many of those who 
 now throw out their alms to strangers, Avithout know- 
 ing whether they are doing great good or great evil — 
 whether they are relieving unmerited distress, or pro- 
 moting imposture, idleness, and vice — would rejoice to 
 have a channel pointed out for their charity in which 
 it would be sure to be beneficial ; and in which they 
 would be able to superintend its application, and to 
 trace its results. If the greater part of the fund now 
 employed in encouraging mendicancy w T ere merely de- 
 stroyed — if, like the gifts of an Eastern magician, the 
 money could turn to leaves in the beggar's pocket — 
 though no positive good would be done, much evil 
 would be prevented. But, under the scheme which we 
 propose, the purposes to which the rescued fund would 
 be applied would have no ordinary utility. They 
 would be eminently beneficial ; for they would produce 
 the same results as those which are produced by one of 
 the most useful of human virtues — well-regulated pri- 
 vate charity. 
 
 Compulsory charity, that which is supported by 
 assessment, must, as we have seen, be rendered less 
 eligible than independence. It must be made painful, 
 and therefore is degrading. Private charity need not 
 interfere with the habits of the recipient. It may 
 sometimes be made an incentive to his industry — it 
 may sometimes be a reward instead of a degradation. 
 We do not mean to say that this ought to be its usual 
 course : the interference of the higher classes in the 
 concerns of the independent labourer, in any form 
 except that of advice and sympathy, must be sparingly 
 exercised ; but the possibility of such an interference 
 is an important difference between public and private 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 191 
 
 charity. Another important difference is in point of 
 expense. Public charity, as we have seen, must 
 undertake the whole charge of the recipient. Private 
 charity is never so efficient as when it comes in aid of 
 his ordinary means — when it supplies an unexpected 
 loss, or meets an unforeseen emergency. 
 
 The last remark which we have to make on the pro- 
 posals for extending the Irish Poor Law is, that so far 
 as they are supported by a reference to the assumed 
 success of the English Poor Law, they are founded on 
 an assumption which may turn out to be premature. 
 The evils which the unamended law tended to produce 
 were the most fatal with which internal causes have 
 ever threatened a civilised nation. They amounted to 
 no less than the ruin of all the proprietors, and the 
 corruption of all the occupiers and cultivators of the 
 soil. For nearly a century the mischief went on 
 steadily increasing. Government after government 
 tried vain expedients, or looked on in inactive despair. 
 At length, the almost despotic power given to Lord 
 Grey's Government, by the first Reformed Parliament, 
 enabled it to apply a partial remedy. The ' Poor- 
 law Amendment Bill' was passed, and the plague, 
 though not eradicated, was stayed. The remedy might 
 have been effectual, if the recommendations of the Com- 
 missioners had been followed, and the outdoor relief 
 of the ablebodied prohibited by the Act. But Lord 
 Grey's Administration, though the strongest that we 
 have ever seen — the strongest that we are ever likely 
 to see — thought itself unable to resist the habits of a 
 century. The general prohibition of outdoor relief, 
 which formed a part of the earlier drafts of the Bill, 
 was struck out ; and a clause was substituted^ enabling 
 
192 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 the Commissioners to prohibit or allow such relief at 
 their discretion. Out of the 595 unions into which 
 England is divided, they have issued a prohibitory 
 order to 478. But the order is subject to so many 
 exceptions, that, at the last return, out of 1,470,970 
 relieved, only 215,325 were inmates of the workhouse. 
 
 In the meantime, the operation of the Act has been 
 subject to every form of unremitting, unscrupulous 
 impediment. It was unavoidably unpopular. It di- 
 minished the power of the magistrates ; it interfered 
 with the frauds of the vestries ; it forced the farmer 
 and the manufacturer to pay their own workmen ; and 
 it offended the prejudices of the ignorant. The re- 
 strictions which it imposes on the pauper are to this 
 extent penal — namely, that their object is to make 
 pauperism less eligible than independence. Its ad- 
 vantages are diffused over the whole body of landlords, 
 ratepayers, and labourers. It has saved the property 
 of the two former, and the morals and freedom of the 
 latter. The loss which it has occasioned is concen- 
 trated upon the comparatively few whose influence it 
 has abridged, whose peculations it has checked, and 
 whose powers of oppression it has destroyed. 
 
 The majority, as is usual, enjoy its benefits in indo- 
 lent silence. The minority are clamorous and active. 
 The unhappy error of allowing the Commission to be 
 temporary has been a new stimulus to opposition, at 
 every successive period of renewal. The newspaper 
 press, with a few exceptions, have been sedulously 
 employed to confirm the prejudices and inflame the 
 passions of the half-educated — to pander to coarse 
 tastes and political ignorance, by inveighing against 
 the separation of the sexes, the enforcement of labour, 
 
PROPOSALS FOR EXTENDING THE IRISH POOR LAW, 1846. 193 
 
 and the want of recreation ; and by stories of infanti- 
 cide, on the refusal of a pension to which the mother 
 of a bastard was formerly entitled. Tory candidates 
 in the counties, and Radicals in the towns, have pro- 
 claimed the tyranny of the Commissioners, the suffer- 
 ings of the poor, and the wickedness of treating poverty 
 as a crime ; and have bid for votes, b promising to 
 restore what they called, with Mr. Scrope, the 6 Eliza- 
 bethan Law.' It is true that few, perhaps none, were 
 wild enough to intend seriously to perform this pro- 
 mise ; but many have had the weakness to endeavour 
 to seem willing to perform it. This has given to the 
 Commons the appearance of hostility to the amended 
 law. Those who have denounced it at the hustings 
 have thought themselves forced to carp at it in the 
 House. The Triumvirate has been a target in which 
 every demagogue has endeavoured to fix his arrow. 
 The assistant-commissioners have been reduced in 
 number to nearly one-half; and yet the Commissioners 
 have been held responsible for abuses, which they have 
 not been allowed the means of detecting. They have 
 been treated after the Egyptian fashion : the tale of 
 bricks has been increased, and straw refused. They 
 have been deprived of their .organs, and then required 
 to be omniscient. 
 
 Under the influence of all these obstacles, it is un- 
 questionable that the administration of the amended 
 law is retrograding. The following are the sums ex- 
 pended for the relief and maintenance of the poor, 
 from Lady-day 1836, when the amended law may be 
 said to have come into full operation, until the last 
 return : — 
 
 vol. i. o 
 
194 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 1837 
 1838 
 1839 
 1840 
 1841 
 1842 
 1843 
 1844 
 1845 
 
 4,044,741 
 4,123,604 
 4,406,907 
 4,576,965 
 4,760,929 
 4,911,498 
 5,208,027 
 4,976,093 
 5,039,703 
 
 It will be seen that, during a period not merely of 
 profound tranquillity, but of eminent prosperity, the 
 expenditure has gone on increasing, until, in eight 
 years, it has risen nearly twenty-five per cent. If its 
 advance be not checked, it must in time eat away the 
 whole rental. And if the landlords try to save them- 
 selves by shifting the object, instead of by repelling 
 the attack; if they try to divert it, by offering to it 
 funded property, or the profits of trade or professions, 
 or the national revenue; if they weaken the local 
 powers and motives of resistance, and trust our defence 
 solely to central superintendence — though the ruin of 
 the land may be deferred, the ruin of the country will 
 be accelerated. We trust that we shall escape these, 
 as we have escaped many other perils which seemed 
 scarcely avoidable; but we must say that, of all the 
 dangers to which we are exposed, those connected with 
 the Poor Law are the most threatening. Scotland and 
 Ireland are bound to study the experience of England, 
 not as an incentive, but as a warning. 
 
195 
 
 RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 
 1847 and 1848. 
 
 [Edinbuegh Eeyiew, October 1849.] 
 
 * T DO not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, there 
 -L ought to be established between England and 
 Ireland a complete equality in all civil, municipal, and 
 political rights. When I say complete equality, I do 
 not mean, because I know it is impossible, to have a 
 literal equality in every particular. Here, as in matters 
 of more sacred import, it may be that " The letter 
 killeth, but the spirit giveth life ; " I speak of the 
 spirit, and not of the letter, in which our legislation 
 should be conducted. I mean that there should be a 
 real substantial equality, in political and civil rights ; 
 so that no person, viewing Ireland with perfectly dis- 
 interested eyes, should be enabled to say, " A different 
 law is enacted for Ireland, and, on account of some jea- 
 lousy or suspicion, Ireland has curtailed and mutilated 
 rights." That is what I mean by equality. Let no 
 one think I am making a reserve. I speak of the 
 spirit in which we should legislate. I think it ought 
 to be impossible to say that there is a different rule, 
 substantially, with regard to the civil or municipal 
 franchise in Ireland from that which prevails in Eng- 
 land.' 
 
 Such was one of the most remarkable passages in the 
 memorable speech with which Sir Robert Peel closed 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 his almost monarchical administration. It was one of 
 the few passages which received cheers from the right 
 as well as from the left of the chair. In those cheers 
 we felt no wish to join. 
 
 We were not sure, when we heard these words, that 
 we clearly understood them — we are not sure that we 
 understand them now. The words Rights and Fran- 
 chises, when applied to the mutual relations of a people 
 and its rulers, imply theories which have long been 
 abandoned. They belong to times when the Crown 
 and the subject were supposed to have adverse claims ; 
 — when prerogative was the property of the one, and 
 franchise the defence of the other ; — when it was sup- 
 posed to be the duty of the servants of the Crown to 
 preserve, if not to augment, its power, and the duty 
 of the representatives of the people to restrain, and, if 
 possible, to diminish it. These times have long passed 
 away. It is now admitted that prerogative and fran- 
 chises, the duty of ministers and the duty of knights 
 and burgesses, have one single and common purpose — 
 good government ; that is to say, the government 
 which will t best promote the prosperity of the whole 
 community. This is the right of the people against 
 its government. It is the right of a union against its 
 guardians, the right of a company against its directors, 
 the right of a parish against its constable, the right of 
 a client against his attorney. It is a right to have its 
 affairs managed in the way most conducive to its 
 welfare. In this right all other rights are merged ; 
 against this right no claim of the Crown, or of any 
 portion of the people, can prevail, or can be seriously 
 urged. If Sir Robert Peel, then, when he claimed 
 for Ireland equality of rights with Great Britain, 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848, 197 
 
 meant merely to say that Ireland is entitled equally 
 with England to good government — that she is entitled 
 to be governed by the Imperial Parliament as she 
 would be by a wise Parliament sitting in College 
 Green — he announced a principle perfectly true in- 
 deed, but, we trust, perfectly trite. We trust that 
 no one doubts that she is so entitled, and we saw little 
 reason for cheering a self-evident proposition. 
 
 We are ready to admit that the example of England 
 must materially affect all Irish questions. There exists 
 throughout the civilised world a principle, somewhat 
 resembling that of gravitation, which enables the in- 
 stitutions, the customs, and even the conduct of every 
 separate country, to influence the conduct, the cus- 
 toms and the institutions of every other. Of course 
 this mutual influence is greater between countries both 
 members of the same empire. And it is probably 
 greatest when exerted over the remainder of an em- 
 pire, by that portion of it which is the seat of the 
 imperial government. The laws of the metropolis 
 may not be imitated by her provinces, but they cer- 
 tainly will not be disregarded. The administration of 
 these laws, the spirit in which they are carried out, 
 will certainly be imitated. If Ceylon had continued 
 subject to Dutch dominion, it is probable that the text 
 of her laws would not have been what it is now. It is 
 certain that her laws, whatever might have been their 
 text, would have been turned to very different pur- 
 poses. If the government of the dominant member of 
 the empire be despotic, it will be difficult for those of 
 the other members to be free. If it be constitutional, 
 the others can scarcely remain despotic. The example 
 of England made it impossible for Scotland to continue 
 
198 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 an aristocracy, with heritable jurisdictions and a nomi- 
 nal representation. 
 
 Even if there were good reasons for believing that 
 Ireland would be better administered by a government 
 framed on the late Prussian model, under laws enacted 
 by the Crown, judges uncontrolled by juries, and with 
 a press restrained by a censorship, no one would seri- 
 ously propose to subject her to such a regimen. If 
 she were a distinct state, it is possible that she might 
 profit by following the example of Denmark — by sur- 
 rendering her liberties to the Crown, and exchanging 
 turbulence, almost amounting to lawlessness, for the 
 tranquillity of an enlightened despotism. But it is 
 obvious that, while the democratic and aristocratic ele- 
 ments prevail in the rest of the empire, a pure mon- 
 archy could not work well in a single portion of it. 
 That a government must depend on affection or on 
 terror, and that if it govern by terror it must govern 
 ill, are propositions so trite that they have become ele- 
 mentary. But, with Great Britain by her side, Ireland 
 could not acquiesce in the loss of her liberties, however 
 unfit for her social state some of them may appear. 
 Her monarch could rule her only by fear, and there* 
 fore would rule her ill. 
 
 But it is so frequently overlooked that we are bound 
 frequently to repeat, that the people of England ami 
 of Ireland — meaning here, by Ireland, the provinces 
 of Munster, Connaught, some parts of Leinster, and 
 the whole county of Donegal — are among the most 
 dissimilar nations in Europe. One is chiefly Protes- 
 tant, the other is chiefly Roman Catholic ; one is prin- 
 cipally manufacturing and commercial, the other almost 
 wholly agricultural ; one lives chiefly in towns, the 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 199 
 
 other in the country. The population of the one is 
 laborious, but prodigal ; no fatigue repels them — no 
 amusement diverts them from the business of providing 
 the means of subsistence and of enjoyment ; but they 
 consume almost as quickly as they acquire. That of 
 the other is indolent and idle, but parsimonious. They 
 can lay up a provision for the current year, and con- 
 sume it, not according to their wishes, but their neces- 
 sities. They can earn the comparatively high wages of 
 a richer country, save them in the midst of tempta- 
 » tions to expenditure, and beg their way home without 
 touching their store. But they leave their potato- 
 grounds foul, merely to save the labour of weeding 
 them ; their cottages let in the rain, because they will 
 not take the trouble to thatch them ; a wake, or a fair, 
 or a funeral, attracts from its occupations the inhabi- 
 tants of a whole village. They can work for a mas- 
 ter, and while his eye is upon them, but are negligent 
 taskmasters to themselves. 
 
 The one country possesses a large middle-class, the 
 other is divided between landlords and peasants: in 
 the one the proprietors of the soil are connected by 
 origin, by interest, and by feeling, with those who 
 occupy it ; in the other, they are, in many cases, stran- 
 gers, and, in almost as many, enemies. In the one, 
 public sympathy is with the law ; in the other, it is 
 with those that break it. In England crime is infa- 
 mous ; in Ireland it is popular. 
 
 The parties which divide England have one common 
 object, widely as they differ on the means by which it 
 is to be obtained. All desire the welfare of the Empire ; 
 all desire to see it tranquil and prosperous at home, 
 and respected abroad. They believe, often of course 
 
200 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 erroneously, that the measures which they support will 
 do good, and that those which they oppose will do harm ; 
 and it is on that account that they oppose or support 
 them. The most numerous of the Irish parties desires 
 that the existing institutions of the Empire may work 
 ill. It is delighted by the prospect of war, and gloats 
 over the probabilities of defeat. It opposes what- 
 ever is likely to be useful, because it is likely to be 
 useful, and rejects with loathing whatever is ten- 
 dered to it as a favour or a grace. Colleges for 
 secular instruction it denounces as godless ; schools 
 in which Protestant and Catholic may meet, are semi- 
 naries of infidelity, and a provision for its clergy is a 
 bribe. It agitates for the sake of agitation ; and selects 
 for its avowed object an unattainable end, because it is 
 unattainable — because its mischief cannot be tested by 
 experience, or its stimulus deadened by possession. 
 
 To give similar treatment to countries not merely 
 different, but contrasted, is prescribing the same regimen 
 to the weak and to the strong, to the excitable and to 
 the apathetic, to the sound and to the diseased. Yet 
 this is the treatment which we have applied to Ireland. 
 Our law of real property, with its subtilties and its 
 primogeniture — our equity, with its expense and its 
 delays — our penal law, with its loopholes — our common 
 law, with its puerilities — our habeas corpus, our trial 
 by jury, our local magistracy, our free press, our 
 popular elections, our freedom of association, our Es- 
 tablished Church, and our Protestant creed — insti- 
 tutions which, by long practice, by constantly twisting 
 and bending and hammering them, we have gradually 
 moulded to our use — we have thrown into Ireland, as 
 if whatever suits us must suit her. Except her con- 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN !34" A>'D 184*. 20 1 
 
 stabulary, her national education, her paid guardians, 
 and her Encumbered Estates Court, she has not a single 
 native institution. Our creed she has rejected — our 
 Church she bears only because the Protestant landlord 
 would gain by shaking it off. The rest she has 
 accepted — some, because she had no existing system 
 for such purposes ; and others, because, whether con- 
 ducive or not to the welfare of the people, they pleased 
 at least their vanity — or because she could not help it. 
 Scotland has not been so managed. Though her Union 
 long preceded that of Ireland — though she has been 
 governed for nearly a century and a half by an Im- 
 perial Parliament — her institutions are mainly her own. 
 She has her own land tenures, her own Church, her 
 own civil law, and her own criminal law. They may 
 be better or may be worse than those of England, 
 but they are not mere copies. Of course we do not 
 affirm that this difference in the treatment of Ireland 
 and Scotland will account for the difference in their 
 civilisation ; but we have no doubt that it has been 
 one of its principal causes. 
 
 We accept, therefore, Sir Robert Peel's doctrine of 
 equality of rights in England and in Ireland, merely 
 to this extent — that in legislating for Ireland, we must 
 legislate for her, not as if she were a distinct State, 
 but as a member of the Empire. We must take into 
 account the influence of the examples of England and 
 Scotland on the feelings of her people ; we must allow 
 the democratic element to prevail to an extent which 
 would be unadvisable if we looked merely to its imme- 
 diate results ; we must allow the people an amount of 
 free action, which we know they will abuse, because 
 worse evils even than that abuse will be produced if 
 
202 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 we restrain it. The elective franchise must not be left 
 to wear out, though we may know that it will be used 
 in returning Repealers ; the press must not be silenced, 
 though it be employed in provoking civil war ; juries 
 must be retained, though their verdicts may be liable 
 to be warped by faction or by bigotry, or extorted by 
 intimidation ; the resident gentry must not be deprived 
 of their magisterial jurisdiction, or the grand juries of 
 their fiscal power, though we know that the one some- 
 times produces injustice, and the other peculation. 
 But we refuse to call these necessities rights — we 
 refuse to call our obedience to them concession or 
 justice. When a physician called in to prescribe for a 
 man whose constitution has been injured by a long 
 course of intemperance, allows him still to use stimu- 
 lants, apparently injurious to his case, because he 
 would be miserable, and perhaps would sink altogether, 
 without them, he does not call that permission a grant 
 or a concession — it is simply a measure of expediency. 
 He allows it merely because worse evils would follow 
 its refusal. A people stands towards its government in 
 the same relation as a patient to his physician — each 
 has a right to the best possible treatment — neither can 
 have more, and neither ought to be satisfied with less. 
 Unfortunately, to a certain degree for ourselves, and to 
 a much greater degree for the other portions of the 
 Empire, the people of England are prone, more perhaps 
 than any other equally intelligent nation, to transfer to 
 other countries their own notions ; to suppose that they 
 have the same wants and the same powers ; to believe, 
 in short, that their social system resembles ours even 
 in its details. There is no subject on which we have 
 done this more blindly or more mischievously than as 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1S47 AND 1848. 203 
 
 respects the mutual relations of the owners, the occu- 
 piers, and the cultivators of land. 
 
 In England agriculture is generally managedby three 
 classes of producers, known as landlords, farmers, and 
 labourers. The landlord, with us, is absolute master 
 of the land; subject to the qualified and limited interest 
 which he may choose to concede or (to use the technical 
 word) to let to his tenant; and he generally erects 
 the necessary buildings, and makes the more expensive 
 and permanent improvements. The farmer, in his turn, 
 is master for the period of his tenancy, but is generally 
 bound to treat the land in a predetermined manner, and 
 he gives up the possession, without remonstrance, the 
 instant that his term has expired. It is his duty to 
 provide all the moveable live and dead stock, the wages 
 of the labourers, and the rates and taxes, and to pay 
 periodically to the landlord, for the use of the land and 
 buildings, a net fixed sum as rent. The labourer is 
 hired by the year, the week, the day, or the job, pro- 
 vides nothing but his own person and clothes, and has 
 no claim on any individual landlord or tenant, except for 
 his wages. He has, however, a general claim, on the 
 occupiers of the land constituting the parish in which 
 he is settled, for full support for himself and his family, 
 if he cannot earn sufficient wages, or is out of employ. 
 
 These are the rights which we associate with the 
 words landlords, farmers, and labourers. And when 
 we find, in other countries, persons who appear to stand 
 towards the land, and towards one another, in analogous 
 relations, we call them by the same names, and fancy 
 that these names imply similar rights and liabilities. 
 
 ' The first English conquerors of Bengal,' says Mr. 
 Mill, 6 carried with them the phrase landed proprietor, 
 
204 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 or landlord, into a country where the rights of indivi- 
 duals over the soil were extremely different in degree, 
 and even in nature, from those recognised in England. 
 Applying the term with all its English associations, in 
 such a state of things, to one who had only a limited 
 right, they gave an absolute right ; from another, because 
 he had not an absolute right, they took away all right ; 
 drove all classes of men to ruin and despair; filled the 
 country with banditti; created a feeling that nothing 
 was secure ; and produced, with the best intentions, a 
 disorganisation of society, which had not been produced 
 in that country by the most ruthless of its barbarian 
 invaders.'* 
 
 With equal impropriety we have transferred our 
 English notions into Ireland. There are there also 
 persons called landlords, farmers, and labourers, but 
 they resemble their English types in little but name. 
 In Ireland the landlord has been accustomed to erect 
 no buildings, and make no improvements whatever. 
 He is, in general, a mere receiver of rent ; his only re- 
 lation to his tenant is that of a creditor. They look to 
 him for no help, and, on the other hand, he can exer- 
 cise over them little control. It is very seldom that he 
 prescribes to them any system of husbandry, or, if he 
 do so, that he can safely enforce it. He cannot re- 
 move them, if dissatisfied with their treatment of the 
 land ; still less can he do so for the purpose of throwing 
 farms together, and introducing the processes which 
 require large capitals and large holdings. Even at the 
 expiration of a lease, the landlord who displaces the ex- 
 isting occupier is bold ; the tenant who takes his place 
 is rash. With the labourers the landlord has scarcely 
 
 * Mill's 1 Logic/ vol. ii. p. 269. 
 
BELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 205 
 
 any relation whatever. If he have any demesne land 
 in his own occupation, he may, of course, employ them 
 in cultivating it. But this is seldom the case, or, to 
 speak more correctly, seldom was the case, until the 
 famine, by making the cultivation of land unprofitable, 
 threw it in masses, waste and valueless, into the owner's 
 hands. Farming by a gentleman is a trade still more 
 unprofitable in Ireland than in England ; and as the 
 landlord does nothing for his tenants, of course he cannot 
 employ labourers on their lands. 
 
 Again, the Irish farmer is not, like the Englishman, 
 a capitalist, employing, on a tract of perhaps three 
 hundred acres, a capital of 3,000/., maintaining thirteen 
 or fourteen labouring families, and paying 9/. or 10/. a 
 week in wages. The Irish farmer occupies from six to 
 twenty acres, the average extent of a substantial farm 
 being perhaps twelve acres. The farm-buildings con- 
 sist of hovels for the family, the horse, the cow, and the 
 pigs — hovels built by the farmer or by his predecessor 
 with stones and bog-timber, and roofed with turf. The 
 value of these hovels, as a foundation for tenant-right, 
 with that of the live-stock and seed, and a few instru- 
 ments of agriculture, form the capital, which, on a farm 
 of a dozen acres, may amount (exclusively of tenant- 
 right) to 20/. or 30/. 6 If I were on my oath,' said one 
 of the witnesses in the Irish Poor Law Inquiry, 6 1 don't 
 think there is any man with 10/. in my townland. 
 The loss of a cow or two, or of 10/., would either ruin 
 a man, or make a man rich that got it ; it would make 
 a gentleman of him in a manner.' * The greater part 
 of the labour required by his farm, so far as it is per- 
 formed at all (for much that we should think requisite is 
 * 1 Binns, p. 57. 
 
