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 Mark Neuman 
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IRELAND; 
 
 ITS EVILS, AND THEIR REMEDIES 
 
 A REFUTATION 
 
 ERRORS OF THE EMIGRATION COMMITTEE 
 AND OTHERS, 
 
 TOUCHING THAT COUNTRY. 
 
 TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, 
 
 A SYNOPSIS OF AN ORIGINAL TREATISE, 
 
 ABOUT TO BE PUBLISHED, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE LAW OF POPULATION; 
 
 DEVELOPING THE REAL PRINCIPLE ON WHICH IT IS UNIVERSALLY REGULATED. 
 
 MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER. 
 
 ' DWELL IN THE LAND, AND VERILY THOU SHALT BK FED,' 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN xMURRAY, ALBEMARLR SPREET. 
 
 MDCXXXXVIU. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 Printed by W. Ci.owis, 
 
 Stamford-street. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Section 
 
 I. 1. Ireland: the condition of its population apparently 
 difficult to reconcile with the theory advanced in the 
 Introduction to this work, and still less with the one 
 opposed throug^hout, page 1. 
 
 2. Prevailing misconceptions as to its evils and their 
 
 remedies, 1. 
 
 3. Table of the population at different periods during the 
 
 last century and a half, 4. 
 
 II. Ireland not overpeopled in reference 
 
 1. To its potential produce, 6. 
 
 2. To its actual produce, 7. 
 
 III. The alleged proofs of Ireland's being at present over- 
 peopled refuted, by an appeal to its past history ; 
 namely, those founded on the 
 
 1. General wretchedness, 10. 
 
 2. Want of employment, 15, 
 
 3. Frequent scarcities, 18. 
 
 4. Epidemics, 22. 
 
 5. These evils formerly attributed to want of inhabitants, 25. 
 
 IV. The produce of Ireland has increased faster than its popu- 
 lation. 
 
 1. The general quality of its food not deteriorated, 28. 
 
 2. Its surplus corn greatly increased, 29. 
 
 3. Surplus cattle, 31. 
 
 4. Improvement in other respects, 36. 
 
 V. Causes that have retarded the further improvement of 
 Ireland. 
 1. Absenteeship, 38. 
 
 a 2 
 
( ONTKNTS. 
 
 Section 
 
 2. TIjc origin and prevalence of this j^reat national evil 
 
 explained, 39. 
 
 3. Its consequences. The poverty and wretchedness it 
 
 occasions, 42. 
 
 4. The injuries it inflicts on society, 46. 
 
 5. The cruelties it occasions. Underletting-. Exorbitant 
 
 rents, clearing's, &c., 47. 
 
 6. Its political effect, 50. 
 
 7. Its conduct in the periods of general distress which it 
 
 occasions, 50. 
 
 8. Its total abandonment of all social and public duties, 56. 
 
 9. Exceptions, 58. 
 
 VI. 1. The modern justification of absenteeship considered in 
 reference to Ireland, 59. 
 
 2. Exemplified as it respects Britain, 63. 
 
 3. Its injurious effect on British agriculture, 64. 
 
 4. Its effects, in abstracting the capital of Ireland, 65. 
 
 VII. The expedients now proposed in behalf of Ireland con- 
 sidered ; and, first. Emigration. 
 
 1. Its inefficiency proved by an appeal to the past experi- 
 
 ence of Ireland, 69. 
 
 2. The expedient of barbarous times, 72. 
 
 3. Its impolicy shewn in reference to the description of 
 
 persons it is proposed to deport, 76. 
 
 4. Its erroneous and degrading estimate of the worth of 
 
 human beings, 77. 
 
 5. Men valuable in all communities whatsoever, even as 
 
 slaves, 79. 
 
 6. Far more valuable as free labourers, 83. 
 
 7. Appeal to every class in proof of the value of human 
 
 beings, 85. 
 
 8. The proposal of sending British subjects away, impo- 
 
 litic as to its effects . 88. 
 
 9. Cruel in its consequences, however regulated, 90. 
 
( ON iKN rs. 
 
 Section 
 
 VIII. Second expedient, namely, " clearing :" I. c. depopulating- 
 estates, or enlarging farms, 
 
 1. The proposition explained, 92. 
 
 2. Its cruelty, especially in reference to Ireland, 93. 
 
 3. Its moral and political effects in past times, 96. 
 
 4. The cause of constant outrages and insurrections in 
 
 Ireland, 99. 
 
 5. Its selfishness, 103. 
 
 6. Its impolicy; as detrimental to the interests of the 
 
 landlord, the occupier, and the public, 105. 
 
 7. Superiority of minute cultivation proved. The practice 
 
 of the ancients appealed to, 107. 
 
 8. Existing demonstrations. Italy, 116. 
 
 9. The Netherlands. The importance of consulting the 
 
 practice of agriculture there, 115. 
 
 10. Size of farms there limited, and almost universally 
 
 small, 119. 
 
 11. The effects of their system in regard to all the interests 
 
 immediately concerned, as well as the public at 
 large, 123. 
 
 12. Their policy compared with that of the United King- 
 
 dom, 129. 
 
 13. Gross misstatements as to the average size of farms in 
 
 Ireland. Large farms prevail there, 130. 
 
 14. Prosperity of the small farmers in Ireland, when pro- 
 
 perly treated, 134. 
 
 15. Great cruelty of" clearing" them, 135. 
 
 16. Exemplified, 138. 
 
 17. The proposition highly injurious to England and its 
 
 agriculture, 143. 
 
 IX. Third expedient, that the Irish should be induced to adopt a 
 better style of living. 
 
 1. Impossible on account of absenteeship, 146. 
 
 2. Means the restraining of matrimony, 149. 
 
 3. The demoralizing conse(piences of this, were it possible 
 
 to cHect it, 150. 
 
section 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 4. Would be wholly inefficacious as a measure of relief, 
 152. 
 
 X. Fourth expedient. Ecclesiastical confiscation. 
 
 1. Delusive as a proposition of relief to the lower classes, 
 
 152. 
 
 2. Would injure them by increasing- absenteeship, 157. 
 
 3. That the Clergy are absentees, disproved, 157. 
 
 4. Benefits of their residence, 158. 
 
 5. Illustrated, 160. 
 
 6. A final commutation of tithes proposed, 162. 
 
 7. And a better administration of ecclesiastical property, 
 
 165. 
 
 XI. Propositions in behalf of Ireland. 
 
 1. Absenteeship to be discouraged, 166. 
 
 2. So as least to interfere with the rights of property, 167. 
 
 3. Precedents for legislative interference, 168. 
 
 XII. A power to be conferred on absentees of altering the entails 
 
 of their Irish estates, proposed. 
 
 1. As a means of lessening absenteeship, 169. 
 
 2. The proposal previously sanctioned, 170. 
 
 3. Objections anticipated and answered, ib. 
 
 4. Individual and national advantages of such a law, 171. 
 
 XIII. The establishment of a reformed system of Poor Laws, 
 
 proposed. 
 
 1. The system of a national provision for poverty and dis- 
 
 tress, on the basis of the poor laws of England, 
 asserted and defended, 112. 
 
 2. The defence not extended to its malversations and 
 
 abuses, 173. 
 
 3. Tnefficacy and impracticability of other plans of general 
 
 relief, 177. 
 
 4. Poor laws beneficial to the general interests of the com- 
 
 munity, 181. 
 
 5. The unfairness of their abrogation considered and ex- 
 
 emplified, 183. 
 
6. The principle of a national provision further defended, 
 
 and shewn to be founded on natural right and 
 justice, 185. 
 
 7. On relij^ion. Poor laws of the Jews and primitive 
 
 Christians, 190. 
 
 8. On legal right, 196. 
 
 9. On universal consent. The practice of sundry ancient 
 
 and modern nations appealed to, 197. 
 
 10. A digression in reference to the Scottish system, 203. 
 
 11. Poor laws of America, and the expense they occasion, 
 
 208. 
 
 12. French system, since the abrogation of their charitable 
 
 institutions at the revolution, considered. Its ineffi- 
 cacy and expenses, 212. 
 
 13. The alternative of an absence of poor laws, universal 
 
 and disgusting mendicancy, 218. 
 
 14. Mendicancy necessary and justifiable in Ireland, in con- 
 
 sequence of there being no national provision for 
 poverty, 222. 
 
 1 5. The poor laws of the Netherlands, and especially Hol- 
 
 land ; and the expenses they occasion, 224. 
 
 16. The objection to the poor laws of this country grounded 
 
 on the supposed increase in the burden of the rates, 
 fallacious, 227. 
 
 17. The poor rates have relatively decreased during the 
 
 present century, 229. 
 
 18. The poor rates have relatively decreased since their first 
 
 establishment, 232. 
 
 19. The mistakes which have led to a contrary opinion ex- 
 
 posed, 233. 
 
 20. The number of the distressed and unemployed poor 
 
 has relatively diminished since the establishment of 
 the poor laws, 240. 
 
 21. Table, exhibiting some of the preceding facts, and the 
 
 authorities on which they are founded, 245. 
 
 22. The present system of national charity compared with 
 
(;()\TKNTS 
 
 m 
 
 that which prevailed previously, and of which it is the 
 substitute, 250. 
 
 23. The immediate and happy effects of the change asserted 
 
 on contemporary authority, 252. 
 
 24. The neg-ative robbery implied in now abrogating the 
 
 national provision in behalf of the poor, 254. 
 
 25. A provision of a more objectionable nature would suc- 
 
 ceed such abrogation. An example of this, 255. 
 
 26. The poor laws of England ought to be restored to their 
 
 original purity and efficiency, 256. 
 
 27. The system thus reformed, proposed on behalf of Ire- 
 
 land, 259. 
 
 28. Principal objections to the proposition answered, espe- 
 
 cially the prophetic ones, 261. 
 
 29. The preceding arguments, especially relating to Ireland, 
 
 confirmed by extracts from a work of Dr. Woodward, 
 late Bishop of Cloyne, 264. 
 
 30. The want of poor laws in Ireland and Scotland highly 
 
 injurious to the English poor, 271. 
 
 31. Proposition in regard to the distribution of the poor 
 
 rates in reference to absenteeship, 273. 
 
 32. And subletting, ib. 
 
 33. Absenteeship further considered in relation to the 
 
 subject, 275. 
 
 34. The proposed system of national charity to be con- 
 
 nected with labour. Different kinds of labour pointed 
 out, 276. 
 
 35. The advantages of this proposal over the emigration 
 
 scheme, 279. 
 
 36. Table of the waste lands of Ireland, 2S0. 
 
 XIV. Eflfectual protection to Irish agriculture proposed ; 
 or the continuation or establishment of a system of 
 efficient corn laws. 
 
 1. Agriculture the sole dependence of Ireland, and ought 
 
 as such to be fully protected, 281. 
 
 2. Protection necessary for the purpose of the preservation 
 
COVTKNTS. 
 
 of labour and property, especially of the lesser cul- 
 tivators and proprietors, 282. 
 
 3. The question necessarily national ; and discussed, there- 
 
 fore, in reference to the empire at large, 284. 
 
 4. Injustice and impolicy of withdrawing protection from 
 
 agriculture, 285. 
 
 5. The kingdom fully capable of feeding and sustaining 
 
 its people : the question, therefore, one of policy and 
 humanity, 287. 
 
 6. Importance of the subject shown from the great nume- 
 
 rical superiority of the agricultural interest ; proved 
 by an appeal to the census of the kingdom, 289. 
 
 7. The same fact proved from sundry fiscal and pecuniary 
 
 data, 295. 
 
 8. Misconceptions removed. Corn, the reverse of dear, 
 
 compared with past times, 301. 
 
 9. Great mistakes on this point instanced, 303. 
 
 10. Foreign supply would not lower prices, but the reverse, 
 
 306. 
 
 11. Nor equalize them, but the reverse, 311. 
 
 12. Would diminish home production, 314. 
 
 13. And aggravate the severity of real scarcities, 315. 
 
 14. And render them more frequent, 317. 
 
 15. Importation, under such circumstances, to be an effectual 
 
 relief, should not be perpetually resorted to, 318. 
 
 16. Further mistakes refuted. The supposition that im- 
 
 portation would, if permitted, be very limited, consi- 
 dered, 319. 
 
 17. The effect of a constant importation, however limited, 
 
 shown, 324. 
 
 18. Importation would not, on the general balance, increase 
 
 trade and manufactures, 327. 
 
 19. Would necessarily throw more hands out of employ- 
 
 ment than it would cause to be employed, 328. 
 
 20. In other respects prejudicial, excepting to a few, 330. 
 
 21. Further arguments in favour of importation refuted; 
 
 and first, that cheap prices are favourable to manu- 
 
(ONTr.NTS. 
 tioii 
 
 lactures. This disproved by an appeal to past history, 
 331. 
 
 22. The present state of tlie world in reference to the ques- 
 
 tion, considered, 334. 
 
 23. The experience of England on this subject further 
 
 appealed to, 335. 
 
 24. Remunerating-, and consequently not low prices, favour- 
 
 able to all branches of industry, 335. 
 
 25. Low prices unfavourable to the poor, 339. 
 
 26. The financial obstacles to a free trade in corn insuper- 
 
 able, 342. 
 
 27. Illustrated, 346. 
 
 28. The proposition in a late number of a popular Review 
 
 examined. The miscalculations, as well as cruelty 
 and injustice it involves, 338. 
 
 29. Ruinous consequences of habitually depending on 
 
 foreign supplies, 360. 
 
 30. The answers and anticipations of the theorists noticed, 
 
 362. 
 
 31. Ultimate and certain effects of withdrawing due pro- 
 
 tection from British agriculture, on both that and 
 commerce, 366. 
 
 32. The peculiar interests of Ireland, in reference to the 
 
 question, finally urged, 369. 
 
 XV. The Population of Ireland numerically considered, 
 and the true principle of human increase demonstrated 
 therefrom. 
 
 1. Human fecundity in Ireland regulated, as elsewhere, 
 
 by the co-existing numbers. 
 
 2. This principle proved, in a different mode to that 
 
 pursued in other demonstrations of the same fact. 
 Table, 375. 
 
 3. Proved by the same calculation applied to the cities 
 
 and towns of exempt jurisdiction. Table, 378. 
 
 4. Preceding facts proved by a different method of cal- 
 
 culation. Table, ib. 
 
( ONTENTS, 
 
 5. Population regulates the condition of society in Ireland, 
 
 as elsewhere, which improves as the former advances, 
 379. 
 
 6. Plenty not increased by fewness of people or iertility 
 
 of soil, but the contrary, 382. 
 
 7. Consequently, the proposition of the emigration com- 
 
 mittee respecting Ireland, fundamentally erroneous 
 and pernicious, 383. 
 
 8. The demonstration more minutely given, and extended 
 
 to the counties severally calculated. Table, 385. 
 
 9. Objections anticipated, 388. 
 
 10. Preventive check not prevalent in Ireland, 389. 
 
 11. The true principle of population further proved by an 
 
 appeal to the progressive increase of the different 
 provinces of Ireland. Table, 391. 
 
 12. The supposed periods of doubling, and other mis- 
 
 conceptions relative to population, refuted, 396. 
 
 13. Present ratio of increase in Ireland a diminishing one, 
 
 and likely to continue diminishing, 398. 
 
 14. Errors of certain writers concerning the effects of 
 
 vaccination, on marriages, and mortality, 400. 
 
 15. The foregoing facts and principles further confirmed 
 
 by an appeal to the imperfect census of 1813 compared 
 with that of 1821, 401. 
 
 16. Deductions, 404. 
 
 17. Conclusion. The happy effects of a better policy, in 
 
 reference to Ireland, anticipated, 405. 
 
 Postscript, 413. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following pages were written as a supple- 
 ment to a work on the subject of Population, 
 now preparing for the press. The publication, 
 in the first instance, of a part of a treatise, in 
 which frequent references are made to the 
 whole, is so unusual as to demand an expla- 
 nation, even in times when the apologies of 
 authors are little attended to, and, indeed, 
 hardly tolerated. The circumstances which 
 led to it, are these : 
 
 Some time ago I delivered, to a Literary and 
 Philosophical Society, in the north of England, 
 to which I have the honour of belonging, a 
 course of lectures on an important branch of 
 our national economy, the Poor-Laws of Eng- 
 land ; connecting a defence of the principle of 
 that system, and a view of its progress, with 
 those practical improvements in its application, 
 which the altered circumstances of the country 
 seem to dictate, in order to restore its primitive 
 character and efficiency. Little difficulty oc- 
 curred in showing the legal provision for the 
 poor to have been founded on the plainest prin- 
 ciples of natural right and justice, as well as 
 dictated by the most enlarged views of national 
 policy ; and still less in answering the objec- 
 tions urged against it imder a very general mis- 
 b 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 apprehension that it has, considered in refer- 
 ence either to the population or the wealth of 
 the country, imposed upon us an increasing 
 incumbrance. Nor was it less easy to establish 
 a very gratifying comparison betwixt the mode 
 of preserving the poor, as established in this 
 country, and the plans pursued in others, (few 
 of which are destitute of public institutions for 
 the like purpose,) in regard to its effects on 
 the general character of the relieved, or even 
 the economy, relatively speaking, with which it 
 accomplishes its benevolent designs. Such 
 were the arguments, amongst others of a similar 
 tendency, then brought forward, some of which 
 are briefly noticed in a subsequent part of the 
 present publication ; forming, on the whole, it 
 was hoped, a satisfactory defence of our great 
 national charity. One objection, however, and 
 that of a most powerful nature, totally irrecon- 
 cileable with the exercise of benevolence on 
 any systematic and general plan whatsoever, 
 and assuming the form and language of demon- 
 stration, remained unanswered; namely, that 
 grounded on the modern " principle of popu- 
 lation." If, as that principle asserts, and pro* 
 fesses to have proved, there be a constant ten- 
 dency in human beings to increase faster than 
 their means of sustentation, whatever be the 
 arguments in favour of a general provision 
 for the poor, whether founded on religion, or 
 humanity, or policy, they are all unavaihng, 
 the question is decided for ever. Give what^ 
 
INTRODUCTION. HI 
 
 ever latitude you please to the prolific powers 
 of the earth, and to the creative efforts of 
 human industry, you merely postpone, without 
 evading, the conclusion ; human subsistence 
 has necessarily its limits, those of the earth ; 
 whereas, the prolific powers of increase, if un- 
 abated and unchecked, would, on the geome- 
 tric hypothesis, conduct mankind to the inevi- 
 table catastrophe of universal wretchedness and 
 want, were the globe itself converted into one 
 solid mass of nutriment. But this theory is not 
 content with investing itself with these pro- 
 spective terrors; it is announced as " constantly 
 and powerfully operating since the commence- 
 ment of society *." In every point of view, 
 therefore, it is fatal to the exercise of charity 
 as a public and universal duty ; nor does it dis- 
 guise its hostility. And it must be admitted 
 that, allowing the truth of this principle of 
 population, its conclusions, however abhorrent 
 to our feelings and principles, are necessary and 
 irresistible. Neither the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, however clear upon this point ; nor the 
 dictates of humanity, though equally decisive ; 
 nor the law of the land, which sanctions and 
 enforces both ; can impose a duty upon us the 
 practice of which is not only impolitic in its 
 tendency, but impossible in its very nature. 
 
 The real difficulty of the question, disin- 
 cumbered from the geometric and arithmetic 
 ratios of increase, which are utterly irrecon- 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 1, 4to. 
 b 2 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cileable with human experience, is plainly this ; 
 a principle of reproduction, which multiplies 
 mankind with considerable rapidity, under 
 certain circumstances, seems necessary to the 
 spread, and indeed, in some instances, to the 
 preservation of the human race ; and that it 
 exists, is proved by the peopUng of the world 
 originally, or, by what may be to some a more 
 decisive demonstration, by the rapid increase 
 which still takes place in planting new coun- 
 tries and colonies. That this principle should, 
 as far as nature is concerned, remain arbitrary 
 and unalterable, involves the consequences al- 
 ready mentioned ; that is, admitting the eternity 
 of the world, which is necessarily one of the 
 postulata on which the boasted demonstration 
 of the modern principle of population is found- 
 ed. That the earth, which, it is confessed on 
 all hands, is at present very inadequately pos- 
 sessed, containing probably not a hundredth 
 part of the population it is capable of sustain- 
 ing, shall remain, till, in the course of ages, it 
 shall become wholly incapable of supporting 
 its increased numbers, may exist as a mere 
 possible supposition, consistently perhaps with 
 the letter, though not very reconcileably with 
 the spirit of revelation ; but to assert as a fact, 
 that that period will inevitably arrive, contra- 
 dicts both. Put forth as a demonstration, I 
 repeat, it identifies itself with infideUty ; as- 
 suming the eternity of the world as a necessary 
 part of its proof, it asserts that to be true which 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Christianity declares to be false ; and a period 
 to be certain and foreseen, which its Author 
 has declared to be uncertain and unknown. 
 Arguing, then, in a country professedly Chris- 
 tian, and in one which, though densely peopled, 
 contains so many millions of uncultivated acres, 
 and forming so minute a part of a world all but 
 entirely waste ; the cultivated parts of which, 
 as Franklin has somewhere observed, would, if 
 viewed by a Herschell's telescope from the 
 moon, only appear, here and there, like so 
 many luminous spots upon its disk ; it might 
 have sufficed, one would have thought, to 
 have reposed, for the present at least, on the 
 bounties of that Being who has been the 
 " dwelling-place " of so many generations ; and 
 if we could not have brought our minds to 
 expect that He might do in the later ages of 
 the world, what we are instructed to believe He 
 did in its earlier ones, proportion the fecundity 
 and duration of the life of human beings to 
 their numbers ; still, that he would accomplish 
 his purposes regarding His universe, before 
 His providence should become impaired or ex- 
 hausted; that if His mercies are not everlast- 
 ing, they are, at least, calculated to endure till 
 " the great globe itself, and all that it inherit, 
 shall dissolve," and the baseless fabric of the 
 vision of human life shall resolve itself into 
 the realities of eternity a period actually 
 foretold in every part of the Christian records, 
 and described as one, not of increasing want 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and suffering, but, on the contrary, rather of 
 luxury and enjoyment ; not when the pre- 
 ventive check shall be called into full opera- 
 tion, but when the world shall be " marrying 
 and giving in marriage." But these arguments, 
 however satisfactory to the bulk of mankind, 
 for so they happily are, appear far otherwise to 
 many of those who discuss the important sub- 
 ject before us. The philosophers of the day, in- 
 deed, are very witty on such who, in reference to 
 it, " cant about God and Providence ;" and one 
 of the first and sublimest passages which Reve- 
 lation puts into the mouth of the Deity, " In- 
 crease and multiply," instead of being any 
 longer regarded as the " command and blessing 
 of Providence*," is dexterously resolved into an 
 inhibition and a curse, or too often quoted only 
 to be contradicted and ridiculed. No matter 
 that it still harmonizes with the purest feelings, 
 and conduces to the best interests of mankind, 
 whether considered in their individual or collec- 
 tive capacity ; no matter that its breach would 
 defeat the will of the Deity, and degrade and 
 destroy the species ; it is adverse to the geo- 
 metric theory, and that suffices. Thus, as one 
 never charged with too enthusiastic a regard 
 for religion observes : " The mathematics are 
 to be every thing, even where they are ridicu- 
 lous, and men repose no more confidence in 
 GOD than they would in a broken merchant." 
 Pursuing the argument, therefore, without 
 
 * Burke. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 any reference to the principles, or, as they are 
 too often regarded, the prejudices of either 
 natural or revealed religion; on a thorough 
 examination of numerous facts connected with 
 the physiology of the human race, the true 
 principle of increase was discovered, and, by a 
 series of calculations, all terminating in the same 
 results, I hope it may be added, fully demon- 
 strated; a principle of greater efficiency in 
 accomplishing one of the necessary purposes 
 of reproduction, that of first replenishing the 
 earth, or still peopling different parts of it, 
 than the one it opposes; and, on the other 
 hand, totally free from the appalling conse- 
 quences to which that necessarily leads ; and, 
 above all, in reference to the subject then 
 under consideration, delivering one of the most 
 exalted duties of Christianity from the objections 
 by which it is now assailed, and reconciling its 
 constant and systematic discharge with the 
 laws of nature, and the present and permanent 
 interests of mankind. 
 
 The principle of human increase thus ob- 
 tained, may be very briefly enunciated, and is 
 simply this ; The fecundity of human beings is, 
 caeteris paribus, in the inverse ratio of the con- 
 densation of their numbers ; and, still in direct 
 contradiction to the theory now maintained, the 
 variation in that fecundity is effectuated, not 
 by the wretchedness and misery, but by the 
 happiness and prosperity of the species. 
 
 That mankind cannot possibly multiply be- 
 
Vm INTRODUCTION. 
 
 yond the means of sustentation is an obvious 
 truth, and common to both theories. The dis- 
 tinction between them, therefore, and it is one 
 of incalculable importance, both as to the prin- 
 ciple and its consequences, is simply this ; the 
 one invests human beings with a superfecundity 
 which can only be regulated by vice or misery, 
 or by that which is a compound of both, and, 
 practically, more degrading and disgusting than 
 either " moral restraint : " while the other 
 maintains, that the law of human increase adapts 
 itself to the existing numbers of mankind, and 
 has for its regulator the prosperity and hap- 
 piness of the species. That the latter theory, 
 assuming its truth, best comports with the 
 welfare of mankind, admits of no dispute ; a 
 priori, therefore, the presumption is, that it is 
 the law of nature and of Providence ; on due 
 examination it will be found that the pre- 
 sumption rises into certainty. 
 
 Before any appeal is made to the calculations 
 by which this principle of increase is esta- 
 blished, it may be proper to remark, that the 
 idea thus broadly stated, is in strict ac- 
 cordance with the physiology of the human 
 species in reference to this subject, as pro- 
 pounded from the time of Hippocrates, and 
 maintained, I believe, unanimously, down to 
 the present hour. Excluding, of course, cases 
 of extreme distress, a state of labour and 
 privation is that most favourable to human 
 fecundity. A dispersed and scanty population 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 invariably implies that state ; but as mankind 
 advance from the hunting to the pastoral, and 
 from thence to the agricultural stages of ex- 
 istence, and ultimately rise to the highest 
 condition of civilization, labour becomes di- 
 vided, and consequently diminished in its 
 duration and intensity, and many are liberated 
 from its drudgeries, so as to devote them- 
 selves to other and more intellectual pursuits, 
 or are rendered independent of it altogether, 
 v^hile the means of subsistence become pro- 
 gressively augmented, and ease and luxury 
 more generally diffused. At every step the 
 principle of increase contracts, and, as I con- 
 tend, v^ould pause at that precise point where 
 it had secured the utmost possible degree of 
 happiness to the greatest possible number of 
 human beings. Meantime, it must be remarked 
 that, in this auspicious progress, their moral 
 and intellectual advancement more than keeps 
 pace with the improvement in their natural 
 condition ; while the climate, the seasons, and 
 the face of nature itself, participate in the uni- 
 versal blessing of an enlarging population. 
 
 Having, as I conceived, ascertained the re- 
 ality of this benevolent law of nature, I thought 
 it necessary to examine, with the greatest at- 
 tention, the proofs and arguments by which the 
 contrary theory professes to be supported, when 
 all of them seemed to resolve themselves into 
 so many direct evidences of the more cheering 
 view of the subject, leaving not a remaining 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 doubt as to its certainty and truth. Impressed 
 with its importance, I therefore extended the 
 argument beyond my first intention, of render- 
 ing it merely subservient to a defence of the 
 poor-laws ; and, I may, perhaps, be permitted 
 to say, the inquiry has been pursued with the 
 utmost diligence ; with what success the public 
 will speedily be enabled to judge. In the mean 
 time, a very brief notice of some only of its 
 leading points becomes necessary, in conse- 
 quence of having been induced to publish the 
 present part of the work in the first instance, 
 for reasons, which, it is hoped, may at the 
 present moment justify so unusual a course. 
 
 In the first book, the principles of the pre- 
 vailing theory of population, as propounded 
 by Mr. Malthus, are examined, especially the 
 geometric and arithmetic ratios, which are 
 proved to be misplaced ; and the checks which 
 are supposed to reconcile their adverse ten- 
 dencies are shown to have diminished in their 
 operation as population has increased ; con- 
 tradicting, consequently, the theory they are 
 brought forward to support ; more especially 
 the preventive one, which is the main reliance 
 of the whole system. This, by a strange and 
 fatal error in the principle of its calculation, 
 has been supposed to increase in its prevalence 
 as the theory requires, when, in point of fact, 
 it has diminished in every country, and espe- 
 cially in those of which the contrary is the 
 most confidently asserted. The disputed ques- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion of the precedency of population to food 
 is likewise discussed, and the priority of the 
 former is shown to be the order of nature, being 
 not only the means of producing and dispensing- 
 plenty amongst human beings, but, by the 
 creation of that sole spring of human exertion, 
 necessity, of advancing mankind through suc- 
 cessive stages of civilization, and preserving 
 them from relapsing into barbarism. In this 
 book it has been found necessary to show the 
 utter destitution of all claims to originality, 
 either in regard to its principle, or the terms in 
 which it is propounded, of that theory which 
 is regarded by many in the light of a discovery; 
 and this, not for the purpose of settHng a point 
 of authorship, but to show that it is one of 
 those many systems which, as Aristotle ob- 
 serves, the wisdom of preceding ages has 
 examined and rejected, and the ignorance of 
 subsequent ones succeeded for a time in 
 reviving. Generations ago, the notion of the 
 supeifecundity of human beings was expressed 
 in quite as forcible terms; supported by exactly 
 the same arguments ; and precisely the same 
 remedies were propounded for the " evils it 
 occasioned," as at the present day. It was 
 a doctrine, moreover, which had as many ad- 
 vocates then as now, but it was met by the 
 arguments and the abhorrence of the greatest 
 and the wisest of our countrymen ; and however 
 often it may be revived by selfishness and 
 ignorance, it will descend so branded to the 
 remotest posterity. 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the second book an appeal is made to 
 the experience of mankind in different ages and 
 countries of the world, particularly those which 
 have been referred to for a contrary purpose ; 
 and it is shown that whenever and wherever 
 the population has advanced, instead of the 
 individual shares of the means of subsistence 
 having been diminished, directly the contrary 
 has been invariably the effect; and that not only 
 has the quantity of food increased in a super- 
 proportion, but that its nature and quality have 
 undergone as striking an improvement. The 
 proof, indeed, extends to the animal creation : 
 as population has multiplied, the surplus food 
 has sufficed to sustain a far greater relative and 
 still increasing number of those animals which 
 are kept by man for convenience, pleasure, or 
 display, and which, in an advanced stage of 
 civilization, consume so large a quantity of the 
 products of cultivation. 
 
 On the other hand, it is clearly shown that 
 in every country where the inhabitants have 
 unhappily diminished, there, instead of the 
 means of subsistence having been more liberally 
 dispensed, the population has been invariably 
 still more degraded and reduced in condition 
 than in numbers. 
 
 In the former part of this book, a view is 
 taken of the history of Greece and Rome, and 
 other ancient states, in relation to this question, 
 and the opinion of the ancient philosophers 
 and legislators is shown to have been very dif- 
 
INTRODUCTION". XIU 
 
 ferent to what is now represented ; their fears, 
 generally speaking, were excited by the evils of 
 a declining rather than an enlarging population ; 
 fears, prompted by the facts they witnessed and 
 recorded, and which futurity has confirmed in 
 so striking a manner. It may be added, that 
 the character of Plato is completely rescued 
 from the imputation of his having ever contem- 
 plated infanticide as a regulator of the popu- 
 lation of his imaginary Republic, much more 
 from his having recommended it. 
 
 In this branch of the argument, which neces- 
 sarily extends to a very considerable length, 
 the history of our own country, as incomparably 
 the most interesting and important part of the 
 inquiry, is particularly attended to. It is hoped 
 that facts as conclusive as they are curious are 
 brought forward, in proof that England has 
 confirmed, in every period of its history, the 
 principle of population for which I contend, as 
 that of nature and of God. 
 
 The succeeding section of the work is devoted 
 exclusively to the consideration of the popula- 
 tion of China and America ; the two main pil- 
 lars of the contrary theory the latter, as it is 
 supposed, exhibiting the principle of human in- 
 crease doubling itself at the presumed intervals 
 by procreation only, as in actual operation ; and 
 the former, as furnishing an example of that 
 principle having advanced to its utmost limits, 
 arrested by necessity, and "kept down to the 
 level of the means of subsistence " by those 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 distressing and disgusting checks which the 
 theory enunciates. These being the only prac- 
 tical demonstrations of the system opposed, 
 particular attention has been paid to each. 
 And regarding the latter, if we may be per- 
 mitted to dismiss the authority of the *' Lettres 
 6difiantes et curieuses," the " lying missionaries " 
 of Adam Smith, in favour of modern authorities, 
 and amongst these, especially, our own scientific 
 countrymen, this appeal, so constantly made, is 
 completely silenced. China is now known to 
 be a country very sparingly inhabited, except- 
 ing, perhaps, upon the borders of the grand 
 canal, and often so, even there. Malte-Brun, 
 from the numerous authorities he consulted, es- 
 timates the number of the Chinese at consider- 
 ably less than half that given to Lord Macartney 
 by the veracious Chow-ta-Zhin, in a document 
 which he ridicules, and which, on the face of it, 
 is a palpable forgery. Mr. Malthus, however, I 
 perceive, with an unaccountable pertinacity, still 
 continues to put forth this statement, even now 
 that several official censuses of China have been 
 published within a few years past, all of which, 
 agreeing with each other, confirm the record- 
 ed opinion of every recent writer of credit who 
 has had an opportunity of judging on the sub- 
 ject, that China, in reference either to its extent 
 or fertility, is decidedly one of the worst peopled 
 countries upon earth . If the Chinese, therefore, 
 are plunged in the misery Mr. Malthus describes, 
 and resol't to infanticide iri order to repress their 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 numbers (a fact, however, which the latest and 
 best writers seem unanimously to discredit), 
 China becomes one of the strongest proofs in 
 favour of the argument I am maintaining. In 
 England there are two hundred and twenty- 
 seven inhabitants in the square mile ; in China, 
 with her boasted soil and double harvests, there 
 are ninety-seven only. 
 
 But to the population of America, far better 
 known than that of China, and on which the 
 theory I am opposing professes to be mainly 
 founded, still more particular attention has been 
 paid, and by a series of proofs and calculations, 
 which extend through several chapters, it is 
 clearly shown that the geometric ratio of in- 
 crease has no existence even there, much less 
 that the increase actually taking place is in- 
 dependent of emigration. Both of these con- 
 clusions rest on a variety of proofs, founded 
 principally on the American censuses them- 
 selves. Two branches of the argument, how- 
 ever, shall only be alluded to on this occasion ; 
 either of which is perfectly decisive. A very 
 few years subsequently to the period when Mr* 
 Malthus reports the settlers of New England 
 as amounting to twenty-one thousand two hun- 
 dred only, adding, that it was calculated more 
 left them afterwards than went to them*, (a 
 number which, without the least examination, 
 is palpably incorrect and irreconcileable with 
 the importance of our North American Colo- 
 
 * Essay on Population, p. 33S. 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nies, even at that early period) we find, on 
 the authority of the reports of the governors 
 of the respective states now existing in the 
 pubhc offices at home, that the inhabitants, 
 then principally confined to New England, 
 amounted in the whole to considerably up- 
 wards of two hundred thousand souls ; so that 
 if the geometric ratio contended for had been 
 true, there would have been at least twice as 
 many inhabitants in the United States as exist 
 there at the present moment, had there not sub- 
 sequently gone a single emigrant to the Ame- 
 rican shores. The particulars and dates of the 
 enumerations alluded to are given, and a history 
 of emigration from thence to the period when 
 America became, as one of its most intelligent 
 writers observes, '*the colony of Europe," is sub- 
 joined, by which it is conceived the fallacy of 
 the strange assertion, that emigration has been 
 " immaterial " to the rapid growth of its popu- 
 lation, will be fully apparent. The admission of 
 an annual accession of ten thousand, with an 
 increase of three per cent, upon that number, 
 instead of being " immaterial '^ would, I think, 
 as calculated by logarithms, amount, in a 
 single century only, to more than six-sevenths 
 of the entire white population. But no such 
 annual increase as three per cent, can possibly 
 take place on an entire population, by " procrea- 
 tion only," consistently with the established laws 
 of nature, developed under the most favourable 
 circumstances. The error, however, of attri- 
 
INTRODUCTION. XVU 
 
 buting to these accessions, consisting, as gene- 
 rally speaking they do, of individuals in the 
 prime of life, and principally of young men only, 
 the ordinary rate of increase of an entire popu- 
 lation, comprising individuals of all ages, is 
 pointed out ; though the supposition is almost 
 too absurd to require notice. 
 
 A variety of tables are subjoined, calculated 
 on data which American statistics furnish, show- 
 ing the pretended demonstration, that the popu- 
 lation there increases in the ratio so often and 
 so confidently asserted, is not true, nor even 
 possible. 
 
 In the fourth book, the mis-statements of nu- 
 merical facts, and errors in calculation, by which 
 the theory I oppose is attempted to be sup- 
 ported, are exposed; one or two instances of 
 which only shall be noticed in this place. Mr. 
 Malthus, the main advocate of that princi- 
 pie, not satisfied with attributing to it many of 
 the evils we suffer at present, invests it with 
 powers of a far more dreadful nature than have 
 been as yet developed ; he says, " not more 
 than one half of the prolific power of nature is 
 called into action in this country*," intimating 
 that, if nature were unchecked, " there would 
 be one annual marriage out of sixty persons, 
 instead of one marriage out of one hundi*ed 
 and twenty -three persons, as is the case at 
 present.''*f This is most strange, especially as 
 he has, in his previous calculation, recollected 
 
 * Essay, p. S()\. t Ibid. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that it requires two individuals to form one mar- 
 riage; consequently, upon his supposition, one 
 person would annually marry out of every thirty, 
 whereas there is in England only one annual 
 birth in every thirty-seven inhabitants ; it follows, 
 therefore, according to that author, that were it 
 not for the operation of his " preventive check," 
 there would be about one-fourth more indivi- 
 duals married in this country than are born ! If 
 we turn to the census as divided into ages, 
 and suppose the sexes between fifteen aud 
 twenty to be exactly balanced, and that all at 
 that period of life should enter into the marriage 
 state, it will be seen that only about one mar- 
 riage in one hundred inhabitants could annually 
 take place : nay, if all were united at the font 
 there could only be one in seventy-four. But 
 the foregoing supposition is merely the echo of 
 an opinion expressed by Dr. Franklin in his 
 juvenile days, (from whom^ indeed, the former 
 professes to have partly derived his notions on 
 population,) that in America there is one annual 
 marriage to every fifty inhabitants ; and, as it 
 seems to be in the very nature of the arguments 
 on human increase not to be easily satisfied, Mr. 
 Warden has further improved this proportion 
 into one in every thirty. Now it happens, that 
 in the last American census there is a column 
 given which expresses the number of the males 
 from the ages of sixteen to eighteen, and if every 
 individual of these were to marry at the mean 
 age of seventeen years, only one marriage in 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 eighty-six inhabitants could possibly take place* . 
 Such are the errors into which writers on popu- 
 lation fall on this important point, which it can- 
 not but be acknowledged are so far from being 
 slight and immaterial, that they are necessarily 
 subversive of their entire theories and calcula- 
 tions. Other mistakes of quite as gross and 
 obvious a nature, such as the supposed opera- 
 tion of the preventive check in different times 
 and countries, the effects of epidemics upon 
 registers, and on a variety of other subjects, are 
 fully exposed, but will not be further alluded to 
 on the present occasion. 
 
 Such is a slight sketch of the negative part of 
 the argument, if I may so speak, by which the 
 true and benevolent principle of population is 
 supported ; a system which it will be seen is, 
 from first to last, inducted from a series of deci- 
 sive facts which the history of the world uni- 
 formly presents, and sanctioned by the equally 
 unanimous authority of the greatest and the 
 wisest men it has ever produced. In a day, how- 
 ever, when past experience is but little regarded, 
 and authority not at all ; when an appeal to the 
 ancient permanent sense of mankind would often 
 actually prejudice a cause in behalf of which it 
 is made, amongst the " pert and noisy pretenders 
 of the day;" it is happy for the interests of 
 human nature that the true principle of increase 
 
 * The superior longevity in Eiighiud may account for the smaller 
 relative proportion of possible marriages at about the same period 
 of life in England. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 is demonstrable upon a basis unassailable by 
 such ; ancient events may be misinterpreted or 
 disputed ; authorities may be neglected or de- 
 spised; but still the principle announced can 
 never be shaken ; it is not so much a matter of 
 reason as of arithmetic ; it rests not upon ar- 
 guments, but upon facts. 
 
 To a short synopsis of the fifth book of the 
 treatise, about to be published, the reader's 
 particular attention is, therefore, solicited, as 
 substituting a system in the place of the one 
 dispossessed, and establishing it by a series of 
 tables and calculations amounting in every 
 instance to a proof of its truth. These, spread- 
 ing over some hundred pages, cannot now be 
 given, however essential to the argument ; the 
 author can, therefore, only stake his veracity 
 to the reader for the truth of the statements 
 about to be alluded to, a pledge which he 
 hopes speedily to redeem ; and it is a matter 
 of doubt with him whether any thing further 
 than the heads of the ensuing argument need 
 to have been given on the present occasion. 
 
 The law of population, by which the increase 
 of mankind has been and still is, in all cases, 
 regulated, is simply this: The fecundity of 
 
 HUMAN BEINGS, UNDER EQUAL CIRCUMSTANCES, 
 VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS ON A 
 GIVEN SPACE. 
 
 Merely premising that, as mankind multiply 
 in any country, the thinly -populated districts 
 become more crowded ones, and these again 
 
liNTKODUCTION. XXI 
 
 rise into towns and cities, and vice versa on 
 any diminution in their numbers ; I proceed 
 to demonstrate the truth and reality of this 
 graduated scale of human increase. 
 
 First, By a comparison of the fecundity of 
 marriages in different countries, all of which, 
 where the necessary information is recorded, 
 class themselves in precise conformity with this 
 principle, and are the more prolific the less they 
 are peopled. The objection that, in the latter 
 case, greater plenty prevails, and marriages are 
 more frequent and more early, is anticipated 
 and refuted. The contrary is strictly the fact*. 
 
 2. By showing that in the different local 
 divisions of one and the same country, the 
 same law of population prevails ; and the vary- 
 ing fecundity of the marriages is determined 
 accordingly. This section of the argument is 
 of peculiar importance, as it not only shows 
 ts operation by a series of more minute and 
 particular proofs ; but, at the same time, it 
 entirely obviates the objection which might be 
 raised, and not unreasonably, in reference to 
 the comparative accuracy with which different 
 countries may furnish the data on which the 
 
 * The apparent exception of newly-plaiitcd countries and colo- 
 nics which had the advantag-e of proceedinp;- from more densely 
 pe()})led nations, and still retain the benefit of havini^ access to such 
 for their products, is fully considered. Cut such oft', even now, from 
 the latter privilege only, and left to themselves, the rule of nature, 
 which distributes the greatest measure of its bounties wlierever there 
 are the greatest number of human beings on the same space, would 
 be instantly apparent. The reason why it is, to a certain degree, 
 otherwise in Ireland, it is one of the ])rime objects of this publica- 
 tion to pi>int out. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 preceding proof is founded, and the various 
 habits which may be supposed to affect, in no 
 shght degree, the question at issue. But when 
 the different divisions, and even subdivisions of 
 the same country, furnish the demonstration 
 that human fecundity is thus graduated, no such 
 objection can possibly be urged, and the gene- 
 ral argument is invested with that circumstan- 
 tiality of evidence, which invariably makes the 
 most powerful impression. A corroboration of 
 the like kind, though still more curious and 
 minute, is given under the next head, in which 
 the varying increase of human beings is proved 
 to be regulated as before explained, 
 
 3. By showing that the difference in the fe- 
 cundity of marriages in towns is, in like manner, 
 determined by the number of their inhabitants. 
 
 It is plain, however, that the theory, if true, 
 is capable of a species of historical evidence ; 
 and such is again the fact. Not only, then, is 
 the principle proved to be in actual operation by 
 these comparisons between the varying degrees 
 of fecundity in different countries and districts, 
 but its truth is furthermore confirmed, 
 
 4. By showing that in the same countries 
 and districts, compared at different periods, 
 the fecundity of marriages has diminished as 
 their population has augmented ; and this uni- 
 versally, wherever the facts necessary to form 
 the conclusion are on record. Lest it should be 
 once more objected to this striking demon- 
 stration, that this is attributable to increasing 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXlll 
 
 misery or moral restraint, I will mention that 
 this supposition also is clearly refuted. 
 
 The argument is, however, susceptible of an- 
 other distinct order of proofs, though, happily 
 for mankind, of far rarer occurrence than the 
 former ones. That human beings multiply in- 
 versely as their numbers, is proved, 
 
 5. By showing that, on any great and sudden 
 diminution in the inhabitants of any country, 
 city, or district, the fecundity of the remainder 
 has become instantly increased. To this sur- 
 prising, and, as it respects the subject under 
 consideration, decisive fact, I have given the 
 most minute and persevering examination, and 
 have found it, as a law of nature, invariable and 
 universal. So certain is it, that its operation is 
 distinctly visible on observing the conceptions 
 of particular periods, as constantly influenced 
 by those slighter variations in the deaths which 
 occur in this and other countries, as well as by 
 those sweeping mortalities, which have been oc- 
 casionally experienced ; when, indeed, the effect 
 alluded to has been not unfrequently observed 
 and recorded; though never referred to that 
 general law of nature, of which, when viewed 
 in any considerable number of cases, it clearly 
 forms a part *. 
 
 * This surprising fact has, indeed, been latterly remarked, but 
 lias been ascribed to a cause which has obscured the deduction 
 which ouj^ht to have been drawn from it, if not, indeed, reversed it. 
 It has been resolved into an increased number of marriag-es, 
 which, it is assumed, mortality occasions ; particularly by Mr. 
 Malthus, who is very full of this idea throup,-hout. Prepared by the 
 theory already shortly ])ropounded, to nuiintaiu that a diininution 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The preceding theory, and the facts by 
 which it is substantiated, are furthermore cor- 
 roborated, 
 
 in the numbers of a population is not the means of increasing the 
 plenty and prosperity of the remainder, (which idea, if it be a paradox, 
 is one for which Providence, and the history of human beings is ac- 
 countable,) and entertaining^ a hig-her idea of human nature than to 
 suppose, that in this, or any other country, '* the funeral baked- 
 meats do coldly furnish forth the marriage table," or, in other 
 words, that a time of excessive mortality is that of increasing matri- 
 mony, I examined this matter thoroughly, and found, as I had 
 expected, directly the contrary to be the fact. Mr. Malthus alluded, 
 and I observe still does, to a single table of Sussmilch, how fairly I 
 shall show; I have gone through the whole of them, as well as those 
 relating to all other countries, to which I have had access ; and I con- 
 fidently pronounce, and shall assuredly prove, in reference to this sub- 
 ject, a truth as surprising as it is important and certain ; that a period 
 of greater mortality is that of greater fecundity ; being, at the same 
 time, as invariably one of a diminished proportion of marriages. 
 This will be found true on examining a sufficient number of in- 
 stances, in every part of the world. 
 
 I am the more diffuse upon this particular proof of the principle 
 of population previously propounded (which, in the work referred 
 to, occupies several chapters) from its direct bearing on the proposi- 
 tions respecting unhappy Ireland, my immediate subject. Granting 
 the principle to be true, which it most certainly is, that to dimi- 
 nish the number of human beings, is to increase the fecundity of 
 the remainder ; and in what sort of an attitude do those place 
 themselves, who are for interfering, by cruel or revolting expe- 
 dients, with the established order of nature, whether by clearing 
 farms and villages, driving and deporting the inhabitants, or by any 
 method whatsoever, creating, to use the heartless term of the day, 
 those vacuums which an irreversible law of Providence will as- 
 suredly replenish in spite of all their efforts ? That such has ever 
 been the consequence has long been apparent, the reason is, I speak 
 confidently, now unfolded ; let all such, then, pause in a course which 
 has, perhaps, hitherto been excused by ignorance, but which, per- 
 severed in, will be that of presumptuous folly as well as of wanton 
 cruelty. 
 
 Furthermore : If this last developed principle be true, can any- 
 thing further be required, I would ask the candid mind, which still 
 retains its confidence in the kindness of Providence, and its belief in 
 the existence of a GOD, in order to disprove and demolish the 
 theory of human increase, which it is the business of this work 
 to oppose ? For can it be credited, for a moment, that a dimi- 
 nution in the numbers of human beings is, in any case, a benefit 
 to the remainder, as is now so confidently and luifeelingly main 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 6. By an appeal to the physiology of the 
 human race. This, as expounded by the highest 
 authorities, ancient or modern, fully reconciles 
 the preceding views upon the subject with the 
 facts adduced, and even demands their adop- 
 tion. That want promotes reproduction, and 
 that repletion retards it, I prove, in this section 
 of the book, to be an universally acknow- 
 ledged physical fact; and it is one, which, 
 without the least violence, resolves itself into 
 a principle which regulates human fecundity, 
 not by the misery, but by the happiness of the 
 species. It may be repeated, that where society, 
 as in its first stages, is the most scattered, 
 there is it that there are, necessarily, the most 
 labour and abstinence ; a state so decidedly 
 favourable to prolificness as to render it the 
 acknowledged remedy for cases of sterility, 
 which, it will not be denied, are the least fre- 
 quent in such a condition of life. As numbers 
 increase ; plenty increases, and labour abates, 
 in a yet greater proportion ; till, in a plenary 
 state of population, general ease and luxury are 
 diffused. At every advancing stage of society 
 the principle of prolificness still diminishes ; 
 
 tained, when it is seen that the moment of such a diminution, 
 effected by whatsoever means, is that when a law of nature is put 
 into operation, whose tendency is to fill up the vacuum thus 
 created, and with beinf^s destined to be so long helpless and bur- 
 densome, and pronounced, by the theory I am opposing, utterly 
 valueless to society? A law, thus evidently thwarting all the 
 efforts human beings might make to relieve themselves from the 
 evils which the ])riuci])le of population is said to occasion, would 
 operate as a ])rinciple ofvigilantand unceasing malevolence, were the 
 views, too fretjuently taken of population, true. They are otherwise. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and Nature, not by a beautiful fiction, but by a 
 constantly-operating law of real benevolence, 
 makes the principle of human multiplication 
 the unfailing instrument in elevating the condi- 
 tion of mankind, and still so regulates its ope- 
 ration as to prevent its ever becoming other- 
 wise. Knowing and contemplating the extent 
 of her provision, she is thus making a per- 
 petual and unwearied effort to raise her off- 
 spring to the utmost elevation of prosperity 
 and happiness, and has so calculated her laws 
 that they shall never surpass it. This view of 
 the subject is further proved, 
 
 7. By showing, from the registers of this 
 and other countries, that, directly contrary to 
 what has been frequently put forth ; in the 
 dearer years the marriages are the most pro- 
 lific in conceptions, which singular fact is de- 
 monstrated by a variety of proofs and calcu- 
 lations. The foregoing conclusions, and many 
 others connected with the argument, are fur- 
 ther confirmed and demonstrated, 
 
 8. By an appeal to the registers of the 
 peerage of the empire, a distinct class in 
 which, as it is admitted, the preventive check 
 does not exist. By a minute examination of 
 these, not only are many of the preceding 
 positions corroborated, but others, of an 
 equally curious nature, are elicited. It is a 
 first and favourite maxim with the theory now 
 opposed, that mankind, contrary to what I 
 have been maintaining, would, if unchecked. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " breed up to the level of their food." This 
 supposition, the particular class of society I am 
 now referring to completely negatives. Taking 
 the number of creations, during any given 
 period, the seventeenth century, for example, 
 and it is seen how few heirs male are now 
 remaining, or even descendants. I have also 
 taken the two preceding generations of this 
 body, and recording every circumstance re- 
 specting them, connected with the subject under 
 consideration, I have shown that the strong- 
 tendency of mankind in a high state of affluence 
 and ease, is not to multiplication, in the '' geo- 
 metric ratio," or in any ratio, but to dimi- 
 nution and extinction ; notwithstanding the facts 
 show, that the preventive check did not exist 
 at all ; that the period of marriage was, on the 
 average, very early, and the health of the par- 
 ties, as unequivocally manifested by their great 
 longevity, unimpaired. A minute examination 
 of the authentic documents, thus referred to, 
 has not only confirmed many of the preceding 
 statements, but developed other very interesting 
 and important physiological facts, which have 
 hitherto escaped general attention. 
 
 The preceding views of the subject have 
 been confirmed, 
 
 Lastly, by the analogy of nature in the pro- 
 cesses of animal and vegetable reproduction, 
 especially the former. The heads of this 
 branch of the argument are too numerous to 
 be here recapitulated ; I shall, therefore, con- 
 
XXVIU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tent myself with merely stating, that they 
 illustrate and confirm, in the minutest manner, 
 every principle of increase advanced in the 
 preceding pages. 
 
 Such are the outlines of the true principle 
 of population, and the arguments by which it 
 is established; the latter, as I conceive, em- 
 bracing every species of proof of which the 
 subject is susceptible. As to the calculations 
 by which it is demonstrated, the minuteness and 
 uniformity of their results are such as to have 
 occasionally excited a suspicion of their reality: 
 though the more the operations of nature are 
 submitted to computations of this kind, the 
 more exact and certain they will appear ; that 
 is, if they are grounded upon a sufficient 
 number of instances, as she seems purposely 
 to conceal her laws when contemplated in indi- 
 vidual cases, however certain and exact their 
 results on the general average of her ope- 
 rations. This hint is perfectly necessary to 
 those who may wish either to confirm or confute 
 any of the preceding positions by personal 
 examinations. Dr. Dugald Stewart has a fine 
 passage on this subject, to which I must refer 
 the reader, and shall now merely mention that 
 I have adduced several instances in proof of 
 the arithmetic of nature, if I may so express 
 myself, and amongst the rest the following. 
 Nothing can be less certain than the proportion 
 of the sexes in the offspring of different mar- 
 riages individually contemplated, but nothing 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 more uniform than the results, though made up 
 of such a multitude of discordant proportions. 
 The reason of this law is obvious, and strictly 
 appertaining to the subject : the institution 
 of marriage is the only certain way of multi- 
 plying, or even continuing the species, and 
 hence their numbers are proportioned in a 
 manner which has exercised the powers of the 
 ablest mathematicians in this and preceding 
 ages. But still there is an observable difference 
 in the proportions of the sexes in different 
 countries, and this difference again conforms to 
 a law of nature hitherto, as I believe, unob- 
 served, and one of a singularly exact and 
 curious nature. Calculating from the nubile 
 period in both sexes ; in the offspring of those 
 marriages contracted at a corresponding period 
 of life, the sexes will be about equal, but if 
 otherwise, the number of that parent's sex shall 
 prevail who has longest postponed that union, 
 and prevail just to that degree so as to make up 
 for the diminution which, agreeably to the law of 
 mortality, will take place in that interval ; that 
 is, where the age of the man exceeds, the num- 
 ber of his male children shall exceed ; where, 
 in the rarer instances, the female shall be the 
 oldest, the children of her sex shall, in like 
 manner, be more numerous ; this, it will be 
 shown, as calculated on the entire number of 
 instances, taken from the peerage ; as well as 
 by other proofs, is the certain and exact 
 result.* This law of nature, again is no whim- 
 
 * This law, also, it will be proved, extends to the animal creation. 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 sical or unnecessary regulation, but one which 
 guarantees that institution, by which, as al- 
 ready noticed, she alone contemplates to con- 
 tinue the species : otherwise the habitual 
 postponement of marriage by one sex would 
 (as Mr. Malthus has somewhat too hastily 
 pronounced, when referring to a passage in 
 Aristotle) consign a certain proportion of the 
 other to necessary celibacy. Other proofs of 
 these exact regulations in the laws of nature 
 are instanced, but will not now be brought 
 forwards ; one only shall be added to the fore- 
 going, in proof that she is not more exact in 
 calculating than intent upon executing them. 
 
 Lord Bacon, I think, somewhere observes, 
 that in those tribes of the animal creation, 
 amongst which the measure of reproduction 
 is, in some sort, voluntary, there is a kind of 
 natural arithmetic which is observed, rendering 
 it almost impossible to frustrate the designs of 
 nature, however often you attempt it. What 
 nature, in this instance, by a mysterious in- 
 stinct, dictates to the birds, she accomplishes 
 in regard to human beings, by laws which are 
 placed beyond their voluntary control. It is 
 a received principle amongst the most eminent 
 physiologists, that the measure of female pro- 
 lificness is, in all cases, determinate, (at least, 
 such was the opinion of the greatest of them. 
 Hunter,) and further, that the earliest period 
 of adolescence is not the most favourable for its 
 complete evolution ; on the contrary, premature 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 marriages were decried by the ancient advocates 
 of population, as having a contrary tendency, 
 by endangering both the hfe of the mother 
 and the offspring. But on a point so essential 
 to the system of the day, and made, indeed, 
 the foundation of most of its suggestions, much 
 attention has been bestowed, and being one of 
 those matters which may be decided by arith- 
 metic, and when, therefore, the attempt to do 
 so by mere reasonings becomes ridiculous, this 
 question, likewise, is submitted to numerical 
 demonstration. And from the collected re- 
 gisters of the peerage already referred to, and 
 by a different appeal, involving a far greater 
 number of facts, promiscuously recorded, for 
 a different purpose, and as little liable to the 
 suspicion of incorrectness as the former, it is 
 found, that early marriages are not conducive 
 to a larger increase of population than those 
 contracted at riper years, but to the contrary. 
 The annual prohficness is, in the former case, 
 less, and the proportion of mortality in the 
 offspring is greater the opinion of antiquity 
 on this subject being thus fully confirmed. One 
 thing disclosed in this examination is very 
 striking : the regularity of the laws of nature 
 on this point also. Commencing with the earli- 
 est ages, and proceeding to the latest ones, at 
 which marriage usually takes place ; (confining 
 the observations, of course, to the period of 
 natural prolificness ;) the later the age to which 
 marriages have been postponed, the more ra- 
 
XXXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pidly is the principle of prolificness evolved, 
 the annual fecundity regularly augmenting till 
 it rises to its utmost .height, the mortality of 
 the offspring diminishing in an inverse ratio ; 
 so anxiously bent does Nature appear to ac- 
 complish those purposes which every petty 
 intruder pronounces to be prejudicial, and feels 
 himself meritoriously engaged while impeding 
 and frustrating to the utmost of his power*. 
 
 The calculations thus appealed to, do not 
 exhibit mere "tendencies,'' subject to constant 
 " oscillations," but establish the true theory of 
 population upon a series of results, in every 
 case as uniformly and regularly graduated, in 
 conformity with the principle laid down, as 
 though the facts upon which they are grounded 
 had been fabricated for the purpose; and form- 
 ing a species of demonstration which is beyond 
 
 * It is not a part of my design on this occasion to follow the 
 system announced to its necessary deductions, and those which 
 present themselves here are too obvious to render it necessary. Any 
 general attempt to put off marriage beyond the period nature 
 assigns for that connexion, were it successful, would thwart the 
 designs of Providence, as plainly indicated by all the foregoing 
 calculations ; but, as has been lastly intimated, it would defeat its own 
 purpose. Without producing the intended effect, it would wound 
 the morals of the community ; inflict irreparable injury on private 
 happiness ; disturb the appointed order and succession of the gene- 
 rations, so essential in the social system to human interests and 
 happiness ; and, in many instances, disrupt the most important 
 connexions altogether, and that at a period when their preservation is 
 the most important ; while the lower the rank in society, the heavier 
 would fall the evils it would inflict : and it is confessedly the poor 
 at whom the theory which recommends it, takes aim. The con- 
 fusion and distress it would inevitably occasion in that immense 
 class, are inexpressible. " Late marriages," says Franklin, " make 
 early orphans ; " orphans, which, as the same system dictates, 
 should be left destitute of all legal support. And this is political 
 economy ! O rare Daniels ! 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXlll 
 
 the possibility of the doctrine of chances to 
 construct. I now regret that even the present 
 work does not include a few of these tables, 
 which would have certainly been more striking 
 as an argumentum ad oculos, than verbal as- 
 surances can be, however credited. 
 
 A dissertation on the balance of food and 
 numbers throughout animated nature, is added 
 to this part of the work ; in answer to the axiom 
 of Mr. Malthus, asserting that the latter have a 
 universal tendency to excess *. In this, it is be- 
 lieved, some views are taken, and facts brought 
 forward, of an interesting nature, strongly con- 
 firmatory of the general principle contended 
 for, and demonstrating the minute and unerring 
 calculations into which nature has entered, in 
 order to secure a purpose so essential to the 
 happiness, as well as existence of all sentient 
 beings : a purpose which, it is further proved 
 by an appeal to the condition of such, is fully 
 accomplished. The argument, however, is not 
 very capable of abridgment, and embraces too 
 many topics to be gone into at present. 
 
 The sixth and concluding Book of the trea^ 
 tise is devoted to the discussion of the neces- 
 sary deductions from the principle developed 
 and established in the preceding ones, and 
 which, as the practical application of the whole, 
 is not the least important part of the work. 
 But I must forbear entering upon these like- 
 
 * Malthus. Essay on Population, p. 2. 
 d 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 wise, as they would necessarily carry me into 
 explanations of considerable length : suffice it 
 to say that the principle of population for which 
 I contend, reconciles the affections, duties, and 
 interests of human beings, whether collectively 
 or individually considered ; and identifies the 
 whole with the dictates of nature and the laws 
 of God. 
 
 Such, then, is a sketch of the principle of po- 
 pulation about to be submitted to the public, 
 together with the numerous proofs and tables 
 from which it is inducted. These, without 
 being mere selections of particular cases 
 without being garbled or strained for the pur- 
 pose, but taken fairly, promiscuously, and 
 indeed, universally, from all the records of 
 human existence accessible to the public, fully 
 establish the results, which form themselves into 
 the theory now developed ; the necessary con- 
 nexion of the several parts of which, and the 
 obvious harmony of the whole, afford a distinct 
 and pleasing proof that it is the system of 
 nature and of truth. The moral arguments in 
 its favour ought, however, with human beings 
 to be the most irresistible ; but with those who 
 too much disregard such, the physical proofs 
 on which it is founded will, it is hoped, be 
 regarded as conclusive. The contrary theory, 
 indeed, professes to ground its demonstrations 
 on the exact sciences ; but most fallaciously ; for 
 the geometric ratio of increase, for which it 
 contends, is a mere abstract idea, and never had 
 
IN'TRODIJCTIOX. 
 
 nor ever will have, an existence in any of the 
 operations of nature ; while that for which I 
 contend conforms to laws which are in visible 
 and perpetual operation. Without affecting a 
 species of demonstration inapplicable to the 
 subject, the principle of the increase of human 
 beings admits of a most striking mathematical 
 illustration : compared with the provision made 
 for them, it conforms to the law of the hyper- 
 bola in approachmg its asymptote ; it will still 
 approach, without reaching, much less surpass- 
 ing that line, or, to use the current phrase, 
 " level of food," which nature has prescribed 
 and provided. It is somewhat curious that the 
 progression of population, in certain cases where 
 it has been apparently the most unrestrained, 
 has, when geometrically delineated, assumed 
 precisely that form. 
 
 It is quite obvious that the two systems 
 now before the public cannot exist as separate 
 truths ; and equally so, that no middle theory 
 can be formed of parts of both, now so much 
 the practice. They are, in all respects, " con- 
 trarieties, at war," and agree in no single point 
 either as it respects principle, or consequences, 
 present or future. The one maintains that the 
 law of human increase, if not checked by a con- 
 stant and unnatural restraint, would, notwith- 
 standing " the universal prevalence of every 
 known virtue in the greatest conceivable degree, 
 plunge society into the most wretched and 
 d2 
 
XXXVl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 desperate state of want*" and misery; the 
 other demonstrates that, in connexion with 
 the virtues which it calls into existence 
 and perpetuates, it is so regulated as to ele- 
 vate human beings to the utmost degree of 
 prosperity. Equally opposite are they as to 
 the means by which they respectively main- 
 tain the varying principle of human fecundity 
 to be governed : the former asserting that it is 
 by the perpetual operation of want and misery 
 that the numbers of mankind are " kept down 
 to the level of food ;" the latter, that increasing 
 plenty is the regulator. That their effects, 
 therefore, on the feelings, the principles and the 
 policy of mankind are directly adverse, not 
 sophistry itself can dispute, nor will it, indeed, 
 attempt to do so. The one teaches human 
 beings to regard each other as rival for an 
 insufficient share in the bounties of Provi- 
 dence; the other as copartners in an abun- 
 dance, which overflows as they multiply, and 
 by means of that multiplication. That, cal- 
 culating on a principle of cruel selfishness, pro- 
 nounces mankind to be redundant by thou- 
 sands, and consequently as worth less than 
 nothing ; this, sees in their growing numbers 
 not the signs only, (that all confess,) nor yet 
 the instruments, but, as the wisest and the best 
 of mankind have ever done, the very elements 
 
 * Malthus. Essay, &c p. 493. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of all prosperity. It is not in the nature of 
 things, therefore, that either of these views can 
 be otherwise than stroQgly influential on the 
 mutual feelings and conduct of mankind ; hence 
 in their practical consequences they are, if pos- 
 sible, still more opposed than in principle. 
 
 A law such as the one now propounded, which 
 should multiply human beings rapidly where 
 such increase is necessary and advantageous, 
 keeping up their numbers so as to create and 
 preserve in constant exercise that necessity to 
 which all natural and intellectual superiority is 
 to be traced ; and still so moderated as to limit 
 their multiplication by their means of subsist- 
 ence, and the full measure of their happiness ; 
 effecting, therefore, all the good, without per- 
 petrating any of the evils of the contrary 
 system, none can deny would be a desirable 
 regulation in the economy of nature. Its very 
 desirableness, then, I contend, is no mean 
 argument in favour of its truth : strange indeed 
 would it be were there a principle in creation 
 in which human beings could suggest a plain 
 improvement. We are, therefore, strongly w\ar- 
 ranted in expecting the existence of such a law. 
 Some of the happiest efforts of moral philo- 
 sophy, in modern times, have been those which 
 have demonstrated the existence and exempli- 
 fied the wisdom of the Deity, especially in 
 the structure and functions of animated exist- 
 ences, by showing that similar purposes have 
 been effectuated by corresponding contrivances 
 
1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in what are called mechanical inventions *. 
 Now, in many of our complicated machines, 
 particularly in the national one, for such, per- 
 haps, the steam-engine may be denominated, 
 there is that which, though moved by the same 
 impetus, so acts as to retard or accelerate the 
 velocity and equalize the movements of the 
 whole : the significant name of this is " the 
 governor." The law of population for which I 
 contend, is simply this principle, or, if you 
 please, contrivance, transferred, for a similar 
 but infinitely more important purpose, to the 
 social machine : where reason would feel it 
 difficult to believe it could be wanting, and 
 where experience has happily proved, in all 
 ages and countries of the world, that it actu- 
 tually exists. 
 
 The desirableness of such a principle, how- 
 ever, I have never heard disputed its exist- 
 ence, at least, when the proofs were not 
 advanced, constantly ; and simply because it 
 did not seem easy to render a philosophical 
 reason for that which is undoubtedly a phy- 
 sical fact. This is mentioned to guard the 
 reader against a similar delusion. How, it 
 may be asked, should this law be otherwise 
 than obscure in the mode of its operation, 
 when everything connected with the subject is 
 enveloped in impenetrable mystery ? No great 
 stickler for miracles, Rousseau, has observed 
 
 * See Paley's Natural Theology, passim. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that, " in the generation of animated and organ- 
 ized bodies, the human mind is lost as in an 
 abyss." Reproduction, through all the innu- 
 merable tribes of animal and even vegetable 
 existence, is, in all its forms, and in every single 
 instance, a miracle to which nothing but the 
 continuous evidence of our senses could recon- 
 cile our belief: one, indeed, which learning and 
 imagination and experience have long at- 
 tempted to penetrate and expound, but which, 
 after all their labours, the most recondite pro- 
 fessor understands as imperfectly as the un- 
 tutored peasant : a subject which, the more it is 
 considered in itself, or in relation to its infinitely 
 numerous dependencies and ramifications, the 
 less comprehensible it becomes. But of all 
 the phenomena it involves, the principle for 
 which I contend is, perhaps, the least obscure. 
 It is the system which I am opposing, indeed, 
 clear as it stands from all pretension to origi- 
 nal discovery, and totally unembarrassed by any 
 physical facts, or abstruse calculations, which 
 implies, if duly considered, far the greater 
 miracle ; a miracle of malignity in the book of 
 Nature and of Providence. It implies a solitary 
 error in the computations of nature, or, more 
 properly speaking, of its great Author, of the 
 most important kind, to rectify which it repre- 
 sents Him as delivering His animated works, 
 and especially man, to the regulation of the 
 Manichean principle, for which it so strenu- 
 ously contends, ridiculing the idea of His 
 
Xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 interference in their behalf*, when it is hardly- 
 consistent with a belief in His existence, to 
 suppose that He would not interfere. The 
 true theory, on the other hand, merely sub- 
 scribes to the ancient axiom, natura non abun- 
 dat, nee deficit : or, to express the same truth 
 in more sacred, as well as more inteUigible 
 terms, that " God hath ordered all things in 
 number, in measure, and in weight/' In a 
 word, it recognises the wisdom and benevo- 
 lence of the Deity, asserting his care of his 
 creatures, either in his immediate and constant- 
 ly-presiding presence and providence, or what, 
 perhaps, not less highly exalts our ideas of his 
 infinite perfections in that unerring prescience 
 which, joined to his power and goodness, has an- 
 ticipated from everlasting all the contingencies 
 of our existence, and by an uninterrupted series 
 of secondary causes, which runs through all 
 time and connects itself with eternity, has ade- 
 quately provided for them: grasping, as the 
 prince of Poets represents the universal Father, 
 in his Almighty hand that golden chain, bright 
 with benevolence and mercy, by which He 
 sustains, from the heights of eternity. His uni- 
 versal offspring. It is thus it " betakes itself 
 to miracles "f ." 
 
 But if we must abstain from these sacred 
 appeals to providence and to God, and refer 
 simply to what some would call natural causes, 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 272, 373. 
 t Ibid. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xU 
 
 (though the greatest philosopher the world has 
 ever yet beheld, and in his greatest work, has 
 pronounced the term, when strictly applied, 
 unintelligible,) still I maintain that the real 
 principle of population, regulated as explained, 
 is strictly analogous to, and, indeed, a part of 
 a law which appears to pervade and govern 
 the universe. Whether we contemplate nature 
 in those orbs which are perpetually iterating 
 their ancient courses around us, or in those 
 mighty conformations or minuter parts in which 
 matter is presented to our closer examination ; 
 or pursue our inquiries into the vegetable and 
 animal kingdoms, we find all its several parts 
 strictly relative, and reciprocally dependent 
 upon and influencing each other, forming, there- 
 fore, a connected whole ; involving a series of 
 calculations and proportions, as exact as they 
 are immense, of which magnitude, motion, 
 number, space, and time itself, are essential in- 
 gredients ; thus connecting creation, from its 
 ubiquital centre to its boundless circumference, 
 in one unbroken and everlasting chain, and pre- 
 serving, in all its vast and complicated move- 
 ments, the eternal equipoise of the universe. 
 Of this law the sublime discoveries of Newton 
 form but a part, and to this it is humbly con- 
 ceived the principle which governs the number 
 of human beings maybe as plainly referred. 
 I mean what, perhaps, may be, for the present, 
 expressed by the term the Law of Relation. 
 The more nature is contemplated in this point 
 
xlii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of view, the clearer, it is conceived, will her 
 operations appear, till it will be found that there 
 is nothing isolated or independent in the uni 
 verse but its eternal Author ; and least of all 
 man. Seeing, then, how exactly he is adapted to 
 the station he holds, and the condition in which 
 he is placed in nature, it would be monstrous, 
 indeed, to suppose that, last of all, his numbers 
 should be disproportionate to the space he is 
 appointed to occupy and the sustentation pro- 
 vided for him. But in pursuing the thoughts 
 that thus suggest themselves on the subject, I 
 am wandering far from the purpose of the pre- 
 sent publication, to which I shall now return. 
 
 It has been already remarked that, on apply- 
 ing the law of population, as explained, to the 
 test of past history in different nations of the 
 world, or to their present condition, its truth ap- 
 peared abundantly confirmed. There remained 
 one country, however, and that, unhappily, a 
 portion of the British Empire, which, before ex- 
 amination, I had concluded would constitute an 
 exception, though such an exception as would 
 confirm, rather than confront, the general rule ; 
 I mean Ireland. That country, deprived as it 
 long had been of its capital, and degraded and 
 impoverished by absenteeship and emigration, 
 was plainly placed in an unnatural state ; and 
 would, according to the preceding view of the 
 subject, continue rapidly to increase, without 
 that increase being accompanied, as in other 
 cases, by corresponding advantages. But, on 
 
INTRODUCTION'. 
 
 examination, I found that even Ireland still con- 
 formed to the general law, in precisely the same 
 manner as all other countries, though, per- 
 haps, not to an equal degree ; that those dis- 
 tricts which were the least peopled were the 
 most prolific ; and that the most densely inha- 
 bited parts, notwithstanding the comparative 
 sterility of their soil, were invariably the most 
 prosperous ones. The historical part of the 
 inquiry was likewise equally conclusive, and 
 added another proof to the uniform body of 
 evidence previously collected on the same 
 subject. The most exact analogy was, there- 
 fore, established ; authorising me to apply the 
 whole theory of population, thus confirmed in 
 all its essential particulars, to Ireland. But 
 even the statistics of that country alone, esta- 
 blishing the true and immutable law of increase, 
 afford abundant proof that the expedients medi- 
 tated in regard to its inhabitants are as opposed 
 to the principles of nature, as they are to those 
 of patriotism and sound policy ; and that, as 
 certainly as they are attempted, they will 
 be frustrated. It, perhaps, may be thought to 
 minister to the ends of individual selfishness to 
 " clear estates," " tax," or demolish " cottages," 
 " drive'" hamlets, and expose helpless multi- 
 tudes to direct starvation, though this, if duly 
 considered, is extremely doubtful : but let not 
 the actors in such disgraceful scenes any longer 
 claim the merit of patriotism for their deeds ; 
 at least let the nation forbear to act upon the 
 
xliv 
 
 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 exterminating hypothesis, that getting rid of a 
 thousand labourers here and there would be 
 " a gain certainly;" or contemplate the depor- 
 tation of tens and hundreds of thousands of the 
 inhabitants, upon the principle of making va- 
 cuums, to use the absurd phrase of the day. 
 Those vacuums nature abhors, and will take 
 good heed hastily to replenish. The fact has 
 been long noticed ; the cause, it is believed, is 
 now developed ; and is perfectly distinct from 
 the common supposition of their occasioning 
 an increased number of marriages. Those who 
 may be inclined to dispute this point, are fore- 
 warned that they will have to maintain their 
 argument against a few of the first rules of 
 arithmetic. Nor is it less important, or less 
 obviously true, on examination, that to diminish 
 the number of people would be to deteriorate 
 the condition of the remainder. As a false and 
 contrary principle of population, however, is 
 being acted upon, inflicting great individual 
 misery wherever it obtains ; and as it seems to 
 be in immediate contemplation to carry it into 
 effect to a still larger extent, I have been in- 
 duced to put forth the following pages some- 
 what prematurely ; and, perhaps, in reference 
 to the general argument I have undertaken, 
 which is of a more important character, and 
 will occupy a far larger work, somewhat inju- 
 diciously: for although Ireland itself fully 
 proves the principle for which I contend, yet as 
 it furnishes the fewest statistical facts by which 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 to substantiate it, of any country to which I 
 have appealed, it certainly forms the least strik- 
 ing part of that series of demonstrations which 
 will be shortly submitted to the public. If, 
 however, the principle unfolded be true, no 
 personal considerations could have justified me 
 in withholding it from the public at the present 
 crisis, so momentous in reference to it. I have 
 acted upon that consideration ; and in now re- 
 viewing what I have produced, I fear much has 
 been omitted very pertinent to the subject, 
 and still more retained that is, perhaps, super- 
 fluous to it. If the latter comprise any thing 
 that can be construed personally, I shall still 
 more deeply regret the haste and inadvertency 
 with which I have written. Not so, however, 
 as it regards any arguments or expressions, 
 however strong, aimed against the system 
 I have opposed throughout ; that would be 
 to affect a candour very inconsistent with sin- 
 cerity and truth, and one which, as applied to 
 the subject, would be a very dubious virtue. 
 Feeling, as I do, that it is equally opposed to 
 the honour of God, and the interests of mankind ; 
 and is, from first to last, as cruel as it is falla- 
 cious, I have expressed myself in correspond- 
 ing language ; and, in so doing, if any justifi- 
 cation seem necessary, I will present it in the 
 words of Bacon. " Sharp and bitter writing," 
 says he, " is not hastily to be condemned ; for 
 men cannot contend coldly, and without affec- 
 tion, about things which they hold dear and 
 precious." 
 
Xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Having now, as I intended, developed the 
 true principle of population, and the nature of 
 the proofs by vv^hich it is supported, it is due to 
 the theory to state some of the diflBculties it will, 
 doubtless, have to encounter, which may cause 
 it to be disputed or neglected for a time, but 
 which I feel confident, (founded as it is upon 
 indisputable facts,) will only postpone, without 
 being able to prevent, its ultimate prevalence. 
 
 And, first ; the contrary system which it has 
 to displace before it can obtain attention, for- 
 bidding as it seems to be, has many points of 
 attraction to those who espouse it, and has 
 undoubtedly spread very widely and taken deep 
 root. The modern and fallacious principle of 
 population appeals to the strongest, though 
 certainly not the most amiable passions of 
 the human heart; it consults the fears and 
 soothes the selfishness of those to whom it ad- 
 dresses itself; it graduates the virtues and 
 charities of social life, and even changes their 
 nature, as expediency or interest dictates : it 
 absolves, in great measure, wealth and power 
 from their deep and anxious responsibilities ; 
 excusing the sloth and negligence, if not even 
 sanctioning the misrule of those whose elevated 
 dut it is to mitigate or remove human miseries, 
 by attributing those miseries to the laws of 
 nature and of God*. Moreover, it is so pro- 
 pounded as to avail itself of the weaknesses of 
 the intellect, as well as those of the heart. It 
 
 *Malthiis, Essay on Pop., p. 367. 
 
iNTIlODUCTTOX. 
 
 is announced as an abstract truth, with which, 
 one of the greatest of mankind says, " the mind 
 of man, to the extreme prejudice of knowledge, 
 so much dehghteth ;" in " barren generahties,'' 
 which, as an authority hardly less than Bacon, 
 warns us, " ought never to be trusted *." While 
 the very terms in which it is announced, geo- 
 metry and arithmetic, to the use of which 
 mankind have been accustomed to associate 
 ideas of certainty and precision; together 
 with the confidence with which it is asserted 
 and repeated, have contributed to disarm sus 
 picion, and to induce the mind, without the 
 fatigue of examination, to surrender itself to a 
 settled conviction of its truth. These, and many 
 other reasons, have concurred to spread a doc- 
 trine which has been always more or less ac- 
 ceptable to a portion of mankind. At present, 
 therefore, it is received and regarded in the 
 light of a settled axiom. Modern philosophers 
 embrace it on pain of forfeiting their title to 
 their very name; periodical writers almost 
 unanimously espouse it, and unceasingly spread 
 its dogmas through every part of the earth ; 
 legislators seem on the very point of reducing 
 the system into practice ; and even many of 
 the expounders of our religion, though they 
 cannot pollute the well-head of revelation with 
 its principle, yet are busily engaged in tinging 
 the stream with its pernicious admixture. That 
 
 * Hooker. Even Rousseau saw tliat " ronorai and abstract irlens 
 have been the source of the greatest errors" into which mankind fuive 
 t^allen. 
 
Xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the notion once imbibed should be tenaciously 
 retained, is natural. Philosophy, as it is well 
 known, has not merely its fashions, which, like 
 those of manners, are deemed indispensable, 
 however absurd, but it has its prejudices, which 
 the history of every age can testify are, at least, 
 as strong as those of ignorance. That it has 
 its pride, was never doubted ; and a change of 
 opinion, especially on so plain a point, would 
 be deemed a subscription to its own degrada- 
 tion. The stronger, therefore, the reasons 
 which are advanced against it, the more deter- 
 mined will be their adherence to it. Some of 
 this class, indeed, have been heard to declare 
 that they would as soon resign their belief in 
 the first propositions of Euclid, as in those of 
 Malthus ; asserting, as one of them has done 
 publicly, that the system is at least as certain 
 as the rotation of the earth on its own axis. 
 
 But the most powerful support this doctrine 
 receives is from the modern system of political 
 economy, of which it is an acknowledged basis. 
 On this subject I wish to say a few words, in 
 explanation, having made as free with that 
 system as it does with all others. I mean not, 
 by this modern " science, " that true national 
 policy, which has long pursued the real interests 
 of the country under the guidance of common 
 sense, experience, and humanity ; and whose 
 course has been pointed out by the finger of 
 Providence. Seeing that nature has equally 
 bestowed upon all nations the necessaries of 
 
INTRODUCTION. xHx 
 
 existence, and unequally distributed her super- 
 fluities and luxuries, it shapes its course accord- 
 ingly. In the first place, affording due encou- 
 ragement to internal industry, with a view to 
 secure the labour and the lives of the peo- 
 ple, it places its foreign intercourse upon its 
 natural and permanent footing, and enters into 
 a system of liberal interchange with the sur- 
 rounding nations, not with the fears of the 
 miser, or the feelings of the gambler, but with 
 a view to the mutual and perpetual advantages 
 of each. Never trampling on those interests 
 which may stand in its path, till they can be 
 safely and advantageously transplanted, it pur- 
 sues that steady course which has conducted 
 this country from its once degraded condition 
 to that high and palmy state of prosperity which 
 it has long enjoyed. Though attending to the 
 interests of the community, it has never yet 
 recognised Plutus as the one divinity, nor Poli- 
 tical Economy as the sole prophetess of the 
 nation ; nor filled the temple of legislation with 
 " the tables of the money-changers ;" nor made 
 mere jobbers and speculators its oracles. It has 
 carefully attended to commerce vv^ithout having 
 been dictated to by it ; knowing that there are 
 " other things than are dreamt of in its philoso- 
 phy," namely, the health, happiness, morals, and 
 well-being of the mass of the community, with- 
 out securing which, even riches would make to 
 themselves wings and fly away. Its maxims 
 have tended to harmonise the various interests 
 
1 
 
 INTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 of the community, and to secure their advan- 
 tages severally, not by sacrificing them to each 
 other, but by promoting the prosperity of the 
 whole. These are the principles which have 
 conducted this nation by a gradual, and slow, 
 indeed, but solid advancement, to its present 
 state, and seem to have in them the elements 
 of perpetuity . Nor has the period through which 
 they have prevailed been that of mercenary im- 
 provement merely, it has been one of high in- 
 tellectual advancement ; it has been illustrated 
 by genius, and ennobled by valour, " beyond 
 all Greek, beyond all Roman fame." Such, 
 then, is not the policy I allude to in my remarks 
 on political economy. But it is that system 
 which has lately sprung up amongst us ; a thing 
 made up of " shreds and patches f partly of 
 truisms, partly of palpable blunders, but princi- 
 pally of a string of unconnected paradoxes^ 
 which may be either, and which is self-elevated 
 into the rank of a " science," in which, such is 
 the temptation, every one is at once a professor, 
 and, under a sort of immediate afflatus, utters 
 oracles. It is to these fancied revelations, and 
 not to those plain and universally acknowledged 
 principles that may be still retained, that I 
 allude, and which I have identified with the 
 modern system*. Though all of them agree 
 
 * The pretensions of modern political economy as a *' Science,'* 
 may be well explained in the language of Blumenbach, applied to 
 another modern science of a very similar character. When that 
 celebrated Professor was asked what was his opinion on Craniology, 
 he thus expressed himself :([E;S iJJt bltl tfarill toasi toajr isft, MxCti 
 
IVTHODUCTJON. Ji 
 
 that the short and direct path of human interest 
 has, from the creation downward, never been 
 discovered, much less trodden, till their days, 
 still no two of them concur as to its exact di- 
 rection ; on one point, however, they are una- 
 nimous, namely, in asserting the doctrine now 
 opposed, the superfecundity of the human race, 
 and, consequently, the necessity of checking 
 their increase. It is in their capacity as zealots 
 for this notion that it becomes necessary, in my 
 present argument, to allude to them, or rather 
 their opinions ; and to contrast their views upon 
 population with the ancient and authentic prin- 
 ciple. It was the object of that true national 
 economy which they despise and would fain 
 displace, to raise the value and multiply the 
 numbers of our countrymen; to spread the 
 greatest possible degree of happiness amongst 
 the utmost possible number ; objects of iden- 
 tical, instead of incompatible pursuit, their 
 notions to the contrary notwithstanding. But 
 it is the purpose of the new school to regard 
 and treat men as mere animated machines, and, 
 indeed, to supplant them by inanimate ones, 
 were it possible ; to pronounce them as worth- 
 less, or otherwise, just as it may please the 
 great capitalists (whom it is enabling to absorb, 
 as fast as possible, the middle ranks of society) 
 
 bill bas; mu ; aber tJa^ bad luaf)v idt, ist ntd)t ncu, itnlJ tJajJ iuasi 
 ntU i^t, iit mc\)t Ujal)r. (There is nmch in it tliat is true, and much 
 that is new ; but that vvliich is true is not new , and that which i:* 
 new is not true.) 
 
lii 
 
 JNTKODUCTION. 
 
 to determine regarding them, instructing such 
 meanwhile, that they are under no imaginable 
 obligation, but what selfishness dictates, to 
 prefer the labour of those by whom themselves 
 have been raised and are supported ; and that 
 wealth ought not to be called upon to relieve 
 that starving poverty, by whose former exer- 
 tions it was created. Nay, so far has the mer- 
 cenary doctrine of this school advanced, as 
 to pronounce that the virtues themselves are 
 marketable commodities *. The perfection of 
 this system, therefore, is the abjection of the 
 species. But the question with which I have 
 mainly to do is not one that is to be decided by 
 capital, the golden image now set up, the 
 omnipotent of the present system; it lies 
 between the Creator and his creatures, and 
 is simply this, whether his Providence is, 
 and will continue, equal to the supply of 
 their wants. This is the precise question ; 
 meantime, it is somewhat strange that the 
 economists can reconcile the conclusion, at 
 which they seem unanimously to arrive, 
 with some of their own notions. They have 
 written largely on the subject of Capital, and 
 on its definition ; and yet they seem to forget 
 that whatever it may be called, or however 
 defined, it is that and that only which gives its 
 possessor a command of the product of human 
 labour ; consequently human beings constitute 
 the wealth, the capital of the world: it is 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Pop., p. 64. 
 
INTHODUCTION. \\\[ 
 
 they only who create it ; and they alone who 
 give it its value when created. They have 
 said much, too, about the market of labour, as 
 it is called, and yet seem not to know, or at all 
 events frequently to forget, that mankind are 
 reciprocally producers and consumers, and that, 
 under proper regulations, they are necessary 
 to each other whatever be their numbers ; that 
 mutual wants are so balanced and connected 
 in the mechanism of the social system, of 
 which necessity is the main-spring, as to pro- 
 duce that perpetual motion which nothing but 
 the " feathers" of these philosophers can dis- 
 turb or destroy. This mutual dependence of 
 man upon his fellow man, whatever be the 
 attempts to weaken it, and however successful 
 they may be for a time, will certainly be found 
 as strong in the last, as it was in the first stages 
 of human existence, nay far stronger, for rea- 
 sons which are elsewhere pointed out. As the 
 body politic enlarges, all its members partake 
 of the general growth : when, therefore, it has 
 attained to its gigantic stature, still less than 
 when it was in its infant state, can the hand 
 say to the foot, " I have no need of thee." 
 But the idea that mankind should outgrow their 
 dependence upon each other, whimsical as it 
 seems, is far more tolerable than that they 
 should become too numerous for the provision 
 of their common parent. Yet this last is the 
 notion that political economy, and the modern 
 principle of population, share in common, found- 
 
liv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ing upon it a system of policy as adverse to the 
 feelings and interests of the human race as it is 
 to the honour of the Deity. 
 
 Such are the numerous and powerful obsta- 
 cles which will, for a time, successfully oppose 
 the progress of the true principle of population, 
 to which must be added others interposed by 
 the manner in which I have discussed the sub- 
 ject, and more especially the deductions I have 
 drawn from it ; to the latter, as voluntarily 
 encountered, a few words are due. Seeing, on 
 a review of the system propounded, that it was 
 clearly the intention of Providence to furnish 
 the necessary means of subsistence to every 
 country within itself, (otherwise the argument, 
 as it respects the whole, would at length inevi- 
 tably fall to the ground,) I concluded that the 
 intention of the Creator and the duty and inter- 
 ests of his creatures were identical ; and have 
 therefore connected my theory with a defence 
 of internal cultivation. To this view of the 
 subject, however, many of the commercial 
 class, to say nothing of the political economists, 
 are, as I think, unwisely opposed; their objec- 
 tions therefore are excited. This course, how- 
 ever, it might be supposed, would conciliate the 
 opinions of the agriculturists ; but the senti- 
 ments expressed as to the real interest and duty 
 of that class as a body, equally dictated by the 
 same theory, will excite at least equal opposi- 
 tion. The self-same principle, political economy, 
 which so unhappily prevails in other ranks 
 
FNTHODUCTJON, Iv 
 
 of society, has long infested this ; the principle, 
 however disguised, of mercenary monopoly, 
 which, resolving everything into a question of 
 momentary selfishness, is setting every interest 
 amongst us at variance, and is rapidly swal- 
 lowing up that middle rank of the community 
 in which has long resided the moral strength of 
 the British community. The advice of the 
 celebrated Hobbes on an enlarging popula- 
 tion, is, as to its wisdom and humanity, as 
 authoritative as if it had been pronounced by 
 an oracle ; it has certainly the inspiration of 
 common sense, " Live closer, and cultivate 
 better" but, strange to say, the sinister policy 
 recommended by our great agricultural autho- 
 rities in these circumstances is to diminish the 
 number of the cultivators, and to enlarge, or as 
 Lord Bacon has it, to engross farms. I am per- 
 fectly aware that it is useless to argue with 
 those who imagine they have a personal inter- 
 est in the question; but should these pages 
 meet the notice of any of the greater landed 
 proprietors of the empire, whose object, I am 
 persuaded, it has always been to promote the 
 interest and happiness of all their dependents, 
 however they may have, in this instance, mis- 
 taken the means, I earnestly solicit their atten- 
 tion to what is urged in behalf of the more natu- 
 ral, humane, and, as I contend, the more pro- 
 fitable course. 
 
 To this enumeration of the strong objections 
 to the propositions with which the system is 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 connected, I will only add its defence of the 
 poor laws, against which a general outcry is 
 attempted to be raised, and the proposal that 
 their principle should be extended to Ireland. 
 I shall not mention the hostility of absentee- 
 ship and all its train of apologists and depend- 
 ents, powerful in wealth and numbers, and now 
 fully armed in the panoply of political economy. 
 Its enmity has had to be encountered by all 
 who have attended to the evils which the 
 population of that country had long suffered, 
 or suggested those remedies which alone 
 have the least prospect of finally removing 
 them. 
 
 But notwithstanding these and many other 
 powerful obstacles against the system of popu- 
 lation advanced in these pages, obtaining pre- 
 sent acceptance ; grounded as it is upon the 
 experience of mankind in all ages, and demon- 
 strated by a series of calculations founded on 
 authentic data, as well as dictated by the 
 feelings and constitution of human nature, I 
 feel a confidence not unbecoming the argu- 
 ment, that it will, however neglected or 
 assailed, ultimately and universally prevail. 
 There are many who have reluctantly received 
 and retained the contrary opinion solely from 
 a conviction of its truth, by whom the real 
 principle of human increase will be felt as a 
 liberation from a theory anything rather than 
 consoling to a benevolent mind ; and still more 
 who, in spite of apparent demonstrations to 
 
INTKODUCTiON. 
 
 the contrary* have retained their entire confi- 
 dence in the doctrines of divine revelation 
 and the sufficiency of nature, to whom it will 
 afford a sacred triumph; such, it is believed, 
 will regard the ti'ue principle of human in- 
 crease as unfolding an essential link in the 
 chain of a wise and ever- watchful Providence, 
 and heightening the pleasing confidence with 
 which they repose on its eternal dispensations. 
 " It is Heaven upon Earth," says Bacon, " for 
 a man's mind to rest in Providence, move in 
 charity, and turn upon the poles of truth." 
 
 This principle, and the proofs on which it is 
 founded, have been rather widely submitted, 
 and never, in any instance, however strongly 
 the contrary theory may have been previously 
 fixed in the mind, have they failed to produce 
 full conviction. I have, therefore, only one 
 other reason to add to those already men- 
 tioned, as having induced me to publish a part 
 only of my work in the first instance, giving 
 in that part an outline of the entire theory ; 
 and this being of a nature purely personal, 
 ought, perhaps, to have been omitted. I was 
 not without sufficient reasons for beUeving 
 that the system was about being presented to 
 the public surreptitiously ; and I confess, having 
 had, as far as I know, no precursor in the 
 view here taken of the true principle of Po- 
 pulation, and no assistance in the long and 
 laborious research which its demonstration 
 
Iviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 involves, I felt not unwilling to endure what- 
 ever odium or otherwise might attend the 
 enunciation and proof of a regulated ratio of 
 prolificness as governing the multiplication of 
 mankind, and constituting the principle of 
 human increase a law of unerring and perpe- 
 tual benevolence. 
 
IRELAND. 
 
 I. (1.) That division of the British empire which 
 forms the subject of the following pages^ has been 
 occasionally thought irreconcilable w^ith the principle 
 of population as previously laid down^ even by those 
 who have fully admitted the proofs on which it 
 rests in relation to all other countries. On the other 
 hand, it presents facts equally adverse to many of the 
 positions usually maintained : in every point of view, 
 it seems an anomaly in the history and progress of 
 civilized society. It presents a country, superemi- 
 nently endowed with all those natural advantages which 
 have elevated, in their turn, every people who have 
 possessed them, gradually sinking in the scale of na- 
 tions; and exhibiting the astounding spectacle of a 
 population rapidly increasing in numbers, without, 
 as in all other cases, manifesting any corresponding 
 improvement either in its character or condition. 
 
 (2.) Many there are, at the present time, who ima- 
 gine they have obtained a clue to the difficulties which 
 environ this dark and mysterious subject, namely, the 
 modern theory of population; which, alas! is never 
 a mere abstract or inert principle, and least of all in 
 the present instance. It not only soothes the negli- 
 
2 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ I. 
 
 gence of those who ought to succour Ireland, and pa- 
 ralyzes the efforts of those who would, hy attributing 
 her sufferings to the laws of nature and of God, but, 
 sanctioned by its twin "science," political economy, 
 strenuously proposes palliatives which would fall upon 
 the people as the deadliest punishments. Two dog- 
 mas they have in common, as to the causes of the 
 suffering and degradation of that country, and, at 
 present, one specific cure. The former are these : 
 1. The distresses of Ireland are owing to a superfluous 
 population, still increasing faster than the means of 
 subsistence. 2. Those distresses are aggravated and 
 multiplied by the universal use of the potatoe^. The 
 remedy is to be found in a diminished population. 
 With regard to the former_, it is singular enough that, 
 in one and the same breath, Providence is arraigned 
 for bringing too many human beings into existence, 
 and for affording sure means of sustentation to their 
 increasing numbers by a stupendous provision of 
 nature, hitherto almost untouched rather than ex- 
 hausted, and probably, in reference to any future 
 population of the earth, inexhaustible^. As it respects 
 
 ' What Mr. Malthus calls the " Potatoe System." (Essay, p. 
 576, note.) Curwen, " Observations on the State of Ireland," vol. 
 ii. p. 121. 
 
