XXXVI. 1837. ference in two coun Great Bri Ireland. while that of Ireland was only £4,807,000. So that CHAP. Great Britain, with a population of 16,000,000, paid eleven times as much taxes as Ireland with a population 61. of 8,000,000! Can anything so strongly demonstrate Great difthe inferiority of Ireland in point of property? and yet the statisthey were going to add another million to the amount of tics of the its taxation in the shape of a poor-law." There can be tries of no doubt that the facts here referred to by Mr O'Connell tain and were sufficiently remarkable; but it is extraordinary that so acute an observer did not see that they established another fact, utterly fatal to his constant complaint of the oppressive nature of the English government of Ireland. It followed from these figures that Great Britain, in proportion to its population, was 51⁄2 times as heavily taxed as Ireland; and it is in vain to pretend that this was owing to the taxes on property of the latter country being so small, for the Irish rental at this period ex- 1 Ann. Reg. ceeded £13,000,000, while that of Scotland was under 1838, 109. £5,000,000!! 1* lishment of Mr O'Connell and his whole Catholic supporters did 62. their utmost to defeat the measure; a striking proof of Final estabthe foreign influence under which they were acting, for in poor-laws the former year he had given a qualified adherence to the there. proposal, and the evidence in support of it had since been The Report of the Commissioners established several facts of the most important description, and speaking volumes as to the absolute necessity of a poor-law in Ireland. "The number of agricultural labourers in Ireland actually exceeded those of England by 75,000, while with a less fertile soil the amount of agricultural produce raised in England is four times greater. In England, the wages of agricultural labourers are from 8s. to 10s. a-week, in Ireland from 2s. to 2s. 6d. There are 585,000 heads of families, who for seven months in the year are without employment, and the persons dependent on them are 1,500,000 more. No less than 567,000 persons have no land, and live in summer by occasionally getting 6d. a-day wages, and in winter begging. The poverty endured by the destitute exceeds belief. Men are often found lying in bed because they have nothing to eat, and the pangs of hunger are less severe there than when up. They often become thieves in order to get the protection of a jail. They lie on rotten beds, in mud cabins, with scarce any covering, feeding on unripe potatoes and yellow weeds, feigning sickness in order to get into the cholera hospital, and when there often subject to vomitings, which were mistaken for the first symptoms of that disease, the effect of mere hunger."-Ann. Reg. 1837, 71-72. VOL. VI. Р XXXVI. 1837. CHAP, greatly strengthened. It passed, however, by large majorities in both houses-that in the Commons being 120. to 68; and although temporarily interrupted in its progress through the Upper House by the demise of the Sovereign, to be immediately related, it finally became law in July 1838. In the March following, twenty-two unions had been declared, and in eighteen of these guardians had been appointed. In the course of 1840, no less than a hundred and twenty-seven unions were appointed, and fourteen large workhouses had been erected for the reception of paupers; and the Commissioners, with just pride, reported that the measure was in full operation, and would work well for the redemption of Ireland. There was no law of parochial settlement introduced, and everything depended on residence in the unions. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this great healing measure for Ireland; for dreadful as was the distress induced by the famine of 1846, it was not one half of what it would have been, had there been, when that calamity arrived, no public establishments for the relief of the destitute, and no assessment to provide for their support. Ministers deserve the greatest credit for having carried through this most important measure, which was the more meritorious on their part that it was entirely new in Ireland, and the reluctance is always so great to admit any change, however necessary, which involves any assessment on property. It must be added, to the honour of the reformed House of Commons, that a most creditable, patriotic, and disinterested zeal was evinced on all sides in the discussion of this measure, insomuch that, it was truly said by Mr O'Connell, it could not be discovered from the speeches to what side the members delivering them belonged. This was particularly honourable to the Protestant members of Ireland, as they represented nineteen-twentieths of the landed property of that country, upon whom the burden was to XXXVI. 1837. 1 Ann. Reg. be imposed. If an exception to this remark is to be CHAP. made in the case of Mr O'Connell and most of the Irish Catholic members, who ultimately resisted the measure with all their strength after its necessity had been clearly demonstrated, and its beneficial effects had already begun 1837, 76, to be experienced, it is not so much to be ascribed as a Parl. Deb. fault to them, as lamented as a result of that foreign xliii. 