206 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 neglected) is performed by the farmer himself, or by his 
 family ; for he seldom ventures to take a farm, or indeed 
 can obtain one, which cannot be cultivated principally 
 by the united labour of the father and mother, sons and 
 daughters. If the family be small, so is the holding. 
 
 The labourer, again, is not, like the English labourer, 
 a mere cottager working on another man's land and for 
 another man's benefit, and dependent for subsistence on 
 his wages when in employment, and on his parish when 
 unemployed. He is, in general, the occupier of a patch 
 of land, from one to four roods in extent, manured for 
 him by the farmer, on which he raises the potatoes that 
 are to feed his family. For this, and for the site of his 
 cabin, which he has probably built himself, he pays a 
 rent worked out in labour. Thus,, if the rent for the 
 rood of potato-ground be 21. a year, and that of the cabin 
 1/., and his labour be estimated at 6d. a day, he works for 
 the farmer 120 days. The rest of his time he gives to his 
 own potato-ground, or to fairs or wakes, or to cowering 
 over the fire; or, if he is active and enterprising, he comes 
 over to assist in getting in the English harvest, leaving 
 his wife and children to beg during his absence. And, if 
 these resources are insufficient, he turns beggar himself. 
 
 Now, the classes known by the names of landlords, 
 farmers, and labourers, in England and in Ireland re- 
 spectively, must of course have some common attributes, 
 or they would not have received a common name. But 
 we have seen that they are separated by most important 
 distinctions ; and among these distinctions are many of 
 their relations to one another, particularly those of the 
 landlord to the labourer. In the agricultural districts 
 of England, that relation nearly approaches that of 
 feudal lord and serf. The labourer is entitled to be 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 207 
 
 maintained in the parish to which, under the settlement 
 laws, he is said to belong. From that parish, there- 
 fore, he seldom ventures to move, and to that parish, 
 if he do remove and require relief, he is generally sent 
 back. He is, therefore, adscriptus glebce. He neces- 
 sarily acquires or inherits some of the qualities of a 
 serf; he is improvident, and he is helpless. But he is 
 neither idle nor indolent. He is not idle, because he 
 has never been accustomed to seek his pleasures in 
 amusement : il se divertit moult tristement in the beer- 
 house. He is not indolent, because he has been 
 always accustomed to associate labour with wages — 
 to look at employment as the source of comfort, and 
 w^ant of employment as subjecting him to the insolence 
 of the parochial authorities, and to the ennui of the 
 workhouse. To which it must be added, that working 
 under the eye of a master, or at piece-work, produces 
 habits of unremitted industry, which cannot easily be 
 acquired by the man who is his own taskmaster. 
 
 On the other hand, the responsibility of his support 
 really falls on the landlord ; for though the poor-rates 
 are paid, in the first instance, by the occupier, they 
 are, of course, eventually deducted from the landlord's 
 rent : the landlord, therefore, has a strong interest in 
 preventing the population of his parish from exceed- 
 ing the number for whom there is profitable employ- 
 ment : and this interest is so obvious, that when there 
 are more proprietors in a parish than one, they com- 
 bine to effect it. The number of cottages is carefully 
 kept down ; persons not entitled to settlement in the 
 parish, or (as they are usually termed) strangers, are 
 kept out of it, or, if sometimes admitted when single, 
 are sent away as soon as they marry. The necessity 
 
208 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 of supporting all the settled labourers is a strong mo- 
 tive for employing them; and, in fact, they perform 
 the whole agricultural work. To a considerable ex- 
 tent they are employed in the execution of the im- 
 provements which are effected in England by tin- 
 landlords ; but their principal employers are the far- 
 mers, whose time is spent in superintending their 
 farms, and disposing of the produce, not in following 
 the plough or using the spade themselves. 
 
 Such were landlords, farmers, and labourers, in Eng- 
 land and Ireland respectively, when the potato-crop 
 failed in both countries. The consequence in England 
 was distress ; but as the English, like every civilised 
 nation, use many different kinds of food, and employ 
 a large portion of their incomes for purr oses other 
 than the purchase of food, the difficulty was met by 
 an increased consumption of other articles, which 
 would otherwise have been given to domestic ani- 
 mals — by a large expenditure in the importation of 
 food from abroad — and by a diminished expenditure 
 in clothes and other commodities not absolutely indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 In Ireland the consequence was Famine — a calamity 
 which cannot befall a civilised nation ; for a civilised 
 nation, as we remarked before, never confines itself to 
 a single sort of food, and is therefore insured from 
 great scarcity by the variety of its sources of supply. 
 When such a calamity does befall an uncivilised com- 
 munity, things take their course ; it produces great 
 misery, great mortality, and in a year or two the 
 wound is closed, and scarcely a scar remains. 
 
 This, however, was a conduct which it was impossi- 
 ble to adopt in 1847. The course which an uncivilised 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 209 
 
 country must have taken — which must have been 
 taken by Ireland if it had not formed part of the 
 United Kingdom — was not open to a country with the 
 power and the responsibility of England. The English 
 resolved that the Irish should not starve. We re- 
 solved that, for one year at least, we would feed them. 
 But w r e came to a third resolution, inconsistent with the 
 first, that we would not feed them for more than a 
 year. How then were they to be fed in 1848, suppos- 
 ing their previous support, the potato, to fail again, 
 either by disease or for want of cultivation ? 
 
 The answer, according to English notions, seemed 
 obvious : 6 Of course they must be supported by poor- 
 rates. Property has its duties as well as its rights. 
 The first duty of the landlords is to employ and sup- 
 port the poor. Bring in a Bill extending the Irish 
 Poor Law ; commanding the appointment of relieving- 
 officers throughout Ireland ; commanding them to re- 
 lieve all the destitute ; commanding the guardians of 
 every union to raise the necessary funds ; and, if they 
 fail to do so, commanding the Poor Law Commissioners 
 to appoint paid officers in their stead, with unlimited 
 powers of taxation.' 
 
 The opposers of such a measure argued that the 
 landlords of Ireland have not, like the English land- 
 lords, succeeded to their estates subject to the burden 
 of supporting or employing their poor ; that this is no 
 more their peculiar duty than it is that of the tailors of 
 Ireland, or of the druggists of Ireland ; that they are 
 not, like the English landlords, assisted in the perform- 
 ance of that duty by a strict law of settlement, by a 
 firm administration of justice, and by the habits of 
 five centuries ; that as to employing the poor, it was out 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
210 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 of their power, since they had scarcely any land in 
 their own occupation, and could not interfere with that 
 held by the farmers; that the rental of England sub- 
 ject to poor-rates is between eighty and ninety million-, 
 and that of Ireland about fifteen millions ; and that 
 the burden which one country bears with difficulty, 
 would crush the other within a very few years after it 
 was imposed. And they asked, whether an Irish lodg- 
 ing-house-keeper is bound to maintain all those who 
 have established themselves in his apartments; or an 
 Irish innkeeper all who have forced their way into his 
 tap-room? And whether occupying a hovel on a hill- 
 side gives to the occupier and his family any better 
 right to require the owner of the soil to support them 
 for ever, than would be acquired against the owner of 
 a house by a family who had hired one of its garret - ? 
 The usual answer of the English vulgar, both in Par- 
 liament and out of it, was, 6 The English landlords 
 support their poor — therefore the Irish landlords must 
 do so too; ' forgetting, or perhaps not choosing to know, 
 that the class which we call landlords in Ireland differs 
 from that which Ave call landlords in England, and 
 differs precisely in the points in which, to enable a 
 Poor Law after the English fashion to act safely, it 
 ought to coincide. 
 
 The Act of 1838 had instituted a system of legal 
 charity under strict limitations. Under its provisions 
 Ireland was divided into 130 unions, and subdivided 
 into 2,050 electoral divisions, — the average population 
 of a union being 62,884 persons, and its average area 
 160,000 statute acres; the average population of an 
 electoral division being 4,000 persons, and its average 
 area 9,200 acres. The unions are provided with 130 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS EN 1847 AND 1848. 211 
 
 workhouses, erected at the cost of about a million ster- 
 ling, lent by the imperial treasury. With one excep- 
 tion, that of Xewtownards, the Irish unions have 
 repudiated this liability, and, while making use of the 
 workhouses, are allowed to refuse or to neglect to repay 
 the principal, or even any interest. Each electoral di- 
 vision in a union contributes its share to the general 
 expense of the establishment ; and is charged separately, 
 in account with the union, for the expenses of the pau- 
 pers who were resident in it when claimants for relief. 
 So far it resembles an English parish. But, instead of 
 rating itself for those purposes, as is done by an English 
 parish, it is rated by the union, and the rates, instead 
 of being collected by its own officers, are collected by 
 the officers of the union. A more important difference 
 respects its area and population. Those of an English 
 parish are, respectively, about 2,500 acres and 1,050 
 persons. Those of an Irish electoral division are, as 
 we have seen, respectively 9,200 acres and 4,000 per- 
 sons. Another important difference is the incidence of 
 the rate. In England the whole is primarily paid by 
 the occupier. It is only circuitously, and when a new 
 bargain is to be made, that it falls on the landlord, and 
 then only as a deduction from his rent. In Ireland the 
 landlord, called there the immediate lessor, pays the 
 whole rate where the tenement is rated at less than 4/. 
 a year, and half of it — and practically, in many cases, 
 more than half — when the rent is higher. 
 
 We have said that it was a system of legal charity 
 carefully restricted. No right to relief was conferred, 
 no obligation to afford it was imposed. The guardians 
 w r ere merely authorised to relieve such destitute per- 
 sons as they, in their discretion, should think fit, and to 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 relieve them only in the workhouse. The check on the 
 abuse of their discretion was a power in the Poor Law 
 Commissioners, in case a board should neglect to per- 
 form its duties, to dissolve it, and order a new election ; 
 and in case of a repetition of the neglect, to dissolve 
 the new board, and appoint paid officers to exercise its 
 powers. 
 
 During the whole of 1846, and the greater part of 
 1847, the question as to the maintenance or the exten- 
 sion of the Irish Poor Law was debated vehemently, 
 but certainly not more vehemently than its importance 
 required : 
 
 Xeque enim levia aut ludicra petebant 
 Prsemia. 
 
 Those who demanded for the Irish people a right to 
 relief, unlimited in extent and unrestricted in form, 
 believed that they were asking for something possible, 
 and useful, and just. Those who resisted that demand 
 believed that they were resisting a measure, incapable 
 indeed of complete execution, but quite capable, even 
 in the imperfect degree in which it might be carried out, 
 of destroying what property remained to the landlords, 
 what capital was possessed by the fanners, and what 
 industry, and providence, and domestic affection be- 
 longed to the people of Ireland — that they were resist- 
 ing, in short, a gigantic engine of confiscation and 
 demoralisation. 
 
 A Select Committee was appointed, by the House of 
 Lords, to enquire into the laws relating to the destitute 
 poor in Ireland. It sat from February till June, ex- 
 amined about fifty different witnesses, almost all of 
 whom had been long and actively engaged in the admi- 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 213 
 
 nistration of the Irish Poor-law, and concluded its 
 labours in a manner now unusual in Parliamentary 
 Committees, by agreeing on a Report. 
 
 As the result of their enquiry, they state that they 
 'do not hesitate in expressing their decided opinion, 
 that the introduction of any system of outdoor relief 
 would be dangerous to the general interests of the com- 
 munity, and more particularly to the interests of the 
 very class for whose well-being such relief was intended.' 
 
 The Government adopted a middle course. It did 
 not venture to withstand directly the English clamour, 
 which required that the property of Ireland should sup- 
 port the poverty of Ireland. It did not venture to 
 stand by the existing law, which, restricting relief to 
 the workhouse, gave to the guardians a discretionary 
 power to grant or deny it. 
 
 But it refused to confer on the ablebodied any right 
 to relief ; or to authorise the guardians to give to them 
 outdoor relief except in food, and under the sanction of 
 the Commissioners, and only when the workhouse, from 
 being full or infected, might be unfit for their recep- 
 tion. The Government further proposed to provide 
 workhouse-room for the ablebodied, by authorising out- 
 door relief to the impotent, and to make the relief of 
 the latter, either in or out of the workhouse, a duty in- 
 cumbent on the guardians. 
 
 The Poor Law Extension Act was passed on June 8, 
 1847, but cannot be said to have taken full effect until 
 October 1, 1847. It has now been tried, therefore, for 
 only about fifteen months — a time certainly not suffi- 
 cient to enable us to ascertain from experience what 
 will be its ultimate effects if it remain unaltered, but 
 enough to show what is the direction in which the vessel 
 
214 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 is steering or drifting, and what is the course to which 
 the helmsman is endeavouring to keep her. 
 
 Of these fifteen months, we have detailed informa- 
 tion respecting the first eleven, the last monthly return 
 which we have seen ending August 31, 1848. It is, 
 perhaps, not unfavourable to a fair estimate of the 
 working of the law, that our information should termi- 
 nate where it does. In September rumours of another 
 potato failure were spread, and that alarm must have 
 interfered with all social arrangements during the re- 
 mainder of the year. But the preceding eleven months 
 were disturbed by no peculiar physical calamity. They 
 were not, certainly, a period of prosperity. But they 
 were not a period of famine. There was distress : but 
 it was the result of insecurity, or idleness, or despon- 
 dency — not of the seasons. It was the act of man — 
 not of God. The Poor Law Commissioners thus cha- 
 racterise the earlier portion of it, in their First Annual 
 Report, dated May 1, 1848 :— 
 
 6 The general harvest (of 1847) was for the most 
 part prosperous; and, contrary to much prediction on 
 the subject, the potato-crop showed itself almost uni- 
 versally free from blight, and the produce has since 
 remained generally sound, as is proved by the state of 
 the seed brought into market in this and the last month. 
 The characteristic of the present season has been, the 
 very small breadth of land planted witli potatoes, causing 
 the great price to which they rose in the market so 
 early as the months of October and November. 
 
 c On the other hand, the large importation of Indian 
 meal into the country has so far reduced the price of 
 that and other descriptions of meal, that the money- 
 cost of human subsistence is not much greater now 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1S48. 215 
 
 than in seasons when the potato was in greatest abun- 
 dance. 
 
 * Under these circumstances, it was to be expected 
 that the pressure of distress would not show itself so 
 uniformly over the face of the country as in the pre- 
 ceding year. In districts where capital flowed freely, 
 and employment was presented to the people, even at 
 moderate wages, they would fare better with the pre- 
 sent kinds of food at the present prices than in former 
 seasons. On the other hand, where, from want of 
 enterprise or capital, employment did not present itself, 
 the peasantry, being without the usual resource of 
 potatoes, would necessarily fall into severe privation,'* 
 
 We are not sure that the last paragraph is not an 
 example of the besetting sin which we have already 
 remarked as misleading those who speculate on Irish 
 matters — the transferring English notions to that most 
 un-English society. 
 
 It seems to assume that the bulk of the Irish, like 
 the bulk of the English, depend on wages — that they 
 are maintained, like the English, by the flow of capital, 
 and by employment being presented to them. The bulk 
 of the Irish peasantry are their own employers ; the 
 capital on which they depend is not something flowing 
 from without, but the result of their own labour, and 
 of their own frugality. And nothing is more striking, 
 in the long and intricate history of Irish distress, than 
 the intimate connection of much of that distress with 
 the carelessness, the inactivity, and the improvidence of 
 the sufferers. We will illustrate this by a few extracts, 
 taken almost at hazard from the vast pile of blue-books 
 which form the Relief literature of 1847 and 1848. 
 
 * Eeport, p. 8. 
 
216 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Extract from the evidence of the Rev. H. Mont- 
 gomery, taken by the Lords' Committee on Colonisa- 
 tion from Ireland, June 18, 1847 : — 
 
 ' I have travelled through a considerable portion of 
 Ireland in the course of the last two years. From 
 Roscommon to Clare on both sides, but especially on 
 the Connaught side of the river, I saw an immense 
 population, apparently almost entirely unemployed, 
 even in the early part of the harvest. In Roscommon, 
 in Galway, and in Clare, there were tens of thousands 
 of people who appeared to be entirely idle, their fields 
 overgrown with weeds, their houses in a state of ruin, 
 their persons foul and wretched, and altogether in a 
 state of destitution which I did not believe existed in 
 any portion of the world. The idleness appeared to be 
 universal ; I saw scarcely any man working. The 
 fields were overgrown with weeds. You might know 
 a potato-garden by seeing a green leaf occasionally 
 appearing amidst luxuriant weeds, whilst men and 
 women were standing about, or lving in the ditches in 
 perfect idleness.'* 
 
 Messrs. Lecky, Thomas, and Carey, the vice-guardians 
 of the Ballinrobe, Castlebar, and AVestport Unions, to 
 the Poor Law Commissioners, August 21, 1847 : — 
 
 6 Every holder of a small tenement cultivates his 
 own land, and requires no assistance beyond his own 
 family ; and when his crops are sown, there is no one 
 to give him a day's work : his neighbour is in the same 
 predicament with himself, and the domains of the gentry 
 are few and far between. The very low price of labour 
 here is the natural result ; for, even in the busy time of 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 112. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IS 1847 AXD 184S. 217 
 
 harvest, the reaper receives, in general, no more than 
 Sd. or lOrf. per day. without food. 
 
 c As to the disposition of the labouring classes to find 
 employment for themselves, an observer must arrive at 
 rather an anomalous conclusion. Experience proves 
 that large numbers of both men and women yearly 
 migrate to other lands to seek employment, and endure 
 much hardship and privation in order to accumulate a 
 small hoard, with which they return to their families : 
 and yet, at home, the same individuals do not exhibit 
 the same energy of character, neglecting many advan- 
 tageous employments on their own gardens, in cleaning, 
 weeding, and cultivating the land — and this at a time 
 when the Government has been generously and lavishly 
 supplying all their wants as to food. On Thursday 
 morning last, on a journey of twenty miles from West- 
 port to Ballinrobe, between the hours of 7 and 11. we 
 did not remark a single individual in the fields, and 
 onlv a few drawing turf from the bosrs. And vester- 
 day, between Ballinrobe and Castlebar, except in one 
 or two meadow-fields, we made the same observation. 
 If they had the disposition to work, even for them- 
 selves, supplied as they are and have been, there is 
 abundant opportunity ; but we fear the disposition of 
 the peasantry for honest labour and employment has 
 been deeply and injuriously aifected. We are often 
 asked if there will be any public works, and to those 
 we are convinced the people would fly with avidity, as 
 there they would receive as much as their usual rate of 
 wages, and be able to loiter away the time in pretended 
 labour.'* 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland 
 (Fourth Series, 184 7), p. 41. 
 
218 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Captain Kennedy, Inspector of the Kilrush Union, 
 to the Commissioners, Feb. 24 and March 16, 1848 : — 
 
 6 All who received relief last year (45,000 out of a 
 population of 82,353) expected its continuance, and 
 still continue to importune and besiege the relieving- 
 officer. The great difficulty and danger here is in 
 relieving a people who are not disposed to help them- 
 selves; and the landlord and tenant class set them the 
 example of doing nothing. They all alike seem ignorant 
 of the use of land, labour, or capital. The farmers 
 who have money job in meal, instead of growing it. I 
 have no doubt that a large portion of the union will 
 remain uncultivated, the land wasted by a succession 
 of corn-crops, and the occupiers without means or 
 manure to put in any other.'* 
 
 ' They (the occupiers) seem determined,' says Mr. 
 Hamilton, the Inspector of the Ballina Union, ' to hold 
 on by their spots of land, in the vain hope that Govern- 
 ment will both feed them and crop their farms. I was 
 told by a most respectable person, that there are many 
 farmers in this barony (Belmullet) who had plenty of 
 seed last year, but did not sow a single field, in the 
 hope that some person would do it for them ; and the 
 same want of energy appears to exist among all classes 
 at this moment.' f 
 
 We have somewhat detailed statistics of the electoral 
 division of Belmullet, from which Mr. Hamilton writes; 
 and of the adjoining division of Binghamstown, both 
 in the union of Ballina ; and of the union of Kilrush, in 
 the county of Clare. They contain, together, 182,376 
 
 * Sixth Series, 1848, pp. 796, 797—804. 
 f Fourth Series, p. 87, November, 1847. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 219 
 
 acres ; the population, according to the census of 1841, 
 is 22,775 ; and the net rental, according to the Poor- 
 law valuation, 10,922/. The number of persons rated 
 as occupiers of land, according to the last return, was 
 392. 
 
 By the agricultural returns of 1847, which were 
 made up in October and November in that year, it 
 appears that, of these 182,376 acres, inhabited by 
 22,775 persons, only 2,775 acres were then in cultiva- 
 tion, and that they were cropped as follows : — 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Barley . . . .451 
 
 Wheat .... 2 
 
 Oats .... 1,057 
 
 Bere .... 5 
 
 Rye .... 20 
 
 Beans .... 3 
 
 Potatoes .... 298 
 
 Turnips .... 500 
 
 Mangel-wurzel . . . 25 
 
 Flax .... 8 
 
 Other green crops . . . 14 
 
 Meadow and clover . . 392 
 
 2,775 
 
 or, deducting the 400 acres of flax, meadow, and clover, 
 2,375 acres producing food consumable by man — about 
 one acre to ten persons. 
 
 Such was the state, in 1847, of a district containing 
 a larger area than the county of Middlesex, and a larger 
 population than the county of Rutland. 
 
 The following returns show the progress of outdoor 
 relief in numbers, beginning from the earliest period 
 for which we have seen a return, the week ending the 
 5th February, 1847 : — 
 
220 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Week ending 
 5th Feb. 
 
 12th Feb. 
 
 19th Feb. 
 
 26th Feb. 
 4th March 
 
 Persons. 
 445,476 
 464,002 
 538,078 
 537,987 
 654,712 
 
 "Week ending 
 11th March 
 18th March 
 25th March 
 1st April 
 8th April 
 
 Persons. 
 
 613,563 
 568,834 
 639,713 
 643,999 
 638,141* 
 
 From this period up to the end of August, we have 
 monthly returns. In April the average number of 
 persons receiving outdoor relief was 722,729 ; in May 
 it was 749,837 ; in June, 805,653 ; in July, 829,352. 
 
 The monthly returns contain an important table, 
 stating the proportion per cent, of persons relieved to 
 the population of 1841. Omitting decimals, it stands 
 thus : — 
 
 1848. 
 
 
 
 1848. 
 
 
 
 May. 
 
 Ulster . 
 
 3 per cent. 
 
 June. 
 
 Leinster 
 
 7 
 
 Munster 
 
 14 
 
 
 Con naught 
 
 . 25 
 
 
 Leinster 
 
 7 
 
 July. 
 
 Ulster . 
 
 . 3 
 
 
 Con naught 
 
 22 
 
 Munster 
 
 . 15 
 
 June. 
 
 Ulster . 
 
 3 
 
 
 Leinster 
 
 . 6 
 
 
 Minister 
 
 14 
 
 
 Connaught 
 
 26 
 
 So that, at the end of July 1848, more than a quarter 
 of the population of Connaught were supported either 
 by poor-rates or by England. In many unions, of 
 course, the number thus supported far exceeded this 
 average. Thus, in Castlebar the proportion in July 
 was 44 per cent., in Ballinrobe 58 per cent., and in 
 Clifden 63 per cent. — the number supported by alms 
 being about double that of those who maintained them- 
 selves. 
 
 Such have been the results of the Poor Law Exten- 
 sion Act, so far as they are expressed merely by figures. 
 We now come to its moral effects. 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Sixth Series, p. 1037. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 18-48. 221 
 
 Under the Act of 1838, confining relief to the work- 
 house, a test — and, as experience showed, a sufficient 
 test — of the applicants' destitution was afforded by the 
 terms on which relief was given. Though the food, 
 the lodging, and the clothing of the workhouse are, 
 and indeed must be, far superior to those of the cabin, 
 or even of the cottage ; yet, such is the dislike among 
 the Irish peasantry of cleanliness, of order, of confine- 
 ment, and of regular work, however moderate, — such 
 their love, to use Captain Wynne's expression, 6 of a 
 combination of dirt, smoke, and warmth,'* — that all 
 but the really destitute avoided it, and none were 
 willing to become destitute in order to be entitled to 
 enter it, And as the inhabitant of the workhouse was 
 powerless, — as he had no means of paying rent or 
 giving labour, — relief in the workhouse was not likely 
 to be made a matter of jobbing or abuse. Bat, of 
 course, as soon as outdoor relief became lawful, there 
 was a general rush, on the part of the peasantry, to 
 turn it into a means of support, and on the part of the 
 smaller landlords and farmers to make it a source of 
 rent or of underpaid labour. 
 