 ^ Let it not be imagined, from this remark, that I am an advo- 
 cate for confining the population of Ireland (as it almost is at 
 present) to the use of this root, much less for submitting all other 
 countries to a similar restriction. What I mean will be best 
 gathered from such facts as the following: "Mr. Stepney last 
 year had two acres and a half of potatoes, which fattened four 
 bullocks, maintained eighteen pigs, produced seed for four acres 
 this year, and supplied his own family, consisting of twenty per- 
 sons." (Wakefield's Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 450.) Mr. 
 Curwen says, " One acre of potatoes would feed at least ten 
 persons the year round." (Observations on the State of Ireland, 
 vol. ii. p. 122.) According to Arthur Young's estimate, Ireland 
 
1.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 3 
 
 Ireland, millions upon millions of acres, now totally 
 waste and idle, a little industry, directed and aided by 
 what is called capital, would enrich with this subter- 
 raneous harvest, and at the same time clothe with 
 cattle ^^a thousand" of her barren *' hills," so as to 
 sustain and satisfy many millions of human beings 
 more than are now often almost starved (ten times as 
 many is the lowest calculation of our ablest agricultu- 
 ral authorities^) ; but this natural expedient, equally 
 dictated by humanity, policy, and necessity, does not 
 chime in with the current notions. It is deemed more 
 desirable to dissipate British capital in expatriating 
 British subjects; in planting dubious friends, if not 
 
 would sustain, by the aid of this plant, about one hundred millions 
 of inhabitants. (Young's Tour through Ireland, vol. ii. part 2, 
 p. 24 ) As to the peculiar adaptation of this root to the universal 
 sustentation of all those animals (including poultry) on which 
 man subsists or depends, see every agricultural work of note 
 which has been published within a century past, especially the entire 
 works of the latter writer ; also Radclifle's " Agricultural Survey 
 of the Netherlands," &c. The plenty, health, and happiness 
 it confers on mankind, are the theme of exultation with Young, 
 even when he is speaking of Ireland, where it is almost exclusively 
 used. In calculating the number of human beings that might be 
 sustained by the extended culture of this inestimable root, allowing 
 them, together with it, as large a portion of animal food as would 
 gratify appetite consistently with health, the anticipations of the 
 most sanguine friends of population, however extravagant they 
 may have been deemed, are infinitely exceeded: all this fully 
 accounts for the well-grounded and instinctive hatred which our 
 anti-populationists bear to this nutritious and palatable food. On 
 these calculations, however important to political arithmetic, I 
 shall not enter ; my immediate purpose being merely to deliver 
 this stupendous and inexhaustible gift of Providence, bestowed 
 on Europe at the precise period when it became needful, from the 
 insulting neglects of our political economists, or their still more 
 degrading notice, in barely allowing it a place at the sideboard, 
 and forming, perhaps, when nicely boiled or delicately scalloped, 
 a pleasing accession to the "science" of gastronomy 
 
 ' J. C. Curwen, Observations on the State of Ireland, vol. ii. 
 pp. 32. 122. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ I. 
 
 future enemies, in distant quarters; peopling the 
 northern deserts of America^ or the arid regions of 
 Southern Africa, or even the continent and remote 
 islands of the Southern Ocean, and thus, in a vast 
 plurality of cases, terminating human misery, instead 
 of reheving it. Such is the policy which is now 
 beginning to be recommended from high places, even 
 as it regards England : the very " thews and sinews" 
 of the empire are to be transferred to distant climes, 
 in order to increase our internal prosperity and 
 strength ! Regarding the latter, they may, indeed, 
 differ a little at present ; but, touching Ireland, the 
 greatest unanimity prevails : Ireland must be depo- 
 pulated to be enriched. 
 
 (3.) Notwithstanding this ominous union of opinion 
 amongst our economists, there are happily certain 
 obstacles which oppose the fulfilment of their views ; 
 such as the common sense and humane feelings of the 
 British people ; and these are rendered insuperable 
 (thanks, this once, to our poverty,) by our total 
 inability to carry such antinational schemes into ex- 
 ecution. Still, however, a mere theoretical adhe- 
 rence to such notions is in the highest degree mis- 
 chievous, because it occupies the place of those 
 enlightened and liberal views which would dictate a 
 better policy, and stands in the way of those patriotic 
 exertions which might, and, in this age, assuredly 
 would, ameliorate the condition of that unhappy 
 country, and which, by developing its manifold 
 resources, would scatter blessings over an improving 
 and a prosperous people. But before I proceed to 
 examine and expose the pernicious errors of the 
 
I.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 5 
 
 modern theory in reference to Ireland, and attempt, 
 in turn^ to point out what I conceive to be its " bane 
 and antidote/' I will here insert a table, exhibiting its 
 population at the different periods specified, when 
 attempts were made to ascertain it. We are not to 
 infer that these numbers (with the exception, how- 
 ever, of the last, which are the result of actual enu- 
 meration) are correct ; a variety of circumstances, 
 existing in most countries, and some important ones 
 peculiar to Ireland, prevent us from so supposing. 
 We may, however, reasonably conclude, that the 
 inaccuracy lies on the side of deficiency throughout^ 
 and especially in the remoter periods. 
 
 Synoptical View of the Estimated Population of Ireland. 
 
 Date. How ascertained. Number of Souls. 
 
 1072 Sir William Petty 1,100,000 
 
 The same corrected 1,. 320,000 
 
 1G95 Captain South 1,034,102 
 
 1712 Thomas Dobbs, Esq 2,099,094 
 
 1718 The same 2,1G9,048 
 
 1725 The same 2,317,374 
 
 172G The same 2,-309, lOG 
 
 17.:J1 Established Cierg-y 2,010,221 
 
 ]7o4. Hearth-money Collectors 2,372,034 
 
 I7<i7 'I'he same 2,544,276" 
 
 ]777 The same 2,(i90,556 
 
 1785 I'he same 2,845,932 
 
 1788 Gervais Parker Bushe, Esq 4,010,000 
 
 1791 Hearth-m(mey Collectors 4,20G,G12 
 
 1792 'IMie Rev. Dr. JJeaufort 4,088,226 
 
 1805 Thomas Nevvenham, Esq 5,3:)5,456 
 
 1814 Incomplete census of 1812 5,937,856 
 
 1821 Census 55 Geo. 111. c. 120 G,S01,S27 
 
 By this table, the population of Ireland appears to 
 have doubled about once in every sixty-five years, a 
 great rate of increase, if the emigration which has 
 taken place from thence, for at least a c(Mitury past, 
 and which was relatively far the largest in the former 
 part of that period, is taken into the account ; for I 
 
6 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [II* 
 
 totally differ with those who pronounce emigration, 
 under such_, or indeed any circumstances, to be " im- 
 material" in its effects upon the progress of popu- 
 lation. To this drain must be added those losses, 
 whether arising from intestine tumults and rebellions, 
 or frequent and fatal epidemics, which, during a far 
 more extended period, have been almost peculiar to 
 Ireland. The increase, though thus checked and 
 impeded, is doubtless very large, and is in strict 
 accordance with the principle of population for which 
 I contend ; it conforms to the facts, and is confirmed 
 by the physiology upon which that principle is 
 founded : while the wretchedness with which, in this 
 exempt case, these enlarging numbers are still accom- 
 panied, instead of confronting the true theory of 
 human increase, is precisely that sort of exception 
 which establishes its truth. 
 
 II. (1.) But, before I prove this, I shall, in the first 
 place, examine the arguments of those who, holding 
 the modern notion on the principle of population, 
 attribute the distress and degradation of Ireland to 
 excessive numbers ; and who exultingly point to that 
 country, as fully demonstrating all the dogmas they 
 have advanced. A very short consideration of the 
 subject will, I think, suffice to abate the confidence 
 of such, if not finally to destroy it altogether. 
 
 These, then, I would first ask, is Ireland over- 
 peopled in reference to its potential produce ? 
 
 On the contrary, even on the showing of the Emi- 
 gration Committee, there are in Ireland, at the present 
 time, at least 4,900,000 acres of productive land un- 
 
I I.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 7 
 
 cultivated, independently of 2,416,664 acres deemed 
 (on what authority I know not) incapable of im- 
 provement ^ These immense tracts, a little of the 
 constantly abstracted capital of the country might, 
 and would, bring into the most luxuriant state, as 
 their cultivation should become necessary ; while the 
 very act of reclaiming these would be the means of 
 correcting the management of the rest, now imper- 
 fectly improved, so as to produce the means of human 
 subsistence in quantities it would not be easy to cal- 
 culate, certainly far beyond the possible consumption 
 of double the present inhabitants of the entire island, 
 (to take a far lower estimate than any which agricul- 
 ture presents to us,) even were the people as much 
 improved in their mode of living as they would be 
 increased in numbers. In the mean time, while Nature 
 has provided the amplest means for this amelioration^ 
 and solicits from us their improvement, is she, or 
 '^ human institutions^," chargeable with the misery 
 which their neglect occasions ? Is the principle of 
 our policy, or that of population, to blame as it 
 respects Ireland ? In a wx)rd, are these sufferings, 
 under such circumstances, chargeable upon man or 
 upon God ? 
 
 (2.) But, to disencumber the question of all those 
 calculations which a reference to the potential produce 
 of the country involves, and of which political economy 
 would avail itself, in order to ^' darken counsel " by 
 obscure definitions and abstract discussions, neither 
 intelhgible nor interesting to the mass of mankind ; 
 
 ' Minutes of evidence before tlie Emigration Committee, Third 
 Report, p. 36 1. 
 
 ' Mr. Mallhus woukl say, the laws of nature. Essay, p. 367. 
 
8 IRELAND; ITS EVILS'^ K I^' 
 
 let U9^ secondly, ask the advocates of the new theory 
 of population^ who, as before noticed, imagine they 
 prove their point by a reference to Ireland, is Ireland, 
 leaving totally out of consideration its possible fer- 
 tility, overpeopled in reference to its actual produce ? 
 This, again, I must answer as before. Most cer- 
 tainly not; but very much to the contrary: and to 
 this answer, and its necessary consequences, I must 
 call the serious attention of the advocates of absen- 
 teeism, to whom I shall address myself more particu- 
 larly hereafter. Ireland, instead of not producing 
 sufficient for the sustenance of its inhabitants, pro- 
 duces far more than they ever consume, exporting a 
 greater quantity of its edible products than probably 
 any other country of equal extent in the whole world. 
 I had collected the annual returns of its exports of 
 this nature for a series of years past, when, at the 
 moment I was inserting them, a condensated statement 
 of them, at a period particularly calculated to put the 
 question to the severest test, met my eye. It is con- 
 tained in a useful little work, entitled " Statistical 
 Illustrations," in the emphatic language of whose 
 author I shall present it. '^ With an ignorance and 
 pertinacity presumptuous as the expatiations and 
 assertions adverted to above are fallacious and delu- 
 sive" (alluding to some previous remarks on ab- 
 senteeism), ^' it is asserted that the misery of Ireland 
 arises from an excess of population beyond the power 
 of the country to supply subsistence ; but, in the face 
 of such assertion, and whilst an appeal was being 
 made in England to rescue Ireland from famine, and 
 a subscription of 304,181, in 1822, was raised on 
 
11.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 9 
 
 that plea, .30,882 only of which was expended for 
 articles of subsistence, and 6^9,374 more in potatoes 
 for seed ; the remainder being distributed in money/* 
 (much of which doubtless found its way into the 
 pockets of the absentee landlords,) "Ireland exported 
 articles of subsistence, alone, to no less an amount 
 (at the very reduced value of that year) than 
 4,518,832; and, in the three years, 1821, 1822, and 
 1823, to the enormous amount of upwards of sixteen 
 millions ; whilst nearly the whole of the remaining 
 exports, to the amount of upwards of ten millions 
 more, in those three years, were composed of the 
 products of the Irish soil ^" Whether the immense 
 quantity of cured provisions which Ireland supplies, 
 in her own ports, to the royal navy, as well as the 
 merchant shipping of this vast maritime empire, has 
 to be added to these enormous amounts, I have not 
 ascertained, nor is it necessary ; the argument is 
 abundantly triumphant either way. 
 
 In the face, then, of such facts as these, the hardihood 
 of attributing the misery of Ireland to a population 
 redundant and excessive, in reference to the means of 
 subsistence there produced, and of the appeal con- 
 stantly made to that country in proof of the principle 
 of population, as now explained, is certainly with- 
 out parallel. 
 
 No further proofs seem necessary upon a point ab- 
 solutely incontrovertible ; I therefore conclude^ tliat if 
 Ireland, at the present moment, only partially and im- 
 perfectly cultivated, far more than sustains its inhabi- 
 tants, the appeal to that country in proof of the evil 
 ' Statistical Ilhibtrations, p. (30. 
 
10 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, ['^^^I' 
 
 principle of population, vvliicli multiplies mankind 
 faster than, and beyond, the means of their subsis- 
 tence, is at once disposed of, especially with those who 
 regard human institutions so light in the scale by 
 which the individual shares arc apportioned and dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 But, on so important a topic, practically speaking, 
 as the population of Ireland, on which a fallacious 
 principle, dictating a policy equally cruel and absurd, 
 affects the welfare of millions of human beings, and 
 even the existence of multitudes, a little prolixity 
 stands in need of no excuse. I shall therefore attempt 
 to demolish the very remains of an argument, which, 
 I think, has been already completely shaken. And 
 this I shall do by shortly considering the proofs by 
 which it pretends to be supported ; each of which a 
 very little attention wdll disengage from the cause they 
 are advanced to support, converting them, like all 
 faithless auxiliaries, into its most formidable enemies. 
 
 III. (1 .) As far as I have been able to gather the opi- 
 nions of those who speak the most confidently as to an 
 excessive population in Ireland, and are the loudest 
 in demanding repressive measures in reference to it, 
 they advance, in favour of their supposition, the fol- 
 lowing reasons : 
 
 1. The wretchedness and degradation of the people. 
 
 2. Their want of employment. 
 
 3. The frequent return of scarcities. 
 
 4. The prevalence of epidemics. 
 
 These symptoms, indeed, we are instructed to be- 
 lieve, constitute every where the leading ones in the 
 
^ III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 11 
 
 diagnosis of the inveterate, hereditary disease of 
 the human family^ a pletliory of numbers ; and clearly 
 indicate the treatment required ^ 
 
 But what will become of these proofs^ or rather 
 of the argument; they are meant to support^ when 
 it is seen that they existed to at least an equal degree, 
 when_, according to every possible view of the subject, 
 Ireland suffered from a contrary extreme, namely, 
 from a paucity of people? In showing that such was 
 the case, a vast body of evidence is at hand, sufficient, 
 indeed, to swell this inquiry into ten times its present 
 size. I shall, however, limit myself to one or two 
 authorities on each point, and refer those Avho may 
 be dissatisfied with them, to the entire history of that 
 country, which is, unhappily, almost exclusively made 
 up of them. 
 
 Commencing with the first period of the preceding 
 table, viz. 1672, when the population was calculated 
 at little above a million, or, as since corrected, amount- 
 ing to about 1,320,000; none, I think, will care to assert 
 that Ireland was then, at any rate, overpeopled, either 
 in reference to its fertility or the population of sur- 
 rounding nations. With a soil of surpassing fertility, 
 and only about forty individuals on a square mile, 
 the idea of excessive numbers would have been a 
 farce ; it was a farce, however, which never entered 
 into any one's head in those days. But the wretched- 
 ness of the inhabitants was more conspicuous then, 
 when there was not a fifth of their present number, 
 than it is even at present. In proof of tliis, I ap- 
 peal to the authority of one who had, probably, better 
 ' ^lalihus, EssLiy en Population, book i. c. 2. 
 
12 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^^1'- 
 
 means of forming an accurate judgment on the sub- 
 ject, and greater abilities in avaib'ng himself of them, 
 than most of those numerous writers who have since 
 adverted to it, I mean Sir William Petty. For a 
 description of the abject condition of the country at 
 that period, I refer to his entire works, especially his 
 " Anatomy of Ireland," where its situation is minutely 
 described ; and in giving a few quotations from him, 
 I cannot but remark that the condition of the bulk 
 of the inhabitants, to have made so strong an im- 
 pression upon him, when that of the same class in all 
 countries was so wretchedly inferior to what it is at 
 present, must have been miserable in the extreme. 
 The houses of the commonalty of a country are 
 always amongst the most obvious criteria of their 
 condition, and these he thus describes: *'^ lamentable 
 sties ^;" ^'wretched cabins V ^^such as themselves 
 could make in three or four days^;" not worth live 
 shillings the building"*, the filth and stenches of 
 which he fully explains ^, and which may be imagined 
 without quoting him. So that their habitations had 
 not much improved since the time of Edmund Spenser^ 
 who calls them " sties rather than houses, which were 
 the chiefest cause of the farmer's so beastly manner of 
 life and savage condition, lying and living together with 
 his beast^ in one house, in one room, in one bed, that 
 is clean straw, or rather a foul dunghill ^." But to 
 return to Sir William : the proportion of such houses 
 as these, if they may be so called, he thus gives : 
 "160,000," says he, *'out of the 200,000 houses of 
 
 * Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland; Tracts, p. 10. 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 327. " Ibid. p. 351. ' Ibid. p. 351. * Ibid. p. 354. 
 
 '^ Spenser, View of Ireland; Works, vol. vi. p- 134. 
 
^ III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 13 
 
 Ireland, are wretched cabins, without chimney, win- 
 dow, or door shut, even worse than those of the 
 savages of America ^" As to their houses, there- 
 fore, at that period, they were certainly no better 
 than they are now, that ^^ driving," or "clearing" 
 landlords think they can only be purified by fire and 
 destruction. As to building them fresh ones, that 
 they never dream of; contrary to the practice of almost 
 all other countries under the sun, the Irish cultivator 
 has almost universally to provide house and buildings^ ; 
 the proprietor can, therefore, destroy them at plea- 
 sure, and without detriment to himself. 
 
 Their food at this period, it is hardly necessary to 
 state, corresponded in wretchedness with their dwell- 
 ings. We have it on the same authority, that it 
 consisted of " cakes, whereof a penny serves a week 
 for each ; potatoes from August till May : mussels, 
 cockles, and oysters, near the sea : eggs and butter, 
 made very rancid by keeping in bogs. As for flesh, 
 they seldom eat it^." In a word, the "vice du pays," 
 to use an expression of Mr. Malthus's old Swiss friend, 
 then existed in full vigour; "they can content them- 
 selves," says Petty, ^^ with potatoes ^" 
 
 Half a century afterwards, when the population of 
 Ireland, though increased, was still very thin, being, 
 at the most, little above seventy on the square mile, 
 we learn that the wretchedness of the people was but 
 little abated, its cause not having been removed. We 
 still find them living miserably, in their cabins % and 
 
 ' Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland ; Tracts, p. 379. 
 ' Wakefield's Ireland. Rt. Hon. C.Grant's Speech, 22 April, 1822. 
 ' Petty, Anat. of Ireland; Tracts, p. 355. ' Ibid. p. 366. 
 
 ^ Prior's List of the Absentees, p. 91. 
 
14 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [iJI 
 
 ruany subsisting in a state of actual beggary. Our 
 *^^ common people/' says Dobhs^ a friend of Arch- 
 bishop Boulter, and certainly the best versed in the 
 general condition of Ireland^ of any man of his day, 
 ^^ our common people are very poorly clothed, go 
 barelegged half the year, and very rarely taste of that 
 flesh meat, with which we so much abound ; but are 
 pinched in every article of life\" I refer to Arch- 
 bishop Boulter's letters for a full account of the dis- 
 tresses of the Irish people at this period ; and will 
 content myself with a general description of them 
 in the words of one more competent witness. Swift. 
 '' Whatever stranger took a journey amongst us," 
 says he, ^* would be apt to think himself travelling 
 in Lapland or Iceland, rather than a country so fa- 
 voured by nature as ours, both in fruitfulness of soil 
 and temperature of climate. The miserable dress, 
 and diet, and dwelling of the people ; the general 
 desolation in most parts of the kingdom; the old 
 seats of the nobility and gentry in ruins, and no new 
 ones in their stead ; the families of the farmers, Avho 
 pay great rents, living in filth and nastiness, upon 
 butter-milk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking 
 to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English 
 hog-stie to receive them'^;" these, he says, "are 
 the comfortable sights which await an absentee, who 
 may be induced to travel for once amongst them, to 
 learn their language ;" or, as at present, to make a 
 book, and talk patriotically, on his return. 
 
 The description may be brought doAvn to a later 
 
 ' List of Absentees, p. 32. 
 
 * Swift, Short View of the State of Ireland; Works, vol. vi. 
 pp. 157, 158. 
 
Iir.] AND TIIRIR REMEDIES. 15 
 
 period by-and-bye ; in tbe mean time, I would ask 
 wliether this state of things was then owing to 
 redundant and excessive numbers, in relation to the 
 means of subsistence which nature had provided ? 
 
 (2.) Secondly : as to the numbers at present out of 
 employment. This seems a main argument now-a-days_, 
 in proof of a redundant population in Ireland, and, 
 indeed, throughout the whole empire, if not every 
 where else^ as far as I understand our anti-popula- 
 tionists. But a more absurd one, when urged dis- 
 tinctly from all other considerations, as it usually is, 
 cannot well be imagined, or one which would, if true^ 
 be more destructive of the whole social system. How 
 can it be imagined that, if the labours of five millions 
 of human beings are necessary to each other, the 
 labours of ten millions should be otherwise ? I have 
 elsewhere shown, from the very nature of things and 
 the experience of mankind, they would become, in 
 the latter case, in a higher degree mutually essential. 
 To appeal to the difficulty of subsisting the larger 
 number, vacates the foundation of the present argu- 
 ment, only, however, to place it on grounds quite as 
 untenable, as has been already seen, and will be still 
 further proved. 
 
 But, to take no exceptions against the argument, 
 as it is put, let us examine how it will prove the pre- 
 sent evils of Ireland, in this respect, to proceed from 
 redundant numbers. 
 
 In the former of the periods previously adverted to, 
 Sir William Petty assures us that the people of 
 Ireland are not oiu-jifth employed M Elsewhere, he 
 
 ' Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ii-claiid ; Tracts, p. 36G. 
 
16 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ HI. 
 
 says_, those who were employed were very partially 
 so. Bad as the state of Ireland now confessedly is 
 in this respect^ still it may be asked, do only about 
 thirteen hundred thousand persons depend upon 
 labour, and near five millions and a half eat the 
 bread of total idleness ? The late census is a suffi- 
 cient answer to this question. Just in proportion 
 as this ratio is altered for the better, just so much 
 has the increase of the population of Ireland en- 
 couraged the better demand for labour amongst its 
 mhabitants. 
 
 Nor are we to run away with the idea that a pau- 
 city of people is favourable to the manufacturing 
 interests of a country. Dobbs, a century ago, said, 
 " Our weavers are starving for want of employment ^ :'' 
 they could not then have been too thick upon the 
 ground, for the population of Ulster was not a fourth 
 of what it is at present. Half a century afterwards, 
 the inhabitants not being estimated at half their pre- 
 sent number, though corn was then abundant, the 
 manufacturers were so totally unemployed, as not to 
 be able to purchase it, and thousands of them were 
 supported by the liberality of the public. The far- 
 mers, in equal distress, were in many places unable to 
 pay their rents, and were every where involved in 
 difficulties I 
 
 Perhaps the inadequate remuneration of labour 
 ought in fairness to have been added to the argument 
 I am opposing. That this evil existed in the former 
 periods alluded to, in a still greater degree, even than 
 
 ' Prior, List of Absentees, p. 68. 
 ^ Wakefield's Account, &c., vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 17 
 
 it does at present, I will not insult the reader's intel- 
 ligence by further proving. The preceding statements 
 render this conclusion inevitable, and the fact is re- 
 corded in every authentic account of Ireland which I 
 have ever opened. 
 
 I cannot, however, dismiss this part of the inquiry 
 without noticing the unfairness with which Ireland, 
 in all possible respects^ has been treated by our 
 modern economists. It is the misfortune of the Irish 
 not to be able to aiford themselves any thing more 
 palatable than potatoes ; this is charged upon them 
 as an evidence of their voluntary barbarism : they 
 cannot obtain labour_, (for reasons which will be pre- 
 sently pointed out,) this is to brand them with the 
 crime of idleness. It is false ! In our harvest fields, 
 or before our furnaces ; in the bowels of the earth, 
 or on the loftiest buildings, wherever labour can be 
 obtained, no matter how dangerous or severe, 
 there are the Irish. The same is precisely the 
 fact across the Atlantic ; and yet their misery, ac- 
 cording to many, is attributable to their indolence. 
 " ' Ye are idle, ye are idle,' answered Pharaoh to the 
 Israelites, when they complained to his majesty that 
 they were forced to make bricks without straw \" 
 The writers^ however, to whom I have alluded, made 
 no charges so absurdly false. Sir William Petty 
 attributed their " lazing, to want of employment and 
 encouragement to work^:" and we still find them, 
 on the authority of official reports, when idle, idle 
 
 ' Swift, Short View of Ireland ; Works, vol. vi. p. 160. See 
 also vol. iii. p. 414. 
 ' Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland ; Tracts, p. 36f). 
 
 C 
 
18 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ III. 
 
 only from necessity ; being " extremely anxious for 
 employment, and as grateful for it^" 
 
 (3.) Next, as to the scarcities in Ireland being a 
 proof of superfluous numbers. We must deal with this 
 precisely as with the former arguments. We know 
 it as a fact, that these not only returned far more 
 frequently in former times, when the population was 
 extremely scanty, but that they continued much 
 longer than they do at present. To commence as 
 before, with the first period mentioned in the table : 
 we learn, on the authority of Sir William Temple, 
 that, *^ notwithstanding the great fertility of that 
 island, years of scarcity amounting to famine fre- 
 quently occurred^." According to Mr. Newenham, 
 between the years 1641 and 1652, flour had risen 
 above four hundred per cent^ Indeed the general 
 parsimony and want in which the Irish then subsisted, 
 we should take to be a perpetual dearth ; their con- 
 dition, it is true, fluctuated like that of all other 
 people, whatever be the size of their territory, what- 
 ever the number of the inhabitants. But, just to 
 convince the reader that these recurring periods of 
 scarcity are not peculiar to the present times, but that 
 they were much severer in Ireland, as I have already 
 shown to have been the case in all other countries'*, 
 when the population was the scantiest, I will quote 
 one author only, from the many that dwell upon this 
 
 ' Report on the State of Ireland, part iv. p. 619. Evidence 
 before the Lords, p. 428 " They are the most anxious people in 
 the world to get labour." 
 
 ^ Sir William Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 7. 
 
 ^ Newenham, Statistical Inquiry, &c. p. 8. 
 
 * Vide Treatise on the Law of Population, about to be pub- 
 lished, book ii. ch. 5. 
 
in,] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 19 
 
 point, and one of such a character as, I trust, will 
 fully satisfy hirn upon it. Referring to the popula- 
 tion of Ireland a century ago, and to the entire letters 
 of the Lord Primate and Justice, Archbishop Boulter, 
 for a full description of its actual condition at that 
 period, I shall make but one or two extracts from 
 him at present. " If our crop fails," says the Arch- 
 bishop, " or yields indifferently, our poor have not 
 money to buy bread. This was the case in 1725, 
 and last year ; and_, without a prodigious crop, will 
 be more so this year. When I went my visitation 
 last year, barley, in some inland places, sold at six 
 shiUings the bushel, to make bread of; and oatmeal, 
 the bread of the north, sold for twice or thrice its 
 usual price. We met all the roads full of whole 
 families that had left their homes to beg abroad, since 
 their neighbours had nothing to relieve them with. 
 And as the winter subsistence of the poor is chiefly 
 potatoes, this scarcity drove the poor to begin with 
 their potatoes before they were full grown, so that 
 they have lost half the benefit of them, and have 
 spent their stock two months sooner than usual ; and 
 oatmeal is, at this distance from harvest, in many 
 parts of the kingdom, three times the customary 
 price : so that this summer will be more fatal to 
 us than the last, when, I fear, many hundreds 
 PERISHED OF FAMINE M" We find, by a subsequent 
 letter of the same writer, that the calamity still con- 
 tinued, so he states, under date May, 1728 ^ Nay, 
 after another barvest, namely, in the November fol- 
 
 ' Archbishop Boulter's Letters, vol. i p. '222. 
 Ibid. vol. i. p. 241. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ J 1 1. 
 
 lowing, he thus writes to the Duke of Newcastle : 
 " I am sorry I am ohliged to give your Grace so 
 melancholy an account of the state of this kingdom 
 as I shall in this letter, but I thought it my duty to 
 let his Majesty know our condition." He then de- 
 scribes the dearness of provisions, and the universal 
 distress which prevailed, and adds further informa- 
 tion, to which I shall hereafter advert. In one word, 
 such was the state of Ireland, that he represents the 
 people as ^'^ suffering little less than a famine every 
 other year^" It is almost unnecessary for me to 
 remark, that, under these emergencies, general sub- 
 scriptions were resorted to^, and issues of the public 
 money made from time to time, as on a late occasion. 
 In dwelling on the condition of Ireland a century 
 ago, I have not selected that period as the only one 
 suitable to my argument: the whole of its past history 
 is illustrative of it. As to dearths and famines being 
 proof of an over-population, the supposition is equally 
 absurd when apphed to Ireland, as it would be in 
 reference to all other countries. The calamities just 
 mentioned were, as already remarked, no strange 
 events in the past history of the island, nor did they 
 cease with those memorable years. As soon after- 
 wards as the years 1740 and 1741, the horrors of 
 scarcity again returned, and thousands of the poor 
 people are said to have perished through absolute 
 want^ There were then, however, at least fifty acres 
 of land to each family throughout the whole island, 
 supposing every soul had been an agriculturist. 
 
 * Archbishop Boulter's Letters, vol. i. p. 241. ^ Ibid. 
 ' Commercial Restraints, p. 47. Smith's Kerry, p. 77. 
 
^ ill.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 21 
 
 Again, in 1757, a period of great misery must have 
 ensued ; the lord-lieutenant obtaining the king's 
 letter, dated March 31, 1757, for 20,000, to be 
 expended in such manner as was most likely to re- 
 lieve the suffering peopled Again, in 1765, the crop 
 of potatoes failed throughout the whole country ; so 
 also had that of the spring corn, and the price of grain 
 became so high that the most alarming consequences 
 followed, the people being every where reduced to a 
 state of the utmost distress. The following year the 
 suffering so increased, that money was issued from 
 the treasury to purchase grain ^ In 1770 and 1771, 
 scarcity and high prices again returned, and produced 
 most distressing consequences ^ At this period there 
 were more than forty acres of land to every fiimily in 
 the country. 
 
 Having thus brought the argument down to within 
 about half a century of the present time, and exa- 
 mined the previous period of about an equal duration, 
 I shall now challenge those who resolve the scarcities 
 of Ireland into a redundant population, to take it up 
 from thence, and continue it to the present time: I will 
 give them all the advantage of the calamities which 
 the general rebellion occasioned, and even those which 
 the spread and increase of absenteeism inflicts, and still 
 abide by the result. We have seen, in less than half 
 a century in the former period, eleven years of what 
 such would, if it suited their argument, denominate 
 famine ; the highest population little exceeding two 
 millions and an half: let them show us, from thence 
 
 ' Cornmcrcial Restraints, p. GO. 
 
 Ibid. p. 76, 77. Wakefield, vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
22 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ lU. 
 
 to this time, when the inhabitants have accumulated 
 to nearly seven millions_, anything approaching to 
 this state of things, and I will concede that they 
 understand the principle of population and its effects 
 better than Providence. But, with the " oracular 
 solemnity of the raven of the tribe," they still por- 
 tentously repeat, '^Population! population!" As to 
 the modern specific, deportation, now the grand 
 scheme of our modern theorists, to that the people 
 resorted themselves, and in numbers which awakened 
 the strongest regrets for his country in the patriotic 
 prelate already quoted, and many others in those 
 days. In this reference, however, I am forestalling 
 a future branch of my argument. But it is a fact 
 that may be repeated, while the cry of emigration 
 is ringing in our ears, that a still greater number of 
 that unhappy people in proportion to the entire popu- 
 lation, had then to abandon their ancient homes, and 
 seek an uncertain subsistence in distant climes and 
 countries, than it is proposed to send on that errand 
 at present. So redundant have they always been in 
 every period of their history ! 
 
 (4.) And lastly, as to the frequent recurrence of epi- 
 demics. " The probability and fatality of these," it 
 is declared, ^'^ are rendered considerably greater, as a 
 population increases, nearly to the utmost limits of 
 food*:" limits, however, which no nation upon earth 
 ever approached, and no man upon earth ever calcu- 
 lated : to attempt it even, is much more likely to 
 expose the limits of a man's understanding than those 
 of the Divine Benevolence. It has been shown that, 
 ' Malthus, p. 18, 4to. 
 
11 I.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 23 
 
 as it respects the world at large, epidemics have 
 diminished greatly in frequency and fatality as 
 numbers have increased ; nor is Ireland, notwith- 
 standing the present appeal, an exception. Unhap- 
 pily circumstanced as that country is, still none of 
 its sufferings can be dragged up as unwilling wit- 
 nesses against its population, and this least of any. 
 Again commencing with the first period of the table, 
 the following brief account, in which much is neces- 
 sarily omitted, will show whether the epidemics of 
 Ireland can be attributed to its large population. 
 
 Sir William Temple, who lived in that period, in- 
 forms us, that " hundreds of thousands of the popu- 
 lation of Ireland were periodically swept off by the 
 plague^;" meaning, as it is believed, that epidemical 
 fever, which we learn, from the best medical authority, 
 was common to the country during the seventeenth 
 century ^ But to particularise some of these, which 
 we are enabled to do, notwithstanding the information 
 on such subjects is, as it respects Ireland, especially at 
 these periods, confessedly scanty. In 1684, a very 
 severe epidemic occurred^. Four years afterwards 
 it again made its appearance^. About the year 1708 
 a similar calamity was again general ; and it returned 
 after a much shorter interval than before, and raged 
 in the years 1718, 1719, 1720, and 1721 ; for it is a 
 lamentable fact, that the fevers of Ireland, especially 
 those of the earlier periods alluded to, seldom sub- 
 
 ' Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 7, 
 
 '^ Dr. l<oate, Nat. Hist, of Ireland; quoted in Drs. Baker and 
 Cheyne, vol i. p. 2. 
 
 ^ Webster on Epidemics, vol. i. p. 353. 
 * Dr. Short, Hist, of Air and Seasons, vol. i. p. '26S. 
 
24 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ III. 
 
 sided in less than three or four years ; some, indeed, 
 suppose that they were never wholly eradicated. Then 
 again, from 1728 to 1732, there was a fever of five 
 years' continuance experienced, after an intermission 
 of seven years only. The fever returned again after 
 a lapse of eight years, and continued, indeed, a much 
 shorter time than before ; but it more than compen- 
 sated, in the eyes of our modern philosophers, for the 
 shortness of its duration, by the " clearance" it made 
 of the " redundant numbers." In this dreadful visita- 
 tion. Dr. Rutty, the accurate historian of the weather, 
 health, &c. of Ireland, says, one-fifth part of the people 
 perished. A lower estimate, and indeed the lowest, 
 computes the victims at this dreadful period at 80,000! 
 Dr. Short says, it was little short of the plague in fa- 
 tality*. Now at this period there were probably fewer 
 than seventy inhabitants on every square mile, in one 
 of the most fertile countries in the world : will then 
 any of our anti-populationists dare to attribute this 
 calamity to the laws of population and Providence ? 
 On the contrary, it fell the heaviest where the inhabi- 
 tants were the thinnest; that is, in the province of Con 
 naught; and in Gal way in that province, the thinnest 
 inhabited county in the country ^. Since Dr. Rutty's 
 time, I am not aware that there have been any histo- 
 rians of the health of Ireland, till Drs. Baker and 
 Cheyne appeared, whose able work on the late fever 
 there has recently been given to the public. Nor does 
 the chasm concern the argument: it has been already 
 shown, that, to whatever cause these calamities have 
 
 ' Dr. Short, Hist, of Air and Seasons, vol. ii. p. 268. 
 
 * Drs. Baker and Cheyne, vol. i. p. 6. Or. Short, vol. ii. p. 268. 
 
III.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 25 
 
 to be assigned, it is palpably false to say, as to suit a 
 special purpose it is now said, that they originate in 
 excessive numbers. 
 
 In fine, all those sufferings which the prevailing 
 theory pronounces as necessarily flowing from an 
 excessive population, and as forming the certain evi- 
 dence of such being the case, not only existed, but 
 existed in a higher degree, when the inhabitants were 
 wholly inadequate to possess or cultivate a quarter of 
 the soil^ than they do at the present moment. To 
 these conclusive facts the momentary attention of the 
 " Emigration Committee," its chairman and members, 
 as well as its chosen evidences, one and all, is respect- 
 fully invited. That the opinion should be correct 
 which attributes the ancient abuses of Ireland, and its 
 consequent misery to its dense population, were every 
 political economist in the empire to preach such a doc- 
 trine, and every minister of state to act upon it, is palpa- 
 bly impossible, unless we are to believe that effects may 
 precede their causes a century or two. " The march 
 of intellect" has, however, almost arrived at this point, 
 and indeed, in this instance, is already there. 
 
 (5.) It forms, indeed, a most singular feature of 
 the present argument, not only that the whole train 
 of evils which have long afflicted Ireland, now igno- 
 rantly attributed to her overflowing numbers, existed 
 long before the alleged cause had any being ; but 
 that persons fully as competent to observe and decide 
 on the subject, as any of those Avho now dogmatise 
 upon it, clearly pointing out the whole of them, un- 
 hesitatingly attributed them to a diametrically oppo- 
 site reason, namely, to the fewness of the people. 
 
26 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, K^^i- 
 
 Amongst these were Sir William Temple*, Lord Cla- 
 rendon^, Dean Swift, Sir William Petty, &c.; the num- 
 ber of such authorities it would be far more easy largely 
 to increase, than to add much to their weight. From 
 the latter only I shall quote a single passage, referring, 
 for a comment upon it, to the whole of some of his 
 principal works. The following passage closes his 
 Political Anatomy of Ireland : '* The greatest and most 
 fundamental defect of this kingdom is, the want of 
 people^ !" 
 
 But I shall not pursue the argumentum ad verecun- 
 diam, which, expunged as it is from the logic of 
 the modern school, would only injure the cause at- 
 tempted to be supported. Such an appeal, indeed, 
 would only prove that he who made it had not ad- 
 vanced so far in the " march of mind " as to have his 
 back turned upon the former authorities of this 
 country, the lights of a by-gone world. Such men 
 as Bacon, and Locke, and Addison, and Swift might 
 have twinkled in their day ; but where are they, when 
 our later authorities blaze upon us ? It is unanimously 
 admitted that they cannot shine together. I will 
 therefore again betake myself to a few facts, which 
 are of a nature too stubborn to be easily silenced. 
 
 Before I proceed, it must be observed, that the 
 author of a popular essay on population, may, perhaps, 
 be enabled to reconcile the preceding statements to 
 his system, as announced by himself; inasmuch as that 
 system occasionally maintains that its principle na- 
 
 * Sir William Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 7. 
 
 " Lord Clarendon, Letters, vol. ii, p. Is. 
 
 ^ Sir William Petty, Anatomy of Ireland ; Tracts, p. 388. 
 
lll.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 27 
 
 turally produces the evils in question, in every stage 
 of human increase^ '^from the very commencement of 
 society :" repeating, in every possible variety of phrase, 
 that there is ^'a constant tendency, in all animated life, 
 to increase beyond the means of nourishment prepared 
 for it^ ;" and that, as it respects human beings es- 
 pecially, the difference betwixt the ratios of their 
 increase and that of their food is of the most appal- 
 ling kind. His system, therefore, is comprehensive 
 enough to admit all the evils which we have proved 
 to exist in Ireland, whatever might be the state of its 
 population ; but we shall examine whether his postu- 
 lata, the geometric and arithmetic ratios of increase, 
 be true, as it regards that country, or whether they 
 exhibit the slightest ''^ tendency" to become so. And 
 surely there has seldom been an arena upon earth, on 
 which his theory could have had a better chance : so 
 many evils crowd upon that country, from so many 
 different quarters, that there never has been the least 
 difficulty in proving the distresses of the people ; and 
 as their numbers have kept constantly increasing, 
 nothing was easier than to attribute them to that in- 
 crease. Were, then_, the general argument pursued at 
 large elsewhere_, that increasing numbers naturally 
 occasion increasing prosperity, to have failed in the 
 instance of Ireland, I certainly should not have aban- 
 doned the position ; nay, I candidly confess, that I did 
 expect that this country, owing to causes extraneous 
 to the principle at issue, would have constituted an 
 exception to a rule otherwise universal. Encouraged, 
 however, by the fact of all the seeming difficulties 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 2. 
 
28 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ ^V. 
 
 which have presented themselves during similar inqui- 
 ries and calculations, having, on due examination, ulti- 
 mately resolved themselves into arguments in favour 
 of the principle announced, and some of them of the 
 strongest kind ; I determined, that even Ireland was 
 a subject ^* not to be given over, but waited on a 
 little^" to use an expression of Lord Bacon. With 
 what success this course has been pursued, especially 
 in the calculations that conclude these pages, must be 
 left to the determination of the reader. 
 
 IV. (1.) Having, I trust, already fully proved that 
 the distresses of Ireland cannot be charged on the 
 increase of its population^ I now advance my argument 
 another and far higher step, by inquiring, whether the 
 alleged tendency in numbers to increase faster than 
 food, is not false as it respects that countiy ; or to the 
 still greater confusion of such a position, whether 
 there has not been (not to speak of tendencies merely, 
 but facts) an actual increase of food, far greater than 
 that of the population, rapidly as, it must be confessed, 
 it has accumulated ? I shall, of course, limit my in- 
 quiries, in this stage of the argument, to the surjDlus 
 quantities of food raised in different periods, that 
 being the sole question in reference to the principle 
 of population ; in subsequently pursuing the subject, 
 when accounting for the distresses which, nevertheless, 
 exist in Ireland, I shall not imitate those who absolve 
 human institutions^, in order to lay the miseries of 
 mankind at the door of their Eternal Benefactor. 
 
 To anticipate an objection that may be made in 
 ' Malthus, Essay, p. 367. 
 
IV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 29 
 
 reference to the nature of the general food of the 
 country at present_, about which so much is said, I 
 mean the potatoe, let this suffice the food of the 
 native Irish was principally^ if not exclusively^ vege- 
 table^ long before the potatoe was known in Europe. 
 Nay_, in almost the first glimpses we have of them, 
 they are represented to us as herbaceous^ 9ror5(pa70j, 
 for such is the expression of SoHnus. So they con- 
 tinue to be described by Spenser^ and Hollingshed^, 
 and Camden : the latter says^ '' as for their meats, 
 they feed willingly upon herbs and watercresses, espe- 
 cially upon mushrooms, shamroots, and roots ^" The 
 exchange, therefore, of the potatoe, which is all but 
 bread in nutritiousness^ greatly exceeding it in pala- 
 tableness, and affording a vaster and far more certain 
 supply for the plants on which they before principally 
 subsisted, is one of the many changes brought about 
 by an enlarging population^ which none, I think, can 
 deny is of a most gratifying character. 
 
 (2.) But not to annoy, unnecessarily, the opposers 
 of population, by any further allusions to this root, 
 let us confine our further inquiries to better fare. 
 And, first, has the production of corn kept pace with 
 the increase of the population ? In answering this 
 query, let the number of inhabitants, at each of the 
 periods referred to, be still kept in recollection, and I 
 think the selfish and cruel system will receive its 
 death-blow, in the very scene where it meditates its 
 triumph. 
 
 ' State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 
 
 ' Hollingshetl, vol. v. p. 185 ; vol. vi, p. 67. 
 
 ' Camden, Ireland, p. 147, folio, 1637. 
 
30 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ IV. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, Ireland imported 
 grain \ But not to dwell on generalities, and to present 
 the reader with definite views of this important fact. 
 Referring, first, to a period, when the condition of Ire- 
 land, which has heen already descrihed, was at least 
 as deplorable as it can have been at any subsequent 
 period of tranquillity, namely, a century ago, we shall 
 find that grain, as well as other of the necessaries of 
 life, were imported in large quantities. The average 
 amounts of what Dobbs classes under the heads of 
 imports for meat and drink, and materials for drinking, 
 (including medicine) was .344^550, annually. Some 
 exports of grain of different kinds, he notices, there 
 then were, but not such as by any means to balance 
 the imports. This sum was on the average of eight 
 years, ending 1726, and consequently exclusive of the 
 years of scarcity previously alluded to, when we are 
 informed there were to the amount of from <:* 100,000 
 to <200,000, in grain only, brought in \ But to 
 present the amount of these imports in ordinary years, 
 and to contrast them with the exports of Ireland, at 
 the period of the last census, 1821, and accompanying 
 the statement with the number of inhabitants at each 
 period, the following are the important facts: 
 
 ' Newenham, Statistical Inquiry, p. 7. 
 - Dobbs, Essay on the Trade, &c. of Ireland, p. 25. 
 
iv.J 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 31 
 
 IRELAND' 
 
 CORN IMPORTKD, 
 
 On an average of 6 years, ending 1725. 
 
 Population, 2,300,000 ; or, 71 on a 
 square mile. 
 
 Wheat 27,018 
 
 Barley and Malt . . . 7,255 
 
 Hulled ditto 677 
 
 Flour 4,083 
 
 .39,053 
 
 Total value of imports') ^.^^ ^or 
 at prices of 1821. J ' 
 
 CORN EXPORTKD, 
 
 in 1821. 
 
 Population, 6,801,827 ; or, 211 on a 
 square iiiile. 
 
 Wheat 1,038,037 
 
 Oats 959,474 
 
 Barley 78,588 
 
 Meal^yheat) . . . . 252,010 
 Oatmeal 37,150 
 
 Total value of exports 2,366,165 
 
 Here, then, we see demonstrated the important po- 
 litical problem, whether population has a natural ten- 
 dency to increase faster than food, or otherwise. When 
 Ireland, in 1725, only numbered seventy-one inhabi- 
 tants on a square mile, she imported grain, in ordi- 
 nary times, to the amount of twenty or thirty thousand 
 quarters annually^; but, when her population, on the 
 same space, became trebled, she not only (of necessity) 
 subsisted that number, and certainly not worse than 
 at the former period, but actually exported a surplus 
 of much above a miUion quarters^! 
 
 (3.) Should it be said that Ireland was, in the 
 
 former period, a grazing country, in consequence of 
 
 the impediments which landlords threw in the way of 
 
 tillage, on whose impolicy and cruelty Archbishop 
 
 Boulter dwells very feelingly in many of his letters % 
 
 ' Dobbs, Essay on the Trade, &c. of Ireland, p. 25. 
 "" Public Accounts. ^ Ibid. 
 
 ' Boulter, Letters, vol. i. pp. 223, 241, &c. 
 
32 
 
 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, 
 
 [5 IV. 
 
 till the evil was at length partly remedied by a legis- 
 lative interference, the consequence of which was a 
 vast increase of the products in question ; I shall not 
 argue this point, but betake myself to the produce of 
 the pasturage of the country, (which, of course, must 
 have been proportionably checked,) in order to discover 
 whether there is a tendency in population to exceed 
 even these means of human subsistence, which con- 
 fessedly take the largest proportion of surface, and 
 the best soils to produce them. This second inquiry 
 I shall determine in precisely the same manner as 
 before. Ireland certainly exported cattle^ and very 
 largely, at the former period ; they constituted the 
 bulk of her returns : has, then, the vast augmentation 
 in the population^ since that time, diminished, or 
 rather annihilated, that export, and " absorbed " (to 
 use the favourite word of the day) the surplus produce 
 of the country, as it regards this species of human 
 food? The following facts will best answer that 
 query : 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 Value of the Produce of Cattle 
 and Sheep exported on the ave- 
 rage of Eight Years, ending 
 1726. 
 
 Population, 2,300,000, or 71 on 
 each Square Mile. 
 
 Total average value, ^62.3,177., 
 
 Value of the Produce of Cattle 
 and Sheep exported in 1821. 
 
 Population, 6,801,827, or 211 on 
 each Square Mile. 
 
 Total value, ^3,705,993.* 
 
 Dobbs, Essay on the Trade and Improvement of Ireland, p. 17. 
 * Public Accounts. 
 
IV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 33 
 
 The argument might be minutely pursued through 
 the intervening period, but it is unnecessary : it is 
 singular enough, however, to observe, that midway 
 between these two dates (1777), the population having 
 considerably advanced, there was nearly a balance be- 
 tween the imports and exports of grain, or, in other 
 words, Ireland about grew its own bread ^ Since, 
 then, the population has rather more than doubled, 
 how has the constant tendency, which our theorists 
 perpetually assert, been manifested ? By sextupling 
 the agricultural produce ^. 
 
 With such facts as the preceding tables exhibit, 
 recorded in the statistical annals of the empire, and 
 which are, and long have been, published to the world, 
 certainly the fatuity, not to say mendacity, of these 
 constant appeals to Ireland in proof that popu- 
 lation naturally multiplies more rapidly than the 
 means of subsistence, is without parallel. I chal- 
 lenge any one to add anything in the way of illus- 
 tration to the broad and glaring absurdity which 
 such a principle exhibits, as applied to Ireland. Let 
 our political economists concede to a plain man of 
 ordinary capacity that sound judgment in human 
 affairs_, which Archbishop Tillotson claims for such 
 an one, even on the more mysterious truths of religion 
 a judgment which, whether they concede to him or 
 not, he most certainly possesses ; and let him be told 
 the foregoing facts regarding Ireland : that, a century 
 ago, the population, then being but a little more than 
 two millions, could not supply itself with grain ; but 
 
 ' Young, Tour in Ireland, pp. 2, 86. 
 
 * Colquhoun; Wealth, Power, and Resources of the Empire, 
 p. 14, note. 
 
 U 
 
34 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^, T. ^V. 
 
 that now, with its inhabitants trebled, it is not only 
 enabled so to do, but to export at least ten millions of 
 bushels, as well as six times the amount in cattle 
 (perhaps about thrice as many head), as at the former 
 period ; and could he be brought to understand and 
 believe that population there had advanced more 
 rapidly than food ; that, if things were suffered to go 
 on thus, universal distress and ruin must inevitably 
 ensue, in a word, that the principle of human increase 
 operates in that island as an evil ? And what would 
 it avail, were it told him that the cultivators were, in 
 the mean time, faring most wretchedly themselves, 
 and actually suffering for want of sufficient support. 
 He would instantly rejoin, why then do they not 
 retain some part of these immense exports, to satisfy 
 their own necessities ? And, if he were an English 
 cultivator, he would be the readier to recommend such 
 a measure. But, that he must, in compliment to the 
 principle of population, see present suffering and 
 future starvation awaiting a people, merely on the 
 score of increasing numbers, while he is vshown that 
 such increase has actually produced a far larger 
 measure of superfluous provision, which has to find a 
 vent elsewhere, in quantities which actually inundate 
 other markets ; would be rather too much to demand 
 from a man of common sense. Place such a man on 
 the committee, and he would think about preventing 
 the undue emigration of corn, and cattle, and pigs, 
 rather than promoting that of the people. 
 
 If then it be conceded, (and can it be denied ?) that 
 the evils which now afflict that country cannot pos- 
 sibly be attributed to a large population, existing as 
 
^IV.] AND THEIR REMEDlf:S. 35 
 
 they did, and at least in an equal degree when the 
 country was notoriously underpeopled ; and if^ further- 
 more, it be admitted (and I again defy the fact to be 
 controverted) that the produce of the country has far 
 more than kept pace with the increase in its inhabi- 
 tants, till, in point of fact^ it has augmented into an im- 
 mense superflux which has to be disposed of else- 
 where, the argument which I oppose is finally settled 
 as it regards Ireland ; and might here very properly 
 close. But it is not less the purpose of the work of 
 which this forms a part, to demolish to its very foun- 
 dation the false and pernicious theory which now un- 
 happily prevails, than to substitute another founded 
 upon truth, and consistent with the principles of justice 
 and mercy. After having established its certainty as 
 a law of nature, the next design has been to show that 
 it has always operated to the advantage and not to 
 the detriment of the human race, and that the natural 
 increase of mankind has therefore been the signal, 
 nay the very means, of their advancement in all that 
 constitutes human superiority. But though the facts, 
 and more especially the calculations on which it is 
 founded, have never yet been submitted to a single 
 individual during the progress of the work, who has 
 not instantly acceded to the conclusion as inevitable, 
 I must confess, that all such have, on recollection as 
 it were, pointed to the condition of Ireland, as disturb- 
 ing their otherwise entire acquiescence with the prin- 
 ciple disclosed : hence, on a matter regarded as so es- 
 sential to the argument, and especially one which is so 
 present to the mind of Britons, and so deeply touches 
 their feelings, it is necessary to be explicit. To me the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [V^. 
 
 situation of Ireland, circumstanced as she is, corro- 
 borates, rather than confronts, whatever I have ad- 
 vanced on the law of population throughout. In 
 pursuing the melancholy subject, though I have wit- 
 nessed the sufferings of that country often, and me- 
 ditated upon them more frequently, still I shall state 
 nothing on my own authority. Those who may 
 accompany me into the remaining details^ may find 
 some little novelty in seeing the sufferings of that un- 
 happy people attributed to other causes than either to 
 potatoes, or to propagation : causes which I advert to 
 with unfeigned reluctance, but on which, adverting to 
 them at all, I shall deliver myself with the utmost 
 plainness. I am aware of the treatment of those 
 
 * ^\'ho truths invidious, to the great, reveal," 
 for it is on them, and not, as is now the fashion, upon 
 defenceless and persecuted poverty that I shall fix the 
 wrongs of Ireland, aye, and her outrages ; those con- 
 vulsions at which the nation stands aghast, and 
 feels ever and anon as a mighty earthquake shaking 
 the very foundations of the empire, while the voice 
 of distant thunders is still heard threatening from 
 the cloud that gathers in the west, where the angry 
 elements seem in perpetual war. 
 
 (4.) But before I proceed to these considerations, 
 I maintain that Ireland, peculiarly circumstanced as 
 she is, has nevertheless participated, though in a 
 humble degree, in the advantages naturally resulting 
 from increasing numbers. That she does not furnish 
 a more triumphant argument in favour of the principle 
 of benevolence, is not chargeable upon the laws of 
 nature and of God. 
 
IV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 37 
 
 We have seen the great increase in the population 
 of Ireland during the last century ; we proceed then to 
 inquire_, whether the condition of the people propor- 
 tionably deteriorated^ which the principle I am oppo- 
 sing means to imply, if it mean anything ; or, on the 
 contrary, whether such increase was a benefit to the 
 community. Let competent witnesses be heard on 
 this matter, and the dispute be decided accordingly. 
 '^ Can those who now hear me, deny," said the cele- 
 brated Mr. Foster to a sufficient number of compe- 
 tent judges, the representatives of Ireland, ^' that, since 
 the period of 1782, Ireland has risen in civilization, 
 in wealth, in manufactures, in a greater proportion, 
 and with a more rapid progress, than any other country 
 of Europe ^" Again, Lord Sheffield, the pursuits of 
 whose life seem to have been almost exclusively di- 
 rected to subjects of public and national economy 
 especially relating to this country, says, "the improve- 
 ment of Ireland is as rapid as any country ever ex- 
 perienced ^." But, not to multiply authorities on this 
 point, I shall lastly quote Major Newenham, to whose 
 researches respecting this subject the public is so 
 much indebted. Presenting many most important facts 
 relative to the population and condition of the coun- 
 try, in a series of Tables, he finally observes upon 
 them : "They evince, beyond the possibility of a doubt, 
 a most rapid increase of people in Ireland ; and at the 
 same time exhibit in a clear light this interesting fact, 
 that, within these last five-and-twenty years, or there- 
 about, the food in that country has not been merely 
 
 * Speech in the House of Commons, 17 Feb. 1800. 
 
 ^ Loid Sheffield, Observations on the Trade, &c. of Ireland, p. 6. 
 
38 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^V. 
 
 commensurate with, but has greatly surpassed the rapid 
 and well-authenticated increase of its population*." 
 
 V. (1.) Yet notwithstanding these cheering tes- 
 timonies in favour of the progress of population, it 
 must be admitted that much suffering and great na- 
 tional degradation exist in this interesting portion of 
 the British empire, which, I am not without a painful 
 apprehension, may have been latterly increased, owing 
 to their real cause having been aggravated rather than 
 diminished^ ; while they are still further heightened, 
 at least rendered more conspicuous, by being contrasted 
 with the rapid advancement of the other grand divi- 
 sions of the kingdom. 
 
 In fixing upon this cause, I have not far to seek nor 
 long to deliberate. It has been deeply felt, and power- 
 fully pointed out, ever since the state of Ireland has 
 excited the consideration of the empire. One which 
 every writer of any note, or patriot of any principle or 
 feeling, on either side the water, who has given attention 
 to its affairs, has designated the prime curse of the coun- 
 try ; compared with which every other momentary topic 
 of declamation has sunk into insignificance: one indeed 
 which the modern school of political theorists stoutly 
 denies as an evil, and consequently labours to prevent 
 the application of that remedy, without which Ireland 
 will always be pushed to the utmost verge of destitu- 
 tion, and consequently of endurance. I trust I need 
 hardly explain that I mean absenteeship. 
 
 ' Newenham, Statistical Inquiry, &c. p. 197. 
 
 * See an account of the increase of absenteeism since 1797, in 
 Drs. Baker and Cheyne's work, vol. i. p. 12; see likewise the Lords* 
 Report on the Disturbances in Ireland, p. 207, &c. 
 
V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 39 
 
 Formerly^ this ancient enemy of Ireland^ or, to 
 speak more literally, "the cut-purse of the empire/* 
 concealed its footsteps as much as possible, and when 
 observed, disguised itself under a number of specious 
 pretences and apologies. Health ; safety ; education ; 
 and a variety of other reasons were always forthcom- 
 ing, amounting, on the whole, to a kind of necessity ; 
 and necessity, as is well known, can have no law, 
 whether of duty or gratitude. Now, however, fully 
 absolved by political economy, and even invested with 
 peculiar honours, it no longer seeks concealment, but 
 boldly avows itself; affects the language and assumes 
 the pretensions of genuine patriotism, and perpetually 
 stuns you with declamations concerning a country 
 which it personally deserts, and is constantly pillaging 
 and oppressing by proxy. 
 
 (2.) To estimate the mass of misery which this 
 evil has occasioned, we must attend to its origin, and 
 long continuance, as well as to its present extent. 
 Ireland only shared the fate of England in having 
 been a conquered country, but it has been more un- 
 fortunate than the latter in having been frequently 
 subdued ; a variety of causes, amongst which the 
 very evil we are considering may be regarded as one 
 of the most powerful, though perhaps the least ob- 
 vious^ having occasioned those frequent insubordina- 
 tions and rebellions which so disfigure its history. 
 These have always been quelled and punished ; hence 
 few generations have elapsed, especially in former 
 times, without witnessing the confiscations of large 
 portions of the property of the island. To go no 
 farther back than Queen Ehzabcth's time : three re- 
 
40 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [V. 
 
 bellions during that period were the cause of placing 
 a great part of the lands of Ireland at the disposal of 
 the crown. Leland says, more than one half of Ulster 
 became vested in the queen, "to be disposed of as 
 most expedient for the interests and security of her 
 government^" A greater authority, and one con- 
 nected with the transactions he records, Edmund 
 Spenser, gives a vastly higher proportion. Of the 
 9000 ploughlands which Ulster contained, all but 400 
 or 500 he represents as having escheated to her^. In 
 Connaught, I understand him to calculate, that at 
 least five-sixths of the whole were in the same predi- 
 cament^: and even in Leinster, exceedingly large 
 tracts, consisting of entii*e counties, were similarly 
 circumstanced^. As to Munster, at the period he 
 wrote, it appears very much of it was already in the 
 hands of her '^undertakers*." Indeed, by the single 
 attainder and death of the Earl of Desmond, " enor- 
 mous domains," as large as " the possessions of inde- 
 pendent princes," fell to her disposal^ besides sundry 
 other minor forfeitures. In the reign of her suc- 
 cessor, James I., the greatest and most valuable part 
 of Ulster again reverted to the crown, in consequence 
 of the treasonable practices of Tyrone, Tyrconnel, 
 and others, their adherents'^. During the interreg- 
 num, confiscations to a far greater extent occurred. 
 The fluctuation and uncertainty in the landed pro- 
 perty throughout the island, at the period of the 
 restoration, may be seen by opening two or three 
 
 Leland, Hist, of Ireland, vol.ii. p. 247,4to. 
 
 ' Spencer, State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 176, 12mo. 
 
 ' Ibid. pp. 179, 180. " Ibid. pp. 183, 184. ' Ibid. pp. 185, 186. 
 
 " Leland, Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 288. ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 424. 
 
V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 41 
 
 of the first pages in Sir William Petty's " Anatomy 
 of Ireland." At the revolution, another seizure of very 
 considerable extent, and it is to be hoped the last, 
 took place, when upwards of a million acres of land 
 were forfeited at once : more than half of these, how- 
 ever, were afterwards restored, as well as, probably, 
 much of the preceding ones^: much, however, was 
 permanently withheld from the former possessors, and 
 bestowed, of course, in many instances, on the retain- 
 ers of the court for the time being ; almost always, 
 however, on condition of residence, which many never- 
 theless contrived to evade, letting their acquisitions 
 under various tenures to resident cultivators. 
 
 The extent of these forfeitures is far from being 
 exaggerated. Lord Clare says that, of the twelve 
 millions of acres which the island contains, eleven 
 and a half underwent confiscation, during the one 
 century last referred to. 
 
 I most distinctly disclaim alluding to these irritating 
 topics with any other view than that which renders 
 an appeal to them necessary to prove and illustrate 
 the important point which I am now about to enforce. 
 I will even acknowledge that, perhaps, these fluctua- 
 tions in the landed property of Ireland, consequent 
 upon her connexion with this country, were not so 
 frequent and universal as those which were perpe- 
 tually taking place under the antient Irish custom of 
 tanistry, as it was called, by which the whole landed 
 property of the country was constantly changing 
 hands ^. Even after this custom was abolished, these 
 
 ' Sir William Petty, Polit. Anat. of Ireland, pp. 1 -4. 
 '^ See Spenser's Account of [relancl, Works, vol. vi. 
 
42 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ V. 
 
 extensive forfeitures fell principally upon ancient Eng- 
 lish proprietors, who were successively dispossessed 
 several times over; which fully accounts for the other- 
 wise extraordinary fact, that there are fictitious claims 
 to property in Ireland to a far greater extent than the 
 entire area of the country. But, whatever truth there 
 may be in these remarks, it is wide of my present 
 purpose to dwell upon them: it only concerns the 
 argument to state that, had the property in Ireland, 
 forfeited from time to time, been conferred upon those 
 who were residents in the country, or likely to remain 
 so, such spoliations, though inflicting great individual 
 suffering, would not perhaps have materially impo- 
 verished it ; but, when they were bestowed upon those 
 who did not reside in it, upon a mere unregarded en- 
 gagement that they would do so ; or who, residing 
 there, were, in consequence of these accessions of 
 fortune, too often tempted to leave it for an establish- 
 ment nearer the focus of the empire, or still more 
 culpable, who were thus enabled to spend their 
 acquired wealth beyond the boundaries of the British 
 dominions, then and thus was it that the evils of ab- 
 senteeism commenced, and, by the sure and constant 
 operation of this adequate cause, the impoverishment 
 of Ireland has been begun and continued, and will 
 never end till, by some means or other, this crying 
 injury shall be abated. 
 
 (3.) The fatal consequences of absenteeship have 
 long been forcibly pourtrayed, by a great body of 
 writers, familiar with the situation and sufferings 
 of Ireland, a few only of whom will be quoted. 
 
 Sir William Petty says, that " a great part of the 
 
V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 43 
 
 estates_, both real and personal, in Ireland, are owned 
 by absentees, and such as draw over the profits raised 
 out of Ireland, refunding nothing: so as Ireland, 
 exporting more than it imports, doth yet grow poorer 
 to a paradox ^" In the same page, he attributes the 
 lamentable want of employment and the idleness of 
 Ireland to the same fatal cause, absenteeism. 
 
 In about half a century afterwards, we find this evil 
 had not abated Dobbs, as it is believed, published, 
 under the assumed name of Prior, in 1729, a list of 
 the absentees, as far as he could collect them, esti- 
 mating the annual subtraction of wealthy from this 
 cause, at < 627,799 ^ a prodigious sum at that time, 
 and for such a country ; the rental of which, it is 
 supposed, did not then exceed two millions. This esti- 
 mate is fully confirmed by a very judicious English 
 writer, of that period. Gee, in his work on the Trade 
 and Navigation of Great Britain, says, ^' it is thought 
 near one third part of the rents of the whole (of 
 Ireland) belong to English noblemen and gentlemen 
 that dwell here^" I shall give a few extracts from 
 the former writer, and hope that the first will be par- 
 ticularly noticed : " By means of our nobles and 
 gentry deserting their own country, and spending all 
 abroad, our people are left without employment, and 
 are forced to shift to other countries, even to America, 
 to get a livelihood ^" " 'Tis not to be wondered at 
 that we should grow poorer every day, under such an 
 unprofitable issue of money, which all the labour of 
 
 ' Sir William Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland, p. 33. 
 ^ Prior, List of Absentees of Ireland, p. 13. 
 ' Gee, Trade and Navy of Great Britain, p. 19. 
 * List of Absentees, p 23. 
 
44 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ V. 
 
 the people and produce of the country, with every 
 acquisition they can make, are not sufficient to 
 supply \" " This is an evil long complained of." 
 " There is no country in Europe which produces and 
 exports so great a quantity of beef, butter, tallow, 
 hides, and wool as Ireland does ; and yet, our common 
 people are very poorly clothed, go bare-legged half 
 the year, and very rarely taste of that fresh meat with 
 which we so much abound. We pinch ourselves of 
 every article of life, and export more than we can 
 well spare, with no other effect or advantage than to 
 enable our gentlemen and ladies to live more luxu- 
 riantly abroad." " And they are not content to treat 
 us thus, but add insult to ill usage : they reproach us 
 with our poverty, at the same time that they take 
 away our money '^." 
 
 Dean Swift describes the consequences of absen- 
 teeism. He says it *'^ required those great remittances 
 which perpetually drained the country ^ :" that it drove 
 ^^ half the farmers and labourers into beggary and ba- 
 nishment '* ;" in a word, that it was the one great evil 
 of Ireland ** Nostra miseria magna es ^." 
 
 That this state of things has continued to the pre- 
 sent day, and I fear increased, admits of little doubt. 
 The effect of absenteeism is every where obvious to the 
 eye. '^ So numerous are abandoned edifices in Ire- 
 land," says a recent intelligent writer on that country, 
 ^^ that they keep alive a train of melancholy ideas in 
 the mind of the traveller. They who reared these 
 piles, and filled these rooms with mirth, who gave 
 
 ' List of Absentees, p. 29. * Ibid. p. 33. 
 
 3 Swift, Works, vol. vi. p. 209. " Ibid. p. 180. ' Ibid. 158. 
 
v.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 45 
 
 plenty and employment to the poor_, are now in their 
 tombs, and their living successors, dead to patriotism, 
 dwell in other lands, and leave the home of their 
 ancestors a wilderness. Every one must wish such 
 absentees could be made to reside in the country, 
 to enrich it with their fortunes, ornament it with 
 their taste, improve the morals of the people by their 
 example, refine them by their politeness, and protect 
 them by their authority ; then might we hope to see 
 the laws respected, the rich beloved, and Ireland tran- 
 quil and happy \" But the scientific agriculturist is 
 still more struck with the misery occasioned by this 
 grand evil, than the sentimental traveller. Young 
 is copious on this subject, and Curwen faithfully de- 
 scribes, from ocular proof, the '' ruin" it inflicts^; and 
 as to misery speaking of an estate belonging to some 
 absentee, he says, '^ the waters of oblivion can never 
 wash out the stains which the scenes of woe, wit- 
 nessed this day, have impressed upon my mind^" 
 
 I shall not proceed with these quotations ; but ap- 
 peal to the many attempts that have been made both 
 of a public and private kind, as well as the statutes that 
 have been from time to time passed to repress this 
 great evil, of the existence of which they form a mass 
 of public evidence. Much, however, as has been at- 
 tempted, nothing has been eifectually and permanently 
 done, and the evil has even gone on increasing, more 
 especially since the rebellion^ and the legislative union 
 of the two kingdoms, till the amount of property thus 
 
 ' Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland, p. 267. 
 
 ' Curwen, Observations on the State of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 255. 
 
 ^ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 187. 
 
46 iRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ V. 
 
 annually abstracted is calculated at ome millions ^ 
 forming a very onerous tax upon the entire rental and 
 income of the country. Had England, even, been 
 doomed to bear such a burthen, she would never have 
 arisen to her present towering height ; were it now 
 imposed upon her in an equal degree, it would ulti- 
 mately reduce her to the condition in which Ireland 
 is, and in which she must remain till the load is finally 
 lightened or removed. 
 
 (4.) The low and degrading poverty to which Ire- 
 land is thus reduced, though in itself a great evil, is, 
 nevertheless, one of the very least which absenteeism 
 inflicts. And first, as to those which are caused by the 
 total abandonment of the most important duties. Few, 
 I think, who are the advocates of the social system, 
 and especially amongst those who are placed at its 
 summit, but must be eager to acknowledge, that the 
 duties it imposes are reciprocal, and that their due 
 discharge becomes the more important, the more 
 elevated and commanding the station occupied. What, 
 then, I would ask, must be the certain consequence, 
 when those whom civil institutions have placed in the 
 highest rank, and invested with the most extensive 
 influence, totally abandon their proper sphere, and 
 desert their numerous and degraded dependents ? As 
 to wealth being accumulated or diffused under such 
 circumstances, the very idea is preposterous. There 
 are none to give employment to those who, in an 
 advancing state of society, are liberated from the 
 lowest drudgeries of life ; none to excite genius, or 
 reward merit, none to confer dignity and elegance on 
 WakefieW, vol.i. p. 290, note. 
 
v.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 47 
 
 society ; to lead in the march of civilization ; to difFiise 
 knowledge or dispense charity. That state of society 
 which has a tendency to separate itself into two classes 
 only, the rich and the poor, has, from the time of 
 Bacon downwards, been reprobated by all whose 
 opinions are deserving of regard ; but that in which 
 poverty constitutes the sole class, is still more perni- 
 cious and unnatural. And thus it is wherever absen- 
 teeism universally prevails ; there wealth shuns the 
 labour by which it is fed, and the industry by which 
 it is distinguished : rigorously exacting all its dues, 
 fancied or real, and returning none to those to whom 
 they are as truly, though not as legally owing ; carry- 
 ing off the products of the vintage of nature, even to 
 the very gleanings, to a far country, and leaving the 
 refuse to those who cultivate the soil and express the 
 juice ; muzzHng the mouth of the ox that treadeth 
 out the corn_, which is fed with the husks, and goaded 
 to desperation. 
 
 (5.) But this abandonment, simply, is not all with 
 which absenteeism stands charged. It substitutes, for 
 neglected duties, positive wrongs of the deadliest cha- 
 racter. Absent in the body, it is indeed ever present 
 in the spirit of cruelty and oppression. Its very exist- 
 ence implies a train of evils, which have been for 
 centuries past the most cruel scourges of the country : 
 I mean the imderletting system. Amongst these 
 middlemen, as they are called, there may be, and no 
 doubt are, men of high honour and humanity ; but 
 such exceptions render the cruelty and extortion of 
 the entire class the more conspicuous. The sacred 
 bond which ought to unite the superior and the in- 
 
48 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ V. 
 
 ferior, the landlord and the tenant, is broken : mere 
 mercenary connexions are all that remain^ a thousand 
 of which may be dissolved at once without costing a 
 single thought. This is a system of which the mid- 
 dlemen^ nay, very often many subordinate ranks of 
 these carnivoree, are the ministers^, whose sole possible 
 motive is present gain, and whose conduct corre- 
 sponds with it. The experimental labours of this class 
 are highly beneficial to the whole body of landed pro- 
 prietors ; they can calculate to a nicety how much and 
 how long a little cultivator can endure ; and know 
 the precise period when it is best to " drive him.'* 
 They thus not only act for the absentee^ but are a 
 sort of pioneers for the rest of the landlords, and by 
 constantly exercising their instruments of devastation, 
 have certainly cleared the way for those enormously 
 high rents, which, to the great discredit of too many of 
 the proprietors, are extorted from the suffering peasan- 
 try of Ireland^ Here too is the principal cause of those 
 
 * "Undertakersinured to tyranny and extortion." (Bishop Wood- 
 ward, Argument, &c. p. 17.) See Reports on the State oflreland, 
 pp. 38, 590, &c. 
 
 * I cannot better preface a few subjoined proofs of this asser- 
 tion, than in the words of a dignitary of the Church of Ireland, 
 in a little work, entitled " Lachrymae Hibernicae." Speaking of the 
 causes of the wretched poverty of Ireland, he thus expresses him- 
 self: "We know here we touch a tender subject. We have ob- 
 served how the Irish landlords started up in anger, in the house of 
 commons, when it was hinted that their lands were let at too high a 
 rate, and, of course, unless his insignificance secures him, the writer 
 expects to meet his share of their reproach. Notwithstanding, he 
 says, and he has the opinion of some of the ablest men of the nation 
 to confirm it, that the lands of Ireland are, generally speaking, let 
 at an exorbitant over-va^ue." (Grievances of Ireland, p. 8.) 
 
 As this evil, too, is attributed to the " principle of population,*' 
 which, in every attitude it assumes, and every dogma it delivers, is 
 still the avowed enemy of the mass of mankind ; let the following 
 proofs, which might be multiplied to any extent, show that the in- 
 
V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 49 
 
 minute and temporary lettings, so injurious to the 
 soil^ and for which such incredibly large sums are 
 exacted ^ ; and which contribute to keep so great a 
 number of the peasantry in constant poverty and 
 fluctuation. To the same source is to be attributed, 
 I am persuaded^ those exactions, cruelties, and 
 '^ drivings," to which that unhappy race are constantly 
 subjected. The infection of cruel selfishness is to be 
 traced to absenteeism ; and once introduced, such, 
 alas ! is our nature, wherever interest is concerned, 
 we are predisposed to take the contagion, which thus 
 spreads like a leprosy through a whole country, and 
 tills it with suffering, and sorrow, and destitution. 
 
 crease of the inhabitants simply, as increasing the competition for 
 land, has little to do with the matter. 
 
 Edmund Spenser says, " The landlords there most shamefully 
 rack their tenants." (State of Ireland, Works, vol. vi. p. 33.) 
 
 Dean Swift, " Rents, squeezed out of the very blood, and 
 vitals, and clothes, and dwellings of the tenants, who live worse 
 than English beggars." (View of the State of Ireland, Works, 
 vol vi. p. 159.) 
 
 Archbishop Boulter, " Here the tenant, 1 fear, has hardly ever 
 more than one third for his share, and too often but a fourth or 
 a fifth part." (Letters, vol, i. p. 292.) Hear this, yc great English 
 monopolizing tenants, who tell your landlords none but a large 
 farmer can pay them good rents ! 
 
 Right Honourable John Fitzgibbon, At. -Gen. " The peasantry are 
 ground down to powder by enormous rents." (Speech, 1787.) 
 
 " Exorbitant rents." (Gordon's Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 241.) 
 
 " Exorbitant rents." (Newenham's Inquiry, &c. p. 15.) 
 
 " Exorbitant rents." (Argument for the Support of the I^oor; 
 Dr. Woodward, p. 15.) 
 
 " Exorbitant rents." (Curwen, Observations on the State of 
 Ireland, vol. ii. 32.) 
 
 " Exorbitant rents." (First Report on the State of Ireland, 
 1825, p 38.) See pp. 59, 307, 413, 414, 638, &c. &c. 
 
 " It is an undoubted fact that, as landlords, they exact more 
 from their tenants, than the same class of men in any other coun- 
 try." (Wakefield, Account of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 795.) 
 
 ^ Conacres, which are generally let up to " ten guineas an acre." 
 Report of the Select Committee on the State of Ireland, i. p. 50 ; 
 ii. p. 414; iv. p. 638, ^c. 
 
 E 
 
50 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ V, 
 
 (6.) That the extreme poverty thus introduced, with 
 its unhappy associate, idleness, are invariably con- 
 nected with ignorance, and too often with crime, needs 
 little proof. I would have added to these melancholy 
 consequences, those commotions which have so fre- 
 quently agitated the country, with the guilt of which, 
 at least negatively, absenteeism stands chargeable ; 
 only that I shall probably again touch upon this point 
 hereafter. 
 
 (7.) But, to pass over many of the minor evils of ab- 
 senteeism unnoticed, let us, lastly, show its character in 
 a still more awful point of view namely, its heartless 
 conduct in times of general sickness and distress, which 
 are but too common in Ireland, and, in no slight 
 degree, attributable to this, its unnatural desertion ^ 
 Such was, doubtless, the case in the late dreadful fever 
 in Ireland. Its historians record, amongst other cir- 
 cumstances which occasioned it, '^ the high price of 
 land, artificially created by land-jobbers," (the middle 
 people previously alluded to, the accomplices of ab- 
 senteeism,) '^'and the vast income drawn from the 
 country by absentees, the deadliest foes of Ire- 
 land. These are causes, amongst many others, 
 which have reduced countless numbers to want, and 
 converted a considerable part of our population into 
 mendicants *.'* Another medical report in the same 
 work says, " The great proprietors of extensive estates 
 in the neighbourhood and in every part of the country 
 are absentees, with the exception of one or two. 
 They draw out of this remote and impoverished 
 
 ' Drs. Baker and Cheyne, Account of the Fever in Ireland, vol. ii. 
 pp. 98. 125. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 405. 
 
V.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 51 
 
 country" (round Tralee) '^ about 160,000 a year, at 
 a rough calculation ; of which not one shilling is 
 spent in it June illce lachrymce^ '"' Surely this physi- 
 cian can never have read Professor Macculloch ! But 
 the subject, alas ! is too serious to blend up with a 
 laugh at political economy. These desertions neces- 
 sarily caused that want of employment^, that poverty^, 
 and that despondency and dejection of mind*, which 
 are declared to have been the predisposing causes of 
 the infection ; the last of which rendered it, it is said, 
 almost invariably fataP. The resident gentry, indeed, 
 covered themselves with immortal honour on the 
 trying occasion^: they very generally gave " employ- 
 ment as far as possible to all the poor that applied 
 for it, and fed multitudes who must otherwise have 
 perished'^;" but these, alas ! were few^, and often at 
 great distances^, and in that case the suffering was 
 greatly heightened ^^ Thus, it appears, that absenteeism 
 was often the direct cause of the calamity, which it 
 always aggravated. 
 
 Leaving, then, wholly out of our consideration the 
 more apparent and constantly operating evils of this 
 pest of Ireland ; that mass of poverty which is created, 
 that distress which is unrelieved ; that idleness which 
 is unemployed ; that ignorance which is uninstructed ; 
 together with all the crime and suffering from which 
 
 ' Drs. Baker and Cheyne, Account of the Fever in Ireland, vol. ii. 
 p. 168. 
 
 ' Ibid. vol. i. p. 99 ; vol. ii. pp. 17, 38, 41, 140, 145, 158, 165. 
 
 ^ Ibid, 
 
 * Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 38, 65, 71, 79, 87, 93, 165, &c. &c. 
 
 ^ Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 98, 125. ^ Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 76, 89, 95, 157. 
 
 ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 100. Ibid, vol.ii. pp. 76, 125, 138. 
 
 ' Ibid. vol. i. 338. '" Ibid. vol. ii. p. 35. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ V. 
 
 such a state of things is inseparable ; what is, lastly, 
 its conduct in regard to its victims in the extremity 
 of nature, when disease is added to poverty, multiplying 
 its sorrows in a ratio of which wealth can have no 
 adequate conception ? when the desertion_, as it respects 
 such suftcrers, is irreparable and final ? when those 
 last duties, which the humane heart will not allow it- 
 self to perform by proxy, are not performed at all ? 
 In that awful season, from every quarter of Ireland, 
 there came from the death-bed bed, did I say ! 
 from the scanty straw which spread the cold ground 
 in many a temporary shed^ ; in such as which_, were 
 
 ' " A volume might be filled with instances, in proof of the dis- 
 tress occasioned by this visitation of fever, amongst a people already 
 exhausted by the privations consequent on want of employment, 
 and scarcity of food. Fever huts : these were wretched structures of 
 mud or stone, notexceeding four or fivefeet in height, erected at the 
 road sides, or in the corners of fields, for the purpose of receiving 
 persons attacked with fever, either members of a family, removed there 
 for the purpose of preventing an extension of sickness, or wretched 
 wanderers in search of food and employment, thus compelled to 
 struggle with a formidable disease on the damp ground, with little 
 covering but the miserable clothing worn by day, and scarcely pro- 
 tected from the inclemency of the weather by the shed of straw or 
 boughs, which formed the roof of this wretched habitation." (Drs. 
 Baker and Cheyne, vol. i. pp.63, 64.) 
 
 Dr. O'Leary says, in his report inserted in the above work, 
 " Three or four patients have literally died in the streets, or by 
 the side of the ditches, for many were obliged to sleep in the fields. 
 Fever huts were erected on the passage to the church, either on or 
 near all the public roads, and on the fair field. I have gone into a 
 hut, where, owing to the lowness of the entrance, I could only feel 
 the pulse of the four inmates, a father and three children of the 
 name of Staunton. There were also two grown-up daughters, who 
 were obliged to remain several nights in the open air, not having 
 room in the hut till the father died ; when the stronger of the two 
 girls forced herself into his place. On the road leading to Cork, 
 within a mile of this town, I visited a woman of the name of Vaughan, 
 labouring under typhus ; on her left lay a child very ill, at the foot 
 of the bed another child, just able to crawl about, and on her right 
 the corpse of a third child, who had died two days previously, and 
 which the unhappy mother could not get removed." {Ibid. vol. i. 
 
I v.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 53 
 
 the pampered beast of many a prond absentee put for 
 a single night, he would probaljly make the air ring 
 
 p, 65.) Numbers of cases succeed, quite of as distressing a kind. 
 1 shall only further quote another from Mr. Nolan: " Ellen Fagan, 
 a young womem, whose husband was obliged, in order to seek em- 
 ployment, to leave her almost destitute, in a miserable cabin, with 
 three children caught the disease," in having, poor as she was her- 
 self, administered charity to another ; " and from the terror and alarm 
 created in the neighbourhood, was with her three children deserted, 
 except that some persons left a litile water and milk at the window 
 for the children, one about four, the other three years old, the third 
 an infant at her breast. In this way she continued for a week, when 
 a neighbour heard of her distress, and sent her a loaf of bread, 
 which was left in the window. Four days after this he grew uneasy 
 about her, and one night he prepared some tea and bread, and 
 taking a female servant with him, set oif to her relief. When he 
 arrived, the following scene presented itself: in the window lay the 
 loaf where it had been deposited four days previously; in one cor- 
 ner of the cabin, on a little straw, without covering of any kind, 
 lay the wretched mother actually dying ; her infant dead by her 
 side for want of that sustenance she had not to give ; on the floor 
 lay two children, to appearance dying also of cold or hunger ; at 
 first they refused to take anything, and he had to force a little liquid 
 down their throats ; in a short time they revived, and with the 
 cautious administration of food, they recovered the effects of their 
 suffering. The woman expired before the visitor left the house, 
 who, I am happy to add, did not suffer from his humanity," (vol. i. 
 p. 66.) I am irresistibly impelled to bring Mr. Malthus's doctrines 
 to the touchstone of this awful scene. In order to support a 
 wretched system of population, inevitably connected with, and 
 indeed productive of, vice and suffering, matrimony, which Chris- 
 tianity declares "honourable in all," and his church pronounces 
 necessary as well as " holy," is to be degraded into a selfish gra- 
 tification, which, were it true, this uncovering of the nakedness of 
 our common parent, Nature, exhibits a far greater indecency than it 
 exposes. But further ; to such who have not those " clear pros- 
 pects" which not one poor man in a thousand has, it is denounced 
 as *' a clearly immoral act '," this partial morality, therefore, cuts 
 him oflF from all that solace and assistance so necessary to a poor 
 labourer under all circumstances*, but especially in those afflic- 
 tions to which he is peculiarly exposed. When suflferings like 
 those we have been describing befal such a man, when, without em- 
 ployment, or food, or health, he sinks the most wretched being 
 in nature, what is it that this precious system recommends, upon 
 principle, regarding him? "To the punishment of nature he 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay, p, 539. 
 
 * Report on Bettering the Conditiou of the Poor. vol. ii. p. 325. See Dr. 
 Ilalley on the Marriages of the I'oor. 
 
54 IRELAND ; ITS EVIL8, [ V. 
 
 with his reproofs ; hut which were crowded with 
 patient and grateful sufferers, with the infected, the 
 
 should be left, the punishment of severe want ' !" The absen- 
 tees follow this advice, and most exactly do as they "should" 
 in so leaving him. Poor Ellen and her children were so 
 " left." *' All parish assistance should be rigidly denied, and if the 
 hand of private charity be stretched forth in relief, the interests 
 of humanity require that it should be administered very sparingly. 
 She should be taught to know that the laws of nature, which are 
 those of God, had doomed her and her family (' but these' 
 infants, * what have they done ?') to starve for disobeying their 
 repeated admonitions she has no claim of right on society for 
 the smallest portion of food 1" I refer the reader to the entire 
 passage. I have quoted far enough, and only changed it agreeably 
 to " the rubric," by substituting she for he. As to the most 
 helpless and friendless of human beings, deserted children, the 
 same system says, " The infant is, comparatively speaking, of no 
 value to society, as others will immediately supply its place '." 
 Jesus Christ, however, was no political economist, and has, 
 therefore, fairly warned those who are forgiving such " fair notice" 
 to others, that it were better for us that a millstone were hanged 
 about our necks, and that we were cast into the depths of the 
 sea, than we should act upon any such principled Scripture, 
 nevertheless, is quoted upon the occasion, and the second com- 
 mandment has a gloss put upon it % which, were it true, would make 
 revealed religion " a reproach and a hissing," even in the estima- 
 tion of heathenism. But God himself expressly clears his word 
 and providence of such an unrighteous interpretation, by an oath !' 
 and sound criticism, as well as divinity, utterly reject it. (See 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor on the second commandment, Works, vol. 
 ix. p. 36, and vol. iii. p. 66 ; and Dr. Paley's sermon on the same 
 passage.) The comment of Mr. Malthus differs from these totally, 
 and most critically coincides with that of the amiable Captain 
 Blifil in Tom Jones", as does the charity of his system with that 
 of Parson Thwackum'. Strange is it, that what the great novelist 
 invented as the keenest satire upon the most despicable of human 
 characters, should be now taken up as true divinity and sound 
 policy ! Something, however, this system says about charity, 
 and prides itself in so doing, as if it had made some important 
 concession ; but we reject its notion of duty quite as much as we 
 do its doctrines, and deny that the rag with which it tries to cover 
 its naked deformities, is of a piece with that luminous robe with 
 which Christianity is invested. Where is it that we are exhorted 
 to shut up our bowels of compassion, and steel our hearts against 
 
 Malthus, Essay, p. 540. Ibid. Essay, p. 540. 
 
 3 Matthew, c. xviii. v. 6. * Malthus, Essay, p. 543. 
 
 * Ezekiel, ch. xviii. passim. 
 
 Fielding, Tom Jones, book ii. c. 2. '^ Jbid. book iii. c. 8. 
 
v.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 55 
 
 dying, and the dead : from scenes like these, I say, 
 there came a voice as audible as if it had been pealed 
 forth in thunder : '^^ I 1, whose labour has supplied 
 all your wants, and supported your grandeur ; con- 
 tenting myself with the refuse^ in order to satisfy 
 
 those whose sufferings have been occasioned or aggravated by a 
 numerous family? Nay, though we admit that the circumstances 
 of the case and the character of the sufferer may be properly 
 enough considered, still, show us the precept that authorises us 
 in making merit the passport to our mercy. We defy such com- 
 mentators to show us one passage to this effect, in the entire 
 volume whose burden seems to be this divine virtue. On the con- 
 trary, hundreds might be instantly adduced in which so prudent 
 and politic a maxim is expressly reprobated ; christian charity, if 
 Christ may be allowed to expound it, is founded not in the perfec- 
 tions, but on the imperfections of our nature; and appeals to the 
 perfections of the Deity alone, whose mercies are represented to 
 us for our imitation, as promiscuous and universal. We are not 
 authorised to spurn the prodigal, nor to desert even the " unthank- 
 ful or the unholy." We are not allowed to hesitate in assisting 
 the necessities of our fellow-beings constantly and systematically; 
 nor to pause, in order to first ascertain how the misery which it 
 is our duty to relieve was occasioned; but, on the contrary, if we 
 be touched with this divine principle, our minds will be directed 
 to our own unworthiness ; and instead of uncharitably inquiring 
 respecting the unhappy object, " Did this man sin, or his father r" 
 the language of our heart will be '* Remember not. Lord, our 
 otiences, nor the offences of our forefathers!" Above all, instead 
 of daring to strew doubts and difficulties in the way of this divine 
 virtue, we shall further all endeavours to console the sufferings 
 and relieve the afflictions of humanity, whether national or indi- 
 vidual, public or private, with all our mind, and soul, and strength. 
 Utterly regardless of the sarcasms and the sophisms of the modern 
 school, we shall, as far as in us lies, maintain the ancient glory 
 of our country in this respect, and still further extend it, if it be 
 in our power, even to unhappy Ireland : in doing this, we know 
 we have nothing to fear, and least of all, doing too much. In 
 the words of the godlike Bacon, being certain that "charity, and 
 charity only, admitteth of no excess. By aspiring to a similitude 
 of God in goodness and love, neither man, nor angel, ever trans- 
 gressed or shall transgress." All this, however, I fear, is suffi- 
 ciently absurd in the opinion of the economists, whose chief 
 dogma has been forestalled long ago by our immortal bard, where 
 he satirically exclaims, 
 
 *' Men must learn now with pity to dispense, 
 For policy sits above conscience." 
 
56 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ V. 
 
 your exactions, till even that failed me, and I sank 
 I was sick and ye deserted me!" It is over! 
 Their victims have given up the ghost, unheeded 
 and even unheard ; and how should it be otherwise ? 
 Pursue the absentee into the scenes in which he is 
 expending, in a single night, what would have deli- 
 vered one of his dependent families from destruction, 
 and which another description of absentees are re- 
 ceiving. Can it be expected that the last sigh with 
 which the famished wretch takes leave of life should 
 be allowed to untune, for a moment, the ^^ ItaHan 
 trills" which ravish his refined ears ? or that he should 
 withdraw for an instant the eager gaze with which he 
 pursues '' the gesturous dance," to bestow it, or a 
 thought with it, on the convulsive death-throes he 
 has occasioned? or that the stake should be with- 
 drawn from the hazard-table, to throw it into the 
 scale, trembling with the fate of numbers, which it 
 would cause to mount up to life and happiness ? The 
 very idea is laughable ! 
 
 (8.) Such, then, is the last wrong absenteeism 
 inflicts_, because it is the last it has in its power to 
 inflict ; the connexion is thus terminated^ and it will 
 be happy for those who have had in their life-time 
 their good things_, thus obtained and thus employed, 
 if the absenteeism is not eternal. I wish not to speak 
 as an enthusiast in religion, which I am not ; but let 
 it be recollected, that the sufferings so occasioned^, 
 and thus unrelieved, are not the phantasma flitting in 
 the glooms of a distempered imagination. None can 
 assert this. The nearer they are viewed, the more 
 they seem to multiply and enlarge, till they heighten 
 
v.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 57 
 
 into awful realities ; and whether regarded or not^ 
 those shadows are weaving the web of fate_, and giving 
 its eternal colour. If there be one jot of truth in 
 Christianity^ on this point it is perfectly clear, it 
 absolves no one from the duties of humanity, and 
 least of all_, the wealthy. Whether it be^ as is so 
 warmly contested_, a system of faith or of works, here 
 there can be no controversy. Whatever difference of 
 opinion there may be, as to some of its mysteries, on 
 this point it is awfully plain. And those who admit 
 it to be an excellent sort of thing for the poor_, re- 
 jecting its authority as it respects themselves, will do 
 well to recollect that, in this particular, its dictates 
 are plainly those of reason, humanity, and policy. 
 They may laugh at its denunciations touching another 
 world, but if these things are suffered to proceed un- 
 redressed, the vengeance of outraged humanity will 
 again have to be braved in this, as it has too often 
 been already. 
 
 But to return ; for a full proof of the misery ab- 
 senteeism inflicts, by occasioning and heightening the 
 sufferings sustained by the population of Ireland in 
 these too frequently recurring periods of general 
 sickness and distress, I refer to Drs. Baker and 
 Cheyne's valuable work, from which I have made 
 but few extracts, not wishing to obviate the necessity 
 of the reader's consulting it for himself. To this 
 authority may be added, that of the several volumi- 
 nous official reports more recently put forth^ on the 
 state of Ireland ; in which almost all the witnesses 
 describe the various evils absenteeism inflicts^ with, 
 however, one exception, to which allusion will be 
 
58 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ V. 
 
 made hereafter, as forming a species of evidence 
 perfectly original and unique " none but itself can 
 be its parallel." 
 
 (9.) I would not be meant to intimate, in any of 
 the preceding remarks, that absenteeism is universal, 
 or that it is always criminal. There are some who 
 have larger interests to protect, or duties to perform 
 in other parts of the empire, as well as many resi- 
 dent landlords, who spend their revenues amongst 
 those from whom they are derived ; and were it not for 
 these latter, it would not be possible that the absentees 
 could abstract from that country the sums they at 
 present do. The conduct of these real friends of 
 their country is most conscientious, and their charity, 
 on the afflicting occasion just alluded to, was beyond 
 all praise. But those who are thus fulfilling the im- 
 portant duties of their station, have their residence 
 rendered far more undesirable by the unnatural deser- 
 tion of those who act otherwise. The total neglect 
 of their duty by the latter, so far from being excused 
 by the due discharge of it on the part of the former, 
 is thereby rendered still more flagrant. It would re- 
 <|uire the entire natural resources of Ireland to be 
 devoted to her by those from whom they are im- 
 periously demanded, to effect her permanent advance- 
 ment ; every individual, therefore, who continues 
 to subtract any part of these, so far injures the 
 country, and destroys its prospect of advancement; 
 and let such recollect, that if absenteeism is not 
 universal, it is not owing to their conduct or their 
 example *. 
 
 * Perhaps, however, I liave gone too tar in saying that wo relief, 
 
VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 59 
 
 VI. (1.) But new lights have burst upon us on 
 this important subject; the enlarged and philanthropic 
 views of generations of the patriots and legislators of 
 Ireland are all at once deemed " darkness visible ;" 
 books have been composed and lectures delivered^ to 
 prove that absenteeism is no evil whatsoever, and 
 parliament itself has called forth and published this 
 opinion. Let us, therefore, examine a little this 
 strange position_, which contradicts without the least 
 ceremony the common sense and feelings of mankind, 
 and is, most unhappily, at variance with the bitter 
 experience of the country in question. I shall not 
 contend the matter with a system which, though 
 all head, has no heart, and " not Hercules himself could 
 knock out its brains, for it has none ;" but address 
 myself to the plain sense of my readers. 
 