715, sacerdotal influence under which they acted, and which Hall's Irehas so often forced them into a course directly at variance iii. 352. with the best interests of their country.1 1839, 300; xliv. 28; land, i. 7, on this sub The argument mainly relied on by the opponents of 63. the measure, and especially insisted on by Mr O'Connell Reflections and his followers in their last opposition to it, was the ject." well-known one so often urged by the political economists of the Malthus school, that every system of general relief to the poor, whether voluntary or compulsory, is calculated to produce more evil than it can possibly remove, because it gives an undue extension to the principle of population, the main source, according to them, of the chief disorder and suffering of society. It never occurred to them that Ireland itself afforded a decisive proof of the erroneous nature of that opinion; for in that country, when the population was so redundant that wages were 2s. 6d. a-week, it was doubling in thirty years; while in England, where comfort was so general, and the demand for labour so considerable that wages were 10s. a-week, it did not double once in a century. Nor is it difficult to see wherein the error consisted. Population was excessive in Ireland from the excess of poverty; the principle of increase had become unlimited in its operation, from the absence of all the checks provided by nature to its action. These checks are mainly the prudential considerations which occasion an abstinence from marriage till there is some prospect of providing for a family. Nothing destroys the operation of this check so effectually as the constant sight of unrelieved distress, and the experienced XXXVI. 1837. CHAP inability to better the condition. The typhus fever itself is not more contagious than habits of improvidence and excessive poverty, for they appeal to the strongest desire of uncivilised man, the sexual impulse and the love of ease. The poor-laws, which seized the worst cases of the poverty patients, and put them in public hospitals, did the same benefit to the habits of the remaining labouring classes which the abstraction of the typhus patients did to their health. It stopped the spread of the moral disorder, by secluding the worst of those afflicted with the highly contagious pestilence. 64. plan for church rates. To conciliate the Dissenters in England, a bill was Ministerial brought forward by Ministers to abolish church-rates in abolishing that country; and as the sum levied in this way was about £250,000 a-year, it was necessary to provide for it from some other source. With this view, it was proposed to take the whole property of bishops, deans, and chapters out of the hands of those functionaries, and to vest it in the hands of eleven commissioners, by whom the salaries of these functionaries were to be paid. By this means it was calculated a surplus revenue of £250,000 a-year might be realised, by depriving the Church of the profit at present derived from the renewal of leases, and this sum was to be applied to the repair of churches in lieu of church-rates. The obvious objection to this plan was, that it was based on the principle of church spoliation, because it proceeded on the idea that the property of the Church was to be exclusively burdened with the expense of upholding churches instead of the whole community, and that, to realise the requisite fund, the whole property of the higher dignitaries of the Church was to be taken out of their hands. It excited, accordingly, from the very first, a warm opposition: the bishops, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, took the lead in resisting it; and so repugnant was it to the general feelings of the community, that the majority in the House XXXVI. 1837. of Commons on the second reading was only five-the CHAP. numbers being 287 to 282. This was the narrowest division which had taken place since Sir Robert Peel's dissolution, and it was fatal to the bill, which was no farther proceeded with, even in the Lower House, though it had been introduced as the leading measure of the session. Indeed, in former times, so small a majority would have at once led to the resignation of the ministry who brought it forward; but it was evident to all, that new maxims of state in this respect must follow the Reform Bill; for parties were now so equally divided that no government on either side could, on a leading 1 Parl. Deb. party-question, expect a large majority; and therefore, to xxxviii. hold that such a majority was indispensable to ministe- Ann. Reg. rial existence, was equivalent to holding that there could 93, 103. never be a ministry at all.1 1073, 1384; 1837, 84, manby's ad The extremely small majority on this occasion deterred 65. Ministers from again bringing forward the Irish Church Lord NorBill, involving the appropriation principle, this session; ministration and the death of the King, which occurred in the in Ireland. middle of it, almost as a matter of necessity threw the question over to the next session. In the mean time, every exertion was made by the local government in Ireland to keep the Catholics in good-humour, and reconcile them to the postponement of their hopes of gratification from the expected humiliation of the Church. For this purpose, Lord Normanby, who was the Lord-lieutenant, resorted to several measures, some of a judicious, others of a very questionable tendency. Of the first kind was a remodelling of the police in 1836, which was put on a much more efficient footing. Great exertions were made to conciliate the Catholics, by placing at their disposal the greater part of the patronage of the kingdom; from the attorney-general's gown to the epaulet of the police, a favourable ear was lent to persons recommended by Romish influence. In a country abounding as Ireland |