 The 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7 th volumes of correspondence, 
 ' On the Relief of Distress and State of the Unions in 
 Ireland,' show these feelings in action. 
 
 One of the most instructive and earliest exhibitions 
 took place in the Newcastle Union, in the county of 
 Limerick. It contains 171,862 acres, 60,000 persons, 
 and the Poor-law valuation is 109,499/. The total 
 extent of land under crops in 1847, exclusive of flax, 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 164. * 
 
222 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 meadow, and clover, was 24,298 acres; including them, 
 it was 38,722 acres. The horses and mules were 3,569, 
 and the cattle 25,308. Among its thirteen electoral 
 divisions is Ballingarry, containing 8,679 persons, and 
 17,735 acres, of which 5,094 were under crops, exclu- 
 sively of flax, meadow, and clover. 
 
 On the 3rd of October, 1847, a memorial from 'the 
 starving poor of the parish of Ballingarry ' was pre- 
 sented to the guardians, of which we extract the 
 conclusion : — 
 
 ' There is a God above all, and to His righteous 
 judgment we appeal against your cruel and unnatural 
 neglect of our interests and vested rights ! 
 
 6 We call upon you at once to relieve the class you 
 are legally qualified to relieve, and to obtain, without 
 a day's delay, the powers necessary to save from death 
 those among the ablebodied who are in danger of dving 
 of hunger. It may appear to you, gentlemen, that the 
 ablebodied poor cannot be reduced to such dreadful 
 extremity ; but we appeal to our neighbours of the 
 ratepaying classes — we appeal to our clergymen, we 
 appeal to circumstances, to verify our assertions. There 
 is no employment, no harvest-work, no drainage, not 
 a single acre in this parish — there are no potatoes: 
 whence, then, are we to procure means to buy meal at 
 19rf. the stone? Our circumstances, we solemnly tell 
 you, are intolerable and desperate ; but, even if it were 
 otherwise, it would not justify you in the least. There 
 are certain classes entitled at all times to outdoor re- 
 lief, because they are presumed, and truly presumed, 
 by the law to be destitute ; and have you given a 
 single pound of meal to the hundreds in the union in- 
 cluded in that unfortunate and peculiarly squalid and 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 223 
 
 miserable class ? We ask for right — we ask for justice 
 — we ask for the law. We appeal to God, we appeal 
 to public opinion, we appeal to the Government, to 
 secure for us at your hands that which you justly owe 
 us, and which, up to this hour, you have illegally and 
 culpably, and at the expense of a frightful amount of 
 human suffering, withheld from us ! ' * 
 
 The result was, that the Commissioners issued an 
 order, under the Poor Law Extension Act, dated the 
 1st November 1847, authorising outdoor relief to the 
 ablebodied in the Newcastle Union — the first order of 
 the kind which was made. 
 
 The following extract from the minutes of the guar- 
 dians, of the 23rd November 1847, shows the effect of 
 the order, and the degree of trust to which the Ballin- 
 garry manifesto was entitled : — 
 
 c Over 1000 ablebodied persons from Ballingarry, 
 and other electoral divisions, appeared in front of the 
 workhouse, requiring outdoor relief; 49 of whom only 
 came into the workhouse, though there are still 60 
 vacancies. 
 
 6 The army and police were in attendance, informa- 
 tion having been given to Sub-Inspector Coppinger, 
 by the master, of the intended gathering of these 
 persons. 
 
 6 Several ablebodied labourers came before the board, 
 requiring outdoor relief. Captain Maxwell, the Poor- 
 law Inspector, informed them that it was contrary to 
 law to relieve them outside while there was room in 
 the workhouse, and stated that they would be received 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fourth Series, p. 176. 
 
224 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 at the present moment should they wish to come in ; 
 but they declined.'* 
 
 A few more extracts will show the progress of out- 
 door relief: — 
 
 In November 1847, Captain Maxwell informs the 
 Commissioners, that in the village of Ballingarry alone 
 there are 1690 inhabitants, and no less than 1519 are 
 on the relief lists; of these, 126 are tradesmen*! 
 
 On November 22, the Commissioners require Captain 
 Maxwell to call upon each relieving-officer to explain 
 the course which he had pursued, and, if necessary, to 
 take the evidence on oath, on the same subject, of in- 
 telligent individuals who have witnessed the relievingr- 
 officer's proceedings. On the 24th he answers : — 
 
 6 In obedience to your instruction, I examined each 
 relieving-officer, and I find that none of them have acted 
 up to their instructions. They have but in very few 
 instances visited the dwellings of the applicants for out- 
 door relief. They have not made themselves personal! v 
 acquainted with the circumstances of each case in their 
 district. At first they contented themselves with ad- 
 mitting on their lists every person recommended to 
 them by the ratepayers, but latterly considerable re- 
 ductions have been made. They plead " that their Hues 
 are not safe, if they strike off or refuse applicants for 
 outdoor relief" 9 $ 
 
 On December 24 he says that a witness ' accused 
 the relieving-officer of partiality, but he refused to give 
 me any information on that head, or clue to get at the 
 truth ; and said he dare not do so — that his life would 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fourth Series, p. 187. 
 
 f Fifth Series, p. 219. J Ibid. p. 209. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND .848. 225 
 
 not be safe if he did. I regret to state that, in my 
 opinion, this feeling is universal. The feeding of 
 40,000 persons, out of a population of 60,000, during 
 the last year, has been the cause of incredible mischief 
 in this district.'* 
 
 There is something remarkable in the early period at 
 which outdoor relief was endeavoured to be enforced 
 by intimidation : — 
 
 tf There are few gentlemen,' says Captain Gilbert, the 
 Inspector of the Sligo Union (writing December 8, 
 1847), ' throughout this hitherto peaceable union who 
 have not received threatening notices ; and those who 
 have distinguished themselves most by benevolence and 
 attention to the wants of the poor during the last dis- 
 tress have been particularly marked out.' *f* 
 
 6 There is a feeling,' says Mr. D'Arcy, Inspector of 
 the Ballyshannon Union (writing in November, 1847) r 
 6 of general insecurity abroad : some of the ex-officio 
 guardians left the board-room early, not wishing to be 
 out after dark. Captain Johnston mentioned that a 
 report that he was shot had been very general in Sligo; 
 and that it was ominous, as there were frequent in- 
 stances, where murders have been committed, of such 
 rumours preceding them. Mr. Dickson stated to me, 
 that as he drove into the town, one man remarked to 
 another, alluding to him, " That is the man who is not 
 afraid to drive alone," which showed that the minds of 
 the people were occupied with such subjects.' % 
 
 The Kilrush Union is a sample — and, we are inclined 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 210. 
 
 t Fourth Series, p. 95. % Ibid. p. 103. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
223 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 to think, a fair sample — of the general state of the 
 county of Clare. The Poor-law valuation is 59,459/. : 
 the population in 1841 was 82,353 ; the area is 168,021 
 acres, of which, in October 1847, 42,627 were under 
 crops. Flax, meadow, and clover took up 7,870 of 
 these, leaving 34,757 for food capable of human use — a 
 proportion more favourable than the average of Con- 
 naught. The horses and mules in 1847 were 5,545, 
 the cattle 23,327. 
 
 We shall give its history for a few weeks at some 
 length : — 
 
 Captain Kennedy to the Commissioners, November 25, 
 1847. — ' I attended the weekly meeting of the Kilrush 
 Board of Guardians yesterday. 
 
 ' There was a serious press of applicants (many of 
 them removed from want), owing to some popular mis- 
 apprehension about outdoor relief. An offer of the 
 workhouse dispersed them. There were several noto- 
 riously bad and turbulent characters among the crowd, 
 whom I observed counselling and inciting the others to 
 clamour for outdoor relief and public works. 
 
 ' The north and west of the union, including the 
 divisions of Kilmurry, Kilmacduane, Killard, Kilkee, 
 and a part of Moyarta, are in a most lamentable state. 
 The parts on the coast are most densely populated, 
 with a turf-digging, seaweed- gathering, fish-catching, 
 amphibious population — as bad fishermen as they are 
 agriculturists. They have no regular mode of gaining 
 a livelihood. They are inert, improvident, and utterly 
 without foresight. Lavish and constant expenditure 
 may keep them from starvation, but it will require 
 years of good management and well-devised measures 
 to make them independent or self-supporting. A few 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 227 
 
 acres of reclaimed bog planted with potatoes has here- 
 tofore supplied their wants, and rendered them content 
 on the lowest possible scale of existence. 
 
 1 The district seems swept of food. The small farmers 
 are realising their produce, which they are afraid to 
 keep. In the district I have remarked upon, I believe 
 one-third of the population will be utterly without food 
 at Christmas, two-thirds starving before February, and 
 the whole devoid of food or money before May. 
 
 6 1 cannot doubt that all holding over ten acres 
 (though a small class), are much better off than they 
 appear or are willing to admit. I have no fears for 
 them. In many cases they have withheld both rent 
 and produce from the landlord, living in a state of un- 
 wholesome expectancy of some great social or political 
 change. 
 
 f Intimidation paralyses all, from high to low.'* 
 
 ( Many of the habitations are no better than a fox- 
 earth, and the inmates, in their appearance, clothing, 
 and mode of living, hardly human. This class are 
 comparatively content and uncomplaining. 
 
 6 Their mode of scratching the land does not deserve 
 the name of cultivation. Their attempts are inferior 
 to what I have seen among North- American Indians. 
 
 s This division [Moyarta] contains upwards of 
 10,000 inhabitants upon 13,000 acres, and the net 
 annual value is under 5,000/. Without potatoes, it is 
 a permanent pauper colony ; the swarms of children 
 incredible.' f 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and "Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 383. 
 
 | Ibid. p. 385. — According to the agricultural returns, 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 JOUKNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 Captain Kennedy to the Commissioners, December % i. 
 1847. — ' 1 have the honour to submit a report of the 
 following occurrences, for the information of the Com- 
 missioners. On my arrival at the workhouse, at eleven 
 o'clock a.m., yesterday, I found about 1 ,000 persons as- 
 sembled in the neighbourhood, and evidently bent upon 
 some general move. I was not long kept in suspense. 
 A few minutes only elapsed, when a general cry for 
 outdoor relief was set up, accompanied by unmistakable 
 symptoms of turbulence and riot — a plentiful crop of 
 blackthorn sticks appearing above the heads of all. 
 
 ( At this time a continuous stream of people was 
 observed approaching from the Kilkee district. Colonel 
 Vandeleur, the chairman of the guardians, and the sub- 
 inspector of police, had gone to Kilkee on magisterial 
 business; but meeting such crowds heading to Kilrush, 
 and learning their object, he prudently returned with 
 the sub-inspector. Seeing the complexion of matters 
 at the workhouse, where the mob had increased to about 
 3,000, he ordered up the police, and subsequently the 
 detachment of troops quartered here. 
 
 6 The leaders of the mob, seeing that measures were 
 taken to repress any attempt at violence, left the 
 miserable and really destitute to gain admission, after 
 being nearly trampled to death. The Bufferings of the 
 aged and infirm, women and infants, trampled upon 
 and trodden down, were really heartrending. About 
 300 were subsequently admitted. 
 
 < The fact that only about 300 out of 3,000 applied 
 
 Moyarta contains 8,597 persons and 15,642 acres, of which 
 4,086 are under crops. It appears, therefore, to have been 
 in a better state than the average of Connaught. 
 
BELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 229 
 
 to come into the house, denotes the object of the 
 demonstration.' * 
 
 ( December 16, 1847. — There is an utter absence of 
 employment of any kind, and the idea seems to be 
 abandoned by the poor themselves. A few days since, 
 a large number of spades were required for the paupers 
 trenching the workhouse ground, and, on enquiry, I 
 ascertained that any number, up to some hundreds, 
 could be obtained secondhand (but good as new), from 
 pawnbrokers and others in the town, for Id. each, sold 
 or pawned by their indolent or despairing owners. 
 
 6 A great breadth of the land is in stubble, and this 
 they have no capital or manure to crop, and, worse 
 still, no energy.'f 
 
 On December 23, Captain Kennedy again writes to 
 the Commissioners : — 
 
 6 On the 20th instant, when I visited the workhouse, 
 I found about 200 men congregated in the day-room 
 with a blazing fire. I enquired why they were not at 
 work, and was answered by a universal clamour, that 
 they were unable. I sent for the medical officer, and 
 had them individually inspected : about thirteen only of 
 the whole number were passed by him as infirm. The 
 remainder I ordered to be put to work in the yard, 
 breaking stones, under gangsmen, remaining till I saw 
 it in operation — at the same time explaining that their 
 rations would be stopped if a fair amount of work were 
 not done. The result was, that these men and their 
 families, to the number of 100, demanded their discharge 
 that evening, and 121 more on the following day. 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 386. 
 f Ibid. p. 387. 
 
230 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 ' I fully ascertained that these persons came into the 
 house without any necessity or intention of staving, 
 but in the expectation of being discharged on u outdoor 
 relief." AVhen the house became crowded, many of 
 them candidly avowed it. 
 
 6 1 have no doubt that an organised plan to swamp 
 the house in this manner has been suggested to the 
 people, and was for the first time attempted on the 5th 
 instant (vide my report of that date), and was only 
 defeated by the energetic measures adopted. 
 
 6 Many come into the house, who, on being searched, 
 possess sums of money varying from Is. to Hs. and 10s.; 
 and one inmate of the workhouse, not many days ago, 
 laid a complaint of having been robbed of 25s. in the 
 house.' * 
 
 And again, on December 30 : — 
 
 * About twenty ablebodied paupers, with their fami- 
 lies, have claimed their discharge this day, which will 
 reduce the number about eighty. 
 
 i These persons came in for the purpose of qualifying 
 for outdoor relief, and, finding no immediate probability 
 of succeeding in their object, left the house, voluntarily, 
 without it. A large number have quitted during the 
 week, from the same causes and on the same conditions. 
 The being put to work, and obliged to observe personal 
 cleanliness, are conditions they will not submit to, un- 
 less they are absolutely destitute. 
 
 1 Every day's experience convinces me of the danger 
 of giving outdoor relief to any of this class, and the 
 necessity of resisting to the utmost limit which prudence 
 or humanity will justify. 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 391. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 231 
 
 ' I had difficulty in inducing the guardians to adopt 
 this system : trouble to the officers, irregularity, danger 
 of infection, &c, were urged against it. 
 
 6 They receive relief in food only, and are quite con- 
 tent with their allowance of meal. Their habitually 
 wretched scale of existence renders them content with 
 anything, and fuel costs them nothing.' * 
 
 Verbatim copy of a notice posted on Colonel Vande- 
 leur's gate on the evening of December 31, 1847 : — 
 
 6 Take Notice Crofton Vandeleure if you dont change 
 your mind and give Relive to the Young as well as the 
 Old, and not to put a stop to the Publicke Worke as you 
 are, and also Captin Kenidy if ye dont be said by this 
 Notice believe me I will do with you as I did with 
 Pirce Carrige, so have your Wills made in time.' 
 
 Captain Kennedy writes again to the Commissioners, 
 January 4, 1848 : — 
 
 * Four persons were this day committed to Ennis 
 Gaol, to take their trial for posting a threatening notice, 
 and conspiring to shoot C. M. Vandeleur, Esq., and 
 myself. The evidence against them is a man named 
 Curtin. 
 
 ' They communicated to him their intention of shoot- 
 ing Mr. Vandeleur, if public work were not imme- 
 diately given, as they believed he had stopped it ; and 
 also to shoot me if I did not give relief to young (z. e. 
 ablebodied) as well as old. 
 
 * I went into the Bridewell this morning, and imme- 
 diately recognised all four as persons who had applied 
 for outdoor relief ; two of whom made themselves re- 
 markable by being unusually importunate, and one, if 
 
 * Fifth Series, p. 393. 
 
232 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 not two, had left the workhouse voluntarily. They 
 were all of the ablebodied class. 
 
 6 The fact of some neighbouring union- giving out- 
 door relief to the ablebodied makes our position here 
 more difficult. One sturdy vagabond applied to me 
 the other day. I explained the law, and offered him 
 the workhouse; he replied, " They all get the Govern- 
 ment relief at Ennis, and if we had Father Sheehan 
 (Roman Catholic curate, Ennis), we would all soon 
 have it here." 
 
 'I may remark that no proper object has been re- 
 fused relief, either in or out of the workhouse.'* 
 
 We now come to the Scariff Union, partly in Clare 
 and partly in Galway. The population is 53,563, the 
 valuation 44,609/., the acreage 168,048. Only 23,461 
 acres were, in October 1847, under crops, of which 
 6,699 were in flax, meadow, and clover, leaving 16,762 
 for food consumable by man. The horses and mules, 
 in 1847, were 3,146; the cattle, 15,833. 
 
 Captain Hart to the Commissioners^ December 11, 
 1847. — 6 The state of things here is difficult to be dealt 
 with, owing to a large admixture of turbulent, able- 
 bodied, single men, and others not in distressed cir- 
 cumstances, who evidently entertain the notion that it 
 needs but a due exhibition of physical force to induce 
 an indiscriminate issue of outdoor relief, seeing that the 
 workhouse, which was constructed for 600, now con- 
 tains nearly 800 inmates. 
 
 * On Tuesday last, I had to seize a turbulent fellow 
 (a single man), who had forced his way with others 
 into the house ; and on my having his name registered, 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 395. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 233 
 
 as a warning to others, and ordering that no relief 
 should ever be given to him except inside the house, 
 he insolently replied, that he would 66 rob and steal 
 sooner titan come into the workhouse" and that " all the 
 people had a right to get the outdoor relief" 
 
 ' I should not have deemed such matters as these 
 worthy of mention, were it not that they abundantly 
 exemplify what must inevitably be the demoralising 
 effects of outdoor relief to ablebodied men, should such 
 an expedient, unhappily, ever have to be resorted to — 
 a crisis which I can view in no other light than as an 
 unmixed and dire calamity, which will speedily ex- 
 tinguish, in the breasts of its recipients, every principle 
 of self-reliance, and swallow up the property of the 
 country ; for, judging from past experience, it is utterly 
 futile to expect that any adequate check can be inter- 
 posed, especially at this early stage of the administration 
 of the new laws for the relief of the poor, to prevent an 
 almost indiscriminate issue of relief ; as, when once it 
 is believed that the destitution has extended beyond the 
 power of being met by local taxation, every barrier to 
 abuse will, I fear, be at once levelled, and the same 
 general rush made for the " Government relief " as 
 took place under the system of relief by public works, 
 and subsequently by the issue of rations, when the 
 detection of the most shameless imposition was usually 
 met by the reply, that " one man had as good a right 
 as another to get a share of the Government relief."'* 
 
 Mohill Union. — Major Halliday to the Commissioners, 
 January 21, 1848 :— 
 
 6 The number of names now on the outdoor relief list 
 
 * Fifth Series, p. 447. 
 
234 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 exceeds 3,000, and must be expected largely to increase 
 for several weeks ; but the relieving-officers have been 
 able hitherto to avoid taking on it any ablebodied males, 
 by offering to applicants of this class admission to the 
 workhouse, which is almost invariably declined. 
 
 6 They all concur in stating, that if any of these shall 
 be relieved out-of-doors, they will universally throw 
 themselves on the list, and abandon such employment as 
 they at present can at times obtain from the farmers or 
 otherwise?* 
 
 The opinion reported by Major Ilalliday, in the last 
 sentence, is remarkably confirmed by a circumstance 
 which has come to our knowledge while these pages 
 are passing through the press. A great proprietor 
 in Kerry has directed a considerable sum to be 
 employed there in drainage, lie finds, however, the 
 pauperism undiminished, and the explanation is, that 
 those who have once received relief are spoilt for work. 
 They are absolutely valueless as day-labourers, and if 
 employed on task-work, throw up their little contracts, 
 candidly confessing that they prefer their chance of 
 union support. A friend of ours near Limerick, a few 
 days ago, ordered four pairs of shoes. I lis shoemaker 
 refused the order, as it might interfere with hifl relie£ 
 
 Of course we could extend almost indefinitely these 
 pictures of sloth, fraud, violence, and misery : for, Long 
 as these extracts are, they form a very minute portion 
 of the vast Relief library before us. Enough, how- 
 ever — perhaps more than enough — has been produced 
 to show the wisdom of Mr. Twistleton's prophecy, 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Fifth Series, p. 195. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 235 
 
 * that it would be a fatal step to introduce any system 
 of outdoor relief for the unemployed population of 
 Ireland.'* Those who believe that a population in the 
 state which now appears to be that of the southern and 
 western Irish can safely be told that the fundamental 
 law of human society has been repealed in their favour, 
 and that, though they do not work, they yet shall eat ; 
 who believe that a people, such as the evidence now 
 shows those of Munster and Connaught to be, will 
 fight the anxious battle which man has to wage for 
 subsistence, though they are told that it is the duty of 
 the ratepayers, and, in default of them, of that being 
 of inexhaustible resources, the British Government, to 
 assist them when they make inadequate efforts, and 
 supply their place when they make none ; — those who 
 can believe all this, are beyond the reach of any argu- 
 ments drawn from theory, or even from experience. 
 
 We may be asked, however (for it is a question 
 which we have often heard put), what else would you 
 have done? — what do you propose to substitute? We 
 are not sure that this is a question which an objector 
 to outdoor relief for such a population is bound to 
 answer. If we saw a man with a wound in his leg, 
 busily employed in tearing it wider and deeper, we 
 might be allowed to advise him to desist, without being 
 required to direct his further proceedings. If he asked 
 us what else he should do, we might be permitted to 
 answer, ' All that we know is, that what you are doing 
 is wrong — that every time you tear that wound you 
 inflame it. What you ought to do, or whether you 
 
 * House of Lords : Evidence on Destitute Poor in Ireland 
 (1846), p. 780. 
 
236 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 ought to do anything, we will not venture to say ; but, 
 for Heaven's sake, stop your hands in what you are 
 about ! ' 
 
 Some answers, however, we will endeavour to give 
 to this question ; some measures we will venture to 
 suggest. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that 
 any remedies for the social diseases of Ireland must, 
 like those diseases themselves, be divided into two 
 classes, the moral and the physical. The most striking 
 and the most important moral disease of Ireland is in- 
 security. The remedies against insecurity are supplied 
 partly by law and partly by education. Of these, 
 perhaps, education is the more important. It is not, 
 indeed, independent of law. However excellent the 
 instruction, however wide its diffusion, still in every 
 large society there are some persons whom it does not 
 affect. Their intellects are not strong enough to under- 
 stand it, or the violence of their passions prevents their 
 heeding it, or they have not sufficient self-control to 
 obey it. Such persons must be restrained by fear, and, 
 where fear is insufficient, by force ; and force and fear 
 are the weapons only of law. 
 
 But law, though it represses violence and fraud, does 
 not even attempt to diminish the rapacity and ferocity 
 which occasion them. This it haves to education; 
 and where education has not. at least to some extent, 
 performed its duty — where it has not trained up a con- 
 siderable portion of the community to be the enemies 
 of crime — where it has not created a public opinion to 
 aid the law, both legislator and administrator become 
 feeble. 
 
 No employment of fear or of force can permanently 
 
BELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IK 1847 AND 1848. 237 
 
 prevent the prevalence of outrage and robbery in an 
 uneducated community. Nowhere are these instru- 
 ments more powerful, nowhere is their use more un- 
 scrupulous, than in slave-countries, and nowhere is 
 there less security of person or of property. In the 
 first place, punishment is a comparatively remote evil, 
 and depends on detection ; but neither distant nor con- 
 tingent motives much affect an uneducated man. To 
 obey, or even to appreciate them, requires much 
 cultivation. And, in the second place, no law can be 
 vigorously executed unless the mass of the people 
 assist in its execution ; and they never will assist in 
 repressing crime unless they are sufficiently educated 
 to perceive its mischief. 
 