 Let us_, in order to see this subject more clearly, 
 present it as individually exemplified. Ireland is, 
 strictly speaking, an agricultural country ; even its 
 linen manufacture, as fabricated from produce grown 
 by the peasants on the patches they occupy, partakes, 
 
 in this dreadful period of universal distress, was, on the faith of 
 the representations which were made of its existence, seconded by 
 personal applications, administered to their suffering and dying 
 dependents, by these absentees. But I had just risen from the 
 attentive perusal of Drs. Baker and Cheyne's history of that 
 afflicting period; and whoever will follow me in that task will 
 excuse me in having come to that conclusion. Candour, however, 
 obliges me to say that it is not strictly correct. " In the calamitous 
 summer of 1822," I find that *' a subscription was made for the 
 relief of the poor of a certain district, by the resident gentry, 
 landowners, and clergy. Application was made to the absentee 
 proprietors, who annually abstracted from that country i;83,000. 
 Their subscriptions altogether amounted to eighty-three pounds M" 
 I am perfectly willing to admit this interesting fact, while thus 
 recording the evils of absenteeism. 
 
 Bisliop of Limerick's Speech, p. 74. (June 10th, 1824.) 
 
60 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ ^1- 
 
 in some sort^ of that character. Let ns imagine, then, 
 this agricultural population, as represented by a single 
 farmer, under a single landlord, and that landlord an 
 absentee ; and not to confuse the subject by long and 
 needless definitions about rent, value, &c._, which add 
 not a particle of practical information to the man that 
 attends to them, let us suppose the farmer to be what 
 was called a metayer, or, in other words_, one who 
 gives to the owner a certain proportion of the produce 
 of his cultivation in kind, for the usufruct of the 
 land he occupies ; and this every farmer does, either 
 directly (as is still the case in many parts of the con- 
 tinent, and almost universally throughout Italy,) or 
 indirectly, when he pays to the landlord the estimated 
 value of his share in money, having then to sell pro- 
 duce for that purpose, a far more convenient, though 
 perhaps less precise, mode of adjusting their respective 
 interests. I ought to have premised, that as the 
 wants agricultural labour supplies are not the only 
 necessities of human beings, especially as society 
 advances in civilization ; so it is wisely ordained that 
 agricultural labour does not demand, nor can it em- 
 ploy, an entire population : a certain, and indeed a large 
 proportion are left to answer other necessary demands, 
 and pursue different avocations. Reverting then to 
 the Irish farmer ; he has a large family ; his crime, 
 according to the new school, and too often in the 
 estimation of his landlord, who is positively so blinded 
 by interest as not to see that it is to this very cause 
 (the prolificness of human beings) that the increasing 
 value of his product is solely owing. But let this 
 pass. Part of the farmer s family remain totally idle, 
 
VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 61 
 
 or the whole partially so, and have to experience the 
 penury and suffering vvhich idleness inevitably entails, 
 and for precisely this reason: the landlord is an ab- 
 sentee, and is, for example, in Naples. His share of 
 the produce (and we have seen how large a one it is 
 in Ireland) is transmitted to him thither, at all events 
 it leaves the island for that special purpose, the farmer 
 having little or nothing else to send; and this is all 
 that concerns the argument, which has not the least 
 to do with the various exchanges or profits, to which 
 his produce is subjected after it leaves his own shores, 
 till, either in bulk or value, it reaches his landlord. 
 Ireland, therefore, is not only deprived of the produce 
 which its suffering population too often stands in ab- 
 solute need of, but of that profitable labour which the 
 consumption of it by the landlord in his own country 
 would necessarily call into action. To the landlord 
 it may, perhaps, appear " all the same," though I 
 think this will admit of reasonable doubt in the up- 
 shot. He obtains by these remittances the services 
 of the Neapolitan coachmaker, tailor, shoemaker^ ser- 
 vant, or whatever assistance he may stand in need of; 
 but who does not see that, if he stayed in the country 
 from which his revenues are derived, part of the 
 farmer's family would be his coachmaker, tailor, shoe- 
 maker, servant ; in a word, be employed in rendering 
 him all the assistance which wealth demands from la- 
 bour, and for which labour is remunerated? Political 
 economy pronounces this to be all one, or rather de- 
 cides in favour of absenteeism ; but common sense, 
 confirmed by the melancholy experience of ages, 
 
62 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VI. 
 
 proves the difference to be that between a popula- 
 tion comfortably sustained and well employed, and 
 consequently advancing in prosperity and happiness, 
 and one idle and wretched, always in want, and often 
 on the verge of starvation, and sinking into still lower 
 depths of misery and degradation. 
 
 Even were these absentees to return and become 
 residents, still retaining their unnatural predilection 
 for articles of foreign industry, that part of the reve- 
 nues expended upon such would, I contend, be lost in 
 great measure to such a country as Ireland, which, 
 having little or nothing to export but provisions, with 
 a half-fed and less than half-employed population, 
 would be starved, as well as impoverished, just so far as 
 this practice prevailed. The Dublin Society proved, 
 by an exact calculation, that they might maintain 
 twenty poor families for a whole year, with the quan- 
 tity of beef and mutton which they exported for buying 
 a lady's head-dress ^ It may be true, perhaps, that as 
 many families, though perhaps not quite so poor, were 
 fed at Brussels by the importation of this cap ; but on 
 no imaginable ground can such a change be " all one" 
 to the twenty poor Irish families ; nor can political 
 economy prove it to be so, on any other ground than 
 that of a citizenship of the world, upon which prin- 
 ciple I have heard, of late, many of the notions of 
 that " science, falsely so called," boldly avowed and 
 defended, and which, I begin to think, is the stultifera 
 navis in which the whole school are embarked. If it 
 be so, it is high time they should hoist their true co- 
 * Spirit of Legislation, p. 248. 
 
V1.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 63 
 
 lours : they are not British ; nor will Britain much 
 longer harbour those who show her no preference, 
 excepting where they have to be paid and victualled. 
 
 (2.) But further : if the modern notion concerning 
 absenteeship is true as it regards Ireland, it is true as 
 it respects all other countries : if it be true at all, it is 
 true universally. Let us apply it then, for a moment, 
 to Great Britain. Suppose the same rage for de- 
 serting the country were to prevail here that does 
 there (it does indeed prevail to a certain degree^ and is 
 so far, I maintain, pernicious and productive of more 
 of our national difficulties than many are aware of, or, 
 knowing, will acknowledge) ; bearing in mind that 
 the ownership of landed property, in almost all cases, 
 practically resolves itself into the right of receiving 
 annually a certain share of the produce of lands culti- 
 vated by others, it is plain that, if the landlords of Great 
 Britain were to desert the island universally, it would 
 not matter a jot, as it respects the point at issue, if 
 such absent owners were instantly, one and all, meta- 
 morphosed into foreigners : the mere circumstance of 
 their having been born and registered in this country 
 cannot, surely, affect the question. If Ireland, then, 
 is not impoverished by absenteeism, neither would 
 England and Scotland; and, if expending the owner's 
 share of the produce out of the country does not im- 
 poverish it, the united kingdom would not be a whit 
 the poorer, if every acre of its surface, and all under 
 its surface, were the fee-simple of foreign landlords, 
 French, for instance, never visiting this country, but 
 expending their share of its products in giving em- 
 ployment and its remuneration to the inhabitants of 
 
64 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ ^'^ 
 
 Paris or Versailles. Nor, on the other hand, would 
 England be at all the richer if the entire kingdom of 
 France were owned by resident British subjects, and 
 its whole rental annually transmitted to and disbursed 
 in this country, in addition to its own. These 
 instances are, of course, meant to exhibit the subject 
 in its utmost possible extent : there are, it is admitted, 
 various degrees in which this evil prevails, according 
 to which its consequences will be more or less obvious 
 and important. A disease may be troublesome without 
 being dangerous^ or it may prostrate the strength 
 without immediately threatening life, or it may become 
 fatal at lengthy merely from its long continuation : 
 just so is it with absenteeism ; it may prevail to the 
 extent it does in England, when only a certain number, 
 twenty thousand, suppose^ of our gentry, are dissi- 
 pating their property abroad, in the vortex of French 
 fashion, or the sties of Italian corruption ; and these 
 may not, perhaps, throw more than a hundred thou- 
 sand English artisans out of employment, lowering 
 the condition and, of course, raising the national 
 burdens laid upon the rest; while in Ireland, perhaps, 
 at least a fourth (the estimate has often been a third) of 
 its landed rental is thus withdrawn ; but, just as it 
 prevails in any country, just so far is that country 
 degraded and beggared. 
 
 (3.) Nor are the evils of absenteeism confined, as 
 it respects Ireland, within its own shores. One of a 
 great and increasing magnitude, as it regards this 
 country, shall be here mentioned. Whether the 
 absentee landlords reside in England, or, as is often 
 the case, in other parts of Europe, still England is 
 
VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 65 
 
 the coQntry to which the produce of Ireland has to 
 be exported^ to make up the rents of these absentees ; 
 occasioning not only great suffering to the people of 
 that country^ by abstracting more of the necessaries 
 of life from them than can frequently be spared, and 
 where larger portions of them ought always to be en- 
 joyed, but great mischief in this, by inundating the mar- 
 kets of England with cattle^ and_, soon after the Union, 
 with corn ; and, consequently, inflicting on the little 
 freeholders and farmers of England the most serious 
 injury a class of men which I again differ with the 
 political economists in thinking ought to be upheld, 
 for reasons I shall state hereafter. Waiving this con- 
 sideration for the present, I shall point out a last evil 
 as consequent on absenteeism, a loss of that which the 
 class of writers against whom I am directing these 
 remarks, the economists, ought fully to appreciate, 
 for they are perpetually dwelling upon it, as though 
 it were the sole consideration under the sun : I mean 
 capital. 
 
 (4.) The capital of an entire country is created 
 and accumulated by slow degrees, and in a course of 
 years : and herein it differs most materially from 
 those individual fortunes or capitals which are often 
 rapidly obtained, and which are then too frequently 
 merely the transfer of property from one person to 
 another. But, in speaking on this point, a favourite 
 subject in political economy, I shall not presume to 
 offer a precise definition of the term capital, but 
 merely state what I mean by it, namely, property 
 accumulated beyond present consumption, and created 
 principally, as Locke has observed, by labour. But 
 
66 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VI. 
 
 how, nationally speaking, property can be progres- 
 sively accumulated, when so little labour, compa- 
 ratively speaking, is demanded, and when that little 
 is so inadequately remunerated as scarcely to leave 
 the bare means of existence, it would be difficult to 
 imagine. That Ireland has lamentably little accu- 
 mulated capital, nationally considered^ is not any 
 matter of surprise, but rather, how she can possibly 
 supply the perpetual drains which are made upon her : 
 the possibility is, it is true, demonstrated, she does 
 supply them ; and how, is seen too well, in the 
 wretchedness of her people. As rational would it be 
 for a farmer to dream of enriching his fields by carting 
 oif all their produce, and returning nothing to the 
 ground ; or a physician to restore his patient from an 
 atrophy by starvation and depletion, as to suppose 
 Ireland can accumulate capital while a long list of 
 absentees are not only depriving her of all the means 
 by which she might be enriched, but constantly 
 wresting from her, in undue quantities, the very 
 necessaries of existence. I leave it to modern writers, 
 who dilate so much on the power of capital, to esti- 
 mate the injury Ireland suffers from absenteeism, 
 which has long deprived her of it, or the possibility of 
 accumulating it. 
 
 (5.) Much is said about the great benefits which 
 would accrue from the introduction of manufactures 
 into the distressed parts of that country. " But if 
 capitals sufficient to establish, or extend manufac- 
 tures, be not accumulated, which can scarcely be ex- 
 pected during the continuance of so great a drain of 
 money ; if the demand for labour do not keep pace 
 
VI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 67 
 
 with the increase of people, which in such case it may 
 not, if industry be overstocked ; there will undoubt- 
 edly be reason to apprehend a recurrence of those 
 disturbances which have already proved so injurious 
 to Ireland ^" Such is the opinion of Mr. Newenham 
 on this important subject ^ 
 
 (6.) To apply what has been said to the immediate 
 subject of this treatise. It will be seen, from the pre- 
 ceding facts, and the necessary inferences drawn from 
 them, that there is the strongest ground for asserting 
 that Ireland, instead of negativing the theory of human 
 increase advanced in this work, confirms it in all its 
 main positions, in the most striking manner. It adds 
 another irrefragable proof of the principle which lies 
 at its foundation, the prolificness of a state of poverty 
 and privation^ . Even in that important particular, in 
 which it seems to deviate from what I conceive to be 
 one of the effects of the law of population, by exhibit- 
 ing a great increase of numbers without a correspond- 
 ing amelioration of condition, it so differs as to con- 
 firm the sreneral truth of that benevolent rule of 
 
 o 
 
 ' Newenham, An Inquiry into the Progress, &c. pp. 170, 171. 
 
 * The introduction and extension of manufactures (a favourite 
 proposition with some in behalf of Ireland) is, therefore, rendered 
 impossible by absenteeship. It is difficult to imagine how they 
 could be introduced and encouraged v/ithout either capital or 
 demand,, to both of which that evil is fatal. But even were it not 
 so, it is not exactly the sort of remedy that a friend of the empire 
 at large would wish to see applied, had he his choice. Unless the 
 market for our fabrics could be very considerably extended, which 
 does not seem very probable, the fabrics of Ireland would have to 
 supplant those of England ; in which case poverty and employ- 
 ment would only change hands. The " immense manufacture" to 
 which Montesquieu refers, seems most adapted to the condition and 
 wants of Ireland of all others ; of which more hereafter. 
 
 ^ Dr. Watkinson expressly attributes the fecundity of the Irish 
 to this cause. (Phil. Survey of the South of Ireland, ]) M.7.) 
 
 F 2 
 
68 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^'I- 
 
 nature, constituting it one of those exceptions which 
 prove its correctness. 
 
 I must repeat, therefore, in reference to that coun- 
 try, that when the population was not a fifth of its 
 present number, all the evils now attributed to a sur- 
 charge of inhabitants existed, and even in a greater 
 degree than they do at present ; that, large as has been 
 the increase of the inhabitants since that period, so far 
 from the increase of its edible products having fallen 
 short (which is the real consideration), the latter has 
 very far surpassed the former ; and that the want of 
 employment generally, and of the wealth which labour 
 generates, is plainly attributable to the constant sub-, 
 traction of so vast a portion of the natural wealth of 
 the country by absentees, who, far different to such a 
 withdrawal upon mercantile principles, make no return 
 whatsoever. Hence the desertion of those w^hose re- 
 sidence would create those avocations which diffuse 
 wealth wherever they are pursued, keeps down the mass 
 of the people in a state of the lowest poverty, a state, 
 I repeat, the most favourable of all others to human 
 prolificness. Were the wealth which mankind, under 
 equal circumstances, always create in proportion to 
 their numbers, allowed to remain in the country, em- 
 ployment would be created, and employment (to say 
 nothing concerning its moral effects) would confer 
 and diffuse affluence, and affluence w^ould introduce 
 those sedentary avocations, those comforts and in- 
 dulgences approaching to luxury, and often termina- 
 ting in it, in fine, that general ease and enjoyment, 
 the concomitants of riches, which are always diffused 
 in a community, if fairly dealt wit^ in proDortion to 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 69 
 
 its numbers. Every step of this progress would^ while 
 increasing the wealthy diminish the natural prolific- 
 ness of the country ; by means totally opposite to 
 " the checks" of the contrary system, and agreeable 
 to a law of nature, which forms that self-adjusting, 
 sacred equipoise by which she proportions her num- 
 bers to her means of sustentation. Her laws are those 
 of benevolence^ but when they are constantly with- 
 stood, she works no miracles to counteract the misrule 
 of mankind, and consequently does not suspend those 
 laws in respect to Ireland, which are in constant 
 operation elsewhere. Ireland is not overpeopled : 
 she is prolific ; but that prolificness is attributable to 
 the desertion of those who charge it upon her as a 
 crime. She is poor and wretched. 
 
 VII. Diifering thus widely in regard to the disease 
 of Ireland, with those whose principle I am opposing, 
 it is no wonder that our remedies are diametrically 
 opposite. To commence with the consideration of 
 theirs ; they are, as far as I have been able to collect 
 them, principally these : 
 
 1. The expatriation of a number of the present 
 inhabitants. 
 
 2. Clearing the country of others by the engross- 
 ment of farms. 
 
 3. Giving the people a taste for superior living. 
 
 4. An ecclesiastical confiscation. 
 
 (1.) The first of these notable expedients, patron- 
 ised as it is, it requires but few words to expose. 
 I'be disorder of Ireland, as before shown, has been of 
 long continuance ; and, if it had been one to be cured 
 
70 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^^'' 
 
 by such a remedy as this, it would have been removed 
 long since. I again refer the reader to Archbishop 
 Boulter's letters, written a centuiy ago, and several 
 other works of that period ; extracts of which may be 
 found in ^* Newenham's Inquiry concerning the Po- 
 pulation of Ireland," for evidence of the extensive 
 emigrations that formerly took place ; when it will be 
 fully seen that, were the remedy desirable, we have no 
 chance whatever of applying it, in reference to the 
 relative numbers, in a degree equal to that in which it 
 was tried, above a hundred years ago, and thencefor- 
 ward for at least half a century. The disposable 
 resources of the country cannot make up the depletive 
 prescription of our political quacks, thank God, this 
 once, for our poverty ; otherwise the whole empire 
 would have been dosed with their panacea on many an 
 emergency, and its vital strength, long ere this, pros- 
 trated without hope of recovery. It is hard to acquit 
 of the imputation of either ignorance or cruelty, the 
 proposal of applying a sum of money in sending a 
 number of inhabitants out of the country on the plea 
 of inadequate provision, which, properly applied, 
 would bring into cultivation wastes sufficient to sus- 
 tain a far greater number than it could transport; 
 securing thereby not only an increase in the provisions 
 of the country, but encouraging, to a like extent, 
 every other branch of its industry, and making a 
 permanent and inexhaustible addition to its capital 
 and wealth. In a word, whatever is to cure the dis- 
 tress of Ireland, migration is not the remedy, simply 
 for these three reasons; 1. It is but a temporary 
 expedient on the acknowledged principles of those 
 
^VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 71 
 
 who would adopt it. Those who hold the modeni 
 notion on population, the superfecundity of the human 
 race, in resorting to this^ are knowingly exhausting 
 the resources of the country for no manner of purpose 
 whatsoever ; wearying her, like Sisyphus, in fruitlessly 
 labouring against an irresistible law of nature, which 
 strengthens in its operations precisely in the propor- 
 tion in which it is counteracted. These gentlemen 
 talk confidently of the pressure of population in all 
 directions, and that it invariably rushes in wherever 
 there is a " vacuum," and finds, like water, its own 
 level ; and still they propose a plan for our relief, 
 precisely as wise, on their own principles^, as though 
 an engineer, in order to build the pier of a bridge, 
 should set his hands a-pumping without having con- 
 structed^ or being able to construct, a coffer-dam. 
 This objection, therefore, is fatal to the scheme, even 
 according to their own notions. But, 2. It is de- 
 monstrably a totally worthless remedy, in its having 
 been tried largely and long, and having wholly failed. 
 3. If it had not been tried at all, and were there any 
 the least reason to believe it would succeed, the dis- 
 posable revenue of the country Avould not suffice to 
 carry the plan into effect on a scale sufficiently large 
 to answer the purposes contemplated, its advocates 
 themselves being the judges as to the extent to which 
 it should be adopted. 
 
 But, as this notable proposition is now brought 
 forth, not only as it regards Ireland, but even England, 
 and is at once to prove the truth of the tlieoiy of 
 population which I oppose, as v/ell as to become the 
 palliative (cure none suppose it can ever be) of those 
 
72 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^11. 
 
 evils which it fixes upon God and nature, I shall 
 dwell a little longer on this point generally, though 
 I have already elsewhere given it a distinct consi- 
 deration. 
 
 (2.) Without adverting, in these pages, to the 
 identity of human origin, or the region which, as a 
 profane writer of antiquity remarks, is, in the first 
 glimpses which history affords, presented to us as 
 fully peopled, and from whence diverged, as from a 
 common centre, those various tribes of the human 
 family, that have since spread over various parts of 
 the earth ; I shall just mention an argument which is 
 discussed in the work so frequently alluded to, where 
 it is shown, that though it was owing to the migratory 
 propensities of the human race, that the earth became 
 peopled, still it was to the ultimate repression of that 
 habit, either by a voluntary or compulsory settlement, 
 that they found themselves conducted through ad- 
 vancing degrees of civilization to prosperity and hap- 
 piness ; their numbers still multiplying and adding, at 
 every augmentation, fresh stores of abundance, as well 
 as new accessions of moral and intellectual wealth. 
 Limited to a certain territory, each community found 
 its confines to be the boundaries of increasing happi- 
 ness. That salient source of all human prosperity, 
 individual or national, population, no longer discharg- 
 ing itself into some distant void, now flowed back 
 upon " the shallows and the miseries," which it had 
 previously left exposed, every refluent wave expand- 
 ing and deepening, not the ocean of vitality merely, 
 but the abyss of the Divine bounty, the depth and 
 breadth of which have as yet never been fathomed. 
 
VI1.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 73 
 
 and we humbly presume it is given to no political 
 economist to explore. The '' scattering of man- 
 kind over the face of the earth" may be distinctly 
 traced to their animal propensities, to their sloth 
 and ignorance, operated upon by necessity ; their 
 numbers having increased agreeably to the law pre- 
 viously developed_, that necessity called forth their 
 intellectual faculties, rendered them stationary, intro- 
 duced the institutions and the arts of social existence ; 
 and, in a word, created the immeasurable distance 
 between savage and civilized man. Having elsewhere 
 pursued this argument in detail, and connected it with 
 its historical evidences, I shall only now observe, 
 generally, that nothing can be more clear than that 
 the great work of planting the nations was not per- 
 formed when the earth was full of inhabitants, but, 
 on the contrary, when it was a comparative void : not 
 by nations whose numbers were the greatest, but the 
 fewest and most scattered ; in a word, not by those 
 who had a real necessity to migrate, but by those whose 
 ignorance taught them so to suppose, and whose bar- 
 barism made them fit instruments for the purpose, 
 rendering them insensible of regrets or solicitudes, 
 either respecting the seats they left, or those to which 
 chance directed their course. It was a work per- 
 formed in ages of ignorance, or in times of strife and 
 oppression, though the results have been so tran- 
 sccndently great. Those engaged in it, like tbc 
 husbandman, often went forth weeping, bearing pre- 
 cious seed ; it was reserved for posterity to gather the 
 copious sheaves and rejoice in the abundant harvest. 
 In conformity with this view of the subject is the 
 
74 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, R VII. 
 
 fact_, that_, as the population of the different nations 
 has increased_, the necessity of these wanderings has 
 diminished. I speak this advisedly, and in defiance 
 of the information, or, I would rather say, the more 
 formidable ignorance, of all the migration committees 
 upon earth. I do not mean to say, but that many 
 soul-stirring occasions, many powerful impulses, still 
 may, and certainly will, carry numbers from every 
 country to distant climes, even ^'to the farthest verge 
 of the green earth;" or that such impulses may not be 
 commissioned to eifect some peculiar and important 
 purposes of Divine Providence ; or that there are not 
 circumstances which demand such ejections on a 
 principle of policy and humanity; but I deny, in behalf 
 of a highly fertile, but imperfectly cultivated country, 
 I deny, in behalf of those feelings which endear to a 
 grateful people their native seats and nearest con- 
 nexions, I deny, in the name of the strength and ma- 
 jesty of the empire and, as I trust I shall make mani- 
 fest, in that of truth itself, that the wholesale deporta- 
 tions, now contemplated, are necessary that they are 
 otherwise than unnatural, impolitic, and cruel. On 
 these consequences I shall not dwell at present, but 
 shall merely add, that if we follow the dictates of na- 
 ture, and take with us the lights of human history, we 
 shall doubtless arrive at safe conclusions. We shall 
 find, that the main instruments in these colonizing 
 migrations were barbarism and oppression; their pe- 
 riods those " times of ignorance which God winked 
 at," and rendered subservient to his benevolent pur- 
 poses: those purposes accomplished, that veil of ig- 
 norance which seemed as effectuallv to conceal the 
 
VH.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 75 
 
 inexhaustible bounties of Providence from their be- 
 nighted eyes, as it does from those of our political 
 economists, was drawn aside, and the bosom of Na- 
 ture, in all its loveliness and sufficiency, was bared to 
 all her children. It has been already said, and indeed 
 often repeated, that, as human beings have increased, 
 their condition has been ameliorated ; it must, how- 
 ever, be added, that, under more auspicious circum- 
 stances, the ties of kindred and social affection, and of 
 attachment to country, so dear to all generous minds, 
 have become strengthened and rooted in the very 
 fibres of the heart. To tear them thence would too 
 often be to leave an aching void which no after scenes 
 of life could fill, and least of all those most of them 
 would have to encounter. But in the divine economy, 
 in these periods there are no such expedients dictated ; 
 Providence acts not by a system of cruel contrarieties ; 
 the desire of expatriation (excepting under perverse 
 mismanagement), and its necessity, cease together ; 
 while the feelings of patriotism, fed by all the charities 
 of life, and which it ought to be the care of all go- 
 vernments to cherish, rise in the deepest hostility to the 
 proposition, and identify it with a penal infliction, in 
 shame and suffering only short of ignominious death. 
 To apply the preceding remarks to the subject be- 
 fore us. When Europe, by far the most densely 
 peopled, though perhaps the least fertile quarter of 
 the globe, had probably not a twentieth part of its 
 present inhabitants, we find them (at least in those 
 parts which were the scantiest of people) in perpetual 
 motion and fluctuation. But now that its numbers, 
 in its confined territorv, amount to so many scores of 
 
76 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^11. 
 
 millions, how few_, comparatively speaking, desert 
 their country ? Meantime that they even now occupy, 
 or adequately cultivate its surface, none will he found 
 to assert. Malte-Brun intimates that, managed as at 
 present, its soil would aiford food enough for a thou- 
 sand milh'ons of inhabitants* ; a calculation far within 
 any I have ever seen, which take for their basis agri- 
 cultural data. How many additional millions this 
 kingdom would sustain, not with diminished, nor yet 
 with stationary comforts and accommodations merely, 
 but with as large an accession to their plenty and 
 prosperity as to their numbers, I shall not again in- 
 quire. In the mean time, the idea of sending num- 
 bers of our fellow-subjects to distant regions, in 
 search of a precarious bread, is nothing less than a 
 vestige of that ignorant barbarism, which the principle 
 I am opposing is making a strong, but, I trust, a last 
 and ineffectual effort to perpetuate : an expedient 
 which has been often connected with injustice and 
 violence, and which, in its very nature, must ultimately 
 fail, when apparently the most necessary. Can it 
 therefore be resorted to consistently with the dictates 
 of sound policy, or reconciled with the permanent 
 designs of an eternal Providence ? 
 
 (3.) But if the scheme of thus transporting a cer- 
 tain number of its inhabitants is, in itself, revolting 
 to us, the plan proposed by which it is to be put 
 into execution, and the principle of dcteimining those 
 on whom the lot of being cast out of the country is to 
 fall, heighten our feehngs of hostility to it. Though 
 no assistance whatsoever is to be afforded to such 
 * Malte-Brun, book xcv. p. 87. 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 77 
 
 whom a very little capital would elevate into a state 
 of comfortable indastry at home, adding permanently 
 to the resources of the country^ and which^ as ex- 
 pended here, could not finally, no, nor presently, be 
 lost ; yet loans, it seems, are to be offered to such as 
 will go out of the kingdom^ which in many cases will 
 be inevitably sacrificed, as well as themselves. But 
 who are the description of persons who are to be 
 thus tempted and assisted to leave our shores, the 
 industrious or the idle ? the able-bodied or the weak? 
 the bees or the drones of society ? This, it seems, our 
 politicians have decided. Imagining the social edifice 
 to be overloaded, they actually propose to remedy 
 the evil by removing a part of its foundations ! 
 
 (4.) Though these ideas are sufficiently absurd^ they 
 are neither new nor peculiar to any state of population. 
 A philosopher of France, who may be quoted on 
 either side the argument in which I am engaged_, 
 says, in his flippant manner, that there are countries in 
 which a man is worth nothing, and others in which he 
 is worth less than nothing : it passes at present for a 
 proof of wisdom to pronounce this to be the predica- 
 ment of a human being in almost every nation, and 
 especially in our own ; and the destiny of thousands 
 is now to be decided by a pretty verbal antithesis. 
 Mr. Malthus is yet plainer in his dogmas than Montes- 
 quieu, and boldly assures the honourable committee, 
 that putting out of existence a thousand labourers 
 here and there, would, nationally speaking, be an 
 advantage \ Thank God, these notions arc as absurd 
 and impolitic as they are selfish and cruel. In whose 
 ' Third Emigration Report, p. 321, 3-246. 
 
78 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VII. 
 
 estimation is it, let us ask^ that a man is worth less than 
 nothing ? In that of his God ? No ! He values one such 
 at far beyond the worth of the material world ! But 
 this sort of valuation is perfectly ridiculous in the ears 
 of the political economist, who, in taking upon him- 
 self to regulate the population of time, regulates that 
 of eternity, a business to which he is equally called, 
 and for which he is quite as well qualified. But it is 
 the privilege of his luminous theory which is to dictate 
 the policy, and determine the worth, of human beings, 
 to make no references to a Deity ; and in'all his pro- 
 positions regarding them, he can therefore console the 
 statesman, as Mrs. Quickly did Sir John Faltsaff, 
 '^ Now I, to comfort him, bid him a* should not 
 think of God." Well, then, to forget God, and 
 to argue the question on mere personal and selfish 
 grounds : In the first, and infinitely the most im- 
 portant, view of the subject, man is worth every 
 thing to himself; and on what other than mere selfish 
 considerations do those argue, who hold the contrary 
 notion ? He is worth every thing to the little circle 
 by whom he is surrounded, who become all to each 
 other just in proportion as they have nothing else ; 
 and who feel the links that bind their hearts together, 
 the more indissoluble, in that they may have been 
 cemented in the furnace of affliction. Have I, then, 
 or any man, political economist or otherwise, any 
 right to pronounce my fellow-creature of no value, 
 because I cannot make it out to my satisfaction that he 
 is of any to me ? And, supposing I have come to this 
 complacent conclusion, has not such a one the right 
 of retorting the doctrine upon myself? and, if I am 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 79 
 
 disposed to act upon it, will he not ultimately appeal 
 to his manhood, and fatally convince me of my 
 error ? Do not I deserve to be convinced of it the 
 moment I am uttering the horrible idea ? Let me 
 endeavour, then, to learn, if I have never as yet known 
 it_, that it is not upon a principle of monopoly, but on 
 that of a kind copartnership, that the Deity hath 
 " given the earth to the children of men ;" and that I 
 have no more right to judge of the worthlessness of 
 human beings, on a principle of cruel selfishness, than 
 Cain had to act upon it K 
 
 (5.) But it has pleased Infinite Wisdom, in pity 
 to human weakness, to fortify the obligations of man- 
 kind, by invariably uniting them with their true inte- 
 rests. Hence, as it is our duty to love, and cherish, and 
 value our fellow-men, it is plainly our advantage so to 
 do. And, without re-entering upon the argument, 
 that mankind are not merely ecjually necessary to 
 each other as their number increases, but, owing 
 to the peculiar wants which civilization creates and 
 multiplies, that they become actually more so *, I shall 
 now shortly examine the notion of the worthlessness 
 of human beings, on a broad and general principle. 
 
 Our old-fashioned national economists calculated the 
 wealth of the country as principally consisting of the 
 number of its inhabitants ^ ; in the new school, human 
 beings still continue to be valued, but, as it respects 
 
 ' *' Everyman must live ! This argument, which has more or less 
 weight with every man, in proportion to his humanity, appears to 
 me to be unanswerable in regard to him who uses it." (Rousseau.) 
 
 * This is the case even in Ireland ; where the population is the 
 thinnest, the demand for labour is the least, and is, of course, the 
 worst remunerated. (See Report on the State of Ireland, Part 4th, 
 p. 445, &.) 3 gjj. ^ni. Petty's Polit. Arithmetic, &c. 
 
80 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VIII. 
 
 many of thcm_, by a kind of negative series. The former, 
 notwithstanding the sneers of the day_, I think^ is the 
 true mode on every rational view of the subject. 
 What, I would ask, is it, that creates that capital con- 
 cerning the definition of which so great a stir is made, 
 as to cause the thing itself to be nearly lost sight of? 
 Human labour. What then constitutes capital but 
 men ; and furthermore, what can alone give value to 
 capital, when created? Men. The exceptions from 
 that catholic law of nature which has constituted 
 human exertion the condition of subsistence, whether 
 those which wealth has absolved from the necessity of 
 its observance, or '^ the act of God," has rendered in- 
 capable of obeying it, are such as affect not the gene- 
 ral principle, except to confirm it. In every stage of 
 civilization, from the first rudiments of society to its 
 most perfect state, mankind have been ever found ne- 
 cessary to each other, and consequently not personally 
 only, but relatively valuable. 
 
 That this is not a mere theoretical view of the 
 subject, I appeal to all ages and countries of the 
 world. Mr. Malthus has told us (how erroneously 
 will be elsewhere shown) that Greece was sur- 
 charged with inhabitants. Never, however, did its 
 citizens regard the lowest, and infinitely the most 
 numerous class amongst them, *^ redundant," except- 
 ing w^hen they conceived them to be, on particular 
 emergencies, too formidable for their safety. On 
 the contrary, they were constantly making pre- 
 datory expeditions, one principal object of which 
 was the seizure of men ^, who were a profitable article, 
 
 ' Mitford, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 182. 
 
VI I.J AND TflElR REM ED IKS. 8 1 
 
 of sale amongst them. Xcnophon, in his Econo- 
 mics, recommends an addition of twenty thousand 
 shives at once to those ah'eady in the state of Athens^ 
 who^ it is calculated by some, outnumbered the free- 
 men about twenty to one^. Rome, in like manner, 
 imported men from different parts of the world in 
 vast numbers, at the very time when, were we to 
 believe the theory I am opposing, she was already 
 overwhelmed with peopled In England, likewise, 
 during the feudal system, when men were per- 
 sonal property, vastiim hominum et rerwn on an 
 estate, was, in the celebrated instrument Magna 
 Charta, regarded as an equal injury to its owner. 
 I dare say the serfs of Russia, appertaining to the 
 great proprietors of that country, are still similarly 
 estimated. As to the negroes in our sugar islands, 
 I presume I hardly need to state that such is the 
 manner in which they are regarded, namely, as valu- 
 able property. In Barbadoes there were, in 1820, 
 78,345 slaves, the island containing, it is said, 
 106,470 acres of land ; giving a population, ex- 
 clusively of the whites, far more than twice as 
 dense as that of Ireland \ The proprietors of the 
 island, meantime, complain, and, I dare say, very 
 
 ' Hume says ten : but on reference to Xenophon, it will be seen, 
 I think, that an additional ten thousand is mentioned, and that it 
 is proposed they should be further increased to sixty thousand. 
 (See lioeckh's Greece.) 
 
 "* See the authority for this proportion in Hume's Essay on the 
 populousness of ancient nations (Essays, vol. ii. p. 230) ; and in 
 Boeckh, who estimates the number of the slaves, compared with 
 that of the citizens, including the whole free population, as 100 
 to 27, (vol.i. p. 52.) 
 
 ^ Montesquieu, Causes of the Rise and Fall, &c., ch. viii. 
 
 'Sec Slave Population, Pari. Papers, 1824, No. 424; Coi- 
 quhoun's Wealth, cS:c. 
 
 G 
 
82 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ V*'- 
 
 truly_, of bad times ; but, supposing the apostles of 
 the emigration scheme were to send one of their 
 missioners to them, who should say to the Barba- 
 does planters, " Gentlemen, your distresses are great 
 and increasing ; but the cause is plain enough, you 
 are in this island overpeopled ; turn adrift some con- 
 siderable proportion of your hands, and the greatest 
 prosperity will certainly ensue." Why, the proposal 
 would be taken as pointblank proof of insanity. 
 " These hands," they would say, "though not so valu- 
 able and beneficial to us as might be wished, under 
 existing circumstances, are nevertheless our capital ; to 
 expel or destroy these is, indeed, a very simple proposal, 
 but it is one which would complete our ruin. What- 
 ever be our property, they constitute its principal part ; 
 whatever our profits, they are necessary to realize 
 them." "Aye," but suppose the theorist were to 
 say of a number of the helpless children who are, 
 doubtless, constantly rising in the colony, as it has 
 already advised should be done here, " at any rate 
 desert these children, and thereby prevent an undue 
 accumulation of people in future." "No!" it would 
 be replied, " these constitute our future stock." 
 " Well, but, at all events, you could ease your condi- 
 tion by saving the expense of any longer supporting 
 those who, it is certain, can no longer be profitable 
 to you, but must, in every sense of the word, be 
 superfluous ; such as are rendered incapable of future 
 labour, by hopeless disease or incurable accident, or 
 who are worn out by age and infirmity.*' " Yes," 
 they would reply indignantly, ^' we might so serve 
 ourselves, it is true ; but we abhor the proposition. 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 88 
 
 if not those who make it : we leave such conduct to 
 be recommended and practised by the political eco- 
 nomists of England, upon their brethren the whites, 
 if they dare. Bad as we are represented to be, there 
 is not a slave-driver in the Indies that would not 
 execrate the very idea of acting on such a principle." 
 (6.) Not to pursue the inquiry any further, we 
 may conclude, without the fear of contradiction, that 
 in no age or country of the world in which mankind 
 have been held in bondage, and been the property 
 of others, have they ever been deemed valueless. 
 The question, then, presents itself in a very definite 
 and simple form : does the condition of the labouring 
 classes deteriorate as society advances in improve- 
 ment ? Do they sink in actual and individual value, 
 just in proportion as they rise in the social scale ? 
 Can so disgraceful a question demand a reply in these 
 days; did it ever require one? None can doubt but 
 that, if all their rights and privileges were annulled, 
 and the labouring classes of the community were 
 again to become the living chattels of their superiors, 
 they would, as before, be reckoned valuable to the 
 latter ; and if so, it will admit of no dispute, but that, 
 as freemen, they are now worth more to the body 
 politic than would be their aggregate value to private 
 individuals, just in the same proportion as free labour 
 is always more profitable and productive than com- 
 pulsory. The most ancient of poets says, 
 
 '' Jove fix'd it certain that the very day 
 Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away;" 
 
 and the father of prose asserts the same thing\ But 
 
 ' Herod., Terps., Ixxviii. 
 
 G2 
 
84 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VII 
 
 our moderns, full of the wondrous improvement ot 
 the times, and of the vast advantages of free labour, 
 in a national as well as individual point of view, 
 would have us to believe^ nevertheless, that the day 
 which makes man a freeman takes all his worth 
 away, nay, actually reduces him in value to less than 
 nothing, and makes it a national object to get rid of 
 him. 
 
 A subject of such infinite importance to human 
 beings ought not to be hastily dismissed ; let us, 
 therefore, inquire to whom it is, constituted as society 
 now is, that the least of these our brethren is thus 
 utterly valueless, and worse. At a period when it 
 seems to be the absurd and ruinous policy of too 
 many to deal with the great national interests sepa- 
 rately; and not only as distinct, but as adverse to 
 each other, let us so far follow their pernicious exam- 
 ple, as so to address them. First, then, I ask, ye 
 agriculturists, who have, unhappily, as early con- 
 verts to political economy, long acted upon the 
 principle I am opposing, as far as you could, by 
 engrossing farms, and degrading the lesser tenantry 
 into labourers, and these again into paupers, and 
 murmuring many of you that you are not allowed to 
 desert the poverty which you have been active in cre- 
 ating ; I say, 1 ask you, whether there are too many 
 mouths in the country at large for you to supply : on 
 the contrary, whether all your representations and re- 
 monstrances do not imply the contrary, and establish 
 the fact of an over-production in reference to the de- 
 mand, or, in other words, to the number of the inha- 
 bitants at large ? Do you think that a general thinning 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 85 
 
 of the people would serve you, or, if not, that we 
 must quit a certain number of them in particular 
 spots, just as you shall point them out, with a view 
 to subserve your particular views and interests ? 
 Next, T would address my inquiry to the handicrafts 
 and manufacturers : have ye too many human beings 
 to supply with clothing, furniture, and all the other 
 conveniences of life, of your fabrication ; and would 
 your business be benefitted, think ye, if the Emigra- 
 tion Committee could tithe your countrymen, who 
 comprehend the vast majority of your customers, a 
 few times over ? That man^ methinks, would have 
 as slight a claim to common sense as to humanity, 
 who should so argue. Your complaint is, that your 
 markets are too confined, and your customers too 
 few ; and it is one, I fear, which will increase, or at 
 least frequently return, while you are taught to seek 
 relief as at present. Divided as your different kinds 
 of labour are, the demand and supply of each neces- 
 sarily finding their proper level, and being in all cases 
 strictly reciprocal, it is obvious that the producer 
 and consumer are identified. It is, therefore, a some- 
 what singular method of mending trade, to ship off 
 a few hundred thousands of your best and surest cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 (7.) All this is sufficiently absurd, yet such is the 
 real fact : our agriculturists, our artisans, and our 
 manufacturers, if they be of the illuminati, all concur in 
 throwing their distresses, fancied or real, upon over- 
 flowing numbers, though, if you inquire of each par- 
 ticularly, you shall find that the notion is only held 
 by them as it respects their own particular ela!?s ; the 
 
86 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VII. 
 
 Others, their custoiners_, they pronounce to be too 
 few. Thus^ for example, a fraternity of tailors, in a 
 town, complaining of dull trade, naturally lay it to 
 the charge of too large a population. Supposing, 
 then, the fates were to become propitious, and sever 
 with their shears the vital thread of half the entire 
 inhabitants, including, of course, a like proportion of 
 themselves ; would the latter, though diminished thus 
 in numbers, have an additional stitch of work, seeing 
 that their customers had disappeared in the like pro- 
 portion ? They know better. It is the size of the 
 tailoring population of which they complain : they 
 leave it to the political economists to apply the prin- 
 ciple generally \ 
 
 Some, however, I am aware, argue most profoundly 
 that it is poverty alone of which the country ought to 
 be purged ; as if poverty were not inherent in the 
 constitution of human society, and as if, were it pos- 
 sible to eradicate it, that it were desirable : neither of 
 which is the fact. Amongst all the ordinations of 
 Providence, nothing is more certain, and, perhaps, 
 could we see far enough into its dispensations, nothing 
 more wise than its irreversible fiat," the poor shall never 
 cease out of the land." But, as to the question im- 
 mediately before us ; the redundancy even of these, 
 in reference to our national industry, is, I think, very 
 
 ' Mr. Malthus, indeed, talks that the prudential restraint, if 
 generally adopted, " by narrowing the supply of human labour in the 
 market, would, in the natural course of things, soon raise its price." 
 The very proposition, common as it is to our political economists, 
 contains a similar self-contradiction. Pray, would not the market 
 of demand be narrowed in precisely the same ratio as the market 
 of labour, by the general adoption recommended ? The contrary 
 supposition is too absurd to need notice. 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 87 
 
 fallaciously determined by many. The poor^ we arc 
 not to forget, are consumers to the amount of their 
 entire expenses ; and, of the several millions which 
 they cost the country, almost every fraction is redistri- 
 buted amongst the industrious classes of the com- 
 munity ; which we are not sure would be the case, at 
 least to anything approaching the same proportion, 
 were that sum retained by the wealthy, from whom 
 it is now taken, or returned to them. No inconsi- 
 derable part of it would then, doubtless, find its way 
 into the pockets of foreign artisans, or indeed, in nu- 
 merous instances, be altogether disbursed abroad. 
 True it is, that only a part of the rates expended in 
 sustaining the poor is in the first instance expended 
 in payment of labour ; but it is not so clear a point in 
 political economy, that this is an unmingled evil, as 
 it is in other respects. If the market of labour is at 
 present fully supplied, it is not quite certain but that 
 throwing additional hands into it would be preju- 
 dicial. On higher motives, however, than mere in- 
 terest can suggest, all relief should be rigidly con- 
 fined to, and connected with labour ; excepting in 
 cases where the party to be relieved is incapable of 
 rendering it : but it should be such labour as would 
 in no case interfere with the demand for it now 
 existing. But I am wandering from the point ; and 
 I would, therefore, simply repeat here, that even the 
 circulation which the system of sustaining our poor 
 occasions in articles of internal industry solely, could, 
 I think, hardly be dispensed with, if cither humanity, 
 policy, or even safety, would warrant us in making 
 
H8 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VI f. 
 
 the experiment of transporting them, an expedient 
 which has been recommended long ago. 
 
 (8.) Further : how does patriotism relish the pro- 
 posal of these vast deportations of our countrymen ? 
 The defence and glory of the nation, once the first 
 objects of all states, and especially of our own, have 
 not, it may be hoped, become quite obsolete ideas. 
 The occasions which called them forth have been too 
 recent and too portentous to allow them, one would 
 think, to be entirely forgotten. In the late period 
 of trial, then, and a long and tremendous one it was, 
 while the combatants trembled at each other's 
 resources, courage, and perseverance, and the world 
 looked on in fearful and agitating suspense as to the 
 issue ; then, I say, when England had, perhaps, for 
 the first time, in her eventful history, to put forth 
 her utmost strength for her preservation, (and, thank 
 God ! it sufficed,) had she, I ask, ye politicians, too 
 many arms raised in her defence, too many hearts 
 engaged in her cause ? I would rather ask the anti- 
 populationists whether, if she had listened to their 
 system, and had had fewer, she would have weathered 
 the storm r But, forgetting the past, with all the load 
 of gratitude it lays us under to the population of the 
 empire, " now the hurly burly's done," and England 
 is reduced to a state approaching to exhaustion, partly 
 owing to her long continued exertions, has she, I 
 would ask the statesman, too many to sustain the 
 load entailed upon her, or amongst whom to divide 
 the accumulated demands which are perpetually made 
 upon her resources ? I trow not, and think such 
 
VII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. HI) 
 
 should be the very last so to determine, for reasons 
 whieh I shall not now particularize. 
 
 Lastly, I appeal to nature and to God, whether, in 
 this country, human beings are superfluous. Let the 
 thirty millions of uncultivated acres, out of the 
 seventy-seven which these islands comprise, as well as 
 those boundless unimproved '^^ wastes of the ocean" by 
 which they are surrounded, to use Lord Bacon's 
 expression, finally answer this question. If you want 
 food, therefore, here it is to be obtained in supplies 
 that defy calculation ; if you want labour, here it pre- 
 sents itself to an unlimited extent, and of the most 
 practicable as well as beneficial kind. But our poli- 
 tical economists, disgusted with proposals so obvious 
 and natural_, turn from them, like Naaman did from 
 the prophet in contempt ; and require some great and 
 imposing remedies to be applied, some mysterious 
 incantations to be pronounced, and cruel rites to be 
 performed, in order to the relief of our country. 
 Above all, it seems, we are now to seek relief in an 
 expedient which has hitherto been regarded as one of 
 the deepest of human punishments, and the most un- 
 equivocal proofs of the divine displeasure, the expulsion 
 and final dispersion of part of the tribes of our Israel. 
 
 And who, let me again ask, is it proposed to send 
 forth ? Helpless infancy ? I believe not. Decrepit 
 age and incurable disease ? Certainly not ; we are 
 hardly, as yet, prepared to remove the poor from our 
 presence when debilitated by weakness and disease; 
 as it is said was the practice of the Romans who ex- 
 posed such ill the ible of iEsculapiu^ '. No. The 
 
 ' ^iiot..iii Claud,, c. 2.^, 
 
90 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VII. 
 
 emigrants are to be composed of the able-bodied, the 
 young, and the healthful ; in a word, the elite of the 
 empire, these are to be bribed, starved and conveyed 
 out of the country. Such are they whom the standard 
 of emigration is unfurled to collect ; and a bounty of 
 a sixty-pounds loan offered ; artd while it is mustering 
 its recruits, its language is, '^ let the dead bury their 
 dead, follow thou me !" 
 
 (9.) But the impolicy of the scheme, after all, is 
 nothing to its cruelty. That, though inflicting much 
 injury on the interests of the country, would, on the 
 principles previously laid down in this book, remedy 
 itself; but this is irreparable. What has been pre- 
 viously said on this particular subject may be here 
 repeated ; that the capitalists are they who ought to 
 emigrate, if they are so disposed, and not the indus- 
 trious labourers, who, under proper encouragement, 
 may subsist anywhere ; and that this is a just view of 
 the subject, however much it may clash with that of 
 our present projectors, I appeal to the entire annals 
 of emigration \ If humanity have anything to do 
 with the business, this point has been long decided. 
 To allude to the early emigrations from Ireland; Arch- 
 bishop Boulter says : " Of these, possibly one out of 
 ten may be a man of substance, and may do well 
 enough abroad, but the case of the rest is deplorable^." 
 So it still continues. There now lies before me a 
 mass of evidence which I have collected on this point, 
 
 * Graham, Rise and Progress of the United States, vol.i. pp. 30, 
 68, 185, 303, &c. Burke, America, vol. ii. pp. 144, 219. Raynal, 
 Hist, des Indes, torn. vii. 1. 13. p. 43. 
 
 ^ Archbishop Boulter, Letters, vol. i. pp. 260, 261. 
 
VII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 91 
 
 but which I shall, however_, refrain from copying ; tlie 
 general fact of the great distress which has hitherto 
 accompanied these deportations, whether to Africa or 
 America, is now too well known to require me to 
 harrow up the feelings of my readers in proving it. 
 The sufferings which have been thus occasioned have 
 been, hitherto, beyond calculation greater than those 
 which a similar number would have been exposed to 
 in the country from whence they have been sent. 
 This distressing fact it behoves the advocates of emi- 
 gration to know, and, if they know, not to conceal. 
 The miserable condition of our poor emigrant country- 
 men has long called forth the pity of even those 
 strangers amongst whom they have taken refuge ; and^ 
 we are assured, has subjected the latter to those 
 onerous burdens to which they have generously sub- 
 mitted in their behalf. The late accounts of the mor- 
 tality and distress amongst these unfortunate exiles in 
 Halifax, Nova Scotia, is but a continuation of the mise- 
 ries which they have been long subject to ; previous 
 ones from Southern Africa have not been of a much 
 more cheering nature. Nor is it from books or public 
 prints alone that this information is derived ; most of 
 us have had some opportunities of obtaining it person- 
 ally, and from private quarters, and not unfrequently 
 from the lips of the sufferers themselves ; informa- 
 tion, I confess, which is quite sufficient to rouse one's 
 feelings in afterwards opening upon florid representa- 
 tions, illustrated with beautiful maps, which do any- 
 thing rather than truly represent to individuals, who 
 have never been beyond these shores, the destiny that 
 awaits manv of them .. if thi v leave their native hiiid. 
 
92 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ Vlll. 
 
 Let the Poyais stock fluctuate on 'Change as it may ; 
 and the Cacique of, I forget what territory, dispose of 
 his allotments to the poor dupes, our countrymen, as 
 he can, (though, I think, " this also is an iniquity to 
 he punished hy the judges") ; hut let not the British 
 parhament he any longer accessary to the act of 
 decoying out of the country its real friends and 
 defenders. Such are never superfluous ; a time may 
 not he distant when it can still less dispense with them, 
 even than at present ; and even now we presume to 
 think all the resources of the empire are not more than 
 necessary to its welfare and preservation. 
 
 Many other reasons might be adduced in proof of 
 the position^, that the first remedy proposed, of ame- 
 liorating the condition of Ireland by expatriating 
 numbers of its people, never did aforetime, nor will 
 at present, conduce to that end ; but, on the contrary, 
 would inevitably aggravate the distresses under which 
 it has long continued to labour. 
 
 VIII. (1.) The second proposition of our politi- 
 cal economists in favour of that country, is, the en- 
 larging, or, as formerly expressed, the " engrossing" 
 of farms, by annihilating the small tenures which are 
 at present numerous in that country : which operation 
 has now a particular term to express it, and is called 
 ^* clearing ;" a very emphatic phrase, as connected 
 with its consequences. Hume somewhere says, " the 
 comparison between the management of human be- 
 ings and cattle is shocking;" but what terms can 
 convey the natural disgust one feels when the compa- 
 rison is between human beine^s and vermin r The 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 93 
 
 rage, however^ is for '^'^ clearing" estates in Ireland from 
 these human vermin^ as a meritorious sort of act, and 
 the chief means of relieving the country ; the proposal 
 must consequently he examined a little. 
 
 (2.) As to the cruelty of this scheme^ it far exceeds 
 the former one. In order duly to estimate it, we must 
 attend for a moment to the condition in which the 
 little agricultural tenant is placed. Unlike all others, 
 whatever be their industrious pursuits^ he is virtually 
 at the mercy of one individual_, his landlord ; and if 
 that fails him_, he is at once bereft of the means of 
 subsistence, of his daily labour, and of the house that 
 shelters him and his family ; which, if he be an Irish 
 tenant, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he built 
 himself^; in a word, deprived at once of the benefit 
 of his past exertions, and of all his future hopes. But 
 when a number of such are " cleared" at once (to 
 adopt the significant phrase used in the Emigration 
 Committee^ and which we learn is now the true 
 patriotic practice) ; a crowd comprised, of course, of 
 both sexes and of every period of life^ from helpless 
 infancy to decrepit age, including those in the prime 
 of their days, to whom, however^ health and youth are 
 of no avail, for there is no employment to be obtained, 
 nor any refuge or relief to be found for the wanderers ; 
 I question whether the broad eye of God beholds upon 
 the fiice of the earth a greater mass of misery than is 
 constantly created by these " clearances." Could we 
 take from them a single case, and trace its history, 
 from the expulsion of the unfortunate wretch from his 
 
 ' See Right Hon. Charles Grant's Speech on the Stale of 
 Irchind, April 22, 1822; Hansard, vol. vi. p. 1.507. 
 
94 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 native home, ^^ through all his wanderings round this 
 world of care," as his own beautiful poet expresses 
 himself, driven from place to place, and branded as a 
 fugitive and a vagabond everywhere, till his pilgrimage 
 in search of employment and of bread closes, perhaps, 
 in another hemisphere, amidst strangers, who " give 
 him a little earth for charity," I am persuaded few of 
 those high-wrought cases of fictitious distress which oc- 
 casionally awake our ready sympathies could approach 
 the touching^ reality which the story would present. 
 
 The difference, therefore, between emigrations and 
 these clearances is, that the latter exhibit a far more 
 summaiy and unfeeling method of effectuating the 
 same purpose. In the former case "the simple folk" 
 are to be solicited, and in some sort bribed out of 
 the country ; means of escape are placed within their 
 reach; allotments in a land flowing with milk and 
 honey are proffered, (though, alas ! many of those who 
 have gone forth, have perished in the wilderness) ; but 
 in these drivings, "clearances," or whatever they may be 
 called, the exile is involuntary. Whatever be the nature 
 of the crime in the eyes of those who hold that "they 
 have no business to be where they are V and who act 
 upon that opinion, the punishment is, in fact, a severer 
 form of that which is in most cases awarded as the 
 sentence upon felony. Political economy has, on the 
 one hand, inveighed against a large population, and, 
 on the other, against small farms ; and its converts 
 have acted upon the palatable doctrine. The population 
 have been expelled from their native fields like a drove 
 of oxen, driven they knew not where, and withstood 
 ' Malthus, Essay, p. 531. 
 
'^ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 95 
 
 wherever they have attempted to take refuge. The 
 fires have been quenched upon thousands of hearths, 
 and the ploughshare now drives over the foundations 
 of many a humble abode^ which was once the refuge of 
 peace and happiness. Some of the wretched sur- 
 vivors may, perhaps, linger amongst the ruins of their 
 former habitations ; but most of them have to seek 
 refuge elsewhere, some in this country, some across 
 the Atlantic ; whither they were conveyed in vessels 
 more crowded than slave-ships, in which many of 
 them constantly expired, till even the humanity of 
 strangers was excited, and the legislature of America 
 interfered in their behalf, to protect them on their 
 passage, and succour the survivors on their arrival ^ 
 These became the slaves and drudges of America^, till 
 premature death, in some form or other, and generally 
 in its most appalling one, poverty and desolation, ter- 
 minates their hapless story ^ This may be deemed an 
 overcharged statement; in many cases it is far other- 
 wise. One principal branch of the subject, which I 
 have elsewhere undertaken, has been to inquire into 
 the extent of emigration to America, in order to 
 answer the theory which is compelled, in defence of 
 its fancied doublings, to pronounce it " immaterial," 
 and the examination has incidentally presented me 
 with this melancholy picture of the fate of the less 
 fortunate exiles of Erin, whom, for at least a century 
 past, these clearances have expelled from her sbores. 
 
 ' " There were 246 Irish paupers in tlie New York workhouse, 
 April 1st, 1813." (Dr. Dwight's Travels, vol. iii. p. 449.) 
 
 " The paupers in the United States are chietiy foreigners." 
 (Warden, Statist. Ace. of the United States, vol. i. p. r>\ ; ii. p. 83.) 
 
 ' I/nd. vol. iii. p. 192, &c. ^ Ibid. vol. i. i)p. 209, 269. 27 2, c"C'e. 
 
96 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ VIII. 
 
 (3.) It would be well if those who are either the 
 advocates of clearing farms in Ireland, or the actors 
 in so cruel a scheme, would advert to the condition of 
 that country. They should recollect that, owing to 
 the rapacious conduct of too many of the landowners, 
 the cruel system of subletting, and, above all, the 
 base desertion of the country by those who derive their 
 all from it, no labour worth speaking of, except what 
 agriculture supplies, is demanded or encouraged in 
 Ireland. To expel a number of these tenants at once 
 is, therefore, to send them forth to certain destitution. 
 Such would be the casein England, were England simi- 
 larly circumstanced ; so it was, indeed, when she was 
 so in times past. Lord Bacon strongly inveighed 
 against '^ engrossing large pasturages ;" but, notwith- 
 standing humanity, policy, and even the legislature 
 then discouraged the evil, we find it was still preva- 
 lent, and its consequences were, what they now are, 
 deplorable in the extreme. Hear Sir Thomas More 
 on this intensely touching case : '^ Therefore is it," 
 says he, " that one covetous and unsatiable cormorant, 
 and very plague of his native country, may compass 
 about and enclose many thousand acres of ground 
 within one pale or hedge ; the husbandmen be thrust 
 out of their own, or else either by covin and fraud, or 
 violent oppression, they be put besides it; or by 
 wrongs and injuries they be so wearied, that they be 
 compelled to sell all. By one means, therefore, or by 
 other, either by hook or by crook, they must needs 
 depart away, poor, silly, Avretched souls ! men, wo- 
 men, husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, 
 woeful mothers with their young babes, and the whole 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 97 
 
 household, small in substance, and much in number 
 as husbandry requireth many hands. Away they 
 trudge, I say, out of their known and accustomed 
 houses, finding no place to rest in ; all their house- 
 hold stuff, which is very little worth, though it might 
 well abide the sale ; yet being suddenly thrust out, 
 they be constrained to sell it as a thing of nought. 
 And when they have wandered abroad till that be 
 spent, what can they then do but to steal, and then 
 justly, pardy, be hanged, or else go about a begging? 
 And yet then also they be cast into prison as vaga- 
 bonds, because they go about and work not ; whom 
 no man will set at work, though they never so wil- 
 lingly prefer themselves thereto ^" 
 
 So far the authority of More on the effects of 
 " clearing" in England in his time, which was before 
 other and sufficient sources of employment were 
 developed. To suppose that this intrepid patriot was 
 either ignorant of the cause of the distress that per- 
 vaded the kingdom at that period, or that he exagge- 
 rated its extent, would argue but little in favour of our 
 own knowledge of the history of the country. Of 
 these poor fugitives, who, as he tells us, were neces- 
 sitated to become purloiners, w^e learn that " 72,000 
 great and petty thieves were put to death in the reign 
 of Henry VIII ^." In Ehzabeth's time, we arc informed 
 "^ rogues were trussed up apace, and that there \vas 
 not a year commonly, wherein three or four hun- 
 dred of them were not devoured and eaten up by the 
 gallows in one place or another." Strype, speaking of 
 
 ' More, Utopia, vol.i. pp. 59, 60,01. 
 * Hollingshed, Pescription of England, vol. i. p.l8G. 
 
98 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ VIII. 
 
 one county only, Somersetshire, says, " forty persons 
 had been there executed, in a year, for robberies, thefts, 
 and other felonies ; thirty-five burnt in the hand ; thirty- 
 seven whipped ; 183 discharged ; and that those that 
 were discharged were wicked and desperate persons. 
 Notwithstanding this great number of indictments, 
 the fifth part of the felonies committed in the county 
 were not brought to trial, owing to the remissness 
 of the magistrates, or the foolish lenity of the people. 
 The rapines committed by the infinite number of the 
 wicked, wandering, idle people were intolerable to the 
 poor countrymen, and obliged them to a perpetual 
 watch of their sheepfolds, pastures, woods, and corn 
 fields. The other counties in England were in no 
 better condition than Somersetshire, and many of 
 them were even in a worse : there were at least three or 
 four hundred able-bodied vagabonds in every county, 
 who lived by theft and rapine ; and who sometimes met 
 in troops to the number of sixty, and committed spoil 
 on the inhabitants : if all the felons of this kind were 
 reduced to subjection, they would form a strong army r 
 the magistrates were awed, by the association and 
 threats of the confederates, from executing justice on 
 the offenders ^" Sir F. M. Eden quotes this passage 
 in his history of the poor, as exhibiting the state of 
 the kingdom at large, and plainly attributes it to want 
 of employment for ^^the superfluous hands which were 
 not required in agriculture*," owing to the ^' engross- 
 ments" Lord Bacon alludes to. I would simply direct 
 the consideration of our anti-populationists, especially 
 
 ^ Strype, Annals, vol. iv. p. 290. 
 ^ Eden, Hist, of the Poor, vol. i. pp. 110, 1 11 . 
 
VIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 09 
 
 those who arc busying themselves about Ireland, to 
 these facts ; the history of that unhappy country has . 
 continued to the > present day the practical comment 
 upon their pernicious principles: the same state of 
 things would assuredly have continued here^ if the 
 population, thus " driven," had not ultimately found 
 employment and bread, and by means which the sys- 
 tem at present adopted in Ireland necessarily with- 
 holds from her wretched inhabitants. 
 
 (4.) But as it respects that country, not only has 
 the entire system of administering the landed property, 
 especially that part of it called " clearing," inflicted 
 private wrongs of the most fatal character, but it has 
 been most assuredly the fruitful source of those 
 public outrages which have so long disfigured the 
 annals of that unhappy country. I am aware that 
 some Irish landlords, and their apologists, have very 
 dexterously attributed these outniges to the tithing 
 system, as if any body upon earth could believe that 
 such landlords as they generally are, in respect of nine- 
 tenths of the produce, would be kinder than ecclesi- 
 astical ones, were they put into possession of the 
 remaining tenth : but more concerning this proposi^ 
 tion hereafter. To mention a few of these fatal dis-. 
 turbances and insurrections. That in Munster, in the 
 year 1760, originated in the oppressive treatment of 
 many landed proprietors, especially in their turning 
 adrift vast numbers^of the old tenantry of the province, 
 '* in order to throw many farms into one," to obtain, 
 if possible, a greater " surplus produce,'* to use the 
 phraseology of the day. Numbers were thus at 
 once deprived of their ancient holdings, probably the 
 
 II -2 
 
100 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 possessions of their forefathers : they were called level- 
 lers ; and several years elapsed before they were put 
 down, and not before many of them were indeed levelled 
 and put down for ever laid in their native earth. One 
 of the Irish historians thus describes this insurrection : 
 " It was occasioned by the expulsion of great num- 
 bers of labouring peasants, destitute of any regular 
 means of subsistence by any other species of industry, 
 while those who remained unexpelled, or procured 
 small spots of ground, had no means of paying the 
 exorbitant rents, even by labour, the pay of which was, 
 by the smallness of the demand_, beyond all due pro- 
 portion low. The misery of these cottagers was com- 
 pleted when they were, by inclosures_, deprived of com- 
 monage, which to many had been at first allowed. 
 Numbers of them secretly assembled in the r.ight, and 
 vented their fury on objects ignorantly conceived to 
 be the causes of their misery ^" I hardly know whe- 
 ther this insurrection was the same with that of the 
 white-boys ; in their cause^ however, they were iden- 
 tified ; which was the intolerable oppression of the 
 landed proprietors ^. In 1763 and 1764, the hearts-of- 
 steel appeared. This fatal insurrection was likewise 
 excited by the cruelty of the same class^ exercised 
 through the medium of their subordinate agents^ the 
 middle-men, who demanded excessive fines, and racked 
 the old tenants to an extent utterly beyond their power 
 to pay. They were cleared. ^' The hapless peasants 
 being thus abandoned, gave way to the impulse of their 
 
 > Gordon, Hist, of Ireland, vol.ii. pp. 240, 241. 
 ^ Campbell, Phil. Survey of Ireland, p. 304. Wakefield's Account 
 of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 9. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 101 
 
 ungovernable passions, and vented their fury on those 
 whom they considered as their oppressors. These 
 commotions" (I am quoting Mr. Wakefield at pre- 
 sent) " afford a striking and melancholy proof of the 
 country at the time they took place : and as they arose 
 from causes unconnected with public measures, may 
 convince those who ascribe every evil they experience 
 to the government, that national misfortunes depend 
 more 07i the conduct of individuals than is general Ij/ 
 believed or admitted^ T To pass over many minor dis- 
 turbances, the Right'Boi/s appeared in about 1786, 
 and marched in hostile bodies of hundreds, and some- 
 times thousands. The real origin of this insurrection 
 may be best given in the words of the then attorney- 
 general of Ireland, the Right Honourable John Fitz- 
 gibbon, who declared in his place in the Irish com- 
 mons house on that occasion, that though tithes had 
 been mentioned as the cause of it, yet such was not 
 the fact, but that it arose from " the peasants being 
 ground down to powder by exorbitant rents, w ho were 
 so far from being able to pay their dues to the clergy, 
 that they possessed not food or raiment for them- 
 selves." In a word, he boldly threw the wretchedness, 
 misery, and guilt he described, at the door of their in- 
 exorable landlords *. These were again cleared and 
 put down. I shall not attempt to enumerate the whole 
 of these events ; but will only mention another case 
 of a public nature ; the private and individual suf- 
 ferings inflicted by this system are of course never 
 heard of or recorded. The manner in which the 
 
 ' Wakefield, Account of Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 0, 10. 
 ' Gordon, Hist, of Irehnd, vol. li. pp. 299, 300. 
 
102 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 tenantry on the estates of a great Irish absentee in the 
 county of Limerick have been recently treated, caused 
 those disturbances which have but lately terminated. We 
 may judge how widely ^^ the peace of a county would be 
 affected, \^ha a body of twenty thousand tenantry were 
 thrown into astate of furious agitation*." The eminent 
 statesman I quote_, who was for a considerable time 
 officially connected with the country, fully sanctions 
 me in all I have said. Speaking of "the commotions 
 which for the last sixty years have toniiented and deso- 
 lated Ireland/' he pronounces that " they all sprung 
 immediately from local oppressions^." 
 
 Finally, then, who can doubt but that the elements 
 of the late Irish rebellion, whatever might be the mo- 
 tives of the prime agitators, were that neglect, and 
 cruelty^, and oppression, and consequent poverty and 
 distress_, under which the peasantry of Ireland had 
 groaned for so many generations ; when, in addition 
 to many public and political wrongs, fkncied or real, 
 so vast a number were smarting under the severer 
 inflictions of private injuries, or treasuring up the 
 remembrance of such as had been perpetrated upon 
 others dear to them, their parents, their families, their 
 friends. I have heard many, who, maintaining most 
 strongly the evident superiority of the protestant faith 
 and form of worship_, as well as the unrivalled privi- 
 
 Speech of the Right Hon. Charles Grant, in the House of 
 Commons, April 22, 1822. Hansard's Pari. Debates, vol. vi. 
 p. 1504. . 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 1505. For further proofs that absenteeism is the remote 
 cause of these outrages, and invariably impedes their cure, see all 
 the recent reports on that country. (State of Ireland, 4th Report, 
 pp. 550, 551, 573. Minutes of Evidence before the Lords, 1824 ; 
 pp. 8, 207, 376, &c.) 
 
VIU.] AND TIIEIU REMEDIES. 103 
 
 leges of the British constitution^ have expressed their 
 astonishment that the belief in the one, and attach- 
 inent to the other_, have not spread more generally, 
 and, indeed, become universal. A moment's consi- 
 deration, however, may abate their surprise : it is 
 quite sufficient to explain, that such are the religion 
 and government_, supported by nine-tenths, perhaps, 
 of the great proprietors of Ireland. Not another 
 word is necessary. 
 
 (5.) But it abundantly suffices to plead, not only in 
 extenuation, but in full justification of this conduct, 
 and all its fatal consequences, that the proprietors of 
 Ireland, in driving the little tenantry from their 
 farms, and clearing the country of as many inha- 
 bitants as possible, are only acting on the plainest 
 principles of political economy ; which would have 
 the country possessed, if it had its way, in some such 
 manner as a master of the ceremonies would people a 
 ball-room, that is, by a select few ; though it is not 
 quite clear how, in either case, the many could be 
 dispensed with. Agriculture was the first to imbibe 
 this palatable doctrine, and will, I fear, be the first to 
 suffer by it. Its short-sighted friends have invariably 
 admitted, that a minute system of cultivation is by far 
 the most productive ; but they hold, that what they 
 call the " surplus produce" is greater, the larger the 
 farms, or, in other words, the fewer persons are 
 employed upon the same extent of land. Even sup- 
 posing this were the fact, which, however, I entirely 
 disbeheve, do they think the question is to be thus 
 speedily decided, on a mere principle of self-interest ? 
 Supposing they can make it out clearly that one half 
 
104 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 the hands now employed in cultivating the land would, 
 if the moiety were turned adrift, leave rather more 
 surplus produce than is now obtained, it must be ob- 
 vious that that moiety must take refuge somewhere; 
 the manufacturing districts must receive them, most of 
 which, it is alleged, and I fear truly, are oveipeopled 
 at present, and from the operation of this very cause. 
 So far, perhaps, it will be said, that the owners of 
 land have a perfect right to do what they will with 
 their own ; which is a notion I shall not now pause to 
 discuss, further than to say, that it has probably been the 
 apology for more cruelty and oppression than all other 
 excuses put together. But then, when these gentle- 
 men have driven forth nearly all the little yeomanry, 
 and many of the labourers who have to follow other 
 and less natural pursuits, they refuse to allow these 
 in turn to do what they will with their own : on the 
 contrary, after having, without either pity or remorse, 
 expelled them from their ancient homes, and torn 
 asunder every other tie, they are nevertheless fully 
 bent on retaining their mercenary grasp upon them, 
 and consequently demand that they should lay out 
 with them all their earnings in their new callings, 
 though they will not give them, perhaps, one half of 
 the provision for the same sum that they could pro- 
 cure from those foreigners, on whom they have ren- 
 dered them dependent for employment and for bread. 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I am an advocate for 
 protecting every branch of British industry that needs 
 protection, and agriculture above all, as the most ne- 
 cessary, permanent, and profitable kind of labour ; but 
 i^t for a system which will calculate to a grain whe- 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 105 
 
 ther the same tract which sustains in comfort, peace, 
 and happiness a hundred thousand human beings, 
 might not yield a greater surplus, were half of them 
 dispossessed, no matter what became of them ; an in- 
 quiry which I never yet saw pursued, either by those 
 who make these proposals, or those who act upon them. 
 But let them only recollect, that those whom they 
 expel have still mouths_, and must be fed ; and I think 
 it may perhaps strike them, that, on national prin- 
 ciples, these computations may be erroneous, however 
 correct they seem in the estimation of individual 
 selfishness. 
 
 (6.) But I hope I have been able to show, through- 
 out this work^, that our individual interests, duly and 
 permanently considered, are identified with those of 
 the community, and that prosperity, public as well as 
 private, rests upon the solid foundation of humanity. 
 I would therefore remark that the plan of accumu- 
 lating farms has not answered. The inducements 
 held out to the proprietors have been falsified ; and, 
 in these trying times, they will appear more fallacious 
 every day. With the exception, perhaps, of the 
 better preservation of game (and that may often 
 be doubted), in all other respects they have been pre- 
 judicial to the owners. Smaller rents are invariably 
 paid for the larger farms ^5 and those rents, in bad 
 
 ' Alluding to that about to be publisbed, of which the present 
 treatise forms a part, as before mentioned. 
 
 ^ Complete English Farmer, p. 57. Winifrey's Rural Improve- 
 ments, pp. 289, 291, 409. Farmer's Letters, p. 121. Ency- 
 clopedia Britannica, Supplement, Art. Caithness. Col, AVood- 
 house. Times, May 7, 1822, &c. Dr. Macculloch, Highlands, 
 p. 28G. In this work the cruelty of " clearing," as well as its im- 
 policy, is forcibly pourtrayed. If then the smaller farms pay a 
 
106 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ VIII. 
 
 times, are paid with far less punctuality and cer- 
 tainty: but, above all^ the immense increase of the 
 poor rates in the agricultural districts_, since these 
 monopolies have .prevailed, and wherever they do 
 prevail (which the occupiers are perpetually urging 
 on the consideration of their . landlords, and which 
 certainly materially affect the interests of the latter*), 
 infinitely outweighs the paltry saving of keeping a 
 few farm-houses in repair. I beseech the great landed 
 proprietors of England, whom I believe to be, as a 
 class, the most humane to their dependents of any 
 description of persons, perhaps, in the world, to 
 reconsider this important question. Let them con- 
 sider the fallacious inducements which have been held 
 forth to them, utterly to destroy one of the most inte- 
 resting ranks of our countrymen, the yeomanry, thereby 
 evidently diminishing their own numerical and real 
 influence in the community. It was said by agents, 
 who did not relish the trouble of a numerous 
 tenantry^, by farmers who, in the times of high 
 prices, like so many Naboths, coveted their humble 
 neighbour's little possessions, that the lesser culti- 
 vators would be far better off as labourers. Have 
 such kept their word of promise either to the ear, the 
 sense, or the heart ? They have not ! If we can credit 
 the uncontradicted jevidence laid before a committee 
 
 larger proportionate rent, and pay it more punctually, what is the 
 fact, but a demonstration that such raise a larger, instead of a 
 smaller, surplus produce ? To assert the contrary is one of the 
 absurdities with which the modern system is loaded, and of which 
 this doctrine is as glaring an instance as that of the present notion 
 on absenteeship. 
 
 ' Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 57. 
 
 ^ See the Earl of Winchelsea's communication to the Board of 
 Agriculture, vol. i. p. 84. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 107 
 
 of the house of commons, it is a melancholy truth 
 that such labourers are in little better condition than 
 those of Ireland, having not a taste of animal food, 
 perhaps, in a month, and subsisting, by whole parishes, 
 if not counties together, upon public charity ^ ! 
 Meantime what has been gained? A once happy 
 village converted into a desolate habitation of pau- 
 pers, and the destruction of one of our most interest- 
 ing classes, compensated for by the creation of two 
 or three nondescripts, who, as wisely as their betters, 
 attribute the misery by which they are surrounded to 
 early marriages and a redundant population ^ 
 
 (7.) Though I trust I have been enabled to show else- 
 where the infinite superiority, in every point of view, of 
 minute cultivation ; yet, in respect to Ireland, as the 
 question at this moment involves the home, bread, 
 and life itself of multitudes of our fellow-subjects, I 
 will again allude to it. I shall not, however, now 
 enter upon the subject minutely or scientifically, but 
 content myself at present with appealing to the 
 experience of mankind, in past and present ages, who 
 upon this matter, whatever may have been their dark- 
 ness (as some suppose) on all others, cannot possibly 
 have been ignorant. Without recurring to the ex- 
 amples of Judea and Greece ^ I shall but slightly 
 mention that of Rome, where, in its better days, agri- 
 culture was illustrated by genius, and ennobled by 
 
 ' Report on Labourers' Wages, 1824. * Ibid. p. 30. 
 
 ' The area of Judea, reduced into English acres, and divided by 
 the number of the inhabitants, all of whom were agricultural, will 
 fully prove the early practice and the wonderful effects of minute 
 cultivation. If this appeal be disallowed, the same facts, relative 
 to the principal Grecian states, will afford the same demoustration. 
 (See particularly Boeckh's Athens, vol ii. p. 2-iS.) 
 
108 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VIII. 
 
 station, beyond what it has ever been since. The 
 shares represented as sufficient for the maintenance of 
 a Roman citizen^ tried in early life, my historical faith ; 
 and tlie farm of a Cincinnatus, and others, were to 
 me as so many splendid fables. I have now seen my 
 error, and, in gratefully subscribing to my own igno- 
 rance, bow to the sufficiency of nature, and the 
 creative energies of the representative of the Deity 
 man : neither of which, I will venture to say, have 
 had their productive powers fully developed, though 
 it has been the most pleasing part of a long and labo- 
 rious task to record indubitable instances of the 
 almost miraculous development of both, especially 
 as evidenced in the humbler walks of life \ Without 
 professing much erudition, I think I may venture to 
 assert that the best days of Rome were those when 
 the lands of Italy were the most minutely cultivated ; 
 and that the monopoly w^hich ensued was the pre- 
 cursor and, indeed, the occasion of the ruin of the 
 empire. But the poets, the philosophers, and the 
 patriots of Rome, unanimous on this point, sung and 
 wrote and pleaded in vain ; the panders of wealth, the 
 political economists of the day, prevailed. It was, 
 doubtless, the policy of these to recommend that the 
 lands of Italy should go out of cultivation, that pro- 
 perty should be engrossed, and that the people should 
 be supplied by importation ; and they had this argu- 
 ment in their favour, of which their successors are 
 totally destitute, the countries from whence they 
 derived their supplies were provinces of the empire, 
 and at their command. They prevailed ; and one of 
 ' In the Treatise about to be published. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 109 
 
 their noblest historians^ Tacitus^ laments that the 
 lands of Italy were passing out of cultivation, and that 
 the Hves of the Roman citizens were dependent upon 
 foreign suppHes, and placed at the mercy of the winds 
 and waves. On the subject of minute cultivation, 
 the Roman agricultural writers, who form a pecu- 
 liarly interesting class of authors^, were unanimous ^ : 
 times, however, are wonderfully changed, since the 
 cultivator of an estate from which a dictator of the 
 world was called, would now be deemed, if in Ireland, 
 a proper object to be '^ cleared," and, if here, a can- 
 didate for the workhouse ! But_, as such allusions to 
 past times may perhaps rather weaken than fortify 
 the argument, with those to whom I would address 
 myself, in behalf of minute cultivation_, I shall appeal 
 to the present experience of mankind, in those coun- 
 tries where it is at this moment being put to the 
 strictest test. Our statesmen are constantly in the 
 habit of instancing the policy of foreign countries on 
 far less important topics than that of the best means of 
 sustaining in plenty and contentment an overflowing 
 population ; this must be my apology, if any be 
 
 * One only of these I beg leave to quote, confident that what he 
 records illustrates a principle which human experience in all ages 
 and countries has fully illustrated and confirmed : *' Refert Groe- 
 cinus in libro de vineis, ex patre suo soepe se audire solitum, 
 Paridium quendam duas filias, et vineis consitum habuisse fun- 
 dum, cujus partem tertiam, nubenti majori filiie dedisse in dotem, 
 ac nihilo minus oeque magnos fructus ex duabus partibus ejusdem 
 fundi percipere solitum. Minorem deinde filiam nuptui collocasse 
 in dimidia parte reliqui agri. Ncc sic ex pristino reditu detrax- 
 isse. Quod quid conjicit ? Nisi melius scilicet postca cultam esse 
 tertiarn illam fundi partem quamantea universam." (Columella, de 
 Re Uustica, 1. iv. c. 3.) Nor is this more tiian a practical comment 
 on the principle laid down by a much earlier agricultural writer, 
 indeed the very earliest extant : TrXeov vnia-v Truiloi. 
 
no IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 necessary, in referring to the practice of those coun- 
 tries, where the smallest surface suffices to sustain 
 the largest numbers, and where, consequently, the 
 most perfect system of culture necessarily prevails. 
 
 (8.) Doubtless the little state of Lucca is the most 
 densely populated independent district in the civilized 
 world, and as such I have selected it, wherewith to 
 commence this practical demonstration. There are* 
 between three and four hundred inhabitants on the 
 square mile throughout. It was, even in Addison's 
 days, the most thickly peopled state in Italy ^; 
 and, as the laws of nature have equally operated 
 every where, and at all times, except where they have 
 been withstood, its condition corresponded. His 
 description of it is as follows : *' It is very plea- 
 sant to see how the small territories of this little 
 republic are cultivated to the best advantage, so that 
 one cannot find the least spot of ground that is not 
 made to contribute its utmost to the owner. In all 
 the inhabitants there appears an air of cheerfulness 
 and plenty, not often to be met with ^." Perhaps it 
 may be supposed that Addison knew nothing of 
 cultivation ; he could not, of course, compare it with 
 the present practice. A late writer, and one fully 
 competent on this point, will dispose of this objec- 
 tion. " The little state of Lucca," Forsyth says, " is 
 so populous, that very few acres, and those subject 
 to inundation, are allotted to each farmer in the plain. 
 Hence their superior skill in agriculture and drain- 
 ing ; hence that variety of crops in every enclosure, 
 which gives to the vale of Serchio the economy and 
 ' Addison, Italy, p. 308. "^ Ibid. p. 306. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. Ill 
 
 show of a large kitchen gardem." Would the advo- 
 cates for large farms in this country pay their land- 
 lords the rent the Lucchese do? That rent is two- 
 thirds of the whole produce, together with other 
 enormous burdens. The author I have just quoted, 
 after bringing proofs of the superiority of minute 
 cultivation, from a variety of quarters and different 
 periods, expresses his convictions as to the agricul- 
 tural state of Italy, which affords so great a variety, 
 as to its population and the size of its farms, in these 
 words : " Every state in the Peninsula is pro- 
 ductive, OR otherwise, in proportion to the 
 
 NUMBER OF FARMERS ON A GIVEN SPACE OF LAND, 
 
 EauALLY GOOD^" Nor is this the opinion of our 
 own countrymen merely, but, as far as I know, of 
 every intelligent foreigner who has written on the 
 subject. I would request the reader to refer to 
 Sismondi's account of the agriculture of Tuscany 
 and shall now only quote one other author, who 
 informs his readers that he did not traverse Italy in 
 order to speak of its edifices, its cities, or its monu- 
 ments, but to relate its rural history, and to describe 
 how its fields are cultivated, I mean Chateauvieux. 
 To the whole work of this highly gifted writer I 
 must refer ; it will well repay the trouble of the 
 perusal, by the pleasure as well as the instruction it 
 will aflbrd. It establishes, as it respects that most 
 interesting country, the fact, beyond contradiction, 
 that large farms, of which there are many of a vast 
 size in Italy, compared with the small ones, of which 
 happily there are more, invariably exhibit the most 
 
 ' Forsyth, Remarks on Italy, pp. 31, 32. * Ibid. 
 
112 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 slovenly, imperfect, and unproductive cultivation*; 
 while agriculture in detail is invariably crowned with 
 health, plenty, and happiness. He notices that the 
 general custom in Italy is to give half the produce in 
 kind as rent^ : I again ask our large farmers if they 
 could agree to this^? He gives it as his estimate, 
 that notwithstanding the density of the population of 
 some of these rural districts where minute cultiva- 
 tion prevails, at least three-fourths of the produce is 
 brought to market ^ Is this surplus produce ? I 
 wish I might quote from this author more at large, 
 as his evident knowledge of the subject would then 
 give his deliberate opinion the greater weight. 
 '' This system," he says, speaking of minute culture, 
 ^' possesses the advantage of bringing the greatest 
 quantity of produce to market. I make this asser- 
 tion in opposition to Arthur Young, who attributes 
 this advantage exclusively to large farms. But from 
 the accounts just presented, it is evident, in the 
 first place_, that the subdivision of the farms increases 
 at the same time the number of plantations, gardens, 
 and farm yards ; by which means abundance of minor 
 produce is obtained which is lost upon a large farm. 
 I am of opinion that not any country brings so large 
 a proportion of its produce to market as Piedmont." 
 (The population in Piedmont is 222 on the square 
 mile, in Great Britain 162.) " The number of farms 
 in Piedmont is surprising, and yet this limited coun- 
 
 ^ Chateauvieux, Description of the Rural Manners and Economy 
 of Italy, pp. 55, 86, 88, 89, 90. ^ Ibid. pp. 4, 15, 32. 
 
 ^ We learn from other quarters, that where the metairie system 
 does not prevail, the rents of little farms, paid in money, would 
 be here regarded as very high. (Hallam, Letters from Italy.) 
 
 * Chateauvieux, Travels in Italy, &c. p. 8. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 113 
 
 try, having a great part of its surface occupied by 
 mountains^ after satisfying its own wants, supplies 
 the territory of Genoa, Nice, and even the port of 
 Toulon with corn and cattle." (Is there anything 
 in the way of '* surplus produce " like this, excepting 
 the instance of poor Ireland ?) " Without making 
 an exact calculation, it is evident from this statement 
 that there must be a superfluity of produce in the 
 country, which must be attributed to its rural eco- 
 nomy rather than to its direct fertility, for the average 
 return of corn in Piedmont is not quite six for one*." 
 That economy he explains in one word minute culti- 
 vation ; and adds, on this subject, "^ the superiority 
 of the agriculture and rural economy beyond that of 
 perhaps every other country, and the phenomena of 
 its great population and extensive exportation of pro- 
 duce, will no longer appear extraordinary^." The 
 farms of Tuscany, he observes^ are not more than 
 from three to ten acres, (paying one half the produce 
 as rent) : he dwells upon their extraordinary produc- 
 tiveness, which he justly attributes to the thickly 
 planted habitations ^ He notices most emphatically 
 that "Italy supplies the political economist with les- 
 sons of wisdom "*;" ours, however, would denominate all 
 such the ravings of folly. Fie remarks upon the fatal 
 effects of depopulation on the happiness and pros- 
 perity, and especially the health of various parts of the 
 peninsula ; the latter he invariably connects with mi- 
 nute cultivation'^: that where the population disappears, 
 the destruction of the class of consumers soon ruins 
 
 ' Chatcauvicux, Description, &c. p- 8. 
 ' Ibid. p. 11 . ' Ibid. p. 32. ' Ibid. p. 93. ^ Ibid. p. 90. 
 
 I 
 
114 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VliI. 
 
 in return that of the producers; and contrasts this 
 state of things with those districts where numbers 
 create plenty and prosperity ^ I wish I could 
 insert his beautiful description of the reclamation of 
 the marsh in the Val di Chiana, consisting of about 
 three thousand acres belonging to the religious order 
 of St. Stephen. It seemed the most natural to throw 
 the whole into one grand domain, with a suitable man- 
 sion in the centre. But the Tuscans knew better 
 than thus to consign it to languor and inactivity. 
 They divided it into a number of small farms, the 
 extraordinary productiveness of which (for he visited 
 it in time of harvest), and the happy occupation of 
 the numerous families, its inhabitants, he describes 
 in a most pleasing manner. It just strikes me, 
 that, if the protestant order of St. Stephen's in this 
 country would follow the example of the Italian one, 
 and reclaim an Irish bog by way of trial, and thus 
 parcel it out amongst a number of meritorious inha- 
 bitants, the experiment might be better worth ha- 
 zarding, notwithstanding the uproar it would certainly 
 create amongst the political economists, than spend- 
 ing ten times the sum in expatriating an equal 
 number of the people^. But I must refrain from 
 further quotation of this interesting author : every 
 word of what he has written bears upon the argu- 
 ment in hand, and is the more valuable as proceeding 
 from one whose business it was to make these obser- 
 vations, and evidently qualified for the task, by a 
 thorough acquaintance with agriculture, theoretically 
 
 ' Chateauvieux, Travels, p. 50. 
 ' There would then be security for capital, rent, &c. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REVfEDIES. 115 
 
 and practically. In a country the most calculated of 
 all others to put the practice to the test, in which 
 every several district presented a demonstration of 
 the principle^ he found the ancient agricultural polity, 
 which is that of nature and of providence, fully justi- 
 fied ; and health, plenty^ and prosperity connected 
 with the cultivation of the surface of the earth, in, 
 comparatively speaking, minute subdivisions. 
 
 (9.) But of all the examples of successful cultiva- 
 tion the world holds forth, at least in modern times, 
 that of the Netherlands is unquestionably the most 
 interesting and important. Little^ it is true, has been 
 written on agriculture by the Flemings, its having 
 been their policy, as it is thought, to conceal their 
 superior georgics as much as possible ; but it has been 
 know for centuries past, that the modes of culture 
 practised there have been superior to those of all other 
 countries ; those who wished for improvement in this 
 most important branch of human industry, therefore, 
 had to proceed thither, and personally observe their 
 methods. This has been the practice with many for 
 ages past, and hence the various essential improve- 
 ments, whether in reference to the due and constant 
 rotation of crops, the use of artificial grasses, the 
 best stercoraceous system, in fact, all that conduces 
 to successful farming have been successively intro- 
 duced into other countries : in a word, Flanders has 
 been the university of agriculture. No wonder is it, 
 therefore, that, in so elaborate a work as the Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannica, we are specially directed to the 
 closest consideration of the agriculture of that country. 
 I wish, in the article on general agriculture, the prac- 
 
 I '2 
 
116 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [^Vlll. 
 
 tice of this particular district had not heen too much 
 lost sight of^ in reference to the system of extensive 
 farms ; my observations on the subject would then have 
 been rendered unnecessary. It is unhappily other- 
 wise. But, to quote from the Supplement ; in the arti- 
 cle on the Netherlands, the subject is thus prefaced : 
 " The agriculture of the Netherlands, which, even in 
 the northern portion, that was formerly the Seven 
 United Provinces, was more the foundation of its 
 
 WEALTH THAN EITHER MANUFACTURES OR NAVIGATION, 
 
 deserves the most close examination ; and merits 
 more detailed accounts than our limits will allow \" 
 
 That the agricultural economy of this country de- 
 mands the deepest consideration, especially in these 
 times and in this country_, in which so much is said 
 about excessive population in reference to the means 
 of subsistence, and (theoretically) about the principles 
 of political economy, is manifest, for these important 
 reasons : 
 
 1. The kingdom of the Netherlands is the most 
 densely peopled of any considerable countiy upon earth. 
 
 2. Its soil, notwithstanding that its amazing pro- 
 duce has been the means of spreading a very contrary 
 notion, is, on the unanimous authority of all writers 
 who have examined it, the reverse of prolific ; nay, 
 compared with that of the surrounding countries, it is 
 naturally untractable, sterile, and bad^. 
 
 ^ Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 66. 
 
 ^ Abbe Mann, on the Husbandry of the Netherlands, in Com- 
 munications to the Board of Agriculture, vol.i. p. 238. Baron de 
 Poederle ; ibid. p. 247. Puffendorf 's Introd. Hist. Europe, p. 261 . 
 Dr. Harte, Essays on Husbandry, pp. 69, 177. Louis Buonaparte, 
 Ex-King of Holland, Historical Documents, &c., pp. 14, 16. Many 
 others might be added. I shall thus sum up these authorities ; 
 
viri.] AND THEIR rp:mkdies. 117 
 
 3. That soil, though by no means universally cul- 
 tivated, has sufficed to feed and maintain its immense 
 population, and perhaps in more comfortable circum- 
 stances, generally speaking, than those of any other 
 country ; and to sustain^ likewise, the poor^ and per- 
 haps^ on the whole, quite as well as in England. 
 
 4. The surplus produce (to use the fashionable 
 term) of the rural population must be very great, 
 from the circumstance of so vast a number of the in- 
 habitants living in the cities and towns of the king- 
 dom ; but, to end all uncertainty as to estimates 
 founded on internal calculations, 
 
 5. " No country in Europe provides from its soil 
 so great a quantity of sustenance, not only for its in- 
 habitants, but so large a surplus of food for exporta- 
 tion_, and such valuable commodities to exchange for 
 articles of foreign growth, as Flanders ^" 
 
 6. So great has been that surplus, that it has of 
 late occasioned considerable distress to the cultivators, 
 in that they have not been enabled to dispose of the 
 whole of it elsewhere^; in the meantime^ it is impor- 
 tant to observe^ that they applied for and obtained 
 protection against foreign competition in their own 
 markets. " In the year 1824^ they petitioned the king 
 of the Netherlands, with a view to protection, to pro- 
 hibit the importation of foreign grain;" but in lieu of 
 
 " The land of Flanders was not naturally fertile : on the contrary, 
 the quality of it is such as merely to admit of fertilization, by a 
 series of operations more or less expensive and laborious. ^Vhere 
 cultivation has not been extended, the soil produces nothing but 
 heath and fir." (Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 86.) 
 
 ' Encyc. Brit., Sup., Netherlands, p. 68. 
 
 * Jacob, Travels in Holland, isLC. pp. 61), 70. 
 
118 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [VIII. 
 
 that he imposed, in anticipation_, an increase in the 
 duty upon it, afterwards confirmed hy the legislature, 
 amounting to four hundred per centum, compared with 
 that fixed eight years before K Our government has, 
 of late years, been pursuing an opposite policy; how 
 wisely, remains to be seen, or rather is now becoming 
 apparent. I think Mr. Jacob clearly points out, in a 
 book published but a little before his celebrated " Re- 
 port," some cogent reasons, as yet unanswered, why 
 the British agriculturist, compared with the Dutch, 
 demands far greater protection^. 
 
 I cannot forbear withdrawing the attention of the 
 reader from the immediate object in view, in order to 
 point out how sorry a figure the principle of popula- 
 tion, which I am opposing in this work, cuts, in the 
 very arena w^here it ought to triumph. Look at the 
 Netherlands, the most densely peopled kingdom upon 
 earth ; and of which Mr. Malthus has somewhere 
 said, or at least of Holland, that it does not keep up 
 its numbers by procreation, but is the grave-yard of 
 Germany ; possessing a soil by no means fertile, nor 
 yet wholly cultivated : have the tendencies and ratios 
 which I shall not restate, having already had so often 
 to repeat them, been manifested there ? Alas ! for 
 the mingled folly and falsehood of such a state- 
 ment : the distress, if, generally speaking, there be any, 
 we are assured arises, not from over-population_, but 
 over-production^, an evil which the true principle of 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers relative to regulations existing in foreign 
 countries in respect of the export and import of grain, Feb. 19, 
 1827, pp. 18, 19, 20. 
 
 ^ Jacob, Travels in Holland, &c. p. 69. 
 
 'Ibid. pp. 8,47, 52,70, &c. 
 
Vlir.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 119 
 
 human increase will redress, instead of aggravatinir, 
 as some ignorantly argue. 
 
 (10.) To come_, then^ to the immediate subject. 
 Seeing these facts, which are in themselves so impor- 
 tant and decisive, and sent, as we are, on all hands, 
 to this interesting part of the world, in order to have 
 the clearest insight into the best methods of produc- 
 tive agriculture : let us ask, what is the practice of 
 the Netherlanders in regard of the size of farms? It 
 requires but little research to satisfy ourselves on this 
 point. The farms, with hardly any exceptions, are 
 universally small; small, not merely in comparis'>n 
 with many which disgrace our present system, but 
 with ours in former times, a generation or two ago, in 
 the days of the honest yeomanry of England. In 
 Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture, we see those 
 consisting of thirty or forty acres spoken of as consi- 
 derable ; there were many, it is observed, of greater 
 extent, but then there were those which could not 
 keep a horse, and where the whole business was exe- 
 cuted by the spaded In some of the remoter and 
 more sterile districts, larger tracts may be allowed 
 to be in possession of the same individual ; but 
 even then, there are few farms which would be 
 called large in England ; while, in the more fertile 
 and best managed districts, the land is cultivated in 
 very small allotments, almost universally^, and these, 
 it is observed, diminish in size as the country becomes 
 
 ' Young, Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. pp. 222 251. 
 