 The principal educators of every Christian country 
 must be its clergy. The amount of their influence, 
 and the direction in which it is exercised, of course 
 depend much on the purity of their doctrine, and their 
 own intellectual and moral cultivation. They depend, 
 perhaps, still more on the relation in which the priest 
 stands to his flock. If he belong to the mass of the 
 people by birth, by connections, and by early educa- 
 tion, — if his only experience in life has been the cabin, 
 the village-school, the ecclesiastical seminary, and the 
 parochial cure, — if he be dependent on his flock for 
 society, for sympathy, and for income, how can we 
 expect him to teach any opinions except those which 
 that flock approves ? 
 
 This, as we have often said before, is an important 
 part of the long explanation of the insecurity of Ireland. 
 The legal instruments for the suppression of outrage 
 are actually more powerful in Ireland than in England. 
 The law is more stringent; there is a much larger 
 
238 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 army, and a much stronger police. But in England 
 everything tends to attach the great body of the in- 
 structors of the people to the side of order and law. 
 By birth, by manners, and by education, they belong 
 to the class which is supposed to have most to lose by 
 disorder, and which certainly is most conscious of the 
 advantages of tranquillity. With that class alone can 
 they associate familiarly, and that class contributes the 
 small portion of their incomes which is not derived 
 from a national fund. The whole influence, therefore, 
 of the Church of England conservative. 
 
 The same train of reasoning would lead us to expect 
 the whole influence of the Irish Roman Catholic priests 
 to be destructive. This, however, it certainly is not. 
 The Irish Roman Catholic clergy, whatever be their 
 other deficiencies, are sincere in their faith. They 
 cannot believe in the Gospel, and preach assassination 
 or rebellion. The events of the last six months show 
 that their influence, so for as it was exerted at all, was 
 exerted against the insurrection. But, though they 
 have very seldom been the active enemies of authority, 
 they have very seldom been more than its lukewarm 
 friends. In many cases, perhaps in most, they have 
 not ventured to be more than neutral. Those who 
 have been prominent in the repression of sedition have 
 encountered dangers, and indeed sufferings, to confront 
 which required the self-devotion of a martyr. Vs e 
 know one case, in which a priest was murdered for 
 having denounced outrage and rebellion. Others have 
 had their chapel-doors nailed up; and almost all the 
 rest have found their incomes cease. They have had 
 to choose between rebellion and starvation. 
 
 On other social questions, where they were less tied 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1S43. 239 
 
 down by the express words of Scripture, their depen- 
 dence on their flocks has forced them to take the 
 dangerous side. They have been the great supporters 
 of Repeal, — the most mischievous delusion that ever 
 infected the Irish nation. They have always en- 
 couraged early marriages, and their consequence, the 
 subdivision of the land into occupancies incapable of 
 affording rent or even decent subsistence. They are 
 the natural enemies of good Poor-law administration. 
 If relief be given in the workhouse the priest gets 
 nothing, and accordingly he always exerts himself in 
 favour of outdoor relief. We know one case, and 
 believe that there are hundreds, in which a priest 
 cursed from the altar all who should enter the work- 
 house. ( Rather,' he said, ' die in your cabins, or by 
 the roadside. Your deaths will be upon the heads of 
 those who refused you outdoor relief. But in propor- 
 tion as outdoor relief is profuse, or is given to those 
 who have other means of support, something will over- 
 flow in dues. Again, the priest — as he is scarcely 
 ever an owner, and often is not an occupier, of land — 
 is seldom, and then very lightly, rated to the poor. 
 While outdoor relief is sw r allow r ing up the landlords' 
 rents and the tenants' profits, the priest can indulge 
 his sympathy for his neighbour, or for his relation, 
 without making any real sacrifice himself. 
 
 It is true that these evils are not completely reme- 
 diable. The bulk of a Roman Catholic clergy cannot 
 be gentlemen ; for men who belong, by birth or by 
 habits, to the higher classes will rarely submit to the 
 perpetual celibacy and to the laborious duties of a 
 Roman Catholic parochial clergyman. The education 
 which is given by society, which is gained from equals 
 
240 
 
 'journals, conversations, etc. 
 
 and rivals in the public school, the university, and the 
 world, is denied to them. But we can give to them 
 what, though far inferior, is next best — a good literary 
 education : though we cannot make them independent 
 of their flocks for sympathy and for society, we can 
 relieve them from pecuniary dependence. And the 
 more exposed they are to bad influences, which are 
 inevitable, the more important it is that we should 
 extricate them from those which arc removable. 
 
 The least expensive — and, supposing it once carried, 
 the easiest in application — of the remedies required by 
 Ireland, is the endowment of the Catholic clergy ; and 
 we earnestly recommend that the salaries of the priests 
 of every electoral division be rated, just as the tithe- 
 rent of the Protestant clergyman is, to the relief of the 
 poor of that district, and the poundage paid over to the 
 guardians. 
 
 To talk of the expense as a real objection is puerile. 
 It would not cost half what we spend on the African 
 squadron, with no ascertainable results except the loss 
 of officers and men, the interruption of the commerce 
 of the world, the suspicion or hatred excited against us 
 among all foreign nations, and the aggravation of the 
 horrors of the slave-trade. 
 
 It would not cost half the expense of the armed force 
 that it would enable us to reduce in Ireland. It would 
 not cost one-tenth of the additional revenue which 
 Ireland in a merely tolerable state of security, would 
 pour into our Exchequer; and, above all, it would not. 
 like a Kaffir war or a Canadian fortification, be a new 
 expenditure. 
 
 It would only be shifting an existing load from the 
 shoulders of the poorest to those of the richest popula- 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 241 
 
 tion in the world. It would be only relieving the Irish 
 poor from a tax which must be paid either by them or 
 by us, and which is now paid by them only because we 
 have taken from them, and appropriated — and continue 
 to appropriate — to purposes of our own, the fund which 
 originally supplied it. 
 
 Some additional provisions for security — such as the 
 increase of the number of stipendiary magistrates, and 
 the abolition of that monstrous relic of barbarism, the 
 requiring unanimity from juries — are advisable, but 
 less urgent. 
 
 But moral remedies must here again be supported 
 by physical ones. No country can be tranquil or 
 industrious, in which the proportion of people to the 
 land and capital which employ and support it is so 
 excessive as to leave them unemployed and destitute, 
 or even unemployed without 'being destitute, during a 
 considerable portion of every year. This is well 
 illustrated in the excellent evidence given by Mr. 
 Aubrey de Vere, before the Committee of the House 
 of Lords on Colonisation, on July 19, 1847 (p. 513, 
 and post) : — 
 
 6 It must be remembered,' says Mr. de Vere, ( that 
 the immediate effect of over-population, when excessive, 
 is to interfere with the ordinary relations of society, 
 and still more with the processes of agriculture, in 
 such a manner as to make it almost impossible that 
 money can be laid out productively. The farmer 
 builds his sheds for his cattle ; in the spring he has one 
 or two calves ; four or five armed men come up to him, 
 and make him swear that he will kill his calves because 
 his poorer neighbours require the milk. The effect of 
 such outrages on improved cultivation is obvious. 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 '4729. Have not there been many instances during 
 the present year in which a species of tariff has been 
 established by the disturbers of the peace, under which 
 a large farmer is allowed to rear not exceeding two 
 calves, another is allowed to rear one, and a third is 
 prohibited from rearing any ? — Yes ; that is perhaps a 
 more dangerous symptom than those occasional out- 
 breaks of lawlessness which occur at other times. It 
 illustrates the tendency of a very great amount of 
 over-population to abolish the very idea of property ; 
 making the people believe that the produce of the land 
 belongs virtually to all on the land, and that they have 
 a right to legislate as they think best as to the mode 
 of its distribution. 
 
 '4731. Do the same interferences take place with 
 respect to the sale and price of potatoes ? — Yes. A 
 farmer receives notice that his potatoes are required to 
 be sold at such a price, or that he must be prepared to 
 undergo whatever penalty the people choose to inflict 
 upon him. This lias frequently occurred. 
 
 ( Then, supposing the labourer to be perfectly desi- 
 rous to give honest labour in return for the wages he 
 receives, he is almost as unable to do this, as the farmer 
 is unable to cultivate the crops which he prefers. He 
 is one of a certain number of people, all of whom 
 require employment. If tl^e employment is only suffi- 
 cient for fifty men, and a hundred require employment, 
 the remaining fifty will of course induce or compel the 
 fifty who have received the employment to give such 
 inefficient work as to render the employment of the 
 hundred men necessary. If the hundred men should be 
 all employed, but if the work be calculated to last only 
 for six months, whereas the hundred labourers require 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 243 
 
 subsistence for the whole year, they will naturally 
 make the work last for the year ; and any particular 
 individual amongst them who wishes to make himself 
 what is called better than his neighbour, is a man very 
 injurious, as they think, to the community, and gets a 
 hint to that effect. All the relations of society are 
 thus embittered, and the impatience of the disease 
 resists the measures necessary for the cure. Every 
 part is sore, and shrinks from the touch ; every part is 
 armed, and stings the hand that would heal it. 
 
 ' The failure of the recent attempt to support the 
 people of Ireland by means of work on the public 
 roads, is but an illustration on a large scale of a diffi- 
 culty which besets all attempts t© give employment 
 where the pressure of population is such as to paralyse 
 that employment which a less excessive pressure would 
 have stimulated. The labour required was met by a 
 combination. That is a fact that speaks for itself; 
 everybody knows it ; no person ought to have been 
 surprised at seeing it occur. Those who were well 
 acquainted with Ireland knew that the circumstance 
 was certain to occur, because the same principle of 
 combination has long since prevailed amongst our 
 labourers, although in an occult shape, and has, in an 
 indirect manner, produced the same results ; that is to 
 say, by a kind of understood convention amongst the 
 labourers, work has been done badly, and done slowly. 
 While in England you have paid Is. 6d. for labour 
 and have got Is. 6d. worth of work, in Ireland we have 
 paid 8d. for labour and got 6d. worth of work ; com- 
 bination supplanting competition, and making labour 
 expensive where the labourers were numerous. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 i 4743. Does this pressure of a population in excess 
 act dangerously upon the peace of the country? — It 
 renders it impossible to maintain the peace in many of 
 those districts in which the pressure is very much felt, 
 because it reduces us to a state in which you may say 
 that everyone is in everyone else's way. In England, 
 everyone is socially dependent upon his neighbour ; 
 the intertexture of society is so finely wrought, that 
 every man is the better for his neighbour, and so far 
 has a sort of vested interest in his life ; but in Ireland 
 the people are competitors and rivals, and angry 
 feelings are thus necessarily engendered. For this 
 reason it has been found hitherto very difficult to 
 preserve the peace in Ireland, even in times of com- 
 parative abundance. We have now met with a 
 calamity which has very much the same effect as if 
 some two millions of people had been added in one 
 year to our population, a proportionate amount of food 
 having been withdrawn. Under these circumstances, 
 the insecurity of property and the difficulty of main- 
 taining the peace must proportionately increase. 
 
 '4759. AVith respect to the general interests of your 
 electoral division, how do you find that the state of the 
 neighbouring less-improved electoral divisions acts 
 upon you ? — Very injuriously. That is one of our 
 great difficulties. In a neighbouring electoral division, 
 a large proportion of the holdings consist of about 
 three acres each. If each of those farms supports the 
 person who possesses it, even supposing that no rent is 
 paid, it is probably the very most that we can expect. 
 A rate, certainly, cannot be levied upon such farms. 
 
 ' There are a very considerable number of acres in 
 that electoral division which have remained altogether 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IX 1847 AND 1848. 245 
 
 unsown and waste. Adjoining us is the electoral divi- 
 sion of Kildimo ; in it no considerable proprietor resides, 
 and there is no chance of employment on a large scale. 
 Supposing that in the two adjoining electoral divisions 
 the people are destitute, and that a very inconsiderable 
 rate is the utmost that can be raised for their support, 
 we shall be in the difficult position of supporting our 
 own people in the midst of a starving multitude on each 
 side of us ; and the question is, whether that multitude 
 will be content to starve and see their neighbours pro- 
 vided for. As soon as we set 200 men at work, 200 
 more men will probably, if not otherwise provided for, 
 march down, with their spades on their shoulders, and 
 demand a share in that work.' 
 
 The degree in which Ireland is over-populous may, 
 perhaps, be best understood by comparing her to 
 England. 
 
 Unfortunately, the agricultural statistics of England 
 are very defective. We are not acquainted with any 
 estimate later than that furnished bv Mr. Coulino* to 
 the Emigration Committee in 1827, and published 
 (p. 361) in the Appendix to the Third Report, ordered 
 to be printed on June 29, 1827. It has been adopted, 
 however, by Mr. Porter, and, with a slight variation, 
 by Mr. M'Culloch, and so far as it differs from the 
 truth, must obviously err in leading us to underestimate 
 the present amount of agricultural improvement. 
 
 According to that estimate, the 32,342,400 acres 
 of England comprised 25,632,000 in cultivation, of 
 which 10,252,600 acres were arable and garden, and 
 15,379,400 meadows and pastures. The number of 
 agricultural families appears, by the census of 1831, to 
 have been then 761,348. 
 
246 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 The surface of Ireland, according to the census of* 
 1841 (p. 453), contains 20,808,271 statute acres, of 
 which only 13,464,300 were then cultivated. Of the-*', 
 in 1847, only 5,238,575 were under crops, thus sub- 
 divided: — cerealia, 3,313,579; green crops. 727.738 ; 
 flax, 58,312; and hay, 1,138,946.* The agricultural 
 families were returned by that census as 974,188, So 
 that more than one-fourth more families were employed 
 in cultivating about half the extent of cultivated land. 
 
 The disproportion is still more striking when we look 
 at the details. The arable and garden ground in Eng- 
 land consisted, as we have seen, of 10,252,000 acres. 
 In Ireland, in 1847, only 5,238,575 acres were under 
 crops, of which 1,138,946 produced hay ; so that only 
 4,099,629 acres remain for arable and green crops, or 
 less four-and-a-half acres to an agricultural family. In 
 England, the proportion of arable and garden ground 
 is rather more than thirteen-and-a-half acres to an agri- 
 cultural family — just three times as much. Of course, 
 when we come to the distressed provinces, the dispro- 
 portion increases. In Leinster and Ulster the agri- 
 cultural families were 483,845 ; in Minister and Con- 
 naught they were 492,343. The cultivated land in 
 Leinster and Ulster was 7,368,727 acres: in Minister 
 and Connaught, 6,095,573 acres. The land under 
 crop in Leinster and Ulster was 3,284,259 acres, or, 
 deducting 714,488 of meadow and clover, 2,469.771 
 acres. That in Munsterand Connaught was 1,950,316 
 acres, or, deducting meadow and clover, 1,526,658 
 acres — not three acres and a rood to an agricultural 
 family, or more than four times as many agricultural 
 
 * Agricultural Keturn, pp. 6, 8. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS EN 1847 AND 1848. 247 
 
 families to a hundred acres under crop as in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Now, in 1831, the agricultural population of Eng- 
 land, in proportion to the land under cultivation, and 
 to the capital employed on it, was in excess. It was 
 the time when agricultural labourers were driven from 
 farm to farm as roundsmen, were sold by auction at 
 2d. per head per day, were harnessed on the roads to 
 gravel-carts, were sent ten miles to carry a barley- 
 straw and bring back a wheat-straw, were imprisoned 
 in the gravel-pit, or kept standing morning after morn- 
 ing in the parish pound. It was the time when farmers 
 could not safely use machinery, when labour-rates were 
 sanctioned by law, when TTilmot Horton lectured on 
 redundant population, and emigration was as vehemently 
 demanded for England as it now is for Ireland. AYhat 
 then is to be clone with an agricultural population 
 more than four times as excessive, in proportion to the 
 demand for its labour, as one which itself was exces- 
 sive ? How are we to remedy a disproportion between 
 cultivators and cultivated land, the greatest that has 
 ever pervaded a civilised country ? 
 
 It may be said, however, that Ireland is inadequately 
 cultivated, and that it affords a field on which the agri- 
 cultural population, now excessive, might be profitably 
 employed. Let us then consider what are the obstacles 
 to extensive agricultural improvement. If we suppose 
 a man to be the sole proprietor of an electoral division, 
 that is to say, of an estate equal in extent to more 
 than three average English parishes ; that his tenants 
 hold at will, or for short terms ; that the proportion of 
 population to the land is so moderate, that freedom of 
 action is not circumscribed by the tyranny described 
 
248 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 by Mr. de Vere, but the landlord is allowed to improve, 
 the farmer to manage, and the labourer to work, with- 
 out being under the orders and the terrors of a secret 
 tribunal ; that the surrounding electoral divisions are 
 also so favourably circumstanced, that their inhabi- 
 tants will not invade any new oasis of prosperity, 
 derange the proportions of population and employment, 
 and prescribe the amount of industry that is to be 
 exerted, and the manner of its application : — if we 
 suppose all these favourable accidents to coincide, such 
 a proprietor would do wisely, if out of his own resources, 
 or by the assistance of the Land Improvement Act, he 
 expended on his lands perhaps half, perhaps the whole 
 value of their fee-simple, in their present state. But 
 where shall we find such a coincidence ? — in 200 cases? 
 — in 100 ? — in 50 ? If all these conditions can rarely 
 coexist, which of them can be dispensed with ? Can 
 the proprietor of a portion of an electoral division 
 prudently improve ? If he do so, what is he doing but 
 providing a fund to be eaten away by the spreading 
 sore of his neighbour's pauperism ? Can he do so when 
 his land is in the hands of middlemen, or tenants for 
 terms, who for years must reap the whole profit of his 
 expenditure ? Can he do so when pressed on by an 
 excessive, and therefore idle, and therefore demoralised 
 population in his own electoral division, or in those 
 around him which impedes, or forbids or dictates his 
 own operations, and those of his farmers and of his 
 labourers ? 
 
 This is not mere theory ; we will illustrate it by an 
 example. 
 
 We have given some details as to the state of the 
 Belmullet and Binghamstown electoral divisions, part 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS Of 1847 ASD 1848. 249 
 
 of the barony of Erris, in the Ballina Union. On the 
 loth of February, 1848, Mr. Hamilton, the Inspector, 
 writes to say that one of the principal landlords, Mr. 
 Carter, has applied for, and obtained, 5,000/. under the 
 Improvement Act.* 
 
 On March 30, Mr. Carter writes thus to the Com- 
 missioners : — 
 
 g 1 have the honour to enclose you a copy of a letter 
 I this morning received from Mr. Crampton, the agent 
 of my estate in Err is, county Mayo. I am most 
 anxious to lay out the money applied for and granted, 
 but the contents of this letter certainly cause me to 
 pause before I take up 5,000/., to be expended in in- 
 creasing the burdens of the land in Erris, without a 
 prospect of redemption.' 
 
 ENCLOSURE. — Mr. Crampton to Mr. Carter, March 
 28, 1848.— ' I learn at the Custom House that your 
 application, under the Land Improvement Act, for the 
 drainage of your Erris estates, has been approved of to 
 the extent of 5,000/., and that you will very shortly be 
 placed in possession of an instalment of this sum. 
 
 ' Previous to your embarking in this expenditure, I 
 wish to lay before you, as clearly as I can, the present 
 state and prospects of Erris generally, that you may 
 judge for yourself whether by this expenditure you 
 would improve your estate there, or whether, on the 
 contrary, by adding so much to its incumbrances, you 
 will only be accelerating its ruin. 
 
 6 The valuation of the two electoral divisions, 
 Belmullet and Binghamstown, in which your estate 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Sixth Series, p 221. 
 
250 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 lies, under the Poor Law, is under 12,000/. a-year; 
 this sum is not very much less than the amount of rent 
 which was paid (before 1846) by the occupying tenants 
 to their immediate landlords: at present small holders 
 (who occupy more than nine-tenths of the country) art 
 able to pay no rent whatever. 
 
 ' The population of these two electoral divisions — 
 which, before 1846, was considerably over 20,000 — 
 is now (as well as an estimate can be made) under 
 20,000 ; about one-sixth of this population are resident 
 on those parts of your estate which are not leased 
 against you in perpetuity, and about another sixth on 
 those townlands which arc 
 
 c Out of this population upwards of 10,000 are now 
 receiving relief daily under the Poor Law, at the < \- 
 pense of upwards of 250/. a week ; that is, at the rate 
 of upwards of 13,000/. a year — more than the entire 
 rental of the two divisions, even in flourishing times, 
 This relief is administered with the utmost vigilance 
 and the utmost care taken that none except those actu- 
 ally starving shall be relieved, so that there is no hope 
 that the expense will be diminished; on the contrary, 
 it is certain that it will considerably increase; destitu- 
 tion among the population yet off the lists increasing 
 more rapidly than deaths occur among the paupers who 
 are on — deaths among the paupers being the only 
 circumstance by which the numbers receiving relief are 
 or can be diminished. 
 
 ' As might be imagined, the proceeds of the poor- 
 rate are by no means equal to this enormous expendi- 
 ture ; the British Association are supplying the funds, 
 and will probably do so till next harvest ; however, 
 they cannot and will not continue to do so : and as the 
 ■ 
 
EELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 251 
 
 people are supported in what is as bad as idleness, and 
 the arable land is suffered to lie waste, there is no hope 
 that the country can support itself when the British 
 Association shall cease to give assistance. 
 
 6 It is for you to consider whether, under these 
 circumstances, the 5,0007. granted to your application 
 under the Land Improvement Act, will not (if laid out 
 in Erris) be utterly lost, while you will remain person- 
 ally liable to 650/. a year for interest. 
 
 f If the Government will do nothing, and at the same 
 time insist that proprietors must support the destitute 
 on their estates (that is, on your paying 2,000/. a year 
 for poor-rate for your Erris estate, which would be 
 about your proportion, while you at the same time get 
 nothing out of it), I would say the sooner you got rid 
 of that property the better, and that your laying out 
 money on it, with these facts clearly before you, would 
 be an act of deliberate folly.' 
 
 The Commissioners refer Mr. Crampton's statement 
 to their Inspector. He answers : — 
 
 6 April 4, 1848. — I think Mr. Crampton's letter is 
 not by any means an exaggerated statement. 
 
 ( The present expenditure is about 250/. a week, 
 and a considerable portion of the persons now receiving 
 relief are permanently pauperised, unless some unex- 
 pected demand for labour should arise.' 
 
 The correspondence closes by a letter from the Com- 
 missioners to Mr. Carter, in which they state their 
 opinion that — 6 it is only by the adoption of means to 
 encourage agricultural undertakings, independently of 
 the poor-rates, that any progress can be made in amelio- 
 rating the condition of the labouring population, and 
 lessening the pressure on the resources of the rate- 
 
252 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 payers. The Commissioners would be gratified to 
 know that such means were applied by the owners of 
 the lands heretofore cultivated, but now waste ; and 
 were all to adopt your proposition of giving the land 
 rent-free, at first, there would, it is presumed, be found 
 persons, of the requisite skill and capital, to migrate to 
 that district.' * 
 
 We are not informed as to the result. We presume 
 that Mr. Carter declined the proposed loan. 'Flic 
 reader will judge whether it is equally probable that 
 the plan alluded to by the Commissioners, 6 that the 
 landlords should give their lands rent-free, and that 
 persons of skill and capital should migrate to Erria in 
 order to cultivate them,' has been adopted. 
 
 What is impossible, however, to private enterprise 
 may, it has been supposed, be effected by the Govern- 
 ment ; and several proposals have lately been made for 
 the reclamation of the waste lands of Ireland at the ex- 
 pense of the State. In support of these views, the high 
 authority of the Irish Commissioners of Poor-law 
 Inquiry has often been cited, 1 > 1 1 1 it appears to us erro- 
 neously. What the Commissioners proposed as respect! 
 Irish wastes was merely a General Enclosure Act. 
 
 This was a simple plan, well adapted to the wants of 
 the year 1836, when the obstacle to the cultivation of 
 the waste arose merely from intricacy of title ; but 
 does not attempt to meet the present difficulty, which 
 indeed did not then exist ; when the obstacle is that, 
 in the face of the poor-rate, it is not worth cultivating. 
 
 Then came Mr. Thornton, writing in 1845, before 
 
 * Papers relating to the Unions and Workhouses in Ireland, 
 Sixth Series, p. 232. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1S48. 253 
 
 the potato had failed, and believing (p. 430) that two or 
 three acres furnish plentiful subsistence to a family. 
 He proposes that the poor should have free access to 
 the waste lands/ or at least to 600,000 acres of them ; 
 the distribution of which, among 200,000 pauper fami- 
 lies, would, he thinks, remedy the pauperism of Ire- 
 land.f The proprietors, of course, must be com- 
 pensated ; but he says, with truth, that the value of 
 the fee-simple of an acre of Irish waste is generally 
 small. 
 
 Mr. Mill adopted Mr. Thornton's views, but, writing 
 in 1848, estimated more adequately the evil and the 
 necessary extent of the remedy. 
 
 Instead of 600,000 acres of waste, he proposes to 
 take all that are arable, which he supposes to be 
 1,500,000; and instead of 200,000, he proposes to 
 place on them 300,000 families, or five acres to a family. 
 6 Suppose,' he says, 6 such a number drafted off to 
 independence and comfort, together with a very mode- 
 rate additional relief by emigration, the introduction of 
 English farming over the remainder of Ireland would 
 at once cease to be chimerical.' % 
 
 Lastly, we have a further and amended proposal of 
 Mr. Thornton's, contained in his 6 Plea for Peasant 
 Proprietors,' published in 1848. He now supposes the 
 available waste lands to be 1,600,000 acres ; and he pro- 
 poses to colonise them with 200,000 pauper families, 
 allotting eight acres to a family. He estimates the ex- 
 pense at 24,000,000/., or 120/. per family, a sum con- 
 siderably exceeding the cost of the most expensive 
 
 * < Over-Population/ p. 432. f Ibid - P- 430. 
 
 \ Vol. i. p. 393. 
 
254 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 emigrations ever made — more than three times the cost 
 at which the Crown, not the best of managers, removed 
 to America the surplus population of its estate at Bally- 
 kilcline.* 
 
 To meet the obvious objection that, with Irish habits, 
 the 200,000 families would soon swell into 400,000, and 
 the farms from eight acres diminish to four, he adopts 
 a suggestion of Mr. Mill's, that the colonists should re- 
 
 Do ' 
 
 ceive their farms not as tenants, but as owners ; the 
 ownership of land being, in his opinion and in that of 
 Mr. Mill, the best preservative against the undue 
 multiplication of a peasantry. And, as a further pre- 
 caution, he proposes that subdivision be prohibited by 
 law. 
 
 Now, we admit most fully the beneficial moral influ- 
 ence of property, especially of landed property. We 
 bitterly regret that our execrable system of tenures, by 
 making the legal forms attending the sale and purchase 
 of a small piece of ground cost more than the value of 
 the thing which they convey, and our execrable law of 
 settlement, by denying employment to a man who is 
 supposed to be able to exist without it, have destroyed 
 the small properties of England* We believe that, if 
 we could recall into existence the English yeoman, we 
 should add to our social system a most valuable mem- 
 ber. We believe that the remnants of that race, the 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland statesmen, are the best 
 agricultural population in Great Britain. 
 
 But when we are told that such a peasantry will not 
 
 * This was 1,5507. 75. 3d. for 236 persons, or about 6Z. lis. 
 a head. — Evidence to First Report of the House of Lords on 
 Colonisation (1848), Question 2959. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 255 
 
 multiply and subdivide, we must consider what are the 
 means by which these results are to be prevented. They 
 seem to be only three: — 1st, limiting the number of 
 children to a marriage ; 2ndly, deferring marriage ; and 
 3rdly, sending out the younger children to get their bread 
 by some other means than cultivating the father's land. 
 
 The first of these means is that adopted in France 
 and Switzerland. The number of children to a marriage 
 is much smaller among the peasantry of those countries 
 than in any other part of Europe. It scarcely amounts 
 to three births to a marriage, whereas the number in 
 England is four-and-a-half. 
 
 The second is that adopted in Germany, Denmark, 
 Norway, and generally in the Protestant portions of 
 the Continent. The Government almost universally 
 interferes, and prohibits the marriage of those who can- 
 not show that they possess considerable property, or a 
 residence, or that they have performed their military 
 services. 
 
 The third is the resource of the English farmer. If 
 he is rich and careful, he saves enough to portion his 
 daughters, and to enable his sons to hire and stock farms 
 of their own. If he cannot afford this, his children go 
 out to service, or are apprenticed to trades. 
 
 Now, which of these lines of conduct is likely to be 
 adopted by the colonist on the Irish wastes ? He will 
 be a pauper, taken from the worst part of the worst 
 provinces of Ireland — from a population, to use Captain 
 Kennedy's words, 6 ignorant of the use of land, labour, 
 or capital ; in their appearance, clothing, and mode of 
 living hardly human, and ' — what is perhaps the worst 
 symptom— 6 uncomplaining ; quite content with their 
 allowance of meal.' Will such a people, having by 
 
256 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 their side the priest living on marriage-dues and 
 christenings, defer marriage, or restrict the number of 
 children in their families? "\V il 1 they save, to set up 
 their children in other farms or in other businesses? 
 Remove them to a better social atmosphere — let them 
 see all around them instances of thrift and success — 
 put a new continent at their disposal, where they may 
 multiply their numbers and yet extend their possessions, 
 and they will participate in the general prosperity. 
 Keep them in Ireland, and in a generation or two, 
 probably much sooner, they will be in the state in which 
 they are now, only doubled in numbers. 
 
 As for the legal prohibition of subdivision, it would 
 be an absolute nullity. Even in the case of a lease- 
 holder or a tenant at will, where there is a landlord who 
 knows that the security of his rent and the value of his 
 reversion depend on his preventing subdivision, we see 
 that it goes on, in spite of a repression which is often 
 complained of as too severe. How is a proprietor to be 
 checked ? By whom is the law to be enforced ? By 
 public officers, we suppose. And will men performing 
 a mere public duty exercise a vigilance and severity, 
 and incur a degree of odium and of danger (for in 
 Ireland unpopularity is often death), which his own 
 interest and that of his descendants will not tempt the 
 reversioner to exert and to undergo ? 
 
 The decisive objections to this scheme, however, have 
 not yet been mentioned. 
 
 Unhappily, as the able compiler of the Digest of the 
 Evidence taken under Lord Devon's Commission has 
 remarked, 6 all the evidence on the subject of reclaiming 
 waste lands has reference to the times and circumstances 
 prior to the failure of the potato-crop/ That failure 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 257 
 
 has destroyed much of what was best established in 
 Irish rural economy ; and, above all, it has destroyed 
 three-acre, or five-acre, or even eight-acre farms. 
 
 Among the witnesses examined by the House of 
 Lords' Committee on Colonisation, in 1847, were 
 Colonel Robinson, the well-known Managing Director 
 of the Irish Waste Lands Improvement Company, and, 
 as we have seen, Mr. Blacker. 
 
 '2122. I think,' says Mr. Blacker,* ' that with five 
 or six acres the farmer cannot now support himself 
 upon his land. It is a physical impossibility to grow 
 so much grain upon a five or six-acre farm as will 
 support a family consisting of six to seven persons. It 
 would be necessary to sow part of the land with a 
 grain-crop twice in succession, which cannot be carried 
 on ; it could not be continued for any course of seasons. 
 
 '2125. Do you not conceive that you possess in 
 Armagh much greater facilities for meeting the state 
 of things, as altered by the potato failure, by your 
 knowledge of agriculture, and by your power of substi- 
 tuting other means of culture? — Certainly; and not 
 only that, but likewise by having a portion of manu- 
 factures going on. 
 
 6 2126. Even with those advantages, do you conceive 
 that if the potato failure proves permanent, you will 
 have the means of supporting your present extent of 
 population ? — I do not think that we shall. If we lose 
 the potato-crop, all the five and six-acre men, who de- 
 pend entirely upon their small holdings, must go. 
 
 '2156. AVere not your opinions strongly expressed 
 upon the question of emigration ? — Yes. 1 have written 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 219, and post. 
 VOL. I. S 
 
258 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 two essays upon the management of property in Ire- 
 land ; in both those I expressed my doubts of the 
 propriety of emigration, and, under the same circum- 
 stances, I should be still of the same opinion ; but I 
 look upon it that the destruction of the food of a great 
 proportion of the people alters the circumstances 
 altogether. A five or six-acre farmer, with potato diet, 
 could pay his rent, and keep his one or two cows, and 
 his pigs, and live in comparative comfort ; but I do not 
 think that he can do so if the potato failure continues 
 — therefore there must, in that case, be a change in the 
 measures adopted. 
 
 6 2157. Supposing in any particular district the five- 
 acre-farm system to continue subject to the failure of 
 the potato-crop, what do you conceive would be the 
 consequences upon rents? — There is just this conse- 
 quence : rent can only be paid by the sale of the 
 produce. If a man sells the produce to pay his rent, he 
 must starve or become a mendicant ; and if he lives upon 
 the produce, and does not pay his rent, then the landlord 
 must starve or become a mendicant. 
 
 6 There are numbers of farms not exceeding five and 
 six acres : I look upon it that in all those farms the 
 produce of the land would be insufficient. To give an 
 instance, take a farm of six acres ; if it requires three 
 acres of oats to supply the place of one acre of potatoes, 
 and a family require an acre and a half of potatoes, it 
 would require four or five acres of oats to supply that : 
 how can you grow four or five acres of oats out of >ix 
 acres ? 
 
 6 There are many people whom I have heard dilating 
 upon the advantage to Ireland of the failure of the 
 potato-crop, and the blessing it would be to the people 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 259 
 
 to have cereal food substituted. It seems to me, how- 
 ever, that those who thus express themselves are not 
 aware that it is absolutely impossible all at once to in- 
 crease the growth of cereal crops to the extent required 
 to feed the present population upon that diet. Before 
 this can be done, there must be an increased quantity 
 of land in a state fit to yield corn crops ; this can only 
 be done by an increased growth of green crops ; and 
 this, again, requires an increased stock of manure ; so 
 that, if it can be accomplished at all, it must be a work 
 of time. And what is in the meanwhile to become of 
 the hundreds of thousands who have hitherto depended 
 on the Conacre potatoes ? It is fearful to contemplate 
 the misery that must take place before any good can 
 arise from the failure of the potato.' 
 
 Colonel Robinson states that the average holdings of 
 the peasantry on the estates reclaimed by the society 
 are fourteen plantation acres, or about twenty statute 
 acres each.* 
 
 He is asked what amount of capital is required for 
 a tenant to become a settler on a waste-land holding, 
 according to the system of the society. He answers — 
 
 ' It would depend on the size of the farm, the nature 
 of the locality, and the resumption or not of the potato 
 culture ; but, as a fair general average, I should deem 
 that an industrious man with a family, entering upon 
 a moderate-sized holding, in proportion to the amount 
 of his capital, and the physical strength of his family, 
 at the rate of from 1/. 10s. to 21. per plantation acre of 
 arable land would do well. Thus, if a farmer of peaceable 
 habits, inured to difficulties, of strong constitution, and 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 500. 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 with a healthy large family, possessed of 20/. or 30/. 
 capital, being the description of persons who generally 
 emigrate to the American colonies, took a holding of from 
 ten to fifteen plantation acres, which is equal to from 
 sixteen to twenty-three and a half statute acres, he would, 
 by a fair amount of exertion and perseverance, be able to 
 permanently provide for that family, without any ex- 
 traneous aid from public works or workhouses, or other 
 parties, excepting occasional employment for the first two 
 years, and the stipulated allowances from the improving 
 landlord? * 
 
 This evidence decisively shows how inadequate is 
 the immediate resource afforded by the waste lands. 
 Supposing their extent ample, and all difficulties of 
 title and expense removed, from two to three years 
 must elapse before they would give any assistance at 
 all. Colonel Robinson often repeats that, lor the first 
 two years, the settlers must be fed from other sourer-. 
 And, secondly, supposing them now ready for use, 
 their extent, great as it seems positively, is compara- 
 tively small. 1,400,000 acres divided into ten-acre 
 farms — and that seems to be the minimum — will 
 remove only 140,000 agricultural families out of 
 974,188, leaving still 824,188 families to cultivate the 
 existing 13,464,300 acres, being about double the 
 English proportion in 1831. Nor is it true that the 
 whole of the 1,425,000 acres of cultivable waste is really 
 available for the purposes in question. 269,000 belong 
 to Ulster, exclusively of Donegal. They belong to a 
 well-administered prosperous province, which supports 
 its own poor without English assistance — indeed, with 
 rare exceptions, without outdoor relief. What more 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, p. 507. 
 
RELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848. 261 
 
 right have we to require an Antrim landlord, whose 
 union and whose electoral division are perfectly solvent 
 — who has so well preserved the proper proportion of 
 population to capital, that instead of one person in five 
 as in Connaught, or one person in twenty as in England, 
 only one person in a hundred is an applicant for relief: 
 — what more right have we to require him to give up 
 his waste lands as a colony for Southern and Western 
 paupers, than we have to require the proprietors of 
 Dartmoor or Salisbury Plain ? What right have we 
 to transport the hordes of Clare and Mayo into the 
 heart of Down and Armagh ? What more right have we 
 to inoculate with them the laborious, orderly, Protestant 
 population of Ulster, than that of Yorkshire or Kent ? 
 What we have said of Ulster applies to many portions 
 of Leinster ; it applies even to many parts of the South 
 and the AYest. Even in Donegal there are unions, 
 such as Dunfanaghy and Letterkenny — in Cork, such 
 as Bandon, Kinsale, and Mallow — where the pauper- 
 ism is less than in even the well-administered English 
 districts. To grind them down to the common level 
 of Minister and Connaught, by forcibly introduc- 
 ing into their waste lands a surplus population of 
 strangers, would be a strong instance of the injustice 
 and cruelty of which those who most loudly proclaim 
 their humanity are not the least frequently guilty. 
 
 The same remark applies not merely between province 
 and province, but between county and county, between 
 union and union, between electoral division and electoral 
 division, even between townland and townland. It is 
 bad enough — we should think it intolerable — to inflict 
 on one parish the support of the paupers of another. To 
 bring those paupers bodily into its bounds, to force its 
 inhabitants to dwell among such associates, and to 
 
262 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 become responsible for such inmates, would be absolutely 
 Mezentian : — 
 
 Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora vivis 
 Complexu in misero, et longa sic morte necabat. 
 
 From these premisses a practical conclusion seems 
 to follow more certainly than is usually the case in 
 political reasoning. If the agricultural population of 
 the greater part of Ireland is three times as large as 
 can be profitably employed in cultivating, with the 
 existing amount of capital, the quantity of land now 
 in cultivation, — if, in the districts where that surplus 
 population is found, no one, except under circumstances 
 so peculiar and so rare that they may be said to be 
 nonexistent, can profitably or even safely reclaim land 
 now waste, or apply fresh capital to the land already 
 in cultivation, — if the reclamation of the waste lands 
 by the Government would afford only a Blow and very 
 partial relief, and, by rendering possible a still further 
 increase of population, might in its ultimate results act 
 as a poison instead of a medicine, — if under the pressure 
 of poor-rates every month more and more tenancies are 
 abandoned, and more and more fields lie waste. Leaving 
 
 9 9 o 
 
 the burden more and more concentrated on the occu- 
 piers and the landlords who still stand their ground. — 
 if under the double operation of increased pauperism 
 and diminished employment, the population which last 
 year was only three times, may next year be four times, 
 and the year after be five times, as great as is wanted 
 — what possible resource can there be except to 
 diminish the number of people, since, while that 
 number continues to increase, the demand for their 
 labour is impossible ? 
 
EELIEF OF IRISH DISTRESS IN 1847 AND 1848- 263 
 
 If to do this to the requisite extent be really 
 impracticable ; if the whole resources of the British 
 Empire — European, American, Asiatic, and African — 
 do not enable us to remove from Ireland every year, 
 for four or five years to come, 250,000 persons ;* let 
 
 * Much more than this has been done, as will be seen from 
 the following Table : — 
 
 Statement showing the Irish as distinguished from the Total 
 Emigration from the United Kingdom, during each Year 
 from 1845 to 1867, both inclusive. 
 
 Year 
 
 Total 
 
 Irish 
 
 Year 
 
 Total 
 
 Irish 
 
 Emigration 
 
 Emigration 
 
 Emigration 
 
 Emigration 
 
 1845 
 
 93,501 
 
 52,189 
 
 1857 
 
 212,875 
 
 94,787 
 
 1846 
 
 129,851 
 
 72,478 
 
 1858 
 
 113,972 
 
 49,513 
 
 1847 
 
 258,270 
 
 144,157 
 
 1859 
 
 120,432 
 
 62,841 
 
 1848 
 
 248,089 
 
 138,474 
 
 1860 
 
 128,469 
 
 77,746 
 
 1849 
 
 299,498 
 
 167,169 
 
 1861 
 
 91,770 
 
 48.437 
 
 1850 
 
 280,849 
 
 156,760 • 
 
 1862 
 
 121,214 
 
 59,579 
 
 1851 
 
 335,966 
 
 187,524 
 
 1863 
 
 223,758 
 
 129,765 
 
 1852 
 
 368,764 
 
 205,831 
 
 1864 
 
 208,900 
 
 118,187 
 
 1853 
 
 329,937 
 
 205,269 
 
 1865 
 
 209,801 
 
 103,788 
 
 1854 
 
 323,429 
 
 159,415 
 
 1866 
 
 204,882 
 
 102,980 
 
 1855 
 
 176,807 
 
 86,824 
 
 1867 
 
 195,953 
 
 92,285 
 
 1856 
 
 176,554 
 
 80,269 
 
 
 
 
 Note. — Previous to 1853, the records in the Emigration 
 Office did not show the native origin of the emigrants. The 
 numbers for the years 1845 to 1852 have been estimated on 
 the average proportions of the years 1853 and 1854. 
 
 In the Eeturns for the years 1853 to 1867, made up from the 
 Nominal Lists of Passengers, are a certain number of emigrants 
 whose native origin is not distinguished. These have been 
 divided proportionally amongst the English, Scotch, Irish, and 
 Foreigners. 
 
 The Irish proportion is included in the above Table for the 
 years subsequent to 1852. 
 
 [Through the kindness of Mr. Walcott, this Table has been 
 brought down to the present time. — Ed.] 
 
264 
 
 JOURNALS, CONVERSATIONS, ETC. 
 
 all those who have the means prepare against the evil 
 that is coming. Let them sell their properties while 
 they retain value; let them invest their savings in 
 securities beyond the grasp of the collector ; let them 
 seek out some country which does not support a 
 standing army of 600,000 paupers. And let us all, to 
 use Mr. Mill's words, extract from the world, with 
 epicurean indifference, the pleasures which it may 
 afford, without making useless struggles for its improve- 
 ment. For we may be sure that, if we allow the cancer 
 of pauperism to complete the destruction of Ireland, 
 and then to throw fresh venom into the already pre- 
 disposed body of England, the ruin of all that makes 
 England worth living in is a question only of time. 
 
265 
 
 JOURNAL OF A VISIT TO IRELAND 
 
 'HURSDAY, Sept. 2.— Mrs. Senior and I left 
 
 Holyhead at half-past six this morning, and 
 entered Kingstown Harbour at twelve. It was a 
 stormy morning, misty, with low driving clouds. The 
 beauties of Dublin Bay were much obscured. What 
 I saw did not equal my recollection of it. It appeared 
 to me scarcely to equal Beaumaris Bay, and to be far 
 inferior to what I know of the coast scenery of the 
 West of Ireland. 
 
 I dined with Power, the Chief Commissioner of the 
 Poor Law. He is sanguine as to the progress of the 
 law. Outdoor relief has almost ceased. The number 
 of persons so relieved on August 14, the last day to 
 which the returns are made up, was 2,795. The 
 number relieved on that day in the workhouses, was 
 132,827. The number in the workhouses on the cor- 
 responding day last year, was 186,147. The number 
 receiving on that day outdoor relief, was 5,574. The 
 mortality in the workhouses on August 14 last, was 
 2*3 per 1,000 per week ; last year it was 3*4. Even 
 the present rate of mortality, however, is very high, 
 especially when it is recollected that half the number 
 of inmates are children under the age of fifteen years. 
 
 Last year they sent out several cargoes of workhouse 
 girls to Australia. The earlier emigrations of this kind 
 
 IN 1851 
 
266 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 were unsuccessful, in consequence of their following 
 implicitly the colonial instructions. Girls between 
 fourteen and seventeen were asked for, and were sent, 
 and were found too young for work : they are now 
 sent from sixteen to twenty. Power spoke with 
 enthusiasm of a cargo which he sent from the dis- 
 tressed unions of Clare. One girl of seventeen he was 
 sure weighed 15 stone. 
 
 6 How had she been fed ? ' I asked. 
 
 1 On potatoes,' he answered, 1 and Indian meal 
 porridge, slightly flavoured with onions. Xo animal 
 food whatever.' 
 
 Dublin is remarkably free from beggars. They are 
 far more numerous in London. 
 
 Friday, Sept. 3. — We left Dublin at ten, and got to 
 Limerick at three. The country is flat and uninterest- 
 ing, and the absence of hedgerows and of country-seats 
 gives it a naked appearance. 
 
 Limerick is a striking town, with a noble river, 
 two fine bridges, a castle exhibiting the remains of 
 great strength, and a cathedral which would make a 
 good parochial church. 
 
 The instant you walk about its streets you find that 
 you are out of England. At each end of the city are 
 fortified barracks ; the churchyards are enclosed and 
 locked up, the women are generally barefoot, and 
 covered with a cloak, which seems to be their principal 
 garment; the children are usually half-naked. I was 
 struck, however, by the beauty of the population. 
 The girls probably owe the excellence of their figures 
 to their wearing no stays, and their ruddy complexions 
 to the mildness and dampness of the climate. Neither 
 sex is apparently overworked. 
 
LIMERICK, 1852. 
 
 267 
 
 An English architect settled in Dublin drank tea 
 with us. I enquired about the comparative expense 
 of building in Ireland and in England. ' Except/ he 
 said, 6 for very rough coarse work, such as the earth- 
 works of railways, it is generally cheaper in England 
 — much cheaper where you have freestone at hand. 
 Irish labour in all the higher departments is dear, and 
 bad for the money. The skill and industry of the 
 country have been ruined by the combinations among 
 the artisans.' 
 
 Saturday, Sept. 4. — Our business to-day was to get 
 from Limerick to Mount Trenchard — Lord Mont- 
 eagle's place on the Shannon — about twenty-seven 
 miles. To move four persons and their luggage for 
 this distance, in Ireland is not a simple problem. We 
 were not able to complete our arrangements and fairly 
 start — the servants and luggage on one car, and Mrs. 
 Senior and I on another — till twelve. This was un- 
 lucky, as we passed several interesting scenes, deserv- 
 ing to be dwelt on longer than we were able to do. 
 One of them was in Lord Dunraven's park, Adare, 
 where the ruins of a monastery and a castle, the latter 
 of considerable size, stand very near one another, by 
 the side of a rapid dark-brown river. About halfway 
 between Limerick and Mount Trenchard, is Curragh 
 Chase, a pretty place belonging to Sir Vere de Vere. 
 We lunched there, and walked round a part of the 
 lake — a very successful piece of artificial water. It is 
 about a mile and a half long, and wanders like a fine 
 river through woods of birch, oak, and ash. After- 
 wards we passed through Asheaton, which, like Adare, 
 possesses the ruins of a monastery, and a castle. The 
 chief remains of the castle is a lofty tower. We could not 
 
268 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 see the monastery from the road; Lord Monteagle 
 praised the beauty of its cloister. Our horses tired 
 about five miles from Mount Trenchard, but, by 
 walking up all the hills, we got there by seven. 
 
 Sunday, Sept. 5. — Mount Trenchard House stands 
 a few hundred yards from the Shannon, on the side of 
 an undulating table-land, which rises immediately 
 behind the house to about 500 feet, and at its highest 
 point — Knock Patrick, the scene of St. Patrick's first 
 preaching — to nearly 700 feet. It is surrounded by 
 woods, some of them ancient ; others planted by Lord 
 Monteagle himself, by his father, or by his grandfather. 
 In this soil and climate, vegetation is so rapid, that 
 even Lord Monteagle ? s own earlier plantings, though 
 not more than five-and-twenty years old, are respectable 
 woods. 
 