 ' Abbe JNIann, Communications to ibe Board, &c. vol.i. pp. 224, 
 233, 245. Baron Pccderle ; ihid. p. 252. KadcliH'b Report 
 on the Agriculture of Flanders, pp. 44, 92, 227. 
 
120 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VIII. 
 
 richer. But, as it is obviously impossible for me to 
 enter minutely into this branch of the subject, how- 
 ever important, I will at once select the most produc- 
 tive and best cultivated district of this fruitful country 
 by which to put the question to the test. The Abbe 
 Mann, writing at a late period, says, " The agricul- 
 ture of the Pays de Waes passes, without contestation, 
 for the most complete and perfect in all the Nether- 
 lands ^" This district, Mr. RadclifF, in his "Report 
 of the Agriculture of Flanders," says, *^ is of merited 
 celebrity, and obviously beautiful to the eye, in 
 the garden-like appearance of its cultivation," exhi- 
 biting an unrivalled unity of system and operation^ 
 The major part of the farms, " in the country of Waes, 
 which comprehends an extensive tract of Flanders, 
 consist only of six or seven boniers, and many only 
 of three or fourV' "The bonier may be reckoned 
 three English acres'*;" consequently their size varies 
 from about nine to eighteen acres. " The farms 
 being so very small, few horses are kept in the land of 
 Waes ; the ground is chiefly worked with the spade 
 and hoe^. All these contribute, together, to give a 
 
 ' Abbe Mann, Communications, &c. vol. i. 
 
 ' RadclifF, Report of the Agric. of the Netherlands, p. 181. 
 
 3 Baron Foederis, Communications, &c. vol. i. p. 255. 
 
 * Abb6 Mann, Communications, &c., p. 224. 
 
 ^ It is a pleasing sight to observe a row, consisting of the cultiva- 
 tor and his family, pursuing the system of spade husbandry, the 
 lesser branches of it busy following the trenches, and planting, 
 sowing, or manuring; more pleasing still to observe the luxuriant 
 produce with which this persevering industry is attended, and 
 most gratifying of all to trace its effects to the comfort it bestows 
 upon the cultivator, and the overflowing plenty it confers on the 
 community. In these observations I draw no conclusions fa- 
 vourable, or otherwise, to mere spade husbandry ; but apply 
 
^ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 121 
 
 richness and fertility to the soil of this tract, which 
 surpasses almost what can be imagined. No spot Hes 
 uncultivated. Fallow ground is unknown ^" '^ There 
 are three crops in two years ^." Another quotation, 
 from the same authority, is most interesting, as illus- 
 trative of the effects of population on the quality of 
 the land, as well as the condition of the people. The 
 Abbe Mann says, "The original soil was pure sand, 
 and its present state of fertility is owing to the great 
 number of its industrious inhabitants, who cultivate 
 a few acres round their dwellings, of which, foi the 
 most part, they are proprietors \" Baron Poederle 
 concurs in attributing the great fertility of this cele- 
 brated district to its great population*. 
 
 I must further remark, that this system of minute 
 cultivation is not the result of accident, as is so often 
 alleged in reference to Ireland, but of deliberate 
 preference and choice. It has been the principle of 
 Belgic legislation to encourage it^ ; ^^ the government 
 which has so much at heart all the minutest interests 
 of agriculture^," has " passed ordinances in some 
 provinces for restraining the extent of farms, and pre- 
 scribing a division of those of too great extent '^i" 
 
 them to the general argument in favour of continuing the pre- 
 sent small farm system where it still exists, and of returning to 
 it, where it is practicable, without inflicting injury on individuals ; 
 being convinced, to adopt the language of a very able and elegant 
 writer on agriculture, that "smaller shares are more capable of ad- 
 mitting a correct and accurate husbandry." (Harte's Essays, p. 79.) 
 
 * Abbe Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 234. 
 ^ Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 6Q. 
 
 3 Abbe Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 234. 
 
 * Baron Poederle, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 247. 
 
 * Abbe Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 223. 
 ^ RadclifF, Report on the Agric. of Flanders, p. QQ. 
 ' Abb6 Mann, Communications, &c., vol. i. p. 223. 
 
122 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [Vlir. 
 
 "and expressly prohibiting the letting farm-houses 
 fall to rnin^ without rebuilding them, a thing many 
 proprietors seek, for the sake of sparing the expense 
 of rebuilding and repairs \" This is a very different 
 thing to government taxing the rebuilding of such, as 
 some in our Emigration Committee seem to propose ^ 
 It may be thought, however, that quoting legislative 
 enactments carries but little weight to the argument, 
 such being not always founded on the most enlightened 
 principles ; but it must be observed that the govern- 
 ment, in thus acting, did not force, but follow public 
 opinion ; the superiority of small farms having been 
 proved by all those who had, in that country, directed 
 their attention to the subject and written upon it : in 
 deferring to their recorded opinions, the legislature, 
 therefore, pursued an enlightened as well as liberal 
 policy. I particularly allude to the Abbe Mann, 
 whom our Board of Agriculture consulted on the 
 husbandry of the Netherlands, which drew from him 
 that admirable memoir already quoted : in which 
 there is an allusion, in a note to his observations on 
 this important subject (so the Board confess it to be), 
 which, says their report, " may be seen in the library 
 of the British Museum ^ of the Royal Society, the 
 
 ^ Abbe Mann, Communications, vol.i. p. 224. 
 
 - Emigration Report, third part, p. 323. 
 
 ' The board says, this work may be seen in the library of the 
 British Museum. The difficulty, however, of obtaining access to 
 that institution the writer of this has fully experienced, but which 
 he has only shared with others, whose claims to admission to any 
 national institution, where literature is professedly patronised, are 
 far greater than his. The regulations are doubtless meant to 
 secure the property of the establishment, and are so far proper; but 
 it is doubtful whether they answer that purpose; while they certainly 
 operate to the exclusion of many who may live remote from the 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 123 
 
 Society of Antiquaries, the Board of Longitude, &c. 
 &c." Happy would it have been for the agricultural 
 world, if it had been " seen" in their publications ; but 
 the principle it advocates did not coincide with the 
 fashionable and fatal practice they espoused, founded 
 on a principle of selfishness, as it regarded the clasa 
 that had to determine a question which affected the 
 happiness of thousands of families, and supported by 
 false representations respecting the interest of those 
 who were to be annihilated, as farmers, in order to 
 execute the design. And it has too well succeeded. 
 We may, however, still turn to the Netherlands, and 
 see a better system yet remaining, where the farms, 
 on the general average, are about the size of those 
 little takes which have been wrested from the cottagers 
 of England, by the large monopolists, under the pre- 
 tence, forsooth, that it injured the landlord, the culti- 
 x^ator, and the public. These being all the parties 
 concerned, it is worth while to examine these several 
 allegations, as it respects the agriculture of the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 As far as the landlord is concerned, this is stated to 
 be the effect. ^^The increase of population," says the 
 Baron Poederle, " since the peace of 1749, has greatly 
 diminished the size of farms, as well in Hainault as 
 elsewhere." (So it ought to have done every where, if 
 feeling, policy, or common sense had been consulted.) 
 ^^ The proprietors, in dividing their estates y have almost 
 
 metropolis, and who, consequently, have not an equal facility in 
 obtaining the required introduction. He is bound, however, to 
 add, that nothing can exceed the attention of the officers, if by good 
 chance a stranger, resident at a distance from the capital, gain 
 admission. 
 
124 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [VIII. 
 
 doubled their value ; and Brabant has no occasion for 
 ordinances to that effect. The states of the province, 
 however, petitioned that the size of farms should be 
 settled ^*' That the smaller the farm is, the higher 
 in proportion is the rent, is true, not only there, 
 but in every country^ in England certainly^, and espe- 
 cially in Ireland*. How then is it possible to suppose 
 that small farms are otherwise than advantageous to 
 landlords, more especially in the latter country^ where 
 the tenants constantly build for themselves ? But to 
 return to the Netherlands. 
 
 What is the effect, secondly, of this minuter system 
 of cultivation on the occupiers ? We have beheld, in 
 our country, that the monopolizing system, by depriving 
 them of their farms, has made the little cultivators 
 paupers ; there the contrary practice has made them 
 proprietors! Hence we are told that "in Brabant 
 there is hardly any such thing as tenants ; each farmer 
 is a proprietor "*." Even where this is not the case^ 
 the advantage of minute cultivation is still with the 
 tenant. Low as produce is in the Netherlands, and 
 heavy as are the rents ^ and taxes ^^ still an agriculturist 
 of the new school confesses that a Dutch boor, with 
 50 or 60 acres, will manage to live as well or better 
 than an English farmer with 200 acres '^. But to turn 
 again to the Pays de Waes, the most correctly culti- 
 
 ' Baron Poederle, Communications, &c. 
 - Complete English Farmer, p. 57. Farmer's Letters, vol. i. pp. 
 121, 122. De Re Rustica, vol. ii. p. 296. 
 
 ^ Reports on the State of Ireland, passim. 4th Report, Select 
 Committee, pp. 413, 414, 415, 638. 1st Report, p. 50. 
 
 " Abbe Mann, Communications, &c. vol. i. p. 227. 
 
 * Marshall's Travels through Holland, &c., vol. i. pp. 164, 174. 
 
 " Ibid. p. 190. ' Ibid. p. 165. 
 
VJII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 125 
 
 vatcd district^ it may be presumed, in the world; " they 
 cultivate a few acres round their dwellings, of which 
 they are for the most part the proprietors \" In 
 Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture^ where he has 
 been recording the smallness of their farms, some of 
 which '^ do not employ a horse, but are entirely cuki- 
 vated by the spade and the hoe," the comment on 
 this system, as it regards the cultivator, follows shortly 
 afterwards ; and it is this : '^ Many there are who own 
 the land they occupy. An incredible spirit of industry 
 is manifested. Whoever is able purchases a nook 
 where he can, where sua regna videns miraHir, and 
 falls in love with independence." The population is 
 undoubtedly encouraged by such means ; but is it re- 
 dundant in proportion to its increase ? Let the same 
 writer determine this point likewise : he says, " Consi- 
 dering the population of Flanders^ the army receives 
 from it very few mercenaries. Even the servantry" 
 (mark this, ye advocates for overgrown monopolies) 
 *'in most of the Flemish towns is drav/n from other 
 countries'^." And lastly, " so great is every where the 
 plenty, that after what is necessary for home consump- 
 tion, you can scarcely name an article that is not 
 exported, even raw flax, though linens here are the 
 principal manufactured" But 1 have already said 
 enough on ''^ surplus produce," and shall leave those to 
 decide which is the happiest system, this, or the one 
 which does all in its power to render as many human 
 beings as possible superfluous ; and, having been but 
 
 ' Abbe Mann, Memoir, &c. Communications to the Board of 
 Agriculture, vol.i. p. 234. 
 
 ^ Young, Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 227, note. 
 ' Ibid, p. 250. 
 
126 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [V1II. 
 
 too successful in its attempts, is now beginning to be 
 bewildered how to dispose of them. 
 
 But the benefit of this minute system of culture 
 extends still lower, and indeed is universally felt. Its 
 main principle being to employ human labour, instead 
 of studying how to dispense with it, there is still room 
 for a class of society in rank below these little culti- 
 vators. There are labourers in the Netherlands, and 
 if the reader had just risen from perusing the report 
 of the condition of agricultural labourers in this 
 country ^, he would appreciate more fully some parts 
 of the following picture, which I take from the last 
 review, I believe, that has been taken of Flemish hus- 
 bandry, and which is in the volume published by Mr. 
 Radcliff, already frequently quoted. ''It is a pleasure to 
 observe the laborious industry of the Flemish farmer, 
 recruited by intervals of comfortable and decent 
 refreshment; and not less agreeable to perceive the 
 farm servants treated with kindness and respect. They 
 uniformly dine with the farmer and his family, at a 
 clean table cloth, well supplied with spoons, with four- 
 pronged forks, and every thing necessary to their con- 
 venience. In Flanders the gentlemen are all farmers, 
 but the farmers do not aspire to be gentlemen, and 
 their servants feel the benefit. They partake with 
 them a plentiful and orderly meal, which varies ac- 
 cording to circumstances. No farmer is without a 
 well-cultivated garden, full of the best vegetables, 
 which all appear at his own table ; and apples are also 
 introduced into their cookery. The farm servant par- 
 
 ' Report from the Select Committee on Labourers' Wages 
 ordered to be printed 4th June, 1824. 
 
Vni.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 127 
 
 takes of his master's fare, excepting in his refresh- 
 ments of tea, coffee^ and beer. A peculiar cleanHncss 
 prevails about all their habitations, and the decencies 
 of the table for the labourers_, who sit down to a re- 
 gular table cloth, furnished moderately with knives, 
 but abundantly with forks and spoons, are uniformly 
 observed. The labourer is in general very well able 
 to support himself by his work : in a country where 
 so much manual labour is required in weeding, the 
 labourer's family is occupied pretty constantly in sum- 
 mer ; and in Avinter they spin. Each day-labourer 
 
 HAS, IN MOST CASES, A SMALL QUANTITY OF LAND, 
 FROM A ROOD TO HALF AN ACRE, FOR HIS OWN CULTI- 
 VATION ^" And this is afforded to the labourer out of 
 the minute farms of the Netherlands. Shame upon 
 England, and upon many of its great proprietors and 
 farmers ! Mark the consequence ! " In common 
 times, a beggar is scarcely to be seen, except in the 
 towns, and but few there. In the country, habits of 
 industry are kept up till health fails, and, to meet the 
 infirmities of age, the poor possess a revenue from 
 pious donations " (long discouraged here, and even 
 impeded by law, because we have poor laws), " regu- 
 lated by the government, and vested by them in com- 
 missions, of which the mayors of the different com- 
 munes are presidents respectively, in right of their 
 office. The clothing of the peasantry is warm and 
 comfortable : good shoes and stockings, and, fre- 
 quently, gaiters of leather or strong linen. Their 
 comfortable supply of linen is remarkable : there are 
 few of the labouring classes without many changes. 
 ' RaclclifF, Report on (he Agriculture of Flanders, p. -2.36. 
 
128 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [$ VIII. 
 
 In riding, with a landed proprietor, through a part of 
 the country in which his property was situated, a neat 
 cottage presented itself; a clipped hedge which sur- 
 rounded the garden_, covered with linen very white, 
 suggested an inquiry ' whether it did not belong to a 
 washerwoman ?' The answer was short : ' it was 
 occupied by a labourer and his family_, and that the 
 linen was all their own.' Any circumstance con- 
 nected with the health, cleanliness and comfort of the 
 lower classes is interesting, and to this of which we 
 have been speaking, a particular degree of decency 
 is attached. If the labourer is comfortable in point 
 of apparel, the farmer is still more so. With respect 
 to the farm-house, the exterior is, for the most part, 
 ornamented with creepers, or fruit-trees trained against 
 the walls ; and within, the neatness which prevails is 
 quite fascinating. Every article of furniture is po- 
 lished_, the service of pewter displays a peculiar bright- 
 ness, and the tiled floor is purified with frequent 
 ablutions. The cottage of the labourer^ though not 
 so well furnished, is as clean. The Flemish farmer 
 seldom amasses riches, but is rarely afflicted with 
 poverty ; industry and frugality are his characteristics ; 
 he never looks beyond the enjoyment of moderate 
 comforts ; abstains from spirituous liquors^ however 
 easily to be procured ; never exceeds his means ; pays 
 his rent punctually, and^ in case of emergency, has 
 always somewhat to command beyond his necessary 
 disbursements ^" 
 
 I shall only quote another passage from this inte- 
 resting author, which may leave more fully in the 
 ' Radcliff, Report, &c,, pp. 459, 461. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 129 
 
 reader's mind the advantages of minute cultivation, 
 reminding him that the same writer has stated^ in 
 common with all others, the land of the country to be 
 naturally the reverse of rich; in fact, a bad soil\" 
 Speaking of one of the departments, he says, '^ there 
 are 461,659 souls upon 302,235 hectares, which are 
 equal to 746,521 English acres, being about five souls 
 to eight English acres. But the population," he 
 adds, " is much more dense in other districts ; in that 
 of Bruges alone, at the rate of three souls to four 
 acres ; and in that of Courtray, at the rate of one to 
 an English acre. Notwithstanding this, one-third of 
 the produce of the land is annually exported ! than 
 which no circumstance can better mark the skill, the 
 industry, and frugality of the Flemish farmer^." 
 
 (12.) In Great Britain, with all our boasted supe- 
 riority in the soil and size of farms, and in the 
 implements of agriculture, there are about forty acres 
 to every ten souls, or twenty acres, probably, to every 
 family throughout. But, perhaps, the mountainous 
 districts of the north may prevent the comparison 
 from being allowed. Well, then, to take Ireland, 
 probably the richest soil of any country of equal 
 extent in Europe, if not in the world, there are, 
 including as before women and children in the cal- 
 culation, nearly thirty acres for every ten persons : 
 England and Wales have somewhat above. In a w^ord, 
 Ireland, in reference to its productive power, is 
 much the worst peopled of any of the grand divi- 
 sions of the kingdom. 
 
 And yet our Emigration Committee publish such a 
 
 ' Radcliff. Report, &c. p. 1. ' Ibid. p. 271 . 
 
 K 
 
130 IRELAND; ITS EV^ILS, [VIII. 
 
 question as tliis^, alluding to the small occupiers : 
 ^^ Are you aware that the greater proportion consist of 
 possessions not greater than an acre of ground?" To 
 which Mr. Malthus replies affirmatively. As this is one 
 of the pretended facts on which the scheme of publicly 
 expatriating a part of the people_, and privately 
 clearing them^ as it is termed, is evidently founded, 
 it becomes necessary to examine it with some little 
 attention. 
 
 (13.) The last Irish census furnishes us with two 
 facts : one is_, that the usual calculation of persons to 
 a family is between five and six ^ ; and the other, that 
 much the greater number of the entire population 
 are not employed as agriculturists, meaning by such, 
 I presume, occupiers of land. In the summary of 
 Ireland, which is placed at the conclusion of the 
 Population Returns, the total number of persons occu- 
 pied, exclusive, of course, of young children, &c., is 
 stated to be 2,836,815; whereof 1,138,069 were 
 engaged in agriculture; 1,170,044 in trades, manu- 
 factures, and handicrafts ; and 528,702 in occupa- 
 tions different from the two former classes*. In 
 the statistical returns of the barony of Rathvilly, 
 being, I believe, the only part of Ireland the survey 
 of which was completed, or, at least, published, 
 agreeably to an order of the House of Commons, in 
 the year 1825, we have some details more minutely 
 given than in the general census. There we find it 
 stated that the families average five and a half persons 
 nearly ; the number of souls 17,359 ; of whom forty- 
 
 ^ Abstract of the Population of Ireland, Prelim. Obs. p. 6. 
 ' Ibid. p. 379. 
 
^ VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 131 
 
 eight per cent, of the employed were agricuhurists, 
 and fifty-two per cent, engaged in other pursuits. The 
 area of the barony, in statute acres, is 49,745, or 
 rather above the average density of population 
 throughout the island, though there is not what can 
 be called a town in the whole district. The number 
 of farms is 1568, averaging, consequently, above 
 thirty-one acres each. But the size of these vary as 
 follows : there are 573 under five acres, 288 between 
 five and ten, or, to calculate in English measure, 
 eight and sixteen ; 341 between sixteen and thirty- 
 two ; 288 between thirty-two and eighty-one ; 49 
 between eighty-one and 162; and 29 upwards of 
 162 acres each\ It is evident, from this statement, 
 that the greater proportion of cultivators who are 
 not in possession of more than an acre of ground, 
 must be sought for in the first class, and, as we find 
 in the same document that there are 516^freeholders 
 of 40?. each, we should not err much in assuming 
 that number to be principally made up of those whom 
 the question put by the committee points at. Bat, 
 to allow the utmost latitude to those who labour to 
 make out so strong a case against the little cultivators 
 of Ireland, supposing we deduct, for the first 573, 
 two acres and a half of land each, there remains of 
 land in the barony 48,313, to be divided amongst the 
 remaining 995 farmers, leaving nearly fifty acres for 
 each farm ; deducting, however, about eight per cent., 
 which, it appears, is the proportion not at present cul- 
 tivated. This size is evidently far larger than the 
 average one in the better parts of the Netherlands, 
 
 ' Statistical Returns, Barony of Rathvilly, p. 53. 
 
 K : 
 
132 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 and is, as we observe, varied, from the smallest class 
 up to those of a larger extent, in many instances, than 
 the laws and customs of that country would allow. 
 These gradations, however, have a most beneficial ten- 
 dency, affording to the meritorious the means of 
 advancement in life, and that hope of it which is the 
 mainspring of all human exertion. A system like this, 
 placed upon the basis of a labouring peasantry, who 
 have themselves a little holding, and who, in addition 
 to the employment it affords, would be fully engaged, 
 if the possessorsof the soil were where they ought to 
 be, seems to be that of the agriculture of the Nether- 
 lands, upon, perhaps, a somewhat larger scale ; and a 
 more beneficial or happy one cannot possibly be ima- 
 gined. Wherever it is found connected with general 
 suffering and distress, the cause of the latter is not 
 to be sought for in the size of farms, and must be 
 remedied, if it is to be redressed, by very different 
 means than clearing either them or the country of 
 their inhabitants. 
 
 I think the above calculations, taken from the ba- 
 rony of Rathvilly, may be fairly enough extended to 
 all Ireland. Taking the rural population at about 
 five millions, which I should think too high a pro- 
 portion of the whole, at least as far as can be judged 
 from the face of the census, about 455,000 would be 
 the number of farmers, supposing there were the same 
 proportion in that occupation as in the barony of 
 Rathvilly: of these again, perhaps 166,000 maybe 
 the little cottage cultivators before spoken of, to whom 
 we allotted two and a half instead of a single acre of 
 ground : the remainder, it will be found, would have 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 133 
 
 upwards of forty acres of cultivated land each, inde- 
 pendently of a share in the 4^900^000 acres which, it 
 appears^ are in occupation at present (though not in a 
 productive state), as they have now an annual vahic 
 fixed upon them. This addition would average the 
 farms at nearly sixty acres each. But I ara^, however, 
 persuaded this calculation is much underrated, as it is 
 plain, from the census, that the numher of the agri- 
 culturists, as given above_, is exaggerated. And as 
 they have not, generally speaking, capital enough to 
 cultivate farms of the average extent mentioned, nor 
 ever will, while absenteeship and underletting prevails, 
 it follows that there must be many farms of a very 
 great size in Ireland ; and such, however the fact 
 is kept out of sight, is positively the case, and to a 
 lamentable extent. 
 
 But to lay no stress whatever upon the foregoing 
 calculations, as founded upon a particular district of 
 Ireland, which I have not seen, and which may, for 
 aught I know, be a contrast to the rest ; and return- 
 ing, in order to avoid all cavil wdiatsoever, to the 
 naked fact: there are in Ireland 6,801,821 persons : 
 calculating that there are between five and six persons 
 to every family ; and supposing that there wxre nei- 
 ther town nor city in the whole island that there were 
 no manner of employment or pursuit but agricukurc, 
 there are still ten acres of the most fertile land in the 
 world to each family, one acre of which, we are as- 
 sured on all hands, would far more than suffice lor the 
 sustenance of each, as they are content to live, and 
 after all only two-thirds of the island is as yet under 
 cidture. 
 
134 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 (14.) Now_, in the Report on the State of Ireland, 
 there occurs a description, given by an intelligent wit- 
 ness of the condition of the farmers, not being manufac- 
 turers, of Downshire (one of the most thickly-peopled 
 counties in the country) who are in possession of about 
 this quantity of land, ten acres ^ each, on an average. 
 But they are fairly dealt by, and hold directly from 
 the proprietors^ ; their situation, consequently, is this : 
 they eat animal food^; build slated houses'* (a great 
 distinction in Ireland) ; their furniture is decent and 
 abundant^; and, finally, many of them have saved 
 very considerable sums of money ^. As to the la- 
 bourers, they are represented to be in regular em- 
 ployment'', and are paid in money. In the county 
 of Down there are 367 souls on the square mile 
 (English) ; in Gal way, incontestibly the most wretched 
 and least-populated part of Ireland, just one-third 
 that number. It is erroneous, then, to attribute the 
 misery and distress of Ireland to the density of its 
 population : the converse of this notion is true of 
 the country throughout, as will be shown here- 
 after. But to return to the farmers. The "potatoe 
 system/* therefore, is not chargeable upon marriage, 
 nor population, nor small farms ; but upon absenteeism, 
 its desertions, its wholesale lettings, its exorbitant, 
 indeed incredible, rents ; and the clearings and drivings 
 it occasions ; and yet these last, and emigration, are 
 reckoned the only remedies for the sufferings of the 
 people. 
 
 ' Report on the State of Ireland, 1825, First Part; Mr. Hugh 
 Wallace's (banker and solicitor) Evidence, p. 150. 
 
 Ibid. p. 1 48. ' Ibid. p. 1 50. * Ibid. p. 1 50. * Ibid. p. 149. 
 'Ibid. pp. 150, p. 151. ' Ibid.^. 149. 'Ibid. p. 149. 
 
VIII. 3 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 135 
 
 (15.) But the average size of the farms of Ireland, as 
 we have seen, are necessarily far greater than these. 
 To ascribe, therefore, its evils to a redundant popu- 
 lation, in the proper sense of the term, is as plain 
 an insult upon truth, as it would be to attribute 
 those felt generations ago^ when there were sixty 
 acres of land to every family, to the same act of Di- 
 vine Providence. These distresses will remain till 
 their prime cause shall cease ; till they shall be no 
 longer deserted and oppressed. They have^ alas ! long 
 been " a people scattered and peeled ; meted out 
 and trodden underfoot ;" and it is not by burning their 
 cottages, and driving them into exile, that they are 
 to be relieved. In the instance of the Netherlands 
 has been shown the condition in which Ireland might 
 have been placed, had she been properly treated ; the 
 condition to which she may yet attain, if her wrongs 
 are redressed, and she should no longer be the tributary 
 of distant oppression ; but see her exactors changed 
 for kind, benevolent, and resident landlords. A lovely 
 picture rises in one's imagination, in contemplating 
 what might be the result ; it has been already touched 
 by her own inimitable poet, when treating on the very 
 subject, in his Deserted Village ; the secret of the exqui- 
 site pathos of which is, simply, its truth ; and, alas! it 
 has the inspiration of prophecy as well as of poetry. But 
 our poets have sung, and our moralists pleaded in vain ; 
 even the solemn denunciations of our religion, in all 
 instances the religion of benevolence, and the assertor 
 of the rights of unprotected poverty^ have been utterly 
 disregarded. " Woe unto them that join house to 
 house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, 
 
136 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ ^'^^'' 
 
 that they may be placed alone in the midst of the 
 earth !" was the malediction of the subhmest of the 
 prophets of Israel, a country thrice as densely peopled 
 as Ireland, even on the authority of profane history ; 
 and which, nevertheless, enjoyed the greatest abun- 
 dance in consequence of being guarded against ruinous 
 monopolies by the sacred institutions of its God : I 
 say ruinous, for so they still are to thousands upon 
 thousands of poor wretches who have been, and are 
 about to become, their victims. One of the milder of 
 the methods to get rid of the superfluous population 
 of Ireland, is, I perceive, to impose a tax upon cot- 
 tages : Mr. Malthus is asked whether the legislature 
 would be justified in some distinct measure of that 
 kind ; to which he responds in the affirmative K The 
 man, however, who shall make so nefarious a propo- 
 sal, will be " distinct" enough ; and should it be made 
 and passed, it would require only a single clause to ren- 
 der it palatable to the country at large, namely, that 
 its proposers and abettors should be the sole gatherers 
 of the impost ; it would be a disgrace to a civilized 
 country to have to collect an assessment, especially one 
 of so equitable and merciful a nature, at the point of 
 the bayonet. The consequences I do not mean to 
 disguise, and I hope it will be deemed no greater 
 offence to imagine the loss of a thousand political 
 economists for the public good, than it is for Mr. 
 Malthus to pronounce the demise of a thousand 
 labourers in the same cause, as '^ a gain certainly V 
 
 ^ Emigration Committee, Third Report, p. 321, 
 ^ Report of the Emigration Committee, Rev. T. R. Malthus's 
 Evidence, p. 314. 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 137 
 
 But we are neither of us in earnest : " No, no, we 
 do but jest, murder in jest, no offence i' th' world. 
 (Pours the poison into his ears\'') But, seriously; a 
 principle which can coolly argue, even ex hi/pothesi, 
 that putting out of existence a thousand labourers, 
 would be " certainly a gain" in any point of view, is 
 one that is not Hkely to remain a dead letter ; it will 
 act as far as it dare : and what sort of a figure does 
 it cut in the eye of philosophy, of philanthropy, of 
 religion ? Every one of these thousand is as plainly 
 called to fill the station he holds in creation as the 
 proudest mortal in it ; and notwithstanding he is 
 audaciously told to the contrary, " he has a right to be 
 where he is ^ ;" an infinitely wise Providence, who 
 called him into the world, has visibly assigned him his 
 place in it ; and to assert or act upon the contrary 
 notion is unjust in the name of humanity, and false 
 in the name of God ! 
 
 Touching all subjects connected with human morals 
 and conduct, we may rest assured of every system, 
 which holds that we may do evil that good may come, 
 that its '' damnation is just." We are unfitted by our 
 very nature for the regimen of any such principle, 
 being, on the one hand, too ignorant of future contin- 
 gencies, and, on the other, too partial in our mode of 
 judging of them, were they known tons, to qualify us 
 for this mode of determining the moral quality of 
 human actions. Hence we are favoured with far surer 
 guides, the feelings of humanity, and the dictates of 
 religion ; and happily the experience of the human 
 race has found these to be unerring. The more per- 
 fectly they have been obeyed, either by individuals or 
 ' Hamlet. ' Malthus, Essay on Pop., 4lo, p. 531. 
 
138 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 communities, the more happy and prosperous have all 
 such permanently become. But the rule of political 
 economy is founded on ignorant selfishness : it has 
 been too long applied to Ireland, and we see with what 
 success. Try another : even the golden rule Do to 
 her as you would be done by. Then would there be 
 a resident gentry, fair and moderate rents, general in- 
 dustry, grateful and gratified feelings, obedience to 
 the laws in a word, a happy and contented country, 
 smiling with universal cultivation. These would 
 assuredly heal the breaches of that unhappy people 
 far better than the creation of a *' vacuum," again to 
 use the current phrase of the day, by desolation and 
 destruction. Then^ though her sons should still "grow 
 up as young plants, and her daughters as the polished 
 corners of the temple ; her garners would be full 
 and plenteous with all manner of store, and her sheep 
 would bring forth by thousands and ten thousands. 
 Then should there be no decay ; no breaking in, nor 
 going out ; no leading into captivity" no emigration 
 ^^ no complaining in her streets." In contradiction 
 to the doctrine of all the economists upon earth, this has 
 been the case wherever human industry has been duly 
 fostered and cherished, and population has been allowed 
 to proceed with those natural advantages which the 
 Deity evidently intended it should possess in its won- 
 der-working career. '' Happy are the people that are 
 in such a case!" 
 
 (16.) In dwelling upon the nefarious project of 
 clearing lands and destroying habitations, perhaps 
 some severity of language has been used, which I 
 take the occasion to say I do not direct personally 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 139 
 
 against such who may have thoughtlessly given into 
 the practice ; some of these, I am willing to hope, and 
 do indeed believe_, have taken so singular a view 
 of the subject, as to have construed it into benevo- 
 lence^ and have acted upon it with that feeling. Such 
 I have only to refer to the foregoing rule, as the 
 touchstone of their conduct, and ask them whether, 
 were they the little cultivator, they would like to be 
 ejected from the home of their forefathers, sent forth 
 with their families, whatever their age, as fugitives and 
 vagabonds, without employment or prospect of any, 
 and more unhappy than the beasts of the field or the 
 birds of the air, not having where to lay their head ? 
 As to the prime promoters of and actors in such pro- 
 ceedings, who glory in their shame, no language can 
 sufficiently express the turpitude of their conduct : I 
 am persuaded none can reach their feelings, other- 
 wise I would attempt to bring before their recollection 
 the numerous train of victims they have already sacri- 
 ficed to their selfishness : the happiness they have 
 destroyed (for they are not uninformed that happi- 
 ness may reside in a cottage, and even preside over the 
 potatoe meal to which their rapacity has reduced the 
 inmates) ; the misery they have created ; the prema- 
 ture deaths which have ensued, touching which it is 
 for God to decide whether they will be held guiltless. 
 I might summon from the grave, as witnesses against 
 them and their system, those who, either in the old 
 world or the new, have found that their sole refuge 
 against both : nay, that the sea might yield up of its 
 dead, the multitudes of such who have expired by the 
 sufferings of their passage in escaping oppression, or 
 
140 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ VIJI. 
 
 by the hardships they had afterwards to encounter. 
 
 But no ! with these^, " the tyranny is overpast." Let 
 
 then the surviving and far more pitiable victims of 
 
 their poHcy pass in melancholy array before them ; 
 
 the wrecks of human happiness, unutterably miserable 
 
 both in appearance and reality, whose sufferings every 
 
 where excite the commiseration of strangers, let 
 
 these 
 
 " Come like shadows and depart, 
 Show their eyes and grieve their heart !" 
 
 But their eyes are perhaps in the ends of the earth ; 
 and as to grieving their heart ! 
 
 I have been often at a loss to explain satisfactorily 
 to myself why we are invariably more affected by 
 a single case of human misery, than by a number of 
 such pressed at once upon our consideration ; yet 
 such, I fear, is the fact. Sure am I, at all events, that 
 particular individual instances that could be adduced, 
 of the sufferings to which this driving system has led, 
 would rouse the feelings of a humane reader far more 
 than any general representations upon the subject, 
 how^ever just. My objection against the practice of 
 engrossing lands, from its very commencement, and 
 through every stage, is perhaps the stronger, because 
 I have seen a few of its victims in this country, who, 
 from a station of modest frugality and comfort, have 
 had to turn into the parish work-house, where they 
 have Hngered awhile, mourning over past days, and 
 spent the clouded evening of life amongst strangers 
 and profligates ; and under the protection of that 
 amiable personage, the farmer of the poor ; an officer 
 that ought instantly to be put down amongst us by 
 
VIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES 141 
 
 law. But what is the condition of the eectcd Irish 
 tenant ? There is no employment for him to resort to, 
 as is happily often the case here ; that the absentee 
 proprietors effectually prevent. There are no poor 
 laws, obliging the man who creates the misery to 
 assist in mitigating it^ otherwise he would frequently 
 pause in his purpose: the law imposes no such duty upon 
 him ; the very case we are contemplating shows how 
 perfectly he avails himself of the immunity^ and it 
 brands with falsehood and folly the perpetually repeated 
 assurance, that private charity would fully compensate, 
 and in a better mode^ for the destruction of our public 
 provision for the poor. The desolate wretch is, there- 
 fore_, driven under such circumstances to desperation, 
 and, connected with a multitude of others similarly 
 treated, proceeds to those acts of violence, already 
 noticed as so frequent in Ireland ; otherwise he resigns 
 himself to his melancholy fate, and bears his sufferings 
 in silence. I shall not speedily forget a person acci- 
 dentally falling in with one of these, lying, where he 
 passed, by the road side, with a female infant in his 
 arms, both of them very destitute of raiment, and 
 evidently suffering from want. He learnt, that he was 
 one of those that had been '^ cleared ;" his wife, how- 
 ever, had died under the operation, and was, therefore, 
 left in her native earth. He had no home, but was 
 come to work in the harvest of England, and thought 
 he could safely lay his child in the field beside him, 
 while he laboured. The story of his destruction is not 
 easy to be forgotten, and the name, the sounding, 
 patriotic, noble name, connected with it, never. His 
 present distress was relieved, and but moderately, and 
 
142 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ VIII. 
 
 it is mentioned only to describe the agony of gratitude 
 with which he received the alms, and which made a 
 more powerful impression as to his utter and hopeless 
 destitution^ than the distressing story he had told. 
 Wherever he may be at this moment, I had rather be 
 him than his oppressor \ One such act suffices to 
 make a human monster ; a multitude of them a poli- 
 tical economist. Had I been that great individual, 
 whoever was the promoter or the apologist, or what- 
 ever the temptation, rather than to have quenched 
 the fires of those now desolate hearths, where they 
 had long cheered and illuminated a circle of the social 
 virtues, and a scene of human happiness, in however 
 lowly a sphere; or than have demoHshed those humble 
 abodes of peace and love ; my own paternal roof 
 should have fallen upon and crushed me, and the lamp 
 of life have become extinguished in my own bosom for 
 ever ! '^ Yet Brutus is an honourable man ; so are 
 they all, all honourable men !" 
 
 I cannot impress too strongly upon the readers 
 mind the difference between this kind of conduct in 
 Ireland and in England ; in the former country it 
 amounts to unmingled cruelty and oppression ; the 
 sufterers are expelled and done with for ever^: in 
 
 ' The language of the Irishman, culpable as it was, is not easy to 
 be forgotten; '* If there be a God, he cannot help but kill him 1" Only 
 imagine a moving multitude thus suffering, and thus feeling, and the 
 insubordinations and blood-shedding of Ireland is explained. 
 
 * " The landlord in Ireland has greater power than in any other 
 sta^e I know ; he is not bound to protect the tenant in case of dis- 
 tress or starvation, as he is in England, or in the countries, such as 
 Livonia and Germany, where they cultivate the land by predial 
 slaves, or as the negro slaves in the West Indies." (Minutes of 
 Evidence on the Disturbances, &c. in Ireland; A.Nimmo, Esq., 
 p. 290.) 
 
VIII.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 143 
 
 England^ however^ the proprietor who so acts knows 
 that those whom he expels he has still to maintain, 
 if they cannot procure other employment. But even 
 this consideration does not fully absolve the latter 
 in having adopted the modern agricultural policy: 
 much private suffering, and_, as I contend, public 
 distress, have been its results ; while the contrary 
 conduct is that of undoubted and manifest benevo- 
 lence, augmenting and multiplying happiness and 
 independence, wherever it extends. So true and 
 apparent is this, that our great and judicious moralist, 
 Paley, after enumerating many acts of benevolence 
 which the proprietors of estates are called upon to 
 discharge, particularises ^^ the establishment of fami- 
 lies, which," says he, ^^ is one of the noblest purposes 
 to which the rich and great can convert their endea- 
 vours, by building'" (not destroying) "cottages, and 
 splitting" (not engrossing) " farms^" 
 
 (17.) I might here again plead the interests of the 
 English agriculturists against this notable scheme 
 of thinning Ireland by emigration and monopoly, 
 the object of which, however disguised, is to obtain 
 for the proprietors a still greater " surplus produce," 
 which would be inevitably poured into this country ; 
 but I forbear. In closing my remarks upon the 
 poverty and sufferings of Ireland, as occasioned by 
 absenteeship, and all its train of fatal and disgusting 
 consequences, and the still more revolting expedients, 
 which it seems now the fashion to represent as the 
 sole means of serving that country, founded on the 
 palpable error of supposing that all the wrongs she 
 ' Paley, Moral Philosophy, p. 159. 
 
144 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [^ VIII. 
 
 suffers spring from an overgrown population (an opi- 
 nion founded in utter ignorance, and, indeed, in defi- 
 ance of recorded facts), I would put a plain question 
 or two. Is a system, which can only be supported 
 by brute force, and is kept up by constant bloodshed- 
 ding, to be perpetuated for ever ? Are we still to gar- 
 rison a defenceless country in behalf of those whose 
 property was, generally speakings originally conferred 
 on the special condition of residence, but whose 
 desertion occasions all the evils under which she has 
 groaned for centuries ? property so treated, that it 
 would not be worth a day's purchase were the propri- 
 etors its sole protectors. But they are aware that 
 their absence is balanced by the presence of a body 
 of military and police, which enables them to con- 
 duct themselves with as little apprehension as remorse. 
 The possessions of the entire empire would be lost 
 to their owners, were such conduct general ; and are 
 these so meritorious a class, that their utmost de- 
 mands are to be extorted from a distant and suffering 
 country, and themselves protected in the open neg- 
 lect_, or rather audacious outrage^ of all those duties, 
 on the due and reciprocal discharge of which the 
 whole frame of the social system is founded ? If they 
 persist in this course, let them do so, but let it be 
 at their proper peril ! Let them urge their own 
 claims, and defend their own outrages : the British 
 soldier, who is ready to bleed in the battle in which 
 his country's interest or honour is at stake, is too 
 noble a being, methinks^ to be degraded virtually 
 into the exactor of the enormous rents of the ab- 
 sentee, which his desertion often incapacitates the 
 
VIII.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 145 
 
 wretched tenants from discharging, or to '"clear" his 
 estates of human beings^ when it may please him to 
 titter the fiat from afar^ I say I would leave them 
 to settle this as they could, only that it would be 
 practically difficult to sever their case from such as 
 had fair claims upon public protection. Methinks 
 the indignation of many may be roused at this view 
 of the subject, who may have, nevertheless, read with 
 the utmost degree of composure, and indeed com- 
 placency, the modern proposition of taking away 
 the sole right of the poor to any portion of the 
 property of the country, a right confined in its exer- 
 cise to seasons of personal destitution and distress ; 
 solemnly awarded by the legislature, and evidently 
 conferred in lieu of a still more ancient and ample 
 one ; a right which has been exercised for ages, and 
 confirmed by hundreds of acts of parliament ; and 
 which has the sanction of natural justice, and the 
 commands of God in its favour. Mr. Malthus calls 
 an intimation of thus sweeping away the " right of 
 the poor," without any idea of offering the least equi- 
 valent, or proposing any substitute, " fair notice." 
 No such measures are contemplated respecting the 
 culpable class alluded to, though I dare say enough 
 has been said to rouse the feelings of wealth and its 
 panders^ the political economists. I would protect 
 every man in the enjoyment of his just rights, but I 
 would discourage him in the perpetration of wrongs- 
 
 * This " has led to a great deal of misery; lately to murder, burn- 
 ing of houses, and several other outrages ; and at Crooni there was 
 some difficulty in getting the tenants out, and tlie military wore 
 obliged to be "called in," (Major-Genural K. liourk, third Report, 
 p. 313, 314.) 
 
 L 
 
146 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [^ IX. 
 
 One thing is certain, Ireland is not to be treated as 
 it has been. Should it be conceived that too severe 
 a view is taken, in the preceding pages, of the conse- 
 quences of absenteeship, as occasioning, not only the 
 distresses, but the disorders of Ireland, which are 
 so frequently occurring, and which are invariably at- 
 tended with fatal consequences^ I must appeal to the 
 reports of the legislature on this subject, and to the 
 legal authorities who have had to administer justice 
 on occasion of these .disturbances, and who have 
 given evidence on these afflicting subjects. The evils 
 absenteeship inflicts have been often concealed; never 
 exaggerated ^ 
 
 IX. (1.) I have been upon a gloomy topic, and 
 have dwelt the longer upon it from the humble hope 
 that something perhaps might be offered which might 
 assist in averting the fate which awaits many of 
 our unhappy fellow-subjects in Ireland, if the present 
 schemes are put into execution. The next proposi- 
 
 * " The parts with which I am acquainted, the principal gentry- 
 nave deserted : they have become absentees, and I am sure I ought 
 hot to have omitted to enumerate that as a principal cause of the 
 disorderly state of the disturbed counties, &c." (John Lloyd, Esq., 
 sergeant at law ; Minutes of Evidence, House of Lords, p. 207.) 
 
 " As to the state of Ireland, any view I suggest would be incom- 
 plete, without stating the effects of absenteeship. JNly opinion is, 
 that, independent of its abstraction from the country of so much of 
 its wealth, it produces great mischief to the whole frame of society ; 
 in Ireland, I may say, there is the destitution, the want, of a distinct 
 class. In ordinary times the loss of influence and authority, and 
 the control which belongs to education, to rank, and to property, 
 must be deeply felt in any country : but when it becomes disturbed, 
 I need not say that that which would form the barrier for the pro- 
 tection of the peace, is lost in Ireland ; and I have now been admi- 
 nistering the insurrection act in counties where the property of 
 absentees is extensive." (F. Blackburn, Esq., ibid. p. 8.) 
 
IX.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 147 
 
 tion of the new school in her favour, now about to 
 be considered, is calculated to dissipate the melan- 
 choly feelings which may have been excited, and to 
 change them into others of a risible nature. It is 
 to relieve Ireland by giving the people a taste for 
 superior living ; and most assuredly a more agreeable 
 proposition was never made. A lesson more easy to 
 teach_, or pleasing to learn, was rarely propounded : 
 few Irishmen are there that do not bid fair to be apt 
 scholars at a very few lessons. The political quacks 
 have for once hit upon a happy, and, I think, effica- 
 cious remedy; it only remains that they should furnish 
 the materials of their prescription, and the cure would 
 be certain. But, alas ! instead of doing thus, our 
 empirics and their confederates would only act as 
 the political Dr. Snatchaways of Ireland ; they would 
 tantalize the country with a sight of what they do 
 not permit them to taste^ or, giving them a taste^ they 
 would not allow them a meal ; merely enough to 
 render the homely provision to which they are con- 
 demned still more unpalatable. Give the country the 
 means of comfortable subsistence, and^ rest assured, 
 the "taste" for it will follow^ as a matter of course. 
 But a taste of this nature, without the possibility of 
 gratifying it, instead of a blessing, would be the 
 greatest curse to the people. Before the use of the 
 potatoe was generally introduced, which now serves 
 as a subject of ignorant declamation, we know that 
 the population had as great a taste for, but as little a 
 taste of, animal food, as they have at present ; pro- 
 bably even less. But the circumstances of the coun- 
 try in regard to its exports, both at that period and 
 
 L 2 
 
148 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ *X- 
 
 the present, fully show to what it is the spare diet of 
 the Irish is owing. If those who conceive this pro- 
 position is worthy of consideration (and such appear 
 to be numerous since the discovery was made by the 
 great Ricardo), would please to turn their attention 
 to the list of Irish exports, they will see, both by 
 their nature and extent, that the means of comforta- 
 ble subsistence are withdrawn ; their flour and wheat, 
 their butter, and beef and pork, are demanded by 
 these absentees, to distribute in foreign nations : they 
 would then_, one would think, see it their duty to 
 exhort such to allow them a taste, rather than busy 
 themselves in such a work of supererogation, as 
 teaching the poor Irish to acquire one. But, no ; 
 they have pronounced in effect that such remittances 
 to absentee proprietors are not in the least detri- 
 mental : merely a taste is what Ireland wants. I am^ 
 however_, for giving this taste, and gratifying it; first, 
 by inducing the absentee landlords to return to their 
 property and country, and expend in Ireland the 
 sums, or, in other words, cause the provisions to be 
 enjoyed there which they are the direct means of 
 causing to be transported, distributed^, and consumed 
 elsewhere : secondly, by the return of such, giving 
 a spur to every species of national industry_, and by 
 their example as proprietors, establishing a better 
 system, as it respects their oppressed tenantry, and 
 not being the first to " squeeze their enormous rents 
 out of the very blood, and vitals, and clothes, and 
 dwellings of their tenants, who live worse than Eng- 
 lish beggars^" Another quotation this, of a century 
 ' Dean Swift, View of the State of Ireland, vol. vi. p. 159. 
 
IX.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 149 
 
 old, which may again jog the memory of tliosc who, 
 in dozing over these pages, may dream that the 
 miseries of Ireland are douhtless owing to its six 
 millions of inhabitants. 
 
 These doctrines will, doubtless, be very unpalatable 
 and unpopular amongst those to whom they are 
 addressed^ while those for whose benefit they are 
 solely intended will never hear of them. But, amidst 
 the pure incense which political economy is breathing 
 at the shrine of wealth, a puff like this can never be 
 perceived, nor can one or two discordant voices dis- 
 turb the interesting harmony of the orthodox and de- 
 voted worshippers. 
 
 (2.) But I must, in fairness, add, in reference to 
 this proposition, that the intention of its propounders 
 is meant to work a cure for the sufferings of Irehuid, 
 by giving her people a taste for good living in pre- 
 ference to matrimony; or, practically speaking, to 
 induce them to exchange chaste living for good 
 eating. It is supposed that the progress of popula- 
 tion would be thus checked, and the number of births 
 diminished a mistake attended to elsewhere. I shall 
 now only observe, on this subject, that, before the 
 proposition can be entertained, it must be proved, 
 instead of asserted, that the evils of Ireland arise from 
 excessive numbers. This, however, can never be 
 done without disposing entirely of every period of its 
 past history. I must again repeat, that what Ireland 
 now suffers is but the continuation of evils which 
 were as deeply and universally felt when the p()])ula- 
 tion w^as notoriously scanty. At present, indeed, we 
 are told that the Irish "propagate like brute beasts ;" 
 
150 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [V^* 
 
 which expression, if it mean that they do not regard 
 the preventive check, is, I beUeve, pretty true, as it 
 hkewise would be if apphed to ahnost every country 
 of Europe. But, in any other point of view, the accusa- 
 tion is probably more false as it regards them than 
 almost any other people upon earth ; whatever be their 
 national failings^ promiscuous connexion between the 
 sexes is not one of them ; there is, probably, less of 
 improper intercourse before marriage, and more 
 fidelity afterwards, than in any other part of the 
 empire, or of the world. In the proper meaning of 
 the term, the accusation is as false as it is indecent; 
 the indignant Irish might well retort, upon a system 
 which thus insults them, charges far more foul, 
 though much less false ; not, indeed, that it teaches 
 its votaries to propagate like ^* brute beasts," but that, 
 by inducing them to abstain from " propagation/' it 
 leads to vices of which brute beasts are incapable, 
 vices 
 
 ** Most foul, strange, and unnatural !" 
 
 Even now '' the infection works ;" I have seen several 
 works on the principle of population, in which the 
 most disgusting expedients are darkly hinted at, or 
 directly explained, as methods of repressing *' the 
 evils it occasions." But these proofs of the iniqui- 
 tous tendency of such a doctrine are redundant. Let 
 the new school only discourage matrimony that 
 state which our religion solemnly pronounces as 
 honourable in all, in whatever rank or station *; and 
 which the church, of which some of our political 
 
 ' " Is not marriage honourable in a beggar ?" Shalspeare. 
 
^IX.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 151 
 
 moralists are ministers, expressly calls lioly, and as 
 plainly declares to be necessary ; and not only uni- 
 versal licentiousness of manners, but other evils, of a 
 darker and more disgusting nature, would follow of 
 course. A world six thousand years old is no novice 
 in these matters_, and its history shows that, wherever 
 and whenever marriage has been slighted, then and 
 there have the foulest crimes been introduced and 
 practised with impunity, which, as Gibbon himself 
 confesses, it was the glory of Christianity to re- 
 press, and by restoring the dignity of that state. 
 Again lower that dignity, declare marriage to be 
 " clearly an immoral act," without such and such 
 prospects_, and the consequences are certain ; the least 
 fearful of which are that guilt and suffering which a 
 general corruption of manners would occasion. I 
 speak warily ; innumerable authorities would sanction 
 me in stating all I have said in far stronger terms. 
 The British legislature has proclaimed that "^ great 
 and manifold inconveniences, not to be named, have 
 followed of constrained celibacy ;" and, in the lan- 
 guage of one of its greatest ornaments^ in anticipating 
 all these hateful consequences I say, " such would^ 
 and^ in no long time, must be, the eifect of attempting 
 to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the 
 command and blessing of Providence, increase and 
 multiply :" or, to use the language of a greater than 
 Burke, " forbidding to marry is the doctrine of 
 devils.'* 
 
 On the impolicy, the injustice, the cruelty, of 
 directly or indirectly discouraging marriage amongst 
 the poor (a favourite idea with our modern ceo- 
 
152 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ X. 
 
 nomists), as well as on the futility of all such 
 attempts^ I have spoken at large elsewhere, and shall 
 not, therefore, enter at present on these important 
 topics. 
 
 (4.) But supposing our political economists could 
 succeed in their endeavours regarding Ireland, and 
 that the Irish, instead of " propagating like hrute 
 beasts," could be induced to propagate like angels, 
 that is, not at all ; and that to remedy the consequence 
 of such a state of voluntary sterility. Providence 
 should please to realize, in behalf of our Irish pro- 
 prietors, the fable of Dean Swift's Struldbrugs, and 
 make a sufficient number of these unincumbered cul- 
 tivators immortal ; is there, I would seriously ask 
 those acquainted with the real state of things in Ire- 
 land, the slightest ground to believe that the advan- 
 tage of such a change would not to the last farthing, 
 and to the value of the minutest grain, find its way 
 into the pockets of the landed proprietors, not in the 
 least benefiting the cultivators, who would still be 
 confined to the barest possible maintenance ? And 
 what if it should please Providence to constitute at 
 the same time the rest of mankind Struldbrugs, 
 diminishing the mouths of the consumers of Irish 
 produce just in the same proportion as the mouths of 
 the producers, will the proposers of such a plan point 
 out its benefit to either party ? 
 
 X. (1.) The last proposition of some of our politi- 
 cal projectors in favour of Ireland is what I have termed 
 an ecclesiastical confiscation. In discussing this, I 
 shall not say a word upon the much agitated question. 
 
X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 153 
 
 Catholic emancipation, further than to remark that it 
 is a measure perfectly distinct from any of the propo- 
 sitions I shall bring forward in favour of Ireland, 
 and as such I leave it to be argued on its own grounds. 
 It is one, moreover, which, granting it all the impor- 
 tance attached to it by its ablest advocates, falls far 
 short, even in promise, of attempting that in behalf of 
 the country which ought to be accomplished, and with- 
 out delay. It is obvious that it could not have the 
 effect of increasing the products of the soil, or of dis- 
 tributing them more plentifully amongst the popula- 
 tion. Privileges, however regulated, the exercise of 
 which appertain practically only to the few, can never 
 feed a starving people. Emancipation of another 
 kind is what Ireland must sooner or later obtain, 
 which I fear is too often lost sight of in the continued 
 discussion of that question, or intentionally made, by 
 some engaged in it, the cover for the negligence or 
 oppression of those who are connected with Ireland, 
 and wdth the wrongs of Ireland. But the farce of 
 patriotism cannot be carried on for ever, by means of 
 a few cheap votes and declamations, sincere or other- 
 wise. Such political pharisees, out of the luxuriant 
 crop of their liberality, may pay tithe of their mint 
 and anise and cumin ; but they omit, in their treat- 
 ment of this unhappy people, the weightier matters 
 of the law of real patriotism, judgment, mercy, and 
 truth. These observations, I repeat, have not the 
 slightest reference to that question, and are even in 
 strict accordance with the opinions of some of its 
 warmest supporters. 
 
 The proposition to which I allude is the confisca- 
 
154 IRELAND; ITS EVILS_, [ X. 
 
 tion of the property of the Irish church, which some 
 are heginning to hint at, if not propose ; and which 
 many more secretly cherish as a cure for the sufferings 
 of Ireland, or rather of the poor of Ireland. How 
 ignorantly, I ought perhaps rather to say, how selfishly, 
 such reason, a very little examination will suffice to 
 show. Deferring for a moment the consideration of 
 the mode in which that part of the church rental 
 which consists of tithes, is at present collected, I shall 
 now contend that, while the ownership of such pro- 
 perty by the clergy is, generally speaking, no detri- 
 ment to the Irish cultivator, supposing his landlord to 
 have a spark of honesty ; it is, on the other hand, an 
 actual advantage to the country at large, assertions 
 which perhaps may at first startle some, but which are 
 nevertheless true. None can be so weak as to sup- 
 pose, that were the tithes of Ireland abolished to-mor- 
 row, and all the glebe lands of the country confiscated, 
 the spoil would be bestowed on the wretched cultiva- 
 tors. However it should be disposed of, they would hav^ 
 no share ; and as surely as eveiy landlord in the empire 
 lets tithe-free land at aproportionably higher rate than 
 titheable, so certainly would the rent of the land thus 
 exonerated be advanced to the full amount of the dif- 
 ference ; nay, I believe, frequently far beyond that 
 amount ; the ecclesiastical proprietor generally consent- 
 ing to accept much less for his rights, that is, his pro- 
 portion of the property, than the lay one does, or would 
 consent to do. It must be well known to every one, 
 that a branch of the Irish legislature passed long ago 
 a resolution exonerating all the island from agist- 
 ment tithe ; an act of audacious spoliation seldom ex- 
 
< X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 155 
 
 am pled, in the advantages of which the little culti- 
 vator never did nor ever will share : the Irish clergy, 
 therefore, who many of them possess very little 
 glebe, were thrown solely on the tithe of the arable 
 land for their support. Turning again to the barony 
 of Rathvilly, I find that, out of the 49,745 English 
 acres, of which the barony consists, there are but sixty- 
 five acres of glebe. I believe it is reckoned one of 
 the most fertile in the country : the whole appears 
 to be titheable ; the total amount of the tithes is 
 3156. 9^. 7|d, or nearly fifteen-pence farthing per 
 acre, or, as the report states it in Irish measure, 
 two shillings and a halfpenny. Now as the average 
 produce of that quantity, in Winchester measure, 
 throughout the island, is stated to be, of wheat up- 
 wards of thirty-three bushels ; of here, sixty-nine ; of 
 barley, fifty-four ; of oats seventy-two, and upwards ; 
 and of potatoes, more than 22,094 pounds, I leave 
 the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the rapa- 
 city of the ecclesiastical proprietors. 
 
 But, if these fifteen pence an English acre^ on all 
 the cultivated lands of Ireland, supposing tithes to 
 amount to that sum throughout^, were wrested from 
 the incumbents ; can any one, I repeat the question, 
 be weak enough to suppose that it would be presented 
 to the occupier as a bonus ? Wealth has always a 
 tendency to accumulate into large masses ; but what- 
 ever became of these fractions of it, we may be very 
 certain that none of them would rest with the inmate 
 
 ' I think the evidences, in some of the Reports on Ireland, 
 state the average as much lower where commutations have taken 
 place. 
 
156 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ X. 
 
 of the Irish cabin. In point of fact, too many of the 
 landlords of Ireland, and more especially the sub- 
 landlords^ the middlemen, as they are called, are so 
 eager to wring all they can from the cultivators, 
 that the clergyman is often actually defrauded of his 
 maintenance, from the utter impossibility of the little 
 tenant paying him his tithe-rent, after having satisfied 
 the larger exactions to which he is subject, and which 
 are rarely mitigated. If a full and adequate allowance 
 is not made, in respect to the tithe, I say the landlord, 
 and not the clergyman, is the real oppressor, while 
 the latter, in virtue of his equally legal and more an- 
 cient right, insists upon his income in the only way 
 in which he can obtain it. Perhaps a more flagrant 
 instance of profound ignorance, or rather selfishness, 
 cannot be imagined, than that some of the Irish propri- 
 etors, a vast majority of whom are Protestants, and who, 
 in most cases, received their estates for the very pur- 
 pose of supporting that religion, should talk about the 
 hardship of tithes, and not talk only, but throw the 
 burden upon their poor Catholic tenants. Why, the 
 titles of their own estates, in many cases, rest upon 
 what they would fain represent as injustice and op- 
 pression ; they were, in very truth, bestowed for the 
 purpose and on the condition of supporting the reli- 
 gion which they desert, as far as their personal presence 
 and influence goes, inveighing against parting with 
 that small portion of them which was at the same 
 time reserved as a maintenance for those who are to 
 this hour discharging the duties imposed upon them 
 in reference to it. Most of the property of Ireland is 
 of this protestant pedigree, though some of it would 
 
X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 157 
 
 now, it seems, be very glad to bastardize its ancestry; 
 but it would be curious enougb if such would plainly 
 set forth the superior nature of their claims^ con- 
 trasted with those of the ecclesiastical proprietors. It 
 would be unique^ as a legal as well as a moral demon- 
 stration^ to show that, whereas their title is in the full 
 bloom and vigour of perpetual youth, that of these 
 spiritual persons is actually become superannuated, 
 and ought to be allowed to expire as soon as possible. 
 If the large proprietors of Irish estates, or those who 
 possess property transmitted through such, are not 
 tired of their titles and possessions, it would be 
 advisable in them to discuss the rightful claims to the 
 ecclesiastical property of the country in a very dif- 
 ferent spirit. 
 
 (2.) But if the cultivators are not injured by eccle- 
 siastical persons owning a part of the joint property 
 of the country, excepting so far as the lay proprietor 
 is accessary to the abuse sometimes occasioned ; the 
 public at large are highly benefited by the circum- 
 stance. The church property, were it seized^ would 
 inevitably find its way into the possession of the 
 great proprietors; and of these^ as certainly, a large 
 proportion would be absentees^ causing another im- 
 mense sum to be added to that which is at present 
 abstracted from the country, and expended elsewhere, 
 still increasing the evils of that absenteeism, which is 
 the curse of Ireland. 
 
 (3.) Here^ I am aware, I shall be answered, that 
 the Irish clergy are many of them absentees. I meet 
 the assertion by a direct denial ; and I do it on the 
 authority of the official returns, relative to the clergy 
 
158 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ X. 
 
 of Ireland, published by the House of Commons, in 
 1824. These returns, not having been called for with 
 any \iew to determining the point I am considering, 
 nor being very uniform as to the mode in which they 
 are drawn up, I am prevented from presentinf^ a 
 minute account of the number of ecclesiastics absent 
 from the country. From turning, however, to those 
 dioceses, where the actual residence of the clergy is 
 particularized, it is plain that such must be very 
 few indeed. It does not appear to me that there 
 are a dozen regularly resident in England, nor half 
 that number upon the Continent. Whether they 
 reside on their respective livings, or supply their places 
 by resident curates, it is wide of my purpose to inquire, 
 but which it behoves, I think, some of those wbo 
 make public statements on the subject, to examine 
 into a little more narrowly, before they pronounce so 
 calumniously, as I fear they do, upon this subject. 
 
 (4.) It may, therefore, be pronounced, that the 
 clergy of Ireland are discharging their duty more 
 completely and beneficially to the country, than any 
 class of the gentry it contains, or rather that it ought 
 to contain ; for I presume we may still venture to 
 call men of their education, and connexions, and man- 
 ners, gentlemen. And their influence on society, not- 
 withstanding it is grievously lessened by their being 
 in great measure deserted by the laity of their own 
 station, is still more beneficial even than the expendi- 
 ture of their whole income in the country. One of 
 the government inspectors, on a late trying occasion. 
 Major Woodward, having traversed nearly the whole 
 of the most distressed districts of Ireland, thus ex- 
 
^X.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 1,59 
 
 presses himself: " I must, as a public officer, whose 
 duties call him into close contact with them (the 
 clergy) throughout the most remote, and (by all others 
 of the higher classes) deserted parts of the kingdom, 
 declare^ in common justice, that, were it not for the 
 residence and moral and political influence of the 
 parochial clergy, every trace of refinement and civil- 
 ization would disappear \" But I shall pass over the 
 advantage to every community of having persons dis- 
 tributed through it, of extensive learning and liberal 
 manners, and, above all, of christian principles and 
 demeanour; which, notwithstanding the sneers with 
 which the profession is often assailed, is its great 
 and general characteristic ; and shall only fix upon 
 their conduct in seasons of general distress, in- 
 stancing, at present, that of the late fatal dearth 
 and epidemic a time, indeed, which put to the test 
 the immeasurable distance between real and pretended 
 patriotism. At that period, when, as its able and 
 feeling historians record, the evils of the non-residence 
 of the proprietors was so deeply felt^ the conduct of 
 the clergy, both bishops and inferior orders, was 
 beyond all praise^; many of the latter, we are informed, 
 fell victims to the unremitted discharge of their sacred 
 and benevolent duties ^ I trust, such at least have 
 expiated the offence of having subsisted upon a share 
 of the landed property of the country, and a grievous 
 one it is in the estimation of many an absentee. 
 
 * Major Woodward, Speech of Bishop of Limerick, p. 89. 
 
 * Baker and Cheync, Account of the Fever in Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 
 35,76, 100, 125, 138, 168, 338. 
 
 'Ibid, vol.ii. pp. 76, 84, 89, 100, 101, 103, 105, 138, 336. 
 
 * Ibid. vol. ii. p. 42. 
 
160 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ X. 
 
 (5.) I will not disguise^ that some of the preceding 
 observations have been suggested to my mind^ by 
 reading the attacks, in both houses of Parliament, 
 made upon the clergy, and especially the Irish clergy. 
 One gentleman, if I remember right, selected the 
 archiepiscopal see of Armagh as the subject matter of 
 his declamation ; I shall make no allusion to the nature 
 of his mis-statements, those I believe were sufficiently 
 exposed at the time. I shall only take up that part 
 of the question which I am discussing, namely, whether 
 church property is not at present in far better hands, 
 as it regards the interests of Ireland, and of the poor 
 of Ireland especially, than it would be if some of our 
 projectors had their way. I shall not attempt to flat- 
 ter any living prelate, though several of them are at this 
 instant engaged in works of extensive benevolence, but, 
 purposely taking the instance selected for the attack, 
 shall quote Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, which 
 now lies before me, in reference to that see. This is 
 an extract from his journal : " Reached Armagh in 
 the evening: waited on the primate. July 23rd, his 
 Grace rode out with me to Armagh, and showed me 
 some of the noble and spirited works by which he has 
 perfectly changed the face of the neighbourhood. 
 The buildings he has erected in seven years_, one 
 would suppose, without previous information, to be 
 the work of an active life. A list of them will justify 
 this observation. He has erected a very elegant 
 palace, ninety feet by sixty, and forty high, in which 
 an unadorned simplicity reigns throughout." (This 
 he describes at length and the noble view it commands.) 
 " The barracks were erected under his Grace's direc- 
 
X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 161 
 
 tions, and form a large and handsome edifice. The 
 school is a buikling of considerable extent^ and admi- 
 rably adapted for the purpose, a more convenient one 
 or better contrived is nowhere to be seen. There are 
 apartments for the master, a school-room fifty-six feet 
 by twenty-eight, a large dining-room, and spacious airy 
 dormitories, with all other necessaries, and a play- 
 ground walled in; the whole forming a handsome 
 front : and attention having been paid to the residence 
 of the master (the salary is <400 a year), the school 
 flourishes, and must prove one of the greatest advan- 
 tages to the country of anything that could have been 
 established. This edifice is entirely at the primate's 
 expense. The church is erected of white stone, and 
 having a tall spire makes a very agreeable object in a 
 country where churches and spires do not abound ; at 
 least such as are worth looking at. Three other 
 churches the primate has also built, and done consi- 
 derable reparations to the cathedral. He has been the 
 means also of erecting a public infirmary, which was 
 built by subscription, contributing amply to it himself. 
 A public library he has erected at his own expense, 
 given a large collection of books, and endowed it. 
 The room is excellently adapted, forty-five feet by 
 twenty-five, and a gallery and apartments for the libra- 
 rian. He has further ornamented the city with a 
 market-house and shambles, and been the direct means 
 (by giving leases upon that condition) of almost new 
 building the whole place. He found it a nest of mud 
 cabins, and will leave it a well-buih city of slate and 
 stone. When it is considered that all this has been done 
 in the short space of seven or eight years, I should 
 
 M 
 
162 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ X. 
 
 not be accused of exaggeration if I said tliey were 
 noble and spirited works, even undertaken upon a 
 man's paternal estate ; but how much more then are 
 they worthy of praise, when executed, not for his own 
 posterity, but for the public good." He mentions that 
 his Grace was engaged likewise in furthering agricul- 
 tural improvements ; into which subjects I shall not 
 accompany him\ 
 
 I leave it to the imagination to pourtray the activity 
 and plenty which revenues thus dispensed must diffuse 
 through a country, independently of the permanent 
 advantages and embellishments they bestow. As to 
 those who hold property thus possessed, to be, nation- 
 ally speaking, a nuisance^ or that it would be far better 
 in the hands of some heartless absentee, let them 
 enjoy their own opinions unmolested ; they are, I un- 
 derstand, enough to keep each other in countenance, 
 nay, it is said their opinions are spreading that they 
 are the notions of great and influential men, as well 
 as of learned lecturers and grave professors ; so that 
 one is almost afraid, as Shakspeare has it, that *'this 
 great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney." This 
 lunacy, however, cannot long continue. 
 
 (6.) In defending the revenues of the church of Ire- 
 land, and the right of its clergy to the value of the 
 tithes, not only on principles of justice, but circum- 
 stanced as property now is in that country, as a 
 national good, I would by no means assert that the 
 continuation of the system of tithing is otherwise 
 than bad and barbarous. I shall not touch upon the 
 subject agriculturally ; its evils, in disturbing the 
 ' Young, Tour in Ireland, pp. 103, 104. 
 
X.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 163 
 
 proper rotation of cropS;, and, when gathered in kind, 
 in defrauding the land of its regular manure, and 
 above all, in falling as a tax upon superior cultiva- 
 tion, are sufficiently apparent ; but these form no 
 reasons for the forfeiture, but for an equitable com- 
 mutation of tithes. Let those who speak upon this 
 subject, with other views^ recollect that the system 
 of collecting tithes in kind is but the continuation 
 of the metairie system which once prevailed univer- 
 sally, and still remains in some parts of France, and 
 generally in Italy. The landlords in such case had 
 usually the half, the clergyman a tenth of the pro- 
 duce. It has been found far more convenient to both 
 landlord and tenant to change this mode into the 
 payment of a rent mutually agreed upon between 
 the parties ; but the share of the church has con- 
 tinued to be estimated or taken upon the old prin- 
 ciple, equally to the disadvantage and dissatisfaction 
 of all concerned : it is, in fact, a relic of barbarism ; 
 of a mode which was, perhaps, once necessary, on 
 all hands, when coin was rare, and bargains conse- 
 quently still continued to be made pretty much on 
 the principle of barter. Even the revenues of the 
 country, at least some of the most productive ones, 
 continued, till within these few centuries past, to be 
 paid in kind, particularly in wools. It is much to 
 be regretted that, as money payments became practi- 
 cable, and were adopted in almost all other cases ; so 
 beneficial an alteration did not take place touching 
 the revenues of the church : one which would have 
 been demonstrably for the benefit of all parties, and 
 more especially for the clergyman, who, 1 am per- 
 
164 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [X. 
 
 suaded, notwithstanding the outcry against him, is 
 the greatest sufferer. Nothing, it appears to me, 
 could be easier than a measure which Would have 
 the effect of ultimately exonerating all the land in 
 the empire of tithes, and converting them into glebe, 
 without any compulsory clauses whatsoever ; though 
 I see not why such might not be resorted to, in order 
 to carry into effect a regulation founded on impar- 
 tial justice and reciprocal advantage. The ancient and 
 beneficial feelings of reverence and affection between 
 the pastor and his people would then be naturally 
 renewed. On the present system, however, it is 
 almost impossible that the former should escape cen- 
 sure, w^hatever be his conduct. If he accept less 
 than his right, which he does in most instances, still 
 he does not escape, in many cases, the odium of 
 being an exactor and oppressor, in that he takes any- 
 thing. Instead of the respect and veneration with 
 w^hich a kind and benevolent landlord is ever re- 
 garded, and which he would then be enabled to 
 become, he is now looked upon, at best, but as a sort 
 of ecclesiastical tax-gatherer : nay, I see in the statis- 
 tical account of Rathvilly, tithe is classed under the 
 head of " local taxation," instead of under the column 
 of rent ; a distinction apparently not without a dif- 
 ference, and possibly one of the utmost practical 
 importance. If he do not take his tithes in kind, 
 in the fear that he may and the knowledge that he 
 can, he becomes a standing object of dread and dis- 
 trust. If he do, he is hated and defied. His minis- 
 terial functions are, in the mean time, disliked and 
 deserted, and his office, as well aa his person, held 
 
X.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 165 
 
 in abhorrence ; and from this state of things, many 
 are constantly alienated from the establishment by 
 the very means which, under a better system, would 
 unite them to it_, and promote its interest and utility. 
 No temporary commutations, as at present, can fully 
 obviate these evils, much less secure the advantages 
 proposed. That a general bill should not have 
 passed centuries ago, to facilitate the permanent 
 commutation of tithes, is one of those many in- 
 stances that might be adduced which would almost 
 tempt one to believe that the management of the 
 affairs of the church had been committed into the 
 hands of its enemies. I can hardly see who could have 
 been its opposers, or what were the difficulties, beyond 
 such as always attend the adjustment of separate in- 
 terests of considerable magnitude. Some such bill 
 might and ought still to be framed ; for it cannot 
 be disguised that, owing to the system of manage- 
 ment of estates in Ireland, especially as so much is 
 under the "care" of middlemen, the present mode 
 of collecting tithes falls as a very great grievance on 
 the little Irish cultivator ; and violent heats, much 
 bloodshed, and great distress, are constantly occa- 
 sioned by it. Meantime, as an accelerator of such 
 im adjustment, the landlord should in all cases 
 
 PAY THE value OF THE TITHES TO THE INCUMBENT; 
 
 which tithes might be annually fixed at a reasonable 
 rate, calculated upon existing prices, but without 
 reference to the variation in the produce of the ac- 
 tual crop ; and means might easily be adopted to 
 secure both parties from any material imposition. 
 (7.) Having ventured to touch upon the ecclesi- 
 
166 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, R XI. 
 
 astical property of Ireland, I will just add, that a 
 very beneficial arrangement, of a nature purely pro- 
 spective, and consequently not interfering with exist- 
 ing rights, might be made so as most essentially to 
 serve the interests of the establishment and its mem- 
 bers. If the leasehold system, now absorbing so 
 much of its income, were gradually got rid of, reserv- 
 ing at least what would be as ample a revenue for the 
 purposes to which the whole is appropriated, as now 
 enjoyed ; and the surplus thus created were devoted 
 to increasing the number of cures throughout the 
 country, now so lamentably few, the advantages would 
 be great. Who could be the objectors to such a pro- 
 position, it is difficult to imagine ; certainly not the 
 friends of the establishment. But I am wandering 
 from the matters to which, in the outset, I purposed 
 to confine myself, and to which I shall now return. 
 
 XI. (1.) The preceding observations, whether in 
 relation to the wrongs of Ireland, or, as I believe 
 them to be, the fatal errors in the propositions of 
 those who, there can be no doubt, are anxious to re- 
 medy them, might have been greatly multiplied; they 
 have, however, been already extended to a far greater 
 length than originally intended ; as it was less my ob- 
 ject to write a treatise on the state and condition of 
 Ireland, than to point out those circumstances which 
 have caused it to become an apparent contradiction 
 to the principle of population, as already propounded. 
 Having, however, insisted upon what I conceive to be 
 the real source of the evils of that country, and ex- 
 posed, as well as I have been able, the inefficacy, and 
 
XI.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 167 
 
 indeed the pernieiousness, of those remedies which 
 are now so urgently proposed for their removal or 
 relief, it perhaps may be expected that I should give 
 my ideas as to the methods proper to be adopted, in 
 relation to that country; exposing, in turn, my views 
 on this important matter to that examination to which 
 I have so freely subjected those of others. 
 
 It is an ancient, and, hitherto, not an exploded 
 adage, that the knowledge of the disease is, in many 
 cases, half the cure ; and if the view which I, or rather 
 others infinitely better qualified to determine, have 
 taken of the prime injury which Ireland sustains, be 
 correct, then the remedy is at once suggested. If 
 Ireland is impoverished, degraded, and distressed, by 
 absenteeism, the cure for these sufferings is doubtless 
 the removal of tlieir cause, or, if that cannot be en- 
 tirely accomplished, by counteracting its effects as 
 much as possible. 
 
 (2.) There are some, however, so extremely tender 
 upon this point, that they would consign a whole 
 country to perpetual suffering, rather than take any 
 measure whatsoever that should have the appearance 
 of touching, ever so slightly, what they denominate 
 the rights of private property. I shall not pause to 
 argue with such ; their principles are utterly incon- 
 sistent with the paramount rights and even duties of 
 the legislature, and with the ultimate preservation ot 
 that property itself, about which they profess to be so 
 anxious. This is a very common idea with those who, 
 nevertheless, are not very adverse to sweeping away the 
 rights of one or two entire classes of society at once, 
 that is, if they think it to be for their interest. Such 
 
168 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, Kxi. 
 
 I can assure that I feel as averse as any one ought to 
 do, from any measures which the most rigid principles 
 of justice would discountenance, and I would propose 
 nothing that should he reasonably objected to, even 
 by the parties themselves interested. At all events, 
 the propositions I am about to submit are of a far less 
 onerous nature than many laws which have, from time 
 to time, been passed on this subject, and greatly short 
 of what government has, and at no very distant 
 period, proposed, or that which the parties themselves 
 ought voluntarily to adopt. 
 
 (3.) As to interfering at all, it has been already hinted, 
 that the property possessed by these absentees, if duly 
 traced, will be found to have been conferred on the 
 condition of personal residence, or what is equivalent 
 to it. The more this matter is examined, the clearer 
 will it appear. This was doubtless the view taken of it 
 by sundry monarchs, and by many parhaments. As 
 early as the reign of Edward III., in 1368, we find him 
 stating, in an ordinance regarding Ireland, that *^plu- 
 seures seigneuries et terres illoeques par noz ditz pro- 
 geintours feurent donez & grantez a divers seigneurs 
 et auters persones noz-foialt d'engleterre, qi tieur guer- 
 dons avoient par leur continuel demoeure sur leur ditz 
 seigneuries purreit sauvement estre defenduz a touz 
 jours : et coment de long temps out pris les issues et 
 profitz sans defens ou garde covenable y mettre, si qi 
 par leur defauts et non chaler sont les ditz mals ave- 
 nuz en perdition de la dite terre," &c.^ In the reign 
 of Richard II. a law was passed, fining absentees two- 
 
 ' Anthologia Hibernica j quoted by Croker, pp. 267, 268, note. 
 
XII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 169 
 
 thirds of their estates : a law which was again revived 
 in that of Henry VIII.*; as^ like all others of this 
 nature_, the former had been evaded. In the time of 
 James I._, the entire lands of all absentees were vested 
 in the crown ^. In 1715, the Irish parliament taxed 
 the pensions^ salaries, &c. of all absentees four shillings 
 in the pound, which tax was afterwards repealed, not 
 because the principle was disapproved of, but because 
 the dispensing power with which the crown was in- 
 vested had rendered it a nugatory measure. In 1773, 
 even the government there was so impressed with the 
 evils it occasioned, that a tax of two shillings in the 
 pound was proposed on the real estates of all absen- 
 tees : the measure, however, was lost by a small ma- 
 jority. Enough^, I think, has been advanced to show, 
 that to legislate on this matter would be no inno- 
 vation. 
 
 XII. (1.) The first proposition I venture to make 
 is the following : 
 
 I would have the legislature pass a law, by which 
 the great English owners of Irish estates should be 
 empowered to cut off the entail of their Irish pro- 
 perty, in favour of the junior branches of their family, 
 on condition that those on whose behalf it should be 
 done should be residents in the country, otherwise 
 their interest, thus created, to revert back to the heir 
 at law. For example, I would enable an Earl Fitz- 
 wilhara to will his Irish property, under such limita- 
 
 ' Leland, Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 124. 
 '' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 468. 
 
170 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XII. 
 
 tion^ to one or more of his younger sons_, any legal 
 obstacle to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 (2.) When I first conceived this idea, as an easy 
 and natural remedy for that form of absenteeism 
 which is the least_, if at all, criminal, namely, where 
 the individual has property in both islands, concerning 
 the mode of dealing with which case there has always 
 been considerable difficulties expressed; 1 imagined 
 it to have been an original thought, and one which 
 would be hailed even by such absentees themselves, 
 as affectionate fathers, and not very liable to ob- 
 jection on the part of generous brothers. But I am 
 happy to resign all claim to originality for the supe- 
 rior gratification of being enabled to clothe the pro- 
 position with the weight due to ancient and far better 
 authority. I find that Dobbs^, a true Irish patriot^ 
 mentioned so highly by Archbishop Boulter, and 
 now so often referred to, proposed the same thing, 
 under the name of what he calls an act of Gravel- 
 kind, and with precisely the same object. 
 
 (3.) I can anticipate but one material objection to this 
 proposition, and that will, after due examination, be sur- 
 rendered, as founded in ignorance and error. It might 
 be argued, were the theory of population I am op- 
 posing true (indeed it is so asserted), that these noble 
 estates, thus divided, would ultimately be parcelled 
 out into insignificant shares, and the rank of the 
 family at length lost by such an expedient. To this 
 it might be answered, that the law of entail might be 
 resumed, regarding estates when so divided, as strictly 
 as had been the case before. But, independently of 
 
XII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 171 
 
 this, the objection is entirely imaginary and fallacious. 
 In allusion to the peerage, I have already remarked 
 that the tendency, in great families in possession of 
 lar^e properties, is not to undue multiplication, but to 
 extinction, and that to a very extraordinary degree. 
 A striking proof of the practical errors into which 
 the modern notion upon population betrays its 
 adherents, has recently occurred in the arguments in 
 the French chambers against their law of descent 
 (something like our Kentish law of gavelkind), 
 founded on the geometric theory of human increase ; 
 whereas, had the speakers adverted to the statistics 
 of their country, they would have found that the 
 births of France are few^er now than they w^ere half 
 a century ago, and that the increase of the inha- 
 bitants is therefore solely attributable to the increased 
 longevity of the country ; consequently, as far as the 
 principle of population had to do with the matter, 
 property there must have a tendency to accumu- 
 lation, instead of division. At all events, as it 
 respects the rank alluded to the absentee ow^ners of 
 Irish possessions, nothing can be clearer than its 
 constant tendency to diminish. One fact only will 
 sufficiently confirm the interesting principle already 
 alluded to on this point, and it is this : since the 
 Union, in so short a period as twenty-six years, 
 thirty-two of the Irish peerages, existing at that time, 
 have become extinct. 
 
 (4.) In following up this idea, three important 
 parties would be essential gainers. First, the Irish 
 nation, in behalf of whom the proposition is made, 
 amongst whom the income of such (which naturally 
 
172 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [J XIII. 
 
 belongs to them) would be expended. Second, the 
 empire; which would not then have to sustain so 
 many younger branches of noble and wealthy families, 
 as is now the case. Third, the individuals to whom 
 such property would descend ; while the very per- 
 sons at whose apparent expense this beneficial 
 arrangement would be effected, still in possession of 
 all that rank and affluence could possibly bestow, 
 would be sufferers in imagination only ; nor even in 
 imagination : for we may well believe that the gene- 
 rous elder branches of these great families would 
 participate in the satisfaction and pleasure with 
 which such a regulation would be regarded by every 
 parent worthy of the name. 
 
 XIII. (1.) My next and far more important 
 proposition in favour of Ireland, is, that a reformed 
 system of poor-laws should be instantly established, 
 founded upon the humane principle, but avoiding the 
 errors, of those of England, in being more completely 
 adapted to the altered circumstances of the times ; ' 
 that there, as here, wealth should be compelled to 
 assist destitute poverty, in proportion to its means ; 
 but that, dissimimilar to our practice, that assistance 
 should, in all cases, excepting in those of actual inca- 
 pability from age or disease, be connected with 
 labour ^ 
 
 But, in making this proposition, it seems necessary 
 that I should enter into a short defence of the prin- 
 ciple, especially as it is so much assailed by our poli- 
 
 ' This was not only the original law, but the early practice. (See 
 Dalton's Country Justice, chap, xx.) 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 173 
 
 tical economists, who unanimously and vehemently 
 resist its introduction into Ireland, and who, however 
 differing upon other points, unite in their endeavours 
 to vilify the national charity preparatory to its de- 
 struction even here. Mr. Malthus speaks authorita- 
 tively upon the occasion, in that, as he somewhere 
 says, he has reflected much upon the subject : on that 
 ground I may likewise claim to be heard, as I have 
 not only thought upon it through life, but have volun- 
 tarily engaged in the duties the system imposes, as 
 well as in those of other institutions in connexion 
 with it ; and have come to a diametrically opposite 
 conclusion : not maintaining that it has not been 
 abused, is not abused, and will not in future be 
 abused (for against what institution, however divine, 
 might not the same charge be urged ? could Chris- 
 tianity itself stand the test of such an unfair ordeal?) 
 but contending that, in its principle, it is founded in 
 justice and mercy, and that, in its operation, it is a 
 universal benefit to the community. 
 
 (2.) In proceeding, therefore, to a short defence of 
 the system of a legal provision for the poor, I shall not 
 occupy the entire limits to which I mean to restrict 
 myself, in refuting the obviously frivolous and false 
 objections which are so often urged against it, and 
 which serve to prove that it is unassailable excepting 
 by odious misrepresentations. Always forgetting, or 
 otherwise culpably misrepresenting the description of 
 poverty and distress, to the relief of which so great 
 a proportion of the sums raised is appropriated; 
 many choose to regard the national charity as solely 
 occupied in supporting and maintaining able-bodied 
 
174 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 and flagitious idleness'. Any authentic list of the 
 relieved will sufficiently answer all such persons'^; 
 meantime the character of the working classes of the 
 people of England (a race with which the world has 
 none of a similar rank to compare, notwithstanding 
 the perpetual accusations against them) brands the 
 accusation with falsehood ; while the institution itself, 
 both in its letter and spirit, contradicts it. Pro- 
 viding for those numerous cases which, in every pos- 
 sible state of human society, must ever remain objects 
 of charitable attention, it is true it did not leave out 
 of its consideration that species of distress which the 
 very history of the question shows has always existed, 
 and which, to the confusion of the system I am oppos- 
 ing, has ever been found the most general when popu- 
 lation has been the fewest, I mean the suffering occa- 
 sioned by want of employment. Mr. Malthus asserts 
 that such have no rightful claim to the ^'smallest por- 
 tion of food :" the institution in question maintains the 
 contrary ; but in doing so, it prescribes that, in such 
 cases, labour shall be connected with relief. This, 
 whoever may declare it to be impracticable, is plainly 
 otherwise, and has been so proved by whole com- 
 munities and countries, for successive ages. Instead, 
 therefore, of this institution being the cause of idle- 
 ness, it is its cure, and is a simple and effica- 
 cious one, whenever properly administered. On the 
 contrary, it is the system that is invariably acted 
 upon, wherever this is found wanting, which is the 
 
 ^ *' Plundering the industrious to support the idle." (Minutes of 
 Evidence before the Lords, on the disturbances of Ireland, p. 3 15.) 
 
 ^ See Sir Frederic Morton Eden's Hist, of the Poor, vols. ii. and 
 iii. passim. 
 
Xin.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 175 
 
 patron of idleness and rnendieaney, as will be observed 
 hereafter. Conceding, most fully, that relief to able- 
 bodied paupers, unconnected with labour, is perni- 
 cious in the extreme, I deny as strongly that such is 
 the principle of the system I am about to defend, or 
 its necessary consequence in any instance. Labour 
 is the physic of pauperism of this kind, which w^ould 
 carry off its humours, and reduce it to a sound state, 
 and proportionably diminish the expense of its main- 
 tenance. As to the difficulty, or, as some allege, 
 the impossibility of employing the idle poor, the case, 
 I repeat, is palpably otherwise. Even labour, wholly 
 useless with regard to any intrinsic advantage to 
 the public, would be invaluable in this view of 
 the subject, and surely such might every w^here 
 be created ^ But there is no need to fix upon any 
 degrading and utterly useless employments. Human 
 labour is, unquestionably, too sacred an instrument 
 to be thus disgraced ; far too valuable a talent thus 
 to be squandered. It might and ought to be directed 
 to objects of general interest and utility, which pre 
 sent themselves wherever we may be ; such as, pro- 
 bably, individual enterprise will never attempt, but 
 which, for that very reason, it may be the more 
 necessary that the public should accomplish. What 
 
 ' The following quotation from Sir William Petty is not only in 
 illustration of this point, but likewise incidentally shows that the 
 want of labour is not peculiar to a crowded population, as some 
 suppose, but rather to the contrary : " It is no mutter if their la- 
 bour," speaking of the idle poor, "be employed to build a useless 
 pyramid upon Salisbury plain, bring- the stones at Stoneheng-e 
 to Tower Hill, or the like ; for at worst this would inure their minds 
 to discipline and obedience, and their bodiis to a patient and pro- 
 fitable labour when need shall require it." (Polit. Anatomy, p. 16.) 
 
176 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 would have been achieved, if the sums, often worse than 
 wasted in keeping the poor in idleness, instead of 
 employing them, had been thus directed ? What 
 might still be the consequences, if a better adminis- 
 tration of the national charity were to prevail ? A 
 writer of celebrity in the last century lamented this 
 malversation of its funds, in a country where, he 
 observed, the labour of five hundred thousand indi- 
 viduals, for five hundred years, might be most advan- 
 tageously devoted to enterprises of universal inte- 
 rest and utility. Minor objects, however, solicit our 
 attention in every direction ; but_, without suggesting 
 such at present, or the means by which they might 
 be accomplished, I will content myself with stating 
 that the advocates of the poor-laws are as anxious as 
 their impugners can be, that in all cases where relief 
 is administered on the ground of want of work, it 
 should, agreeably to the ancient institution, be cou- 
 pled with labour, under these obviously necessary 
 regulations: First, the employment ought to be such 
 as not to interfere with the regular " market of la- 
 bour;" and, secondly, its remuneration should be 
 somewhat lower than for that usually demanded ; 
 and, moreover^ it should be_, generally speaking, of 
 a less desirable kind. Such a regulation would in- 
 stantly reform pauperism, and obviate the objection 
 to the entire system now so perpetually urged, and 
 at the same time would prevent the remedy from 
 itself ever becoming an evil^ as is too commonly the 
 case. 
 
 Under these regulations, then, nothing seems to 
 be clearer than the policy of this institution, in 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIED*. 177 
 
 every point of view, and especially in a great manu- 
 facturing country, where machinery is daily multi- 
 plying, and employment in perpetual fluctuation. It 
 equahzes the price and sustains the value of labour; 
 and supports, in such sudden transitions, those masses 
 of society which create, and consequently are essen- 
 tial to, national wealth : just as the cultivator in 
 the inactive season, for hierns igiiava colono care- 
 fully preserves his team for future use. Then, as to 
 those who, even in a time of general activity, can- 
 not sustain themselves, for such there have ever 
 been, and will still continue to be, while human 
 society endures, whatever be its form, such as the 
 infant orphan; the destitute widow; the impotent, 
 whether of mind or body; or those who, in the midst 
 of their labours, are maimed by accidents, or arrested 
 by sickness stricken, as our ancestors expressed 
 themselves, by the act of God ! is anything more 
 reasonable than that wealth should support these in 
 proportion to its superfluity ? Is anything more 
 necessary than such a law ? 
 
 (3.) But it is said that the poor ought to save suf- 
 ficient to maintain themselves, during all these fluctua- 
 tions and sufferings, and in anticipation of them. 
 Nothing, however, can equal the absurdity of such a 
 proposition, notwithstanding the gravity with which 
 it is propounded, and the constancy with which it is 
 repeated. It is absurd, because, first, of its utter im- 
 possibiHty in most cases. How, for instance, is the 
 desolate orphan to provide itself with this previous 
 fund ? How is the man just entered on his labours, 
 smitten with a lingering disease, or deprivcnl of his 
 
 N 
 
178 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 limbs by the numerous accidents to which that labour 
 exposes him^ to amass it ? But I go further ; I totally 
 deny the possibility^ in most cases, even of those 
 whose health and labour has been the least interrupted, 
 to do so : let those who have the face to propose it, 
 turn to the condition of the agricultural labourer, and, 
 very frequently, to that of the manufacturing one, and 
 answer the question. As those misfortunes and cala- 
 mities are incident to them all, but are not to be fore- 
 seen by any, each must provide against the contingency 
 personally and individually. Let the actuary then put 
 himself to work, and calculate the fund that poverty 
 must accumulate in order to free itself from the neces- 
 sity of assistance on these emergencies, and arithme- 
 tic, I think, will dispose of this class of objectors to the 
 poor laws. The cash of the empire, were it all trans- 
 mitted into the pockets of the poor, would not suffice 
 for this scheme of doing away with the necessity of 
 the poor laws. At first sight it is plain enough that it 
 would demand a capital of upwards of one hundred 
 and forty millions, placed out in the savings banks, to 
 meet the annual demand paid to the whole of the poor. 
 But this is a very superficial and inadequate view of 
 the case ; it supposes that the five or six millions now 
 expended upon them should be equally distributed 
 amongst, and borne by the whole number of the poor, 
 as is now done amongst the wealthy; whereas, as indi- 
 viduals would then have to sustain themselves without 
 assistance in any unforeseen sufferings that might befal 
 them, it follows that every individual must save up, 
 not only his share of the average expense which is 
 now incurred in behalf of his class, but that he should 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 179 
 
 provide against those more distressing and permanent 
 afflictions to which all are h'able^ at least, if he is to 
 avoid that which he is to regard as a disgrace assis- 
 tance. At present the average annual expenditure 
 on a pauper may amount to about six pounds : it is 
 obvious, in the first place^ that the labouring class must 
 each of them provide a fund to meet this ; but this is 
 not all : in the alphabet of pauperism, though on the 
 average of the letters the sum mentioned may be that 
 expended on each, yet it is certain that two or three 
 of them may, and do receive many times as much 
 as that average ; all of them must therefore provide 
 against these more pressing cases, none knowing where 
 the lot will fall. On this view of the subject (and its 
 justness cannot be disputed), the savings of the poor 
 ought to amount to at least a second national debt. The 
 proposition is preposterous. It may be said, indeed, 
 that throwing the poor on their own resources would 
 greatly diminish this expense ; so it might on tbe plan 
 of beggary and starvation. There is no difficulty on that 
 head, with some : but, consistently with the dictates 
 of justice and mercy, we deny that the expense ought 
 to be materially reduced ; on the contrary, most writers 
 of real experience and humanity, from Sir W. Petty 
 downwards, have maintained that it is an item in the 
 national disbursements that stands in need, rather, of 
 being increased. Let any one cast his eyes over Sir 
 Frederick Morton Eden's work on the poor, and see, in 
 the parochial returns, in many of wbich the objects 
 receiving relief are described, and their ages specified, 
 and determine how many he could erase ! I am tempted 
 
 N2 
 
180 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 to give a list or two of these, but I shall content my- 
 self with referring to the entire work \ 
 
 But perhaps it may be replied, they might be 
 in a club or friendly society, so as to obviate this ob- 
 jection ; and this to as wide an extent as possible, is 
 highly desirable, were those institutions placed under 
 different regulations to what they usually are at pre- 
 sent; but even then, they never could become so 
 comprehensive and universal as to supersede the ne- 
 cessity for poor laws. But we may retort, on those 
 who urge the foregoing proposition, the question 
 what do the poor laws form but a great national 
 club, or, as our Saxon ancestors would have deno- 
 minated it, a guild, to which all that are qualified 
 contribute, in behalf of the distressed members? I 
 early learnt this doctrine from a pauper who had 
 in his better days kept his equipage, but who had 
 lost his fortune by a generous act, which elevated 
 his character as much as it depressed his condition : 
 he disdained alms ; but he gratefully took the paro- 
 chial pittance : " I have," said he, " paid largely to 
 this national fund in my better days ; and in my turn 
 I need its benefit and am not ashamed to receive it.'* 
 
 But further : supposing the poor, I mean the labour- 
 ing classes throughout the kingdom, were put upon 
 this plan of universal saving ; if there be the least 
 truth in true poUtical economy (not the unintelligible, 
 paradoxical, prophetic jargon now so denominated, 
 but that founded upon the just principles, sober sense, 
 
 * See, in corroboration of this view of the subject, an able pam- 
 phlet, by Mr. Rogers, of Sheffield ; who speaks as to the imprac- 
 ticability of materially reducing the expense of sustaining the 
 poor, from personal experience. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 181 
 
 and sound experience of mankind,) were they for that 
 purpose to diminish the expenses of their present mode 
 of Hving, and instead of " wheat-bread eaters" become 
 *^ potatoe eaters," to take up the profound observation 
 of our emigration report, is it not evident that the 
 remuneration of their labour would be diminished in 
 precisely the same ratio ? I understand it to be a uni- 
 versally acknowledged axiom, that the wages of labour 
 have a constant tendency to accommodate themselves 
 to the actual average expenses of those rendering it. 
 If there be the least truth in this, the proposal to the 
 working classes, that they should diminish their daily 
 expenditure, in order to save money, would only have 
 the effect, if attended to universally, of diminishing the 
 remuneration of their labour precisely in the same 
 proportion as they had diminished their comforts. 
 The fact is, that nothing but the spur of necessity oc- 
 casions the bulk of mankind to labour at all, and they 
 only labour up to their necessity ^ Poverty is the 
 great weight which keeps the social machine going : 
 remove that, and the gilded hands would not long be 
 seen to move aloft, nor the melodious chimes be heard 
 again. Nothing on earth can be less philosophical 
 than the idea of making the whole of the labouring 
 classes hoarders of money ; meritorious instances of 
 this kind occur, it is true, but it should be recollected 
 that they can exist only as exceptions : but to render 
 these general, were it possible, would obviously defeat 
 the intended purpose, and derange the whole social 
 system. 
 