 This is about the narrowest point of the Lower 
 Shannon. It does not appear to be above three miles 
 across. Immediately above, where it receives the 
 Fergus, a short but broad river, with a mouth nine 
 miles across, it widens into an inland lake, studded with 
 islands and broken by promontories. Below, it con- 
 tinues comparatively narrow, till it reaches Tarbert, 
 and then expands again till it becomes a broad arm of 
 the sea. The absence of hedgerow trees renders all 
 distances in Ireland bare ; the banks of the Lower 
 Shannon, however, are comparatively well-wooded. 
 The Keeper mountain, and the hilly islands of the 
 Fergus, and farther off the Galties of Tipperary — a 
 lofty range with fine forms — close the views to the 
 north and east. To the south and west they are 
 bounded by undulating hills, and by the high green 
 promontories which run into the Shannon at Tarbert. 
 
MOUNT TRENCH ARD, 1652. 
 
 269 
 
 All these materials form together lake-scenery of a 
 fine kind — inferior in its shores to the Swiss and 
 Italian lakes, but far superior in extent. Lord Mont- 
 eacrle has managed the walks through his woods with 
 great skill. As you mount, the Shannon at every 
 step becomes wider and grander ; as you descend, its 
 blue waters and rocky coasts become more and more 
 beautiful. 
 
 TTe saw to-day the product of the relief-works. 
 They consist of a road of about half a mile, impassable 
 to carts, and ending in a bog, and about a mile of foot- 
 path. For the first, the barony is charged 2,000/. ; for 
 the second, 1,000/. This, however, is a favourable 
 specimen of relief-works, for the footpath is of some 
 trifling use, and the road, though useless, does no 
 harm. 
 
 Both Lord Monteagle and Stephen Spring Rice 
 talked bitterly of the Labour Rate Act.* • It was 
 not introduced,' they said, ' till the middle of August 
 1846, and was hurried through in ten davs, after almost 
 all the Irish Members had left London. In substance, 
 it enabled the Board of TTorks to execute through- 
 out Ireland, whatever works they should approve of, 
 under the restriction that these works should not be 
 chosen as specially beneficial to any particular proprie- 
 tor or person. Subject to these conditions, they are 
 permitted to employ on them whatever persons, and at 
 whatever rate of wages, they should think proper, and 
 to require the money so expended to be repaid with 
 interest by the borrowers and occupiers of the 1 and. By 
 
 * All these conversations were revised by Lord Monteag.e 
 and Mr. Spring Rice. — Ed. 
 
270 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 the Act, as it passed in 1846, the repayment of these 
 loans was to be made only on the completion of the 
 works by the Board of Works. A subsequent Act re- 
 pealed this check, and charged the land with the 
 expense of the works, whether they were completed or 
 not ; and very few have been completed, or are worth 
 completing, 
 
 ' The only interference in these works allowed to 
 those who were to defray their cost was, that they were 
 the only parties allowed to propose them. But this 
 hardly gave a free power of selection. They were re- 
 quired by the law to propose works sufficient to employ 
 and relieve all who were in want — no easy task. These 
 proposals were to be brought forward in public, at 
 special public baronial meetings, and the selections 
 were to be made in public. All persons had a right to 
 attend, and to make proposals without stint. Mobs 
 beset and crowded the sessions-houses, until there was 
 scarcely space to sit or air to breathe. Hundreds of 
 proposals, drawn up by illiterate and interested persons 
 — labourers, petty farmers, or whisky-sellers — were 
 thrust before the persons appointed to preside, and 
 supported by threats within doors, and sometimes by 
 actual violence without. And even if it had been pos- 
 sible to consider them, the Act allowed no time, for it 
 did not permit the sessions to adjourn for more than 
 three days.* 
 
 ' How did you manage/ I asked, " in this barony ? ' 
 
 ' We followed,' answered Stephen Spring Rice, ' the 
 advice of Captain Kennedy , the Government officer, and 
 sent up all the projects submitted to us (they were more 
 than 150) to the Board of Works. In fact, we could 
 not consider them. Our small sessions-house was filled 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 271 
 
 with a mob of rioters, heaped upon one another's 
 shoulders. Everybody was resolved to carry his own 
 project, and to defeat his neighbour's. It was a scene 
 of confusion and violence such as no one who has not 
 seen an Irish mob half-mad with excitement can con- 
 ceive. If the Government would have acceded to our 
 request, and divided our barony (which is half as big as 
 a small English county) into two or three manageable 
 districts, we might have exercised some discretion ; 
 but, in defiance of our remonstrances, they chose to 
 throw 150 square miles into one relief district, and the 
 consequence was, that we were neither assisted by 
 local knowledge, nor protected by local influence.' 
 
 'And what sort of a selection,' I said, 'did the 
 Board of Works make ? ' 
 
 e About as bad a one,' he replied, ' as we could have 
 made ourselves. In fact, according to the conditions 
 of the problem, a good selection was impossible. No- 
 thing was to be done which would produce any private 
 benefit; that is to say, nothing by which one man 
 could profit more than another. That excluded every- 
 thing but roads. But our roads were nearly perfect. 
 We had already the roads that we wanted, and they 
 were as good as we wanted. To make more was not 
 only waste of labour, but waste of land. The Board 
 of Works sent to us, as our master, a man who called 
 himself a Yorkshireman, but in fact was born in the 
 district close by, and had friends and relations all round. 
 He had absolute and exclusive power to select persons 
 for employment, power to dismiss them, and power to 
 fix their wages. He put on our works about 120 
 persons (friends, or friends' friends, of his own), at 
 day-work, at 2 s. a day, the ordinary rate being from 
 
272 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 8d. to \0d. He assigned task-work to others, at prices 
 which enabled them to earn 6s. or 7s. a day. When 
 we complained of these abuses, the Board of Works 
 tartly answered to us, ' We alone are responsible.' 
 Private employment almost ceased, for who could 
 retain his labourers against such a competitor? We 
 were like the stock-keepers in Bathurst Plains, when 
 their shepherds went 1 off to the diggings.' So that, 
 while we were to pay at the rate of 1,500/. a mile for 
 roads leading to nothing, the land, from which the 
 means of payment were ultimately to come, remained 
 uncultivated.' 
 
 ' If all this expenditure,' said Lord Monteagle, 1 had 
 been necessary for the preservation of life, or, indeed 
 if, whether necessary or not, it had been conducive to 
 the preservation of life, of course no one would regret 
 it. But I fear that the relief-works destroyed as many 
 as they preserved. The applicants could not be forced 
 to do real work. In fact, their companions would not 
 allow them to do so. A tenant of mine wanted the 
 assistance of his cow-doctor. He went to find him in 
 the works. The doctor was allowed to go and visit the 
 cow, on condition that my tenant took his place. The 
 day was very cold, and the new labourer began to 
 move earth or break stones vigorously, in order to warm 
 himself; those about him immediately interfered. He 
 was abused for setting a bad example, and breaking the 
 established rules of relief-works. But, though the 
 labour-test failed, a test was applied which could not 
 be evaded, and that was exposure. The winter of 
 1846-47 was severe. Among the hundreds of thousands 
 on the works were women, children, and old men. 
 They were miserably clad, and in many cases, not- 
 
MOUNT XR£NCHABD 5 1852. 
 
 27o 
 
 withstanding all the exertions of the Board of Works, 
 ill-fed. Some were rapidly carried off by fever or dys- 
 entery, others perished gradually; their legs swelled, 
 their strength failed ; many went into the workhouses 
 to die. Many are there still, men and women not 
 forty years old, who look as if they were seventy or 
 eighty ; and, in fact, are as irrecoverably infirm as if 
 they were eighty.' 
 
 6 What would you have done,' I said to Lord 
 Monteagle, 6 if you had been an autocrat ? * 
 
 ' It is easy,' he answered, 6 to be wise after the 
 event ; but the plan which I proposed at the time still 
 appears to me to have been the right one. I would 
 have made the relief districts much smaller. I would 
 have abandoned the senseless idea of prohibiting all but 
 useless work, or at least of making works which should 
 not be specially usefid to any assignable individuals. 
 There can be few such works, except such as are useful 
 to nobody. I would have allowed the ablebodied to be 
 productively employed, and the young and impotent to 
 be relieved at home. I would have encouraged works 
 to be proposed, provided contributions to be made 
 in proportion to the existing destitution, and I would 
 have given public aid in proportion to the sums locally 
 subscribed. Such a system, without doubt, would 
 have had its evils and its dangers, but, in the first place, 
 it would have been more efficient for the purposes of 
 relief, and, in the second place, we should have had 
 something to show for our money. The landlord would 
 have suffered, but at least the land would have bene- 
 fited. The sources of further employment and further 
 relief would not have been dried up. The fund for 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 maintaining labour and exercising charity would have 
 been increased instead of being diminished : 
 
 i Diis aliter visum est. 
 
 6 Those who governed us from London had some 
 general notions, and some special notions, the union of 
 which produced our disasters. 
 
 6 The general notion was, that it is the duty, and 
 within the power of the owner of land, in time of 
 famine, to provide sufficient maintenance, either in the 
 shape of wages or of relief, for all those whom he finds 
 on his estate. You will see this repeated over and 
 over in the printed correspondence laid before Parlia- 
 ment. I wonder whether they would extend this doc- 
 trine to the owner of a house, and require the pro- 
 prietors of the Marine Parade at Brighton to employ 
 or relieve all the families who hire their apartments. 
 The claim against the lodging-house-keeper is indeed 
 stronger than that against the rural owner; for the 
 former can lock his door and exclude intruders, whilst 
 the country landlord is often unable to prevent his 
 lessee from covering his estate with sub-tenants ; and 
 where he has the legal power, by contract, to prevent 
 this abuse, is shot for exercising it. 
 
 ' Their other theory is, that the Irish landlords 
 utterly neglect this duty, and in fact disclaim it. They 
 accuse us of speaking and acting as if we stood in no 
 other relation to the public than that of grand-jurors and 
 local tax-collectors, and have proposed more than once 
 to forfeit our estates, and put us on retiring pen- 
 sions like the Nabobs of Arcot and Moorshedabad, 
 and to undertake themselves to feed the people and 
 improve the country, through the Board of Works. 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 275 
 
 And, barring the retiring-pensions, that was what they 
 attempted to do. They despised our remonstrances, 
 did not try to understand our reasonings, and pro- 
 ceeded to ruin Ireland in the conscientious belief that 
 they were saving her.' 
 
 6 What is your theory,' I asked, 6 as to the purpose 
 for which Providence created landlords?' 
 
 6 1 believe,' answered Lord Monteagle, ' that, in a 
 case like the present, we are entrusted with wealth and 
 intelligence exceeding those of our tenants, in order 
 that we may assist them in their difficulties, provide 
 for them the means of education, encourage and direct 
 their efforts as cultivators, and promote their physical, 
 moral, and intellectual improvement.' 
 
 6 All these,' I said, ' are important duties, but they 
 are not necessarily the duties of a landlord ; they may 
 be performed by the magistrate or the clergyman ; or 
 they may be left unperformed, and society would still 
 go on. 
 
 Q Four years ago I spent a couple of months near 
 Island Magee, on the Antrim coast. It contains about 
 3,000 persons, occupying about 7,000 acres of land im- 
 mediately under the receiver of the Court of Chancery, 
 put in by an incumbrancer, who derives title from a 
 middleman, who holds under Lord Donegal, so that 
 they are four removes distant from their landlord. 
 There is not a resident gentleman, or even a resident 
 clergyman, within some miles of them ; and yet a more 
 prosperous or a more moral community I never saw. 
 All their little farms were models of neatness. Of the 
 3,000 inhabitants, only 11 received relief. During 
 two months it was my favourite ride, and I never 
 saw a beggar or an idler. I was assured that no 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 Island Magee-man had ever been convicted of an 
 offence. 
 
 6 But the duty which I hold to be the specific duty 
 of a landlord — the duty which cannot be neglected 
 without ruin, and cannot be performed by anyone else 
 — had been, diligently fulfilled, and to its fulfilment I 
 attribute the welfare of Island Magee. 
 
 ( That duty — the duty for the performance of which 
 I believe that Providence created landlords — is the 
 keeping down population. If there were no one whose 
 interest it was to limit the number of the occupant- of 
 land, it would be tenanted by all whom it could main- 
 tain, just as a warren is tenanted by all the rabbit- that 
 it can feed. Competition would' force them to use the 
 food that was most abundant — every failure of a crop 
 would produce a famine; they would have no surplus 
 produce, and therefore no division of labour ; no manu- 
 factures, except the coarse clothing and furniture 
 which each family must produce for itself; no separa- 
 tion of ranks, no literature — in short, no civilisation. 
 This is a mere picture of a neglected estate held in 
 rundale in Ireland. This is the state into which every 
 common in England would fall, if the Lord of the 
 Manor were to allow it to be occupied by squatters. 
 To prevent all this, Providence created landlords — a 
 class of persons whose interest it is that the land 
 should produce as large as possible an amount of sur- 
 plus produce, and for that purpose should be occupied 
 by only the number of persons necessary to enable it 
 to produce the largest possible amount beyond their 
 own subsistence. 
 
 6 When the enthusiasts of the Communist school say 
 that the landlords are to be held responsible for the 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 277 
 
 adoption of the measures required to make the land 
 support its population, and that if they will not exert 
 themselves to make the changes and improvements in 
 the cultivation of their estates which are necessary to 
 enable them to support the poor, they must submit to a 
 gradual process of confiscation — they assume that the 
 poor are a definite quantity, and the landlords' means 
 an indefinite quantity. The real facts being, that the 
 landlords' means are a definite quantity, and the poor 
 an indefinite one : and that if landlords were to attempt 
 to perform what is called their duty — were to attempt 
 so to manage their estates as to provide for all who 
 chose to occupy them, or to procreate other occupiers 
 of them — in short, if they thought it their duty to pro- 
 mote population instead of repressing rj 3 all Ireland 
 would soon become one Skibbereen.' 
 
 Monday, Sept. 6, — I walked with Lord Monteagle 
 over a great part of the estate, and saw many specimens 
 of farming as good, crops as clean, and stock as fine, as 
 in the best parts of England ; and some farms (but 
 fewer) in which the principal crops were thistles and 
 ragweed and rushes. 
 
 ' The clue to the difference,' said Lord Monteagle, 
 6 is the difference of tenure ; the good farms are in the 
 hands of tenants at will ; the worst of the bad ones are 
 held at feefarm rents, or on long leases at low rents.' 
 
 And he gave me the paper 6 A,' on next side, in 
 which parts of his estate are considered with respect to 
 the area, the population, the valuation, the pauperism, 
 and the tenure. 
 
278 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 A 
 
 Townlands 
 
 Area 
 
 Popula- 
 tion 
 (1851) 
 
 Valuation 
 (Griffith) 
 
 No of 
 Paupers 
 (1851) 
 
 
 
 acres 
 
 
 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 Ballinree 
 
 41 
 
 10 
 
 25 
 
 0* 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tenancy at 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 will 
 
 Ballinwreggy . 
 
 229 
 
 O 1 
 
 zl 
 
 136 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ft 
 
 „ .North 
 
 51 
 
 25 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 oOUlil 
 
 o 1 
 
 Q 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 u 
 
 »» 
 
 Corgrigg . 
 
 QUI 
 
 
 463 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 Lease for 31 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 years for 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 principal 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 farm. 
 
 Durnish . 
 
 181 
 
 8 
 
 189 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 At will 
 
 Leahys 
 
 470 
 
 58 
 
 284 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 On hand and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 at will 
 
 Ballycorraick . 
 
 446 
 
 548 
 
 492 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 59 
 
 Feefarm 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 grant 2/. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rent 
 
 Briscegh . 
 
 
 1 A1 
 
 1U1 
 
 222 
 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 4 
 
 At will 
 
 Mount Darel 
 
 327 
 
 1 19 
 
 140 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Lease for 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 three lives 
 
 Lower Shemal . 
 
 552 
 
 115 
 
 459 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 At will 
 
 Upper Shemal . 
 
 158 
 
 26 
 
 177 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i> 
 
 Moig 
 
 305 
 
 59 
 
 312 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 M . 
 
 Ballyhitall 
 
 605 
 
 113 
 
 276 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Considerable 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 pauperism. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Two long 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 leases at 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 low rents 
 
 Mount Trenchard 
 
 525 
 
 124 
 
 385 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 In hand 
 
 Doon Ardeen . 
 
 125 
 
 207 
 
 59 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 Let about 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1800 for 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 three lives, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 at 10/. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rent. A 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rabbit- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 warren of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 pauperism 
 
 
 4,865 
 
 1,697 
 
 3,672 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 
 From this table the connection between pauperism, 
 long leases, and middlemen is apparent. Compare 
 Doon Ardeen with Lower Shemal: — 
 
MOUNT TEENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 279 
 
 
 Area 
 
 Population 
 (1851) 
 
 Valuation 
 
 No. of 
 Paupers 
 (1851) 
 
 Doon Ardeen 
 Lower Shemal 
 
 acres 
 125 
 552 
 
 207 
 115 
 
 £ s. d. 
 59 13 
 459 14 
 
 33 
 
 
 It will be seen that within an area of 4,865 acres, 
 and from a population of 1,697 persons, there are 114 
 paupers; that of these, 109 come from four townlands 
 containing a population of 1,028 persons, being about 
 one pauper to every 9 inhabitants; and that the 
 remaining 5 come from a population of 556 persons, 
 being one pauper to every 111 inhabitants. 
 
 It further appears that in the pauperised districts 
 the proportion of land to the population is less than two 
 acres to each individual ; in the unpauperised ones, 
 more than four acres to each individual. And, lastly, 
 that population and pauperism increase just in pro- 
 portion as the tenure recedes from a tenancy-at-will, 
 being greatest in Ballycormick, which is held at a 
 feefarm rent, and next greatest in Doon Ardeen, 
 where the tenure is for three lives. 
 
 ' And yet,' said Lord Monteagle, ' we are told that 
 the way to improve our estates is to grant leases. A 
 hundred years hence it may be so ; but at present, at 
 least in the South, the Irish tenant is not to be trusted 
 with a lease."* His instinct is, while he is alive, to 
 sublet the land, in order to have an income without 
 trouble ; and on his death to divide it among his 
 
 * Mr. Stephen Spring Eice says, in a note added by him 
 to this conversation, 4 1 always give leases. It is easier to 
 guard against this practice where there is a lease than where 
 there is not.' — Ed. 
 
280 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 children. And there are few districts, and in those 
 districts few properties, in which the landlord can safely 
 attempt to evict on breach of the covenant against 
 subletting or assigning, or in which a jury of tenants 
 will allow him to succeed in that attempt. 
 
 ' There is, however, a more dangerous tenant than a 
 lessee, and that is a squatter. A squatter, having no 
 rights, has no responsibilities. lie ekes out a sub- 
 sistence by petty thefts, and by taking in lodgers; his 
 hovel is a little centre of vice and bad example. And, 
 just because he has no title, he is exceedingly difficult 
 as a subject of eviction. AYe have not the right, which 
 you have in England, of removing him by a magistrate's 
 order. We must bring an ejectment, which often oofitfl 
 eighteen months of time, and an expense, the whole of 
 which of course falls on the landlord; and the least 
 flaw in the proceeding forces you to begin again. After 
 a year's siege I ejected a squatter from the hovel, of 
 which you see the roofless mud walls ; he got back in 
 the night through a window, and 1 had to begin afresh. 
 A recent Act requires you to give notice to the re- 
 lieving-officer of the names of all the inhabitants of the 
 house of which you are driven to recover possession for 
 nonpayment of rent. If you omit a notice to a single 
 lodger in an outhouse, of whose existence you were 
 not aware, who perhaps was placed there for that 
 purpose, the ejectment is void. That Act, like much 
 English legislation for Ireland, has increased the 
 evictions which it was intended to diminish. A land- 
 lord feels less scruple in ejecting a family, as the notice 
 seems to throw on the relieving-officer the duty of pro- 
 viding for them.' 
 
 Tenant-right on the Ulster principle is unknown in 
 
MOUNT TEENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 281 
 
 this country ; and Lord Monteagle would regret to see 
 it introduced. It is true that it tends to secure the 
 rent ; but it deprives the incoming tenant of the capital 
 with which his farm ought to be stocked, and it seriously 
 diminishes the landlord's influence in the improvement 
 of the estate. A man who has paid for his tenancy half 
 the value of the fee-simple considers himself a part- 
 owner, and resents interference. 
 
 On the whole, that part of the estate which is in 
 hand, or held at will, appeared to me to be in excellent 
 order. But that excellence has been purchased at a 
 price which no one, not possessed (in the present time 
 of distress) of other revenue than his land, could pay. 
 For the last six years Lord Monteagle has received a 
 very small portion of the rents of his Irish property ; the 
 principal portion of them having been either paid away in 
 poor-rates and local charges, or expended in improve- 
 ments, or forgiven to the tenants as irrecoverable arrears. 
 
 We passed some land which Lord Monteagle de- 
 scribed as amongst the best on the estate. I said that 
 it appeared to want draining. 
 
 6 That is true,' said Lord Monteagle ; ' money so 
 employed would probably afford a profit of 10 per cent. 
 But my means are of course limited.' 
 
 c Could it not be done,' I said, c by a tenant ? ' 
 
 ' Not by an Irish tenant,' he answered, 6 for he would 
 not have sufficient capital. Caird, the great Scotch 
 agriculturist, went over this estate with me. He was 
 struck by the capabilities of the land of which we are 
 speaking, and advised me to advertise for a tenant in 
 the Scotch papers. I did so, unsuccessfully. The 
 severity of the existing Poor-law, and — what is more 
 alarming, because it cannot be accurately estimated — 
 
282 
 
 JOURNAL, 18.'>2. 
 
 the capricious legislation to which Irish property is 
 subject, deter agricultural capitalists from making in- 
 vestments in Ireland. Acts of Parliament for Ireland, 
 are among the more approved weapons in English 
 political warfare. If either the Whigs or the Tories 
 think that they can gain a party triumph by another 
 Poor Law Extension Bill, or by a Tenant-right Bill, 
 we risk having another, without the least reference 
 to its effects on the prosperity or the murals or the 
 security of this country.' 
 
 ' Power tells me,' I said, 1 that the burden of the 
 poor-rate has much diminished ; that it has been re- 
 duced since last year by one-third, and now does not 
 much exceed in poundage the English rate.' 
 
 ' You must recollect,' he answered, 1 that the English 
 and Irish svstems of rating differ. In England V ou 
 rate the net income after payment of poor-rate. This, 
 legally, we ought to do in Ireland ; but we do not. 
 We rate according to the supposed value, independent 
 of poor-rate. In the second place, the general average 
 does not indicate the local pressure. There are not 
 above two unions in Ulster, in any electoral division of 
 which the poor-rate amounts to four shillings in the 
 pound. There are probably not ten in Munster, not 
 ten in Connaught, in which it does not exceed four 
 shillings in the pound. You see from hence, on the 
 other side of the Shannon, some fine woods, sweeping 
 down to the water. They are in the union of P. In 
 one of its electoral divisions, Q, the expenditure on the 
 poor is 50 per cent, more than the whole annual value 
 of the land; the annual value of the land being 408/., 
 and the expenditure on the poor 602/. 
 
 1 Another circumstance which aggravates the burden 
 
MOUNT THENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 283 
 
 is, that the liability for poor-rate is a personal charge, 
 A man may be arrested in London for the poor-rate on 
 his Irish estates — perhaps for the portion of it which 
 ought to have been paid by his tenants, who have sold 
 off their crops and sailed to America, leaving unpaid 
 not only the poor-rate, but also the rent out of which 
 the landlord might have paid it. The Courts, however, 
 have decided that land left uncultivated is not assessable. 
 The consequence is that large tracts are left waste, 
 and, unless some change is made in the law, they will 
 remain waste for ever. Then follows increase of rate 
 on the cultivated portions of the electoral division of 
 the union, and of course a danger that the abandonment, 
 once begun, will go on in an accelerated ratio. 
 
 ' It is not, however,' continued Lord Monteagle, i so 
 much the material as the moral effects of the Poor Law 
 that I deplore. Here is a list of the persons summoned 
 before our petty sessions next week. You see that three- 
 fourths of the cases are men charged with deserting 
 their wives and children* — a crime absolutely unheard 
 of before the Poor Law. It is probable that we shall 
 not see one of these men ag;ain. The best of them are 
 gone to America, and may send over for their families ; 
 those who have gone to England will stay there, and 
 leave us permanently in loco mariti and in loco parentis. 
 The honesty of the people is as much impaired as their 
 natural affections. Notwithstanding the reduction of 
 our numbers, we have an amount of theft previously 
 unknown. Before the Poor Law my hall-door was 
 always unlocked. I am now forced to close it as 
 jealously as in London. f The poor have been taught 
 
 * This offence, I am told, has now become very rare. — Ed. 
 j* This precaution is said to be no longer necessary. — Ed. 
 
284 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 that they have an indefinite claim on the property of the 
 rich, and they think it no great sin to enforce that 
 claim irregularly.' 
 
 Tuesday, Sept. 7. — Lady Monteagle has a levee 
 every morning, consisting, to a great extent, of in- 
 tending emigrants. To-day she was giving advice to a 
 stout healthy-looking girl, who is to sail in a few days 
 to Australia ; begging her to do credit to her country 
 and to her religion, and not to allow it to be said that 
 there is a better emigrant than an Irish Catholic. She 
 has sent from this neighbourhood many hundreds, and 
 hopes to send many hundreds more. Lord Monteagle 
 showed me two letters which a man, who left Mount 
 Trenchard for Sydney a few years ago, has just sent 
 to his brother, with an enclosure of 51. They are so 
 characteristic that I copy them : — 
 
 " Wollongong : February 2, 1852. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — I received your letter on 
 " January 30, which grieves me to hear of your dis- 
 " tressed situation of life. Dear brother, I am here in 
 " a far country without grandfather or grandmother, 
 " niece or nephew, to do a hand's turn for you, but 
 " every man doing the best for himself ; it is not like 
 " home, when a man could get a man or a neighbour to 
 c< make a stack for you, through men's labour being so 
 " dear. Dear brother, I mean to let you know how I 
 " am situated in this country. I have sixty acres of 
 " clear land, at a moderate rent, farming and dairying 
 " at the same time. I had 300 bushels of wheat last 
 " year. Those late times since the gold-mines were 
 " opened, wheat was ten shillings per bushel last 
 " season ; I sold mine for six in the commencement of 
 
MOUNT TRENCHAED, 1852. 
 
 285 
 
 " the season, in order to imbrace a thrasher before he 
 " would go to mines. But, dear brother, if you were 
 " with me, we could spare the most part of that cost, 
 " and turn it to our own use. I have a large wheat- 
 " rick this season, over 200 bushels, and over 100 
 " bushels of Indian-corn, but I have none ready for 
 " market yet. St. Stephen's Day I finished reaping 
 " it. The harvest commences here on the 1st of 
 " December. 
 
 " Dear brother, when you receive this letter begin 
 " to prepare yourself. As soon as I go to market 
 " with the wheat I will send you another letter, and 
 " some money ; and do not buy any clothes of any 
 " description, only what you cannot help, nor boots ; I 
 " have as much clothes waiting for you as would do 
 " you these ten years. Dear brother, you mentioned 
 " in your letter I would make you comfortable ; the 
 " comfort I can afford you is bread, butter and 
 " tea, honey, beef, pork and cabbage, potatoes and 
 " milk ; a horse and cart to ride to Mass, or a horse 
 " bridle and saddle, which you please. If you come 
 " to me yourself and your son, we shall never see a 
 " poor day again ; by a little industry your son would 
 " get six shillings a week this day minding cows. I 
 " have four sons (John, Pat, Mic, and Dan), and a 
 " little girl named Lizey ; and the two eldest milks cows 
 " in the morning, and they all go to school then. 
 " Dear brother, in conclusion, my wife and children 
 " and myself send you and your boy our best love, 
 " hoping that God will and may turn His angry face 
 t€ from you ; and God grant that we may embrace one 
 " another once more, when you and I shall never part, 
 " until death ! Give my best love and respects to all 
 
286 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 " my old neighbours that were the means of bringing 
 " me to this country. I shall let you know in my next 
 " letter how to act as soon as you start to Sydney." 
 
 " Wollongong : March 13, 1802. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — I sent you a letter, dated 
 u February 2, stating that when I would go to market 
 " with my wheat, I would send some money, which I 
 " did not forget to do, according to promise ; and in 
 " perusing this letter you will find the particulars. 
 u Dear brother, do not mind bringing any clothes with 
 " you to this country but what you cannot help — I 
 " will have as much clothes before you as will do you 
 u for ten years ; and also do not think to come without 
 u your boy, for if you do you never will spend a com- 
 " fortable day, but thinking of him ; besides, he will 
 " be the means of making you happy hereafter. Dear 
 " brother, this country is far preferable to America. 
 u The coldest day that I ever knew in this country I 
 u could work in my shirt, and then be burning with 
 " heat. They are coming from all parts of America 
 " to this country to the gold-digging, which is 100 
 u miles off Wollongong; I could go there in two dayij 
 " easy, by the coach. Dear brother, if you cannot 
 " obtain a passage easy, from any of the agents at 
 " home, I would advise you to write to his Honor 
 " Mr. Walcott, the head agent in London, hoping 
 " that his Honor would be so kind as to grant you ■ 
 €i passage to New South Wales, to the only one 
 " brother the Lord left you alive ; hoping that with 
 cc His help, and the help of God, we spend the re- 
 " maining part of our days together, to condole our 
 " hardships since our departure. 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 287 
 
 " Dear and beloved brother, I send you five pounds 
 u bill of exchange enclosed in this letter, which the 
 " manager of the bank told me you would get cashed 
 66 in any bank in Limerick. 
 
 " Dear brother, I hope your face will be the first 
 " token of you I will see. If you do not exert your- 
 " self in coming to this country — a country like the 
 " Holy Land, flowing with milk and honey — you never 
 S€ need not write to me again. And do not spare 
 u trouble to me, if you and me could spend the latter 
 " end of our days in comfort, where you shall not 
 s€ want for nothing but a good appetite. Is no more 
 " at present from me, your brother, D. Downey." 
 
 It seems that the 51. will be more than enough, as 
 the brother is likely to be sent out by the Emigration 
 Commissioners. 
 
 We walked to two remarkable raths, about four 
 miles from the house. Raths abound in this country. 
 They generally consist of a low circular mound, about 
 a couple of feet high, and forty or fifty feet in dia- 
 meter, and could have been used only for civil or 
 religious purposes. Those which we visited to-day 
 have a military appearance. Each crowns a small 
 conical eminence. The smaller one- has a double 
 mound and ditch, the inner mound about twenty feet 
 high. The larger rath has three concentric mounds 
 and ditches, and the central mound cannot be less than 
 forty feet high. On its summit a mediaeval fortress 
 has been erected, consisting of a circular wall of great 
 thickness, surrounding a large solitary round tower. 
 About half the wall, and two-thirds of the tower, re- 
 main standing. The portions which have fallen lie in 
 
288 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 vast masses of masonry in the interior ditch. They 
 appear to have been blown up. 
 
 We talked of the disposition of the priests. 
 
 6 They are now,' said Lord Monteagle, ' almost mad. 
 The Ecclesiastical Titles Act has roused passions which 
 will not be calmed in our time/ 
 
 6 What harm,' I said, ' has that Act done to them? 
 It has not been enforced ; everyone knew, when it was 
 passed, that it was not intended to be enforced. Its 
 only effect has been to make the Roman Catholic 
 bishops assume their territorial titles more ostenta- 
 tiously than they (lid before. ' 
 
 ' That is true,' said Lord Monteagle. 6 The Act 
 has enabled the Roman Catholic Church to trample on 
 the Imperial Parliament and on the Imperial power — 
 to drag the Queen, Lords, and Commons through the 
 dirt as ignominiously as the most furious Repealer 
 could desire. But, though inoperative as an enact- 
 ment, it has stung sharply as an insult. Nor is it safe 
 to say that it will always be inoperative. It declares 
 illegal and void all acts done in obedience to a Papal 
 bull. Among those acts is the consecration of a bishop. 
 When the bishop-elect is brought forward, the conse- 
 crating bishop asks, " Habetis liter as Apostolicas?" 
 The answer is, " Habemus;" the bishop replies, " Ze- 
 gantur" The Pope's letter approving the bishop-elect 
 is then read, and the consecration proceeds. Xow, by 
 the Act, this consecration is void ; consequently, all 
 ordinations by that bishop are void. Many Lawyers 
 are of opinion that a Roman Catholic marriage cele- 
 brated in Ireland without the concurrence of a priest 
 is void. If that opinion be correct, of course all 
 marriages celebrated by a person ordained by a bishop 
 
MOUNT TREXCHAKD. 1852. 
 
 289 
 
 consecrated after the passing of the Act, will he void. 
 I trust that this opinion is mistaken, but the mere 
 existence of a doubt as to the validity of a whole class 
 of marriages is a serious evil. 
 
 e The heavy penalties imposed by the Act may be 
 sued for by a common informer. It is true that the 
 consent of the law officers is required ; but does that 
 mean more than that they are to see that the evidence 
 is sufficient ? When a clear case of deliberate viola- 
 tion of the law is submitted to them, and the informer 
 requires their sanction to his suing for the penalties, 
 have they a right to say. We think it inexpedient 
 that the Act should be put in force, therefore you shall 
 not proceed"? And is it no injury to subject to 
 ruinous penalties those who. in obeying a Papal com- 
 mand, think that they perform a religious duty ? The 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, as brought in, was an act of 
 mere folly : it merely repeated a prohibition which 
 three-and-twenty years' experience had shown to be 
 nugatory. The Bill, as amended by the Tories, is an 
 act of persecution ; it is a return to the penal laws. 
 A friend of yours and mine said, that those who passed 
 it were like those who navigated the ** Great Britain ; " 
 they forgot the existence of Ireland, and ran into a 
 worse bay than Dimdrum. 
 
 k And for all this we are indebted to the Eglinton 
 proviso,* and to the manner in which that proviso was 
 dealt with by Lord Palmerston. Instead of rejecting 
 the Bill after that proviso had turned it from an act of 
 conciliation into one of insult, he said that he con- 
 sidered the proviso an improvement ; that it was a 
 
 * That the Pope's envoy should not be an ecclesiastic— Ed. 
 VOL. I. U 
 
290 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 step towards a most desirable object, an object which 
 he trusted to see attained — the secularisation of the 
 Papal Administration. 
 
 ' This Pio Nono never will forget, and never will 
 forgive. His whole subsequent system of ecclesiastical 
 policy in this country, including his establishment of a 
 new hierarchy, may be traced to this origin. 
 
 ' If, however, we had not come to his assistance, by 
 that fatal Ecclesiastical Titles Act, his aggressions 
 would have turned against himself. The Papal in- 
 fluence in Ireland was never lower than on the day 
 before Lord John Russell published his letter to the 
 Bishop of Durham. Pio Nono had offended all the 
 friends of liberty by the reactionary policy of his resto- 
 ration ; all the friends of knowledge by his repudiation 
 of secular instruction ; and many of those who cared for 
 neither civil liberty nor knowledge, by his usurpation 
 of the episcopal patronage. 
 
 c According to the canon law of Ireland, the nomi- 
 nation of bishops is in the Crown. Now that the 
 crown is worn by a heretic, the bishops exercise it ad 
 interim ; but they profess to retain it as a deposit, to 
 be returned to the Crown as soon as the Protestant 
 schism has been closed. When they presented to the 
 Pope their three candidates as digjius, dignior, and dig- 
 nissimusj they relied on the selection of the dignissimus ; 
 and it was rath indignation that they saw Cullen, an 
 Italian-bred priest, unacquainted with Ireland, pro- 
 moted to the primacy. The priests, too, had been 
 tamed by the famine and the emigration. Their in- 
 comes were diminishing, and they began to speculate 
 again on the possibility of a Regium Donum. If we 
 had received Wiseman's nomination and the creation 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 291 
 
 of English bishoprics with common-sense and dignity, 
 had merely reminded the English people that the 
 Pope had no legal power, and had admitted the 
 impossibility of restraining his spiritual power, public 
 opinion, even in Ireland, would have been on the 
 side of the Government. Instead of that we chose to 
 bark, though we could not bite, and to exhibit our- 
 selves, to the scorn of all Europe, in the contortions of 
 impotent rage. 
 
 ' Nor is it only with respect to Ireland,' continued 
 Lord Monteagle, 6 that the Act makes me tremble. 
 I dread, perhaps still more, its effect on the state 
 of parties in England. Everything which increases 
 the strength of the third party, of the party which 
 coalesces sometimes with the Whigs and sometimes 
 with the Tories, tends to render every Administration 
 unstable. 
 
 ( The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill has thrown into this 
 third party the bulk of the Irish representation. And 
 it has given to us the worst and most violent set of 
 Members that I ever recollect. Every Irishman must 
 feel degraded at being so represented ; but to me, who 
 recollect Plunket, and Grattan, and Newport — who 
 remember an Irish party with whom every friend of 
 liberty was proud to act — it is doubly painful. 
 
 ' Setting aside the mischief which necessarily at- 
 taches to the existence of a third party, the English 
 Radicals are dangerous only from their theories — from 
 their ultra-democracy, and their ultra-parsimony. 
 They are anxious for the public good, though they are 
 too narrowminded to embrace all the means of effecting 
 it. They are mischievous only from their want of 
 intelligence. The Irish Radicals are mischievous in 
 
 U 2 
 
292 
 
 JOURNAL, 1832. 
 
 proportion to their intelligence. They are anxious for 
 public harm. They wish to make the Imperial Go- 
 vernment work ill. They are now resolved that Lord 
 Derby shall be unable to govern ; as soon as he is upset 
 they will turn their hostility against his successor. If 
 the Whigs are mad enough and wicked enough to assist 
 them now, and the Tories are mad enough and wicked 
 enough to assist them on the next occasion, how is the 
 country to be governed ? And who is there to govern 
 it ? Who are the younger men who are to succeed 
 to our veterans V 
 
 % I trust/ I said, 4 that the Whiirs will not aid the 
 
 9 9 o 
 
 Radicals where they are wrong ; but are they to refuse 
 their co-operation where they are right ? If Lord 
 Derby proposes a separate grant for Protestant educa- 
 tion in Ireland, are they to say, 
 
 1 Nod tali auxilio, non defensoribus istis, 
 
 will we fight ? and are they to suffer him to destroy 
 the system of Mixed Education?' 
 
 6 The event which you suppose/ answered Lord 
 MonteaglOj * will not occur. Stanley will not propose 
 a grant for Protestant education because that implies a 
 grant for Roman Catholic education, and the May- 
 nooth debate must have convinced him that such a 
 grant he cannot obtain. Xor do I think that he will 
 attempt anything else very monstrous. If he does, of 
 course he must be resisted at all hazards. But what 
 I deprecate is, a coalition between "Whigs and Radicals 
 on the old French plan. — not for the purpose of de- 
 fence, but of attack. Such a coalition would bring 
 on a series of Parliamentary revolutions, of which no 
 one can predict the course or the termination/ 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 293 
 
 6 You have mentioned,' I said, 6 the want of rising 
 young men in the House of Commons. To what do 
 you attribute it ? Is it because the House is filled 
 with provincial celebrities — with men who have gra- 
 dually worked their way to be the oracles of a borough 
 or of a division of a county? Is it to be attributed to 
 the instability of Administrations, which renders office 
 uncertain, and to the retrenchments, which render it 
 unprofitable, and therefore render politics an unat- 
 tractive profession ; or to the increased labour of Par- 
 liamentary life, w T hich forces young Members to waste 
 on details, and on private business, the time and the 
 attention which they ought to devote to matters of real 
 statesmanship ? ' 
 
 ' All these circumstances,' answered Lord Monteagle, 
 6 may have something to do with it, but the principal 
 cause I take to be the conduct of the great Parlia- 
 mentary leaders on each side. When I first recollect 
 the House of Commons, more than a quarter of a 
 century ago, the chiefs were anxious to bring forward 
 the younger members. Canning had always about him 
 a set of young friends, whose studies he directed, 
 whose ambition he excited, to whom he assigned their 
 share in the debate, and whom he protected with the 
 most chivalrous self-devotion when they advanced too 
 far, or too incautiously, in the fight. He made them 
 pay for it, indeed, afterwards in private; for he was 
 merciless (at least as merciless as a good-natured man 
 could be) in exposing them to themselves, in ridiculing 
 their imperfections, and dissecting their blunders ; but 
 in public he held before them a shield as broad and as 
 thick as that of Ajax. Xow all this is over. The 
 leaders appear to desire no brother near the throne. 
 
294 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 They look coldly on their supporters on the back-seats, 
 do not encourage them in success, do not rescue them 
 in failure, and seem to wish to confine the debate to the 
 Treasury bench and the Opposition bench.' 
 
 Two boys of sixteen and fourteen, sons of a small 
 tenant, accompanied us. The elder was to be a farmer. 
 Lord Monteagle asked him how flax could be prevented 
 from being an exhausting crop. 
 
 ' By returning,' said the boy, 1 the woody part to the 
 ground.' 
 
 ' And on what principle ? ' asked Lord Monteagle. 
 
 s Because,' said the boy, ' the woody part of the flax 
 is nourished by the earth, and the silky part by the 
 air ; so that, by returning to the earth all that it has 
 given, you restore its powers.' 
 
 The younger lad was to be a priest. He was read- 
 ing Virgil, and said that he liked it very inucli. They 
 were good specimens of the education obtained by the 
 children of a man whose income cannot be above 70/. 
 or 80/. a year. 
 
 Wednesday, Sept. 8. — Lady Monteagle and Mrs. 
 Senior visited the National School. They were struck 
 by the acuteness of the answers of a boy of about nine 
 years old. His clothes — or the things that passed for 
 his clothes — were, with the exception of his shirt, so 
 eminently ragged, that Lady Monteagle told him to 
 ask his mother to sew up a few of the rents. 
 
 ' He has no mother,' said the schoolmaster. 1 Eight 
 or nine months ago he appeared in the village ; he could 
 not tell who he was, where he came from, or who were 
 his parents. He was taken in, and lodged and fed. as 
 a vagrant always is in an Irish village, and found his 
 way to the school. The children were pleased with 
 
MOUNT TRENCHARD, 1852. 
 
 295 
 
 him, and subscribed a halfpenny apiece, with which I 
 bought him a couple of shirts. These are his principal 
 clothing. He is passed from house to house, is well 
 received everywhere, and will probably be thus main- 
 tained until he can earn his own subsistence.' 
 
 Mrs. Senior gave the master five shillings, which he 
 said would buy him a suit of clothes — that is to say, a 
 jacket and trousers ; shirts he has ; shoes, stockings, or 
 hat would be superfluities. 
 
 I walked over the model farm, containing about 
 thirty acres. It is to be managed, one-half on the 
 four-course, and the other on the five-course system. 
 The cattle are all to be stall-fed, and as it lies in a 
 ring-fence, all internal fences are levelled. Mr. Thorn- 
 bery, Lord Monteagle's sub -agent, a Yorkshire agri- 
 culturist was with me. As he admitted that, thus 
 managed, the model farm would probably do well, and 
 pay its expenses and rent, I asked why the same prin- 
 ciple might not be applied to farms of two or three 
 hundred acres. He said that the expense of buildings 
 for housing so large a number of cattle as a farm of 
 300 acres requires, would be intolerable. I asked 
 why it need be greater in proportion than that of the 
 buildings necessary to house the cattle on 30 acres, and 
 did not get any satisfactory reply. In Belgium all 
 the cattle are housed. I remember seeing, at Baron 
 Larpent's, three cows in a stable in which they were 
 born, from which they never had gone, and where 
 they would probably die. They seemed in excellent 
 health, and gave more milk, and much more manure, 
 than are given by cows in a field. 
 
 Thornbery does not join in the common opinion that 
 Irish labour is necessarily dear. * The men,' he said, 
 
296 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 c being seldom well treated, do not treat "their masters 
 well. They are apt to shirk work, and require vigi- 
 lant looking after; but if watched and pressed, and 
 sufficiently paid to be sufficiently fed, they will do quite 
 as much work as an English labourer.' 
 
 In Ireland, attention is seldom paid to the comfort 
 of the walking public ; there are no footpaths, no 
 gates, and very few stiles. The fields are generally 
 surrounded by a stone wall, or a mud bank, in which 
 a gap is made when a plough or a cart is to enter 
 them, and closed as soon as the exigency is over. On 
 our return to-day, we deviated from the high road, and 
 consequently had at least twenty fences to climb or 
 break through. To this, however, no objection is 
 made. The farmer sees you crossing his fences, but he 
 does not remonstrate. The law seems to be, that 
 everyone may build a wall wherever he likes, without 
 enquiring what means of communication he interrupts, 
 and that everyone else may break a gap in it. 
 
 Thursday, Sept. 9. — We left Mount Trenchard in a 
 car at one, reached Tarbert at three, took the packet 
 to Kilrush, thence were transferred to the Moore's 
 Hotel omnibus, and reached Kilkee at a quarter-past six. 
 
 Kilkee Bay is one of the few openings in the iron- 
 bound coast which extends from the Shannon to the 
 Bay of Galway. The undulating hills, varying in 
 height from 500 feet, which form that coast, consist 
 principally of black clay-slate mixed with quartz ; the 
 action of the Atlantic on the clay-slate keeps washing 
 it away, and, as it is very friable, it disappears. The 
 consequence is, that the land terminates in a succes- 
 sion of headlands and narrow bays, ending precipi- 
 tously in deep water without the accumulation of smaller 
 
KILKEE, 1852. 
 
 297 
 
 rocks, which generally lie at the feet of harder preci- 
 pices. The quartz strata, sometimes elevated, some- 
 times depressed, form in many places natural arches. 
 The waves wash away the clay-slate below, and exca- 
 vate deep caverns when they beat against a flat cur- 
 tain of coast, and natural bridges when they attack the 
 sides of a peninsula;. In time the bridge falls, and 
 what was the promontory of the peninsula becomes 
 an island. There is a remarkable one near Kilkee, 
 called Bishop's Island. The promontory of which it 
 once formed part is about 200 feet high. At about 
 200 yards from its termination stands the square black 
 precipitous island, about a couple of acres in extent, 
 lashed on all sides by a deep tempestuous sea, like an 
 outwork of a besieged town, which has lost its commu- 
 nication with the main fortress, but is still unsubdued. 
 The whole coast is bare, beyond any country that I 
 ever saw. Taking Kilkee as a centre, there is not 
 within ten miles, on any side, a single tree, or even a 
 single bush. Nor is there any cultivation on the 
 hills or table-land of the coast. They form a succes- 
 sion of downs of the brightest green as far as the eye 
 can reach. 
 
 The result of all these elements is some of the finest 
 coast scenery that I ever enjoyed. The cliffs are 
 indeed lower than those of the Giants' Causeway, or 
 of the west coast of Donegal, and they want the pe- 
 culiar grandeur of a basaltic formation ; but they form 
 a longer uninterrupted range, and they are assailed by 
 a deeper sea. In both cases, the colour of the rocks 
 being black, so is that of the sea, except that the wave 
 as it curls, just before it breaks, is of a bright bluish- 
 green. 
 
298 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 Friday, Sept. 10. — We spent the whole day on the 
 downs. The wind was north, bracing, and rather cool 
 than cold. In such an air, and on such turf, and with 
 such objects, one could walk for ever. Though the 
 elements of the scenery are few, and the colours only 
 three (black, white, and green), the variety is inex- 
 haustible. Every promontory and bay has a physi- 
 ognomy of its own. Sometimes the precipice is per- 
 pendicular, more frequently it hangs over. Sometimes 
 its base is undermined — sometimes (and this is a 
 frequent formation) it ends in a long slanting shelf, 
 up which the wave sweeps for fifty or a hundred feet 
 In many places there is a fringe of rocky islands ; in 
 others you see projecting headlands, so slightly con- 
 nected with the mainland, that in a few winters they 
 will become islands. 
 
 About half a mile from the village is a foreland 
 called the Lookout. It runs out about 500 yards, and 
 the table-land on its summit is about 250 feet high. 
 On its right is a deep narrow bay, the sides of which 
 gradually rise to a height of about 150 feet, and where 
 they face the sea, hang over a reef about 100 feet 
 below them, and rising about 50 feet above high water, 
 called the Diamond liocks. 
 
 It is impossible to look down on this bay without 
 thinking what a dreadful place it would be for a ship- 
 wreck. 
 