 (4.) But allowing all these impossibilities to be sur- 
 * Dr. Franklin, Essays, vol. ii. p. 166. 
 
182 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ Xill. 
 
 mounted^ that, as the poor reduced their habits of 
 living, their wages should still remain as they are, and 
 that they should individually be enabled to save, so 
 as to provide against the misfortunes to which all 
 are liable, what would be the effect of this uni- 
 versal parsimony? This is no difficult question to 
 ansAver, by those who recollect that, with the excep- 
 tion of] comparatively speaking, a small class, the 
 producers and the consumers are reciprocally iden- 
 tified. To realize the scheme of superseding the poor 
 laws, and in a great measure private charity, by this 
 system of universal saving, the great mass of the 
 community must content themselves with a greatly- 
 diminished consumption, either of agricultural or ma- 
 nufactured produce, or both. Surely no one needs 
 to be reminded of the instant and inevitable conse- 
 quences of their doing either. Let them be reduced, 
 as it respects their living, to Irish, or, if we may 
 credit Sir John Sinclair, to Scotch fare^; and what 
 need is there for the produce of the pasturage of 
 England or Ireland, nine-tenths of which, at least, are 
 consumed by those who, if put upon this saving plan, 
 must universally, or, not to speak in extremes, ge- 
 nerally abstain? Then as it respects the manufactures 
 of the country^ to which_, after all, the commonalty of 
 the realm are the main support ; if the demand for 
 clothes, furniture, and every other convenience of life 
 now enjoyed by them, and all the product of human 
 
 ^ " In Scotland the greater proportion of the labouring classes of 
 the community hardly ever taste animal food, but live upon por- 
 ridge, bread, beer, and water-kail, as it is called." (Sinclair's 
 Code of Health and Longevity, p. 539.) 
 
Xm.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 183 
 
 labour, should be greatly diminished, and consequently 
 so much fewer be manufactured, the result must be 
 again equally fatal. A calculation in evidence of this 
 might easily be made, but it is unnecessary. Take 
 the numbers of the class in question as low as you 
 can, and make the diminution in their daily expendi- 
 ture as little as is consistent with the proposal, and it 
 will be instantly seen that, if this disinterested recom- 
 mendation of modern philanthropy could be carried 
 into effect, a single year would throw millions out of 
 employment, and consequently out of bread ; and ruin, 
 beyond all hope of recovery, the finances of the 
 country. You would have got rid of the poor laws, 
 it is true ; but you would at the same time have deso- 
 lated your pastures, closed your manufactories, emptied 
 your exchequer, and spread universal idleness and beg- 
 gary ; in a word, after you had robbed the poor, you 
 would become national bankrupts, with the consola- 
 tion of having richly deserved your fate. 
 
 (5.) But we have not yet quite done with this pro- 
 position, that the poor should be compelled so to lay 
 up against a time of sickness or distress, or loss of 
 employment, or, lastly, old age, as not to burden the 
 public; or that they should otherwise be left to their 
 fate under such circumstances. Another remark will 
 serve to show the nature of this proposal, and, I hope, 
 hold it up to the contempt and abhorrence it deserves. 
 Do those who make it to the poor, address it to the 
 other and higher orders of society, where its adoption 
 would be far more reasonable, practicable, and just? 
 Have any of the political economists, who have uttered 
 such vehement things against poverty in this particu- 
 
184 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ XIII. 
 
 lar, held forth that the ministers, the chancellors, the 
 judges, and all other servants of the crown ; that all 
 puhHc officers, civil, military, or naval; that allhishops 
 and ministers of the church, of all orders and degrees ; 
 I say, have they proposed, when the health of these 
 fails, or they have advanced far in years, so as to be 
 no longer fully capable of performing the duties of 
 their several callings, that they should at once resign 
 them, and give up their emoluments without any 
 equivalent, half-pay, pension, superannuated allow- 
 ance, or consideration whatsoever ? Yet most of these 
 have private fortunes, many of them ample ones; 
 while the bounty of the country, in the mean time_, 
 enables them to put the saving plan into execution, 
 without, in many instances, sacri6cing an iota of their 
 personal comforts. But, no: it is held quite proper 
 that many of these should be continued in the enjoy- 
 ment of their entire incomes till death, and that, 
 under one denomination or another, nearly all the 
 rest should have retiring allowances, amounting, on 
 the whole, few as their numbers comparatively are, to 
 milhons. Da prcetori; da deinde tribuno\ as of old; 
 but that the wretched should receive anything, that 
 the poor worn-out hind, who has had the misfortune 
 to survive his strength, should have a morsel of the 
 produce of those fields which he has tilled for half a 
 century, or that the cripple who has been maimed in 
 some of the boasted manufactories of the country, 
 should be allowed a few daily pence at the public 
 cost; this is the grievance, according to our poli- 
 tical economists! We are persuaded to use such 
 * See Juvenal, sat. i. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 185 
 
 far worse than a heathen poet recommends that his 
 
 countrymen should treat a worn-out heast of burden : 
 
 ** Hunc quoqu^, ubi aut morbo gravis, aut jam segnior annis, 
 Deficit, abde domo, nee turpi ignosce senectse." 
 
 I would here guard myself against misrepresenta- 
 tion ; I would not have the public servants of the 
 country deserted by a just and grateful people, and on 
 this very ground I protest against the most essential, 
 though the humblest of these, the poor worn-out 
 labourer, being 
 
 *' Deserted in his utmost need 
 By those his former labours fed 1" 
 
 And nothing in this day is more astonishing than the 
 constantly repeated exhortations that we should do 
 so, even considered with a view, simply, to their 
 unfairness. 
 
 Cunning, Lord Bacon somewhere says, is left- 
 handed wisdom ; selfishness is, I think, generally 
 found to be folly; it is always founded on injustice. 
 Let us, then, consult a different guide ; the subject is 
 very ancient, and one of universal interest, and we 
 are not likely to understand it the worse, if we take 
 the lights of reason, religion, and experience in ex- 
 amining it. 
 
 (6.) In defending a legal provision for the destitute 
 poor, which I take to be the principle of the poor laws 
 of England, I argue, first, that it is agreeable to the 
 strictest justice_, or, in other words, 
 
 First, The poor have a right to relief founded in 
 the nature of things. To prove this would, an age 
 ago, have been deemed quite superfluous ; the new 
 school has, however, ventured to contradict this right, 
 and in no very hesitating terms, Mr. Malthas, with 
 
186 IRELAND; 1T8 EVILS, [ XIU. 
 
 whom I have chiefly to do, asserted long ago, that 
 such have " no claim of right to the smallest portion 
 of food ;" and further, that " they have no business to 
 be where they are^:" and, that he is consistent in his 
 opinion, his late evidence fully shows. I shall argue 
 the point with him in other words than my own, as 
 the powerful reasons adduced will then have the weight 
 of authorities which, on such a matter, it will require 
 some little effrontery to contemn. 
 
 Passing over heathen writers (many of whom have 
 been very explicit upon this point) with this simple 
 observation, that it seems strange that, in an argument 
 in favour of the rights of humanity_, a successful 
 appeal might be made from the Christianity of the 
 modern school to the Heathenism of the ancient one; 
 I shall adduce the authority of those who have written 
 expressly on this point, since the establishment of the 
 present state of things, confining myself to a very 
 few, but those of an order to whom numbers could 
 add no additional weight. 
 
 Grotius, speaking of this right_, thus expresses him- 
 self: "Let us now see whether men may not have 
 a right to enjoy, in common, those things that are 
 already become the properties of other persons ; which 
 question will, at first, seem strange, since property 
 seems to have swallowed up that right, which one 
 man may lay claim to in common with the rest. But 
 this is a mistake ; for we must examine into the 
 designs and intentions of those who first introduced 
 these particular properties, which we may imagine to 
 be such as deviated the least from natural justice. For, 
 if even written laws are always to be explained in that 
 ' Malihus, Essay, p. 531. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIlt REMEDIES. 187 
 
 sense which comes nearest to common equity, much 
 more customs, then, which are unconfined, and not 
 at all chained down to the letter of the law. From 
 whence it follows, that, in a case of absolute necessity, 
 that former right of using things, as if they still re- 
 mained in common, must revive and be in full force \'* 
 He afterwards states, that '^such a right is for the 
 preservation of natural equity, against the rigour and 
 severity of property and dominion ;" but adds, that 
 " some precautions are to be regarded, lest this liberty 
 should go too far," and points out the very mode our 
 law prescribes. The same profound author goes on 
 to say, that " this is a received opinion among divines" 
 (he could not now so assert) ; and remarks, that, in the 
 original of government, there were some exceptions 
 in cases of the hke nature. *^'^For," says he, '^'^ if they, 
 who were first concerned in that division of things 
 we now see, could be asked their opinions in this 
 matter, they would answer the same as we assert." 
 
 Puffendorf, in his Rights of Nature and of Nations, 
 takes a somewhat different view of the subject, but 
 expresses himself in still stronger terms, and more at 
 large ; I must, however, content myself with merely 
 referring to the sixth chapter of the second book of 
 his work, ^'^ De jure et favore necessitatis ;" where the 
 reader will find the subject amply discussed^ 
 
 I shall only quote another foreign writer on the 
 subject; Montesquieu. "The state," says he, "owes 
 to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourish- 
 ment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not in- 
 
 ' Grotius, De Jure Bel. ac Pacis. 1. ii. c. ii. 1,2. 
 Puffendorf, De Jure Nat. et Gent. 1. ii. c. vi. 4to. Scan. 1672, 
 
188 IRELAND; ITS EVlLS, [ XIII* 
 
 compatible with health." Whenever it happens, that, 
 amongst the numerous persons engaged in different 
 branches of trade, some suffer, and he observes it is 
 impossible it should be otherwise, he does not pro- 
 nounce that such have no claim to the smallest portion 
 of food ; but, on the contrary, " C'est pour lors que 
 I'etat a besoin d'apporter un prompt secours ^" 
 
 Mr. Malthus is very witty on I'Abbe Raynal, for 
 talking of "le droit de subsister," saying, that a man 
 has just as good a right to live a hundred years ^ 
 His wit will, however, appear rather ridiculous, when 
 transferred to our next authority. Locke says, 
 ' Reason tells us, that all men have a right to their 
 subsistence ; and, consequently, to meat and drink, 
 and such other things as nature affords for their pre- 
 servation. We *^'know," says he elsewhere, *' that 
 God has not left one man so to the mercy of another, 
 that he may starve him if he please. God, the Lord 
 and Father of all, has given no one of his children 
 such a property in his peculiar portion of the things 
 of this world, but that he has given his needy brother 
 a RIGHT to the surplusage of his goods, so that it can- 
 not jMs/Zy be denied him when his pressing wants call 
 for it^." Mr. Malthus, it is well known, has put a 
 case or two, and hideous ones they are, and hideously 
 determined*; so does this great writer, but he disposes 
 of them very differently. " What," says he, ^^ is to be 
 done in this case ? I answer : the fundamental law of 
 nature being, that all, as much as may be, should be 
 
 * Montesquieu, De I'Esprit des Loix, 1. xxiii. ch. 29. 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 532. 
 
 3 Locke on Gov., book i. ch. iv. 42. * Malthus, p. 540, &c. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 189 
 
 preserved^ it follows, that if there be not enough fully 
 to satisfy both, he that hath, and to spare, must 
 remit something of his full satisfaction, and give way 
 to the pressing and preferable right of those who are 
 in danger to perish without it\" 
 
 Blackstone, stating, under the head of rights of 
 persons, the law authorizing the wretched and indi- 
 gent to demand from the more opulent part of the 
 community the necessaries of life, declares it to be 
 "a provision, dictated by the principles of society^." 
 
 Paley asserts the natural right of the poor to sub- 
 sistence in the most explicit and forcible terms. I 
 shall only quote a few words from him ; in which it 
 will be seen how directly he contradicts our more 
 modern jurist, who says the poor have " no claim as 
 of right to the smallest portion of food :" he, on the 
 contrary, asserts that " the poor have a claim founded 
 on the law of nature," and argues upon it at large, 
 concluding thus : ''' When, therefore, the partition 
 of property is rigidly maintained against the claims of 
 impotence or distress, it is maintained in opposition 
 to the intention of those who made it, and to His 
 who is the supreme proprietor of every thing, and who 
 has filled the world with plenteousness, for the sus- 
 tentation and comfort of all he sends into it ^" 
 
 (7.) Secondly : the poor have a sacred claim to relief, 
 founded on divine revelation. 
 
 In the institutions of the Jewish legislator, which, 
 as Montesquieu somewhere observes, were to the 
 
 ' Locke, Treatise on Government, book ii. p. 31 1. 
 ^ Blackstone, Commentaries, book i. ch. i. p. 131. 
 3 Paley, Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book iii. chap. v. p 154. 
 
190 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ XIII. 
 
 Israelites positive laws^ though we read them only as 
 preeepts^ the legal provision for the poor holds a most 
 conspicuous place, and has^ probably^ been the foun- 
 dation of all similar institutions throughout Chris- 
 tendom. The tithe of every third year^ stored for the 
 purpose ^ ; the remnant of the crops of every year 
 (fixed at one-sixtieth part ^) ; the share of the entire 
 produce of every seventh year, independently of 
 sundry other benevolent ordinances, of much impor- 
 tancC;, made in their behalf, formed a provision for 
 the poor of Israel which has as yet never been 
 equalled in any country of the world. On the lowest 
 possible computation, were that institution transferred 
 to England, it would treble the amount now raised 
 amongst us. And this ample provision was carried 
 into effect and penally enforced^. Besides all this, it 
 ought to be remembered that the fundamental insti- 
 tutions of the Theocracy, such as the minute division 
 of property, and its restoration to the original owners, 
 or their descendants, every fiftieth year^ preserved, 
 perhaps, a vaster mass of the population in equal and 
 easy circumstances than was ever the case with any 
 other people. The learned Selden has written on the 
 provision for the poor of Israel, and to him I must refer 
 for further information on this interesting subject. I 
 shall not, however, omit confronting by this divine insti- 
 tution a modern objection to our own poor laws, and 
 certainly the most absurd, notwithstanding its preva- 
 lence, of any that has hitherto been advanced. It is now 
 
 ' Dent. XV. 28. Tobit, i. 8. Josephus, p. 349. 
 Selden, De Jure Nat. et Gent., ch. vi. p. 692. 
 ' Ibid,, Synedr., lib. ii. ch. 13. n. 8. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 191 
 
 said that a public provision for the poor is totally subver- 
 sive of the very principle and nature of charity. Such 
 might as well affirm that the voluntary fulfilment 
 of those other duties of social or public life, which 
 happen to be recognised and enjoined by law (and 
 they are many), likewise loses all its value. But to 
 the point. Is not voluntary charity connected with 
 this public provision for the poor, in these sacred 
 records ? Let those who doubt it, turn to the laws 
 and exhortations of Moses and the prophets, and 
 they will soon be satisfied on this head. Notwith- 
 standing the legal relief prescribed, still the duty of 
 personal charity, the liberality with which it should 
 be dispensed^ and the generous feelings with which its 
 exercise was to be accompanied, are solemnly dictated : 
 "Thou shalt surely give him ; and thy heart shall not 
 be grieved when thou givest unto him : because that 
 for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all 
 thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand 
 unto. For the poor shall never cease out of the land. 
 Therefore, I command thee saying ; Thou shalt open 
 thine hand wide, to thy brother, to thy poor, and thy 
 needy in the land," (Deut. xv. 10, 11). 
 
 I cannot refrain from going further into the sub- 
 ject, as it respects the institutions of Moses. We have 
 seen that the right of the poor and their business to 
 be where they were are there fully recognised : even 
 the term itself is sanctioned in holy writ. And only 
 suppose that the Deity has the same merciful consi- 
 deration for an Irishman as for an Israelite, and then 
 some of the passages may, perhaps, be found striking. 
 God is represented there as the bestower of this right. 
 
192 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIH. 
 
 *' Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any ; he 
 is mighty in strength and wisdom : he giveth right ^ 
 to the poor," (Job, xxxvi. 5, 6.) As the upholder of 
 it; " The Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted 
 and the right of the poor," (Ps. cxl. 12.) As its 
 awful vindicator : '^ Woe unto them that take away 
 the right of the poor:" (Isa. x. 2.) The foundation 
 of this right is furthermore revealed to us ; and an 
 awful and unalienable one it is ! " The land is mine_, 
 and ye are the the strangers and sojourners with me !" 
 (Lev. XXV. 23.) On the sufficiency of Divine Provi- 
 dence : " Thou, O God, hast prepared of thy bounty 
 for the poor!" (Ps. Ixviii. 10.) On the feelings of 
 human kindred : " Thy poor brother !" (Deut. xv. 7.) 
 On respect for human misery : " Thou shalt not vex 
 him; thou shalt surely give him!" (Deut. xv.) On 
 the vicissitudes of human life : " Love ye therefore 
 the strangers, for ye were strangers!" (Deut. x. 19.) 
 On the grateful remembrance of past mercies : '^ It 
 shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless and the 
 widow ; and thou shalt remember that thou wert a 
 bondman in the land of Egypt:" (Deut. xxiv. 21, 22.) 
 On the certain prospect of human suffering : " Blessed 
 be the man that considereth the poor and needy : 
 the Lord will deliver him in his time of trouble ; will 
 preserve ; will comfort ; will strengthen him, when he 
 lieth sick upon his bed," (Ps. xli. 1 3.) It is guaran- 
 teed by the promises of God : " For this thing the 
 Lord thy God will bless thee:" (Deut. xv. 10.) By 
 
 ' That no false gloss is put upon the term right, see Schulteus, 
 one of the most learned Hebraists of modern times, on Proverbs, 
 iii. 27, p. 25. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 193 
 
 his denunciations : " If thou afflict them in any wise, 
 and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their 
 cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you 
 with the sword^ and your wives shall be widows and 
 your children fatherless !" (Exod. xxii. 23, 21.) It is 
 further represented as a right, for the neglect of which 
 the observance of no other duties, however sacred, 
 will atone : *' Incense is an abomination to me ! 
 Reheve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for 
 the widow !" (Isa. 1. 13, 17.) " Is not this the fast 
 that I have chosen ? to deal thy bread to the hungry ! 
 and that thou bring the poor that are cast out, to thy 
 house ! when thou seest the naked, that thou cover 
 him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own 
 flesh !" (Isa. Iviii. 6, 7.) And lastly, and above all, the 
 Deity has connected this right of the poor with the 
 highest and most distinguished attributes of His nature, 
 and placed His pity for them amongst His brightest 
 perfections and sublimest titles. " Sing unto God, sing 
 praises to his name, extol him that rideth upon the 
 heavens, by his name Jah, and rejoice before him. 
 A father to the fatherless, a judge of the widows, is 
 God, in his holy habitation," (Ps. Ixviii. 4, 5.) Hear 
 Moses's last, sublime description of him : *^ The 
 Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, 
 a great God, a mighty and a terrible ! He doth exe- 
 cute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and 
 loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment ! 
 Love ye therefore the strangers !" 
 
 Institutions like these, and so guaranteed, had 
 doubtless a wonderful eftect on the people on whom 
 they were imposed. We are told, now, that this 
 
 
 
194 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ XIII. 
 
 care and preservation of the poor would increase 
 population ; this^ however, was regarded by the di- 
 vine philosopher and legislator of Israel as a signal 
 mark of the divine complacency, and experience 
 proved it such. Hence he exultingly adds to the 
 passage last quoted ; ^* Thy fathers went down into 
 Egypt with threescore and ten persons, and now the 
 Lord thy Go hath made thee as the stars of heaven 
 for multitude ! " 
 
 And can a question be started whether the Chris- 
 tian religion lessened the claims and rights of the 
 poor, and relaxed the duty of attending to them ? or 
 placed them upon a yet broader foundation, and 
 fenced them round by the deepest motives that time 
 or eternity could inspire ? It would be an insult 
 upon the spirit and letter of that religion to pursue 
 such an inquiry. Even Bolingbroke saw clearly 
 enough that *^ general benevolence and universal cha- 
 rity are the distinguishing badges of Christianity." 
 A regular provision for the poor was amongst the 
 first of the apostolic institutions*, was established 
 wherever Christianity was spread^, and will never 
 cease till its spirit shall be utterly extinguished. 
 
 In closing these observations upon the sacred 
 right of the poor to relief, as further confirmed by 
 divine revelation, I must remark that this title does 
 not rest upon the foundation of individual worthi- 
 iiess, nor, indeed, does personal demerit abrogate it ; 
 though such circumstances may, properly enough, 
 
 'Acts,v. ICor. xvi. 2. 2 Cor. viii. Romans, xv. 26. Gal.ii. 10. 
 
 ^ Cornel. Ep. ad Fab. ap. Euseb. lib. vi. c. 43. Chrys. Horn. 67, 
 in Matth. See Bingham's Origines Ecclesiasticse, vol. ii. p. 286, 
 vol. vii. p. 446. 
 
XIir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 195 
 
 be taken into due consideration in its ministration. 
 It is placed upon a very different basis upon human 
 suffering, and the pleasure of God that it should be 
 relieved. If there be one point more pre-eminently 
 clear in our religion than another, it is that we are 
 totally inhibited from making merit the sole passport 
 to our mercy ; the foundation of the modern code. 
 Every precept touching this divine virtue instructs 
 us to the contrary \ and I defy those who hold the 
 opposite notion to produce one in their favour. A 
 feeling that has to be excited by some delicate senti- 
 mental touches, some Shandean scene, and is to be 
 under the guardianship of worldly policy, may be the 
 virtue of political economy ; but this fancy-charity has 
 nothing in common with that disinterested, devoted, 
 unbounded benevolence, which, as Tertullian says, is 
 the mark and brand of Christianity. Nor must I omit 
 to add that, agreeably to this religion, the feelings of 
 the poor are no more to be insulted in relieving them 
 than are their wants to be neglected. Mr. Malthus 
 may, indeed, say, that ^^ dependent poverty ought to 
 be held disgraceful^;" but to save it from that disgrace, 
 God has taken poverty under his peculiar protection, 
 and it remains so connected, in every form of religion, 
 throughout the earth ^. " Jesus Christ" (I quote from 
 Tillotson) "^ chose to be a beggar, that we, for his sake, 
 
 ' I shall only refer to our Lord's sermon on the Mount, Matt. v. 
 43 48, Luke, vi. 33 35, &c., and to his parable of the Prodigal 
 Son, in proof of this. Let those who choose preach another gos- 
 pel ; !)ut it is not Christianity. 
 
 Malihus, p. 410. 
 
 ' Our Saxon ancestors called the poor s"^er peappn, God's poor. 
 Spehr.an, Concil, vol. i. p. 523. 
 
196 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ XIII. 
 
 might not despise the poor^:" or, to use the language 
 of another distinguished prelate, *^ he seems studi- 
 ously to have bent his whole endeavours to vindicate 
 the honour of depressed humanity, to support its 
 weakness, to countenance its wants, to ennoble its 
 misery, and to dignify its disgrace^." 
 
 Perhaps so much allusion to our religion and its 
 sacred records, may appear very strange in a pam- 
 phlet of the present day, and demand an excuse ; I 
 will therefore give one_, in the terms of the reverend 
 expounders of our common law : " Christianity is 
 part and parcel of the law of the land". It became 
 more particularly so as our immortal legislator, Alfred, 
 left it ; who embodied into his institutions the entire 
 spirit, and much of the letter of those passages to 
 which I have been appealing ; and with whom that 
 enlarged and systematic charity for which England 
 has, happily, been long distinguished, first com- 
 menced. 
 
 (8.) Lastly, then_, I remark that the poor have 
 a legal right to relief, and one that has been con- 
 firmed by innumerable acts of parliament, and en- 
 joyed by them for a succession of ages, and which, 
 when granted, Avas only a substitute for a far more 
 ancient and ample provision, of which they had 
 been deprived. Mr. Malthus says that they have 
 ^'^no claim as of right;" the constitution of the coun- 
 try says (and here again I express myself in the 
 words of Paley) that ^'^the poor have the same right 
 to that proportion of a man's property that the laws 
 assign them, that the man himself has to the remain- 
 ' Arbp. Tillotson, Sermons, p. ^SQ. - Bishop Hurd, Sermons. 
 
XlIl.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 197 
 
 der^" That much alteration is requisite in the pre- 
 sent code of our poor laws^ I freely admit ; not with 
 a view to overreach the poor, or to serve ourselves ; 
 but with a view to benefit them. A plan to this effect 
 I have long considered, and shall, I hope, be enabled 
 to submit to the public ; the effect of which would 
 indeed be a considerable diminution in the charge of 
 their sustentation, though I trust the deserving part 
 of them would be greatly benefited, and the rest 
 not deserted. On this, however, I shall not at pre- 
 sent enter, further than to say that the departure 
 from the original principle has been the great error, 
 and its restoration and accommodation to the altered 
 condition of the country the necessary remedy : con- 
 nected wath this, a system of assistances seems neces- 
 sary and desirable, which would likewise become 
 distinctions to the meritorious, and which, without en- 
 tailing on the country one farthing of expense^ would, 
 by appealing to their best feelings, make our great 
 national charity a mighty lever in raising the moral 
 condition of the poor; instead of being, as it now some- 
 times is, the means of its depression. But to return : 
 
 (9.) If the poor have this right to assistance on the 
 ground of natural justice, policy, and religion, it is no 
 wonder that their systematic relief has been esta- 
 blished in so many nations of the world ; for it is a 
 great mistake to suppose that such has been con- 
 fined to this^ and one or two other countries. The 
 former reasons were abundantly sufficient to intro- 
 duce such a system into the free states of antiquity. 
 In Greece, we know such to have been the case. In 
 
 ' Paley, Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book iii. ch. 5, p. 162. 
 
198 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 Athens, for instance*, in Rhodes*, in Sparta, in 
 Crete ^ in Phoeacia^ in short, throughout the states 
 generally^. In ancient Rome, the distributions were 
 carried to the most lavish extent. It does not, how- 
 ever, appear that slaves, then forming so numerous a 
 body, were included in these provisions ; the honour 
 of stooping to the lowest degradation of poverty and 
 wretchedness was reserved for that religion, in which 
 " Mercy and Truth have met together." Under this 
 religion, the vast endowments for the poor were, per- 
 haps, carried to even a mischievous length ; and none 
 can read of their magnitude, and indiscriminate dis- 
 tributions in Spain ^, in Italy '^, Naples ^ and elsewhere, 
 
 * " Tliere was a poor law in Athens." (Mitford, vol. iii. p. 15.) 
 Demosthenes says, " Instead of depriving the poor of what the 
 state bestows, we ought, if there were not this provision, to find 
 out some other means of supplying their necessities." See the 
 whole of his fourth Philippic. Two oboli, at least, besides other 
 largesses, were daily distributed to the poor, in Demosihenes's 
 time, equal to half a bushel of wheat per week. (Leland's transla- 
 tion, vol. ii. p. 12.) See the beneficial eft'ect of this provision, Iso- 
 crates, Orat. Areop. 8vo. Cantab, pp. 290, 291. 
 
 ^ The Rhodians laid it down as a maxim, that every man should 
 work while he was able for his own maintenance, but should be as 
 well maintained when he was no longer so, at the expense of the 
 state. (Strabon. Geog. lib. xiv. p. 357. T. Liv. lib. xlvii,) 
 
 ^ In Crete, Aristotle informs us, the poorest citizens were pro- 
 vided for at the expense of the state ; in Sparta, however, he says, 
 those partook of a like provision who were capable of bearing a 
 proportion of the expense. (Re Repub. lib. iii. ; Dr. Gillies' Trans- 
 lation, b. ii., p. 112.) 
 
 '' Homer, Odys. lib. vi. 
 
 ^ Demosthenes, Philippic iv. Menander, Serm. 37. 
 
 * Townsend's Travels in Spain. 
 
 ' Eustace, Classical Tour through Italy. Baretti, Account of 
 Manners and Customs of Italy, vol. ii. p. 100. Arthur Young, 
 Travels in France. The charitable foundations in the City of 
 Milan alone amount to 3,000,000 livres (87,500). Population 
 126,000, (p. 645.) In Florence there are 37 hospitals and alms' 
 houses ; one of which has 70,000 crowns yearly revenue. (Ray's 
 Observations, &:c., p. 325 ) 
 Eustace. Classical Tour, &c. 
 
X1H.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 199 
 
 without fearing that mischiefs have been occasioned 
 of a serious nature by their lavish profusion. In 
 Austria, we hear of great exertions to sustain the 
 poor, especially in Vienna ^_, and other Catholic cities 
 of Germany*. In Bavaria, there are law^s obliging each 
 community to maintain its own poor^. In Protes- 
 tant Germany they are still better provided for'*. The 
 admirable plan by which this is accomplished in 
 Hamburgh has long been before the British public^. 
 Nor is Russia, whose thin population one might sup- 
 pose would prevent the establishment of any general 
 plan in their favour, without a regular system in fa- 
 vour of the poor^ Of the humanity of Switzerland 
 I need say nothing ; in addition to foundations, mag- 
 nificent in relation to the people's numbers and their 
 means '^j " every Svviss," as every Englishman, *^ is a 
 burgher somewhere, and has a right to assistance in 
 his parish^." In Norway, though we are told by Mr. 
 Malthus there is no established provision for the 
 poor^, we know to the contrary; there is one, adapted 
 
 ' Reisbeck, Travels through Germany ; quoted in Collections for 
 the Poor, p. 79. 
 
 '^ See an Account of the Method of Maintaining the Poor in 
 INIanheim, Este's Journey, p. 337. 
 
 2 Count Rumford, History of the Public Establishment for the 
 poor in Bavaria, ch. i. 
 
 " Render's Tour in Germany, p. 74. 
 
 * Reports of the Society for bettering the condition of the Poor, 
 vol. ii. p. 39. 
 
 ^ " The aged and infirm are provided with food and raiment, and 
 lodging, at the expense of the owner of the estate." (Dr. Clarke, 
 Travels in Russia.) As to others who may be in want, in many 
 parts of the empire " there is a college of general provision in each 
 government." (Tooke's View of the Russian Empire, vol. ii. 
 p. 181, &c.) The great charitable foundations in the cities need 
 not be pointed out. 
 
 ' Stolbcrg, Travels, &c, vol. ii. pp. 137, 138. 
 
 ^Sismondi, Switzerland, vol. i. p. 452. " Malthus, Essay, p. 547. 
 
200 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIJI. 
 
 to the condition of the country, and the scanty and 
 scattered state of its population. Dr. Clarke says, the 
 paupers he saw there (and there were twelve hundred 
 in the town of Trond, consisting of ten thousand inha- 
 bitants only) were provided for_, and apparently better 
 than in England \ Respecting Sweden, I must direct 
 the reader to the note below_, where he will see how 
 safe it is to rely on Mr. Malthus's authority, when he 
 speaks about the poor ; they are maintained^, and al- 
 most precisely in the same manner as in England^ 
 
 ' Dr. Clarke, Travels in Scandinavia, p. 637. 
 
 ' Mr. Malthus speaks thus on Sweden, whose condition he pro- 
 fesses to have examined so closely, and consequently says so much 
 about in his work : " In Sweden, from the deaths, which are not 
 unfrequently owing to the general failure of crops in an unpro- 
 pitious climate, and the impossibility of great importations in a poor 
 country, an attempt to establish a system of parochial relief, such 
 as that in England, if it were not speedily abandoned, from the 
 physical impossibility of executing it, would level the property of the 
 kingdom from one end of it to the other, and convulse the social 
 system in such a manner as absolutely to prevent it from recovering 
 to its former state on the return of plenty," (p. 546.) It has been 
 in the very same strain that he has been recently alarming the 
 fears, and rousing the selfishness of the wealth of Ireland against 
 the introduction of poor laws there. Now, what will the reader 
 say, when he is informed that, notwithstanding this " physical 
 impossibility," there are poor laws in Sweden? and certainly, 
 considering the means of the people, the principle is carried to a 
 much greater extent even than in England, for, in addition to the 
 relief of the distressed, the education of the poor is secured, in their 
 national institution. I3ut 1 will give the facts in the language of a 
 gentleman, who, like Mr. M. and his friends, was a literary traveller 
 to the same country, and from the sister university. " The poor cot- 
 tagers are not neglected by the government in point of education, 
 nor in other respects sparingly supplied. Parochial schools are 
 universally kept up, and there are few among the peasants but what 
 are able to read and write." This is admirable ; but it is to the 
 following passage I particularly direct the reader's attention. 
 " With regard to their maintenance when in distress, constant 
 parochial aid is afforded^ and a poor-house supported in every parish, 
 at the expense of a light rate upon the property of the wealthier 
 inhabitants. The funds, moreover, arising from the chanty boxes 
 for gratuitous donations, are in part destined to the same bene- 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 201 
 
 Even in poor Iceland, there is an adequate provi- 
 sion for the poor by law. In Flanders, throughout 
 the rural parts, there are permanent funds, as well as 
 eleemosynary foundations, for the sustentation of the 
 poor\ which accounts for the absence of beggary^ 
 compared with France, though the latter has little 
 more than half the population ; while in the great 
 cities the provision is, or at least was_, immense^. Re- 
 garding Holland, to which the former country is now 
 united, under the common appellation of the Nether- 
 lands, nothing, I presume, need be said in praise of 
 their kind, constant, and unwearied attention to all 
 their poor^; it has long been the theme of universal 
 
 volent purpose ; a distribution of their receipts is made to a certain 
 number of out-pensioners, as well as the inmates of the poor-house, 
 who are generally portioned in four classes : the sick ; the 
 aged ; those who have large families, and those who are helpless 
 from extreme poverty." (Journal of a Tour through Sweden, &c. in 
 1813, and 1814, by F. T. James, Esq., p. 105.) The charity of 
 Sweden, from its metropolis to its humblest village t, has long been 
 noticed. And I must add that such misrepresentations as the fore- 
 going, representing Sweden as destitute of parochial relief, with 
 the intention of disparaging our own system, are most reprehensible. 
 I regret to say 1 shall have to present numerous instances of this 
 nature, and of a still more glaring character, in other sections of the 
 work of which this forms a part. 
 
 ^ RadclifF, Report on the Agric. of Flanders, p. 256. Este, 
 Journey, &c. p. 78. 
 
 ^ Radcliff, Report on the Agric. of Flanders, p. 256. Ray, Ob- 
 servations, &c. p. 52. 
 
 ^ Este, Journey, &c., pp. 78, 83. Thicknesse, Journey through the 
 Pais-bas. 
 
 * Mr. Malthus, having denied that England either can or ought 
 to sustain her poor, assigns three reasons why Holland has been 
 able to do so : these are " her extensive foreign trade, her numerous 
 colonial emigrations, compared with the smallness of her territory; 
 and, lastly, the extreme unhealthiness of the country, occasioning 
 a much greater average mortality than common in other states,'* 
 (p. 546.) Respecting the two first reasons, they are not *' very 
 peculiar circumstances;" as compared with England, her foreign 
 
 * Catteau,, View of Sweden, p. 202. t Boweiij Geography, vol. i. p. 9S5. 
 
202 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 admiration. As to the nature of their laws, in re- 
 ference to this great object, Dr. Macfarlan says, '^from 
 a review of the Dutch poor laws and regulations, it 
 does not appear that they are materially different 
 to our own\" 
 
 On thus examining the different states of Europe, 
 it will be found, that the expense of maintaining the 
 poor in other countries is, on the aggregate, and in 
 proportion to their means^ often greater than here ; 
 while the superiority of our system, with the exception 
 of such countries as Holland and Sweden, and Swit- 
 zerland, where, indeed, a similar one prevails^ is too ob- 
 vious to universal observation to need a word in proof. 
 
 Dr. Johnson has said, that '' a decent provision 
 for the poor is the true test of civilization ;" but such 
 institutions are not, however, confined to Christendom. 
 Even the semi-barbarous countries of the East have 
 all of them some establishments of the same nature. 
 The poor are very amply provided for by the laws of 
 China ^. " In India there is a considerable quantity of 
 enaum, or charity lands set apartf or the maintenance 
 of the poor^." By the institutions of Zoroaster^ pro- 
 perty is taxed one-tenth in order to be dispensed to 
 
 trade is not so great ; and her colonial emigrations, in proportion 
 to her population, far less also. But the last is the most singular 
 of all reasons ever advanced. Remembering that Holland is far 
 more densely peopled than this country that the extreme un- 
 healthiness of its inhabitants should enable them the better to 
 sustain their poor, is one of the strangest ideas that ever entered 
 into a man*s head. No observations are wanting to point out 
 its absurdity. 
 
 * Macfarlan, Inquiries concerning the Poor, p. 218. 
 
 ' Ta Tsing Leu Lee, or the Fundamental Laws of China ; trans- 
 lated by Sir G. Staunton, Section Ixxxix, " Care of the aged and 
 infirm." See the whole section. See also Du Halde (vol. ii. p. 65% 
 for a true definition of real charity. 
 
 ' Dr.Tennant, State of India, p. 246. - 
 
XIU.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 203 
 
 the poor, of which the priest is ordered to be merely 
 the ahnoner^ The Koran of Mahomet is very ex- 
 pHcit on the same duty^; nor are there wanting bene- 
 volent establishments wherever that religion prevails, 
 though defective both as to their objects and adminis- 
 tration. In Morocco there is a regular tax for the 
 poor^ ; and_, in the institutes of Timour or Tamerlane, 
 we find provision was made for all the poor, through- 
 out his extended empire*. 
 
 (10.) It may, perhaps, be expected some notice 
 should be taken of the method of maintaining the 
 poor by our northern fellow-subjects, which is deemed 
 by many the very model of national charity. I think 
 otherwise, for reasons that have been partly stated, 
 and others which shall now be very briefly expressed. 
 In the first place, it condemns the working-classes, 
 generally speaking, to that penury of living in order to 
 be able to provide for themselves, which, if universally 
 adopted, would be fatal to our agricultural and manu- 
 facturing prosperity^: it subjects the whole country 
 to ^' the nuisance of common begging^" and poverty 
 to that sordid and filthy state which is a yet greater 
 disgrace. This mendicity is " the pest that has long 
 annoyed and oppressed her, since the union of the 
 kingdoms, and probably long before it^." So that, 
 when some of our olden writers were complaining of 
 the burden of the poor-rates of England, Fletcher of 
 
 ' Ancient Universal History, vol. ii. b. i. p. 79. 
 
 * A\ Koran, ch. 4, pp. 76, 117. 
 
 ^ All Bey, Travels in Morocco, p. 94. 
 
 * Institutions of Timour, translated from the Persian by Major 
 Davy. See p. 349, kc. 
 
 ' Sinclair, Health and Longevity, p. 539. 
 
 * Edinburgh Encyc. vol. xvii, p. 91. ' Ibid. p. 90. 
 
204 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 Saltoun deplored that, in Scotland, one-fifth of the 
 people were in a state of actual mendicity, and great 
 numbers dying yearly for want. Nor is it fair to 
 draw comparisons as to the number of our own poor, 
 who stand in need of relief, and who receive it, with 
 such a district as Scotland, where the parsimony with 
 which it is administered has the effect of sending 
 great numbers across the border, to the great dispa- 
 ragement of the working-classes of England, whose 
 labour is thus greatly interfered with both by the 
 poor of Scotland and Ireland. 
 
 There are, however, poor laws in Scotland, and if 
 they are neither so efficient nor so liberal as those of 
 this country, it is no credit to the wealthy ; it is the 
 result of an understanding among the rich to inter- 
 cept that relief of the poor to which God and nature 
 gave them a just claim, and which their own legisla- 
 ture has certainly awarded them\ They are, how- 
 ever, in partial operation, and that circumstance, com- 
 bined with parochial funds, and the prevalent and dis- 
 graceful practice of begging superadded, make up the 
 present practice of sustaining the poor of Scotland, 
 excepting in those parishes where the English plan 
 prevails, which is rapidly extending, and will be found 
 essentially necessary, especially as manufactures pre- 
 vail ; and I am happy in observing, that in Edinburgh 
 and Glasgow the charitable establishments are as well 
 supported as in towns of a similar magnitude in 
 England. Elsewhere, however, the prospect is not 
 so cheering : '^ Where the poor law is not introduced,'* 
 
 ' Mackenzie, Law of Scotland, p. 317. Macfavlan, Inquiries 
 concerning the Poor, pp. 199, 200. 
 
Xin.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 205 
 
 we are informed, on the most unexceptionable autho- 
 rity, "^ there are a great many of the miseries which 
 are found in Ireland ^" 
 
 I perhaps ought to mention the very strong objec- 
 tions which a celebrated divine of that country has 
 recently made against a regular system of legal 
 charity in Scotland, and more especially his opinions 
 concerning our's, which he has expressed in the strong- 
 est manner. He has represented our poor as evincing, 
 in their character and conduct, " an utter recklessness 
 of habit ; profligacy; mutual abandonment of parents 
 and children^; rapacity^; shameless and abandoned pro- 
 fligacy "^ ;" in a word, as being a herd of brutes without 
 the instinctive feelings of the brute creation. This, 
 I am sure, he will be glad to know, on more certain 
 authority than casual observation can supply, is not 
 the character of the poor no, nor yet that of the 
 relieved poor of England. Nor has he less mistaken, 
 as I hope, the feelings with which they are regarded : 
 the different ranks do not '*^look to each other with 
 all the fierceness and suspicion of natural enemies," 
 nor "stand in the grim array of mutual hostility.'* 
 That such may be the representation in books of 
 political economy, I will not dispute ; but it is utterly 
 untrue in real life. But, not to dwell on these 
 topics, I will add, that if I object to the design Dr. 
 Chalmers avows of taking away the "right of the 
 poor," in favour of some other plan of supporting 
 them, my objections are greatly heightened when I 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence before the Committee of the House of 
 Lords on Ireland, 1824 ; A. Nimmo, Esq., p. 315. 
 
 * Dr. Chalmers, Civic Economy, p. 229. 
 
 ' /6tc/. p. 347. * Ibid. Y^. 239. 
 
206 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 hear that plan explained. The making the poor the 
 principal persons to relieve poverty, seems as con- 
 trary to reason and scripture, as the supposition that 
 poverty, if properly dealt with, might be relieved with- 
 out much, or, often, any assistance whatsoever, is to 
 experience and common sense. The duties we owe 
 to such are, I think^ not to be discharged by " little 
 presents of courtesy," " cheap and simple atten- 
 tions," " nameless graces and benignities^," and so 
 forth. The wretchedness to be succoured is rarely of 
 that pliable character to be thus tickled, by the empty 
 hand of wealth, into mirth and ecstacy. On the point 
 of divinity, it would ill become me to argue with him ; 
 otherwise I should have doubted whether we ought 
 not to " charge the rich " to be ready to distribute to 
 the constant necessities of the poor, rather than leave 
 their relief principally to themselves : whether this 
 ^* be thou warmed and be thou clothed" plan is 
 that of Christianity ; it is certainly not that which 
 will satisfy our own feelings, or those of the poor^ 
 thus to serve them by " carrying about analms-basket 
 of words*." As to Dr. Chalmers's, I am sure, unin- 
 tentional, misstatements, utterly subversive, as I think, 
 of his entire views, I shall attend to them on another 
 occasion ; in the mean time, I may safely leave it to 
 him whether there is not a far more formidable foe in 
 the path of true charity, than the one he has exclu- 
 sively combated, I mean ostentation in giving, rather 
 than ingratitude in receiving, an evil which our 
 christian poet Cowper has so admirably pourtrayed in 
 his exhibition of Sunday-charity. Sure I am, that 
 
 ' See Civic Economy. * Shakspeare. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 207 
 
 little is said by the Divine Exemplar of that virtue 
 regarding the latter, and very much of the former 
 danger. Nationally speaking, the poor-laws of Eng- 
 land constitute^ to all intents and purposes^ a volun- 
 tarily charity ; and, while we know that the benevo- 
 lent object is fulfilled, individually we are well con- 
 tent to resign the consciousness of personal merit on 
 the occasion. We rejoice that our poor are delivered 
 by it from that uncertain and abject dependence^ which 
 is unbecoming the condition of our common nature, 
 as well as contrary to the elevating dictates of our 
 religion. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers, however, makes it out that the con- 
 trary system is the result of a ^^ right and reflecting 
 selfishness," and, in recommending his plan to Eng- 
 land, thus expresses himself: " We want England 
 to put herself to school. We think that she needs 
 to go to school ; and^ when looking attentively to 
 those trial parishes, she is^ in fact, learning the first 
 lessons, and acquiring the sound rudiments of a sound 
 education. Those parishes will be to her the alphabet, 
 whence she may venture forward to achievements 
 that arc still more arduous ; and at length be able to 
 master those more complex and difficult results, 
 which now lie removed, on a distant and impracticable 
 background, from the eye of her understanding." 
 To this 1 would only remark, that England needs no 
 schooling to bring her to this state of national neglect 
 of the poor: it is one from which she formerly 
 emerged. We should soon be there again if, as one 
 of our poets expresses it, " we could go, like a crab, 
 backwards," and " subtihze ourselves into savages." 
 
208 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 Another author of the same country, and an honour 
 to it and his age^ gives a different view of the subject, 
 with whose opinion I shall conclude these allusions 
 to Scotland. " It is a duty upon every political 
 society," says Sir John Sinclair, " to provide for such 
 unhappy individuals, as, from the poverty of their 
 situation_, from sickness, want of employment, and 
 the various unavoidable misfortunes to which human 
 nature is hable, are unable to maintain themselves ; 
 and in no country have these generous principles been 
 carried to such an extent as in England, every native 
 of it being entitled to demand subsistence in the 
 parish in which he was born, or in which he has 
 acquired a settlement * ." 
 
 (11.) But to return to the general subject. In 
 answer to all the preceding statements, it may be said, 
 and, indeed, often has been, that the systematic relief 
 of the poor only aggravates the evil it is meant to 
 redress, and is but a relic of the remaining ignorance 
 and prejudice of the old world. Political economy, 
 through the medium of reviews and magazines, and 
 encyclopedias, sends us to the new_, in order to see 
 society without what it considers as its disgrace, 
 poverty and pauperism. " It is refreshing," they 
 exclaim, " to cross the sea to the new world, to the 
 United States_, where land is in abundance, labour 
 productive, industry almost unrestrained, and the con- 
 dition of poverty seldom and little known ^." State- 
 
 ' Sinclair, Hist. Revenue of the Brit. Emp., vol. iii, p. 211. 
 
 ^ Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Poor, p. 86. I quote this from a 
 work which, notwithstanding this mistake, appears to be very 
 ably conducted. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 209 
 
 ments these which highly eulogized travellers confirm 
 to us on their own authority. One of these, speaking 
 of the same region, says, " where there are no idlers, 
 and, more than all, no poor ! ^" infected, however, 
 wdth the philosophic dread of population, they antici- 
 pate when the means of carrying off a superfluous 
 population must fail, and then comes pauperism with 
 all its train of evils. " The principle," therefore, will 
 not let them rest : they are alarmed for futurity ; po- 
 pulation, seen in embryo, haunts them perpetually, hke 
 Gay's ghost of an unborn child, which appeared to 
 frighten its guilty father into timely reparation. 
 
 All this would be very amusing, were it not for the 
 mischief such false statements inflict upon those who 
 credit them. A correspondent in the Edinburgh 
 Magazine complains bitterly of being deceived into 
 this opinion. " A late writer," says he, "^ in the 
 Edinburgh Review, says we have no poor rates. I 
 wish he was correct. My poor rates, last year, 
 amounted to ten dollars ; although this township and 
 the adjoining one have a workhouse with a farm of 
 two hundred acres, and more, for the employment and 
 support of the paupers. This, considering the high 
 rate of wages, the cheapness of food, and full employ- 
 ment for every one, is more, in proportion, than any 
 poor rates in England. There are sometimes from 
 twelve to fifteen hundred persons in the workhouse 
 in Philadelphia, and as many in that of New York. 
 Tliey cost, in Philadelphia, 100,000 dollars per annum, 
 
 The Hon. F. de Roos, Personal Narrative of Travels in the. 
 United States, p. 24, 
 
210 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 and the whole system is miserably conducted ^" That 
 this statement is correct there is not the least reason 
 to doubt. I copy the following paragraph from an 
 American paper^ and it relates to the very period. 
 " The cost of supporting the poor, in Philadelphia, 
 has been diminished to that extent, that we under- 
 stand it is in contemplation to reduce the annual 
 assessment from 120,000 dollars to 90,0001" In the 
 somewhat larger city of New York, the annual ex- 
 penses of maintaining the poor, we learn on the decisive 
 testimony of Dr. Dwight, amounted, in the year 1811, 
 to 154,388 dollars, 88 cents': that there were 2,814 
 paupers admitted into the alms-house, from the 1st 
 of April, 1822, to the 1st of April, 1813; of whom 
 there were remaining, at the latter date, 1,265 per- 
 sons '*. Nor were these extraordinary years ; on the 
 contrary, the number of the poor has since greatly 
 increased : we learn from Bristed, that a memorial 
 addressed to the state legislature, in the month of 
 March, 1817, stated, " that, during last winter, fifteen 
 thousand paupers, that is to say, about a seventh of 
 our whole population received alms ^." He too takes 
 up the European notion, that poor-laws ought to be 
 abolished, and pauperism cured by being abandoned. 
 In addition to this, it appears there are, of humane and 
 charitable societies in that city, forty in number, which 
 are supported with spirit. The expense of one of 
 
 ' Edinburgh Magazine, Letter dated May, 1825, p. 543. 
 - Philadelphia Gazette, Dec. 3, 1825. 
 
 3 Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, vol. iii. 
 pp. 455, 456. ' Ibid. p. 437. 
 
 ^ Bristed, America and her Resources, p. 288. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 211 
 
 these, in 1 816, is stated, by Warden, to have amounted 
 to 39,053 dollars ^ It needs not be added, that, in 
 the other city just mentioned, Philadelphia, as well as 
 in all others throughout the Union, similar institutions, 
 to the high honour of the country, are established. 
 But our traveller says, of America, " above all, there 
 are no poor !" 
 
 Let it not be supposed, that this provision for the 
 poor only became needful, or the burden it im- 
 posed heavy, as the population enlarged. Such, in- 
 deed, are the notions of our theorists, but nothing can 
 be further from the fact than either. Only a short 
 time after the settlers numbered only 21,200 souls, 
 according to Mr. Malthus^, Sir Joshua Child wrote 
 his Discourses on Trade ; in which able work he 
 distinguished New England as legally providing for 
 its poor^. A quarter of a century after this, we still 
 find that *^the inhabitants had to meet once a month, 
 sometimes every week, for relief of the poor ." In the 
 other states, likewise, we know that there was early a 
 settled provision made for them : in Virginia, for 
 instance^; and the pressure their maintenance occa- 
 sioned was proportionably the heaviest, when the popu- 
 lation was the smallest. Thus in 1742, when Boston 
 contained 1719 houses, and not many more than 
 16,000 inhabitants, there were 1000 poor widows ; 
 HI persons in the alms-house, and 36 in the work- 
 
 ' Warden, Statistical, &c. Account of the United States, vol. i. 
 p. 535. 
 
 * Essay, p. 338. ^ Child, Discourse on Trade, p. 88. 
 
 * A Narrative of the Miseries of New England, Complete Collec- 
 tion of Papers relating to the Revolution, p, 30. 
 
 " History of Virginia, by a Native, part iii. p. 40 (1705). 
 
 ]> o 
 
212 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII 
 
 house \ I shall close these hasty collections on the 
 subject with the authority of Dr. Dwight. "Our 
 laws," says that excellent writer, ^^ provide effectually 
 for the comfortable maintenance of all the poor, who 
 are inhabitants, and so long as they reside with us ; of 
 poor strangers, in whatsoever country they were born; 
 and^ when they are sick^ supply them with physicians^ 
 nurses^ and attendants. The children of the poor are 
 furnished with education, and apprenticed at the pub- 
 lic expense. There is not a country upon earth, 
 where the provision for the wants and sufferings of 
 the poor is so effectual as New England^." 
 
 Thus it is that the poor amongst our transatlantic 
 brethren are cared for the poor of all countries, 
 complexions, and conditions : not on the cheap wordy 
 plan, now so much recommended_, the ^^ be thou 
 warmed, be thou clothed" system ; but at an expense 
 which, considering all the circumstances of the coun- 
 try, is truly astonishing: and yet our reviews, and 
 magazines, and books, our political economists and 
 legislators, are perpetually appealing from the opera- 
 tion of our own national provision, to America ! It 
 is the most charitable construction that can possibly 
 be put upon such conduct, to believe that they know 
 nothing whatsoever on the subjects on which they 
 express themselves the most confidently; " this is the 
 way of them.'* 
 
 (12.) But the force of this appeal may probably 
 be thus evaded : the provision for the poor in Ame- 
 rica, it may be said, is the relic of the ignorance and 
 
 ' Holmes, American Annals, vol. ii. p. 136. 
 ^ Dwight, Travels in America, vol. iv. p. 326. 
 
XIII. j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 213 
 
 prejudice they have inherited from their forefathers of 
 England ; and consequently the operation of the more 
 enlightened system must not^ after all, be sought for 
 there. Be it so. There is a country, and one suffi- 
 ciently near ; great in extent and certainly not over- 
 burdened with population ; vast in its means and for- 
 tunate in its position ; in which the experiment might 
 be tried with advantage; and there it has been tried: 
 I mean France. We have heard much of her having 
 been a political beacon ; she has been yet more, a mo- 
 ral one. When she had trampled upon the rights of 
 property, public and private, and revelled in the spo- 
 liation, had put down her sacred institutions, and 
 filled the land with dismay and suffering, she seized 
 upon the sacred funds which the piety of preceding 
 ages had accumulated in behalf of suffering humanity, 
 and swept away the " right of the poor." A man 
 can have little faith in revelation, nor yet in a God, 
 who does not believe that the anger of Heaven 
 w^ould kindle at such a heinous spoliation of the de- 
 fenceless ; and he must shut his eyes to past events 
 not to see its tremendous manifestations. But not 
 to allude to the moral character of the transaction any 
 further, let us examine its policy. After having seised 
 their funds, the Comite de Mendicit6 recommended 
 no other mode of provision. The system of our re- 
 gular and systematic relief Avas, and Mr. Malthus says 
 "justly, stated by the French to be la plaie politique 
 de rAngleterre la plus devorante\" (England's most 
 devouring political sore). He repeats, elsewhere, his 
 admiration of their wise and proper conduct : '' the 
 ' Multhus, Esijay on lV){)ii]ution, p. 536. 
 
214 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 Committee de Mendicity at the beginning of the French 
 revolution, very properly and judiciously rejected the 
 establishment of such a system which had been pro- 
 posed ^" With these proper and judicious persons 
 the rights of man had nothing to do with the rights 
 of the poor man, that is^ one too impotent either to 
 oppose or assist them, and consequently a mere bur- 
 den ; and this is a distinction seldom lost sight of in 
 the liberality of the liberals, either in their theories or 
 their practice. 
 
 It often happens, however, that men, influenced 
 neither by principle nor feeling, may perpetrate acts 
 infamous in themselves, which ultimately prove bene- 
 ficial. It remains to be inquired whether this sa 
 highly extolled one of the French has turned out to 
 be amongst that number. One advantage, I confess, it 
 has been attended with : it has given an opportunity of 
 putting the pernicious principles now afloat to the test, 
 and, as far as experience may be permitted to decide, 
 has disposed of them for ever. The '' sore'* of Eng- 
 land, if her charity must be so denominated, we know ; 
 has, then, the political chirurgery of France removed 
 from that country the deformity of poverty by their 
 rescissory operation ? Much is said about the pauper- 
 ism in London ; let us compare it with that of Paris, 
 the focus of the fashionables, and consequently of the 
 superfluous wealth, of Europe ; and then let us see to 
 which belongs the appellation of this " plaie la plus de- 
 vorante." And to end all disputes on the point, I 
 will take one of the most expensive and burdensome 
 years England has yet experienced ; since when, not- 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 546. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 2l0 
 
 withstanding the " absorbent " system of our modern 
 quacks, the expenses of the poor have very con- 
 siderably diminished ; and if large sums did not appear 
 on the face of the rates, which are in reality the wages 
 of labour, the declension would appear still greater. 
 We have particulars of the year 1813 published. In 
 the year 1811, the metropolis contained a population 
 of 1,009,546 souls: that number was doubtless in- 
 creased in 1813, when there were 35,593 persons per- 
 manently relieved in and out of the several workhouses, 
 and 75,310 occasionally, amounting in the whole to 
 110,903, and involving an expense of ^6517,181. Turn 
 we now to Paris \ In the twelve arrondissemens, con- 
 taining, in 1823, a population of 713,966 souls, the 
 report of the Bureaux de Charite sums up as follows : 
 
 Total des indigens secourus a domicile ou aulrement - 125,500 
 Population des hopitaux et hospices - - 61,500 
 
 187,000 
 To this appalling number must still be made many 
 very heavy additions, such as enfans-troiwes, &c. &c. 
 The expense of maintaining these I hold to be far the 
 least important part of the examination. The twelve 
 Bureaux of Charity, it appears, distributed 1,200,000 
 francs in money ; 747,000 loaves of four pounds weight 
 each ; 270,000 pounds of meat ; 19,000 ells of cloth ; 
 7000 pairs of sabots, 1500 coverlets, &c.^ But in the 
 report from which I am quoting, it is added, that 
 these bureaux form a part only of the public benevo- 
 lent institutions of Paris ; then follows an account of 
 
 ' Population Abstracts for 1811. Poor Rate Returns for 1813 ; 
 published by order, 1818; Appendix, pp. 631 , 632, 633. 
 ' lUdletin Universel, 1824, Geo-j,, &c. torn. i. pp. 88, 89. 
 
216 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [^ XIII. 
 
 the various establishments, the numbers received into 
 which, independently of schools, amounts to 75,200 : 
 most of these, I presume, are included in the 61,500, as 
 reported to be in the hopitaiioc and hospices. The report 
 of the Consul general des Hopitaux (annee 1823) 
 states, that the relief afforded to the indigent popula- 
 tion of the capital, by his administration, amounted to 
 3,300,000 francs, of which the foundling hospitals 
 absorbed a third. As to the private charities distri- 
 buted, the article says, " on ne pent savoir le montant.'* 
 But the conclusion of this important report must not 
 be omitted ; and I call the particular attention of those 
 to it who are so loud in their admiration of the proper 
 and judicious conduct of the French committee de men- 
 dicite, in rejecting the English plaie la plus devorante ; 
 it runs thus : 
 
 " It is painful to terminate this enumeration of the 
 relief given to the indigent of the capital, by the 
 observation, that her streets, her quays, and all her 
 public places are filled with mendicants^ I" 
 
 These are distressing statements, and there is, alas ! 
 no room to hope they are exaggerations : they receive 
 a melancholy confirmation by the statistics of morta- 
 lity. One third of the dead of Paris are buried at the 
 public expense ^ ! 
 
 It is hardly necessary to prove, that if Paris is thus 
 circumstanced, the rest of a country to which its 
 capital is every thing, is still more deplorably imbued 
 with beggary. That it is not so effectually succoured, we 
 may very safely conclude. An intelligent contributor to 
 
 ' Bulletin Universel, Geog. et Stat., torn. i. p. 89. 
 ' Brewster's Edinburgh Encyc, Poor, p. 88. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 217 
 
 the ^^ Bulletin Universel des Sciences," thus expresses 
 himself upon this point. " Supposing that the relief 
 given to the poor from the public revenues were 
 throughout France, in the same proportion as the 
 population of Paris, it would amount to 121,000,000 
 francs." (It is plain he speaks only of the sums 
 awarded to the maintenance of the poor from the 
 public revenues ; for if he had included those adminis- 
 tered by the twelve Bureaux de Charit^, which are, in 
 addition, distributed in the different arrondissemens, 
 the proportion would amount to about 200,000,000 
 francs.) ^* But this sum is evidently much exagge- 
 rated ; for there exist administrations of charity only 
 in our towns, and the poor in our rural communes are 
 succoured by voluntary charitable donations only. 
 One ought to feel astonished that we have not been 
 obliged to have recourse to more efficacious means, 
 after a revolution which has left us in the same situa- 
 tion as England found herself in under the reign of 
 Elizabeth, when the ecclesiastical property, which was 
 the patrimony of the unfortunate, had been alienated 
 from them^" He does, indeed, show that the evil of 
 such a state of things is, in some degree, mitigated 
 by the minute division of the large properties which 
 were confiscated at the revolution ; but few, I think, 
 amongst us, are for thus curing ' la plaie' of pauperism 
 amongst us. The wisdom of the gentlemen Mr. Mal- 
 thus eulogizes so highly is therefore manifested in the 
 vast expense which is now entailed upon the govern- 
 ment, leaving the country still very inadequately 
 
 ' Bulletin Universjcl, torn. iv. p. 44. 
 
218 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XriI. 
 
 relieved, and swarming from one end to the other with 
 mendicants. 
 
 (13.) In proof that universal mendicancy is the al- 
 ternative of having no poor-laws, I may safely refer 
 to the testimony of any one who has travelled through 
 that country; or indeed any other in the south of 
 Europe, where there is no regularly organized system 
 of public relief for the poor. No expense, however 
 great no establishments, however magnificent, seem 
 to compensate the want of this. I shall only quote 
 one or two authors, and leave the reader to contrast 
 the situation of such countries, in regard to poverty 
 and wretchedness, with those where there is a regular 
 system of national relief, as in Switzerland, Sweden, 
 Holland, and England. " Let the traveller," says one 
 of these, '^ start from the rock of Lisbon, and proceed 
 through every part of Spaing Italy, and France, and 
 the wretchedness and beggary which prevails in every 
 town, village, house, and even apartment, through all 
 these christian catholic countries, can only be appre- 
 ciated by those who have witnessed such scenes ^ In 
 Spain and Portugal, human misery and mendicity are. 
 certainly on a more extended scale than in France 
 and Italy; but with this difference, that in the latter 
 countries the profession is more matured and refined 
 than in the former, where they content themselves 
 
 ' Cervantes says, of his Governor of Barataria, that m ridding the 
 streets of beggars and relieving the indigent, " he made and ap- 
 pointed an overseer of the poor, not to persecute, but to examine 
 whether they were or were not real objects." Precisely the law of 
 England. May the fiction of that inimitable author become at 
 length, as it respects his own country, a happy reality ! 
 
 * Milford, Observations during a Tour through France, &c. vol. ii. 
 p. 76. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 219 
 
 with quietly exhibiting disease, of the most horrible 
 description^ on the road side, in the corners of streets, 
 and at the gates of towns, begging the Almighty, or 
 some favoured saint, to inspire you with charity. Va- 
 gabonds, and those born and educated in beggary, 
 make no scruple to enter your apartments, whilst at 
 your dinner or supper, shut the door, and with appa- 
 rent humility persevere in their petition till it is 
 granted. In France and Italy, the beggars possess a 
 superior polish and perseverance ; and it may be 
 deemed an established maxim among them, that a 
 refusal is not an answer. At post-houses, and towns 
 where you pass through, they are as regular in their 
 attendance at the door as the landlord or the waiter, 
 and place themselves in positions to catch the eye, 
 turn which way you will, making a monotonous buzz, 
 like a distant swarm of bees. If you shut your eyes, 
 or the window-blinds of your carriage, you voluntarily 
 become a kind of state-prisoner, and of course are 
 deprived of seeing the place and its inhabitants. But 
 this will not always secure you from their importu- 
 nity ; for I have found it occur, that they will open 
 the door of the carriage, and present such a counte- 
 nance of real or fictitious misery, that I believe few 
 travellers persevere in the resolutions they have 
 formed under such unequal contests ; at least I know, 
 that whoever wishes to consult his ease or his health, 
 had better not enter the lists with such opponents \ 
 In large cities, in coming out of one house, you are 
 fairly hunted till you get into another: the fraternity, 
 
 ' Miltbid, Observations during a Tour through France, &c. vol. ii. 
 p. 80. 
 
220 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIII. 
 
 however, appear to have this point of etiquette, that 
 only one hunts you at a time; but, before you are out 
 of sight of the former beggar, whom you have re- 
 lieved, you are considered fair game for the rest of 
 the pack. These scenes of misery every day present- 
 ing themselves, have been the subject of my reflections 
 during many a solitary ramble through Europe J" 
 Such is an extract from the description of the paupers 
 of France, as w^ell as Italy and Spain, given by a very 
 intelligent modern traveller. But if authorities, more 
 universally known, are preferred, I will give the same 
 facts in the language of Kotzebue. It concerns a 
 country and a city, whose numerous and splendid 
 charitable establishments Eustace eulogizes so highly ; 
 Naples. "It is," says Kotzebue, '^crowded with beg- 
 gars, whose number defies all calculation. I feel it, 
 indeed, a fruitless task for my pen to attempt a de- 
 scription of the scenes I have witnessed, and I lay it 
 down in despair. But no ! what I can tell, is as much 
 as need be known of human misery. As we step out 
 of our house, twenty hats and open hands are stretched 
 out towards us. We cannot take ten steps in the 
 street without meeting a beggar, who crosses our 
 path, and, with groans and piteous exclamations, soli- 
 cits our mite. Women, often dressed in black silk, 
 and veiled, intrude themselves impudently upon us. 
 Cripples, of all sorts, hold up their stump of a leg or 
 an arm close to our eyes. Noseless faces, devoured 
 by disease, grin at us. Children quite naked, nay, 
 even men, are to be seen, lying and moaning in the 
 dirt. A dropsical man sits by a wall, and shows us 
 ' Milford, Observations, &c. vol.ii. p. 81. See the following pages. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 221 
 
 his monstrous belly. Consumptive mothers lie by 
 the road-side, with naked children in their laps, who 
 are compelled to be continually crying aloud. If we 
 go to church, we must pass between a dozen such de- 
 plorable objects at the door, and when we enter, as 
 many fall down on their knees before us. Even in 
 our dwellings, we are not free from the painful spec- 
 tacle. If we open the balcony-door, the sighs re- 
 echo from below ^ :" 
 
 But I will pursue the quotation no further. Some 
 may think that they would be proof against all this 
 importunity, under the idea that much of it is urged 
 under fallacious pretences. But w^ho can determine, 
 and consequently who, with a heart, dare refuse? This 
 author gives an awful proof of the distressing predi- 
 cament in which any man must be placed under such 
 circumstances, and even in his own country, were 
 there no provision for the poor. He saw one of these 
 importunate wretches die in the street while suppli- 
 cating die of hunger! He attests it, and the date, 
 December the 4th, 1804, and adds, '' N. B. The 
 king rode past to-day, to the chase, with twenty or 
 thirty dogs, all in excellent condition^". Horses and 
 dogs, we are told, are granaries for the poor ^. I shall 
 take another opportunity of showing the error of this 
 notion, likewise, from fiscal data. 
 
 That a better system will ultimately prevail in the 
 countries last referred to, there is little doubt. The 
 enemies of poor-laws must prepare themselves for 
 their extension, instead of anticipating their extinction. 
 
 ' Kotzebue, Travels through Italy, vol.i. pp. 251,252. 
 
 ' Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 217,218. ^ Malthus, Essay on Pop. 
 
222 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XI1I. 
 
 Mendicity^ which will inevitably prevail wherever 
 there is no legal relief for the poor, has more than all 
 the disadvantages of the latter, without any of its be- 
 nefits. As an intelligent traveller observes, '"^ without 
 some sort of eleemosynary public establishment," which 
 he says is wanting, generally speaking, in Italy, the 
 wretchedness is extreme^ and "charity becomes hope- 
 less*". He adds, however, that in Venice, ^^a, system 
 something approaching to our mode of providing for 
 the indigent poor, has been adopted, where a sort of 
 chest has been formed for their relief, out of contribu- 
 tions levied on the richer inhabitants, backed by 
 donations from the government^". He adds^ " a great 
 change has been, in this respect, wrought in Venice," 
 as, before, ^^ it was crowded with half-starved 
 wretches, like other parts of Italy ^." 
 
 (14.) I cannot but remark here, that in this respect 
 the condition of the Irish poor is still more deplorable. 
 They too are beggars, they importune in still greater 
 multitudes ; but they have few of the splendid establish- 
 ments so much talked of in other countries ; and 
 instead of troops of foreigners arriving, and spending 
 amongst them the revenues obtained elsewhere, they 
 are almost totally deserted by their own natural pro- 
 tectors. In search of employment^ and of bread, they 
 wander in every direction ^ ; they are chased back from 
 the city^ ; intercepted on the high-ways ; and driven 
 from the villages ^ ; and with greater apologies for beg- 
 
 ' Hallam, Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. p. 130. 
 
 ^Ibid. vol. i. pp. 131, 132. ' Ibid. 
 
 * Drs. Baker and Cheyne, vol. ii. p. 165. 
 
 ' Ibid, vol.ii. pp. 41, 71, 85, 91, 317, 371, 373. 
 
 ^Ibid. vol. ii. p. 138. ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 142. 
 
Xril.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 293 
 
 ging than any other people upon earth, they are the least 
 tolerated in availing themselves of this last resource 
 of suiFering humanity. Let not the enemies of their 
 species attribute this to their numbers ; these must 
 again be reminded that such was their fate when the 
 population of the country was in the most scanty 
 stated 
 
 Mendicancy, therefore^ has not, and never can be, 
 put down in Ireland, till a national system of relief be 
 adopted ; in the mean time, independently of the dis- 
 grace and suffering which the want of it occasions, it 
 has been asserted, on a careful calculation, that the 
 present plan of relieving distress is, in comparison to 
 the number of the inhabitants and their means, far 
 more burdensome than that occasioned by the poor- 
 laws of England '. 
 
 Let, then. Englishmen judge which best merits the 
 appellation of la plaie la plus cUvorantc, their system 
 of sustaining the poor, or this pest of society, universal 
 mendicity, w^ith all its inevitable train of deceit, dis- 
 grace, immorality, disease, and suiFering ? We are 
 placed in this dilemma; without a systematic plan of 
 relief for the poor, the very idea of discountenancing 
 mendicity is infinitely too cruel to be practicable any- 
 where. This point at least needs no arguing; Lord 
 Hale has as clearly settled it in his little piece on the 
 poor-laws as he ever did any question in the court of 
 Kinc^'s Bench ^ 
 
 ' Archbishop Boulter, Letters, vol. i. p. 222. 
 * Minutes of Evidence before the Lords' Committee, 1824, p. 264 ; 
 A. Nimmo, Esq. 
 
 " Lord Hale ; Burn, Hist. Poor Laws, p. 150. 
 
224 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIII. 
 
 (15.) I turn from the contemplation of this state of 
 things, infinitely more disgraceful to the rich than to 
 the poor, wherever it exists, to a very different pic- 
 ture. I shall not instance England, though I think 
 I well might, after what has been seen, but appeal to 
 one of the most interesting countries in Europe, in 
 all respects, where a system of sustaining the poor 
 very similar to ours prevails the kingdom of the 
 Netherlands. In the year 1823, an official report 
 was made to the States General, upon the " ^tablisse- 
 mens de bienfaisances et de I'education des Pays- 
 Bas \" We have already, in reviewing the agricul- 
 culture of the Netherlands, seen that there a beggar 
 is scarcely to be found. From this report, however, 
 it appears there are 2,285 mendicants ; the number is 
 triumphantly small. But, though there is so little 
 begging allowed, there is poverty ; but it is treated as 
 poverty ought always to be, not thrown prominently 
 forth on accidental charity, but quietly and regularly 
 retired, protected, and sustained. The population of 
 the kingdom is stated at 5,721,724 ; the number of 
 those who are at the '' charge publique," and whom 
 we should, perhaps, disdainfully call paupers, exclu- 
 sively both of the *^ atteliers de charite," whom we 
 should certainly class with them, and of those who 
 receive education at the public expense, is 682,185, 
 or near an eighth part of the entire population^. Hear 
 this, ye dissatisfied Englishmen ! Nor have they got, 
 as yet, the divine knack of feeding them upon words : 
 
 See Bulletin Universel, Avril, 1825, p. 165. 
 ' Raport fait aux Etats-Generaux, for 1822. Bulletin Uni- 
 versel, Geog. et Stat., torn, v., pp. 19, 165. 
 
XriI.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 225 
 
 they expend upon them, exclusively of education, 
 10,212,976 florins. In this report, the provinces are di- 
 vided into southern and northern ; the latter, including 
 old Holland, one is curious to examine, from the cir- 
 cumstance of the merited celebrity that country has 
 enjoyed for ages, in the preservation of its poor. 
 The population of the nine northern provinces is 
 stated at 2,148,339, their poor at 196,053 persons : 
 but the Dutch, continuing their habits of humane 
 attention to their poor, expended no less a sum, on 
 this smaller number, than 5,955,030 florins \ or about 
 thirty florins each ; something more, I think, than 
 three quarters of wheat, at the average Amsterdam 
 prices of that year^. I have not in my possession 
 any returns of the number of paupers, in that year, 
 in England and Wales ; but, to recur to the year 
 1813, already referred to, there were then 971,913, 
 on whom was expended 6^6,679,657, or about ten 
 bushels each, not half the former quantity : now, 
 however, the fall in grain has increased that allowance ; 
 but still, I fear, we fiiU far short of the Dutch in 
 care of, and liberality to, our poor ^. 
 
 Here, then, is the real secret of the management of 
 the poor of Holland ; it is not that she has an exten- 
 sive foreign trade, or sends forth numerous colo- 
 nial emigrations, or that she possesses an extremely 
 unhealthy country (these are the reasons of such 
 as conceive that the only way to cure poverty is to 
 expel or desert it) : no ! those who live at the public 
 
 ' Rapport fait aux Etats-Generaux, for 1823, torn. v. p. 16.5- 
 * See Foreign Corn Returns, published JNlarch, 1826. 
 ' Poor-rate Returns for 1813, published 1818. 
 
226 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [^Xllf. 
 
 cost are, proportionably, at least as numerous as are 
 such in England ; but generous and unwearied atten- 
 tion to wretchedness and distress is her plan. Peipe- 
 tually accused of selfishness, where is generosity like 
 this to be found? of coldness, where does the flame of 
 Christian charity burn with so bright and so steady a 
 flame, as in Holland ? Possessed of a narrow untrac- 
 table territory, and an unpropitious climate, loaded with 
 taxes and with a declining trade ; still she sets an ex- 
 ample to every nation upon earth ; which speaks as 
 loudly as human conduct can. Go and do thou likewise ! 
 I will close these remarks on the poor-laws of 
 Holland^ by an anecdote which, to me, is very im- 
 pressive, as evincing that there is something in the 
 very nature of charity that strikes those hearts that 
 are dead to every other duty, and which inspires their 
 deepest reverence even where it fails to excite their 
 imitation. " When the Duke of Lotherdal, jeering 
 about the fate of Holland, then threatened by Louis, 
 and basely deserted by Charles the Second, said that 
 oranges would be scarce when the French should 
 have plundered Amsterdam, Charles, who knew Hol- 
 land well, as a resident there, interrupted his mirth, 
 and, for once serious, replied : ' I am of opinion 
 that God will preserve Amsterdam from being de- 
 stroyed, if it were only for the great charity they have 
 for their poor ^' " Difficulties environ our own country, 
 at present ; a storm seems gathering, and the future 
 prospect darkens ; let us cover our manifold ofl^ences 
 with this divine mantle ; let us lay hold of the weak- 
 ness of the Deity, if I dare so to express myself: let 
 ' Ker, of Kersland, Remarks on Holland, part iii. p. 34. 
 
Xin.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 227 
 
 US increase our attentions to our own poor ; and j}er- 
 form a solemn act of justice and mercy in behalf of 
 those of Ireland, without delay. '^ If merits, in an 
 individual, are sometimes supposed to be rewarded in 
 this world, I do not think it too presumptuous to sup- 
 pose, that national virtues may likewise meet with 
 their blessings. England has, to its pecuHar honour, 
 not only made its poor free, but hath provided a certain 
 and solid establishment, to prevent their necessities 
 and indigence, when they arise from what the law 
 terms ^ the act of God.' And are not these benefi- 
 cent attentions to the miseries of our fellow-creatures 
 the first of those poor pleas which we are capable of 
 offering in behalf of our imperfections to an all-wise 
 and merciful Creator ^ ?" 
 
 (16.) With the sacred feelings which such a pas- 
 sage as this leaves upon the mind, it is painful to 
 return to controversy. But the cause demands it, 
 and the stronghold of the adversaries of the poor- 
 laws has still to be attacked, and one against which, 
 in many cases, neither right, nor reason, nor revela- 
 tion can make the least impression : I mean the 
 stronghold of selfish interest. The country has been 
 taught to regard the national charity not merely as a 
 vast national burden, but as a growing one ; threaten- 
 ing to " absorb " (to use the fashionable term of the 
 day) the entire property of the kingdom. Mr. 
 Malthus told us, in 1803, that more than one half of 
 the population was reduced to the condition of pau- 
 pers ^ Another celebrated authority tells us gravely, 
 
 ' Barrington, Ancient Statutes, p. 481. 
 * Malthus, p. 536. 
 
 Q -3 
 
228 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 if I recollect right, that, in England, seven parts of 
 the population are sustained by the remaining eighth : 
 as to the expense, the latter does not so much regard 
 it ; but the former says, that his supposition " of a 
 collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the 
 pound has been nearly realized V and that it had been 
 justly stated, that the system was an evil in compa- 
 rison with which '^ the national debt, with all its mag- 
 nitude of terror, is of little moment'^." One would 
 really think that such statements as these require no 
 notice, and that they would render any views and 
 opinions founded upon them utterly valueless ; but, 
 no ! such authorities continue to be consulted and 
 appealed to. 
 
 I shall only say, as it regards one of these asser- 
 tions, that instead of one man amongst us support- 
 ing seven paupers, ten or a dozen of us are con- 
 triving to assist one. As to Mr. Malthus's, that the 
 poor-rates had nearly amounted to eighteen shillings 
 in the pound, and that above one-half of us were pau- 
 pers ; at the very time he was publishing this, an exact 
 account of the number of the poor, and the rates 
 for their support, was in the act of being taken 
 throughout England and Wales, and his " supposi- 
 tions were nearly realized," thus : The number of 
 the poor were 725,568 ; and as the population was, in 
 1801, 9,168,000, in 1803 they were certainly not 
 one-thirteenth of the whole, instead of " the largest 
 half:" then the amount collected was 5,348,205, 
 being, as the report says, "an actual rate on the 
 rack-rental of England and Wales of 2y. lOd. in 
 ' IVIalthus, p. 399. ' Ibid. p. 536, 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 229 
 
 the pound'; bat .5&1,270,314 of that sum were dis- 
 bursed in county and other rates, mih'tia allowances, 
 &c. ; so that the sum expended on the poor was only 
 2,!?. l|c?. precisely. But even this statement conveys 
 a very erroneous idea as to the pressure of the poor's- 
 rate: it should be kept in mind, that it is not the 
 landlord, but the cultivator that pays this rate ; and 
 as the produce of the land is rarely estimated at less 
 in value than three rents, generally four (it then 
 averaged far more), the poor had only 8|d in the 
 pound, at the most, on that produce, or considerably 
 less than four per cent. ; inclusive of what was con- 
 tributed by traders and manufacturers (which was 
 very little), and nothing whatsoever from the great 
 ship-owners, or from the fundholders of the kingdom, 
 as such. Including these amongst the rich, of whom 
 Mr. Malthus speaks as having to support the poor, 
 by a collection of eighteen shillings in the pound ; and 
 I defy him to prove that there was a collection of 
 eighteen farthings in the pound on their behalf, and, 
 excluding such altogether, of so many halfpence. 
 
 (17.) But, leaving these calculations, let us next 
 inquire whether, since that period, the poor's-rate has 
 manifested that constant tendency to increase, so as 
 to merit the appellation of being so devorante; tlireat- 
 ening to '^absorb" the whole rental and property of 
 the country ; for that is the argument, appealing as it 
 does to the fears of the selhsh, on which these iin- 
 pugners of our poor-laws mainly rely. In 1803, we 
 have seen the sums expended on the poor amounted 
 to 4,077,891 ; at present (1827), I imagine they 
 ' Pooi-Rale Returns, 1803, p. 716. 
 
230 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 may amount to five millions and a half, or rather 
 more. In the former period^ the paupers amounted to 
 725^568 ; at present, I conceive, they do not reach a 
 million: then the rental of the kingdom was esti- 
 mated at 6^38,000,000*; in 1815, it was stated, on 
 the data furnished by the property-tax, at about 
 i^52,000,000 ; and, considering the vast creations of 
 property since that period, notwithstanding the de- 
 pressions and fluctuations to which it has been sub- 
 ject (with which the poor have had no more to do 
 than the Pindarees of India), can it be estimated at less 
 at present ? Where then is the proof, I ask, that the 
 poor, or the expenses of sustaining them, are increas- 
 ing in an undue proportion, compared with the popu- 
 lation and property of the country } 
 
 But supposing some of the preceding items should 
 be captiously objected to it, I have a set-off of that 
 weight and magnitude which will at once silence all 
 such cavils. There is included in the amount re- 
 turned, as expended on the relief of the poor, a vast 
 sum which is, to all intents and purposes, the wages 
 of necessary labour ; and amongst the number returned 
 as paupers many are active labourers, in full and con- 
 stant employment. At present_, I have nothing to do 
 with the cruelty of this conduct, or the motives by 
 which it is inspired ; those are sufficiently developed 
 elsewhere : I shall only now state the fact (and that 
 on the highest authority), that it is the result of a con- 
 spiracy, against which the poor are utterly powerless, 
 " absorbing" the whole of the labourers of entire pa- 
 rishes, and extending to many counties, especially 
 ' Report, Poor Laws, 1804, folio. 
 
XIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 231 
 
 those where the poor-rates are represented as the 
 highest, and paupers as the most numerous. This 
 pernicious system has grown up principally within 
 the last quarter of a century, or during the period we 
 are examining. It is difficult to estimate the extent 
 to which it has been carried ; but one thing is cer- 
 tain, if the statistics of poverty were purified of this 
 shocking perversion, pauperism has been a greatly 
 diminishing, rather than an increasing evil, during 
 this century. I mean not that those should be de- 
 ducted who, having large families, receive assistance : 
 to relieve such, notwithstanding Mr. Malthus warns 
 us on this head, was one of the designs of the national 
 charity, and has ever been attended to ; a provision 
 evidently for the public good, because it enables those 
 who demand labour to fix its remuneration, so as to 
 meet the average wants of those who furnish it. Hence, 
 wherever poor-laws have been established, as in Hol- 
 land^, in Switzerland'*, and in Sweden^, such has been 
 one of the declared legitimate objects of the institu- 
 tion ; as to our own, old Dalton says, interpreting them 
 almost immediately after their enactment, that among 
 those legally entitled to relief, is the "poore man 
 overcharged with children "*." To this it will suffice, I 
 think, if we add the authority of Lord Hale^ But 
 Mr. Malthus recommends that, even in apportioning 
 little spots of land for the cultivation of the poor, " too 
 nmch attention should not be paid to the number of 
 
 * Dr. Armstrong, Works, vol. ii. p. 215. 
 
 ' Spirit of Legislation, on Switzerland, p. 43. 
 ^ James, Tour in Sweden, p. 105. 
 
 * Dalton, Country Justice, 1619, folio, ch. xl. p. 100. 
 
 *0n the Poor. See Burns, Hist, of the Poor Laws, p. 145. 
 
232 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^Xlll. 
 
 children V' dependent poverty being, according to him, 
 disgraceful, Hear^ however, what a different autho 
 rity, in all respects, says on this point : " Let us," 
 says William Pitt, " make relief, where there are a 
 number of children, a matter of right, and an honour, 
 instead of a ground of opprobrium and contempt. 
 This will make a large family a blessing, and not a 
 curse, and draw a proper line of distinction between 
 those who are able to provide for themselves by their 
 labour, and those who, after having enriched their 
 country with a number of children, have a claim upon 
 its assistance for their support'^." 
 
 (18.) But to return. Confident that this argu- 
 tnentum ad crumenam, however it may be kept in the 
 back-ground, is the main one on which the adversaries 
 of our national charity rely, and by which they suc- 
 cessfully resist the extension of it to Ireland ; so that 
 it is in vain you talk of justice, when you are an- 
 swered by ^^ so much in the pound," or of mercy, 
 when you are threatened with "the absorption of 
 rents ;" let us, in proceeding with the present inquiry, 
 meet such on their own ground. 
 
 As it has been already sufficiently shown that. 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay, p. 589. 
 
 * Pitt, Speech on Whitbread's Bill. Eden's Hist, of the Poor, vol. 
 iii. Appendix, p. cccxi. See, also, the benevolent Firman on this sub- 
 ject ; Proposals, &c. p. 14, published 1681. As so much is said 
 at present about the policy of deserting children, I quote the fol- 
 lowing passage : " Queen Elizabeth and her ministers had no con- 
 ception of barbarity towards infants, nor dreamt of such false par- 
 simony as to save other people's money, to alienate from a child the 
 necessary means of support. The poor's law has fully provided for 
 them, by virtue of one of the most plain, christianlike plans, that 
 ever entered into the heart of prince or subject." (Jonas Hanway, 
 Importance of the Poor, vol. i. p. 1 7 1 .) 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 233 
 
 during the current century at least, these representa- 
 tions, touching the relative increase of pauperism and 
 the expense it occasions, are manifestly erroneous, we 
 shall now extend the inquiry up to the period of the 
 first establishment of the national charity. And in 
 doing this, it will be again necessary to correct the 
 inadvertency of those who have of late years written 
 so much on the subject, and, I am sorry to add, of 
 those who have put forth documents relative to it. 
 Inadvertency, I said ; I fear, however, it occasionally 
 merits a harsher term : for I see in it the prevalent 
 disposition of stating those facts, and those only, 
 which subserve a particular purpose, without much 
 regard to their nature, their connexion, or even their 
 correctness. 
 
 (19.) However this may be, it is much to be 
 regretted that successive committees of the House of 
 Commons have unintentionally fallen into error on this 
 subject. They have assumed, without, as it appears to 
 me, sufficient examination, the correctness of an im- 
 portant document, on this point, lately put forth, in 
 which the sum of 689,971 is given as the total amount 
 expended in the maintenance of the poor of England 
 and Wales, on the average of the three years 1748, 
 1749, and 1750. In proceeding to prove the utter in- 
 correctness of that account, I shall make a few previous 
 remarks. Since that period, it is well known that 
 numbers of returns, on the same subject, have been 
 made to parliament, the later ones only having any 
 claim to correctness : even in this century, we are 
 informed, in the obversations appended to the two 
 voluminous reports of 1803, and of 1813, 1814 and 
 
234 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [XIII. 
 
 1815, that they err materially in deficiency, espe- 
 cially the former one, as might be expected ; for it 
 is in the very nature of such statistical accounts to 
 become more complete as the necessary inquisitions 
 are more familiarized to the people, and when those 
 suspicions, which are always at first excited on such 
 occasions, are allayed. But, to return to the last 
 century. There were returns of the expenses for the 
 maintenance of the poor, for the years 1776 and 
 1784. Some of these the late Mr. Gilbert, well 
 known as having devoted the labours of his parlia- 
 mentary life to the subject, was mainly instrumental 
 in obtaining, and yet we find him pronouncing, in 
 his place, in parliament, and in his numerous publica- 
 tions on the subject, that, when he had obtained them, 
 they were grossly defective \ Indeed, it is a recorded 
 fact, that the order for their production was, at that 
 time, very reluctantly complied with throughout the 
 country. According to Mr. Gilbert, they were defi- 
 cient several hundred thousand pounds ; he states, 
 that '' the sum raised for the relief and maintenance 
 of the poor is not inferior, perhaps superior, to that 
 raised by the land tax, at four shillings in the 
 pound ^" In short, he estimated the poor rates of 
 1775 at ^^2,000,000, at the least ^ and those of 1786 
 at <56*2,500,000*. The errors in these documents are 
 now, however, wholly lost sight of, and their defects, 
 
 * Collection of Tracts concerning the Poor, 4to. 1787, p. 106. 
 
 ^ Gilbert, Speech, 27th March, 1775 ; Parliamentary Register, 
 vol.i. p. 371. 
 
 ' Gilbert, Plan for the Better Relief, &c. p. 1 . 
 
 * Some Reflections on the Poor Rates ; Collection of Pamphlets, 
 &c. p. 104. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 235 
 
 like those of legal titles, are, it appears, fully remedied 
 by age. If this mode will suffice, there is a yet older 
 official return concerning the charge of maintaining 
 the poor, obtained about the conclusion of the seven- 
 teenth century, under the direction of John Locke, at 
 the instance of the then government. This makes 
 the amount to be ^184,735 18^. 6d : why, then, is 
 not this sum placed at the head of those now given 
 in the reports of our select committees ? It would 
 make a far more convenient radix for calculations 
 concerning this " devouring sore " than even that of 
 1750. It is not improbable but it may, at length, 
 find a place there_, though there is this reason why it 
 would not be quite a decisive datum, even were it so 
 legitimatized, namely, there were only 4,415 parishes 
 that made any returns whatsoever on that occasion ; 
 the correctness of those actually received may be 
 judged of accordingly. The number of those in the 
 last large abstract (1818) is stated to be 14,640. 
 Supposing, then, the returns wanting at the former 
 period averaged the same in amount as those fur- 
 nished (no unfair presumption), and even allowing 
 those furnished to have been complete (certainly a 
 very liberal one), there were upwards of six hundred 
 thousand pounds expended on the poor at that period. 
 We know, however, from other quarters^ that this 
 was much short of the actual amount. 
 
 But these returns of 1750, found, it appears, in the 
 Speaker's closet, are to be now taken as correct, not- 
 withstanding all manner of evidence to the contrary. 
 Fielding, who very much interested himself about 
 the poor-laAvs, and who wrote on the subject the 
 
236 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 very year following, and who, consequently, could not 
 have been ignorant of them, nevertheless says, that 
 the tax for providing for the poor (independently of 
 every other kind of charity) equalled, frequently, in 
 amount, that of the land tax, then about two millions*. 
 Ten years before this, we are assured by Sir Matthew 
 Decker (an authority of great celebrity, as I perceive, 
 at present), that it amounted at least to < 1,960,000*. 
 Hanway, a writer incapable of falsification, and cer- 
 tainly not to be suspected of ignorance on this subject, 
 for it was the business of his benevolent life to attend to 
 it, estimates the rates *, a few years after this supposed 
 true return, at 1,500,000*, and, according to his co- 
 temporaries, at a low calculation ^ ; at all events, Al- 
 cock^ Postlethwayt% D'Angueil% and many others, 
 
 ' Fielding, An Inquiry, &c. (1751), p. 32. 
 
 Decker, Essay on Foreign Trade, p. 33. (1740.) 
 
 ^ Farmer's Letters, p. 308. * Hanway, Letters on the Defects 
 of the Police, &c. letter xii. p. 101, 4to. 
 
 ' The error of Mr. Hanway, evidently one on the side of defi- 
 ciency, originated thus : having obtained the probable amount of the 
 poor's rate, within the bills of mortality, he assumed that ten times 
 that sum might be taken as the total for the whole kingdom ; it is now 
 manifest that, in thus calculating, he used far too low a multiplica- 
 tor. Mr. Maitland says the poor's rate within the bills of mortality, 
 previously to 1739, was 90,835 4*. 5^., exclusive of public 
 charities to a still greater amount. How is this sum reconcilable 
 with that put forth by the select committees as that levied on the 
 whole country ten years afterwards ? All the documents I have 
 seen relative to the subject, public or private, prove the latter to be 
 preposterously incorrect, though it is now constantly appealed to, as 
 the standard of our calculations in proof of the supposed relative 
 increase in our poor-rates. 
 
 " Alcock, Observations on the Defects, &c. This author fixes on 
 3,000,000 as the sum expended on the poor ; and, singular to 
 remark, appeals to the parliamentary returns of 1750, in verifica- 
 tion of his assertion. 
 
 ' Postk'thwayt, Diet. Commerce, vol. ii. p. 491. He fixes the tax 
 at 3,500,000. 
 
 * D'Angueil, Avantages ct Desavantages, &c. p. 308. His esti- 
 mate also is 3,500,000. 
 
Xiri.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 237 
 
 who wrote at that period, fixed the amount at a far 
 higher sum. Mr. Han way's, as the lowest estimate 
 I have ever met with, I shall adopt. 
 
 Perfectly certain, from the strong representations, 
 as to the poverty and distress which prevailed at that 
 period, and the heavy burden which its relief occa- 
 sioned^ complaints of which meet one's notice in 
 every pubUcation at all touching upon such topics, 
 that the low sum set down as that of the poor's rate 
 of England, in 1750, amounting to only a few pence 
 in the pound on the then rental, could not possibly 
 be correct ; I attempted to ascertain this by actual 
 calculations^ and, for this purpose, had extracted the 
 sums raised, in many parts of the country, at that 
 period, from various topographical and historical 
 works ; by which I was fully convinced that nothing 
 could be further from the truth than that the sums 
 expended on our poor had, since that period, decu- 
 pled in amount. But I found this method of dis- 
 proving the correctness of the document was unne- 
 cessary : its utter worthlessness is not a matter of 
 calculation^ but a matter of history. Accidentally, 
 I cast my eyes upon this account of the whole affair, 
 in Tindal's continuation of Rapin, the very exordium 
 of which is quite sufficient to disprove the correctness 
 of the return in question. '^ Never w^as there a time," 
 says the historian, speaking of the 25th of Geo. II. 
 (1751), " when so much money was raised for the 
 poor as was raised then, and yet they were never 
 worse provided for. This came to be a very serious 
 matter of inquiry, and the house had ordered an 
 account of the total sums of money, annually assessed 
 
238 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XUI. 
 
 in England and Wales, towards the relief of the poor, 
 from Easter 1747 to Easter 1750, to be returned 
 to their clerk, together with the number of work- 
 houses for the poor. The order of the house being 
 a little too indefinite, was X)&ry much disregarded, and 
 the house required the justices of the peace of the 
 several counties to see it now put into execution V' 
 The returns, in consequence of this order, a " little 
 too indefinite and very much disregarded," have, how- 
 ever, it appears, been found in the Speaker's closet, 
 and are now taken to be quite correct, and are passed 
 to the public as such, "without note or comment.'* 
 Worthless, then_, and thrown aside, they have become 
 good, like wine, by keeping ; the additional value of 
 which a professor of political economy (the same who 
 has assured us absenteeism is no evil) gravely assures 
 us ought to be resolved into " the value of the addi- 
 tional labour laid out upon it," which idea he illustrates 
 by a reference to time and place, which I confess I 
 cannot comprehend ^ It is perfectly deceptions, 
 therefore, to appeal, year after year, to this item. 
 The document is_, on the confession of those to whom 
 it was addressed, perfectly useless : our better re- 
 liance, therefore, must be on those competent autho- 
 rities, who lived at the very period and afterwards, 
 who directed their particular attention to the sub- 
 ject. These, doubtless aware of its existence, wholly 
 disregarded it, as imperfect ; depending upon their 
 own personal and better means of information, in 
 estimating this part of the national expenditure. 
 