 The cliffs, black and jagged, rise either straight from 
 the water, or hang over it. No human foot, indeed no 
 goat's foot, could climb them. Even to-day, with 
 little wind, and that from the land, a violent sea broke 
 on them. In stormy weather the spray washes over 
 the top of the Lookout. 
 
KILKEE, 1S52. 
 
 299 
 
 This bay is called Intrinsic Bay, from the following 
 event : — 
 
 On a stormy morning (January 30, 1836), the Coast- 
 guard, when they ascended the Lookout, saw below 
 them a large ship, dismasted, riding at two anchors in 
 the bay. Every receding wave threw her from the 
 cliffs — every advancing wave threw her towards them. 
 Her hatches were open, and the waves, as they broke 
 over her, ran down into the hold. On her stern they 
 could read the words, 6 Intrinsic of Liverpool.' A 
 man, whom they supposed to be the captain, tried to 
 address them through a trumpet, but in the noise of 
 the waves and wind nothing else could be heard. A 
 lady came up from the cabin, looked round at the 
 rocks and breakers, knelt, apparently in prayer, and 
 went down again. Soon after, a sea swept two men 
 from the deck ; the rest, to escape the same fate, went 
 below. Not one of them was ever seen again. An 
 enormous wave lifted the ship so high, that the spec- 
 tators — who by this time had crowded from the village 
 to the Diamond Rocks — thought that she would be 
 thrown up amongst them ; and so perhaps she might 
 have been, if her cables had parted. The next wave 
 broke over, and appears to have filled her ; as it re- 
 ceded, she disappeared. A few minutes after, her 
 hull rose again, was caught by the wares, rolled over 
 and over, broken into a thousand fragments, and car- 
 ried out to sea. A gull hovering over the water, 
 pounced on something floating, flew inland, and dropped 
 it among the spectators. It was a lady's glove, the 
 only remnant of the 6 Intrinsic' The Liverpool under- 
 writers were communicated with, and it was ascer- 
 tained that the ' Intrinsic ' had left Liverpool a fortnight 
 
300 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 before, bound to New Orleans, with a cargo of railway 
 materials.. She had gone round the North of Ireland, 
 must have been driven towards the south-western coast 
 by a succession of storms, and anchored in the night, 
 when she found that she was on the point of being 
 thrown among the breakers. A large portion of her 
 cargo was recovered by diving. It was found where 
 she went down. It is probable that, when she first 
 touched the ground, the iron rails broke through her 
 bottom and fell out, which accounts for her rising 
 again, to be finally broken to pieces. 
 
 About a year ago, an equally calamitous shipwreck 
 occurred in Kilkee Bay itself. An emigrant ship from 
 Limerick, after having left the Shannon, was driven 
 northward in a stormy night, entered (without knowing 
 where she was) the narrow channel which leads into 
 the bay, and then, seeing breakers on each side of her, 
 anchored. Had she not let go her anchor, she would 
 have been driven ashore on soft sand, and the pas- 
 sengers, and probably the ship, saved. As it was, 
 she anchored too near the sharp reef which lines the 
 western coast of the bay ; the waves swung her round 
 on the rocks, and beat her to pieces in a few minutes. 
 One hundred and twenty of her passengers were lost. 
 Fragments of her timber are still to be seen in a little 
 creek near the beach. On board of her were some 
 natives of Kilkee, but in the darkness and the storm 
 they did not recognise their own bay. 
 
 Saturday, Sept. 11. — Mrs. Senior and I drove to 
 Ross, about sixteen miles to the south of Kilkee, near 
 the Loup Head, to see some natural bridges and puffing- 
 holes. A puffing-hole is a natural shaft or well, 
 opening from above into a cavern, into which the sea 
 
ROSS, 1852. 
 
 301 
 
 beats. In certain conditions of tide and weather, 
 the advancing wave suddenly fills the cavern, and the 
 compressed air forces up the water through the shaft 
 in a white jet, resembling the Carlsbad Sprudel. with 
 a report like that of thunder. There are some fine 
 ones near Horn Head, in Donegal, called Mc Sweeney's 
 Guns, the sound of which, in storms, has been heard 
 twenty miles off. Our road for the first five miles ran 
 along the edge of the cliff, accompanying all its inden- 
 tations, and giving us splendid views of rocky forelands 
 and deep bays, from Loup Head up to Liscannor. It 
 is a relief-work — the first well-executed one that I 
 have seen. AVe then passed a deserted village, con- 
 sisting of the ^able-ends of roofless mud cottages, 
 which, according to the car-boy, had been occupied by 
 squatters. As soon as the landlord was required to pay 
 poor-rate for them, he evicted the occupiers, and took 
 the usual (indeed the necessary) precaution of render- 
 ing the cabins uninhabitable. Not a bush or even a 
 hedge was to be seen during the whole drive, and much 
 of the land appeared to be uncultivated. 
 
 The tenant of the farm in which the bridges and the 
 puffing-holes lie — a wild savage-looking man. speaking 
 a hoarse guttural English — was our o;uide. He told us 
 that he occupied about twenty acres, and paid 9/. a 
 year rent, and 4/. 4s. poor-rate. As the landlord pays 
 half the poor-rates, this makes them equal to the rent, 
 or according to the Irish mode of rating, nearly twenty 
 shillings in the pound. 
 
 One of the bridges is remarkable from its exact 
 resemblance to an artificial bridge. The puffing-holes 
 would not puff for us ; the wind was off the land, and 
 the sea too calm. 
 
302 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 Sunday, Sept. 12. — I ought not to quit Kilkee with- 
 out praising its sea-water baths. They profess to be 
 medicated by a strong decoction of seaweeds, of which 
 I know nothing, for the stewing process takes place in 
 the boiler ; but their peculiar merit is, that every w r arm 
 bath has erected over its foot a deep and lofty shower- 
 bath, with large holes. I am suffering under a slight 
 attack of bronchitis, and (in imitation of the Malvern 
 practice) I have taken every day a hot bath at 99°, 
 followed instantly by a cold shower-bath. Nothing 
 can be more agreeable, and I think that it is cutting 
 short the attack. The Puritanical Sabbatarianism, 
 which prevents bathing on Sunday in English water- 
 ing-places, is unknown here. Up to half-past ten 
 o'clock, the beach and the rocks were crowded with 
 bathers. 
 
 Monday, Sept. 13. — AVe took the omnibus to Kilrush, 
 and the steamer from thence to Tarbert, where we 
 were forced to sleep, there being no means of getting 
 on to Killarney the same day. The inn, however, 
 though simple and unpretending, is excellent. The 
 town is poor, but beautifully situated on an emi- 
 nence overlooking the Shannon, and surrounded by 
 woods. 
 
 When Bonaparte was at Elba, a Captain Flynn, 
 of the Royal Navy, was presented to him. He asked 
 Flynn (as was his custom) where he was bom. 
 
 * On the banks of the Shannon,' answered Flynn. 
 
 ' Ay,' said Bonaparte, ' the Shannon is a grand 
 river, one of the finest in Europe, though you make 
 little use of it. During the Peninsular War, all the 
 grain-ships for the supply of your army in Spain used 
 to rendezvous and lie at a little port in the Shannon, 
 
TARBERT, 1852. 
 
 303 
 
 called Tarbert. Below the anchorage you have a 
 14-gun fort, well-built and strong. But a little lower 
 down on the river is a hill, which overlooks and com- 
 mands it. A small force might easily land in the 
 night and occupy that hill, and then your fort would 
 be useless.' 
 
 I verified these facts to-day. There is the anchor- 
 age, the small fort, beautifully placed on a little green 
 conical eminence, and the unoccupied hill behind it, 
 within musket-shot, from which you can look down 
 into the fort, and could pick off every man at the 
 guns. 
 
 The young women at Tarbert have the usual beauty 
 of the South of Ireland. I met two girls this evening, 
 bare-foot, ragged, but with the figures and walk of 
 princesses — at least of the princesses of fairy-tales — 
 regular features, and bright ruddy complexions. Simple 
 food, an open-air life, and the absence of stimulants, of 
 hard labour, of stays, and of superfluous clothing, are 
 great beautifiers. 
 
 Tuesday, Sept. 14. — We left Tarbert at eleven 
 o'clock, and after a long journey — which, until we 
 passed Tralee, and neared the Kerry mountains, was 
 uninteresting — reached the Muckross Hotel (about 
 two miles on the Kenmare side of Killarney) at six. 
 
 A large portion of the land seemed to be waste. 
 That which professed to be cultivated was intersected 
 by mounds, which divided it by roods rather than by 
 acres, and was waving with magnificent crops of rag- 
 weed and thistles. Mixed with them were oats and 
 beans, and some (but few) potatoes. The greater 
 part have been dug tip. 
 
 Wednesday, Sept 15. — The Muckross Hotel is ill- 
 
3tU 
 
 JOURNAL, 1S52. 
 
 situated. The woods of Mr. Herbert's beautiful place. 
 Muekross Abbey, our off the view of the lakes. 
 
 I walked this morning, before breakfast, about four 
 miles on the Kenmare road. The first two miles were 
 tantalising. I coasted the park-wall and belt of 
 Muekross Abbey, and could only guess what fine 
 things there might be on the other side. At length I 
 reached the broken rising ground which separates the 
 Upper from the Middle Lake. Here the road first 
 gave a s] U n !i 1 view i f the Middle and L#ower Lakv. 
 and then turned south, through the wild valley which 
 stretches towards Kenmare. separating the Mangerton 
 mountain from Maegillieuddy's Reeks. 
 
 After breakfast we called on Mr. Herbert, and 
 walked with him round his garden and home-scenes, 
 and then drove round the Middle Lake — perhaps the 
 most beautiful portion of his domain. On our return 
 we saw the Tore Waterfall. The rocks, the woods, 
 and the deep narrow gorge which they form, are 
 striking, and the fall must be so in wet weather. To- 
 day it rather trickled than fell. 
 
 We dined with Mr. Herbert. I spoke of the waste 
 state of the greater \ ar: of the land between Tarbert 
 and Killarney. 
 
 * It is much worse than waste.* said Mr. Herbert. 
 * All that man has done there is mischief. Much of the 
 land which you saw yesterday is good land. Ragweed, 
 indeed, does not flourish on any other. But in order 
 to make it worth cultivating, the first thing to be done 
 is to level the innumerable mounds with which the 
 misdirected industry of its occupiers has intersected it : 
 and the next is to relieve it from the exhaustion to 
 which the alternation of oats and potatoes, and the 
 
KILLAB5CT, 1992. 
 
 309 
 
 permanence of weeds, unaccompanied by manure, hare 
 reduced it.' 
 
 We talked of the squalid appearance of Killarney 
 its ragged half-starved population, and ruinous houses. 
 I aaid that it reminded me of Fondi or Itri, or the 
 other desolate dilapidated towns between Gaeta and 
 Rome. He thought that I did injustice to FondL 
 Wretched as it is, it seemed to him less wretched than 
 Killarney. 
 
 ■ To what,' I said, ' do you attribute the peculiar 
 misery of Killarney ? ' 
 
 * I do not think," answered Mr. Herbert, ' that it is 
 peculiarly miserable for an agricultural town in the 
 South of Ireland without trade or manufactures. The 
 deserted houses are the results of death or emigration. 
 The half-starved and quarter-clothed loungers about 
 the streets are attracted thither from the neighbour- 
 ing country by the hope of casual employment from 
 visitors. What may be called the middle classes — 
 that is, those above the labourers and cottiers — spent 
 the greater part of their little capital during the 
 famine, the successive potato failures have diminished 
 what remained, and the low prices of agricultural pro- 
 duce prevent their recovering their losses. 
 
 'I will give you a proof of the poverty of this 
 neighbourhood. Kerry and Clare are both bare of 
 wood : the people at Listowel are forced to go fifteen 
 miles off — to Tarbert, or to Tralee — to get even 
 handles for their flails. I was able, therefore, before 
 the famine to sell the thinnings of my woods for rather 
 more than 1,000/L a year. Now they do not pay for 
 the cutting.' 
 
 Thursday, Sept. 16. — We made to-day the grand 
 vol- L x 
 
306 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 tour of the lakes. We started at ten from Muckross, 
 drove through Killarney, and then along the north 
 shore of the Lower Lake, until we crossed the River 
 Laune, which empties it. We then turned south, and 
 began to ascend the Gap of Dunloe. This is a chasm, 
 ibout five miles in length, separating the purple 
 mountain from MacgillieuddvV Keeks. It is a long 
 ascent, the crest of the pass being about 750 feet above 
 the River Laune. A torrent runs down it, expanding 
 from time to time into black tarns. The purple moun- 
 tain is 2.7.">0 feet high. Some of the peaks of the Reek 
 exceed 3 .000 feet. Their sides are steep, but not quite 
 precipitous, and are covered, wherever there is a ledge, 
 with the greenest herbage, and to-day were sprinkled 
 over with sheep and goats. Thi< relieves them from 
 the desolate stony monotony of such passes as Llan- 
 beris, where the mountains seem falling on each side 
 into ruin. Our ixuide told us that he once saw a £oat 
 which had scrambled down to one of these green 
 ledges, and was unable to leave it : she ate up every 
 blade of grass, became weak, and wa> killed by the 
 eagles. 
 
 The descent from the summit of the Gap to the 
 Gearhameen river, and thence to the Upper Lake, 
 through broken ground covered with natural forest, 
 intersected by a rapid river, and surrounded by an 
 amphitheatre of mountains except to the south, and 
 there commanding the Upper Lake and its woody 
 islands, is more varied and more beautiful than the 
 pass, though perhaps less impressive. 
 
 At the mouth of the river we entered our boat, and 
 rowed down the Upper Lake, the long winding chan- 
 nel called the Long Range, round by the Eagle's Xest 
 
KILLARNEY, 1852. 
 
 307 
 
 — a pyramidal crag rising abruptly from the water — by 
 Dinish Island and the Middle Lake, then through 
 Glena Bay, and thence, coasting the long Muckross 
 peninsula, to the landing-place in Castle Lough Bay. 
 
 The Irish lakes want, of course, the Alpine shores 
 of those of the Salz-kammergut, Switzerland, and 
 Upper Italy ; they want the deep-blue waters of the 
 Lake of Geneva. The limestone rocks below them, 
 and the pale sky above, communicate to them a grey 
 colour, which, though in keeping with all that surrounds, 
 them, is cold and monotonous ; but they have inex- 
 haustible variety of outline and character, from the 
 wildness of the Upper Lake, to the richness and re- 
 pose of the Middle Lake and of Glena Bay. 
 
 One of their peculiar beauties is the limestone shore 
 which confines them. Other lakes are generally 
 bounded by steep shelving banks or by reedy shallows. 
 The Killarney Lakes are surrounded by a white lime- 
 stone fringe, worn into caves and galleries, and covered 
 with vew, arbutus, and oak, like a settinor fixed bv 
 nature round one of her ornaments. Another is their 
 variety of outline. Xo other lake that I have seen 
 (except, perhaps, that of the Four Cantons), is scooped 
 into so many bays, broken by so many headlands and 
 long-stretching peninsulas, and so alternatelv con- 
 tracted and expanded. Another arises from then- 
 islands, of every different size — from Boss Island, 
 which is some miles round, down to the rocks with 
 which the Upper Lake is dotted ; all with the same 
 white limestone shores, and the same green summits 
 or table-lands, covered with forests where there is 
 room and soil for them, and by tufted shrubs and ever- 
 greens where the rock is too near the surface to bear 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 JOURNAL, 185?. 
 
 anything larger. Perhaps tlieir greatest charm is the 
 delicacy and luxuriance of their vegetation* 
 
 The shores and islands of the British and Swiss lakes 
 are cold, those of the Italian lakes are burnt uj>, and 
 both arc deformed by terraces, enclosures, and culti- 
 vation. Killarney enjoys tin 4 warmth of a southern 
 climate and the humidity of a northern one. And the 
 wo great proprietors who divide the whole coast em- 
 ploy it only for the purposes of beauty. Not a fence, 
 or a hedge, or an angular patch of cultivation, reminds 
 you of labour or art. One may readily believe that 
 the general aspect of the scenery now is what it was 
 when Ireland was a green desert unvi.-ited by man. 
 
 Friday f Sept, 17. — I took Spillane, the oldest and 
 
 most Celebrated of the guides, and ascended Manger- 
 ton. 
 
 Spillane was for twenty-six years a sergeant in the 
 Kerry Militia, and served in the short campaign against 
 Humbert, and in the Rebellion of 1798. lie told me 
 a story which shows the temper of those times. The 
 commissariat was ill-managed, 'flic troops were some- 
 times two days without regular rations, and were 
 obliged to plunder for food. A man to whose charge 
 a rebel had been committed, was irritated at seeing his 
 companions foraging, while he had to keep watch over 
 his prisoner. Spillane saw him shoot the prisoner as 
 he sat by the camp-tire, and then go and join the 
 foraoers. When he was asked what had become of his 
 prisoner, he answered that he was lying down quietly 
 by the fire. No regular enquiry was made, nor was 
 the man punished. Spillane remembered him in the 
 regiment for many years afterwards. He saw many 
 hundreds executed, on the sentence of a drumhead 
 
KILLATtNEY, 1852. 
 
 309 
 
 court-martial, on very slight evidence, or on that of paid 
 informers. A great proportion of them he believes to 
 have been innocent. 
 
 I asked him whether the people about Killarney had 
 advanced or gone back during his long acquaintance 
 with them. 
 
 6 Improved,' he said, 6 in education and knowledge, but 
 gone back in physical condition. The means of sub- 
 sistence had not increased with the increase of popula- 
 tion. Now, however, as the population was diminish- 
 ing, the comfort of those who remained was augment- 
 ing.' 
 
 I asked him what was his religion. 
 
 6 1 am a Roman,' he answered. 6 1 do not think that 
 there is sufficient difference between the religions to 
 require me to quit the faith that I have been brought 
 up in ; but when there is not a chapel at hand, I join 
 in the prayers of the Protestants, or of the Presby- 
 terians.' 
 
 ' Does the priest,' I said, ' allow that ?' 
 
 ' I think,' he answered, 1 that at my age I have a 
 right to an opinion of my own. There are no religious 
 dissensions here,' he added ; ' no one asks whether a 
 man is a Roman or a Protestant. We have been at 
 peace ever since tithes were commuted, and church-cess 
 abolished.' 
 
 The top of Mangerton is a table-land 2,800 feet high. 
 Towards the north it is suddenly cut down, so as to form 
 a green precipice 500 feet deep, sinking into a black 
 tarn, called the Devil's Punchbowl. 
 
 From the summit, and indeed from far below the 
 summit, you see the whole of the lakes, and the green 
 promontory of Muckross spread out like a map. Tore 
 
310 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 mountain, which below is a giant, is passed over almost 
 unnoticed. Towards the west is a wild peninsula of 
 mountains, ridge beyond ridge, and peak above peak, 
 extending to Valentia. with Dingle Bay on one side, 
 and Kenmare Bay on the other. Farther south is 
 Bantry Bay, forty-two miles off, scarcely distinguish- 
 able as a white streak. 
 
 On its northern face the mountain is cut by a still 
 deeper precipice, at the bottom of which — 1,700 feet 
 below — is a glen called Glenacappul (or the Glen of the 
 Horse), with three tarns in its desolate-looking bosom. 
 Farther north is Lough Guitane, and the view in that 
 direction is closed by Slievemish, and by the lofty range 
 separating Dingle Bay from the Bay of Tralee. On the 
 whole, the view from the top of Mangerton seemed to 
 me to be more cxten-ive and more varied, and to contain 
 both more grandeur and more beauty, than that which 
 is seen from Ben Lomond — the view which most resem- 
 bles it. It is remarkably easy of ascent : going slowly, 
 and resting, we were only seven hours out. 
 
 Saturday, Sept. 18, Ten at n'ujht. — It was raining 
 when I got up at six o'clock this morning, and from 
 that time there has been only one interval fine, which 
 lasted ten minutes. I made use of it to get down to 
 Muckross Abbey. Mrs. Herbert, who is an admirable 
 artist, showed me a portfolio of watercolour drawings 
 by herself, from the lakes — the only representations of 
 them I have ever seen that did them justice, or even 
 resembled them. The colouring of the mountains, so 
 rich and so deep that anyone but a bold artist would 
 think it exaggerated, creates, I suppose, the principal 
 difficulty. 
 
 AVe have found some confirmations of Lord Mont- 
 
KILLABXEY, 1*52. 
 
 311 
 
 eagle's remark, that the honesty of the lower Irish has 
 been impaired. At Kilkee, a chambermaid hid a gold 
 pin of Mrs. Senior's. To-day Mrs. Senior bought some 
 bog-wood bracelets for sixteen or seventeen shillings. 
 Some time after the woman had been paid, she carne 
 back, and said that, on counting over her money, she 
 found that she had received a shilling too little. Mrs. 
 Senior, without believing her story, gave it to her. Half 
 an hour after, she came back again, and said that, on 
 recounting her money, she now found that she had 
 received three-and-sixpence too little. 
 
 This day was to have been given to Lord Keninare's 
 grounds, Ross Island, and Innisfallen. The rain has 
 made them inaccessible, and as we cannot spare a day 
 from our next visit, we shall lose them. The rest of the 
 lake-scenery we have visited conscientiously. We are 
 not fortunate in our inn. The best situated is the Lake 
 Hotel — the best managed is the Victoria. The people 
 here are exceedingly civil, and the charges are low, but 
 it has no other merits. We were lucky, however, in 
 getting in anywhere, Nine or ten parties were turned 
 away the day that we arrived. At the Victoria they 
 do not wish their guests to stay more than a day. 
 
 Sunday Sept. 19. — I went before breakfast over the 
 ruins of Muckross Abbey. Mr. Herbert thinks little 
 of them. They owe their beauty, he said, to their posi- 
 tion, their associations, and to the trees and creepers that 
 half conceal them. The abbey, if built now, would be 
 thought ugly. I so far agree with him as to believe 
 that it was far less beautiful when perfect than it now 
 is in decay. But even when it stood untouched, and 
 unadorned by time — its tower not yet covered with ivy 
 or green and yellow moss, its windows not yet entwined 
 
312 
 
 JOURNAL, 1852. 
 
 by creepers, the arbutus and yew not yet rising from 
 its walls — it must have been pleasing from its propor- 
 tions and its simplicity. 
 
 This is what I can recollect of its plan : — 
 
 
 Chapter House 
 
 
 Refectory 
 
 
 Dormitory 
 
 
 
 with 
 
 
 
 Cellars underneath 
 
 
 
 Cloister 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 Open 
 
 ■ 
 /. 
 
 "6 
 
 Quadrangle 
 
 j5 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Cloister 
 
 
 p 
 H 
 
 Transept 
 
 As is the case in the monastery of Adare, the tower 
 is in the centre. There is only one transept. The 
 gate-keeper, who is the cicerone, told me that Pugin 
 admired the proportions and the arrangement. The 
 open quadrangle is filled by a gigantic yew-tree, rising 
 from its centre, probably coeval with the cloisters. It 
 reminded me of the great plane which fills a quadrangle 
 in the ancient monastery of S. Severino in Naples. 
 
KJE5MABE, 1852. 
 
 313 
 
 After breakfast I walked to Kenmare — about twenty 
 miles — crossing the chain of mountains (of which 
 Macgillicuddy's Reeks are the highest points) separat- 
 ing Dingle Bay from Kenmare Bay. For the first 
 twelve miles the road winds through a forest up the 
 gide of the mountain, which hangs over the Upper 
 Lake and the Long Range. At the crest of the pass, 
 which must be 1,000 feet high — for it looks down on 
 the Gap of Dunloe — all the lakes are seen in perspec- 
 tive. A table-land of about two miles follows, with a 
 naked lake on one side, and a desolate deep valley on 
 the other, until, from between two high peaks, you 
 gee the great opening which receives the estuary of 
 Kenmare. A lower ridge conceals the water, but you 
 look over it to a range of mountains which separates it 
 from Bantry Bay. These mountains, covering about 
 150 square miles, form the bulk, though not the whole, 
 of Lord Lansdowne's Kerry estates. The mountain 
 scenes near Killarney contain nothing that equals this 
 road. It is superior to the Gap, and to Mangerton. 
 
 At Kenmare we were received by Mr. Trench, who, 
 since 1850, has managed Lord Lansdowne's Kerry pro- 
 perty and Lord Bath's estate in Monaghan. 
 
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