 ' Rapin, Hist, of England ; Tindal's Cont., vol. xxi. pp. 448, 449. 
 ' M'Cullocli, Principles of Polit. Economy, vol. iii. p. 313. 
 
Xni.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 23'J 
 
 But next^ as touching another and far more im- 
 portant document, that preserved by Davenant, and 
 formed, as he assures us, with great care, and at much 
 expense, by Arthur Moore, one of the most accurate 
 statistical writers of his time, and who could have no 
 possible inducement to impose upon his countrymen, 
 in this particular, had it been practicable. Some at- 
 tempts have been made of late, not indeed to disparage 
 the fidelity of that individual, but to represent the 
 sums he gives for each county, as calculations founded 
 on some other data, and as mere assumed proportions, 
 rather than as the results of an actual collection of 
 facts. This idea is singular enough, and proves to 
 what lengths those who labour to show " the increas- 
 ing burden of the poor's-rate" will go. We are ex- 
 pressly informed by Davenant, in the remarks which 
 accompany the table, that it was '^ collected vvith great 
 labour and expense," and is given as the " medium of 
 several years ;" and what fully establishes our reliance 
 upon these assertions is, the candour manifested about 
 one part of this important document: he informs us, 
 the sum assigned to Wales (33,753) was not de- 
 rived from actual accounts, but "according to the 
 proportion Wales bears to the rest of the kingdom in 
 other taxes ^" A slight examination of the table, in 
 which there are twelve columns, containing sundry 
 fiscal accounts, will instantly show that the sums fixed 
 to the counties of England, severally, have no relation 
 to any of these. It is cjuite impossible that a fair and 
 candid document of this nature can err on the side of 
 excess ; and it is hardly less so, but that it should err 
 ' Davenant, Ways and Means, p. 79. 
 
240 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [xiir. 
 
 in deficiency ; and we accordingly find the total amount 
 falls considerably short of computations which were 
 made by other intelligent persons at about the same 
 period. The first item in the table that I shall sub- 
 join to these remarks, I give on the authority of 
 Colquhoun : from whence he derived it, I do not re- 
 collect at present ; but that it is no exaggeration^ I 
 think will appear clear, if the reader will refer to what 
 Spelman says of the burden of sustaining the poor in 
 the early part of the reign of James I. ; and it should 
 be remarked, that the alienated abbey lands were then 
 chargeable with considerable sums in addition, appli- 
 cable to the purposes of charity^ which incumbrances 
 were afterwards redeemed. 
 
 (20.) Having, in a work of which this forms a 
 part^ when showing the effect of a growing popula- 
 tion on the happiness and prosperity of all communi- 
 ties, spoken at large on the state of England in former 
 periods, contrasting especially the condition of the 
 lower and the lowest ranks of society (with whom the 
 proof must chiefly rest) with what it is at present, I 
 must refer to that part in proof that the distresses 
 sustained by the poor_, during the period I am about 
 to particularise, were far more severe than they are at 
 present. The multitude of these, their want of em- 
 ployment, and extreme misery, is dwelt upon by writers 
 of every class religious, moral, or political; and many 
 times, during the seventeenth century, was the melan- 
 choly fact pronounced from the throne ^, and pressed 
 
 * King James I., Works, p. 567. See also " a Collection of Kings* 
 Speeches," passim. 
 
Xrir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 241 
 
 upon the most serious attention of the legislature'. 
 But as the present argument seems to require that 
 some proof should be now adduced that the number 
 of the paupers was at least as proportionately great 
 then as at present, in order to prove that a system of 
 national charity has not, as is ignorantly alleged, a 
 tendency to constantly increase the numbers of its 
 dependents, but the reverse, I shall present a few ex- 
 tracts (and they shall be but few), in which numbers 
 actually occur, omitting such where a vast but uncer- 
 tain number is alone mentioned. 
 
 Gregory King, who wrote in the time of Charles II., 
 and whose calculations are inserted in Davenant's 
 works, and adopted by him^ says, '''^the number of 
 people, who are a burden upon the other part, amount 
 to 1,330^000 souls ^" Another writer, about this pe- 
 riod, and who seems to have been patronized by go- 
 vernment, mentioning the many "hundred thousands'* 
 of beggars and paupers, says, " at least one hundred 
 
 ' Besides Kings' Speeches, Debates in Parliament, Statutes at 
 Large, and other public documents, every writer on the state of 
 the nation, or its commerce, of any note, dwells upon the multi- 
 tudes and the distresses of the poor. 1 will refer the reader to a few 
 of them. Adam More, Bread for the Poor, 1623, pp. iii. iv. v. &c. 
 Cock, 1651, Summary Survey, pp. 49, 50, 67, 148, &c. Sir 
 Joshua Child, 1669; Essay on Trade, pp. 62, 87, 105, iScc. Yar- 
 renton; England's Improvement, pp. 53, 61, &c. Proposals for 
 building Workhouses, &c., 1677, pp. 1, 2, 3, 16, True English 
 Interest, 1684, Preface, p. ii.&c. Sir William Petty. Political Arith- 
 metic, p. 15, &c. Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 204. Lord Hale, On 
 the Poor, p. 17. Filmer, Collection of Tracts, p. 8. John Locke, 
 pp.244, 245. Carey, Discourse on Trade, 1700, p. 110. Paxton, 
 Discourse on Trade, 1704. Eden, vol. i. If the representations 
 of any, or all, of these are to be credited, nothing we sustain now, 
 in regard to the burden of the poor, can be compared with what 
 was then endured. 
 
 * Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 180. 
 
 R 
 
242 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [xni. 
 
 thousand of these were without employment \" Yar- 
 renton had before made the same estimate^. Brad- 
 don, in his ^^ Abstract of a Bill for employing the 
 Poor^" says, "there were above 1,200,000 chargeable 
 poor/' at that period^; of which number about one- 
 tenth were in the metropolis'^: the whole number in 
 Britain this writer makes 1,500,000^; which addition 
 of 300,000 for Scotland, clearly agrees with Fletcher 
 of Saltoun's evidence of the pauperism and mendicity 
 of the latter country at that period. Bellars esti- 
 mated the number of paupers in England, bdrig out 
 of work, in the year 1714, at 500,000 ^ Gee, a wri- 
 ter of much credit and celebrity in his day, and still 
 often consulted, estimates the number, out of work, 
 in Great Britain and Ireland, at '' above a million of 
 people'." As the population enlarged, and industry 
 became consequently more encouraged and better re- 
 warded, pauperism diminished ; but still, about the 
 year 1760, we find the chargeable poor of England 
 alone reckoned at 700,000, or an eighth part of the 
 people, according to the author's estimate of the po- 
 pulation. Another writer falls somewhat short of 
 the preceding calculation, making the number " more 
 than 600,000 ^ ; and with him I shall close this hasty 
 collection, as it brings us up to the period when we 
 
 ' R. H. Proposals for building in every County a Working Alms- 
 house, &c., pp. 3, 16, 4to. 1677. 
 
 * Andrew Yarrenton, England's Improvement, p. 61. 
 ^ Braddon, Abstract, &c."p. iii. 1704. 
 
 * Ibid. p. xi. ^ Ibid. p. ix. 
 
 * BeHars, Proposals for employing the Poor. 
 
 ' Gee, Trade and Navigation of Great Britain, p. 90. 
 Present State of Great Britain, p. 80. 
 
 * Reflections on the Domestic Policy, &c. p. 87, 1763. 
 
Xrir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 243 
 
 begin to have something like certain data on which to 
 found our calculations. 
 
 Those who may be disposed to controvert these 
 statements^ under the idea that they are more compe- 
 tent to make accurate calculations, than those who 
 were cotemporary with the facts they record, will yet 
 have to dispose of the entire history of poverty during 
 all these periods, before they can make room for their 
 notions. They will have to deny every representa- 
 tion of the condition of the lower ranks of society, 
 whether made from the throne, the pulpit, or the 
 press ; and brand with falsehood whole generations of 
 their ancestors, who described the condition of that 
 poverty which they so deeply commiserated, and 
 persevered in relieving, at such immense exertions. 
 They never dreamt of such proposals as those which 
 are now publicly and unblushingly made ; they never 
 doubted but that increasing numbers were still a 
 national blessing, and time has demonstrated, in their 
 instance, as well as in all others, that benevolence is 
 wisdom. Their care was, on the contrary, to vary the 
 means of relieving the poor, and multiply their endea- 
 vours in their behalf; " I think it plain/* as one of 
 them exclaims, " that the poor ought neither to be 
 starved, nor hanged_, nor sent AVi'AV !" What a poor 
 political economist was Sir William Petty ! 
 
 The following table will exhibit, at one view, some 
 of the facts previously stated. The column of the 
 poor's rate is, in the earlier part of it, given on the 
 authority of the writers previously mentioned^ and 
 others referred to ; with the exception of the fifth sum, 
 which, as before stated, is tbe result of precise and actual 
 
 R 2 
 
244 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [X11I. 
 
 information. The report delivered to Mr. Locke is 
 omitted on account of its gross deficiency ; so is that 
 lately published as the returns of 1748, 1749, and 
 1750, and for the same reason. The reports of the 
 years 1776 and 1783 are amended on the authority 
 of Mr. Gilbert, who moved for them, and who, on 
 due examination, so corrected them. The succeeding 
 sums are given as published by authority, though the 
 earlier of these are still confessedly deficient. Con- 
 nected with these sums, I have, in the next column, 
 given the revenue of the corresponding years, or, in 
 the earlier part of the table, where that was not prac- 
 ticable, of nearly the same period. But as revenue 
 may not be thought a fair comparison on many ac- 
 counts, I have added a column for the exports at the 
 different dates ; and likewise one for the national debt, 
 as it has been pronounced so light in comparison 
 with the nuisance of our poor-rates. Lastly, I have 
 collected the accounts of the numbers of the poor at 
 the different periods, accompanied by a statement of 
 the population at such times, which completes the 
 comparison I wish to institute. Another column or 
 two, however, might well have been added, retorting 
 on the antagonists of the poor-laws their favourite 
 argument. Had the progress of the county and other 
 public disbursements been given (not to mention 
 more distressing national statistics), their '' geometric 
 ratio" of increase would have been indeed exhibited! 
 In refraining to do so, I shall only remark, that to 
 single out poverty whereon to ground these ominous 
 calculations, manifests either an obliquity of intellect 
 or principle truly astonishing. 
 
XIII.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
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2!46 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 The preceding facts require little comment. They 
 show^ in respect of the hurden of sustaining the poor, 
 that of all the national items, whether of income or 
 expenditure, this is so far from having increased in 
 a super-proportion, that it is the only one that has 
 greatly lagged behind. Compared with the public 
 revenue, one hundred and fifty years ago, the poor- 
 rate nearly amounted to one-half; whereas at the pre- 
 sent period it amounts to little more than one-tenth. 
 As to the interest of the national debt (which is said 
 to be so slight an evil, compared with this), whereas, 
 at the former period, the expense of the poor was con- 
 siderably more than twenty times that of the interest of 
 the public incumbrance, at present the latter is more 
 than five times as much as the former. But if these 
 should be rejected as unfair criteria (though I know 
 not why they should be so deemed), let us take the 
 exports of the country during the same period. One 
 hundred and forty years ago, these w^ere only four 
 times as much in amount as the then charge for main- 
 taining the poor ; at present the latter is little more 
 than a twelfth of the former. Then, respecting the 
 number of the paupers at each period, compared with 
 the existing population, a decisive proof of the same 
 gratifying fact presents itself. About the revolution, 
 they amounted to one-fourth of the people; at present 
 their relative number is diminished to one-twelfth. 
 As to any great inaccuracy in regard to not including 
 in the latter number the families of the relieved, a 
 matter much dwelt upon by those who wish to repre- 
 sent England as a nation of paupers ; we are enabled 
 to correct the general method of multiplying the 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 247 
 
 number into families, in order to obtain the real pro- 
 portion. In 1803_, the children of the relieved, as 
 well as the children relieved, were added to the num- 
 ber, which swells the total of that year to 1,039,716 ; 
 a very different addition to what such make ; instead 
 of five times the number, not forming near a third of 
 it, including orphans, and the still more unhappy and 
 numerous class, illegitimates. A useful little work, 
 entitled ^^ Statistical Illustrations," thus calculating 
 by families, says, that forty-two out of every hundred 
 were, in 1815, receiving parochial relief! The very 
 sum the poor cost that year utterly disproves this, 
 less than three farthings a day each, on such a calcu- 
 lation, not as the minimum but as the average of the 
 relief afforded ! Parochial officers, what say ye to 
 this ? But it should be observed, that, of the poor 
 relieved in the workhouse, ail the children are num- 
 bered ; and frequently, on my own knowledge, those 
 of the out-pensioners likewise ; the illegitimate children 
 constantly. A reference to the work of Sir F. M. Eden 
 will prove this ; and will have the further good effect 
 of showing how few of these pensioners could by any 
 possibility be deducted, consisting, as the great majo- 
 rity does, of the aged poor, and of widows and orphans. 
 But a mistake, of a nature quite contrary to the one 
 under examination, is always made in estimating the 
 real number of paupers amongst us ; and one, as I 
 believe, hitherto entirely overlooked. Not only are 
 those, regularly relieved, returned, but all those who 
 have occasional assistance during the year are entered ; 
 and if they apply more than once, probably they are not 
 unfrcquently entered as often as they apply. What- 
 ever may be the general practice as to the latter fact, 
 
248 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII, 
 
 certainly very many of the casually relieved poor, who 
 amount, it will be seen on reference to the reports, to 
 nearly half the entire number, if they receive ever so 
 few donations, or not more than one, and do not remain 
 on the books for any considerable length of time ; still, 
 at the end of the year, though long off the list, they 
 are returned. Military courtesy, once a captain and 
 always a captain, is extended even to pauperism. Per- 
 haps I shall be better understood by adducing an 
 example. If we take up an infirmary report^ and 
 should judge of the actual inmates by the number of 
 annual admissions, ar. exceedingly erroneous idea 
 would be entertained. The same mistake applies, 
 though not to an equal extent, in judging of the num- 
 bers of the poor from annual reports. The annual 
 amount must necessarily much exceed the co-exist- 
 ing number. Of one thing I feel fully confident ; 
 that the excess above the actual number of the 
 relieved poor, at any one time, thus occasioned, will far 
 more than compensate for the omission of the children 
 of that particular class of paupers who have families. 
 These remarks will not be deemed superfluous by 
 those who wish to redeem the country from the cha- 
 racter of pauperism, which some seem so anxious to 
 fix upon it. 
 
 But to return to what the adversaries of our na- 
 tional chanty mainly dwell upon, the expense. Again 
 adverting to the preceding table, made up on authori- 
 ties which are given throughout, 1 think it may be 
 asserted that the very reverse of what is alleged, in 
 regard to the supposed super-proportionate increase 
 of our poor-rates, is demonstrated. But even with 
 these facts before my eyes, in contradicting the whole 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 249 
 
 stream of our present speakers and writers on the 
 subject^ including some who seem friendly to our na- 
 tional provision^ I feel some hesitation ; I will there- 
 fore turn to an authority whom I am persuaded none 
 will underrate, one whose labours on this important 
 subject future generations will duly appreciate, and 
 one, above all, whom Mr. Malthus eulogizes because 
 of his supposed hostility to the general system, I mean 
 Sir Frederick Morton Eden. After recording the in- 
 crease of the poor-rates, from early periods to the close 
 of the last century, he presents us with his deliberate 
 judgment on the whole, in these memorable words : 
 " Great and burdensome as the poor's rate may 
 appear, from the returns which were made to parlia- 
 ment in the year 1786, and from the more recent 
 communications which the reader will find detailed in 
 the second volume, the rise of the poor's rates 
 
 HAS NOT KEPT PACE WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF NA- 
 TIONAL EXPENDITURE, OR EVEN WITH OUR INCREASED 
 ABILITY TO PAY THEm\" 
 
 And if we have occasion to be grateful in review- 
 ing our present condition, in reference to the past, 
 as it respects this necessary burden ; we have no less 
 reason to be abundantly satisfied, in comparing the 
 
 ' Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 407. The same 
 cheering view of the subject is taken by an able writer, in the 
 Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiii. p. 454, from whose views, on parti- 
 cular parts of the question, the author reluctlantly differs. His 
 words are these; "The whole of the funds now actually expended on 
 the poor (even if we include in tliis large amount the very large 
 proportion which is now paid to able-bodied labourers, and which 
 to all intents and purposes constitutes a part of the wages of 
 labour) bears a much smaller proportion to the present resources 
 of the country, than the total amount of the contributions raised for 
 the sustenance of the poor bore to the whole of its wealth in the 
 time of Elizabeth." 
 
250 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^XIII. 
 
 weight it imposes on us with that home by the sur- 
 rounding nations, when estimating both on any just 
 principle. I shall give this conclusion likewise in the 
 better words of a judicious and candid modern writer 
 upon the subject. " I am persuaded," says he, ^^ that 
 it will be found a certain truth, that the charities of 
 other countries have never, at any period, been so 
 conducted, as to relieve the poor, of an equal popula- 
 tion, so adequately as the poor s law, with less encou- 
 ragement of idleness, or with better stimulus to 
 industry ^" 
 
 (22.) Were we to extend the comparison of our 
 present system of national charity with that of which 
 it is plainly the substitute, the relief afforded by 
 means of religious endowments, we shall find our pre- 
 ference still more fully confirmed. It was one of 
 the main objects of the founders of all such to pro- 
 vide a perpetual system of relief for the poor ; and 
 the fulfilment of that intention was guaranteed, in all 
 cases, as far as their original institution went** 
 Hence, from the earliest period of the introduction 
 of Christianity amongst us, and especially since the 
 days of our immortal Alfred, property of that nature 
 kept perpetually accumulating, till we find, at one 
 period, it "absorbed" one-third of the entire king- 
 dom^. That this was a pernicious, as well as an 
 expensive system of relieving poverty, we are well 
 aware; it was one, however, nationally recognized 
 and established, those foundations being, as Camden 
 says, for the relief and maintenance of the poor and 
 
 ' Collections relative to systematic Relief, &c. p. 177. 
 
 * Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 1. i. chap, xxvii. 
 
 ' Cotton, Abridgment of the Records in the Tower, p. 189. 
 
<^Xni.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 251 
 
 impotent ^ That they did so relieve them^ I refer ta 
 the testimony of Spelman^; and that they could not 
 legally refuse so to do, to the authority of Coke^. 
 That point of law had been solemnly argued and de- 
 termined \ These, however, Henry VIII. seized, 
 and confiscated ; promising, as far as the poor were 
 concerned, to establish a better system upon their 
 ruins, saying to his obsequious parliament, " If I 
 should suffer the poor and miserable to be unrelieved, you 
 might well say, that I being put in so special a trust, 
 as I am in this case, were no trusty friend to you, 
 nor charitable to my enne christen." He fulfilled 
 this trust by seizing all their permanent funds (many 
 of which are in the possession of those who now 
 inveigh against all national charity), and put the poor 
 upon the (illegal) Scotch plan, i, e. upon public beg- 
 gings upon Sundays and holidays^. How well it 
 answered, the universal distress the whippings and 
 cauterizings that ensued and, above all, the exe- 
 cution of above 70,000 poor wretches, in his reign, 
 principally for thieving, sufficiently attest. Some 
 imagine that, when these were disposed of, poverty 
 ought to have become defunct ; and, consequently, 
 that so many years afterwards there could have been 
 no need of a national provision. On some such idea 
 argue, it seems, the framers of the late Emigration 
 Report"; such, however, attend but little to the struc- 
 
 Camden, Britannia, p. 163; (1637.) 
 
 ^ Spelman, De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, p. 40. 
 
 ^ Emigration Report, 3d part, p. 40. 
 
 ^ Spelman, De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, p. 10. Caudris Case, 
 Coke, 5th Report, folio 11 ; See Coke, 2 Institutes, p. 649, 1642. 
 Sec Burn, Hist, of Poor Laws, p. 6. Stat, at Large, 2 H. 5, chap. i. 
 
 ^ 27 Henry Vlll. " Emigration Report, part iii. p. 40. 
 
262 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 ture of society. Lord Hale is a better authority : as 
 a philosopher, he knew that, *' as the populousness of 
 the kingdom increaseth, the poor will be proportion- 
 ably increased';" and, as a judge, he saw that unre- 
 h'eved poverty filled the gaols with malefactors, and 
 fed the gallows and the gibbet*. I may digress so far 
 as further to state of this great man_, that his endea- 
 vours were to amend the poor-laws, which he deemed 
 founded on piety, humanity, and sound policy^; not 
 to destroy them : whatever were the defects of the 
 system, even as then administered, still it was his 
 maxim_, "better relieve twenty drones, than let one 
 bee perish'*." But to return: after sundry eibortive 
 attempts to relieve poverty from the unparalleled 
 distress into which this act of spoliation had involved 
 it, the celebrated poor-law of England was passed at 
 the termination of the reign of Elizabeth ; it was 
 planned by some of the greatest statesmen the coun- 
 try ever possessed, and was drawn up by one to whom 
 it does greater honour than all his other labours, 
 moral or philosophical, which send him down to pos- 
 terity without a rival; I mean Bacon. It is touch- 
 ing to hear this great man, in his disgrace and sorrow, 
 thus appealing to his Maker, ^* O God, the state and 
 bread of the poor have been precious in my eyes ! " 
 
 (23.) And that the framers of this law were not mis- 
 taken as to the effects which they contemplated would 
 result from it, succeeding times have fully testified. 
 We have a better right to assert that the labouring 
 
 , ' Lord Kale, On the Poor. Burns, Hist. Poor Laws, p. 153. 
 . 5 Ibid. p. 160. ' Ibid. p. 135, 159, 160. 
 
 > Quarterly Rev. vol. xix. p. 79. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES, 253 
 
 classes of England have been improved in character, 
 conduct, and condition, by its operation, than its ini- 
 pugners have to assert the contrary : their superiority 
 in those respects is manifest. We are authorised 
 also in attributing no inconsiderable share of the 
 prosperity which has since that period distinguished 
 this nation from all others, to this great and con- 
 stantly operating cause. But these, though great, 
 are incidental advantages, such, indeed, which ever 
 accompany and reward acts of justice and mercy. 
 Its direct and intended consequences, in regard to the 
 mass of evil it removed, and the good it conferred, 
 are more essential to our present inquiry : happy 
 would it have been for Ireland, if, at that early period, 
 the same great remedy had been applied ! These 
 effects, which have continued to the present hour, 
 were instantly obvious, and shall be described in the 
 language of one fully competent to judge, and who 
 lived at precisely the period that enabled him to do 
 so. We read thus in Dalton's Justice, one of our 
 text books : '' The benefits of this law" (including 
 another for the suppressing of vagabonds, which, in 
 effect, was a part of the system) ''^are, 1. Idleness 
 is very much repressed^ 2. Infinite swarms of idle 
 vagabonds are rooted out, which before wandered up 
 and down, to the great danger and indignity of our 
 nation. 3. We ourselves are now compelled but to 
 relieve the poore of our own parishes (whose condi- 
 tion and estate we know), and to a certainty of gift, 
 wherewith we are now taxed by our neighbours; 
 whereas before, we gave we knew not what, nor to 
 whom ; and manv times to such as were readv to 
 
254 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIII. 
 
 have cut our throats, if opportunity had served 
 them*/' Such is the testimony of an eye-witness as 
 to the immediate effect of the estabUshment of the 
 poor-laws, and that witness Dalton. And on what 
 principle of sophistry can its import be evaded, see- 
 ing that it strictly comports with the reason of the 
 case, and is fully confirmed by the present condition 
 of every surrounding country, which is still without 
 a national provision for the poor ? 
 
 (24.) But the abrogation of the constitutional right 
 of poverty, now established and enjoyed for so many 
 generations, would not only remit us to the state 
 from which the country was then happily liberated, 
 but would repeat the wanton cruelty of the last 
 Henry, and under circumstances which would greatly 
 aggravate it. One thing is lost sight of entirely in 
 discussing this subject, namely, that the establish- 
 ment by law of a perpetual and sufficient fund of 
 relief amongst us, for the maintenance of the poor, 
 has effectually prevented the creation of one by the 
 munificence of private individuals, which would, ere 
 this, have more than repaired the wrongs thus perpe- 
 trated, and, indeed, would again have carried provi- 
 sion to a pernicious excess. Certain is it, that, during 
 the long intervening time, had there been no regular 
 relief for the distressed poor, few with the feelings 
 of men or of Christians, whose lives had been pros- 
 perous and happy, could have lived or died without 
 making some returns, in the form of charity, as a 
 thank-offering to the Deity. Even with the know- 
 ledge that such provision has been made, and that so 
 
 ' Dalton, Country Justice, ch. xlvii. ; published 1618. 
 
Xrir.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 2-^J 
 
 to leave or give property at present is little more than 
 bequeathing it to the parish, still this natural feeling 
 has often got the better of reason itself; and very 
 much property has actually been thus left, and infi- 
 nitely more would have been, had not the law inter- 
 fered, rendering all bequests void, if left witliin a 
 year and a day of the testator's death, consequently, in 
 many cases, rendering such bequests nugatory, as last 
 wills are often made within that period of dissolution. 
 (25.) Had it not been for this regular provision and 
 this obstacle to re-creating one, an ample fund would 
 have been speedily realized for the relief of the poor ; 
 in proof of this important assumption, I appeal to the 
 conduct of the rich of a neighbouring nation, not, I 
 hope, more distinguished for their charity than Eng- 
 lishmen. As the men of the revolution so " properly 
 and judiciously'* rejected the plague of England, a 
 national provision^ what is the conduct of that people ? 
 Notwithstanding the impediments the law imposes 
 there, as well as here, in the way of charitable bequests ; 
 and independently of the donations, not exceeding 
 one hundred crowns, which it does not recognise; and 
 without including those secret donations which elude 
 the law, and the many legacies which have not been 
 valued, which altogether amount to very large sums ; 
 in the five years terminating with 1823, Avith which 
 year the report I have before me concludes, there were 
 appropriated to the use of the poor in that country. 
 
 In money .... 10,242,568 
 
 In "rentes" . . . . 188,157 
 
 In real property . . . . 2,478,041 
 
 1 2,908,766 fr. 
 
256 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ RxiII. 
 
 This sum, independently of the omissions previously 
 alluded to, and the immense ecclesiastical donations 
 during the same period, hut imperfectly shows what 
 Englishmen would have done for generations past, 
 had there heen no regular provision for their poor 
 and destitute countrymen. To deprive the poor, 
 therefore, of their long-acknowledged rights, founded 
 upon justice, mercy, and the law of the land, would 
 not be merely a positive spoliation, of the darkest 
 character, hut a negative robbery, to at least an equal 
 extent. All the real property of the country has been 
 transmitted and received on this condition ; the viola- 
 tion of which would be (to show the offence in an in- 
 dividual case, and not by rhetorical illustration) as 
 though an elder son, to whom a confiding father had 
 committed an imbecile and impotent brother, should, 
 after having intercepted the bounty of every other 
 branch of the family, under colour of providing for him 
 himself, at length throw his parent's will into the fire, 
 to free himself from the incumbrance, and then turn 
 the sufferer adrift as a nuisance in his house and a 
 disgrace to the family. 
 
 (26.) In the preceding remarks on the poor-laws 
 of England, tedious as I fear they may be deemed, 
 I have omitted many facts and arguments which have 
 a strong bearing upon the subject ; I am in no fear as 
 to their abrogation in this country, but I have been thus 
 diffuse in order to answer by a prolepsis some of the 
 objections which may be advanced against their exten- 
 sion to Ireland. Here, whatever may be individually felt 
 or asserted to the contrary, they constitute nationally 
 
5 XIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 257 
 
 speaking, to all intents and purposes, a voluntary 
 charity ; and as such will, I am persuaded, never cease 
 to be cherished by us. England may be burdened by 
 them, but it is a burden of which she is justly proud, 
 and which has given stability to her footsteps in her 
 march to national prosperity : however that may be, 
 she would just as soon rid herself of the incumbrance 
 of destitute infancy and decrepit age, as .^neas would 
 have deserted to their fate the helpless beings with 
 which he came loaded, and impeded in his retreat from 
 the burning ruins of Troy. On the other hand, " as 
 the care of the poor ought to be the principal object 
 of all laws ^," so it will become, ere long, the favourite 
 work of the legislature to render our present system 
 more efficient, to its great end, than it is at present j 
 and to adapt it more completely to the altered circum- 
 stances of the times. Petty recommended, even in a 
 period of very general distress, that the charge of sus. 
 taining the poor should be "augmented*;" but, I am 
 persuaded, the true course of ameliorating their con- 
 dition would, in regard of mere expenditure, have a 
 directly contrary effect. The best way of assisting 
 the poor, at least that part of them capable of exer- 
 tion, is the enabling them to assist themselves ; and, 
 ill order that we may know how to do this, we 
 ought to place ourselves in the situation in which they 
 are ; feel their peculiar wants and wishes, and observe 
 the difficulties by which they are surrounded. Much, 
 very much, I am persuaded, might be done in their 
 behalf, which would indeed, in the first instance, con- 
 
 " Paley, Moral Phil., book iii. ch. 4, p. 151. 
 ' Petty, Of Taxes and Contributions, p. 13. 
 
 S 
 
258 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIH. 
 
 (luce to their welfare, and that, doubtless, ought to be 
 the great object ; but which would as inevitably re- 
 dound to that of the public ; and by means which ^ 
 while drawing a broad line of distinction between the 
 deserving and profligate poor, not for the purpose of 
 actually starving these^ but of more effectually assist- 
 ing and distinguishing those, would change the whole 
 face of pauperism, and convert the great charity of 
 the country into a mighty and unfailing instrument of 
 its moral elevation. I now allude to means which 
 would occasion no expense to any single individual, 
 or to the community at large ; means not of a 
 whimsical, but of a strictly practicable nature, not 
 founded on some new discovery, but which have been 
 long pointed out by the most patriotic men the 
 country has ever produced ; and, in fine, which, having 
 been tried in many instances without failure in any, 
 only await the sanction of the legislature to render 
 them general ; while their practicability has been 
 already fully demonstrated in another cause and 
 country. To these topics 1 shall not allude at present, 
 however tempted to discuss them, though the subject 
 has been one of long and pleasing consideration. 
 They are put into a form to be submitted to the 
 public on some future occasion ; and nothing but the 
 consciousness that I have already trespassed too far 
 upon the patience of the reader prevents me going 
 into them at present. I shall, therefore, content my- 
 self with saying, that the poor-law which I propose 
 for Ireland, is on the same principle as that which 
 has been so long and so beneficially established amongst 
 us^ and rests upon the foundation of compulsory pro- 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 259 
 
 vision and discretionary relief ; but relief, in all practi- 
 cable cases_, connected with labour of a kind not to 
 interfere with the regular demand existing for it. In 
 a word^ assisting poverty to emerge from its condition, 
 rather than making it dependent upon it ; and afford- 
 ing at once the inducements for such an effort, and 
 the means of rendering it successful. But into these 
 particulars, I repeat, I must not now allow myself to 
 proceed. 
 
 (27.) The principal proposition, then, which I make 
 in favour of Ireland, is the immediate establishment of 
 a national provision for the poor, and the outcry which 
 is raised against this by political economists, is a suf- 
 ficient apology for the length into which I have gone 
 in defence of the measure, and in showing its results. 
 And if any of the arguments advanced in favour of 
 the principle generally, have the least weight, or have 
 made any impression ; when applied to Ireland in par- 
 ticular, they acquire tenfold force. Are the wrongs per- 
 petrated by absenteeship in clearing farms, dispossess- 
 ing tenants, in disturbing and impoverishing the coun- 
 try, undeniably great ? A poor's law is the specific for 
 those evils ; it would interpose a barrier to those clear- 
 ances calm those disturbances ; in a word, it would 
 operate as an effectual check to the cupidity and 
 cruelty of a system which has long proved itself 
 insensible to all but mercenary motives. Is the want 
 of employment another of the peculiar grievances of 
 that country ? A poor's law, under proper regulation, 
 would go far to remedy that evil \ Is the remuneration 
 
 - Dulton, Country -Uislice, ch. xx. 
 
 8 i 
 
260 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ XIII. 
 
 of labour there inadequate to a decent, comfortable 
 state of h'ving? A poor's law would undoubtedly raise 
 and sustain the value of labour. On this last point, in- 
 deed, directly the contrary has been asserted, in a spirit 
 of hostility to the poor-laws, and in defiance of both 
 reason and experience \ But Lord Hale has proved 
 what is here maintained, in his treatise on the subject, 
 the arguments of which crueltyand sophistry will never 
 be able to answer^ and which justice and mercy will 
 never attempt to do. Nay, so clear is this pointy that 
 Lord Kaimes, in writing against the system, confesses 
 that its tendency is to increase the remuneration of 
 labour ; one of the most essential and universal bene- 
 fits which could be bestowed upon Ireland. 
 
 It may be necessary to particularize an objection or 
 two urged against this measure, as peculiar to Ireland. 
 The grand one, I presume, is, that it would attempt an 
 impossibility ; to which I will simply reply, by ob- 
 serving, that the fallacy of this objection has been 
 practically demonstrated in this and many other coun- 
 tries, by the experience of centuries ; and that it is 
 theoretically false, I trust I shall fully prove by actual 
 calculations, touching the principle of human increase, 
 in a work to which I have often ventured to allude. 
 The strange idea of Mr. Malthus, that we should have 
 had four million millions of labourers ^, if our funds 
 for the poor had been properly managed, will there, I 
 trust, be fully confuted. That the poor-laws have a ten- 
 dency to increase population ', I deny ; without, how- 
 ever, admitting that such an increase would be an evil, 
 
 * JMalthus, Essay, p. 410. 
 -' Ibid. p. 419. 'Ihid.p. 413. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 261 
 
 which I equally controvert. It is singular enough 
 that one of the leading impugners of those laws^ Lord 
 Kaimes (who^ nevertheless, suggested in their stead 
 a far more burdensome and impracticable system)? 
 should have urged a directly contrary objection to 
 them, arguing that they have a positive tendency to 
 " depopulate the country." Without entering into 
 either argument, it may suffice to say, that, as far as 
 experience goes, he was right : nothing can be more 
 at war with fact than to assert the contrary. Ireland, 
 without poor-laws, notwithstanding her constant emi- 
 grations to England and elsewhere, has increased in 
 inhabitants more rapidly than England, which enjoys 
 such laws ; and Scotland, which, in proportion to its 
 population, certainly sends forth a far greater number, 
 had, during the ten years between 1811 and 1821, 
 increased fourteen and a half per centum ; while Eng- 
 land and Wales, which have received these immense 
 accessions from both countries, forming so consider- 
 able a portion of the inhabitants of all the crowded 
 districts, had increased only sixteen and one-third, or 
 one and four- fifths more, in ten years. But to return to 
 Ireland, with which we have at present to do ; the po- 
 pulation of that island has augmented more rapidly than 
 England, notwithstanding all these numerous and in- 
 cessant deportations, and in consequenceof a principle 
 already developed. This argument, then, totally fails. 
 (28.) But the next objection to the poor-laws in 
 Ireland, is the most powerful one, as rooted in self- 
 interest. Mr. Malthus informs the Emigration Com- 
 mittee, by whom he is appealed to on the question, 
 that " the rates would very soon absorb the rentals of 
 
262 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, ['^XIII. 
 
 all the estates V thus rousing in hostility to the measure 
 the ready fears and interested feelings of those to whom 
 the assertion is addressed. Prophecies are usually 
 little attended to, excepting when directed against 
 poverty and the poor-laws : then they are deemed 
 inspiration itself; even though they proceed from 
 oracles whose claims to prescience have as yet been but 
 very poorly vindicated. To say nothing of many strange 
 notions which have, I understand, been quietly with- 
 drawn, it was foretold, on the same authority, a quarter 
 of a century ago, that the price of labour had been 
 " continually rising not to fall again ; that the rents 
 of land had been every where advancing not to fall 
 again ; that the price of produce would rise not to 
 fall again ;" that the return of such scarcities as had 
 been recently experienced (those of 1800 and 1801) 
 were to be expected as " unavoidable :" with some 
 strange speculations about the future value of '^ patents 
 for food," and other matters, concluding with this 
 ominous apostrophe, in allusion to such complaints 
 " how will they be aggravated twenty years hence ^!" 
 That interval has elapsed, and has answered the 
 question : at its termination, we know that the dis- 
 tresses of the country arose from diametrically oppo- 
 site causes ; from depreciation of prices, and, as Lord 
 Liverpool stated, from over-production of provisions. 
 In that interval, indeed, many fluctuations have oc- 
 curred, none of which have been caused by the prin- 
 ciple of population : at one time the demand for labour 
 has been distressingly excessive ; at another as much 
 
 ' Emigration Report, part iii. p. 31, 3227. 
 ^ Malthus, Essay, pp. 444, 445. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 263 
 
 too low *, on the whole^ however, it is acknowledged, 
 by the authority mentioned, to have been great. But 
 during all this time, the bounties of Providence have 
 flowed upon us in an equal and unfailing stream, 
 which has still enlarged with our enlarging numbers. 
 Still, however, the contrary principle has been main- 
 tained. Like the maledictory prophet of old_, it may 
 have varied its positions, but it has persevered in its 
 purpose. Secure and at a distance, it has fixed its 
 malignant gaze upon the tribes of human beings spread- 
 ing beneath, and '* covering the face of the earth," 
 and has resumed from time to time its prophecies 
 against the increasing mulitudes. *^ But God hath 
 blessed them, and they shall be blessed 1" 
 
 But, to return to the objection to a poor's law, 
 on the score of its absorbing the entire rental of 
 Ireland : limit, if you please, to a maximum the 
 amount of relief that one parish shall raise ; and 
 empower such parish, in case of unrelieved distress 
 still prevailing, to apply for assistance to that parish 
 of the barony or county which is the least burdened, 
 agreeably to the letter of our original law, and this 
 objection also is obviated. 
 
 As to the term " absorbing" rents, now so hack- 
 nied, what, I would ask, is it that Ireland wants, but 
 that some part of its rental should be absorbed ? It is 
 the very relief that is suitable to, and demanded for, 
 her particular case. Of all the money circulated in 
 a country, that dispensed by the poor is the most 
 beneficial, because it passes inmiediately into the 
 hands of active reproductive industry, and is distri- 
 buted ])y the most rapid of all the channels of circula- 
 
264 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 tion throughout the whole country. Absorb part of 
 the rental ! Why so it would^ and as beneficially as 
 a famishing man would absorb a meal of food. A 
 poor's law, indeed, would, in this respect, be doubly 
 beneficial ; it would be a support to the industrious, 
 as well as a relief to the distressed part of the com- 
 munity. This sacred charity would descend upon 
 that bruised and afflicted country like an angel of 
 mercy^ with healing in its wings ; it would " come 
 down like rain on the mown grass ;" as showers that 
 water the earth, gasping under the meridian sun, 
 clothing it again with all the bloom and verdure of 
 which it had been divested. Ireland would then, 
 indeed, " absorb" what would restore her to health 
 and peace ; and the youngest sister of the Union 
 would become one of the fairest and most beloved 
 of all the branches of the British family. 
 
 (29.) Other arguments and objections, exclusively 
 referrible to Ireland, I had meant to have noticed ; but 
 I shall waive them in favour of an extract or two from 
 a little work in my possession, on this very subject, 
 written by a dignitary of the church of Ireland, Dr. 
 Woodward;, late bishop of Cloyne. It perhaps had 
 been better for the cause, if, instead of the preceding 
 remarks, the whole of the pamphlet had been reprinted. 
 It was published about sixty years ago ; and I must 
 again beg the reader to attend to the date, for the 
 purpose of once more showing him the absurdity of 
 attributing the distresses of Ireland to her present 
 overflowing population. There was then but little 
 beyond a third of the present inhabitants, as will be 
 seen by a reference to the table, and yet the condition 
 
XIII. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 265 
 
 of that scanty number will sufficiently appear. It 
 must be remarked, that the object of the publication 
 was the recommendation of a poor-law for Ireland, 
 as the title sufficiently explains, " An Argument in 
 support of the Right of the Poor in the Kingdom of 
 Ireland to a National Provision \" And let it not be 
 supposed that the proposition had not then to contend 
 with the same opposition that it meets with at present : 
 "the enormous expense V the exorbitance of the 
 poor-rates % &C.5 were then made precisely the same 
 objection as that which, under the fashionable term 
 " absorption, '* now universally obtains, and which, 
 by the bye, furthermore corroborates the previous 
 argument, that the poor's rate of England will not 
 be found, on due examination, to have imposed an 
 increasing burden upon us. 
 
 I shall first quote Dr. Woodward's opening sen- 
 tence. " That the lower class of our people are very 
 ill accommodated with lodging, raiment, and even 
 food, is but too manifest to all who are acquainted 
 with their manner of living. That their poverty is 
 like to continue with but little mitigation, will be 
 evident to any intelligent man, who reflects on the 
 following, amongst other, causes of it: the exorbi- 
 tant rent extorted from the poorer tenants, ever loth 
 and afraid to leave the ancient habitations, by the 
 general method of letting farms to the highest bidder, 
 without any allowance to a tenant right : the system 
 
 * By Richard Woodward, LL.D., (Dean of Clogher, afterwards 
 Bishop of Cloyne) ; Dublin, third edition, 1785 : written 1768. 
 ' Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. p. 43. ^ Ibid. p. 44. 
 
266 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XriI. 
 
 of letting large tracts of lands to undcr-takers, inured 
 to tyranny and extortion, as prejudicial to the land- 
 lord as to the under-tenant : the oppression of duty- 
 work^ which calls the cottager arbitrarily from the 
 tillage of the little spot which he holds at so dear a 
 rent ; and the low rate of wages for labour. These 
 circumstances_, combined with some others, reduce the 
 Irish cottager below the peasant of almost every 
 country of Europe. Such is his hard condition, in 
 the most plentiful season, and in the prime of his 
 health and strength ; what then must be his state in 
 time of dearth, under the pressure of years, infirmi- 
 ties, or even a very numerous family ? His expenses 
 admit of no retrenchment. He is a stranger to 
 luxury, or even to decent accommodation^ and yet his 
 wages seldom aiford any reserve. On the death of 
 such a father of a family, dependent on his labours 
 for their main, or perhaps entire support, how forlorn 
 must be the situation of his widow or orphan 
 children ! It would shock a tender mind to imagine 
 (if imagination could paint) the miseries to which 
 the bulk of the inhabitants of this kingdom are con- 
 stantly exposed by the slightest reverse of fortune 5 
 by a single bad season ; by an accidental loss ; by an 
 occasional disease, or worn by the gradual decay of 
 nature. Nor are these affecting scenes confined to 
 seasons of scarcity ; they must always exist in a great, 
 though not equal, number. They present themselves 
 but too often to every country gentleman, and still 
 more to the clergy, in the exercise of their parochial 
 duties (to whose experience we appeal), to need a 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 267 
 
 proof. They cannot be doubted or denied by any, 
 but those who shut their eyes, or steel their hearts 
 against them. 
 
 " So numerous, so urgent, and so well known are 
 the distresses of the poor : let us now fairly estimate 
 the sufficiency of the resources at present subsisting 
 for their relief. Our eyes will be naturally turned, 
 first, to the land-gentlemen, who derive their wealth 
 and importance from the labour of these men. Of 
 these, many, perhaps a majority, of the most con- 
 siderable constantly reside in another Jdngdom ; and 
 though some of them may cast back a part of their 
 superfluity on those to whose industry they owe their 
 ALL, yet it is to be feared that such instances are 
 comparatively very rare. On the contrary, it is too 
 frequently urged, as a recommendation of Irish pro- 
 perty, that it is not encumbered with any tax for the 
 maintenance of the poor. A singular instance this 
 of the inadvertence (one would hope only of the in- 
 advertence, lest we should be forced to impute it to 
 the depravity) of mankind, that such a phrase could 
 be rendered so familiar to the ear of any wise or good 
 man, as to lose its genuine horror I If the sentiment 
 were developed, surely few would entertain it, and 
 still fewer avow it : no ingenuous reader will, there- 
 fore, think it invidious or unnecessary, in this interest- 
 ing argument, to lay open its plain import, which is 
 this : ^ an estate in this kingdom is represented to be 
 peculiarly advantageous to the landlord, because, 
 though he may, and generally does, avail himself of 
 the utmost profit that can be drawn from the labour 
 of his tenant (leaving him too scanty a presetit main- 
 
268 IRELAND; ITS KVILS^ [XIII. 
 
 tenance)^ he is nevertheless at liberty to abandon that 
 labourer to perish, when he is unable to work any 
 longer/ Is this boasted privilege either honourable 
 or desirable ? A wise man would not glory in such 
 an exemption, a good man would not claim it, and 
 he who wishes to enjoy does not deserve it \" 
 
 In combating the idea that the voluntary charity 
 of the rich may sufficiently supply the exigencies of 
 the poor, he says, '' It cannot be denied, but that by 
 far the greater part of our lands do not enjoy the 
 benefit of the proprietor s residence, and in general 
 the poor of these estates partake not of his charity. 
 Now, when we have weighed, on one side, the extraor- 
 dinary indigence of the whole peasantry, and allowed, 
 on the other, for the number of absentees from the 
 kingdom, the remoteness of many estates from the 
 mansions of the resident gentry, (which, together, 
 render it no uncommon case to find a tract of country 
 containing some scores of square miles without one 
 family of note,) it will be iirtuitively clear that there 
 can be no balance, nor, indeed, any the least propor- 
 tion, between the necessities of the poor tenants and 
 the alms of their landlords*." 
 
 As to the present inadequate, but meritorious me- 
 thod of relieving the distresses of poverty, these 
 remarks occur, which may serve to confirm Arthur 
 Young's representations of Irish charity, and rectify 
 some recent misstatements on that subject : ^' Can 
 there be a spectacle more edifying, and at the same 
 time more reproachful to an affluent landlord, than 
 
 * Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. pp. 17, 18, 19. 
 ^/^iUpp. 19, 20. 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 269 
 
 to see (and it is his own neglect if he does not see 
 or know it) one of his poor tenants feeding another 
 with bread taken, as it were, from the mouths of his 
 own children : whilst he who is feasting on the labours 
 of both, attends to the miseries of neither, but throws 
 the whole burden of relieving them on those, whom 
 no reasonable bystander could "think equal to bear 
 the smallest part of it^" 
 
 Speaking of the inherent right of the poor to rea- 
 sonable sustentation, he concludes his unanswerable 
 arguments thus : '^ It would be a waste of words, 
 and a disgrace to reasoning, to labour to prove a 
 point so clear as this ; that the richer members of 
 society, who are a minority, have no right to exclude 
 the lower class, who are a majority, from any portion 
 of the public patrimony, without securing to them 
 the resource of a subsistence ; when they must other- 
 wise be reduced to the dreadful alternative of break- 
 ing through those regulations, or perishing by a duti- 
 ful observance of them^." 
 
 This admirable writer proceeds to particularize the 
 descriptions of persons who ought more especially to 
 be the objects of the national charity ; which he says 
 are, 1. The infant poor^; 2. The sick poor^; and, 
 3. The aged poor^. Alluding to the latter, he makes 
 this striking remark ; '' If at the close of life they 
 become a burden ; and, having only to plead their 
 former services, have not that plea allowed, from 
 reasons of policy;" he says, "it would be a still higher 
 degree of economy, and even mercy, to adopt the 
 
 * Dr. Wooodward, Argument, Sec. p. 21. * Ibid. p. 28. 
 ' Ibid, p. 30. "' Ibid. p. 32. '' Ibid. p. 33. 
 
270 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIIir 
 
 refined Indian policy of putting an immediate end 
 to them^" 
 
 Nor can I dismiss this interesting writer without 
 inserting his answer to those who urge that the legal 
 relief of poverty encourages idleness and dissipation. 
 After having proved directly the contrary, by the 
 experience of mankind in every country where such 
 provision has been established^ he adds, " But to 
 take this argument in its strongest bearing, and con- 
 fine ourselves to the case of an idle, profligate man, 
 who in the extremity of age or sickness cries out for 
 food or medicine ; can any one avow, that we should 
 suppress every tender feeling, stop our hand when, 
 by the instinct of compassion, it is stretching forth 
 relief to him, and, with a stoical indifference, suffer 
 him to perish, from a deep and doubtful speculation 
 whether such relief may not encourage idleness, and 
 become, in the end, a political evil ? And if we may, 
 without injury to the state, (and must, if w^e expect 
 mercy ourselves,) relieve the distress, though we 
 blame the cause ; wherein consists the inexpediency 
 of obhging those of the rich, who are too distant or 
 dissipated to know, or too callous to regard, the mi- 
 sery of the poor, to contribute to its relief, and not 
 throw the whole burden (as at present) on the resi- 
 dent, the considerate, and the benevolent ? for a legal 
 provision hath this double advantage above voluntary 
 alms, that it is at once most equitable to those who 
 pay, and most equal and effectual to those who 
 received 
 
 ^^ Now if no reasoning can justify such obduracy, 
 ' Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. p. 34. ' Ibid, p 39. 
 
Xrri.] AND THEIR REMEDIES 271 
 
 as would permit a wretch to languish without help in 
 age, or sickness, because he had not made a pro- 
 vident use of his health and strength ; on what prin- 
 ciple shall we conclude, from the imprudence of the 
 parent, against all compassion to his orphan children ? 
 on what pretext shall we exclude from the public care 
 the distresses of the laborious and frugal, which were 
 owing neither to their own, nor their parents' political 
 sins ; but took their rise from high rents and low 
 wages, from the scarcity of bread, or the check of a 
 manufacture ; from the sudden increase of family, or 
 the death of cattle ; from disease unassisted by medi- 
 cine ; and in consequence, perhaps, of that want of 
 help, the untimely loss of an industrious father ^ ?" 
 
 The foregoing are a few extracts from this short, 
 but striking pamphlet ; the divinity, humanity, and 
 policy of the principle advocated, are unanswerable. 
 To the honour of its author, he was one of the first, 
 if not the very first to propose the extension of the 
 system of poor-laws to Ireland ; his proposition may 
 be awhile longer resisted ; but backed, as it is, by the 
 duties and feelings of humanity, it will assuredly 
 prevail. 
 
 (30.) But, in treating of the aifairs of Ireland, it is 
 totally impossible to lose sight of the intimate con- 
 nexion which exists between the two countries ; and 
 as, in the evil of absenteeism, we have shown its bear- 
 ings on the agricultural interests of England ; so, in 
 reference to a provision for the poor, the latter divi- 
 sion of the empire has a deep interest at stake, and 
 one which, before long, she will assuredly assert, 
 ' Dr. Woodward, Argument, pp. 39, 40. 
 
272 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 equally for the protection of her own poor, and those 
 of Ireland. It will require few words to explain 
 what I mean, or prove what I am about to assert : 
 The want of a provision for the poor of Ire- 
 land (and I WILL INCLUDE THOSE OF SCOTLAND 
 also) is a GRIEVOUS INJURY TO THE WORKING CLASSES 
 
 OF England. They are injured by the market of 
 labour being overstocked, and greatly depressed by 
 the multitudes who are annually making this country 
 their asylum : in the harvest-field, in the factory, or, 
 in short, in every sphere of industry, the English 
 labourer and workman finds himself interfered with, 
 and his remuneration reduced, if not himself thrown 
 actually out of employment, by this constant and vast 
 emigration. The poor creatures who take refuge 
 in this country, whom Dr. Chalmers calls " hosts of 
 locusts,," I do not blame, (absenteeism has deprived 
 them of labour and of bread, and they are pursuing it 
 to obtain, if possible^ a little of both) ; on the con- 
 trary, I would receive them, and, were I to determine, 
 extend to them, at all hazards, the benefit of our own 
 benevolent institutions : but, in the mean timCj I 
 cannot but reprobate, in the strongest possible terms, 
 the conduct of those who are driving and ^^ clearing" 
 them from their estates and the country, and, by so 
 doing, are expelling multitudes of them to this ; while 
 they are perpetrating an irreparable wrong on the 
 unhappy creatures they are the cause of expatriating, 
 they are inflicting a serious and an increasing injury on 
 the poorer classes of this country ; and all, forsooth, 
 that the Irish landlord, often an absentee, who now 
 does not contribute a farthing to their relief, may 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 273 
 
 have larger farms^ and, as he thinks, a greater *' sur- 
 plus produce." This is not to be borne. The 
 interests of our own poor imperiously demand that 
 those of Ireland should be legally supported. 
 
 (31.) But in proposing poor-laws for Ireland, I 
 would not lose sight of that evil which has rendered 
 them the more necessary, and which, when esta- 
 blished, would still prevent them from working all the 
 good they are naturally calculated to produce ; I 
 mean absenteeism. To discourage and suppress this, 
 as far as possible, without having recourse to harsher 
 or more direct means, I would propose that the pro- 
 perty of all absentees (properly such) should contri- 
 bute in at least a two-fold proportion to this national 
 charity*; the additional rate to be levied on such 
 by a bill drawn by the overseer directly on the 
 party. This would, in some slight degree, compel 
 them to succour that poverty which they have occa- 
 sioned, and which the experience of centuries shows 
 they never will voluntarily relieve ; and it would, 
 moreover, in its operation, give some portion of 
 employment to those whom their unnatural deser- 
 tion has thrown out of bread, 
 
 . (32.) Furthermore: another genuine offspring of 
 absenteeism is the system of subletting ; creating a 
 class, who, generally speaking, must be more than men, 
 circumstanced as they are, to be less than exactors 
 and oppressors. Utterly impossible is it for the dis- 
 tant landlord, on any such system, to discharge a 
 single duty he owes to his dependents ; and it amounts 
 to a miracle, in all instances, whatever may be his 
 
 ' It has been proposed, and by great authorities, that absentees 
 should bear the entire expense. 
 
 T 
 
274 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 natural disposition, if such are not harassed and ground 
 down to the utmost possible degree of human endu- 
 rance. The dark picture of cruelty and wrongs which 
 this practice inevitably occasions, cannot be over- 
 charged ; it is equally an enemy to the landlord, the 
 tenant, and the country ; and what sort of a national 
 offence must absenteeism be, to demand such an ally? 
 Wherever the absentee may move, however he may 
 bask in the beams of pleasure and prosperity, he still 
 casts this dark and distant shadow, in which unseen 
 cruelties and wrongs are perpetrated with impunity, 
 and in obscurity; a shadow which wraps a whole 
 country in wretchedness and despair. To this cruel 
 and tyrannous system we have seen how much of that 
 turbulence and insurbordination, which so frequently 
 agitate Ireland, and which are invariably terminated 
 so tragically, is justly attributed. I should, on every 
 account, be induced to take decisive steps against this 
 fatal pest. Bearing in mind the poverty which it in- 
 variably creates, and those from whom it exacts its 
 gains, I would act accordingly : I would levy an ad- 
 ditional rate on every several letting (at least out of 
 the same family) to which the owner should volun- 
 tarily subject his property, and payable by himself. 
 This would make some, though I confess an inade- 
 quate distinction, between those who are, and ever 
 have been, the curse of Ireland, and such who are 
 pursuing a course which scatters blessings around 
 them. These propositions would have, of course, a 
 prospective operation only ; and to render them fair 
 and efficient, in case of any future lessees becoming 
 against the consent of the proprietor, middlemen 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 275 
 
 (further than letting their labouring cottagers land, 
 regulated in rent by the price themselves pay, a prac- 
 tice which ought constantly to be encouraged), their 
 leases to be forfeited. I purposely avoid entering on 
 the consideration of the subletting act, in thus allud- 
 ing to the mercenary interests, almost peculiar to 
 Ireland, interposed between the landlord and the 
 cultivator, equally to the prejudice of both, and so 
 injurious to the country. 
 
 (33.) In proposing these lenient measures in rela- 
 tion to absenteeship, it perhaps may be objected, that 
 England derives the benefit which Ireland loses, on 
 account of this fatal practice ; and this, to a certain 
 extent, is undoubtedly true ; which circumstance^ 
 combined with the fact that the wealthy not only ot 
 the kingdom, has a tendency to concentrate in Eng- 
 land, but that much of that of our immense foreigrt 
 possessions does ultimately do so, ought to teach us 
 the injustice of upbraiding the peasantry of Ireland, 
 compared with those of England, with their poverty. 
 But, as it regards England itself, it is a lamentable 
 fact, that the same evil, absenteeship, is, on a general 
 balance, annually abstracting many millions of our 
 wealth, and is the undoubted source of much poverty 
 and suffering. The absentees are, in every point of 
 view, as Adam Smith has intimated, fair subjects of 
 taxation ; I do not mean that sort of taxation which 
 should fall equally on all British subjects, and would 
 consequently punish the meritorious in order to reach 
 them; but one which they should be made exclusively to 
 bear. Granting that they have a right to desert their 
 country, if they choose, still they have not a right, while 
 
 T 2 
 
276 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 SO doing, to avail themselves of the advantages of its 
 high values, without sustaining any part of the heavy 
 burdens which the system imposes : weighing their 
 interest in this selfish and dishonest balance, just in 
 proportion as they shift their share of the public bur- 
 dens and private duties from themselves, they impose 
 upon others the additional weight. The property of 
 these ought instantly to be taxed, and a part of the 
 proceeds applied to giving employment to Ireland, as 
 some compensation for that loss of it which the Union 
 could not but occasion, on account of the necessary 
 absenteeship of part of the legislature, for a consi- 
 derable period of every year. In closing these remarks 
 upon absenteeism, it may be proper to state, that no 
 rigid or illiberal construction of the term is intended; 
 nothing that would impede those occasional visits to 
 other countries, which either pleasure or improvement 
 may dictate, and which do not involve that continued 
 absence (from far different motives), and consequent 
 loss to the country^ which such a desertion, on the 
 part of some of its wealthiest families^ necessarily 
 occasions. 
 
 (34.) A system like the English poor-laws, re- 
 formed^ and adapted to the present times, and fitted 
 to the peculiar circumstances of the country ; and, 
 above all, connected with labour, in all cases where 
 the benefited are capable of rendering it, when thus 
 carried into execution, would have the effect of fining 
 absenteeism, and especially underletting ; of keeping 
 at home some part of that immense sum of which 
 Ireland is annually robbed; and of calHng forth and 
 directing a mighty mass of that labour, which, if it be 
 
XIII.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 277 
 
 not itself capital, is the means by which capital is 
 created. Ireland, beyond all countries 1 have ever 
 witnessed, presents the most inviting field for exer- 
 tions of this general kind, exertions which could only 
 be publicly undertaken, and which it would be worthy 
 of the nation to accomplish. On all her shores, in 
 many of her rivers, and in almost every district, the 
 most beneficial works might be accomplished ; these 
 present themselves in almost every form, and at every 
 step. I will mention, at present, only one of them. 
 How many hundreds of thousands of tons of hemp 
 and flax might be annually raised, by draining and 
 cultivating a small part only of the immense bogs with 
 which the face of Ireland is deformed ! land pecu- 
 liarly favourable to such produce, and capable of rais- 
 ing any other, when so prepared and drained \ Ar- 
 rangements of the most satisfactory nature might be 
 entered into with the proprietors, either for the pur- 
 chase or the lease of such ; and a little exertion of 
 this kind would instantly render us independent of the 
 Baltic, in regard to some of the most important of 
 our naval or domestic supplies. I would even incur 
 the odium of a recurrence to the exploded, and, as it 
 is termed, barbarous system of our forefathers, by 
 affording direct encouragement to such endeavours, 
 even when privately undertaken, rather than that 
 they should not be attempted. I would bestow part 
 of the taxes obtained on those foreign products 
 which might be so well raised there, giving em- 
 ployment, and adding to the permanent wealth of 
 the country, in direct bounties upon such culture. 
 ' liartc, Essays on Miisbandry, p, 59. 
 
278 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIII. 
 
 Bounties! methinks I hear the political economists 
 exclaim. Aye, bounties. Do not these, I would ask, 
 resort to them, at least sanction by their dogmas those 
 who do ? What is the whole scheme of expatriation, 
 now silently pursued, and proposed upon so much 
 larger a scale, by which the empire incurs so great an 
 expense, to ship off numbers of its industrious hands, 
 but bounties of another kind, bounties for the dis- 
 couragement of internal labour ? But bounties for its 
 direct encouragement are not, forsooth, deemed scienti- 
 fic. With more still to be done in that country than 
 can be performed in centuries ; with hands unemployed 
 which might commence those magnificent tasks that 
 await future generations ; what a strange evidence of 
 ignorance or cruelty it is thus to slight the only instru- 
 ments capable of effectuating them, human beings ! 
 to regard them as of no value, nay, as of less than 
 none ; to incur a heavy item of public expense in 
 shipping them off to certain distress, and often to 
 speedy destruction ! There lies before me, in the 
 newspapers of the day, an account of the wretched 
 fate of many of those recently sent off to our North 
 American provinces ; sickness and want are sweeping 
 them off by wholesale, and so far, indeed, the expe- 
 dient is finally successful in the eyes of those who 
 believe that human beings are become "superfluous." 
 Such feelings, however, I am certain do not influence 
 those who have unfortunately acted upon such mis- 
 taken views ; I trust these accounts are exaggerations : 
 but there must be a broad and deep foundation of 
 misery on which they rest ; and, unfortunately, they 
 receive a melancholy confirmation from what we have 
 
Xlir.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 279 
 
 previously heard, and have fully known to be the case 
 in these deportations thither, or to the southern part 
 of the opposite continent. With the knowledge of 
 these things, however, calculations are entered into as 
 to the hundreds of thousands of tons of British ship- 
 ping, and the hundreds of thousands of British subjects 
 that they might transport ; and, to render the scheme 
 rather more palatable at home, a table, I see, is given, 
 where the personal expenses of each are estimated, 
 and a loan proposed for the general purposes of the 
 plan, repayable by the transports after a certain term. 
 Compared with stock so created, the South American 
 bubbles are solidity itself. 
 
 (35.) But I repeat, again and again, and, were it in 
 my power^ I would speak it with a voice of thunder 
 in the ear of those who, in conformity with the modern 
 dogmas, are mainly instrumental in these deportations, 
 that our fellow-subjects, at all events, cannot be super- 
 fluous till our lands are cultivated ; and that the best 
 colonies we can plant, whether in reference to encou- 
 raging agriculture or manufactures, are those which 
 might be planted on the deserts of our European empire. 
 It may be answered, that, to enclose and cultivate these 
 on a large plan, would not be profitable as a specu- 
 lation. It is admitted. Providence is too wise and 
 too kind to oiFer any such inducements to the mono- 
 polists. But afford facilities to lesser cultivators, by 
 whose eiforts all classes would be benefited, and they 
 will effectuate, on a small scale, what has rarely been 
 performed on a large one. This plan is in the order 
 of nature; is that by which every great object is ac- 
 complished ; and is best conducive to the real interests 
 
280 
 
 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, 
 
 [^ Xlll. 
 
 of society. We have seen the wonders which in- 
 dustry has effected in the Netherlands, and we are 
 assured, that they have all been wrought by those 
 divided and individual exertions, without which none 
 of them would have been successful ^ 
 
 (36.) The following table will speak to the heart, it 
 is hoped, as well as to the eye, and exhibit, not a field 
 of labour merely to the unemployed population of 
 Ireland, but a mine of wealth to the empire, compared 
 with which the gems of India, or the metals of Ame- 
 rica sink into utter worthlessness : to which may be 
 added the circling ^* wastes of the sea," an expression 
 I shall still continue to repeat ; the due improvement 
 of which would enlarge the limits of industry, and the 
 means of subsistence, to an extent literally incalculable. 
 And yet we fancy ourselves as in a state of siege, and 
 are actually conveying our forces out of the citadel of 
 the empire, in apprehension of a scarcity of provisions I 
 
 General Statement of the Cultivated, Uncultivated, and Unprofitable 
 Land of the United Kingdom, from 3d Rep. on Emigration, p. 361.* 
 
 
 Cultivated. 
 
 Uncultivated 
 Wastes capa- 
 ble of Im- 
 provement. 
 
 Unprofitable. 
 
 Total. 
 
 England . . 
 Wales . . . 
 Scotland . . 
 Ireland . , . 
 British Islands. 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 25,632,000 
 3,117,000 
 5,265,000 
 
 12,125,280 
 388,690 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 3,454,000 
 
 530,000 
 
 5,950,000 
 
 4,900,000 
 
 1 66,000 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 3,256,400 
 1,105,000 
 8,523,930 
 2,416,664 
 569,469 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 32,342,400 
 4,752,000 
 19,738,930 
 19,441,944 
 1,119,159 
 
 46,522,970 
 
 15,000,000 
 
 15,871,463 
 
 77,394,433 
 
 * The second column in this table is what claims our primary attention, and 
 fully shows where ten times the number of our idle and starving poor might be 
 profitably employed. Even the third, which gives the extent of the unprofita- 
 ble land of the kingdom, might be safely resorted to if it should ever become 
 necessary to do so. No land, under a certain elevation, is unprofitable. (Lin- 
 naeus, p. 29, Inaug. Harte's Essays, p. 88. Remarks on Landed and Commer- 
 cial Policy, p. 194, &c.) By far the most productive soils of England, and even 
 the Netherlands, were formerly deemed " unprofitable." 
 
 * See Abbe Mauu, Communicalions to Board of Agric. vol.i. 
 
i XIV.j AND THEIR REMEDIES. 281 
 
 XIV. (1.) Such are some of the propositions which 
 I have to make in behalf of Ireland; others, highly- 
 important in themselves, but of a less momentous and 
 general character^ I shall waive at present, in favour 
 of one, which, while on this subject, can neither be 
 overlooked nor hastily dismissed ; involving, as it 
 does, without a figure of speech, the remaining vital 
 interest of a country thus deserted and degraded ; 
 that interest which gives the limited measure of em- 
 ployment and food which is still afforded to the mass 
 of the community, and in the due support of which 
 the best hopes of their future improvement are 
 founded. But this proposition is, strictly speaking, of 
 a negative character, and goes to the continuation of 
 an advantage, which has now been for many years 
 enjoyed, rather than the bestowment of any new or 
 additional benefit^ : it implores, that if no new policy 
 shall be pursued to serve and assist Ireland, none shall 
 be adopted that shall injure her interests or complete 
 her ruin. It is almost needless to explain, that I refer 
 to a continuation of a free and exclusive access to the 
 markets of Great Britain for her agricultural products ; 
 or, in other words, that the legislature shall still con- 
 tinue to protect her almost only branch of national 
 
 ' Ireland has long had access to the British market for many of 
 the products of her soil, to which privilege was added, early in this 
 century, an unrestrained trade for her corn : to extend this to 
 foreigners would destroy its value. In much of the last century, 
 the direct encouragement of English tillage, by bounties, operated 
 as a bonus upon Irish pasturage ; and, now that an increased 
 population there, in spite of the dogmas of our antipopulalionists, 
 has greatly augmented her disposable produce, I contend that she 
 is, at this moment, in the enjoyment of a less effectual protection 
 than she was during many periods of the last century. 
 
282 IRELAND; ITS EVJLS, [ XIV. 
 
 industry by efficient corn-laws. If we, in England, 
 want additional supplies, let us seek them in the half- 
 cultivated fields of Ireland ; where, were additional 
 labour, now worse than wasted in wandering and 
 oeggary, applied and well directed (I appeal to every 
 practical agriculturist who has witnessed them), the 
 product would be at once doubled ; or in those fertile 
 wastes of so vast an extent, which have, as yet, never 
 been cultivated at all. Let us obtain them, I say, thence, 
 rather than from the plains of Poland or of Prussia : 
 let us employ and feed our fellow- subjects, rather than 
 the serfs and slaves of foreign countries. That this 
 is the proposal of policy, as well as of justice, humanity, 
 and patriotism, however unpopular for the moment, 
 I shall proceed to show ; nor is there any other that 
 can even contemplate to preserve to Ireland her daily 
 bread; for the scheme of depopulation propounded 
 by the Emigration Committee is, thank God, as im- 
 practicable as it is revolting. Withdraw this last 
 protection, therefore, and the wish, expressed, I think, 
 by one of the interlocutors in Edmund Spenser's 
 View of Ireland, that we could set our foot upon it^ 
 and sink it to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, would, 
 if accomplished, be an act of kindness. 
 
 (2.) But this proposition of giving an efficient, not 
 a nominal protection to the agriculture of Ireland, I 
 am anxious to state, iti limine, is not for the purpose 
 of securing a large national rental. I shall not, how- 
 ever, concede to any modern theorist that this is not 
 an essential advantage ; and has always been regarded 
 as such by all our best writers, even when the reasons 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 283 
 
 for supporting it were not an hundredth part as strong 
 as they are at present \ It is not^ 1 repeat, for the 
 purpose of securing the present rental of a Duke of 
 Devonshire, or an Earl Fitzwilliam (though no one 
 can be indifferent upon this point, and its necessary 
 consequences, who is at all concerned that the na- 
 tion should preserve its honour, and the national 
 creditors their property), nor yet to serve the in- 
 terests of the great cultivators, but it is in behalf 
 of an infinitely more numerous class, whom the 
 arguers on this question generally find it conve- 
 nient to lose sight of, that the proposition of a con- 
 tinued and efficient protection of Irish agriculture is 
 now urged. It is for the purpose of continuing in 
 work the cottiers ; and of preserving the property 
 of the innumerable little freeholders of Ireland; who 
 have, most of them_, if not all, obtained and purchased 
 their interest in the soil under the operation and gua- 
 rantee of laws which determined in great measure 
 its value ; laws which, however modified (and they 
 have occasionally been unfortunatly so ^), have for the 
 last century and a half professedly protected agricul- 
 ture, and which protection, according to Dalton (no 
 mean authority), is even part of "the common law^." 
 To abrogate these, then, or render them inefficient, 
 would commit as direct a robbery upon such, as though 
 the legislature were to confiscate their possessions, and 
 
 ' " All things must be done that may effectually increase the 
 value of rent, and the price of land, which will add true strength 
 to the nation." (Davenant, Ways and Means, p. 140.) Of this 
 opinion were Sir Joshua Child, Gee, Sir W. Petty, John Locke, &c., 
 to whose works I refer the reader on this subject. 
 
 ' See the Right Honourable W'ni. Huskisson's Letter to a Con- 
 stituent on the Corn Laws, p. 10. 
 
 'Michael Dalton, Justice, ch. Ivi. 
 
284 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ XIV. 
 
 deliver them over at once to universal idleness and 
 starvation. 
 
 (3.) But in proceeding to consider this part of the 
 subject^ it is evident that the interests of the cultiva- 
 tors of Ireland cannot be discussed distinct from those 
 of Britain ; nor shall I attempt to do so. They are, 
 as to this question, completely identified : and it 
 would be no consolation to the Irish labourer thrown 
 out of employ, to learn that the English one was like- 
 wise starving (which we are informed is now almost 
 the case^); nor any compensation to the little Irish 
 freeholder to know, that the same act which had 
 ruined him, had likewise destroyed the property of 
 the same class throughout the empire. For that such 
 must be the case, at least to a very great extent, and 
 in no long time, is demonstrably plain^. The cool 
 proposition of Ricardo, and others of his school, that 
 the poorer lands of the country should go out of cul- 
 tivation, involves, however worded, loss of labour and 
 destruction of property to multitudes. Such lands 
 confessedly require the most labour ; they are the pos- 
 sessions of the smallest proprietors ; and are, generally 
 speaking, as inferior in quality as they are limited in 
 extent, compared with the rich abbey lands and ancient 
 nclosures of the great land-owners. The proposition, 
 then, is one of direct plunder, as it regards tens of 
 thousands of the peasantry of Ireland, and of the 
 yeomanry of England, whose lands must be aban- 
 doned, and their labour at the same time be rendered 
 equally valueless, altering at the same time all the 
 
 ' Report on Labourers' Wages, 1824, passim. See pp. 42, 57, &c. 
 = Kight Honoiiiable Wm. Huskissou's Letter, &c. p. 13. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 285 
 
 relative values of the country : in order that the stock- 
 jobber's pound-note may pass for thirty shillings ! 
 
 Much is said at present by those who add honesty 
 to their humanity, about an indemnity to the West In- 
 dian proprietors, supposing that the nation, which long 
 unhappily encouraged, should no longer tolerate sla- 
 very ; but who proposes to indemnify these ? They are 
 to be satisfied with the prophesies of political economy, 
 whose wisdom and prescience are beginning to mani- 
 fest themselves, and whose kind partiality for them 
 was never doubted. But, seriously, if such a plan as 
 this is to be tolerated, there needs to be no difficulty 
 about the national incumbrances : these same projec- 
 tors make none whatever regarding that part of them 
 which the necessary relief of the poor has long im- 
 posed ; they are to be paid off at length, in a " fair, 
 distinct, and precise notice" that they shall receive 
 no more^ they will then be done with. Next, the 
 great monopolies, as they are now denominated, are 
 to be destroyed, and the property involved in them 
 confiscated, as the Edinburgh Review recommends, 
 for the public good^; why may we not, therefore, 
 lastly deal with the national debt itself on the same 
 truly patriotic principle, spunge it off at once, or rather 
 that part of it due to a hundred thousand or so of the 
 smallest and poorest claimants r 
 
 (4.) Political economy, it is true, rarely embar- 
 rasses its system with attending to either rights or 
 wrongs ; but I think it would be difficult for common 
 honesty to distinguish between so altering the law, 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 538. 
 * Edinburgh Review, No. xcii, p. 405, &c. 
 
286 IRELAND; JTS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 in letter or in spirit, as to disfranchise these free- 
 holders, and altering it so as to rob the public cre- 
 ditor. The course of events has already, and in the 
 space of a very few years, greatly enlarged the capital 
 of the fundholder, and proportionally increased the 
 real value of his dividend, though not its nominal 
 amount : the same improvement has taken place as 
 it regards the interest of all the monied capitals in 
 the country ; while, on the contrary, the agricultural 
 property of the nation has, in the same period, been 
 as strikingly deteriorated: but still this does not satisfy 
 the jobbers and projectors ; they meditate a blow which 
 is to disable, if not destroy, the latter at once. Ho- 
 nesty, however, in their case will be found the best 
 policy, for, so sure as they should succeed in turning 
 a large proportion of the lands of the kingdom out of 
 cultivation, so sure would they strike off at least a 
 similar proportion of the national debt. The nation 
 can, and will pay it on the same system under which 
 it has been contracted ; but it neither could, nor would_, 
 under an opposite one, which should have intention- 
 ally diminished its property to an immense amount, 
 so as perhaps hardly to exceed its fixed incumbrance. 
 The fundholders are certainly the mortgagees of that 
 property ; but it would be well for them to consider, 
 whether, under such treatment, it is quite certain that 
 the freeholders of England would allow them to fore- 
 close. If the condition of the nation is such as to de- 
 mand great sacrifices, in the name of patriotism, let 
 them be made ; but made justly and impartially, not 
 by singling out different interests, so as to sacrifice them 
 to each other, one by one, for the public good. A far 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIED. 287 
 
 surer way of serving even the separate interests of the 
 country, is, resolutely and perseveringly to support the 
 whole ; to act upon the principle which all are ready 
 enough to acknowledge theoretically their reciprocal 
 dependence ; and consequently to reconcile and re- 
 unite in bonds of mutual good-will those pursuits 
 which, in a country like this, can never be prosperous 
 but when they are indissoluble. 
 
 (5.) One of the first questions to be determined 
 in coming to a conclusion on the subject now under 
 consideration, is, whether the kingdom is capable of 
 sustaining its population by internal cultivation. 
 That this may be confidently answered in the affirma- 
 tive is now no longer a matter of doubt, even were 
 our numbers decupled. The same cheering fact I 
 trust I shall fully prove, in reference to every coun- 
 try upon earth, by calculations, showing that^ on 
 the universal law of human increase, it will never 
 be otherwise ^ On this interesting subject I must 
 decline dwelling at present, having entered into it at 
 large elsewhere ; showing, that the ample provision 
 of nature is administered and distributed by exertion 
 or labour : a law as universal as it is benevolent ; being, 
 
 * Were, however, the theory espoused by Mr. Malthus true, the 
 policy of admitting foreign supplies is rendered still more doubtful 
 and dangerous. These would, of course, according to that prin- 
 ciple, encourage the increase of human beings in the ratio of which 
 he speaks ; and not only here, but in the supplying countries, would 
 this multiplication go forwards, till the latter should have become 
 so populous as to be no longer capable of yielding them. In what 
 sort of a predicament then will the nation be placed (and in no long 
 time) which had been thus subsisted, and consequently encouraged 
 to go on multiplying so far beyond the utmost limits of internal 
 supply ? I admit no such principle of increase ; but how will those 
 who maintain it answer this question? 
 
288 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XVI. 
 
 in the case of th ose apparent exceptions, created by 
 civil institutions, still obeyed vicariously, and not 
 evaded. The manner in which the labour of human 
 beings and their wants are balanced adjusted, on the 
 one hand^ to the necessities that have to be supplied, 
 and, on the other, to the powers that have to 
 supply them; and lastly, the pre-eminence of agri- 
 cultural labour in this and every other respect, is there 
 dwelt upon. To such topics, therefore, I shall not 
 now recur ; and in making these observations, at pre- 
 sent, essential as they are to the subject, I would not be 
 understood to disparage any other description of honest 
 labour whatsoever, all of which I honour^ and would 
 far rather elevate than depress. Let the generous 
 maxim of England, '^ Live and let live," be the motto 
 of them all. By assigning the first consideration to 
 this primordial, most essential^ and incomparably the 
 most universal pursuit of mankind, other and depen- 
 dent avocations are as little degraded, as would be 
 a family of children by giving the precedency to 
 their living parent. These, however, have too many 
 and too powerful advocates to render it necessary to 
 dwell upon their claims; and so successful have such 
 been, that to vindicate the rank of that species of 
 labour which God and nature have dictated as the first 
 and most essential, which station has ennobled, and 
 genius so long illustrated_, actually demands an excuse^ 
 and obtains it only on the score of remaining igno- 
 rance and barbarism. 
 
 One circumstance may render the succeeding de- 
 fence of British agriculture a matter of some curio- 
 sity ; it is urged by one totally unconnected with it. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIP:S. 289 
 
 and who can say with Cecil, '^ I do not dwell in the 
 country ; nor am I acquainted with the plough ; but 
 I think that whosoever doth not maintain the plough, 
 destroys the kingdom ^" 
 
 (6.) First, then, and to awaken attention to the im- 
 portance of the subject, it may not be unnecessary to 
 present to the reader proofs of the immense supe- 
 riority of the agricultural to every other interest, even 
 in this great commercial nation ; as so many attempts 
 are either ignorantly or mendaciously made, espe- 
 cially by a part of the periodical press, to impress a 
 contrary opinion upon those who will not give them- 
 selves the trouble to examine or hardly to think upon 
 the subject. The supposed superiority of all other 
 kinds of industry united, to agricultural, singly con- 
 sidered^ receives a colour from the divisions of the 
 census, in which the ^' families chiefly employed in 
 agriculture ;" those '^ chiefly employed in trades, 
 manufactures, and handicraft ;" and lastly, '^all other 
 famihes not comprised in the preceding classes," are 
 discriminated. The first of these, in the grand total 
 of Great Britain, amounting to 978,656 ; the second 
 to 1,350,239 ; and the last (of which it is evident by 
 far the larger proportion must have belonged to the 
 agricultural interest) to 612,488. As to the second 
 class, I find 415,507 described as interchangers or 
 traders^, and, as such, at least as dependent upon 
 agriculture as upon manufacture ^ This explanation 
 suffices to show, at once, that the latter interest is in- 
 ferior to the former, which_, including all its various 
 
 'Cecil; D'Ewes, p. 674. * Statistical Illustrations, p. 15. 
 
 ^ Right Hon. W. Huskisson, Letter on the Corn Laws, p. 12. 
 
 U 
 
290 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 branches, only comprises between a third and a fourth 
 of the population of the island. 
 
 But the general classification, thus rectified, falls far 
 short of indicating the immense superiority in numbers 
 of those who^ properly speaking, belong to the agri- 
 cultural interest. That a certain proportion of those 
 comprised in the second class^ viz., the families em- 
 ployed in trade and handicraft, must exclusively belong 
 to the former one, is certain. Adam Smith needed 
 not to have informed us that " the smiths, carpenters, 
 wheelwrights, ploughwrights, shoemakers, &c. ^" in 
 short, all the artisans of a strictly agricultural vil- 
 lage, in which there is not a single manufacturer, 
 are as decidedly belonging to agriculture, as if they 
 were in the field instead of in the shop or at the forge ; 
 and precisely the same observation holds good of a 
 non-manufacturing town in a county wholly agri- 
 cultural. This proposition I never heard disputed, 
 and surely it needs no proof. To ascertain the propor- 
 tion of such necessary for the carrying on of that great 
 pursuit, and dependent upon it, is, therefore, no great 
 difficulty. We have numbers of such parishes, and 
 not a few such entire counties. As an example of the 
 latter, take Lincolnshire : there were in that county, 
 in 1821, 34,900 agricultural families ; 15,845 engaged 
 in other branches of industry, of which hardly any 
 were, strictly speaking, manufacturing ; besides 8,015^ 
 which, as neither farmers nor mechanics, doubtless 
 belonged, generally speaking, to the landed interest. 
 Again ; in Cambridgeshire, I believe similarly circum- 
 stanced, there were at the same period 15,536 agri- 
 ' Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations, b. iii. ch. 1. 
 
^ XIV.] AND THEIR RExMEDIflS. 291 
 
 cultural families ; 6964 engaged in trade, handicraft, 
 &c. ; and 3103 not belonging to either of the former 
 classes. Now, it is quite certain, that as these coun- 
 ties are, to all intents and purposes, agricultural, the 
 numbers there returned as engaged in other pur- 
 suits, indicate the proportion throughout the whole 
 census, which is employed by, and belong to that in- 
 terest solely, however classed. Including the third 
 division, which, it is evident, must every where prin- 
 cipally belong to the first, and in these counties neces- 
 sarily so, we find that sixty-six per cent, ought to be 
 added to those returned as engaged in agriculture, 
 before we obtain the number dependent upon it ; but 
 excluding the gentry, clergy, &c., from the computa- 
 tion, then, taking the above counties for our guide, 
 forty-four per cent, only must be added, as the pro- 
 portion virtually, though not ostensibly, engaged in 
 agricultural pursuits, and solely relying upon that 
 interest ; all of whom might say, in the words of 
 the Moor of Venice, the moment it were annihilated, 
 *' Othello's occupation's gone ^" 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that at least the latter pro- 
 portion must be added to the first column throughout 
 the census of Great Britain, as that directly engaged 
 by, if not in, agriculture, though not so returned ; 
 which will add to the 978,656 families so occupied 
 430,608, making together 1,409,264; and, reducing 
 
 ' "The borne consumption and brisk demand for all the various 
 articles of the retail trader, which has so much contributed to the 
 prosperity of our towns, would rapidly decline; and farming ser- 
 vants, and all the trades which depend on agriculture for employ- 
 ment, would be thrown out of work." (Right Honourable W. Hus- 
 kisson's Letter on the Corn Laws, p. 12.) 
 
 U2 
 
292 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 those in the second column to 919,631, making 
 nearly 6,900,000 individuals belonging to the agricul- 
 tural interest ; 4,500,000 to trades, handicrafts, and 
 manufactures, independent of it ; and 3,000^000 of the 
 class of gentry, clergy, &c. &c., what proportion of 
 these ought to be given to the first division, may be left 
 to the reader's determination. Certainly an over- 
 whelming majority ; in proof of which it will be ob- 
 served^ on a reference to the census, that a far larger 
 relative number of such is constantly found wherever 
 agriculture most prevails. 
 
 Should it be supposed that, in the preceding calcu- 
 lation, the numerical superiority of the interest as- 
 serted is exaggerated^ I will speedily show that, on 
 the contrary, it is much underrated. Let us advert 
 to the census of the country more immediately under 
 our consideration, Ireland : who doubts for an in- 
 stant that the great mass of the people of that island 
 subsist and depend on agriculture only ? All the 
 comparisons put forth make the proportion over- 
 whelming, and the distress of the country is often, 
 however ignorantly, attributed to this cause. Mr. 
 M^Culloch says, three times as great a proportion 
 are engaged in cultivation there as in England \ 
 Turning, then, to the census of 1821, we find the total 
 number of those occupied (including, I believe^ the 
 women and children employed) stated to be 2,836,815 
 persons ; of whom 1,138,069 were engaged in agricul- 
 ture^ and 1,698,746 in all other pursuits ; 1,170,044 
 of the latter being, as it is expressed, chiefly employed 
 in trade_, manufkctures, or handicraft. 
 
 * Report on the State of Ireland, part iv. p. 834. 
 
X[V.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 293 
 
 But manufactures there are in Ireland, at least in 
 the norths which, it maybe said, render any calculations 
 founded on an appeal to the census generally, inad- 
 missible. Granted. There is, however, an entire pro- 
 vince of that country, in which these are few ; or at 
 least too few to affect the general deduction. Con- 
 naught, certainly, is almost exclusively agricultural. 
 Yet in that province we find, of the 522,360 persons in 
 employment, 236,605 only represented as engaged prin- 
 cipally in agriculture; to these are attached 224,165, 
 occupied in handicraft, trade, &c. ; and 61,590 follow- 
 ing other pursuits. But if we were to refer to the 
 county of Galway, where are its manufactures ? Yet, 
 of the 134,109 persons employed there^ still less than 
 half, viz., 66,605 only, are reported as directly engaged 
 in agriculture, and 67,504 in all other pursuits. 
 
 These appeals to the agricultural districts of both 
 countries will instantly show any reasonable person 
 the delusive nature of those superficial calculations, as 
 to the relative importance of the two great interests of 
 the empire, which have abounded so much of late. 
 Not a question will be raised by any, excepting the 
 determined theorist^, but that the proportion I have 
 taken from the second class, and added to the first, in 
 order to determine the numbers properly belonging to 
 the latter, errs greatly in deficiency ; and certainly, had 
 I adverted to the Irish census when I calculated it 
 (which I had not then done), I should have greatly en- 
 larged it ; but as the inquiry will be pursued in a 
 different manner, it is not necessary to rectify it. 
 
 Again ; that a certain and a very large part of the 
 second class, even when thus diminished, is dependent 
 
294 IRELAND: IT.'S EVILS, rXIV. 
 
 Upon agriculture^ is equally undeniable. That over- 
 whelming majority of agriculturists and their depen- 
 dents^ none of whom manufacture for themselves, 
 undoubtedly give employment to a great proportion 
 of the 4,500,000 persons still remaining in the latter 
 division ; to say nothing of the 3,000,000 of the most 
 opulent individuals in the empire, who, it must be 
 repeated, belong mainly to the first class, and are 
 incomparably the best customers, in proportion to 
 their numbers, of the second. 
 
 To determine the proportion of the second class to 
 which agriculture gives employment, is, I confess, a 
 matter of greater difficulty than the former calculation ; 
 nevertheless, there are data enabling us to form some 
 ideas upon the subject, and they compel us to believe 
 that they constitute a very considerable majority. 
 
 1 do not mean to argue that the manufacturer is 
 not as essentially necessary to the agriculturist, as 
 the agriculturist is to the manufacturer ; on the con- 
 trary, in a well-balanced state of things, they are 
 mutually and permanently necessary to each other. 
 My object is to serve the interests of both, by exhi- 
 biting the magnitude and importance of the one which 
 our theorists would place in jeopardy ; the destruc- 
 tion of which, by constant foreign interference, I 
 contend would inevitably ruin all. 
 
 But supposing we could correctly ascertain the 
 number employed, independently of home demand, 
 still we have to consider that the amount of the ex- 
 ported product of the labours of that number, what- 
 ever it may be, is probably at this moment about 
 balanced by the importation of the product of foreign 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 295 
 
 industry into this country ; their employment, there- 
 fore, hy foreigners, has the effect^ in most cases, of 
 putting out of employment, by the same means, an 
 equal number of our own people ; so that the labour 
 account is_, so far, balanced, whatever other advan- 
 tages may result. I would certainly encourage this 
 intercourse, so far as it is not evidently pernicious ; 
 always remembering, however, that that description 
 of labour which depends exclusively or principally on 
 foreign demand, is in its very nature far more vari- 
 able and uncertain, and consequently less valuable, 
 than that which is created by internal consumption ^ 
 (7.) Let us now proceed to substantiate the foregoing 
 results, by calculations founded upon pecuniary data, 
 which now seems the prevailing method : I find, in 
 a statistical document which manifests considerable 
 research^ the following statements. There are forty 
 millions of acres of cultivated land in Great Britain, 
 and ten millions in Ireland^ the total annual value 
 of the produce of which is three hundred millions : 
 the annual value of the manufactured or artificial 
 production of the united kingdom amounts to 
 170,000,000 ^ The total of the products and manu- 
 factures^ then, exported, estimated, at their declared 
 value, 0^37,573,918: but from the latter sum must 
 be deducted a due proportion of the value of the raw 
 materials of foreign growth or production, of which 
 some of them were fabricated, before the remunera- 
 
 ' " Those riches are of a bad kind that depend on accidental cir- 
 cumstances, and not upon the industry of a people and the cultiva- 
 tion of their lands." (Montesquieu, vol. ii. p. 182.) 
 
 -The above statement is upon authority, nhich I copied, but regret 
 to say Ihave forgotten from whom, not having noted it at the time. 
 
296 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XjV. 
 
 tion of British industry can be estimated ; the prin- 
 cipal articles only of such imports, such as cotton, 
 silk, wool, hemp, and flax, amounting to many mil- 
 lions, while not to one halfpenny of such deductions 
 is the product of agricultural labour liable ^ The 
 total amount, as has been before stated, it is con- 
 ceived by some is about balanced by our imports. 
 Some of these statements may appear exaggerations : 
 I will, therefore, insert similar ones from another 
 authority, reminding the reader that the exactness of 
 the actual amounts is less important to the argument 
 than the correctness of their relative proportions, 
 which it is not likely can err very greatly. Colqu- 
 houn, in 1812 (since when upwards of a million 
 acres of land have been enclosed), thus estimates 
 these values : " Agriculture, in all its branches, includ- 
 ing minerals, nearly 226 millions ; manufactures, and 
 handicraft work of every branch, rather above 114 
 millions^: foreign exports (exclusive of those to Ire- 
 land) were that year nearly thirty-eight millions*." 
 
 ' It may be interesting to present the imports of this nature in 
 a single year. I take the last to which 1 have had access. (Pari. 
 Paper, No. 541, 1827.) 
 
 Flax . . . . 2,078,844 ^ Ireland might be encou- 
 
 Hemp. . . . 490,603 i ^t^^V.^''\^l-^'^ '" 
 ^. * -' abundant quantities. 
 
 Silk .... 1,437,336 
 
 Thrown ditto . . 928,345 
 
 Cotton . . . 7,405,619 
 
 Wool .... 1,436,605 
 
 13,777,253 
 Besides untanned hides, dyeing goods, &c. &c,, to an immense 
 amount, which enter largely into the values of certain of our ex- 
 ports. 
 
 * Colquhoun, Treatise on the Wealth, &c. of the British Empire, 
 p. 65. 
 
 ^Rather more than 31 millions, declared values, according to the 
 account in the Statistical Tables, p. 44. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 297 
 
 From the latter sum must of course be subtracted 
 the difference between official and real values^ and the 
 cost of the foreign raw materials of which some of 
 them consisted^ to make the comparison correct : but 
 without these great deductions, which may serve as 
 a set-off against any incorrectness in the statement, 
 of which, however, I am not aware, and exclusive of 
 the inland trade_, which he makes to amount that 
 year to thirty-one and a half millions, the compari- 
 son between the actual value of our agricultural pro- 
 ducts, our manufactured ones, and the amount of both 
 exported, stands about in this proportion, 6 3 1. 
 In the former statement about thus, 8- 4| 1. Both 
 of these calculations, however, for reasons already 
 alluded to, give the proportion of the last class much 
 too large, small as it appears. 
 
 The same inquiry may be pursued in a still differ- 
 ent mode, that is, by examining the proportions which 
 these interests respectively contributed to the pro- 
 perty tax ; only we have here no means of determin- 
 ing what part of the gains arising from commerce 
 and manufactures fairly belonged to our foreign trade, 
 which forms an important branch of our present sub- 
 ject. The last product of that tax amounted to 
 15,298,982, from which must be deducted the 
 sums of 1,167,678 and 2,885,505; the former 
 being the amount charged upon pensions, salaries^ 
 &c., and the latter that on funded property, neither 
 of which has to do with the present comparison. 
 The remainder amounts to 11,245,799, of which 
 8,099,467 were the contribution of the landed inte- 
 rest, including both that of the owners and occupiers, 
 
298 IRELAND; ITS ENILS, [ XIV. 
 
 and 3)14:6,322, that wliich arose from trade, inanii- 
 factures_, &c., even including professional gains. What 
 part, therefore, of the latter sum fell upon foreign 
 trade, the preceding inquiries may partly enahle us 
 to judge ; certainly not nearly one-third ; but admit- 
 ting it to be as much, in that case the proportions 
 would stand thus, 8 3 1. 
 
 The last method of comparison, of which I shall 
 avail myself, is that which is afforded by the public 
 accounts relative to our national charity, the poor's 
 rate of England and Wales. The last report to 
 whicli I have at present access, is that of 1824, in 
 which the whole amount assessed (including some 
 extraneous charges) is 6,703,501. Of this sum 
 4,693,162 was levied on the landed interest; 
 1,762,950 on dwelling houses; and 247,389 on 
 mills and factories^! The last of these, however, 
 either find or create a fair proportion of poor wherever 
 they are established ; and yet this is the proportion of 
 their contribution. It must be observed, that the 
 second of these items includes the tax, to this charity, 
 of all the great landed proprietors in the country ; as 
 such pay upon their house-rent or its value, they are 
 of course, in this case, included in the commercial 
 and manufacturing class. Still, however, without 
 any correction whatever, on this reasonable ground 
 the proportions stand thus : 19 7 1. 
 
 Similar comparisons might be founded on a variety 
 
 of other data, such as the estimated circulation of the 
 
 country, the banking returns of the kingdom, &c. ; 
 
 but the former statements resting on recorded facts, 
 
 * Report from the Select Committee on the Poor's Rate, 1824. 
 
Wiv.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 299 
 
 it would only weaken the argument, to place it on 
 conjectural grounds. I will only add^ that the public 
 documents already adduced are, as it strikes me, all 
 that bear upon the subject ; with these no liberties 
 can be taken, and^ so far from having strained them 
 to my purpose, it will have been seen, that in no in- 
 stance have the deductions been as strong as they 
 w^ould have warranted and seemed to require. 
 
 But, still, should the foregoing conclusions be 
 cavilled at or disputed, I will cheerfully leave the 
 determination of the question even to those who are 
 the most adverse to them, on one condition, which is 
 simply this ; that, in making their own calculations, 
 they will, as the Chinese do, reckon up the inhabitants 
 of the United Kingdom by mouths, recollecting, at 
 the same time, that they have backs, and that, as 
 human beings, at least in these regions, they require 
 habitations and furniture ; and finally, that, by a 
 benevolent ordination of Divine Providence, the wants 
 thus created are perpetually recurring. The compu- 
 tations founded upon these considerations, of however 
 moderate a nature, will immediately manifest to such 
 the necessary pre-eminence of agriculture, compared 
 with every other pursuit, or all of them put together* ; 
 
 ' There are in the population of the United Kingdom at least fif- 
 teen millions, who are either adults, or young persons of an age con- 
 suming of all kinds of agricultural produce, excepting liquor, as 
 much as adults. Some of these, it is to be feared, live sparingly ; 
 but considering the numbers in the middle and higher ranks of 
 society in this kingdom, who live very liberally, it will not be very 
 difficult to estimate, with sufficient correctness for our purpose, 
 the immense amounts in agricultural produce that are consumed 
 annually. To these must, of course, be added, the necessaries 
 and conveniences of life wliich are demanded by this great popu- 
 lation. A comparison of the total demand thus created and sup- 
 
300 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 and next the immense superiority of that part of our 
 trade which is supported hy home consumption, com- 
 pared with that dependant upon foreign demand : a 
 conclusion which ought to gratify every real patriot, 
 and_, in my humble opinion, the manufacturer in parti- 
 cular. 
 
 Other misconceptions, quite as glaring as the one 
 disposed of, are entertained touching this important 
 subject; one of these, that England could not sustain 
 herself, has been already adverted to, and is now 
 nearly passed away : the calculations of scientific and 
 practical men upon this subject, the demonstrations 
 by which we are surrounded, and the lights of past 
 experience, warrant us in asserting that she could do 
 so with as vast an accession to the comforts of her 
 people as to their numbers ; ratios which, happily for 
 human beings, advance hand in hand, all that a 
 darker theory is perpetually uttering to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. I shall, therefore, only add an 
 argumentum ad verecundiam to the proofs which have 
 been previously advanced on this point ; the prime 
 minister of the country, within less than half a dozen 
 years back, pronounced that the unexampled dis- 
 tresses of agriculture proceeded from " over-produc- 
 tion." If authority of another order will be more ac- 
 ceptable to some, it is at hand. Mr. Brougham said, 
 half a dozen years before (when agriculture was far 
 less depressed), in a speech in parliament, afterwards 
 printed, that the cause of the distress then existing 
 
 plied by internal industry, with that made by foreign trade in the 
 most prosperous years, sinks the latter into insignificance. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 301 
 
 was " redundance of produce *." The ports of England 
 had been closed (with one exception) for several years 
 preceding Lord Liverpool's speech, and yet he stated 
 that the remedy for the distresses of agriculture was 
 diminished cultivation. But to what an extent would 
 an adequate demand increase the produce of the land 
 already cultured, to say nothing of the thirty milUons 
 of acres now untouched ! This objection, however, 
 to do the opponents of agriculture justice, is now 
 rarely advanced by those who are worth attending to. 
 The principal argument is founded on *' dear bread," 
 which some are of opinion the present system occa- 
 sions, and which they imagine would be remedied by 
 a free trade in corn. 
 
 (8.) But neither is this objection true. Corn is 
 not dear ; corn, contrasted with almost every other 
 product of human labour, is far cheaper than it was 
 in past times : I say, of human labour ; for the fields 
 are not, as yet, tilled by steam, nor the harvests 
 gathered in by complicated machinery. To compare 
 the labour of the human being, therefore^ with the 
 products of the steam loom, would be cruel and absurd. 
 To the point, then: wheat, from 1600 to 1700, ave- 
 raged 48^. 5cl per quarter 2; from 1700 to 1800, 42^. 9cl 
 per quarter. Since 1800, a new era has arisen ; but 
 will any one contend, taking into consideration the 
 constant influx into Europe of the precious metals, 
 during the whole period, and the vaster inundation of 
 a paper circulation (rendered, as I think, indispensable 
 by our debt), that corn is not, at this moment, far 
 
 ' Mr. Brougham, Speech, 7th March, 1816. 
 
 'Sir F. Morton Eden's Hist, of the Poor, voh iii., Apppcndix. 
 
302 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIV. 
 
 cheaper than it was on the average of either period? 
 Again : the last year's average price, of which I am 
 in possession, is that of 1826, and it was the year in 
 which so much was said ahout dear and famine 
 prices ; it was nearly Is. 2d. per bushel : just a 
 century before, viz., in 1726, the price of the Win- 
 chester bushel was 6^. 6f/. ; still another hundred 
 years previously, viz., in 1626, it was 6,y. 2d. At the 
 moment I am writing, I believe the average price of 
 the same measure is not even so much \ Such is the 
 trifling advance, or, rather, the great real declension 
 on wheat. During the same period, the public reve- 
 nue had been increased one hundred-fold ; and the 
 poor-rates, falling principally on the cultivator, about 
 thirty-fold. Now, I ask, where is the labourer or 
 artisan, whatever his business, who, calculating from 
 the former period, would be content with a similar 
 advance on the established wages of his calling ? or 
 which are the servants, public or private, who w^ould 
 be gratified with a like increase ? Some of the former 
 were lately condoling one another on being very ill 
 paid ; but I plainly ask such, while they are legislating 
 on the proper protection of the farmers to such a 
 nicety, whether they would like to be remunerated 
 by a kind of corn-rent salary, calculated on the price 
 of wheat and the amount of the stipends of James 
 the First's reign } No fact upon earth is clearer than 
 that the real price of wheat has greatly lowered during 
 this long period ; nor is another cheering truth less 
 certain, that its consumption has, in the mean time, been 
 vastly extended, till at length it has become the bread 
 
 ' December 1827. 
 
XIV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 303 
 
 of tlie lower classes : facts these, were there none 
 else, which ought to have overturned Mr. Malthus's 
 ratios long ago, and, indeed, placed them topsy-turvy. 
 (9.) Amongst the names that have given some 
 degree of sanction to the clamour concerning the 
 present prices of corn, I regret to observe there is one 
 which has always had, deservedly, great weight. 
 Whether the change of his opinions, so often and 
 so ably expressed, on the subject under discussion, 
 was in consequence of one of those sudden conversions 
 which are now far more common and contagious in the 
 political world than ever they were in the rehgious ; 
 or whether it was imposed upon a yielding intellect, 
 once so comprehensive and decisive, but weakened 
 and worn out in the service of his country, I know 
 not ; but it is due to my subject to state the astonish- 
 ing oversight into which he fell, on this point, in the 
 last stage of his distinguished career. In February, 
 1822, it was that his lordship (the Earl of Liverpool) 
 made his celebrated speech on the agricultural dis- 
 tresses of the country ; attributing them to causes 
 over which government had no control, and for which, 
 consequently, they had no remedy. He deeply de- 
 plored, however, the ruinous condition into which 
 the cultivators of the empire were plunged, attributing 
 it to the want of a market for their produce, and, 
 indeed, as has been before observed, to an over- 
 production of it ; expressing hopes of a gradual and 
 effectual amendment. Four years afterwards, and 
 only four, that is, in 1826, we hear his lordship 
 holding very different language, and, looking at the 
 protection of agriculture and its remuneration, he 
 
304 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 made use of an expression which, from other lips, 
 would have heen deemed highly injurious and inflam- 
 matory. But even he was not superior to the preva- 
 lent and pernicious practice of adopting a current 
 phrase ; which almost always supersedes the necessity 
 of an argument, and has often the effect of silencing 
 one: he applied the term *^^ famine-price " to the 
 subject ; which, if I recollect right, was repeated from 
 other high quarters, if not, indeed, suggested from 
 such : and, when this expression was dropped, equi- 
 valent ones were still used\ Now, what will the 
 candid reader suppose was the difference in the price 
 of the bushel of wheat, on the average of the six 
 months immediately preceding the first speech ; a 
 price which he had deplored so feelingly, as so far 
 from being a remuneration to the growers, that it 
 had occasioned the ruin of numbers of them ; and the 
 price of the last six months of the year 1826, when, 
 on the assumption of this " famine-price," so much 
 corn was introduced into the country ? Nearly, and 
 not quite, three farthings a bushel! This is hardly 
 credible, and I consequently subjoin the proofs*. 
 But, if the expression came in during the first six 
 months of that year (though it was only acted upon 
 in the second), the difference amounted to fourpence 
 three farthings. And, when it is recollected that the 
 first six months are of course those most remote 
 from the preceding harvest, and, consequently, re- 
 quiring a better price to indemnify the holder than 
 the last six months of the year ; practically speaking, 
 
 ' Hansard, Pari. Deb., vol. xv. p. 1092. 
 
 ^ Prices of the Quarter of Wheat on the " General Average 
 
XIV. J 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 30j 
 
 the first half of the year was, in this instance, the 
 cheapest, notwithstanding the difference of fourpence. 
 In one sense, therefore, never was there a more 
 appropriate term hit upon than '^ famine-price ;" it 
 had a double and, indeed, universal application, and 
 equally well described what it had been declared, by 
 the same lips, to be, first to the growers, and now to 
 the consumers. If correct in the latter case, to what 
 
 which governs Importation," extracted from the London Gazette, 
 of the undermentioned dates : 
 
 1821. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1826. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 August 4 . 
 
 . . 52 
 
 4 
 
 July 7 . 
 
 . 55 11 
 
 11 . 
 
 . 53 
 
 4 
 
 14 . 
 
 . 55 11 
 
 18 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 3 
 
 21 . 
 
 . 56 5 
 
 25 . 
 
 . 56 
 
 
 
 28 . 
 
 . 5G 10 
 
 Sept. 1 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 10 
 
 August 4 . 
 
 . 57 4 
 
 8 . 
 
 . 54 
 
 7 
 
 11 . 
 
 . 57 7 
 
 15 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 8 
 
 IS . 
 
 . 57 2 
 
 22 . 
 
 . 61 
 
 6 
 
 25 . 
 
 . 56 6 
 
 29 . 
 
 . 68 
 
 10 
 
 Sept. 1 . 
 
 . 55 8 
 
 October 6 . 
 
 . 70 
 
 7 
 
 18 . 
 
 . 55 8 
 
 13 . 
 
 . 64 
 
 7 
 
 15 . 
 
 . 56 3 
 
 20 . 
 
 . 61 
 
 4 
 
 22 . 
 
 . 55 11 
 
 27 . 
 
 . 58 
 
 4 
 
 29 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 Nov. 3 . 
 
 . 53 
 
 3 
 
 October 6 . 
 
 . 54 11 
 
 10 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 I 
 
 13 . 
 
 . 54 9 
 
 17 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 2 
 
 20 . 
 
 . 54 6 
 
 24 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 4 
 
 27 . 
 
 . 51 3 
 
 Dec. 1 . 
 
 . 53 
 
 11 
 
 Nov. 3 . 
 
 . 54 I 
 
 8 . 
 
 . 51 
 
 11 
 
 10 . 
 
 . 54 3 
 
 15 . 
 
 . 51 
 
 2 
 
 17 . 
 
 . 55 
 
 22 . 
 
 . 49 
 
 4 
 
 24 . 
 
 . 55 9 
 
 29 . 
 
 . 46 
 
 8 
 
 Dec. 1 . 
 
 . . 55 11 
 
 1822. Jan. 5 . 
 
 . 46 
 
 2 
 
 8 . 
 
 . 56 6 
 
 12 . 
 
 . 45 
 
 11 
 
 15 . 
 
 . 56 5 
 
 19 
 
 . 48 
 
 11 
 
 22 . 
 
 . 56 4 
 
 2G . 
 
 . 49 
 
 3 
 
 29 . 
 
 Average per Qua 
 
 . 55 6 
 
 
 1,433 
 
 3 
 
 1,450 4 
 
 Average per Qua 
 
 rter 55 
 
 n 
 
 ter 55 )i 
 
 Per Win. bi 
 
 ishel 6 
 
 \ol 
 
 Per Win. bi 
 
 isht'l 6 Hi 
 
306 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ ^^^'* 
 
 a glorious state and condition has our new policy 
 already conducted us ' ! 
 
 It cannot, however, be disputed but that the real 
 price of wheat has been declining for centuries past, 
 notwithstanding its use has happily become so much 
 more general, even amongst the lowest classes of the 
 community^ than it was in former times. 
 
 (10.) But even supposing it were desirable still 
 further to bear down the prices which the grower at 
 present receives, with a view to permanently cheapen- 
 ing every thing amongst us^ including of course the 
 wages of labour, which is one of the avowed motives 
 for so doing, it is not quite clear that destroying the 
 home cultivators would answer that purpose. Look- 
 ing at the past experience of the country (and we can 
 have no safer guide), we think to the contrary. The 
 experiment of allowing foreign growers to glut our 
 markets, to the extinction of many of the home ones, 
 has been anciently tried : at first, indeed, it beat down 
 the prices to almost nothing, but afterwards invariably 
 heightened them, and sometimes into actual (not the- 
 
 * I am a.ware that much was said, and may be repeated, about 
 the remission of taxes in the interim. Was that remission, were it all 
 placed to the agricultural account, anything approaching in amount 
 to the deterioration which that interest had already suffered, while 
 the monied one had been as greatly on the advance ? But between 
 1822 and 1826, that remission, as it respected the agriculturists, 
 did not amount to a half per cent, on their produce, though the 
 proposition was to take off about thirty-three per cent, from their 
 protection, as compared with that of 1815 ; the value of that pro- 
 duce having, in the mean time, fallen so greatly. The tax upon 
 malt was not paid by the grower, but the consumer, as the govern- 
 ment often argued ; and that its partial repeal did little for the 
 former, is evident from the excise accounts. There was not so 
 much barley paid for, as malted in the year ensuing, as there had 
 occasionally been above thirty years before. 
 
XrV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 307 
 
 oretical) famine. But to look to more modern times. 
 In Queen Elizabeth's days, Lord Bacon informs us, 
 that " it drained much coin of the kingdom, to furnish 
 us with corn from foreign parts*;" and yet what did 
 this importation do for the country? Its ultimate 
 effect was, by thus discouraging and putting down the 
 home grower, to raise the price of grain so much, 
 that the latter part of her reign was almost a conti- 
 nued dearth. That great man's advice on the occasion 
 was thus expressed : " I may truly say to the English, 
 Go to the pismire, thou sluggard ^" In the succeeding 
 reign^ notwithstanding there was still not nearly half, 
 if much more than a third of the present population, 
 this system continued, to the great hindrance of inter- 
 nal industry, and the consequent damage of the public 
 interest. There was still a selfish faction that argued, 
 as at present, in favour of turning the country into a 
 sheep-walk ; asserting, as now, that England could not 
 sustain its people with bread ; or, rather, that it was 
 more profitable to be supplied by others, and, in spite of 
 such men as More, and Bacon, and Raleigh_, they pre- 
 vailed. From the former of these I have already quoted 
 at large ; the last, memorializing King James, states, 
 that " corn had in some years cost England two mil- 
 lions sterling'^;" and, speaking of such ruinous importa- 
 tions from foreigners^ he says, " it is to the dishonour 
 of the land that they should serve this famous king- 
 dom, WHICH God has so enabled within itself''." 
 He says, elsewhere, and how truly succeeding times 
 
 ' Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 454. ' Ibid. p. 462. 
 
 ^ Raleigh's Works, vol. ii. p. 117, (Svo. 17.51.) 
 
 ^ fhid.\o\. ii. p. 118. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [X1V. 
 
 have shown, that "all nations abound with corn';" 
 hence the interest and duty of each is manifest, to 
 increase the products of the earth as they become 
 necessary, and that by encouraging internal industry 
 instead of superseding it. As to the desideratum of 
 our modern school, he thus expresses himself: "If 
 corn is too cheap, the husbandman is undone, whom 
 we must provide for, for he is the staple man of 
 THE KINGDOM ^" An opiiiiou v/hicli we have been 
 attempting to prove is as true at the present moment, 
 as it was when he uttered it. 
 
 Supposing that we were to admit it to be true, in 
 theory, that a full protection to the British grower 
 has a tendency to raise the price ultimately, still it is 
 false in fact. This dispute may be easily decided. 
 Examine the matter from the period we have been 
 just adverting to (King James the First's reign), down 
 to the year 1670, when the first eifectual protection 
 was given to the British grower^; and again, from 
 that time through a still longer period, comprehend- 
 ing, together, the experience of above a century and 
 a half, and it will be seen that the "monopoly" of 
 their own market, by the British cultivators, had the 
 
 ' D'Ewes, p. 674. ^ Ibid. p. 674. 
 
 ^ It may not be unnecessary to state the nature and extent of 
 this protection. By the act of 22 C. II. ch. 18, the duty laid upon 
 imported wheat was this : 
 
 When the price was 5ds. 4d. per quarter, 16s. 
 
 When not exceeding 80^. ditto, 8s. 
 
 When it exceeded 80s. ditto, 5s. 4d. 
 
 Our theorists may easily turn these sums into money of the present 
 day. In subsequent times, direct bounties were given upon corn 
 exported; a principle for which I do not contend, though without 
 conceding that, at the time, it probably operated as a national 
 advantage. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 309 
 
 positive effect of lowering even the money-price of 
 grain, while that of every thing else, during the same 
 term^ had so greatly advanced. The dear times of 
 the late French wars one cannot reasonably appeal to, 
 in any of these comparisons, otherwise they would 
 most powerfully corroborate these facts ; the whole 
 period being (with a short exception) one of unlimited 
 importation, and often, indeed, of direct bounties 
 upon it. But in the course of the long period ad- 
 verted to above, the government of the country, 
 yielding at lengthy for a time, to a different policy, 
 considerably relaxed in its protection of internal in- 
 dustry : the consequences shall be expressed in the 
 forcible and perspicuous language of a minister of his 
 Majesty's present government : " During upwards of 
 one hundred years," says Mr. Huskisson, " up to the 
 year 1765, the import of foreign corn was restrained 
 by very high duties. What was the state of the 
 country during these one hundred years ? That, in 
 ordinary seasons, our own growth supplied a stock of 
 corn fully ample for our consumption ; that, in 
 abundant seasons, we had some to spare, which we 
 exported; that, in bad seasons, we felt no want, and 
 were under no apprehension ; that the price of corn 
 seldom varied more than a few shillings per cpiarter ; 
 that we had no years of inordinate gain to the 
 farmer, or of starvation to the consumer ; that prices, 
 instead of rising from year to year, were gradually 
 (Hminishing ; so that, at the end of this long pc^riod 
 of a century, during which we never imported foreign 
 corn, tliey were actually one-fifth lower than at the 
 beginning of it. Would to CJud that we had conti- 
 
310 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ X.IV. 
 
 nued this salutary system ! But in 1765, it was un- 
 fortunately abandoned. What has been the result? 
 Precisely the reverse of the former system. Instead 
 of a steady supply, afforded at steady and moderate 
 prices, we have witnessed frequent and alarming 
 scarcities." But I must refer the reader, for a full 
 description of the consequences of this unhappy de- 
 parture from the true policy of the country, to the 
 whole of his admirable letter, and shall conclude in 
 his language : " we must go back to the principles of 
 our forefathers ; and, by reverting as much as possible 
 to their si/stem, we shall secure to ourselves and our 
 posterity all the benefits which they derived from it^." 
 
 To the reader, who may not be acquainted with the 
 precise consequences of this " unfortunate abandon- 
 ment," it may not be superfluous to state, that, with- 
 out selecting particular years, but taking, at once, the 
 prices ten years before and ten years after this event ; 
 the change in the policy of the country, by depressing 
 the security and the hopes, and consequently the 
 efforts of the British agriculturist, raised the price of 
 wheat nearly one half^, and that not by a gradual, 
 but by a marked and instantaneous advance^, which 
 
 * Rt. Hon. W. Huskisson's Letter on the Corn Laws, pp. 10, U. 
 ^ 1755 1764, 5s. 3d per bushel: 17651774, 7s.2c?. per busheL 
 ^ On a question of such immense moment as the foregoing, it 
 would be a species of infatuation not to add to the experience of 
 our own, that of other nations, which, on a matter of universal 
 concernment, must, one way or the other, be equally conclusive. 
 This, in all the instances I have been hitherto able to appeal to, 
 fully confirms, and, indeed, dictates the preceding argument. One 
 example only shall, on this occasion, be adduced, and that of a 
 country of all others seemingly the best calculated to put the prin- 
 ciple, for which I am contending, to the severest test, being one 
 which had partly subsisted upon importation for ages, and had 
 been subject to distressing fluctuations in crops, to an extent little 
 
XIV.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 311 
 
 continued increasing till the better system was at 
 length restored. 
 
 (11.) Another standing argument in favour of a 
 constant admission of foreign grain is^ that its effect 
 would be the equalization of prices ; and indeed the 
 present legislative policy seems to be founded ex- 
 pressly upon that principle : and supposing it should 
 accompHsh that purpose, it would be difficult to jus- 
 tify the proposition on such a ground ; difficult, I 
 think, to defend it from being as flagrant an act of 
 
 known elsewhere ; and which, Mr. Malthus says, is " one of the 
 most barren and worst-supphed countries of Europe*." I mean 
 Sweden. But a different system has now been estabHshed. 
 " Since 1820," we are officially informed, " the duties upon 
 foreign grain have been so high as to be equivalent to a prohibition, 
 and no importation could take place." The effect may be thus 
 described : " Formerly, Svveden was, in the best of years, obliged 
 to import from 100,000 to 200,000 quarters annually, wb,ereas 
 latterly she could have exported. The excess has been converted 
 into spirits, to the great injury of the inhabitants t." The effects of 
 the alteration in the system will, however, be best seen in the fol- 
 lowing official statement of prices six years before, and (including 
 the year in which it took place) as many years afterwards. They 
 were as follow : 
 
 Before Prohibition. 
 
 Sterlins^ Price 
 Year. per Quarter. 
 
 1814 ^4 
 
 181'J 24 
 
 1815 25 
 
 1817 29 
 
 1818 33 
 
 1819 28 
 
 At and after Prohibition. 
 Sterlin^^ Price 
 per Quarter. 
 , . .19 
 , . .16 
 
 . .18 
 
 . .16 
 
 . .15 
 
 Year. 
 IS 20 
 1821 
 1822 
 1823 
 1824 
 
 1825. .... .17 
 
 Will the advocates for a contrary policy give us as striking an 
 instance in favour of their argument, or indeed any single practical 
 illustration of it } 
 
 I said I would refer to one instance only ; but I am tempted to 
 add another ; one nearer home, and more obvious to our notice 
 France : we are again informed that " the importation of foreign 
 grain, for the consumption of France, has been virtually prohibited 
 since the year 1819; exportation, however, being allowed :" and 
 
 * SiKtIi Edition, vol.ii. p. l9S. 
 t Iletiirii to all Accounts, Parliaujontary Paper. U. p. S. 
 
312 
 
 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, 
 
 [ XIV. 
 
 unfairness as ever was meditated. The fluctuation in 
 the prices of grain (I mean the usual and ordinary 
 variations) is a natural result of the difference in the 
 crops, and answers a valuable and necessary end^ in 
 inducing us to husband our resources when they happen 
 to become deficient. But this proposal goes to deprive 
 the cultivator of the only remuneration which he can 
 expect^ when he has a partial failure in any of his 
 produce ; and this " equalization" is_, therefore, in 
 many cases, only another term for ruin^ as it regards 
 him : it is a proposition to throw the entire distress 
 upon those alone^ who^ in ordinary times, are the 
 least able to bear it, instead of lightening the pressure 
 by sharing it, in some sort, amongst the entire com- 
 munity; still protecting, however_, the poor from 
 absolute want, by means of our national charity, to 
 
 that " such is the actual state of the law." Take we then from 
 the official [document, which accompanies this information, the 
 prices of wheat throughout France, for the seven subsequent years, 
 with the last of which the statement closes, and the seven preced- 
 ing ones, and the following are the results, reduced to British 
 money and measure : 
 
 Before Prohibition. 
 
 Sterling Price 
 Year. per Winchester Qr. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 1812. 87 111 
 
 1813 57 10 
 
 1814 45 8| 
 
 1815 49 4 
 
 1816 62 6i 
 
 1817 92 7| 
 
 1818 63 li 
 
 459 \\ 
 
 At and after Prohibition. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Sterling Price 
 
 per Winchester Qr. 
 
 3. d. 
 
 1819.. 
 
 47 
 
 2| 
 
 1820.. 
 
 . ..49 
 
 li 
 
 1821. . 
 
 45 
 
 61 
 
 1822.. 
 
 39 
 
 7h 
 
 1823.. 
 
 ....44 
 
 10 
 
 1824.. 
 
 42 
 
 61 
 
 1825.. 
 
 40 
 
 s^ 
 
 
 309 
 
 21* 
 
 44 2 
 
 65 7 
 These facts require no comment, 
 
 * Pari. Pciper?. No, 157 ; Grain^ Foieign Countries^ p. 13. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 313 
 
 which none will deny that the farmer contributes 
 his full share. In a word, this notable expedient pro- 
 poses to render every season, as far as it can accom- 
 plish its purpose, alike disastrous to the cultivator. 
 A superabundant crop, of course, lowers his remune- 
 ration ; and he says, as of old, iiiopem me copia fecit; 
 and a failing one is to bring him no additional price : 
 and this is the policy that is proposed to be adopted 
 in regard to agriculture ! 
 
 But I deny the assumption ; still appealing to ex- 
 perience. Again commencing with 1601 ; from 
 thence to 1670, the year in which, as previously ob- 
 served, effectual protection was afforded to agriculture, 
 the fluctuations in price were far greater and more 
 frequent than those which occurred afterwards ; ex- 
 cepting we carry our comparison from 1765 and 
 through the period of the revolutionary wars of 
 France; when, as already observed, importation was 
 almost unlimited, and the fluctuations were conse- 
 quently very great. But, on this part of the dispute, 
 at all events, decisive proofs are at hand. We are 
 surrounded by countries in which the import of grain 
 has been, practically speaking, altogether free and un- 
 restrained. In which of these have the fluctuations 
 been less than those in England during the periods in 
 which her agriculture has been strictly protected ? On 
 the contrary, even in the exporting countries, they 
 have been much more severe, including the descrip- 
 tions of grain principally consumed by the inhabitants, 
 and little exported ^ In Antwerp I find the variations 
 
 'See Returns relative to Foreign Corn, Paper 44; Dantzig, 
 No. 2. 
 
314 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 are as wide as between /2.10 and/ 11.27 per mudde; 
 and, even within the last ten years, as great as from 
 /3.00to/11.27^ 
 
 Those who declaim against the monopoly, as they 
 call it, of the English market by Englishmen, a singu- 
 lar sort of complaint, are constantly accusing those 
 who advocate the cause of the latter, as being the 
 advocates of high prices, regardless of the conse- 
 quences. The accusation is injuriously false. They 
 are the advocates for that protection which nature 
 itself dictates, and which our peculiar circumstances 
 especially demand ; they are the advocates of a more 
 minute, perfect, and extended system of internal cul- 
 tivation, which they assert, appealing to past history 
 (which is as good authority as their prophecies), would 
 increase the supplies of the necessaries of life instead 
 of diminishing them ; lower their prices instead of 
 advancing them ; and be the sure means, as heretofore, 
 of conducting the country to permanent and increas- 
 ing plenty, prosperity, and happiness. 
 
 (12.) If the foregoing arguments should be retorted 
 on the advocates of the English growers, and it be 
 asked with an air of triumph, why they oppose the 
 constant introduction of foreign grain, since its effects, 
 according to their own showing, would not be to 
 lower its price, but rather to the contrary, they have 
 this distinct and decisive answer, and let it be fully 
 and fairly met. It is because they would have the 
 price, whatever it be, to go into the pockets of their 
 own countrymen, from whence they well know it 
 would be distributed to the uttermost farthing through 
 ' See Returns relative to Foreign Corn, p. 69. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 315 
 
 every class of the community^ feeding and invigorating 
 all its several interests^ and promoting the prosperity 
 of the whole : but let the immense sums, which the 
 question assuredly involves, be passed to the serfs of 
 Poland or of Russia, or rather to their owners, and 
 they have yet to be convinced that its tithe would find 
 its way back again to its original possessors, excepting 
 in paper " statements and hypotheses, the value of 
 which individuals, as well as the nation at large, are 
 beginning to appreciate. 
 
 (13.) Some, I believe, have argued in favour of a 
 regular importation of foreign produce, from a con- 
 scientious conviction that a dependence upon some 
 other country or countries for part of our daily bread 
 is the best way to secure ourselves from scarcities. 
 This idea, however, it requires little consideration to 
 confute. Without the tuition of political economy, 
 we know that no nation or nations, any more than so 
 many individuals, will continue regularly to grow 
 without as regular a demand; and, therefore, supposing 
 we grow enough for ourselves at present, just so much 
 of our necessary supply as we should then take from 
 other agriculturists, we should no longer continue to 
 take from our own. The supply and demand would 
 very soon become very accurately adjusted ; that the 
 part of our supply, therefore, which would be furnished 
 from abroad (and it would then become an essential 
 part) should be more certain than it would have been, 
 if it had been furnished from our own, then abandoned, 
 fields, is impossible ; that it would be less so is cer- 
 tain. In case of a scarcity in the country or countries 
 accustomed to yield it (and these are, at least, as 
 
316 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 liable to such events as our own), it is quite obvious 
 they would supply themselves first; and on their situa- 
 tion would depend whether our usual supply should 
 be greatly diminished, or entirely withdrawn : whereas, 
 had we continued to be supported from our internal 
 resources, we should then have had the whole of what 
 nature produced, and the difficulties would have been 
 shared amongst us. 
 
 It is quite evident how a country, under such circum- 
 stances of internal scarcity, would act. They would not 
 then exchange their corn for our cottons. No govern- 
 ment would allow^ no people endure it. It does not re- 
 quire the reasoning powers of a Locke to inform us, that 
 '^ things absolutely necessary for life must be had" and 
 retained, " at any rate, but things convenient will be 
 had only as they stand in preference with other con- 
 veniences \" Let those who think that a constant 
 
 * Locke, Considerations of the Lowering of Interest; Works, 
 vol. ii. p. 16. To give an historical illustration of this incontro- 
 vertible truth, Sweden formerly acted upon the idea, that to import 
 grain was to provide against scarcities ; which, notwithstanding 
 such supplies, were perpetually recurring. She had, however, a 
 severe lesson on the impolicy of this plan, and profited by it. "The 
 Swedes," says an author, who wrote about half a century ago, 
 " purchased considerable quantities of corn, till some years ago, a 
 prohibition of exportation" (in consequence of a scarcity at home) 
 *' stopped our supplying them in a time of need ; which was attended 
 with so great an effect, that from that time they set about the busi- 
 ness of cultivation with such vigour, that ever since they have 
 supplied themselves, and exported a small quantity." 
 
 Her exports have, since then, greatly increased, notwithstanding 
 a deplorably large consumption of grain in her distilleries. I can- 
 not help applying Mr. Malthus's doctrine to this country, to 
 which, indeed, he has appealed so much in his Essay, Are not the 
 ratios, of which he speaks, precisely reversed again, as it regards 
 Sweden, notwithstanding all his prognostications to the contrary ? 
 He affects to ridicule the government for " crying out for popula- 
 tion, population !" Population, however, has greatly increased, 
 and, with that increase, has augmented individual plenty and pros- 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 317 
 
 (lepcndcncc upon external supplies is the way to ward 
 off scarcities answer his argument, and they will then 
 oiilv have to reconcile their theory to historical flicts. 
 Nor must it be forgotten, in determining this point, 
 that the most striking variations in the seasons, and 
 consequently in the crops of Europe, are rarely partial, 
 but almost always general, if not universal. 
 
 (14.) But with respect to those accidental scarci- 
 ties, which are thus made the apology for recom- 
 mending a policy which would occasion a permanent 
 one, and has often done so, I have elsewhere, I think, 
 fully proved that, amongst the other incalculable 
 advantages of a large and growing population, may 
 be included that of diminishing the frequency and 
 severity of such calamities^ and perhaps of ultimately 
 causing them to cease altogether : the last supposition 
 is, I confess, the conclusion at which I have arrived, 
 after having given the best attention to the subject I 
 could. Certainly, historical facts favour this conclu- 
 sion ; and philosophy may thus expound it : varia- 
 tions in climate and seasons are, as far as we yet 
 know, the sole causes of variations in the produce of 
 land equally cultivated. And what is it that melio- 
 rates climate, and mitigates and equalizes the seasons, 
 but cultivation ^ ? Universal cultivation, therefore, is 
 
 parity in a still greater ratio. Sweden is now, therefore, an export- 
 ing country : it is thus that in every country, however circum- 
 stanced, Nature spreads a common feast for all that live ; a feast 
 Avhere there is " room enough and to spare !" 
 
 ' " Let us remember that it is man himself who has in great 
 measure created these climates. France, (Tcrmany, and England, 
 not more than twenty centuries ago, resembled Canada and Chi- 
 nese Tartary ; countries situated, as well as our Europe, at a mean 
 distance between the equator and the pole." (Malte-Brun Geog. 
 vol. i. p. 417.) 
 
318 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 not merely the means of rendering the different 
 countries more salubrious, an advantage which has 
 been long apparent ; but it becomes the best, and 
 indeed the sufficient security which nature affords for 
 an equal, as well as an abundant produce. Here 
 again the experience of mankind comes in aid of our 
 argument, which, if true, proves that to throw a 
 portion of our lands out of cultivation would be to 
 render the rest less certainly productive : the converse 
 of this position is clearly the fact. But I shall not 
 again enter upon this subject further; but sum up 
 what I have said on this part of the argument in the 
 words of one who, it will be generally admitted, 
 understood the real interests of his country, and who 
 anxiously turned his comprehensive mind to the con- 
 sideration of this particular subject, at a very trying 
 time in relation to it : ^' The less," said Mr. Pitt, " we 
 
 WERE TO DEPEND UPON OTHER NATIONS FOR OUR SUP- 
 PLY, THE LESS WE HAVE TO APPREHEND ^" Or, tO ex- 
 press the same truth in the language of a statesman 
 of the present day, Mr. Huskisson, " There is no 
 effectual security, either in peace or war, against the 
 frequent return of scarcity, approaching to starvation, 
 but in maintaining ourselves, habitually, independent 
 OF foreign supply^." 
 
 (15.) But here, again, it is quite necessary that 
 the advocates of internal industry should not be inis- 
 
 Pitt's Speech, 4th December, 1802. 
 
 " Right Honourable William Huskisson's Letter on the Corn 
 Laws. He observes " The habitually importing country, which, 
 even in a good season, depends on the aid of foreign corn de- 
 prived of that aid in a year of scarcity, is driven to distress border- 
 ing upon famine." 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 319 
 
 understood; misrepresented they must expect to be. 
 If an actual scarcity should occur in the country, 
 happily an event of no common occurrence at pre- 
 sent, resort instantly to foreign supplies ; as the sin- 
 gle family did, that possessed a region which after- 
 wards supported millions in uninterrupted plenty, go 
 down to Egypt, and take your money in your sacks. 
 But let an honest and intrepid ministry, who are 
 honoured and remunerated for their responsibility, 
 determine in this case ; without consulting momen- 
 tary popularity, let them attend to the present wants, 
 and yet secure the permanent interests of the country. 
 But common sense surely instructs us to believe that 
 in this, as in all other cases whatsoever, to resort to 
 an expedient in common, is to render it wholly inef- 
 ficacious, if the real emergency should unhappily 
 arise. 
 
 (16.) But it is proper to notice one or two pleas 
 of a nature different to the foregoing, which are 
 usually urged in behalf of a free trade in corn. The 
 first of these, however, it is almost hopeless to con- 
 tend with, as it is quite insensible to facts, otherwise 
 it would have been silenced long since. It is, that 
 the importation from foreign countries would neces- 
 sarily be so small, even in an unrestricted trade, that 
 it would make little impression upon the home mar- 
 ket. This idea rests upon two grand mistakes : first, 
 that of estimating, on some rude guess, the whole 
 quantity grown at present by foreigners for exporta- 
 tion, which, we are told, is so trifling as not to be 
 able materially to affect the markets of this country. 
 I am not anxious to contradict this ; for, as almost all 
 
320 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 countries stupidly enough persist in feeding themselves, 
 since God has given them the means of so doing, it is 
 not very likely that others should grow more than they 
 want, and what they have no prospect of disposing 
 of. But the question is, what would be the amount of 
 their supply if they were allowed free access to our 
 markets ? I contend that it would equal the demand' 
 whatever that might be. A single province of one 
 of these countries which is kindly bent upon feeding 
 us, would suffice, as that honest and intelligent tra- 
 veller^ Bell, of Autermony, says, to sustain all. Eng- 
 land_, does he say? All Europe M But we are told 
 that the land lying on the borders of rivers is pretty 
 much cultivated already; a fact on which a ministerial 
 envoy has dwelt very emphatically : but to place the 
 protection of British industry upon such a basis as 
 this is a little too gross. Pray, it may be asked, 
 with such an irresistible motive as a constant and 
 profitable market, which would provide adequate 
 means for such undertakings, would not internal 
 communications be made and multiplied; and even 
 till then, could not the lands in the interior of the dif- 
 ferent countries be devoted to the sustentation of the 
 inhabitants, and those on the banks of these rivers 
 be exclusively dedicated to our supply ? and would 
 not this naturally and certainly be the case r I have 
 before me an account of the British merchandise said 
 to steal into Germany through the ramifications of the 
 Elbe ; and could not German produce as easily steal 
 out through similar apertures ? The whole of this 
 argument is idle in the extreme. The sure and con- 
 ' Bell, Travels, vol. ii. p. 159. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 321 
 
 stant operation of adequate causes v/ould bring into 
 cultivation just so much of the rich^ but hitherto 
 uncultivated regions of the north of Europe^ as Eng- 
 land, neglecting her own cultivators, might require ; 
 she would only be limited in the supplies by her 
 means of purchasing. The population on the square 
 mile, in these fertile' corn-growing countries, hardly 
 any of which are wheat-eaters, is of itself a sufficient 
 reply to all these singular representations ; but to rest 
 the vital interest of the empire upon a mere ipse 
 dixit, is rather too much, especially after our experi- 
 ence on this head. Again : many not unfriendly to 
 agriculture would hazard its interests, from the mis- 
 conceptions long set afloat, respecting the supposed 
 impossibility of transporting to this country sufficient 
 quantities of foreign produce, to interfere materially 
 with the home market. This is a great, though a 
 common error, and requires the most direct confuta- 
 tion. Even Adam Smith fell into it, estimating the 
 average quantity of corn annually imported at only a 
 five hundred and seventy- first part of the consump- 
 tion, adding, that, under a system of free trade, even 
 that quantity would diminish; so that the farmers 
 could have nothing to fear. The fallacy of this 
 supposition has been long exposed; nevertheless the 
 argument survives. In the last year in which our 
 ports were open, namely, in 1818, and, I think, 
 not throughout the whole year, instead of 23,728 
 (Adam Smith's average quantity), there were 4,738,521 
 quarters imported, or about two hundred times as 
 much, and nearly a fifth of the consumption of the 
 people of the whole kingdom, if we are to credit our 
 
 Y 
 
322 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 Statistical authorities ^ ; and a great part of this quan- 
 tity was imported without previous preparation on 
 the part of the foreign growers for the British mar- 
 ket. I ask the most determined supporters of a free 
 tfade in corn, what would be the limits of the supply, 
 were the trade thrown open to foreigners ? The 
 limits of our ability to purchase and to pay. The 
 foreign competitor would inevitably beat down the 
 British grower in price, and overwhelm him with 
 quantity. 
 
 But to the assurances of Adam Smith on the sub- 
 ject of importation, now succeed those of Mr. Jacob. 
 The former, however, having totally failed, it is not 
 surprising that the agricultural public place as little 
 reliance upon the latter. As far as I have examined 
 and can understand this gentleman's report, which, 
 I confess, gave me much surprise, after the perusal 
 of his former able and interesting works, I think its 
 intention is to show that British agriculture need fear 
 nothing from competition^, in consequence of the 
 small and diminishing supplies likely to be derived 
 from abroad, which I understand him to estimate at 
 not beyond ten or twelve days' consumption at the 
 utmost^. His report is dated February 1826. Yet, 
 with this very document in his possession, I find Mr. 
 Canning stating, in his place in parliament, in March 
 1827, that the extraordinary influx of foreign corn, 
 even in three months, in 1818-1819, had contributed 
 to depress the prices in so " extraordinary a degree,*' 
 
 Colquhoun, Treatise of the Wealth, Power, &c. of the British 
 Eiijpire, p. 66. 
 
 -Jacob, Report, pp. 12, 52, &c. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 323 
 
 that " the effect of these three months' importations 
 was felt in the depreciation of the market for three 
 succeeding years'!" and was the occasion, as Lord 
 Liverpool asserted^ of the '' ruin of hundreds ^" 
 That these statements and representations can he 
 reconciled, is impossible ; and there is no difficulty 
 to know which ought to be received. The subject, 
 unfortunately^ is not a matter of argument, but of 
 experience ; the agricultural interest has not reco- 
 vered to this hour the injury it then sustained, though 
 fresh attacks are meditated upon it. If it be said that 
 the report to which I have referred only compre- 
 hended a particular district of Europe ; still it must 
 have been selected as the most important and govern- 
 ing part, otherwise the whole thing would degenerate 
 into an intentional juggle : and what would then be- 
 come of the ingenuousness of those who founded 
 upon it those arguments which they made decisive of 
 the general question, and who, indeed, originated the 
 inquiry for that purpose? But I acquit those en- 
 gaged from all such suspicions, by asserting its general 
 bearing on the subject ; and here again I shall drop 
 mere argument and opinion, and conclude this part 
 of the discussion by leaving in the reader's recollec- 
 tion recorded facts. In part of the year 1817, exclu- 
 sively of the imports from Irc^land, which, however, 
 are most essentially connected with the subject, there 
 were imported 1,801,230 quarters of grain ; and in 
 part of 1818, 3,530,670 quarters, and an immense 
 and increasing quantity in the two first months of 
 
 ' Hansard, Pari. Debates, vol. xvi. p. 766. 
 ^ Ibid.soX.w. p. 1368. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV 
 
 1819, till the ports became closed. If such are the 
 consequences of the accidental opening of an uncer- 
 tain market^ what would they be were it constantly 
 free ? The question has been already answered. 
 
 (17.) Nor is the effect of importation on the inte- 
 rest thus interfered with, one which can be estimated 
 by a simple arithmetical calculation. It is perfectly 
 well known, in every other market, that an over-supply 
 inevitably occasions a far more than corresponding 
 decline in price ; one, indeed, not easily reducible to 
 calculation^ but not the less clearly understood. But, 
 on this important point, I will avail myself of the 
 language of a late work, which, as it appears to me, 
 cannot be suspected of leaning too much to existing 
 laws and privileges. '^ When it is considered that 
 a comparatively very trifling supply beyond demimd 
 produces a very disproportionate effect upon the value 
 of the aggregate quantity, it is certainly a duty incum- 
 bent on legislation to pause, ere_, for the sake of expe- 
 riment, they expose the several interests of the 
 country to so extensive a change, as a comparatively 
 trifling additional supply of corn is liable to occasion : 
 that is, assuming forty as the quantity, and 240 as the 
 value of the supply adequate to the demand, an 
 increase of one has a tendency not merely to affect 
 the value of the aggregate supply in its proportionate 
 ratio of six_, but of twelve ; an increase of two, to the 
 extent of thirty ; and, of three, to the probable extent 
 of eighty or one hundred. Consider, therefore, the 
 produce of forty millions of acres of land (the quantity, 
 or thereabouts, in a productive state in Great Britain) 
 sufficient to yield an adequate supply ; and 240 mil- 
 
XIV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 325 
 
 lions per annum^ its aggregate value ; the importation 
 of one, or two, or three millions of acres of a foreign 
 soil must inevitably lead to one or the other of the 
 two following results, namely, either the supplanting 
 of the cultivation of a corresponding extent of soil at 
 home, or a derangement in the value, in the propor- 
 tion just previously exhibited : and then, as the money 
 value of the produce of the soil has a necessary ten- 
 dency to govern the money value of all other produc- 
 tions, the depreciation extends through all the pro- 
 ductive classes, whilst all those who subsist on the 
 state taxes, to the extent of ^fi* 52,000,000^ on a rent- 
 tax of ,40,000,000^ and on mortgages, and on other 
 fixed money incomes, to the extent of ten or fifteen 
 millions per annum more, are all benefited in a ratio 
 proportionate to the depreciation sustained by the 
 productive classes. The progress, therefore, of the 
 effect of an importation of corn beyond the demand 
 for immediate consumption, is first to depreciate the 
 money value, at the expense of the occupier of the 
 land, to the extent of the depreciation, depending 
 mainly on the extent of the importation : the effect 
 on the depreciation on the occupiers of the land im- 
 mediately manifests itself to the labourer, and all 
 that class of handicrafts and tradesmen more imme- 
 diately dependent upon the occupiers and labourers of 
 the soil ; and it is not till exhaustion and degradation 
 pervade the whole of this portion of the community, 
 that the rent-tax, or, in other words, the landed pro- 
 prietor will be materially aflected by the measure of 
 importation \" 
 
 ' Slutistical lliustiatiuns, Disciuisitioii, &c, pp. xix., xx. 
 
326 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ XIV. 
 
 Such are the views and calculations of these writers ; 
 and it may be added, that computations on a similar 
 principle have been constantly made, since Davenant's 
 time to the present ^ It has been always known 
 that a deficient supply enhances prices far beyond a 
 mere arithmetic proportion ; and it is as obviously^ 
 though not so alarmingly, true, that an excessive one 
 has, inversely, a similar effect. 
 
 I copy a passage, from the same work, as to the 
 effects of this measure on our interests, externally 
 considered ; some connected with which, it is allowed, 
 may be individually benefited, as Locke had observed 
 long ago : " But," it is added, " to use the pedantic 
 language of the pseudo race of political philosophers^ 
 the benefit on an external interest is only arithmetical, 
 whilst the derangement which it is likely to occasion 
 (as previously shown), on the internal interests of the 
 country, is geometrical. But say the advocates for 
 importation and free trade, let the intercourse be 
 free, and the thing will find its own level, and regu- 
 late itself. No doubt : let famine and its concomitant 
 pestilence be free, and it will find its own level, and 
 regulate itself. Had this doctrine been adheied to in 
 Ireland, in 1822, Ireland might probably have found 
 its own level, and regulated itself ere this. But 
 further, say the advocates for importation and free 
 tradcy the advantages to be derived from an external 
 trade in corn would produce such an internal excite- 
 ment, by the increased remuneration for manufac- 
 turing labour, as to prevent that sort of depreciation 
 and derangement here previously laid down. And was 
 * Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 224. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 327 
 
 the power of supply of natural and of manufactured 
 (or artificial) productions equals the position would 
 deserve investigation. But, whilst the supply of one, 
 in a comparative sense, may be considered limited, 
 and the other infinite, the only tendency of an unre- 
 strained intercourse is to increase the supply of the 
 artificial productions, until they lead to such an ex- 
 haustion of the physical, and degradation of the moral 
 character of society, as to threaten the entire annihi- 
 lation of all social order \" 
 
 (18.) The preceding forcible remarks have, in 
 great measure, rendered it unnecessary for me to 
 notice one grand argument in favour of importation, 
 which is perpetually urged, and without which, indeed, 
 the proposition would be a barefaced attempt to 
 enrich a few at the expense of the increasing poverty 
 and certain ruin of the country at large. It is this, 
 that the measure would greatly increase, or, at any 
 rate, secure our internal industry, by augmenting to 
 an equal extent our foreign trade. Passing over the 
 deep distress, and, indeed, the utter ruin which the 
 measure would occasion to thousands in the transition, 
 when those interests which had grown up and long 
 flourished under a contrary system, would have to 
 be at once trampled down and destroyed (considera- 
 tions with which political economy never troubles 
 itself) ; let us examine its pretensions on its own 
 grounds. In the first place_, it is not true, as far as 
 arithmetic is concerned. Those countries from which 
 wc have received, and, on such a system, should 
 again receive our principal supplies, I mean those to 
 " Statistical lllustiatious, Disquisition, &c. p. xx. 
 
328 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 whicli Mr. Jacob has directed our particular atten- 
 tion_, are not the countries which have been the fore- 
 most to encourage our internal industry in return ; 
 on the contrary, they have been amongst the last and 
 most backward so to do. And again^ those years in 
 which we have made the largest importations indi- 
 cate very imperfectly that we should have any cor- 
 responding increase in the demand for the products 
 of our internal industry, much less that the money 
 account, and, what is of greater moment still, the 
 labour account would be balanced, in such momentous 
 transactions. We have seen Mr. Canning's state- 
 ment of the enormous importations terminating in 
 February 1819 ; what effect had these on our export 
 trade ? was it such as to compensate the putting out 
 of employment^ and pauperising or starving thou- 
 sands of British labourers ? There was, on the con- 
 trary, a falling-off of many millions in its amount, 
 compared with any year since the peace ; and^ com- 
 pared with 1815, of between twelve and thirteen 
 millions, though the last-named year was one in 
 which the ports were strictly closed, and less corn 
 had come into the country than any year, save one, 
 for the preceding three- and-twenty years. 
 
 (19.) But supposing we were to concede that the 
 countries from which we should import (and the argu- 
 ment has no possible application to any others) would 
 take our manufactures to an equal amount in value ; 
 more they could not do and it is far from clear, 
 looking either at the past or the present times, that 
 they would do that : the policy of the question is 
 instantly decided, but in a very different manner to 
 
XIV.] AND THEIK REMEDIES. 329 
 
 what its advocates either do, or affect to_, believe. 
 The very reasons which might have been vahd in 
 favour of such an exchange in preceding times, the 
 force of circumstances has totally changed, and con- 
 verted them into insuperable obstacles against any 
 such policy at present. I shall state the chief of these, 
 and beg the reader's most serious consideration of 
 them. 
 
 To produce a given value in agricultural products, 
 and corn above all the rest_, requires at present a far 
 greater number of hands than to produce the same 
 value, on the general average, in manufactured articles. 
 If this were ever a matter of doubt, it no longer 
 remains so, since the introduction and increase of 
 machinery to so vast an extent has taken place, 
 which has abridged human labour in the fabrication 
 of the same goods, in a proportion that would be in- 
 credible, had it not been frequently calculated : while 
 in agriculture (happily, I think, for mankind) there 
 have been few inventions for ^' shortening human 
 labour," of great practical moment, since the days of 
 Triptolemus. But even before these recent mecha- 
 nical discoveries had been generally introduced, Adam 
 Smith said, '^ no equal capital puts into motion a 
 greater quantity of productive labour than that of the 
 farmer ;" or, in other words, employs and rewards 
 more human beings. What would he have said now? 
 To exchange, therefore, our manufactured goods, espe- 
 cially as at present fabricated, for the agricultural 
 products of another country, to the same amount 
 (and that is all, I repeat, that the advocates of this free 
 * Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, b. ii. ch. b. 
 
330 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 trade can or do hold forth), is neither more nor less 
 than to exchange the labour of the few for the 
 labour of the many, and that at a time when the 
 general outcry is, that " the market of labour" is over- 
 stocked already, when a proportion of our people, 
 unhappily too great, want employment, and when 
 human beings are beginning to be pronounced re- 
 dundant. The proposition has long been partially 
 entertained and acted upon, and so far we have seen 
 its consequences ; accede to it fully, and the catas- 
 trophe of the country is at hand. 
 
 But it is singular enough, that, even were the con- 
 verse of this position true, the argument in favour of 
 internal cultivation is strengthened. Were it con- 
 ceded that the same value in agriculture is raised by 
 fewer hands than in manufactures, surrounded as we 
 are by so many millions of uncultivated acres, what 
 would the proposition of supplanting British cul- 
 tivation then imply, but the exchange of that la- 
 bour which is most profitable for that which is least 
 so ? In every point of view, therefore, the idea of 
 being fed from abroad, is as impolitic as Nature meant 
 it to be impracticable. Were we guided by interest 
 only, we could not hesitate: '* Of all the ways," says 
 Adam Smith, '^ in which capital can be employed, 
 agriculture is by far the most advantageous to the 
 society \" 
 
 (20.) But to return. If we should lose so vastly by 
 
 the proposed exchange, in regard to the quantity of 
 
 labour employed, we should suffer infinitely more in 
 
 regard to the quality of the labour thus thoughtlessly 
 
 * Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, b. ii, ch. 5. 
 
XIV.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 331 
 
 bartered. We should exchange, in very many cases, 
 labour in its very nature essential, for that which is 
 often superfluous ; constant, for that which is fluc- 
 tuating; permanent, for that which is uncertain; 
 productive, for that which is not seldom unprofitable ; 
 healthful and moral_, for that which is injurious and 
 demoralizing ; and above all, and to a very alarming 
 and increasing extent, the labour of man for the 
 labour of machines. 
 
 Such is the Glaucus bargain which our political 
 economists are urging the country to conclude, as 
 soon as possible. A few individuals, it is not meant 
 to be denied_, would be gainers ; a few floating capi- 
 talists and foreign traders, political swallows, who 
 could follow the summer of prosperity through the 
 earth, and who, perhaps, as '^ citizens of the world^" 
 would feel little regret in so doing : but those whose 
 fate and fortunes are united to their country, and 
 whose hearts are as indissolubly attached to it, would 
 remain to feel the consequences, and feel them in their 
 posterity to the remotest generations ; when all that 
 would be preserved to them, worth cherishing, would 
 be the remembrance of those days of British great- 
 ness and glory, which would then have set for ever. 
 
 (21.) Hitherto^ in this hasty apology for British 
 husbandry, a defensive line of argument has been 
 principally pursued; and before it is concluded, and 
 a few strong reasons, of a more positive nature, are 
 adduced in the same cause, I will attempt to show 
 that the main reason advanced in favour of the pro- 
 posed revolution^ in our system of national industry, 
 is founded in delusion, and is at utter variance with 
 
332 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 the nature, as well as the history of the hnman race. 
 It is, that cheap living is necessary to support manu- 
 factures and commerce. Even were this position 
 true, it is not impossible but that the nation might 
 buy the gold too dear which would thus find its way 
 into the pockets of a few ; such as those_, of whom 
 Locke observes, that " they may get by a trade that 
 makes a nation poor^'* Let us, however, attend to 
 this fundamental axiom of the free-trade system. 
 Reasoning, a 'priori, it is not at all plain that cheap 
 prices would encourage industry ; the presumption is, 
 indeed, directly to the contrary that they would pro- 
 bably be the means of relaxing that necessity, which 
 has been elsewhere shown to be the mainspring of all 
 human prosperity^. No foreign trade can either be 
 commenced or supported without an internal one ; 
 and the most extended commerce and manufacture 
 can only rest upon the solid basis of internal industry 
 and wealth. Lord Bacon has therefore remarked, 
 that "home trade is the foundation of foreign ;" and 
 that agriculture is the foundation of home trade, I 
 think, none will contest. But mere reasonings upon 
 any subject, concerning which a direct appeal to deci- 
 sive facts may be made, are idle and absurd. Let us, 
 then, examine whether trade, or rather foreign trade, 
 has ever been founded upon cheap living ; and with- 
 out tracing the rise and progress of commerce in mo- 
 
 ^ Locke, Considerations on Lowering of Interest ; Works, p. 27. 
 
 ^ Sir William Temple (applying, I think, the observation to the 
 Dutch, whose industry he attributes to their necessities) : " Men 
 naturally prefer ease before labour, and will not take pains, if they 
 can live idle."" Men," says Dr. Franklin, " do not work for 
 pleasure, but generally from necessity." 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 333 
 
 dern times, till it loft, in great measure, the southern 
 parts of Europe, let us limit the inquiry to its later 
 history_, (luring whieh it has made sueh gigantic 
 strides. Where did it first flourish the most exten- 
 sively, since its revival? In Holland, certainly. Sup- 
 ported and fostered by cheap living? No man will so 
 far expose his ignorance as to assert this; or deny 
 that the period of the greatest relative superiority of 
 the United Provinces, in this respect, to all the world, 
 was when they were, beyond all comparison^ the 
 dearest country in it\ Holland, at that period, fed far 
 dearer than England; now, wheat is there little more 
 than a third of the price here. But as, in the former 
 country, while provisions have declined in price, trade 
 has declined with them ; so, in the latter, trade has 
 advanced with the improvement in the price of food. 
 England has now assumed the first rank as a great 
 manufacturing and commercial nation; and at what 
 period was it from whence its unrivalled career may 
 be fairly dated ? From the very time when its inter- 
 nal industry, its agriculture, was effectually guarded 
 and supported : from thence, to the present time, it 
 has gone on, extending its commerce and accumulat- 
 ing its capital, not by the extinction of cultivation, 
 but by fostering it. We are become, it is true, the 
 dearest country in Europe ; but the very same causes 
 
 ' PiifFendorf says of Holland, " Every thing is very dear;" and 
 again, " All sorts of victuals are taxed and sold at an excessive 
 rate." (History of Europe, p. 268.) 
 
 Andrew Yarrenton, in his England's Improvement, says, '* All 
 people that know anything of Holland know that the people eat 
 dear andpoi/ great taxes," (p. 7.) See, likewise, SirWm. Temple, 
 Sir William Petty, Mr. Locke, Mr. Ray, and odiers, on this sub- 
 ject. 
 
334 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIV. 
 
 have rendered us the most industrious, and the most 
 successful. 
 
 (22.) So stands the argument in reference to the 
 past^ and it most exactly coincides with the present 
 state of the question. If we ask those who speak so 
 much about the high price of provisions, as being fatal 
 to our foreign trade, from whose competition it is that 
 they represent our trade as standing in the greatest 
 danger; will they point to the serfs of Russia, the ge- 
 sindel of Germany, or even to the citizens of America? 
 The forges of Tula would expire to-morrow, were it 
 not for the inhibitory system of the Russian govern- 
 ment; and the rival manufactories of the United 
 States disappear as suddenly, were their protecting 
 duties withdrawn. It is from France we have most 
 to apprehend, if we have to fear for our foreign trade 
 at all ; France, which feeds the dearest, with the ex- 
 ception of England, of any manufacturing nation of 
 Europe ^ 
 
 But strange is it, that, with our present vaunted 
 superiority from machinery (not to mention capital, 
 which is now regarded as almost omnipotent), the 
 argument for low prices is renewed with greater 
 warmth than ever, and is principally urged by those 
 who are attempting, as much as in them lies, to render 
 manual labour unnecessary, and have partly succeeded 
 in so doing. The price of coal has far more to do 
 
 ' At the time I am writing, I perceive the difference in the price 
 of wheat is less than three per cent.; (in France 22fr. 2c. ; in 
 London, 22 fr. 68 c.) The period, I presume, is peculiar, as the 
 diflPerence is usually much greater. But for several years past 
 wheat has only been about one-fourth lower, on the average, than 
 here ; and other grain, the general food there, still nearer our prices. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 335 
 
 with the argument of such, than the price of corn ; 
 hut it is not the price of either that governs the 
 question. 
 
 (23.) Nothing is more surprising than the unfairness, 
 otherwise ignorance, with which this suhject is usually 
 treated. There are certainly some branches of in- 
 dustry in which other nations have those natural 
 advantages over us that render it improbable that we 
 shall ever be able to supplant their labours in those 
 particular cases ; nor can we reasonably desire that 
 it should be otherwise. But as it respects our leading 
 and staple manufactures^ I fearlessly assert, that we 
 are not contending with the low living, but with the 
 high duties of foreign countries, duties which will 
 unquestionably be increased as our goods continue to 
 cheapen, as the world cannot allow its industry to be 
 entirely paralyzed in favour of our steam-looms, which 
 would, if duly patronized, supply "the great globe 
 itself, and all that it inherits." On the contrary, para- 
 doxical as it may sound, it is not the dearness of our 
 manufactured goods, but their inordinate cheapness^ 
 that has rendered foreign countries less disposed to 
 allow them entrance ; it has naturally roused their 
 jealousy, and rendered it imperative upon them to de- 
 fend their own labour : and, finally, where there is a 
 free market, I appeal to all late experience^ whether 
 it is the competition of foreigners that is to be the 
 most dreaded and deplored, or that of our own manu- . 
 facturers and merchants, who continue to glut, and 
 consequently injure, every free market to which they 
 have access, by a superabundant and inordinate supply. 
 
 (24.) The history of this outcry against high prices 
 
336 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [ XIV. 
 
 is singular. It commenced at the time when agricul- 
 ture was protected and was beginning to prosper ; and 
 since which period bread has been, relatively speakings 
 constantly lowering. From that memorable period 
 our manufactures and commerce took a start, and 
 down to the present days (and the period has been 
 extended enough to afford the fullest experience) it is 
 a matter of history that they have extended with a 
 rapidity of which there has been, probably, no previous 
 example. But, during all this time, as it respects 
 that interest, '*^ the cry has been still the same" "We 
 are injured, we shall be ruined by the high price 
 of provisions, compared with other countries, our 
 rivals ^ let the government, to save us, withdraw its 
 
 ' A copious collection of proofs of the universal prevalence of 
 these complaints might be given ; a very few, however, shall suffice 
 as mere specimens. 
 
 In 1677, Andrew Yarrenton, in his then popular work (England's 
 Improvement), says of the woollen trade, " Their (the foreigners) 
 making cloth of cheap wool, and cheap victuals, will outdo us, and 
 undo us too, if not timely prevented," p. 20. 
 
 " No news but the old news, a bad trade," p. 97. 
 
 The same author said, just a hundred and fifty years ago, what I 
 will venture to say has been asserted every year since : " The 
 coarse cloth trade is quite spoiled by the German manufactures," 
 
 p. no. 
 
 Fifty years afterwards, we find that there were several other 
 countries ; " The French, in particular, supplanting Britain in many 
 markets abroad." (Dobbs, Essay on Trade, p. 7, 1729.) 
 
 Sir Matthew Decker is quite copious on this subject, and has 
 now become too popular a writer with our economists to render it 
 necessary for me to quote him. 
 
 Nearly half a century after the last date, we perceive that it had 
 been actually calculated that foreigners could carry on most 
 branches of trade twenty-five per cent, cheaper than we could 
 " owing to the dearness of all the necessaries of life, for many years 
 past." (Present State of Great Britain, Pref., parti., page 6, &c.) 
 
 It is not necessary to multiply these quotations ; they abound in all 
 books upon the subject of trade, and in all representations and 
 petitions upon it : it is still less needful to bring down the proofs to 
 the present period, which the reader's recollection can fully supply. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 337 
 
 patronage from agriculture I" At first the withdrawal 
 of the bounties on that interest was only required. 
 But the spirit survives^ and now demands the destruc- 
 tion of the not very adequate protection which it 
 still enjoys. Such, I say, have been the complaints 
 during the very period in which British commerce was 
 all the while rising to an unexampled pitch of great- 
 ness and prosperity, which was doubtless owing in 
 a great measure to the wisdom of the course the 
 country so long pursued, and which nothing will 
 endanger or destroy, but an opposite policy. One 
 advantage has certainly accrued from the continued 
 agitation of this subject, if we know how to avail our- 
 selves of it : it has directed to it the attention, and 
 drawn forth the deliberate judgment upon it, of some 
 of the ablest and most practical men that have ever 
 lived in this or any other country ; and with the views 
 of a few only of these, I will illustrate the argument 
 touching the patronage which low prices would be 
 likely to confer on trade and commerce. 
 
 Locke observes, that the frugality and industry of 
 the Dutch, and consequently their prosperity, was 
 attributable to the high price of provisions amongst 
 them ; and hence, " they could buy our rape-seed, 
 make it into oil, and sell it cheaper than we could \" 
 The celebrated Ray attributes their prosperity to the 
 same cause, " the dearness of provisions enforcing 
 general industry ^" 
 
 Sir William Temple, who had the instructive lesson 
 which that people held forth to all Europe so long 
 
 ' Locke, Considerations on the lowering of Interest, p. 16, 
 * Ivay, Observations on a Joumi v, &c. p. 51. 
 
 Z 
 
338 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^XIV. 
 
 before his cyes^ has^, amongst many other remarks to 
 the same effect_, these words : " If we talk of indus- 
 try, we are still as much to seek what it is that makes 
 people industrious in one country, and idle in another. 
 I conceive the true original and grounds of trade to 
 be, great multitudes of people crowded into a small 
 compass of land, whereby all things necessary to life 
 become dear\" The same author, speaking of Ire- 
 land, says, '^ in order to advance trade, provisions 
 must be rendered so dear as to enforce general 
 industry ^." 
 
 ^' The reason," says an intelligent author of a later 
 period, and an enlightened advocate of trade, ^^ why 
 commerce seldom flourishes in a fertile country is, 
 because, land there being of small value, provisions 
 are cheap and plentiful ^." 
 
 " It is a certain fact," says another writer, '* that ma- 
 nufactures never flourished in countries where bread^ 
 and consequently other provisions are very cheap'*." 
 
 To such authorities as these might be added, were 
 it necessary, the names of Sir William Petty *, Sir 
 Joshua Child ^, Gee'^, and many others^, who wrote 
 on the most important topics connected with our 
 national policy. I shall, however, only add two others ; 
 and first, Dr. Franklin, whose sagacity on such 
 
 ' Sir William Temple, Works, vol. i. p. 60 (folio edit.) 
 
 * Ibid. vol. i. p. 114. It is somewhat singular that a later writer 
 upon Ireland observes, that " the linen manufacture never flourishes 
 when oatmeal is cheap : the greatest exports of linen are when it 
 is dearest," p. 101. 
 
 ^ Vindication of Commerce and the Arts, p. 35. 
 
 * Farmer's Letters, p. 3(3. ^ Petty, Tracts, p. 240. 
 ^ Child, Essay on Trade, pref. xi., p. 17, &c. 
 
 ' Gee, On the Trade, &c. p. 17. 
 
 * Yarrenton, England's Improvement, p. .'53, 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 339 
 
 matters, few, I think, will dispute. '^ Cheapness of 
 provisions," says he, '^ makes the common people 
 idle, and less work is done^" And lastly, Malte- 
 Brun makes this striking remark^ in his elaborate 
 geographical work : ''The facility with which food is 
 procured, obstructs the growth of industry and the 
 arts^" 
 
 (25.) But these last quotations remind me of what I 
 should have regretted to have forgotten. We must 
 do justice ; the advocates of low prices, or, in other 
 words, of unlimited importation, have no intention 
 whatever of thus interfering with the necessity 
 of industry in the lower orders. As a subject of de- 
 clamation, low prices are brought forward promi- 
 nently enough ; but when we look for their expla- 
 nation in the '^ science of political economy," the mask 
 of superior humanity falls off, and cheap prices are 
 contended for in order that low wages may be en- 
 forced : so that no good whatever would result to the 
 labourers of the kingdom expecting what is promised 
 in their hypothesis as a future contingency of their 
 system ; a prophecy which experience has again con- 
 tradicted. Cheap places, in all fully settled countries, 
 have been hitherto those in which the working poor 
 have been the most degraded and depressed ; and 
 cheap times those in which they have been the most 
 wretched. These facts, of such paramount impor- 
 tance, if the question is to be placed on the basis of 
 humanity, have been constantly asserted, and I believe 
 never disputed by those of our best writers who 
 
 ' Dr. Fnmklln, Works, vol. ii. p. 166. 
 ^ Mnltp-Bnm. Coog-. b. xxiii. p. 60-2. 
 
 7 2 
 
340 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIV. 
 
 have paid the closest attention to the subject, and 
 who were equally well qualified to judge by their intel- 
 ligence and humanity^ ; and 1 shall only confirm my 
 appeal to such by one more modern observer, who, in 
 the new world as well as the old, seems to have paid 
 particular attention to the condition of the working 
 classes, I mean M. Simond: he comes to this con- 
 clusion ; " the low relative price of food is disadvan- 
 tageous to the poor'^." 
 
 To show how slightly the contemplated lowering of 
 the agricultural values of the country would aifect the 
 cost of goods on the general average, as now manu- 
 factured, I had entered into some rather minute cal- 
 culations ; but they are rendered unnecessary, as well as 
 most of my preceding arguments, by the view of the 
 subject which immediately follows. 
 
 Granting all that is asserted, and to its fullest ex- 
 tent, by those who contend that our manufactures only 
 continue to exist and prosper upon a principle of 
 competition, into which the price of food enters so 
 deeply, let us see to what their own doctrine leads. 
 The truer it is, the more disastrous and fatal must 
 be its consequences. 
 
 If our foreign trade can only prosper by enabling 
 our workmen to live as cheap, it will follow as inevi- 
 tably, that it can only continue to do so, by necessi- 
 tating them to live as low as their foreign rivals. 
 And the latter necessity is, on any such principle, 
 
 * See Sir J. Child's Essay on Trade, pref. xi. p. 17, &c. Sir 
 William Davenant's Ways and Means, p. 125. Yarrenton's Eng- 
 land Improved, p. 53. Dr. Franklin, Essays, vol. ii. p. 160, &c. 
 
 2 Simond, Travels, &c. p. 388. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 341 
 
 unhappily far more urgent than the former, inasmuch 
 as the difference in the nature and quahty of the food 
 of Englishmen, compared with that of these foreign 
 competitors, is far greater than the difference in its 
 price. Let a Frenchman and an Englishman, for in- 
 stance, each preserving their respective habits of life, 
 supply themselves at the same market prices ; and the 
 former, contenting himself principally with a vegetable 
 diet, will subsist on less than half the sum which the 
 latter must expend, to preserve in like manner his ac- 
 customed comforts. The difference becomes, perhaps, 
 still more striking, if the comparison be extended to 
 the other branches of their expenditure, such as their 
 clothes, furniture, and habitations. For the truth of 
 this statement, I may appeal to all who may have 
 entered their respective dwellings. 
 
 If, then, it be necessary, in order to promote or se- 
 cure our foreign trade, that our manufacturers should 
 feed as cheap as the continental ones, I say it is at 
 least twice as necessary that they should live as poor ; 
 and then, since, after all, the lower ranks are the great 
 consumers as well as the producers, what becomes of 
 our internal industry, either agricultural or manufac- 
 turing? It needs no reply, nor, indeed, can sophism 
 invent one : ruin awaits both. If this, therefore, be 
 the final consequence of adopting the principles and 
 policy of the new school, better would it be for England 
 were Berkley's wall of brass thrown round our Island, 
 to protect its abused inhabitants from a system whose 
 tendency is to depress them to the level of the lowest, 
 the cheapest, and the most beggarly country that it 
 can discover; constantly starting such as the competitor 
 
342 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIV. 
 
 of England. The products of human industry, in 
 which we can compete triumphantly, are many and 
 important ; there are others again to which competition 
 would be ruin : our ancestors carefully made the dis- 
 tinction, and the nation profited, and whole classes 
 of the community were preserved, by this policy. 
 Enough of the products of human industry remain, on 
 which to found the principle of a large and liberal in- 
 tercourse ; and these Nature herself clearly indicates by 
 a fair but different distribution of her varying bounties. 
 But she has been more merciful than to constitute the 
 staff of life one of these her peculiar gifts ; nay, she has 
 interposed great, and what the advocates of impor- 
 tation would fain represent as insuperable, obstacles 
 against a nation's relying upon the broken reed of 
 foreign supply for its daily bread. But on this subject 
 more hereafter : in the mean time we are told, by our 
 political economists, that things will find their own 
 level, if left to themselves. This is true, and it is for 
 this very reason that we object to their policy and 
 their plans ; we do not wish to see the peasantry of 
 England, under their skilful management, balanced 
 with the boors of Russia. As far as the system has 
 already gone, it has sunk the middle ranks, once the 
 strength of the country, into the lees and dregs of 
 wretchedness ; while, in these national agitations, the 
 bubbles have risen from beneath, and covered the 
 surface of society with froth. 
 
 (26.) But the financial obstacles in the way of a free 
 trade in corn, and cheap prices, did none else inter- 
 pose, are insuperable. To say not a single word about 
 the disposable revenues of the country, and which, we 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 343 
 
 are at present informed, cannot be materially reduced ^, 
 let us advert to its fixed incumbrances, I mean its debt, 
 amounting to considerably above 800 millions sterling ; 
 a trifle, vrhich the partisans of the new system rarely 
 think it worth while to recollect, in any of their argu- 
 ments and calculations. 
 
 That the value of the real property of the country, 
 or, in other words, of its products, determines in great 
 measure all other values throughout the whole king- 
 dom, the settled incumbrances alone excepted (and 
 even those, though in a ratio directly adverse, gene- 
 rally speaking, to the other national interests), few, I 
 helieve, will controvert : so at least argue the par- 
 tisans of the new system, even as it regards the value 
 of the products of the steam-engine, and would per- 
 suade us to act accordingly. Now, to reduce these 
 values, at once, throughout a whole country, entirely 
 unincumbered, would render that country neither 
 richer nor poorer: it would, indeed^ by greatly altering 
 the proportionate value of real property, and all 
 money debts and engagements, involve hundreds of 
 thousands of individuals in distress and ruin ; but 
 the depression of these would only be the elevation of 
 others, which is just what our political economists 
 mean by things finding their own level. But, touching 
 the national incumbrance, unexampled in magnitude in 
 the history of human aifairs, these projected altera- 
 tions would become, in their issue, matters of over- 
 whelming import ; just as they should have the effect 
 of lowering the money value of the real property of 
 the empire, would they increase the pressure ot its 
 ' See Edinburgh Review for October, 18'27. 
 
344 IRELAND; ITS EVILSV, [ XIV. 
 
 fixed debt. Where is the man of common sense that 
 dares deny this ? To the pointy therefore ; England 
 has a debt of upwards of 800 milHons, the interest of 
 which she has engaged to discharge, not by a " corn 
 rent," but by a fixed sum of money, say 28 milhons 
 per annum. This debt, if it be ever repaid at all, must 
 be repaid in great measure from the real property of 
 the country : it will appear that even its interest is 
 mainly provided for from that quarter, when the wealth 
 of the country is traced to its source. Locke, speaking 
 of land, in reference to the public incumbrance, says, 
 ''^ there at last it will terminate^;" and observes, that 
 "taxes, however contrived, and out of whose hands 
 soever immediately taken, do, for the most part, ter- 
 minate upon land^." He "challenges any one to show 
 him a country" where it is otherwise^; and still he had 
 Holland before his eyes, and, indeed, in his full recol- 
 lection at the time, for he had just been alluding to 
 it. I am fully aware that this doctrine is no longer 
 considered orthodox, though the theorists who im- 
 pugn it will just as readily overturn it, as they can his 
 Essay on the human understanding. But, to defer to 
 their superior light ; supposing the share of the debt, 
 falling on the real property of the nation, to amount 
 to 600 millions only, of the whole, and as other values, 
 as before observed, are principally regulated by that 
 of land and its products, the remaining property of the 
 I'^ingdom (exclusive of its coin, which is a trifle in 
 this argument) is placed in precisely the same predi- 
 cament, as that about to be explained ; supposing we 
 
 ' Locke, Considerations on the lowerina: of Interest, Works, 
 vol. ii. p. 29. ' Ibid. p. 27. ^^ [bid, p. 30. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 845 
 
 estimate the annual value of the land, including 
 ''^ housing," at 50 millions, and allow this to pay rather 
 less than 3i per cent., which, considering the nature of 
 the latter property, is, I think, not too high an esti- 
 mate; then the real property of the country would 
 amount to about 1,340 millions about forty pounds 
 an acre for the cultivated land, including houses. 
 A fall of one half in the value of the produce*, the 
 value of property sinking in the same proportion, or 
 anything like it, would occasion a national bank- 
 ruptcy. Assuming, in the first place, the worth of 
 the real property of the country to be 1,340 millions, 
 chargeable with its share of the public debt, 600 mil- 
 lions, the value of its unincumbered part would of 
 course be 740 millions : but, reduce the value of the 
 former one-half, and the clear value remaining would 
 be reduced to one-tenth of the former sum, and would 
 amount only to 70 millions ; a sum totally inadequate 
 to sustain its possessors, or even to substantiate, prac- 
 
 ' Perhaps this supposition may be thought extravagant; but if 
 the prices of corn on the continent are attended to, it may appear 
 otherwise. Even within a few hours' sail of us, in the ports of 
 Holland, wheat seems to be little more than a third of its value 
 here. (See Returns of British Consuls, Paper No. 42, &c.) But 
 it is still preferable to appeal to facts, where they can be obtained, 
 rather than to rely on reasonings, however apparently clear and 
 conclusive they may be. We have already seen that Mr. Canning 
 attributed the " extraordinary depression" in the English market, 
 which continued for three years afterwards, to the influx of foreign 
 corn in 1818 and 1819. The extent of that depression we can 
 easily ascertain; it is a matter of record. In the year preceding, 
 viz., 1817, when the importation commenced, wheat was 94s. 9d.: 
 in the year 1822, to which Mr. Canning asserted the influence of 
 that importation extended, having regularly fallen during the 
 whole time, it had sunk to 435. 3c?. But the very proposition of 
 abandoning the poorer soils, which the political economists now 
 always connect with the question, sufficiently substantiates the 
 correctness of the foregoing view of the subject. 
 
346 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 tically, their claims upon the property thus reduced 
 in value. These sums and proportions may not be 
 at all correct, nor do I contend that they are ; but, 
 under every possible rectification, the result of the 
 measure would be the same, national bankruptcy. 
 
 (27.) To enforce the preceding statement by a 
 striking illustration, or rather demonstration, for such 
 it will appear when duly considered : In many parts 
 of India, the produce of the land is, after the har- 
 vest, collected into a heap, from which the various 
 claimants take their respective shares. This, how- 
 ever disguised by the artificial expedients of money 
 or paper payments, is virtually the case everywhere. 
 It is so here, even according to the showing of our 
 political economists. How stands the case, then, in 
 reference to England and its public debt ? At the 
 termination of the war, the nation had to pay its cre- 
 ditors in wheat, out of its heap, calculated on the 
 average price of twenty preceding years, during which 
 so large a portion of the debt had been contracted, 
 about fifty-five millions of bushels. Twelve years 
 afterwards, in 1826, being the last which I have 
 examined the averages of, we were paying these 
 creditors, out of the same heap, eighty millions of 
 bushels. This has become sufficiently onerous. But 
 our projectors have discovered a singular method of 
 lightening the burden ; they propose that (by throw- 
 ing lands out of cultivation) we should greatly dimi- 
 nish the national heap, and, at the same time, double 
 the claims upon it. In reducing the whole incum- 
 brance into measures of wheat, as is done in many 
 other calculations, I am illustrating the case rather 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 347 
 
 than accurately explaining it ; were 1 enabled to do the 
 latter^ the proposition would be still more odious. 
 That part of the national incumbrance which is paid 
 more directly by human labour, whether manufactur- 
 ing or agricultural, (and it is now argued no incon- 
 siderable proportion of it is so provided for,) demands 
 an increase of that labour to a like extent. Allowing^ 
 as our political economists contend, that the price of 
 labour is, in a great degree, determined by that of 
 corn, the workmen of England would, under the 
 bperation of this universal reduction of prices, have to 
 contribute so many more days' labour, in order to 
 discharge their quota of the fixed incumbrance, as 
 that difference amounted to. 
 
 (28.) But it is very seldom that the national debt 
 is alluded to at all in these discussions, although it is 
 that which renders the corn question so tremendously 
 momentous in its bearings. It is, however, noticed 
 in a late number of a periodical work, which, I under- 
 stand, is with many reckoned great authority ; and 
 where, consequently, one may expect to find the 
 question I am considering presented in its plainest 
 and most forcible form. It therefore behoves me, 
 while on this subject, to examine, and I shall do so 
 as briefly as possible, the article in question. And^ 
 first, it must be remarked, that the whole argument 
 amounts to a full admission that the country, under its 
 present circumstances, cannot possibly dispense with 
 protection to its agriculture no, not even should 
 its own proposition be acceded to ; as^ after making 
 the effort recommended, it is still proposed to retain 
 
348 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 a " constant duty of 5s. or 6s, a quarter*;" so that 
 we are, after all, united, it appears, on the general 
 principle ; the difference being only as to the mea- 
 sure of its application. As to the mode by which 
 it is proposed to overcome the difficulty : it is one 
 which would have fully confirmed me in all my 
 preceding views on the subject, had I entertained 
 doubts respecting them ; and which I think would, 
 and I am sure ought to, have brought me over to 
 them, had I previously held contrary opinions : for, 
 assuredly, never was there a proposition submitted 
 to the public, fraught with more folly and unfairness, 
 than the one which is levelled against agriculture, in 
 the article I have just been perusing. Passing over 
 much that is positively incomprehensible, such as a 
 sum of ten or twenty millions per annum, now in 
 actual circulation amongst us, being '^ wasted without 
 advantage to any individual whatever, and in fact as 
 much destroyed, as if it were cast into the fire or the 
 sea^," I shall merely allude, at present, to the direct 
 proposition respecting the corn-laws. It seems to be 
 acknowledged, that these cannot be materially altered 
 without a great reduction in the national debt ; and a 
 reduction to the amount of one-half of that debt is 
 proposed. 
 
 First, then, as to the calculations of the scheme. 
 The debt is estimated at 760 millions, and, as I under- 
 stand the article, the other property of the United 
 Kingdom at 2,330 millions ; an assessment of 12 per 
 cent, on the whole of which, it is said, " would be 
 about adequate to discharge the half of the existing 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 401. * Ibid, p. 402. 
 
^XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 349 
 
 public debt of tbe country \*' But if tbe public ac- 
 counts are correctly published, or are to be understood 
 and relied upon, I find^ in 1826^ the public debt (for 
 it would be idle not to include the outstanding and 
 unfunded part of it) standing thus : 
 
 Capitals unredeemed 778,128,267 
 
 Unfunded Debt 35,849,588 
 
 813,977,855^ 
 Exclusive, it is stated, of 5,548,817 exchequer bills, 
 to be issued ; exclusive, also, I should suppose, of 
 the debt due to the Bank, and that which, by a curious 
 misnomer, goes under the name of the " dead 
 weight :" may it be a living one, as long as nature 
 will permit ; the debt of justice and of gratitude, 
 which a grateful country pays to its veteran defenders, 
 will be the last of which she will complain ! These 
 additional items will, I fear, augment the incum- 
 brances of the country to a formidable extent. But, 
 excluding them altogether, and taking the whole debt 
 at only 814 milHons, and the property of the country, as 
 estimated, at 2,330 millions^, twelve per cent, on both 
 would amount to377,2 ^0,000, leaving J'436,720,000 ; 
 rather more than half, according to arithmetic, but 
 involving a very trifling mistake, however, compared 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, No. xcii, p. 408. 
 
 * Hansard, Pari. Papers, vol. xv. pp. xi. and xix. Since writing 
 the above, I have seen the statement, made by the Right Honourable 
 Robert Peel, which stands thus : 
 
 Capitals unredeemed 777,476,000 
 
 Amount of the unfunded debt outstandino- . 34,770,000 
 
 812,246,000 
 To this sum must be added the items mentioned above; and, 
 if we are to break up the " monopolies," I should presume the East 
 India debt, &c. 
 
 ^ Edinburgh Review, \o. xcii. p. 408. 
 
350 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 with those which arc fallen into in making up this 
 ^'half." 
 
 To say little at present about the proposal of the 
 plunder of the property of great numbers of our fel- 
 low-subjects, who, under the direct encouragement 
 of the legislature, have embarked their capital in 
 what our writer calls " monopolies," (which, however^ 
 are monopolies of this peculiar character, that they 
 are open to any individual who may choose to partici- 
 pate in them) ; and to advert, principally, to the way 
 in which it is proposed to deal with agriculture : 
 talking about '' the forced cultivation of the inferior 
 soils" (and pray what cultivation is there that is not 
 forced ?) it is intimated that they should go out of that 
 state. As this is the favourite and perpetually repeated 
 maxim of the whole school, it becomes a matter 
 of much importance to inquire what proportion of 
 the country they mean to include in this comparative 
 mode of description ; and what is the amount of 
 " the inferior soils," the " poorer land," which, accord- 
 ing to the notion of these patriots, must be ^'^aban- 
 doned:" but on this important subject we are left in 
 the dark. We know what is properly so called is by 
 far the largest quantity every where. Even in the 
 Pays-de-Waes, " incontestably the richest part of 
 Flanders V and consequently of Europe, if not of 
 the world, "three-eighths only are considered goodV* 
 certainly nothing like so large a proportion could be 
 so denominated in England. Mr. Ricardo certainly 
 
 * Abb6 Mann, Memoir on the Agric. of Flanders, in his Com- 
 munications to the Board of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 234. 
 
 * RadclifF, Report of the Agric. of Flanders, p. 162. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 351 
 
 speaks out upon this point : he divides our soils, by 
 way of exemplifying this idea of throwing lands out 
 of cultivation, into six classes, putting half of them 
 out in regular gradation ; namely, the sixth, fifth, and 
 fourth, by a continued fall of prices, which importation, 
 it is not meant to be denied, would occasion ; and 
 he adds these ominous words, and so on\ These 
 poorer soils, all such writers complain, require more 
 hands to cultivate than the richer ones. This fact 
 is conceded, and let it be borne in mind. What is 
 it, then, that this constantly repeated proposal of 
 putting the inferior soils out of cultivation amounts 
 to ? To speak quite within the bounds of probability 
 and truth^ it amounts, on their own principle, to this : 
 to depriving, ultimately, a great proportion of the 
 farmers of England of their calling, and a vast mul- 
 titude of the labourers of England of work ; and, 
 consequently, that proportion of both classes, and 
 their families, of their daily bread. Supposing we 
 were to admit that much of the land, abandoned as 
 corn-fields, would be then depastured, he knows 
 nothing of his subject who would argue that this 
 would continue the latter in employment: *' It is 
 husbandry" alone, as Sir Thomas More says, that 
 ^' requireth many hands ^." But what are all these 
 considerations, " to the cool-blooded calculators of 
 the day ;" '' Worshippers," as Burke exclaims, " of 
 trade and commerce, which," says he, " are the 
 
 ' Ricardo, Principles of Polit. Econ., p. 314. 
 
 ^ Utopia, p. 60. Montesquieu says " Pasture lands find employ- 
 ment only for a few. Corn lands employ a g;reat many men." 
 (Esp. des Loix, 1. xxiii. c. 14.) For the ditlerence in the proportion, 
 see Farmer's Letters, pp. 45 84, 149. 
 
352 tRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 gods of our political economists'." The grey-headed 
 exiles^ unknowing of any other employment, and 
 not able to obtain any, if they could learn it, with 
 their destitute families, are no impediment in the 
 plans of these enlightened patriots ; they will '^ find 
 their own level!" and while the poor wretches are 
 rapidly sinking to it, these heartless system-mongers 
 earnestly advise the nation to withdraw all charitable 
 assistance from them, and teach the wealthy and the 
 fortunate, as far as in them lies, to exclaim concerning 
 such in the ears of an offended Deity, '^ Am I my 
 brother's keeper ?" 
 
 And not only would millions be thrown out of em- 
 ment and bread by this proposition, but, what I am 
 happy to see appears a heinous offence in the sight 
 of our reviewer, as it regards the stock-holder, multi- 
 tudes would be deprived of their property ; the little 
 freeholders of the kingdom, as before observed, prin- 
 cipally owning the worser soils, and the great landed 
 proprietors the richer tracts of country. This writer, 
 being in all respects an economist, means to ac- 
 complish two objects at the same time. He proposes 
 to be at once humane and liberal at the expense of 
 others the East and West India proprietors. He 
 proceeds, however, as all others invariably do who have 
 similar purposes, by commencing with an attack upon 
 character, when property has to be struck at. *^They " 
 (the West Indians, I presume) " are fosterers of a 
 system of slavery." To be sure they are, and Eng- 
 land, from the first, fostered them in it. I am for 
 abolition, and ever have been, but not in the way of 
 ' Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, p. 117. 
 
XIV.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 353 
 
 spoliation, but by contributing cheerfully my honest 
 share towards carrying into effect so godlike an act : 
 so that the national justice should be unsullied, while 
 its humanity was exalted ; and the merit of the act 
 shared by a generous people that wills its accom- 
 plishment. Then the East Indian proprietors, 
 they, it seems, are *^ pampered and supported" at the 
 expense of " the nation." I, too, wish to see India 
 governed in the name of George the Fourth ; but I 
 should never dream of the nation's taking possession 
 of the property of the Company, without taking at 
 the same time to its debts : and I do not perceive 
 that this calculator has made any provision for this 
 item either, immense as it is in its present amount \ 
 But to litturn to our little freeholder, what has he 
 done ? Why he belongs, it seems, to ^'^ a caste :" 
 reasons are given, not very creditable either to his 
 character as a man or a Christian, why many thou- 
 sands of such should, throughout the kingdom, be 
 disbanded^. And this once I give the projector cre- 
 dit for some considerable share of prudence and just 
 calculation : meditating the robbery of this " caste" 
 (now, for the very first time, as I believe, insulted as a 
 
 ' I cannot refrain here from pausing a moment, to put a case. 
 I ha\xMn my eye two neighbours: one a large stock-holder ; the 
 reviewer speaks very becomingly about the profligacy of attempting 
 to lessen his demand, or deprive him of any part of his just claims. 
 Another has her all (for she is a widow A\ilh a family) in East 
 India Stock : this, as far as I can understand the proposal about 
 monopolies, is to be seized, or at least rendered valueless, by the 
 annihilation of the " monopoly," for the public benefit. 1 confess 
 I cannot discern why the Government of the country should ruin 
 and starve the latter, alter having hitherto " pampered and sup- 
 ported " her. for the purpose of serving the former. 
 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 398. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XIV. 
 
 body), it was well to recommend that they should be 
 disarmed. But, seriously ; tens of thousands of these 
 yeomen have bought their little property under the 
 operation of that system of laws which, protecting 
 the home grower, fixed and guaranteed, as far as 
 legislation could do so, its value_, but which, it seems, 
 is now, for the public good_, to go out of cultivation, 
 and its value consequently be annihilated. If this 
 principle is to be adopted respecting property, why 
 need there be any difficulty about the public debt? 
 Annihilate the claims of all the creditors, at least the 
 lesser ones, at once. Perhaps this idea has not been 
 entirely overlooked in a calculation that makes 289 
 milhons about the "half of the existing public debt V' 
 and 760 the whole ofit^ # 
 
 Thus is it, that, in the propositions of our modern 
 patriots, the humble interests of this numerous 
 " caste," the little freeholders of England and Ireland, 
 are wholly lost sight of. Those of the mere tenant 
 have now and then been alluded to. Mr. Ricardo, I 
 think, somewhere says, that their capital might be 
 gradually withdrawn : but how much of it would 
 remain, when the land, on which it has been sunk, 
 goes out of cultivation ; how it is^ in such cases, to be 
 withdrawn, and where it is to be withdrawn to, are 
 matters on which he has not entered. He does, in- 
 deed, say, that his implements, such as carts, &c., 
 might be sold, and in what a market ! all sellers and 
 not a buyer ! The idea is laughable, only that it 
 involves in it that universal distress which Sir 
 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 408. ^ Ibid. p. 407. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 355 
 
 Thomas More so accurately described and so feelingly 
 deplored ; when, prompted by the same selfish policy, 
 lands were put out of tillage in his day, and turned 
 into sheep-walks : were the same course to be again 
 pursued, the consequences would be still more ap- 
 palling. 
 
 But to return to the proposition of our reviewer. 
 Schemes, such as that proposed, are generally accom- 
 panied with their proper antidote. In this instance, 
 the meditated iniquity is neutralized by manifest imbe- 
 cility. Notwithstanding, it must be apparent to a 
 child, first, that the land which this plan would put 
 out of cultivation, would be deprived of its value ; 
 secondly, that the value or rent of the part which 
 should still remain in cultivation, would be propor- 
 tionably diminished ; a fact which Mr. Ricardo him- 
 self has fully explained and proved ; and thirdly, that 
 the price of labour, and consequently of all artificial 
 productions, would be similarly diminished. Still, our 
 projector, in levying his twelve per cent, on all the 
 property of the kingdom, in order to pay off half (as 
 he calculates) the national debt, has valued all the 
 lands which his own project is to throw out of culti- 
 vation, and all those which may still remain in that 
 state, though proportionably reduced (to say nothing 
 about other descriptions of property), at their full 
 value, when universally cultivated, and that value so 
 prodigiously advanced by what is called a monopoly 
 price for their products ! He calculates, as I under- 
 stand him, that the value of the corn annually con- 
 sumed in the United Kingdom, by adopting his proposal 
 (which still would leave a *' constant duty of 5?. or 6s. 
 
 2 A 2 
 
350 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^ XIV. 
 
 a quarter on importation^"), would 8ink upwards of 
 nineteen millions ; a sum which, he says, is very con- 
 siderably underrated : much of our supply would 
 therefore come from abroad ; and yet, in his proposed 
 impost, he values the corn-lands of the kingdom, as 
 well those that shall be thrown out of cultivation, 
 as those that may remain in that state, upon the old 
 " monopoly" scale. Nor does the absurdity end here ; 
 it has barely entered upon its career: entertaining, 
 for a moment, the idea of our projectors, that some 
 of the lands thrown out of tillage would be employed 
 in pasturage, in addition to those already so occupied 
 (and, if not, they must be utterly lost to the coun- 
 try), the deterioration in the price of the vegetable 
 product, corn, would be trifling, compared with that 
 of the animal products of the country, forming such 
 an enormous item of national consumption. The 
 former is to sink, at the very least, .19,200,000; 
 how much then must the latter be reduced? And yet 
 these reductions, neither in one case nor the other, 
 vast as they must necessarily be, and proportionally 
 depreciating the money-value, at all events, of all the 
 real property of the kingdom, are once taken info 
 consideration. All the calculations are made upon 
 the data of the old system, the high prices which it 
 is the very purpose of the proposition to abolish. 
 Without entering into a single computation, it is pal- 
 pably plain that the remaining part of the debt would 
 press far heavier on the property of the countiy than 
 the whole of it now does ; and the nation w ould have 
 to exclaim, in the language of an ancient poet, though 
 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 409. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 357 
 
 applied in a far different sense, namely, in maintaining 
 the cause of minute cultivation, instead of opposing 
 it '^ the half is more than the whole." 
 
 But as my primary intent, in defending the interests 
 of our national agriculture, is the preservation of 
 Ireland, I must not pass by the proposition as it 
 affects that couijtry; neither, indeed, does the re- 
 viewer. '^ As the whole empire,'* says he, " would be 
 benefited every part of it ought to contribute 
 equally to that great object'." Ireland, I need 
 not repeat, is almost exclusively agricultural ; how 
 she would be " benefited" by having the present 
 protection of her industry and products withdrawn, 
 and ten times the number of her population ad- 
 mitted as her rivals and competitors in the British 
 market^ is not explained. She is valued, however, on 
 the foregoing system_, at 333 millions sterling ; and it 
 is proposed to mulct her of nearly fifty of those mil- 
 lions, for the "benefit" of being deprived of her 
 present " monopoly !" 
 
 To say nothing, then, about the little freeholders of 
 the United Kingdom, who would be undone ; the lease- 
 holders whose property would be destroyed ; the 
 mortgagers who would be ruined ; the multitudes of 
 simple contract debtors who would be sacrificed ; 
 without a single whisper about any compromise or 
 compensation, in any of these cases : to mention not 
 a word about the cruel attempt to brand, with the 
 opprobrious terms of odious monopolies, interests in 
 which the all of numbers has been embarked under 
 the continued encouragement and protection of the 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 408. 
 
358 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 country and its laws ; not to dwell upon the shame- 
 lessness of the proposal of taxing the lands of the 
 kingdom^ at present cultivated^ at their full value, for 
 the direct purpose of making a part of them of no 
 value at all, and greatly reducing that of the remain- 
 der; totally to divest ourselves, I say, of common feel- 
 ing, as well as common honesty, what becomes of the 
 practicability of such a scheme ? Why, even on paper, 
 where almost every hypothesis works well, this mani- 
 fests its absurdity. A man that can estimate the 
 value of land, when its produce shall have sunk in 
 price, as it is anticipated it would, as high as it was 
 rated at under the monopoly so much inveighed 
 against ; and, moreover, that bates not a farthing for 
 those lands, now in full cultivation, but which, it is 
 then plainly intimated, would not be cultivated at all, 
 but abandoned, is indeed a most singular sort of a 
 surveyor ; he would value the Goodwin Sands at 
 their worth in the days of the Conqueror, when they 
 were covered with verdure or glowing with cultiva- 
 tion. Such proposals as these, for paying off the 
 national debt, might have proceeded from some 
 learned and patriotic professor of the college of La- 
 puta. And yet this writer can sneer at such men as 
 " Lords Lauderdale, Malmesbury," and others of " our 
 hereditary legislators ^," which, perhaps, may be deemed 
 a sufficient example and apology for the freedom 
 which I have, in turn, taken with him. He mentions 
 Bonaparte ; has he forgotten his maxim upon the 
 subject under consideration, and what he made the 
 a^rand basis of all national prosperity? 
 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. xcii. p. 402. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 359 
 
 Thus is it, that our political economists of the pre- 
 sent day fearlessly contradict common sense ; pour 
 contempt upon the authority of the greatest and 
 wisest men our country has ever produced, and ridi- 
 cule a course of policy hy which the nation has pro- 
 gressively risen to the highest pitch of happiness and 
 prosperity. Authorities rise into notice^ not for their 
 solidity and truth, but, like aeronauts, on the principle 
 of levity; many look up, and admire the more, the 
 less they see and understand ; till at length our politi- 
 cal economists are elevated into oracles. '^ These be 
 thy gods, O Israel!" 
 
 To conclude the pecuniary part of the argument : 
 while England has the immense fixed debt which she 
 now sustains, to lower the value of the property of 
 the country, is, in the hke proportion, to increase the 
 incumbrance ; no sophistry can deny, no cunning 
 evade, this conclusion. If then, ages ago, it was 
 deemed, as we have seen, the duty of the true poli- 
 tician to support the value of the property of the 
 nation, it is a thousand-fold more indispensable to 
 do so at the present time\ Hence it becomes a 
 
 ' Perhaps, while on this subject, the author may be permitted to 
 briefly state the ideas he entertained on the subject of discharging 
 a part of the national debt ; which his friends will recollect was a 
 favourite subject with him, while it remained plainly practicable. It 
 was this. While the paper system of circulation was in full acti- 
 vity (a system under which much of the debt had been contracted), 
 and while, therefore, the nominal value of ail property and pro- 
 ducts was high, he would have assessed the property of the king- 
 dom one per cent, per annum, for ten successive years ; the debt 
 discharged would, of course, have been taken up in investments in 
 lands, sold for the purpose of such liquidation, which all its life- 
 possessors, as well as others, would have been empowered to do. 
 As the remission of taxes would have kept pace with this operation, 
 the burden would have been little felt, but the national good would 
 
360 IRELAND; ITS KVILS, [^I^'- 
 
 question of the deepest concernnieiit, even to touch 
 the circulating medium of the country ; and this should 
 not be done, I humbly conceive, with a view to di- 
 minish the money-values of the products of either 
 land or labour. Every thing should be attempted to 
 render it sound, nothing to contract it; a course which 
 seems perfectly clear, consistent, and practicable. But, 
 with regard to the proposition I have been consider- 
 ing, the very attempt to carry it into effect would be 
 universal confusion, and its accomplishment, ruin. 
 
 (29.) Finally : there is another, and a far more im- 
 portant reason against rendering this country de- 
 pendent upon others for an essential part of her 
 supply of bread, than any of those previously adduced, 
 however momentous they may be deemed in them- 
 selves, or their ultimate effects. It is this: we should, 
 by so doing, not only divest her of her present power, 
 and lower her commanding attitude, but we should 
 place her at the mercy of other nations. Not only 
 would the lives of her people, as Tacitus deplored 
 concerning the Romans, in their rich but degenerate 
 days, be dependent upon the winds and the waves, but 
 upon the still more uncertain policy of foreign coun- 
 tries. These, in a period of peace, on the occasion of 
 
 have been great. The labours of the bullion committee, however, 
 forestalled this measure, or rather rendered it impracticable, and 
 have, in their consequences, inflicted upon the country much of the 
 evils and difficulties it has encountered. Cash-payment, in the strict 
 sense of the term, I fear is but another word for an increase of the 
 debt, and a reduction of the value of the real property of the king- 
 dom. Could not a large issue of paper circulation for a certain 
 number of years still render this plan practicable ? But, even were 
 it accomplished, God forbid that the cultivators of England and 
 Ireland should be beaten out of their own market by the slaves of 
 Russia. 
 
XIV.] AM) THEIR HEMEDIES. *i(>l 
 
 any internal failure of produce, would, of course, as 
 has been already observed, serve themselves first ; but, 
 in a time of war, would not serve us, or be allowed to 
 serve us, at all. Look into the annals of the British 
 empire, and see how often and how long we have been 
 at war, and not always, it may be hoped, wrongfully. 
 If, then, the country which supplies us be in the 
 possession, or under the control of our enemies, in 
 what position will our political economists then have 
 placed us ? What will it avail, though the citadel of the 
 liberties of the world be still surrounded by impregnable 
 bulwarks, and garrisoned by a band of unconquerable 
 heroes, if it have to be victualled by its enemies ? Had 
 Britain then the heart of Hercules, or the hands of 
 Briareus, it would avail her nothing : some northern 
 despot, conscious of his power, and not averse to its 
 exercise, w^ould have only to speak the word, and the 
 courage that had awed the nations would become 
 tamed, and the power that had, in turn, chastised them 
 all, weakness itself. But even were these supplies 
 always derived, by a miraculously fortunate chance, 
 from countries not mingled up in hostilities against 
 us, still their constant receipt could be secured only 
 by the uninterrupted continuation of our naval supre- 
 macy, which another of the propositions of modern 
 policy is, I fear, far from guaranteeing ; or it must 
 depend on the issue of battles where, on our part, 
 the lives of myriads would be at stake, besides those 
 engaged in the conflict ; or, otherwise, on the state of 
 the weather and the changes of the wind. It is thus 
 that we are exhorted by our modern patriots, instead 
 of cultivatinir our native fields, and dothinir them with 
 
362 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 sufficient and unfailing harvests, to " sow to the 
 wind/ and reap of the whirlwind!" 
 
 (30). But it is in the very nature of all theories 
 never to be embarrassed with any difficulties ; these, 
 however numerous or important, can always be met 
 by accommodating the hypothesis to the occasion, or 
 obviating it altogether by a prophecy. Thus, on a 
 sudden emergency, like the one just anticipated, 
 though wheat requires so much longer a period, both 
 in the previous preparation of the land and in its 
 coming to maturity, than most other kinds of vege- 
 table food, still countries from which we had not pre- 
 viously purchased, and which, consequently_, had not 
 provided for our sudden demand, would doubtless be 
 able to supply us, would be willing so to do, and be 
 in a situation to act as they wished in this respect. 
 Or, if so many rather nice contingencies should, on so 
 vital a matter, rather alarm our apprehensions than 
 allay them ; why then our economists will promise us, 
 in future, a reign of uninterrupted peace, and prophesy 
 a political millennium; not one, indeed, in which we 
 shall beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears 
 into pruning-hooks, and every happy inhabitant shall 
 sit under the shadow of his own cultivation in peace 
 and plenty ; but one, on the contrary, in which the 
 implements of agriculture shall be converted into 
 ^^ big-bens" and " spinning-jennies;" and all shall sit 
 in the smoke of a steam-engine, and have their food 
 brought to them from afar, at least such whose labour 
 may be still demanded, and, amongst these, children and 
 women ! On which circumstances a few words are due. 
 Most writers and travellers have hitherto held it an 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 363 
 
 unequivocal mark of barbarism, wherever the sex has 
 been degraded into common drudges ; this, however, 
 our present civiHzed system has long had the gallantry 
 of doing in England, the effects of which^ in a moral 
 point of view, are too well known to need pointing 
 out or proving ; and not only so, but even children 
 are, by a solecism of speech, now become workmen_, 
 our language not having as yet accommodated us 
 with an appropriate word for the occasion. The 
 morning of life, which God and nature intended as a 
 time of mirth and pleasure, is made that of imprison- 
 ing, unhealthful, and demoralizing labour ; and our 
 political philanthropists wish to extend this system, 
 instead of encouraging cultivation ; though no doubt 
 their feelings would be severely shocked at seeing 
 such treatment transferred to the brute creation : 
 as, for instance, were the farmer, providing himself 
 with gearing and implements for the purpose^, daily 
 to labour a yearling foal at the plough, aye, and 
 nightly, if it suited his interests ; cruelty like this, to 
 animals, would excite universal sympathy and abhor- 
 rence, and probably travel the nation in ten thousand 
 paragraphs : it is thus our delicate susceptibilities find 
 a vent ! It is rather a melancholy task to trace the 
 progress of the new system ; to anticipate its ultimate 
 consequences, if every other interest amongst us must 
 give way to it, is most appalling. In the times of 
 ignorance, ^' Man went forth to his work in the 
 morning," he w^as the labourer of the family, and it 
 sufficed ; but now his infant children are demanded 
 to make up his necessary means of subsistence, and 
 too often become, not his assistants, but his rivals in 
 
364 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [^XIV. 
 
 the market of labour, to use the phrase of the times ; 
 so that himself is often now found there " all the day 
 idle, because no man hath hired him/* when the 
 fashionable system of policy coolly recommends his 
 desertion. In good times, as they are called, he sees 
 his children go forth to their work in the evening (to 
 save the capital of the machine owners), when the 
 benevolent law of nature, universally obeyed through- 
 out animated life^ is reversed as it regards those to 
 whom it is the most essential. To be sure, he has all 
 along been informed and assured that these things 
 were all for his advantage, especially when he has 
 thought otherwise^ and been turbulently disposed ; 
 but he has been the truer prophet and political econo- 
 mist : his labour has become less and less valuable_, 
 till he is at length pronounced, on high authority^ to 
 be redundant ; and measures are at this instant being 
 projected to send him out of his country. Inven- 
 tions which retain the pleasing appellation of '^ ma- 
 chines for shortening human labour," are, to all 
 intents and purposes, become machines for supplant- 
 ing it, as far as possible ; in one sense, indeed, they 
 are appropriately named, for they have the effect 
 of shortening life^ Contrivances to dispense with 
 this labour almost altogether are hailed as public be- 
 nefits, and eagerly adopted. On this subject I shall 
 not further express myself, but conclude with the lan- 
 guage of an able article on political economy in the 
 Edinburgh Encyclopedia: "All the workmen of Eng- 
 
 * I take, from the same county, the following statistical facts, 
 presenting the comparative law of population in an agricultural, 
 and in a manufacturing hundred, in the same county (Lancashire). 
 The numbers in each, at the ages specified, are calculated on a radix 
 
Ages 
 
 
 Under 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 to 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 70 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 80 
 
 
 
 90 
 
 10,000 
 
 
 8,180 
 
 - 908 
 
 7,481 
 
 + 30 
 
 6,483 
 
 105 
 
 9,781 
 
 222 
 
 7,046 
 
 - 921 
 
 5,050 
 
 791 
 
 3,130 
 
 1356 
 
 1,838 
 
 -1793 
 
 792 
 
 1070 
 
 177 
 
 40S 
 
 12 
 
 57 
 
 XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 305 
 
 land would be turned into the street, if the manufac- 
 
 of 10,000 children under five years of years, and are proportioned to 
 the census of 1821, as then discriminated into ages : 
 
 Hundred of Lonsdale, In the Manufacturing Differ- 
 North of the Sands, Hundred of Salford. ence. 
 
 10,000 
 9,088 
 7,451 
 6,588 
 10,003 
 7,967 
 5,841 
 4,486 
 3,631 
 1,862 
 585 
 90 and upwards 69 
 
 This table, exhibiting so astonishing a difference in the ratio of 
 mortality, does not include the great town of Manchester. Neverthe- 
 less, what a curtailment in the narrow span of human life does 
 it exhibit, and what sickness and sorrow does it not imply in that 
 contracted space ! The system begins to cut off life ere it reaches 
 its prime, tainting, if we may believe our highest medical authori- 
 ties, with those hereditary diseases which are already beginning 
 to manifest themselves, the constitution of the mass of the 
 people in such districts, and which may soon relieve our anti- 
 populationists from their fears as to futurity. But, supposing the 
 statistics of moral and political offences were added, which may 
 very easily be done, then what sort of a picture would be presented ! 
 These are of a still more appalling character. In the name, there- 
 fore, of philanthropy, patriotism, and religion, let those pause with 
 whom such feelings are still more sacred than mere mercenary con- 
 siderations, ere they plead for the extension of manufactures at 
 the expense of the agriculture of the country. I am aware that 
 other collateral calculations enter into the computations of the above 
 table; they are such, however, as, on the whole, will be found to 
 heighten the contrast. These will be attended to in a subsequent 
 publication, in which the subject will be found more largely dis- 
 cussed, and an opinion hazarded as to the proper remedy for that 
 which none can refrain acknowledging to be a great and growing 
 evil. Without entering into detail, the principle is this : Nature, 
 who for wise and benevolent purposes has rendered human beings 
 dependent upon each other's labour, has likewise accurately 
 balanced the wants that have to be supplied, by the number and 
 natural capability of those that have to supply them. But she has 
 not admitted into her calculations either infant or ii.tcessant labour. 
 Man, excited by the inordinate thirst of gain, has, to his disgrace, 
 resorted to both ; and he begins to be punished for disregarding 
 her dictates, and those of humanity, hy means of that over-pro- 
 
366 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XIV. 
 
 turers could employ steam-engines in their place at a 
 saving of five per cent \" 
 
 (31.) Much is said about arithmetic and geometric 
 ratios in regard to the increase of food, population^ 
 the poor, &c. ; but were we to calculate, on any such 
 principles, the future deterioration in the wages of 
 some of the most important branches of manufac> 
 turing labour, according to what has regularly taken 
 place since the peace, melancholy indeed would be the 
 prospect ; the powers of production, that have to so 
 great an extent supplanted direct manual labour, seem 
 almost unlimited : not so the demand ; that cannot go 
 on indefinitely increasing; it may even not remain 
 stationary. It is not very probable that we can mono- 
 polize our inventions, and still less so that the labour 
 of the world can eventually be superseded by that of 
 England. The result will, assuredly, be otherwise, 
 and happily, as I believe, for every interest amongst 
 us. None can desire the unlimited spread of a system 
 which would degrade the condition of the people, 
 and which Nature herself would visibly deplore, in the 
 moral and physical deterioration of her offspring; 
 when her fields would go out of tillage, and England 
 become an immense factory surrounded by an uncul- 
 tivated common. 
 
 duction which occasions the periodical recurrence of those distresses 
 which, it is to be feared, will be thus increased, if not perpetuated. 
 Meantime, who are benefited ? My lady's robe may be finer by so 
 many "lees;" but so, likewise, is that of my lady's scullion: 
 while the producers are condemned to premature labour ; to rags, 
 and wretchedness ; to immorality and crime, and sickness and 
 death ! Not only philanthropy, religion, and patriotism, but even 
 policy and interest, dictate that the legislature should interfere ; 
 not, indeed, by proscribing human ingenuity, or its application, but 
 by prescribing, equally for the advantage of all parties, the proper 
 age and periods of human labour. 
 
 ' Edinburgh Encvc. in verb. Polit. Econ. 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 367 
 
 Something might have been added to these argu- 
 ments in favour of the agriculturists, by way of an 
 appeal to the feehngs and generosity of their adver- 
 saries ; but it would, perhaps, be useless. The parental 
 interest of the country, from which most of us sprung, 
 now called a " monopoly," instead of being an over- 
 profitable pursuit, has long afforded those engaged in 
 it a very inadequate remuneration, consigned them 
 to hard fare, and many of them to ruin. The prices 
 of produce are low, and still falling ; but this does not 
 suffice. Meantime, many of those who are leading 
 the popular cry, and hunting down agriculture, have 
 been enjoying those luxuries which are rarely shared 
 by those who produce them, and have risen to an 
 affluence, by far less laborious pursuits, of which there 
 have been few instances in the farming world, and 
 certainly none recently. Such, in opposing agricul- 
 ture, have had all the advantages which concentrated 
 eiforts confer; which arise from their constantly sur- 
 rounding the seat of government, and, above all, from 
 their being backed by a number of powerful diurnal 
 advocates, who arc, as it regards themselves, certainly 
 ''^ wise in their generation." It will be difficult, how- 
 ever, after all, to show that the country, compared with 
 the capital, including every town in the empire, is the 
 dependent. The reverse is obvious. Agriculture is un- 
 doubtedly the parental and sustaining pursuit ; though 
 some who are hostile to it, with the waywardness of 
 an infant, and it is to be hoped with the unconscious- 
 ness of one, are attempting to wound the maternal 
 bosom from which they are perpetually drawing their 
 nourishment and growth. 
 
368 IRELAND; ITS EV^ILS, [^ XIV. 
 
 I speak these things in no hostility, open or dis- 
 guised, to the present commerce or manufactures of the 
 country, much less to those engaged in them : impelled 
 into the present system by the force of circumstances 
 over which they had no control, many of these are 
 amongst the most humane and patriotic of our country- 
 men, and are distinguished, in a nation '' whose mer- 
 chants are princes and traffickers^ the honourable ones 
 of the earth," by all that is elevated in character and 
 praiseworthy in conduct. Nay, if there be any one 
 point on which T feel more confident than another, it is 
 this ; that it is the interest of such to oppose the undue 
 extension of a system which meditates the discourage- 
 ment, if not the destruction of agriculture, even more 
 than it is that of the cultivators themselves so to do. 
 A little consideration will convince us that, in the 
 system of labour, a due balance of all the several parts 
 is the best security for the regular movement and per- 
 manent prosperity of the whole ; and that an adequate 
 and constant protection to agriculture is the true and 
 natural limitation of profitable manufacture. Certain 
 it is, that, were the absurd propositions of the day to 
 take effect, the present cultivators, who would then be 
 dispossessed of their employment, must seek it else- 
 where ; there would be only one course open to them, 
 and one, as I conceive, which would be highly prejudi- 
 cial to the manufacturers : instead of being, as now, 
 their best and steadiest customers, they must perforce be- 
 come their rivals, and that at a time when the difficulty 
 so often is how to dispose of the increasing quantity of 
 goods at present fabricated. Pursuits, therefore, now 
 but little profitable, would become not at all so, and, 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 369 
 
 from an increase of that competition which is already 
 so prejndicial, would then become ruinous. Things 
 would, indeed, "find their own level," but it would be 
 the level of universal depression. The '' artificial 
 system^" now so much inveighed against^ which is 
 made up of laws and institutions dictated by the 
 greatest men our country has ever produced, would 
 give way at its very foundations ; and we should be 
 made to feel the difference between it, and that " natu- 
 ral state of things," from which it has taken the per- 
 severing efforts of so many generations to elevate the 
 country ^ 
 
 (32.) In discoursing on the interests of Ireland, it 
 is impossible to lose sight of its one great pursuit. I 
 have attempted to justify the policy of protecting 
 agriculture, even as it respects England, because I 
 conceived this was the best and surest mode of pur- 
 suing the argument to a successful issue ; and indeed 
 it was impossible to discuss it otherwise. The facts 
 adduced are of the most important character, and, I 
 believe, are undeniably true ; whether the deductions 
 drawn from them are agreeable to reason, and sanc- 
 tioned by experience, the reader must now judge. If, 
 when weighing these reasons in his mind against 
 others he may have heard adduced, the balance should 
 
 ^ Some of the strongest arguments I have adduced in behalf of 
 effectually protecting British agriculture, are precisely similar to 
 those which I find, since I constructed them, JNIr. Iluskisson 
 had already urged, with great force and perspicuity, even when 
 corn was about fifty per cent, higher than it is at present, and when, 
 still, according to his views, bread was " ciiExVP, and altogether 
 owing to a sujficiencij of corn of our oivn growth." See his Letter 
 on the Corn Laws, passim. I may likewise refer to some very able 
 articles on the same important subject, which have, from time to 
 time, been pul)Hshed in Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [X1V. 
 
 still seem trembling with uncertainty, let him throw 
 the welfare, the subsistence, of millions of his Irish 
 brethren into the scale ; let him recollect the millions 
 of uncultivated acres in Ireland, and that those culti- 
 vated are not half laboured, and, consequently, not 
 half so productive as they might be, were its agricul- 
 ture better encouraged, and the question is decided 
 for ever. 
 
 If, therefore, you wish to afford employment to the 
 multitudes in that country who are unwillingly idle ; 
 if you would continue the labour of those already oc- 
 cupied ; if you would increase and better the condition 
 of her industrious classes; and, finally, if you would 
 secure a large and permanent addition to the present 
 supplies of the empire, defend from the ruinous rivalry 
 of other countries, and continue to foster and protect 
 the agriculture of Ireland ; this, in connexion with 
 those other natural remedies already adverted to, would 
 commence a new era for that unhappy people, would 
 diffuse individual comfort and happiness, and ensure 
 the general prosperity of the country. Other expe- 
 dients will be unavailing, and especially the present pro- 
 position of deporting the people ; an operation which 
 it is evident must, on the principles of those who 
 resort to it, be constantly repeated, entailing a new 
 and perpetual tax upon one part of the British people, 
 for the abhorrent purpose of getting rid of another ; 
 for it is the height of lunacy to suppose that procrea- 
 tion can in future be limited by law ^ With such un- 
 
 * Let as great a judge of nature as any who presume to decry 
 and counteract her laws, I mean Shakspeare, speak as to the utter 
 futility of all attempts at restraining marriage (and which, he 
 says, are " not politic in the commonwealth'') ^ excepting so far as 
 
XIV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 371 
 
 occupied, untouched, internal resources, therefore 
 send not forth our fellow-subjects in search of a pre- 
 carious subsistence to northern deserts, from whence 
 many of them, when conveyed thither, constantly 
 escape ; transport them not from their own temperate 
 climate to one, as the Portuguese poet sings, 
 
 que de neve 
 
 Boreal sempre abunda 
 
 The hundreds of millions of unoccupied acres there 
 form no better an argument for our neglecting and 
 deserting untouched millions of our own, than they 
 would that the universal nation should take flight, 
 and, like a flock of northern fowl, migrate at once to 
 that promised land. It is far less wild a scheme, and 
 infinitely more patriotic a one, to clear the wilds and 
 drain the bogs of our own country, than those of 
 Canada ; such, on better authority than now exists, 
 would constitute our finest soils ^ while the expense 
 would be beyond measure less ; the capital meantime 
 would be preserved to the country, however ex- 
 pended; and the public interest in it amply secured by 
 
 to spread universal immorality. He truly, though facetiously, 
 says, '' they loill marry incontinent, or else be incontinent before 
 marriage ; thei/ will together ; clubs cannot part them." And sup- 
 posing any one, foolish and wicked enough, were (still to make 
 use of his language) to " exhibit a Bill in Parliament for the put- 
 ting down of men,'' knowing, as we do, how exceedingly small a 
 variatioQ in individual prolificness would change the national in- 
 crease into aa instant retrogression in numbers, were so infamous a 
 proposal carried, then we may express the consequence, in the words 
 of the same inimitable writer: "7/" this low hold in Vienna ten 
 year. Til rent the fairest house in it after three-pence a bay.'' 
 But the folly of legislating on such a subject, either openly or co- 
 vertly, would be nothing to the presumptuous wickedness of the 
 -attempt. 
 
 ' Sec Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii. part 2, p. 74. 
 
 2B 2 
 
372 IRELAND; ITS EVILS^ [XIV. 
 
 the fruitful domains which would thus, from time to 
 time, be pledged to the country ; each being a new 
 creation, not indeed extending the limits, but increas- 
 ing and concentrating the strength of the empire ; a 
 conquest of the ploughshare and the pruning-hook : 
 a career this, opening, at every step, fresh springs of 
 plenty^ and new sources of employment, never to be 
 again dried up, or diverted into distant or adverse chan- 
 nels ; in a word, enlarging the resources_, improving 
 the health, and beautifying the face of the empire, and 
 by the very same means which redeemed this lovely 
 country from the deformity and desolation in which 
 it is first presented to our view, till "the wilderness 
 became like Eden, and the desert like the garden of the 
 Lord !" The voice of nature ; of patriotism ; of huma- 
 nity ; of God ! calls upon you to persevere. The spread 
 of cultivation is no wild or impracticable plan ; it is 
 one fraught with all the blessings Providence has to 
 bestow : it is a pursuit in which art and nature go 
 forth hand -in-hand, to certain and unceasing triumphs, 
 while the common mother. Earth, seems smiling upon 
 the labours of her children^ and the unclouded eye of 
 Heaven looks down, well pleased, upon the exertions it 
 has ordained and blessed ^ Perhaps these words may be 
 deemed enthusiastic ; the thoughts^ however,, are those 
 of truth and soberness, and are dictated by common 
 sense, and sanctioned by universal experience. To 
 Ireland they are peculiarly applicable ; and happily 
 her interests, if properly viewed, are those of the em- 
 pire at large. As a far inferior island, Sicily, was 
 long the granary of imperial Rome, let Ireland, cul- 
 ' " God is pleased with cultivation." (l^ay.) 
 
XIV^] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 373 
 
 tivated by a nobler race of freemen^ become that 
 of a still mightier, and, may it so please Providence ! 
 of a more permanent empire. 
 
 I have now propounded, as well as I have been able, 
 the most natural and efficacious remedies for what I 
 conceive to be the principal wrongs of Ireland, which 
 I have attempted to trace to their real sources. In 
 doing this^ should my feelings have led me into any 
 expressions unnecessarily harsh or severe, I shall 
 deeply regret the circumstance. I must, however, 
 observe_, that, if called upon to defend them, "^ I the 
 matter can re-word," in the stronger language of those 
 Avhose knowledge of the subject is undoubted, and 
 whose disinterested patriotism is beyond suspicion. 
 Above all, if, on the subject of the remedies of Ire- 
 land, the discussion of which has been carried to 
 so unintended a length, the foregoing propositions 
 should be disputed, let it be remembered, that the 
 main position of this work remains entirely un- 
 touched. It is not by dexterously shifting the 
 grounds of the argument ; by attempting to prove, 
 for example, in contradiction to what has been inci- 
 dentally advanced, that absenteeism is no injury to a 
 country, or a provision for the destitute poor a na- 
 tional evil and a disgrace, that the principle of popu- 
 lation, as now held and applied to Ireland, is to be 
 maintained. It has been distinctly disproved, that the 
 distresses in Ireland are attributable to excessive 
 numbers, inasmuch as those distresses existed, and in 
 a still higher degree, when the population was noto- 
 riously scanty; and that, notwithstanding its augmen- 
 tation, the increase in all the necessaries of life has 
 
374 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XV- 
 
 increased in a far greater ratio, till, in relation to the 
 products and the people of the island, it is the former 
 and not the latter that are redundant. Such is the 
 conclusion, demonstrated by uniform historical facts, 
 which no pohtical sophistry can invalidate or evade. 
 
 XV. (1.) Hitherto the subject of the population 
 of Ireland has been treated without any direct reference 
 to the law of human increase, as developed in the 
 introduction to this work, and which I have ventured 
 to assure the reader has been demonstrated in reference 
 to all other countries which furnish the statistical do- 
 cuments necessary to the proof. If, however, on due 
 examination, the same principle be found to exist, and 
 constantly operate in Ireland, then the answer to the 
 propositions now made respecting that country is 
 final and complete; and it will be found that the feel- 
 ings of humanity are but other terms for the laws of 
 God : then not only will the principles of patriotism 
 and of sound policy rise in hostility to the projected 
 measures, but the irreversible laws of Nature will 
 peremptorily interdict their adoption. 
 
 I have already mentioned that I had long pursued 
 the inquiry on the subject of population, and with one 
 uniform result, without having once extended the 
 examination to Ireland, conceiving that the informa- 
 tion relative to that country was not sufficiently com- 
 plete, and being prepared to find Ireland an unhappy 
 exception to the operation of the general law of na- 
 tions, for reasons already stated yet an exception 
 which decidedly proves the rule in question. But by 
 preceding to a further and more particular investi- 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 375 
 
 gation of the census of Ireland, as recently taken 
 under the direction of government, I am now enabled 
 to show that even Ireland, which, as before mentioned, 
 has been often brought forward as contradicting the 
 real principle of population, on the contrary fully 
 corroborates it ; proving, in unison with every other 
 record of human existence which furnishes the neces- 
 sary means of comparison, that the prolificness of 
 human beings is regulated by their numbers ; and 
 furthermore showing, that it is by the increase of 
 human beings that Nature, when not thwarted in her 
 benevolent designs, improves the condition and ele- 
 vates the character of her rational offspring. She 
 may have been withstood, while accomplishing her 
 sacred purposes in that country, by causes fully 
 pointed out ; but still, even in Ireland, she has not 
 been wholly defeated ; even there she vindicates her 
 divine economy, and manifests her unerring laws. 
 
 (2.) In the late census of Ireland, the annual mar- 
 riages and births are wanting, which omission seems, 
 at first sight, an insuperable obstacle against insti- 
 tuting those comparisons which have fully established 
 the regulated principle of human fecundity, in regard 
 to all other countries furnishing the necessary means 
 of information. But the census is divided into ages : 
 we can, therefore, arrive at the results we seek, by 
 another method ; and one which, as being totally 
 different to the former, if it present precisely the same 
 fact, is the more satisfactory, the conclusions, thus 
 variously obtained, checking and corroborating each 
 other. In this census we have a column giving the 
 number of cliildren under five years of age: now, pre- 
 
376 
 
 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, 
 
 [XV. 
 
 suming the proportion of marriages to be the same 
 throughout Ireland (and if it vary, it will, if we may 
 rely upon all other similar facts, so vary as to 
 strengthen the argument), then, computing the pro- 
 portion of these children to a given number of inha- 
 bitants in every province_, and comparing these 
 together, the order of their prolificness will be clearly 
 indicated. Then, as we have the area of the provinces 
 severally, as well as the number of inhabitants in 
 each^ we have the necessary facts for enabling us to 
 determine, lastly, whether Ireland obeys the law of 
 population for which I contend, as that of nature and 
 of truth. In the ensuing table, the four provinces 
 are taken in their aggregate amounts ; the number of 
 children under five, in each, being calculated on every 
 twenty thousand of the inhabitants, in order to faci- 
 litate comparisons with similar tables and calculations 
 in the work about to be pubhshed. 
 
 TABLE of the Four Provinces of Ireland, showing the Contents, Popu- 
 lation, and Number of Children under Five Years old in each, in 1821 ; 
 with the Proportion of the latter to every 20,000 Inhabitants; exclusive 
 of exempt Cities and Towns. 
 
 Province. 
 
 iSt^^l^e Population in 
 Miles. 1821. 
 
 Number of 
 
 Children 
 under Five. 
 
 Inhabitants 
 to each 
 
 square Mile 
 hhh 
 
 Children un- 
 der Five, in 
 every 20,000. 
 
 Ulster . 
 Leinster 
 Munster 
 Connaught 
 
 4,894 1,990,471 
 4,356 ! 1,5S0,2G3 
 5,275 1 1,747,230 
 4,108 ! 1,082,454 
 
 294,062 
 234,;i98 
 275,097 
 174,923 
 
 407 
 351 
 331 
 263 
 
 2,954 
 3,063 
 3.148 
 3,232 
 
 Here, then, the principle of population exhibits 
 itself as clearly as it has done in all the other coun- 
 tries which I have previously examined ; the fecundity 
 is greatest where the inhabitants are the thinnest; 
 
XV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 377 
 
 and when we come to touch upon the comparative 
 condition of these provinces, the demonstration will 
 he the more striking, as it may certainly he assumed 
 as a universal fact, that, where the population is 
 in the easiest circumstances, the greatest proportion 
 of children are there preserved. The least know- 
 ledge of the condition of the provinces of Ireland will 
 suffice to enforce this ohservation, and will very 
 greatly strengthen the striking results the preceding 
 table exliibits. 
 
 (3.) As to the cities and towns of Ireland which 
 are distinctly given in the census, they are only eight 
 in number, and consequently too few to establish very 
 clearly the surprising fact which, as I have stated in 
 the Introduction, I have found to exist, in regard to 
 the proportionate fecundity of the towns of England, 
 which is, on the average_, determined by their size. 
 Nature, as I have observed elsewhere^ though evidently 
 conforming to certain absolute rules, yet rarely deve- 
 lopes them very clearly in individual instances ; they 
 are to he sought for in the results of those great and 
 general averages by which all her operations are usually 
 regulated, and by observing which her laws are alone 
 revealed. But^ when closely examining the popu- 
 lation of the hundred principal towns in England, I 
 hardly expected to have found the law_, referred to, in 
 operation as it regarded them ; nor did I conceive my 
 theory required it : such, however, is the fact ; and 
 though the secondary causes which regulate the in- 
 crease of mankind, from procreation only, in refer- 
 ence to the size of towns, are less o])vious than those 
 which operate in entire districts of considerabk^ extent, 
 
378 
 
 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, 
 
 [ 
 
 Stilly when examined in any considerable number of 
 cases^ they appear not the less certain^, and strengthen 
 the system for which I contend, by a series of minute, 
 as well as general proofs, which I confess have sur- 
 prised me as I successively discovered them. 
 
 The cities and towns in Ireland, of exempt jurisdic- 
 tion, are only eight in number ; hardly enough, there- 
 fore, to form those averages which, as it will be 
 observed hereafter, are necessary to arrive at certain 
 conclusions on the subject; but still even these show 
 a manifest and striking tendency to conform to the 
 law of human increase, as previously developed. 
 This will appear from the following table. 
 
 Cities and Towns. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Children under Five 
 to every 20,000. 
 
 Carrickfergub 
 
 under 10,009 
 
 3,251 
 
 Drojrheda 
 
 10 to 20,000 
 
 2,927 
 
 Kilkenny "] 
 Galway } 
 Waterford j 
 
 20 30,000 
 
 2,877 
 
 Limerick 
 
 50 100,000 
 
 2,875 
 
 Cork 
 
 100 130,000 
 
 2,817 
 
 Dublin 
 
 150 200,000 
 
 2,598 
 
 (4.) But to return to the provinces. The foregoing 
 calculations of the comparative fecundity of the four 
 being formed on the gross amounts which the census 
 furnishes of each; it may, perhaps, be said, the appa- 
 rent diminishing ratio of human increase exhibited, in 
 proportion to the condensation of the population, 
 may possibly be accidental ; which, in so few instances 
 as four, is certainly a possible, though not, as con- 
 nected with the previous proofs of the same fact, a 
 
XV.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 379 
 
 very probable conjecture. But to obviate this objec- 
 tion altogether, I will give two other tables; and^ first, 
 one in which the several counties are separately calcu- 
 lated as before, and the mean proportion of the whole in 
 each province taken. Without giving these severally, 
 which may be done, if the facts are doubted, by a re- 
 ference to a succeeding table, these are the results : 
 
 Province. 
 
 Counties form- 
 ing mean pro- 
 portion. 
 
 Inhabitants to 
 
 a Square Mile, 
 
 Irish. 
 
 Children under Five 
 to every 20,000. 
 
 Ulster . . . 
 I^einster , . 
 Munster . . 
 Connaught . . 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 G 
 5 
 
 407 
 35] 
 331 
 -263 
 
 2,950 
 3,079 
 .3,139 
 3,24S 
 
 The preceding tables, relating to the provinces, vary 
 very little, and either of them equally proves the im- 
 portant fact of prolificness being regulated as so often 
 stated : the difference in the number of children under 
 five, in Ulster, where there are upwards of four hun- 
 dred inhabitants on the Irish square mile, and in 
 Connaught, where there are only two hundred and 
 sixty- three in the same area, it will be observed, amounts 
 to ten in every hundred ; a variation, which, it hardly 
 need be said, must make a very great difference in the 
 rate of increase in those two provinces, a fact which 
 will be still further confirmed anon. The other two 
 provinces, it will have been observed, class themselves 
 in exact conformity with the same law of nature; 
 giving it a species of proof of the most minute and 
 satisfactory kind. 
 
 (5.) But furthermore ; it is advanced, as one of the 
 
380 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 main axioms of the forthcoming work, that poverty 
 and privation are the great causes of a high degree 
 of human fecundity ; and any one acquainted, in 
 the least degree, with the condition of the different 
 parts of Ireland, must, in casting his eye on these 
 tables, not only perceive that they are classed in 
 reference to the density of their population and the 
 measure of their fecundity, but likewise in exact 
 conformity to their condition, in regard to every 
 thing that contributes to or constitutes prosperity and 
 comfort ; and that Ulster, with 407 on the square 
 mile, compared with Connaught, with only 264, claims 
 for its inhabitants an individual superiority far more 
 striking than the numerical one. 
 
 This important fact_, true as it regards every other 
 country, I must attempt fully to impress vipon the 
 reader's mind in reference to Ireland. Even in 
 that unhappy country, in which the population has 
 to contend with disadvantages as unnatural as they 
 are severe, still that district is the happiest and the 
 most prosperous which is the best peopled. The 
 proof of this gratifying fact must be obvious to all 
 who have seen the country, or who have informed 
 themselves concerning the situation and conditions of 
 its diiferent provinces : contrasting the most densely 
 peopled of these with that which is the least so, and 
 the difference in this respect, it will be observed, is 
 great. " The people of Ulster are," as Wakefield 
 assures us, '^ in general more industrious, better 
 clothed, and living in a more comfortable manner 
 than in many other parts of Ireland \" This is the 
 ' Wakefield, Account of Ireland,. vol. ii. p. 730. 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 381 
 
 best peopled province of the island ; Connaiight the 
 least so : of the latter, perhaps the best soil in the 
 island, with only a population of 162 on the square 
 mile, the same author elsewhere says, '^The poor 
 throughout Connaught live in a state of great wretch- 
 edness, oatmeal is a luxury which they seldom tasted" 
 Even Mr. Curwen, who, throughout his Irish tour, 
 overflows with Mr. Malthus and his demonstrations, 
 nevertheless distinguishes the cottiers of the north 
 from those of the south, as evidently superior, not- 
 withstanding it is quite clear that they have smaller 
 farms and worse land : and adds generally, " I should 
 conclude the people of these southern districts to 
 suffer more privations than those in the north ^." 
 But to advert to a period of general distress, as that 
 of all others the best calculated to put to the test 
 the important question relative to the comparative 
 condition of different parts of the country : in the 
 work of Drs. Baker and Cheyne, previously quoted, 
 we find these minutely examined and classed, for 
 purposes distinct from those to which I am now 
 applying them ; and are informed, on the result of 
 actual examination, that ^'^the circumstances of the 
 people of Ulster and Leinster are more comfortable 
 than in Munster and Connaught^; the great mass of 
 the people in the southern and western provinces 
 living more exclusively upon potatoes than those of 
 Leinster and Ulster." Here, then, we have the pro- 
 vinces of Ireland classed, in point of comfort and 
 
 ' Wakefield, vol. i. p. 753. 
 ' Curwen, Obs, on the State of Ireland, vol. i. p. 367. 
 ' Drs. Baker and Cheyne, Account of the Fever, vol. i. j). 9,). 
 
382 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [^ XV. 
 
 well-being, in precise conformity with the density of 
 their population, and inversely to their prolificness ; 
 Ulster, Leinster^ Munster, Connaught. 
 
 If these facts require further confirmation_, it is 
 at hand. In the distribution of the succour afforded 
 by the nation, as well as public subscription, on that 
 afflicting occasion, every county in Connaught, and 
 nearly the whole in Munster, participated, but none 
 in the provinces of Ulster and Leinster : consequently, 
 if the charity of the nation were not grossly abused 
 on the occasion, though doubtless the distress was 
 great throughout, it was so much the more urgent 
 where the population was the thinnest (notwith- 
 standing the known superiority of the soil) as to 
 demand and receive the whole ! 
 
 (6.) And it is likewise pertinent to remark, that 
 another principle^ which will be found much insisted 
 on in the work to which I again allude, is exemplified 
 " in this comparative view of Ireland. It is there 
 asserted, and I trust proved, that a country is prospe- 
 rous, or otherwise, in reference to that necessity of 
 exertion which numbers of inhabitants call into action, 
 rather than from natural fertility of soil, or extent of 
 territory \ Ulster, which, as before observed, now 
 stands at the head of the provinces of Ireland, in 
 regard to inhabitants, though the most affluent, is, 
 however, ^' the most mountainous and barren part of 
 the kingdom^." Connaught, on the other hand, the 
 worst peopled, and confessedly the most wretched 
 part of the country, is nevertheless "^the sweetest soil 
 
 * Dr. Campbell, Historical Sketch, &c. p. 371. ^ Ihid. p. 371. 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 383 
 
 of Ireland ^" Plenty^ therefore, is diffused; at least 
 that proportion of it which absenteeism allows to 
 remain in the country, not in proportion to the pro- 
 lificness of the soil, any more than the paucity of the 
 inhabitants, but in exactly the opposite ratio. 
 
 (7.) Presenting, therefore, the foregoing calcula- 
 tions and results, not as conjectures, but as incontro- 
 vertible facts ; not as accidents, but as the sure and 
 constant effects of adequate causes ; I ask those who 
 are proposing to thin Ireland by cleai'ances, disper- 
 sions, or emigrations, or by whatsoever methods, 
 whether they will still venture to proceed ? It is 
 clearly true, in respect to Ireland, as I shall show it to 
 be of all other countries to whose statistics I have been 
 enabled to appeal, that to lessen the population at any 
 particular time, or in any given district, by whatever 
 means, would, agreeably to an irreversible and bene- 
 volent law of nature, be the certain means of simulta- 
 neously increasing the prolificness of the remainder, 
 and that, without " room being made " for an in- 
 creased number of marriages, as some, who have 
 not examined into this singular, but universal fact, ig- 
 norantly suppose^ And seeing, moreover, that, even 
 in Ireland, as well as every where else^, the distress 
 
 * Spenser's View of Irelnnd, Works, vol. vi. p. 116. 
 
 * The proof of this singular fact forms the subject of two chapters 
 of the book so frequently alluded to, where it is shown to be a 
 universal law of nature. 
 
 ^ I say every where. Thus, in North America, so confidently, 
 because so ignorantly, appealed to on the subject of population, 
 such was the case, even exclusively of the earlier periods of its 
 history, which, as it is well known, were those of great distress. 
 The full proof of this is reserved for a future occasion ; one only 
 instance shall be now subjoined. " The harvest hath once and again 
 grievously failed in these years, and we have been struck through 
 
384 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 is the greatest, and ever has been, at those periods 
 and in those parts where the people are the fewest; 
 and that larger numbers there^ also, are but other 
 terms for a greater measure of prosperity ; on what 
 imaginable foundation do our theorists rest their 
 anti-national propositions? Presuming them igno- 
 rant of some of the foregoing truths, still, as the ex- 
 pedients to which they would resort, in order to cure 
 Ireland, have been tried over and over again, ages 
 ago, and have invariably aggravated the evils they 
 proposed to eradicate, why are they still persisted in, 
 at the expense of injuring one branch of the empire, 
 and outraging the feelings of the rest ? Supposing 
 they could reduce Ulster to the " level" of Connaught, 
 in point of population^ and Connaught to that of 
 Sutherland shire, cui bono? I repeat the question: Is 
 the distribution of the population of Ireland, taken in 
 connexion with their condition, such as to sanction 
 their views and arguments, or to contradict and silence 
 them for ever ? Even in Ireland, wretched and im- 
 poverished as she is, where is it that the inhabitants 
 make the closest approaches to a state of happiness 
 and prosperity, or, in a word, obtain the nearest to a 
 fair share in the comforts which the empire at large 
 administers to its people ? Where, but in Ulster, in 
 which, I repeat, there are 407 inhabitants on the Irish 
 mile. Where is it that the wretchedness is the most 
 conspicuous, and seems to be the most hopeless? In 
 Connaught_, where there are only 264, or about twenty 
 
 with terrible famine. A lamentable cry of bread! bread! hath been 
 heard in our streets." (Sermon, at Boston, September 27, 1698. 
 Magnalia, b.viii. p. 113.) 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 385 
 
 acres to every family ! and wherc^ by the bye, we are 
 told, on indubitable authority, that the distress was at 
 least as great as at present, when there were twenty 
 acres to each individual ^ ! What is it that makes the 
 difference ? I answer^ in the words of one who wrote 
 much upon the subject, and to good purpose, had he 
 been attended to, " numbers of men !" And yet 
 these would, had they it in their power, create, what 
 they are, I observe, perpetually raving about, '^ a 
 vacuum:" God, however, has decided for a 'plenum ; 
 and the inspired voice of nature and reason, as well 
 as of revelation, proclaims his command. Multiply 
 replenish the earth ; and subdue it: and the experience 
 of thousands of years has taught the world, and ought 
 to have instructed such, that this is the only certain 
 road to national prosperity, as well as individual 
 happiness. 
 
 But to return to the arithmetic proofs which Ire- 
 land affords of the truth of the principle of popula- 
 tion, so frequently asserted, and of which I wish to 
 leave an undisturbed impression in the mind of the 
 reader : 
 
 (8.) There is yet a more strict method by which to 
 put that principle to the test, than the one previously 
 adopted, and one which Avill obviate the only objec- 
 tion which, as I can imagine, can be advanced against 
 the foregoing results. It may be supposed that the 
 different habits which obtain in the several provinces 
 of Ireland, may have some considerable effect in pro- 
 
 ' Dr. Smith, Topographical Hist., pp.75, 76. He exclaims, "Is 
 it not amazing, that the most fertile part of Ireland, washed by so 
 noble a river as the Shannon, cannot support its people with bread !" 
 
 2C 
 
386 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XV. 
 
 (lucing the facts in question : such, for instance, as the 
 supposition that marriages take place earlier in one 
 part than another, or other circumstances which may 
 affect an extensive district, without extending over the 
 entire country. In order to meet this remark, and to 
 adopt the only remaining method of determining the 
 point, and thus to ascertain, beyond any reasonable 
 doubt, the absolute certainty of the principle already 
 demonstrated by other and diiferent modes of calcula- 
 tion, I shall, lastly, class the several counties of Ireland 
 in the order in which the density of the population in 
 each places them, without any reference whatever to the 
 four grand provincial divisions of the country: and for 
 the sake of comparison with the counties of England, 
 which will be subsequently given, where the same 
 important principle is developed by a totally different 
 method, I shall give the inhabitants in the English 
 square mile, and likewise calculate the number of 
 acres to each individual, and divide the table accor- 
 dingly. It will be instantly seen that the law of popu- 
 lation conforms (though perhaps in a less striking and 
 marked degree, for reasons previously given) to the 
 principle already laid down, and which will be shown 
 to exist in all other countries where the necessary facts 
 for proving it are recorded. 
 
^XV.J 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 387 
 
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 2981 
 
 
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388 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 The preceding table requires no comments. Taken 
 promiscuously from all the provinces of Ireland, and 
 consequently leaving no room for the suspicion that 
 local habits, in reference to the age of marriage, or 
 any variation in modes of life, can at all affect the 
 conclusions, the counties are classed according to the 
 density of their population respectively, which^ as it 
 will be observed, mingles the provinces throughout, 
 and, consequently, the governing principle of human 
 fecundity is the more satisfactorily developed. These, 
 then, are the results. Where the inhabitants are from 
 one to two hundred on the square mile (English), 
 there the mean number of children, under five, to 
 every 20,000 of the entire population, is 3,132 : where 
 there are from two to three hundred on the same 
 space, that number diminishes to 3,065 ; where from 
 three to four hundred, to 3,043 ; where four hundred 
 and upwards_, 2,950 is the proportion. Or, to present 
 the facts calculated on a somewhat different basis, 
 where there is only from one to two acres of land to 
 every single individual, the children under five ave- 
 rage only 2,981 ; where there are from two to three 
 acres_, that average increases to 3,079 ; where from 
 three to four acres, to 3,091, and, where four and 
 upwards, it rises to 3,177. 
 
 (9.) Only two objections can, as I conceive, be 
 brought against the preceding facts being finally con- 
 clusive of the argument, even had I appealed, in the 
 course of my work, to none other. The first may be 
 founded on the apparent aberrations, in particular 
 cases, from the principle asserted ; to exemplify which, 
 the different proportions are purposely exhibited in 
 
XV.1 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 389 
 
 the preceding table. To this objection I have else- 
 where particularly adverted ; Nature^, in all her works, 
 vegetable or animal, seems to abhor minute and 
 servile exactnesses, and yet she accomplishes her pur- 
 poses more perfectly and certainly than is ever done 
 by the utmost uniformity of human operations. Dr. 
 Dugald Stewart has a fine passage on this subject, 
 and notices, in exemplification, the uncertainty of 
 the number of the sexes, diiferent families being 
 singly considered, and yet the surprising accuracy 
 with which she accomplishes her purpose on the 
 totality of her operations \ He notices, however, 
 that we must be in possession of an adequate number 
 of instances, before we can observe with sufficient 
 accuracy her laws. It is thus that I account for the 
 surprising circumstance, that the principle of popula- 
 tion now developed has escaped, as far as I know, all 
 writers on the subject. Fixing their attention on in- 
 dividual cases, they have omitted to regard a sufficient 
 number of such in connection with each other; or, 
 doing so, have often perceived them to vary consi- 
 derably, and have, therefore, failed to draw those con- 
 clusions from the records of human existence, which, 
 as far as I have examined, they invariably furnish. 
 
 (10.) But a second objection to this principle of 
 population, as proved from the census of Ireland, 
 will, I am persuaded, be the one chiefly relied upon. 
 It is this ; that the greater the density of the popula- 
 tion, the more the preventive check, as it is called, 
 prevails. I must forewarn those who may read, and, 
 perhaps, make some comments on this book, that 
 ' Dr. Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind. 
 
390 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ ^^ 
 
 they must seek for some other objection than this ; 
 for that point has been examined fully, and, in all 
 cases, directly the contrary is the fact. This is a 
 matter not to be determined, where the necessary 
 documents exist, as they do in many countries, by 
 reasoning upon it ; one way or the other, it is a mat- 
 ter of fact, and not a matter of argument. Arithmetic 
 must decide it ; not that simple rule by which Mr. 
 Malthus determines it in his own favour ; who, rest- 
 ing his whole hopes of his system on the alleged 
 increase of this check (knowing, as he acknowledges, 
 that the " positive " ones have declined), calculates its 
 prevalence by simply dividing the population by the 
 number of the marriages, and if these happen to be 
 in a somewhat smaller apparent proportion than for- 
 merly (which, however, is rarely the case), he reckons 
 the point settled: totally leaving out of his consi- 
 deration the great increase which has, in the interim, 
 taken place, in the expectation of human life, as it is 
 called, which must occasion a corresponding increase 
 in the co-existing population from the same number 
 of births. Just in the same manner, in calculating 
 the comparative prevalence of this check, in different 
 countries, he has quite forgotten that the duration of 
 human life, which varies so materially (in some of 
 them as much as one third, taking his own authority), 
 is an essential ingredient in the calculation. By 
 losing sight of this, it is singular that the order of 
 merit in which he has placed several different coun- 
 tries, in reference to their supposed observance of this 
 " virtue," ought to be precisely reversed. It is sur- 
 prising how he could have fallen into so egregious an 
 
XV. J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 391 
 
 error ; it is^ however, essential to his entire theory, 
 and its rectification, were there no other disproof of it, 
 will shake it to its foundation. More on this subject I 
 shall not add at present ; it will be examined at large 
 elsewhere : I will only remark, by way of illustration, 
 that, supposing we were to calculate the prevalence of 
 the preventive check for a nation of antediluvians, sta- 
 tionary in numbers, and living to the age of a millen- 
 nium each ; one annual marriage, it is evident, could 
 only take place in every two thousand of the inhabi- 
 tants ; though every soul of them should enter into that 
 state, and, consequently, *^ moral restraint," as it is face- 
 tiously denominated, should have no existence whatever 
 amongst them. But to return: I shall now simply 
 assert that marriages are not proportionably more 
 frequent where the population is the most scanty, but 
 the reverse ; and shall, in due time, produce a body of 
 uniform and uninterrupted facts, in proof of my de- 
 claration, which will render it indisputable. 
 
 But the mortality, especially in infant life, which 
 prevails in a particular degree, where distress is the 
 most prevalent, must not be lost sight of, in adverting 
 to the preceding documents a fact which will ma- 
 terially strengthen the conclusions already drawn 
 from them, if that can be necessary. 
 
 (11.) So far, I think, the argument is triumphant as 
 to Ireland. But I have been enabled, as it respects 
 other countries, to give historical proof of the prin- 
 ciple for which 1 contend, and this I conceive to be 
 one of the most interesting and important of its de- 
 monstrations. Ireland is a country where the popu- 
 lation has probably fluctuated more than most others, 
 
392 IRELAND; ITS EVIIJ5, [ XV. 
 
 and, as such, must furnish a proof of this nature, if 
 the principle be true, of a very minute and interesting 
 kind, supposing- we were in possession of the neces- 
 sary data. During the course of this inquiry, I have 
 cast my eye on such, and instantly put them to the 
 test ; with what success the following facts must de- 
 termine. 
 
 Dr. Anderson has transcribed, in his Commercial 
 Dictionary ^, a printed list of the families in each of 
 the four provinces of Ireland about the year 1733 ; 
 which, according to the mode of enumeration then 
 adopted, and corroborated by the statement of Dr. 
 Maul, then bishop of Dromore_, amounted to the 
 following number of persons in each : in Leinster, 
 653,020 ; in Munster, 614,654 ; in Ulster, 505,395 ; 
 and in Connaught, 242,160; which give in the first 
 province 150 on the square mile ; in the second 116 ; 
 in the third 104 ; and in the last 59. According to 
 the principle of population for which I contend, the 
 prolificness would be the greatest where the numbers 
 on an equal space were the fewest ; and consequently 
 the increase, in such cases, the largest. Now it must 
 be remarked, that the order in which these provinces 
 then ranked, in reference to density of population, was 
 almost directly the reverse to that in which they stand 
 at present. If, therefore, through the intervening 
 period of nearly ninety years, the increase has con- 
 formed to the law of population laid down, it will cer- 
 tainly amount to an additional proof of its reality and 
 truth, of a singularly satisfactory character; as show- 
 ing that that law acts upon a principle totally distinct 
 ' Anderson, Commercial Diet. vol. i. p. 98. 
 
XV.J 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 393 
 
 from any local peculiarities whatsoever. And such 
 turns out to be the fact. To exhibit this^ in the follow- 
 ing table : the first column gives the population in 
 the four provinces of Ireland in 1733 ; the second the 
 number of Irish square miles in each ; the third, the 
 inhabitants on each of these at the above period ; 
 the fourth^ the number of inhabitants in IS21 ; 
 and the last column gives the result sought for^ that 
 is^ the additions in each province, during that period, 
 on every hundred inhabitants. The table^ it will 
 be observed, is arranged according to the compara- 
 tive density of the population^ at the former period. 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 Population 
 in 1733. 
 
 Square 
 Wiles. 
 
 Pop. toeMch^ Population in 
 
 Increase on 
 every 100. 
 
 Leinster | G53,020 
 Mu lister i 614,654 
 Ulster 1 505,395 
 Connaught 242,160 
 
 4356 
 5275 
 
 4S94 
 4108 
 
 150 1,757,492 
 116 ! 1,935,612 
 104 1 1,998,494 
 59 ! 1,110,229 
 
 169 
 215 
 
 295 
 358 
 
 Here again no comments are necessary. In Lein- 
 ster, where there were at the former date one hun- 
 dred and fifty in the square mile, the increase, during 
 the period under examination^ was one hundred and 
 sixty-nine on every hundred; whereas, in Connaught^ 
 where there were only fifty-nine, the increase was more 
 than double the former, and amounted to three hun- 
 dred and fifty-eight. The remaining provinces, I need 
 not point out, confirm the principle most exactly, and 
 class themselves accordingly. 
 
 Mr. Ricardo lays it down as an axiom, in full con- 
 formity with Mr. Malthus's views on the same sub- 
 ject, that " population regulates itself by the funds 
 whicb are to employ it, and therefore always increases 
 
394 IRELAxND ; ITS EVILS, [ ^V. 
 
 or diminishes with the increase or diminution ol 
 capital^:" a position which may be pronounced to 
 be as false in theory as it is in fact ; in a word, as 
 opposite to the plain truth, in every point of view, as 
 anything which pohtical economy, which is constantly 
 repeating it, has as yet uttered. It contradicts every 
 physiological observation that has been made upon 
 man, from the time of Hippocrates down to the present 
 day, as well as the whole current of human experience. 
 From the summit of Irish society its peerage, to its 
 lowest grade the poor cottager of Connaught, the 
 reverse of this confident assertion is the precise truth. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the ease with which proofs are 
 dispensed with in the present day, and the audacious- 
 ness with which known facts are silenced or contra- 
 dicted, to serve the purposes of our special political 
 pleaders, still I hardly think it will be maintained by 
 any, that it has been to the superior plenty and pros- 
 perity of Connaught, compared with Leinster, that 
 this vastly greater increase of the former is to be attri- 
 buted. On the contrary, it was, and still remains, the 
 most wretched part of Ireland; and its condition, there- 
 fore, fully confirms the physiology of my system, and 
 contradicts as decisively that to which I stand opposed. 
 
 Should it be objected that the period in question is 
 so extended as to have gradually changed the relative 
 density of the population of these provinces, and that 
 consequently the demonstration is so far confused and 
 unsatisfactory, I will, to obviate this remaining ob- 
 jection (as I confess it to have some weight till duly 
 examined), appeal to the increase of the different pro- 
 ' Ricardo, Principles of Polit. Econ. p. 68. 
 
XV'] 
 
 AND THEIR REiMEDIES. 
 
 395 
 
 vinces during about a third of that time, namely, a 
 period of exactly thirty years, especially as, at its com- 
 mencement (1791), the change alluded to had already 
 taken place. Taking, then, the last enumeration of 
 Thomas Wray, Esq., inspector-general of the hearth- 
 money, the following table will exhibit the movements 
 of the population in the several provinces ; and again 
 illustrate and prove, with singular exactness, the prin- 
 ciple of human increase for which I am contending. 
 I have again classed the provinces according to their 
 relative density of population, that having, at the period 
 referred to, become greatly changed. 
 
 Province. 
 
 Population in 
 1791. 
 
 Inhabitants on 
 
 a Square Mile, 
 
 Jrish. 
 
 Population in 
 
 1821. 
 
 Increase on 
 every 100. 
 
 Ulster 1,337,274 
 Leinster 1,111,512 
 Munster 1,161,138 
 Connau^ht 593,688 
 
 273 
 
 255 
 
 145 
 
 1,998,494 
 1,757,492 
 1,9.35,612 
 1,110,229 
 
 49 
 
 58 
 66 
 86 
 
 That the former of the columns of population of 
 1791 errs in deficiency, I think there can be no doubt 
 whatever, when it is considered that it was founded 
 upon fiscal data ; this one cause, independently of 
 others which Mr. Newenham has pointed out, com- 
 pels us to believe that the assumed number of inha- 
 bitants in 1791 is short of the truth. But as the 
 causes of such incorrectness, and more especially the 
 motives of concealment, whatever they were, must 
 have been equally operative in every part of the coun- 
 try, the deductions, as far as my argument is con- 
 cerned, are equally conclusive. They prove that, on 
 the very same ground, the measure of human increase, 
 individually considered, is constantly regulated by the 
 
396 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS^ [ XV. 
 
 existing numbers, and varies with every variation of 
 the latter. Equally certain is it, that, in each of the 
 periods I have been alluding to, superiority in condi- 
 tion has still accompanied that district which has be- 
 come the most numerously peopled. This is a prin- 
 ciple, indeed, which lies at the foundation of human 
 society, and pervades the whole structure even to its 
 loftiest pinnacle. Like the infancy of human beings, is 
 that of the communities they form, scattered, ignorant, 
 and weak ; but the Deity, who wills our happiness, and 
 whose providence promotes it, has provided an inhe- 
 rent cure for these evils in the growth of their num- 
 bers : as these multiply, they increase in knowledge 
 and prosperity and power, till they wax into mighty 
 nations ; nor has there been an example of a country 
 upon earth, in the possession of its natural advantages, 
 where it has been otherwise. 
 
 (12.) Some observations, suggested by the last 
 tables, I will subjoin, especially as so much is now 
 said about the certainty of mankind doubling every 
 iive-and-twenty years, if unchecked; a supposition, 
 by-the-bye, which I have elsewhere demonstrated to 
 be impossible, by a series of tables, constructed upon 
 the very data of human prolificness and mortality, 
 given by those who pronounce it to be so far within 
 the compass of natural increase. We find, by the last 
 table, that, even supposing the population of 1791 to 
 be fully given, still in thirty years an increase of sixty- 
 one only, on every hundred, had taken place ; and this 
 increase of such a nature, and so distributed, as plainly 
 to show that even that ratio will diminish as the po- 
 pulation condensates. Oh, but (methinks 1 hear the 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 397 
 
 assertors of the superfecimdity of the human race ex- 
 claim) you forget the checks! What checks^ I ask? 
 Not the direct ones^ as they are called, such as 
 emigration; that has been authoritatively pronounced 
 to be " immaterial." Not war ; that has ceased. Not 
 infanticide; that never did prevail amongst this simple 
 people. Not those unnameable offences which natu- 
 rally flow from the discountenance of matrimony, and 
 the substitution of " moral restraint," as it is facetiously 
 denominated : no ! such they have ever held in abhor- 
 rence. The preventive check has no place here ; for 
 we have it on the great authority himself, that " they 
 propagate like brute beasts," and these, it is conceived, 
 do not much regard it. It has, therefore, no existence 
 whatsoever, according to their own showing ; and, in 
 proof of this, they appeal to the increase of the popula- 
 tion there^ compared with that of England. I accept 
 this appeal. The population of Ireland has increased, in 
 thirty years (even taking the estimate of 179 1 to be com- 
 plete), 61 per centum: the increase in the population 
 of England, for a like term, supposing it to augment 
 from 1821 to 1831, as it has done from 1811 to 1821, 
 will amount to 55 per centum. In other words, every 
 hundred individuals in England will, in the course of 
 those thirty years, have multiplied into 155, as in 
 Ireland they have into 161 ; a difference, on the whole, 
 of about 3^ per cent., to be distributed through the 
 space of thirty years ; a difference sufficient, indeed, 
 to establish the principle for which I contend, con- 
 nected with other circumstances, but hardly amount- 
 ing, I think, to an apology for all the hard speeches 
 which have been uttered against the population of 
 
398 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [XV. 
 
 Ireland^ or the harder propositions which are made 
 about repressing it, which now insult the feehngs of 
 the empire, and which, thank God^ manifest as much 
 ignorance of the rules of arithmetic, as they do of the 
 laws of nature. Again, if we still go back four-and- 
 twenty years, which we are enabled to do by the same 
 official documents, those of the hearth-money col- 
 lectors, we find the population of the year 1767 
 amounting to 2^544,276; in 1791, on the same au- 
 thority (and consequently, for the purposes of com- 
 parison, more satisfactory than any other), it was, as 
 has been seen, 4,206,612. But this is an increase 
 of above 65 per centum, and in 24 years only^ 
 instead of 61, that which took place during the 
 latter 30 years. Before this period, the increase, 
 resting principally upon private documents, does not 
 appear to have been so rapid ; which is perfectly con- 
 sistent with my views of the effect of those vast emi- 
 grations then going on, in comparison with the num- 
 ber of the inhabitants ; and likewise those sweeping 
 mortalities and famines which formerly afflicted Ire- 
 land so deeply. For the last half century, however, 
 the ratio of the increase in Ireland, notwithstanding 
 the panic which has seized our anti-populationists, 
 has been a greatly diminishing one; fiiUy confirming, 
 therefore, the preceding principle. 
 
 (13.) And I must further observe, that this in- 
 crease in Ireland (small as it is, compared with that 
 duplication, every five-and-twenty years, for which 
 our theorists absurdly contend, making sixteen times 
 as many people at the termination of every century as 
 there were at its commencement) is not likely to be 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 399 
 
 continued : the same cause, pointed out elsewhere, in 
 reference to England, which has occurred since 1801, 
 and given a sudden and extraordinary advance to the 
 population there, namely, the introduction of vaccina- 
 tion, having operated on that of Ireland, during the 
 same term. Allowing the small-pox to have been the 
 severe scourge represented, it must be quite obvious 
 to the simplest arithmetician, that the relative increase 
 cannot be continued, excepting some other discovery, 
 equally efficient in the preservation of human life 
 should be again made, which is not very likely, nor, 
 indeed, possible ; for there is no remaining disease so 
 fatal to it, as the one thus extirpated. In comparing 
 the population of 1801, thinned as it was by this pest, 
 and that of 1821, which is freed from it, we must 
 certainly find a much larger relative increase, than 
 can possibly occur between 1821 and 1841, other 
 things remaining the same. Precisely the same rea- 
 soning applies, though not in an equal degree, to the 
 effect which the great improvement in longevity 
 throughout Europe must have had in accumulating a 
 larger co-existing population from the same number 
 of births, than could have been the case before it took 
 place. This consideration, also, ought to warn us 
 against taking the ratio of increase generated by a 
 comparison of two periods, so dissimilar in particulars 
 most essential to the calculation : nothing but a con- 
 tinual increase in the duration of human life, so as to 
 realize the reveries of one of the French philosophers, 
 who imagined that man might at length survive 
 mortality, could justify such com])utations. I see 
 Mr. Finlayson calculates (erroneously, I think) the 
 
400 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ ^V- 
 
 increase in the mean duration of life at full one- 
 third ; but as this improvement includes the effect 
 of vaccination, its ratio cannot possibly continue. 
 Enough has been said, to show that the relative in- 
 crease which has taken place, both in England and 
 Ireland, and, indeed, throughout Europe, during the 
 present century, will not probably be maintained ; at 
 all events, that, as yet, we are totally unauthorised to 
 calculate upon such a result. In estimating, there- 
 fore, the future ratio of increase from that which has 
 taken place between 1801 and 1821, we are compar- 
 ing cases which are not parallel ; nothing could be so 
 absurd as such a calculation, if transferred to mecha- 
 nical philosophy ; even in logic it would instantly be 
 rejected as one of the most palpable fallacies, as 
 urging a ?ion tali pro tali; and still the pohtical 
 sophists of Europe, one and all, confidently calculate 
 the future ratio of human increase by this necessarily 
 fallacious method. 
 
 I might add greatly to the force of the preceding 
 observations, by proving that the census of 1801, which 
 is made the radix of these erroneous calculations, was 
 grossly deficient ; but the proof of this important fact 
 is reserved for a further opportunity. 
 
 (14.) Mr. Malthus, indeed, shortly after the intro- 
 duction of vaccination, asserted, that either the pro- 
 portion of marriages must diminish, or that some 
 other " drain," as, I think, he terms ;it, of mortality 
 must be opened ; rendering, in my humble opinion, 
 had his prognostications been true, vaccination a 
 very doubtful blessing ; but directly the contrary is, 
 happily, the fact : health has greatly improved, and 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 401 
 
 marriages have actually multiplied, since that period, in 
 a most striking degree : in proof of which, I must 
 again beg leave to refer to calculations already made, 
 and about to be published ; when the periods of 
 duplication^ on which so much stress is laid at pre- 
 sent, by the principle 1 am opposing, will be shown 
 to be physical impossibilities. I make these frequent 
 allusions, whether judicious or otherwise, with the 
 sole view of anticipating, in some measure, the pos- 
 sible objections of the reader, by assuring him that, in 
 the system of population partly developed in this 
 publication, particular arguments have been else- 
 where pursued, and objections answered, which it was 
 not practicable, either in the space or time which I 
 allow myself in my present attempt, to attend to. 
 
 (15.) It may, perhaps, be expected that some 
 notice should be taken of the incomplete census of 
 1813 : about one-third, however, of the thirty-two 
 counties which Ireland comprises are returned in it 
 as deficient ; and it is therefore more than probable 
 that the rest were very imperfectly enumerated. Great 
 obstacles were, doubtless, interposed against taking 
 a correct account of the population on that occasion, 
 it being the first attempt of the kind ; and the num- 
 bers obtained through other official channels are, 
 doubtless, on the whole, more correct. Still, how- 
 ever, as it is probable that, in the counties in which 
 the measure was apparently successful, the deficiency 
 was proportionate, we will lastly try whether the 
 facts it presents are conformable, or otherwise, to 
 the principle laid down, and, I trust, fully proved 
 l)v tlu^ ))r(H'cdini- calculations. 
 
 J n 
 
402 
 
 IKELAND; ITS EVILS, 
 
 [ XV. 
 
 The succeeding table needs no explanation, being 
 constructed on the same principle as those already 
 given. 
 
 TABLE, showing the Comparative Increase in the Four Provinces of 
 Ireland, from 1813 to 1821, calculated on the Twenty-two Counties 
 enumerated in 1813. 
 
 Province. 
 
 Inhabitants 
 to a square 
 Mile, 1821. 
 
 Population, 
 1813. 
 
 Population, 
 1821. 
 
 Increase 
 per Cent. 
 
 Ulster 
 
 Leinster .... 
 Munster .... 
 Connaught . . . 
 
 251 
 216 
 204 
 162 
 
 1,207,448 
 837,951 
 
 1,273,149 
 489,576 
 
 1,349,698 
 979,616 
 
 1,523,798 
 626,626 
 
 11 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 3,808,124 
 
 4,484,738 
 
 17 
 
 This table exhibits an increase of about two per 
 cent, per annum ; far too minute a ratio to call for any 
 interference with nature, I think, at present ; espe- 
 cially looking to the imperfect cultivation of the 
 country, which a more liberal application of manual 
 labour would render so much more productive, and the 
 immense extent of surface still untouched. But inas- 
 much as the first of the two censuses was avowedly 
 and greatly deficient, no such annual increase as two 
 per cent, has taken place, certainly far short of it ; 
 consequently the meditated attempt is still less justi- 
 fiable, and is in the highest degree impertinent. 
 
 To show, once more, that local habits or cus- 
 toms are not the causes which govern the variations 
 in this law of human increase, the following table is 
 lastly subjoined, in which the counties are classed, 
 not under their respective provinces, but according 
 to the number of statute acres which, in 1813, there 
 were in each to every individual inhabitant. 
 
XV.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 403 
 
 TABLE, showing- the Comparative Increase, in Eig-ht Years, of the 
 Population of twenty-two Counties of Ireland, calculated on the Cen- 
 suses of 1813 and 1821, classed according to the Number of Acres to 
 each Inhabitant. 
 
 Counties. 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 Acres to 
 
 each inhab 
 
 in 813. 
 
 Population 
 in 1813. 
 
 Population 
 iu 1821. 
 
 Increase 
 percent. 
 
 Down 
 
 Ulster 
 
 2 
 
 287,290 
 
 325,410 
 
 
 Mona^han 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 2.1 
 
 140,433 
 
 174,697 
 
 
 Longford 
 
 Leinster 
 
 2..? 
 
 95,917 
 
 107,570 
 
 
 Londonderry 
 
 Ulster 
 
 2.8 
 
 186,181 
 
 193,869 
 
 
 Antrim 
 Tyrone 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Ulster 
 
 2.9 
 3 
 
 231,548 
 
 262,863 
 
 13 
 
 941,369 
 
 1,064,406 
 
 250,746 
 
 261,865 
 
 Tipperary 
 
 Miinsler 
 
 3.1 
 
 290,531 
 
 346,896 
 
 
 Car low 
 
 r^einsler 
 
 3.2 
 
 69,566 
 
 78,952 
 
 
 Cork 
 
 Munster 
 
 .S.2 
 
 523,936 
 
 629,786 
 
 
 Queen's Co. 
 
 Leinster 
 
 3 3 
 
 113,857 
 
 134,275 
 
 
 Waterford 
 
 Munster 
 
 3.5 
 
 119,457 
 
 127,842 
 
 
 Roscommon 
 
 Connaught 
 
 3.5 
 
 158,110 
 
 208,729 
 
 
 Kilkenny 
 
 Leinster 
 
 3.6 
 
 134,664 
 
 158,716 
 
 
 Meath 
 King's Co. 
 
 Ibid. 
 Leinster 
 
 3.7 
 
 4 
 
 142,479 
 
 159,183 
 
 16 
 
 1,803,346 
 
 2,106,241 
 
 113,226 
 
 131,088 
 
 Fermanagh. 
 
 Ulster 
 
 4.1 
 
 111,250 
 
 130,997 
 
 
 Leitrim 
 
 Connaught 
 
 4.4 
 
 94,095 
 
 124,785 
 
 
 Kildare 
 
 Leinster 
 
 4.5 
 
 85,133 
 
 99,065 
 
 
 Clare 
 Mayo 
 
 Munster 
 Connaught 
 
 4.8 
 5.4 
 
 160,603 
 
 208,089 
 
 22 
 
 564,307 
 
 694,02 4 
 
 237,371 
 
 293,112 
 
 Kerrv 
 
 Munster 
 
 5.8 
 
 178,622 
 
 216,185 
 
 
 Wicklow 
 
 - 
 
 Leinster 
 
 6 
 
 83,109 
 
 110,767 
 
 24 
 
 499.102 
 
 620,064 
 
 This table, again, requires no comment, and is the 
 last that will be given ; indeed, I am not aware that 
 there is now any species of existing proofs, of which 
 the principle at issue is susceptible, that has been 
 omitted. I shall conclude my appeal to these docu- 
 ments, by observing, that to suppose the results thus 
 derived from so many different and independent 
 sources, all minutely and uniformly confirming the 
 principle of population developed in these pages, to 
 be purely accidental, would be to make rather too 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 large a demand upon the doctrine of ehpnces^ and 
 rise into a much greater miracle^ than believing them 
 to be a part of that simple law of relation which per- 
 vades all nucure, and by which an infinitely wise and 
 powerful Being plainly accomplishes the purposes of 
 his eterni ' and immutable benevolence. 
 
 (16.) Ireland, therefore, I must repeat, is no excep- 
 tion to the true principle of human increase ; a prin- 
 ciple which, no more than the one that it opposes, 
 can ever remain inert, and, like that, may be " known 
 by its fruits." It dictates to the feelings, and prompts 
 the exertions of all who receive it. Demonstrably 
 true, even as it respects Ireland, so it holds forth 
 the most instructive lesson as it regards that country. 
 It teaches those who have to do with its affairs, or 
 who wish to dictate to and intermeddle with those 
 that have ; a far surer, as well as happier method of 
 serving and blessing that country, than either trans- 
 porting the people, driving them from their farms, 
 deserting them in their distresses, or diminishing their 
 numbers, by any plans of cruelty or oppression, an- 
 cient or modern. It proves the utter futility of all 
 such attempts, and that the law of nature is universal ; 
 the same as it respects the Irish, and, indeed, all 
 other people, as it was with the Israelites, who " the 
 more they were afflicted, the more they multi- 
 plied and grew ;" and that the way of diminishing 
 the fecundity of the Irish is not by the creation of 
 vacuums, but by replenishing those already made, by 
 the deserters and enemies of their country. As this 
 true principle of human increase is understood, and 
 prevails, feelings of confidence in an all-sufficient Pro- 
 
XV.J AND THEIR REMEDIES. 405 
 
 vidence will be strengthened, and of cordial affection 
 for our fellow-creatures revived ; and benevolence, 
 no longer paralyzed by the influences of the contrary 
 theory, will renew its wonted exertions in behalf of 
 human beings, in the way God and nature have here- 
 tofore dictated and blessed. Even policy itself may 
 at length be pleased to think, that what it never can, 
 and nature perpetually does, regulate, may be regu- 
 lated for the best ; and, dropping its dread of popu- 
 lation, concede, at length, that to do justly and love 
 mercy is the best and safest course for nations, as 
 well as individuals ; and that the surest way to pre- 
 serve a people in peace and quietness, is to give 
 them a permanent interest in the institutions of their 
 country. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of adopting the measures now 
 proposed, and recommended, indeed, a century ago, 
 let us pursue a more natural, humane, and patriotic 
 course. In the mean time let us speak less, and legis- 
 late not at all, against those poor labourers, who, being- 
 deprived of the work and bread that naturally belongs 
 to them and to their country, pursue them to this ; 
 and who meritoriously take the proceeds of their hard 
 earnings to their own domestic hearths, a conduct 
 that combines the very opposites of all the vices with 
 which they are perpetually charged. Irish vagrants ! 
 Who are the real, culpable vagrants, ye imperial legis- 
 lators, about whom ye ought to bestir yourselves ? 
 
 (17.) Surely, Ireland, last of all countries upon 
 earth, ought not to permit its people to starve from 
 want of food, or sufter for want of employment. Re- 
 specting the former, its surplus produce, even now, 
 
406 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ X^'- 
 
 is probably greater than that of any other country in 
 the world of equal extent ; and its surface might, on 
 the very lowest calculations which our practical agri- 
 culturists have ever made_, sustain far above ten times 
 the number of inhabitants that it now nearly starves ; 
 while " the wastes of the sea/' to repeat Lord Bacon's 
 expression, by which it is encircled, remain almost 
 totally untouched. Demand for labour is, however, 
 wanted, in order to accomplish any amelioration in 
 the country; and that can never be obtained while 
 the means of its remuneration are withdrawn, as well 
 as the necessity destroyed, to so great an extent, by 
 absenteeism ; inflicting all those wrongs which have 
 been the painful subject of consideration in the former 
 pages of this publication. It is this grand evil, and the 
 want of a national provision for the poor, which its con- 
 duct renders the more necessary, to which much of the 
 distress and turbulence of Ireland has been distinctly 
 traced. Surely that country presents a noble field for 
 the exertions of the real patriot ; there he might 
 build himself an everlasting monument: the imperish- 
 able materials are at hand. Its natural capacities are 
 unrivalled ; so are those of its people ; though both 
 lie uncultured, abandoned, abused ! In the character 
 of its inhabitants there are the elements of whatever 
 is elevated and noble ; these, however borne down and 
 hidden, are indicated wherever their development is 
 not rendered impossible. Their courage in the field 
 needs no panegyric of mine, and has never been sur- 
 passed ; their charity^, notwithstanding their poverty, 
 
 ' See Young, Newenham, &c. Report of Select Committee, iii. 
 pp. 415, 453. 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 407 
 
 never equalled; even while I am thus writing, I will 
 dare to assert, that, in many a cabin of that country, 
 the god-like act of our immortal Alfred, which will 
 be transmitted down to the remotest generations, the 
 dividing his last meal with the beggar, is this instant 
 being repeated. And their gratitude for kindnesses 
 received, equals the ready warmth with which they are 
 ever conferred. In the domestic sphere, according to 
 their humble means, they are unrivalled in fidelity 
 and affection. I mean not to contend^ that they have 
 not faults, and grievous ones ; but these are mainly 
 attributable to the condition to which they have been 
 reduced, and the manner in which they have been so 
 long treated. They, perhaps, mirabile dictii, feel no 
 strong affection for those of their superiors, whom they 
 rarely see, or see but too often to be insulted \ but 
 whom they are perpetually feeling ; nor attachment to a 
 government which they identify with their oppressors. 
 But let them be treated as, it is confessed and de- 
 clared on all hands, they ought to be : let their natural 
 patrons and protectors return to them, not '^ for a short 
 time," as exactors and '^ drivers," but, permanently, 
 as kind and resident landlords ; let labour be fostered 
 and encouraged ; let want be relieved, and life pre- 
 served, by a moderated system of poor-laws, which 
 shall concede those humble claims to all, which God 
 and Nature have immutably established, and which 
 policy itself has long sanctioned'^ : in a word, let the 
 
 'These may be considered as strong expressions: a different 
 opinion will be entertained by those who have had many opportuni- 
 ties of personal observation. See Arthur Young's Tonr in Ireland, 
 "Oppression," pp. '29, 30, Appendix. 
 
 ' While I am writing, an article is pointed out to me in the last 
 
408 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 different ranks resume their equally essential stations, 
 (iach performing their several duties ; and the social 
 
 numbers of an influential work, the Christian Observer, in which 
 1 greatly regret to find an attack is made, and in no very mea- 
 sured terms, upon our national charity. It commences by 
 informing us, in effect, that, if it is not mistaken, there is no 
 national provision for the poor enforced by law in any country but 
 Britain, excepting Iceland. It is mistaken ; and, knowing only 
 thus much of the subject, it is a pity that so long an article has 
 been written upon it, in which errors as to facts, and, as it strikes 
 me, in principles also, quite as glaring as this, occur throughout. 
 I shall not refer again to the best part of Protestant Europe, and 
 America, which have that legal provision ; or to the condition 
 of those countries which are still without it ; or to our own pre- 
 viously to its establishment ; or to the practice of the primitive 
 Church (as far as they had the power), in reference to it ; but again 
 appeal to a higher and overwhelming authority in favour of the prin- 
 ciple of a compulsory provision, now so much abused, and which 
 it is proposed to destroy like another *' Carthage." The Mosaic 
 dispensation embodies that legal and compulsory provision in its 
 divine institutions ; which, and voluntary charity, God hath there 
 joined together, whoever may now attempt to put them asunder as 
 absurd and irreconcilable. See Selden, Schultens, Maimonides, 
 &c., upon this point. And when it is considered that that system, 
 thus dictated by an unchangeable God, forms not a part of the cere- 
 monial, but of the moral code, not one jot or tittle of which is mu- 
 table ; that it appertaineth to that virtue which *' never faileth," the 
 arguments, or, as they may rather be called, declamations, against 
 our system, which apply as fully to that established by the Deity, 
 are really somewhat bold, if not presumptuous. After such an appeal, 
 I shall not descend to minor arguments, otherwise the intolerable 
 burden the proposed abrogation of the poor-laws would impose 
 upon the willing part of the community, not the most numerous, 
 and not often the most wealthy (religion instructs us to the con- 
 trary, in both respects), and the demand it would make upon 
 the time, and especially upon the entire resources of such, would 
 have the effect of drying up the founts of many of those foreign 
 charities of the country which the work in question has so long 
 patronized, and of intercepting much private beneficence now hap- 
 pily administered ; above all, after having robbed poverty of that 
 decent provision which it has long enjoyed, and which is its legal 
 rights it would, to the equal disgrace both of the rich and the poor, 
 sentence the latter to the degradation of subsisting upon the pre- 
 carious relief obtained too often by abject and repeated supplica- 
 tions, and by distressing and disgusting exhibitions ; with a swarm 
 of other evils inseparable from mendicancy. But this work, I 
 perceive, is turning its attention to modern political economy, the 
 unrighteous Mammon, whose cause, however, I think it will 
 
xv.] 
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 409 
 
 edifice, thus " compact together and at unity in itself," 
 shall never again be shaken. These are the means, sim- 
 
 find difficult to reconcile with its former and more elevated service. 
 It is now, I perceive, boldly espousing the most nauseous of the 
 notions of that school. " The poor laws," it seems, " call a mul- 
 titude of population into existence ;" the " redundancy" of human 
 beings is confidently asserted ; a doctrine which, however fair in 
 front, like Milton's Sin, enwombs a brood of consequences which 
 are too loathsome to be described. Redundant ! how can any 
 one talk in the ears of the Deity thus, who believes in His 
 superintending providence ; in human redemption, general or 
 particular ; in the immortality and infinite worth of the human 
 soul ! We are little qualified, 1 fear, to decide on the rights 
 of the poor, or their relief, when we approach the subject 
 with the principles such language involves. The effects of these 
 are obvious, and are, indeed, rarely disguised ; and are not to be 
 counteracted, by plentifully calling such " redundants," after all, 
 *' our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus," and so forth. It is 
 language like this, connected with such views, that *' sweet religion 
 makes a rhapsody of words." There may be, no doubt, a mote 
 in the eye of poverty ; but it may be questioned whether any class 
 amongst us is justified, at the present, in paying its first attention 
 to plucking it out. The legislature, I perceive, is called upon to 
 destroy this " Carthage," as the writer in question denominates 
 our national charity. It will, however, be more wise, I think, than 
 to make the attempt. One thing in this article has, however, 
 given me much pleasure ; the great unpopularity of any oppo- 
 sition to the poor-laws of England is expressed and implied 
 throughout. Let us be told no more, then, that the provision for the 
 poor is not a voluntary charity ; it is such, nationally speaking, 
 to all intents and purposes, even on the plain admissions of its 
 impugners. As to the individual merit connected with the sys- 
 tem, its advocates cheerfully resign, and are willing to forget it. 
 But to repress further observations for the present, I will 
 only ask who that has seen its operation in this great manufactur- 
 ing country, where the wages of labour, in many branches at 
 least, are so unfortunately low, and where its demand is subject to 
 such great and sudden fluctuations and reversals, but must in- 
 stantly subscribe to its necessity } His Majesty's ministers said, 
 during the great, and, as some asserted, unexampled manufac- 
 turing distresses of 1826, that the national charity was the proper 
 organ of relief, and they said truly. While I am thus writing, a 
 document appears, accompanied by observations as to the sup- 
 posed alarming increase of the poor rates at present, which gives 
 nie mingled surprise and pleasure. All notice of the latter will 
 be rendered totally unnecessary by a few ren)arks on the former. 
 The account is made up for a year, ending March 25, 1827, and 
 
410 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 pie and obvious, though deprecated by inveterate sel- 
 fishness, and ridiculed by theoretic folly, which would, 
 
 consequently refers to the very period of distress alluded to, and 
 which cannot be forgotten. The sums expended on the poor, the 
 unemployed as well as impotent, amounted, it appears, to only 
 6,441,088/.; including the immense sums paid in the shape of 
 wages, of which wealth actually robs poverty, to return it again 
 in alms, accompanied with threatenings and insults. But, waiving 
 this important consideration altogether, this is the fifteenth suc- 
 cessive year in which these accounts have been published ; and, 
 behold ! the expense of sustaining the suffering poor, in this year, 
 distressful and gloomy almost beyond all precedent, was less than 
 the average of the whole of these years ! It was considerably 
 less than the first of them, though the population had certainly 
 increased, in the interim, 20 or 30 per cent. ! Somewhat advanced, 
 indeed, compared with the " prosperity*' year ; still it was less by 
 above 20 per cent, than it was nine or ten years before ! In the 
 name, then, of humanity, of justice, and of truth, if such feel- 
 ings and principles are still extant upon earth, let us hear no 
 more mendacious appeals as to the relative increase of the poor- 
 rates. Supposing, 1 repeat, we were to calculate the increase of 
 other national statistical amounts in the manner we do the sums 
 disbursed in behalf of poverty, what would be the conclusion we 
 should arrive at ? Why, that the county rates, for instance, would 
 " absorb," and in no long time, the entire property of the country, 
 and that every individual of us would speedily become felons ! 
 Such calculations would be sufficiently absurd, if applied to these 
 particulars ; they are worse than absurd as applied to poverty ; 
 they are palpably false ! Those who profess to attend more 
 to the numbers than to the expense of the poor, are still wilder 
 in their calculations. " A quarter" " nearly half" '* larger 
 half" *' seven eighths," &c., are the^propoition of paupers. The 
 poor are, in the mouth of such, what " the rogues in buckram 
 suits" were in that of Sir John Falstaff, always exaggerated and 
 still multiplying; and the allusion holds good yet further, for 
 while they are bemoaning over the spread of pauperism, and pro- 
 phesying that they shall be swallowed up by it, their own increas- 
 ing size often affords them a tolerably good security against that 
 danger. Their " sighing and grief blows them up like a bladder." 
 Some of our calculators, however, I observe, are diminishing 
 their estimates concerning pauperism, and, amongst the rest, Mr. 
 Malthus: a quarter of a century ago he had it " the larger half" 
 (p. 536); now he quietly substitutes, I perceive, "one quarter," (5th 
 edit. vol. iii. p. 416.) This looks well, but hardly comports with 
 his ideas concerning the poor's soon absorbing all the rents, &c. 
 While concluding this note, I receive a little work, forwarded to 
 me, on some of the topics discussed in the preceding pages, but on 
 
XV.] AND THEIR REMEDIES. 411 
 
 and in no long time, renovate Ireland, and repay the 
 wrongs of many generations ; which would waken a 
 nation into gladness, and spread a smile over the face 
 of nature itself. The benevolence of the great would 
 then be reflected in the thankful and gratified de- 
 meanour of their inferiors . The mutual pleasure of 
 giving and receiving favours would fill the cup of 
 
 very opposite principles ; it is, however, obviously impossible to 
 animadvert upon it at present. 1 shall just allude to what is said 
 upon " pauper marriages," which the author intimates ought to 
 be placed under legal control. Independently of the immorality 
 which such interference would inevitably occasion (if it could then 
 be called immorality), the cruelty of such a scheme is monstrous. A 
 being more cheerless in health, more helpless in sickness, in a word, 
 more desolate, living or dying, than the unmarried labourer, can 
 hardly exist : concerning such, above all others, the declaration of 
 the Creator is emphatically true, " It is not good for man to be 
 alone." Seeing, then, the tyrannous propositions on the one hand, 
 and the disgusting expedients on the other, to which the modern 
 principle of population drives many of its adherents, strange is it 
 that any one human being can be brought to believe that it is the 
 system of nature. But the cruelty of all this interference on the 
 part of man is nothing compared with its presumptuous ignorance. 
 An insect on the narrow shore of time, mounted on a grain of sand, 
 calculating from the tide of life flowing towards it, a universal de- 
 luge ! and calling upon its fellow-insects to stem the restless waves! 
 its organs meantime infinitely too minute to perceive the eternal hills 
 by which it is bounded, or to hear the voice which proclaims " Hither- 
 to shalt thou go and no further" the voice of Him who is the foim- 
 tain of that ocean of immortality, and who " measureth its waters 
 in the hollow of His hand !" 
 
 ' That nothing short of this can secure the peace and happiness 
 of any community, is no new discovery. Isocrates has a beautiful 
 passage on the subject, the extreme appositeness of which, in refer- 
 ence to what I have been asserting throughout the preceding pages, 
 will, I think, clear me from the charge of pedantry in subjoining it : 
 Oi' re yacq 7reve'c7Teoi rcuv TtoXirouv roGovro',) oiTisi'/p'j rov (p9ovc'i]/ 
 rdis TiX^'iOo xs;tT7)/xe'voiS', cjarz h^j^oicos inri^ovro rcuv o'^xujv rx\ (xs- 
 yxkcuVf ouoTrsp tojm a'^erigaiv ccvrcuv' rtyovyivm rrrj c)t:-tva;v ivdxi- 
 (xovixv ccvrois suTTo^locv vTroc^x^iV oi r& rxs ov'Jioi.s 8%o)jrsf., ovy^ 
 
 Movrss oCiay^vvrw o-vrols ihxt rrjv ra;v 'noKircuv qcTto^ixv sTrnfjivjov 
 rods ev^a/xtr. (Isoc. Oratio Areop. pp. 290, '291. Cantab, 8vo. 
 1729.) 
 
412 IRELAND; ITS EVILS, [ XV. 
 
 human happiness, agitate and heighten its pleasures, 
 even to the very brim. The various and too often 
 discordant elements of society would become purified 
 of their inherent evils by this salutary admixture. 
 Its several classes, weak in their division, and hostile 
 as separate from each other, would, as they were drawn 
 closer together in the bonds of mutual interest and 
 aifection, become indissoluble : not only, as the fabled 
 bundle of sticks, would they remain united and un- 
 broken, but each, like the rod of Aaron, would again 
 branch forth and blossom into all the charities and vir- 
 tues of domestic and social life. Then, indeed, the 
 different ranks of society, instead of so many steps of 
 a dungeon, descending down to lower and still lower 
 depths of misery and degradation, would, like Jacob's 
 ladder, seem reaching up to Heaven, and the Angels 
 of Mercy and Gratitude would be seen ascending and 
 descending thereon, for ever ! 
 
XV.] AND THKIR REMEDIES. 413 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 It has been suggested to me, that it would have been 
 well to have accompanied the foregoing tables respecting 
 Ireland with at least one or two of those referred to in 
 the Introduction, as establishing the principle of population 
 universally, in order to silence the objections which may 
 be advanced, founded on the supposed prevalence of 
 some local or peculiar habits in that country, affecting the 
 question. It is obviously too late for me to do this at 
 present; I will, however, so far avail myself of the sug- 
 gestion as to give a synopsis of one of them, and shall 
 purposely take that which relates to a country whose popu- 
 lation is thin and scattered, and represented, in all other 
 respects, as in a condition directly opposite to that of Ireland ; 
 one in which the ** preventive check" is supposed hardly 
 to exist at all, or, if it exist, is not to be sought for in the 
 more densely peopled northern states, where, as Dr. Frankhn 
 says, they "marry in the morning of life," but in the south- 
 ern, or slave-holding ones, where the population is the scan- 
 tiest ; there, indeed, we are told, moral restraint, unhap- 
 pily, is not unknown. But, above all, I select the instance 
 about to be given as that on which the '* geometric ratio" 
 of human increase professes to be solely founded ; I allude, 
 of course, to the United States. In this extract, then, of 
 one of my tables, the first column expresses the relative con- 
 densation of the population, by dividing it according to the 
 number of acres to every individual throughout ; the second, 
 the number of states and territories in each class ; the 
 third, a given number of females (100) between sixteen and 
 forty-five ; the fourth, the proportionate number of cliildren 
 under ten years of age to each of those hundreds. The 
 particulars of the States, and the numbers on which the 
 calculation is formed, will be given in the work referred to. 
 
414 
 
 IRELAND ; ITS EVILS, &C. 
 
 [ XV. 
 
 TABLE, exhibiting- the variation of Prolificness in the United States, 
 regulated by the Condensation of the Population throughout. 
 
 Acres to each 
 Inhabitant. 
 
 Number of 
 States and 
 Territories. 
 
 Females from 
 16 to 45. 
 
 Children under 
 
 lOjtoea. of those 
 
 100 Females. 
 
 Less than 10 
 10 to 20 
 20 to m 
 30 to 50 
 50 to 100 
 100 and upwards 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 3 
 5 
 
 4 
 11 
 
 100 
 1(X) 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 100 
 
 127 
 139 
 150 
 171 
 192 
 203 
 
 But to particularize the New England States, where the 
 inhabitants are the most stationary, and of uniform habits: 
 
 States. 
 
 Inhabitants to 
 
 Females from 
 
 Children, 10, 
 
 a square Mile. 
 
 16 to 45. 
 
 tbeach 1000. 
 
 Massachusetts . . 
 
 75 
 
 1000 
 
 1268 
 
 Connecticut . . 
 
 56 
 
 1000 
 
 1282 
 
 Rhode Island . . 
 
 48 
 
 1000 
 
 1314 
 
 New Hampshire . 
 
 22 
 
 1000 
 
 1384 
 
 Maine .... 
 
 7 
 
 1030 
 
 1621 
 
 In the statistics of America, as in those of Ireland, the 
 marriages and births are wanting: this omission, however, 
 instead of weakening the proof of the real principle of popu- 
 lation, has actually confirmed it, by leading to an equally 
 conclusive demonstration of its truth, calculated on totally 
 different principles. In the rest of the tables, however, the 
 more usual method is pursued, and not only with equal 
 success, but with this singular advantage to the argument ; 
 they will show, at the same time, the ignorance and error 
 which have prevailed relative to what is called the " preven- 
 tive check ;" taking away therefore, at once, the main sup- 
 port of the contrary system, and answering the sole objection, 
 as it is conceived, by which the one now developed can be 
 assailed. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 London: Printed by W. Clowes, 14, Charinj-Cross. 
 
Speedily will be published, in 3 lar^e vols. 8v). 
 THE 
 
 LAW OF POPULATION; 
 
 A TREATISE, IN SIX BOOKS: 
 
 IN DISPROOF OF THE SUPERFECUNDITY OF HUMAN BEINGS; AND 
 
 DEVELOPING THE REAL PRINCIPLE ON WHICH THEIR 
 
 INCREASE IS UNIVERSALLY REGULATED. 
 
 BY M. T. SADLER. 
 
 That to the height of this great argument, 
 I may assert Eiernal 1'roviuknce, 
 And justify the ways of Gou to irian! 
 
 Also, by the same Author, 
 
 JURA INJURIJEQUE PAUPERUM; 
 
 OR, A DEFENCE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF 
 
 THE POOR LAWS OF ENGLAND; 
 
 wrrti 
 
 Suggestions for their Essential hnproi'ement . 
 
 Safe in the love of Heav'n, an ocean flows 
 Around our realm, a barrier from tiie foes; 
 lis ours the sons of- sorrow to relieve, 
 Cheer the sad heart, nor let afHiclion grieve 
 By Jove the stranger and the po.T were s-nt 
 And wliat to these we give, to Jwve is lent. 
 
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