Senior Letter to Lord Howick on a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor [BRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CAL [FORNIA LOS ANGELES A LETTER LORD HOWICK, LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE IRISH POOR; COMMUTATION OF TITHES, PROVISION FOR THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY. NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR, Esa. SECOND EDITION. PD O N . JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXXXI. LONDON! Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Stamford Street. 5*772 / 31 ADVERTISEMENT. THE following Letter was not originally intended for the public. I venture to state this as an apology for many imperfections incidental to a private communication, some of which I might have been able to avoid, if I had been writing for the press, but which I found it impossible to correct without recasting the whole ; an operation for which the urgency of the questions discussed did not allow time. I have added some extracts from the evidence of Dr. Chalmers, taken before the Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland ; partly to shew that my own views are supported by his authority, and partly in the hope of drawing attention to the whole of his evidence the most instructive, perhaps, that ever was given before a Committee of the House of Commons. Its publication in a cheaper form, instead of being locked up in the folios of the Report, would be a great public service. LETTER TO LORD HOWICK. MY LORD, SINCE your Lordship first called my at- tention to poor laws in Ireland, I have employed the greater part of my leisure in examining and considering the extensive sources of information on that subject. In the following letter I shall refer principally to the evidence taken in 1830 before the Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland, and to Dr. Doyle's pamphlet, en- titled ' A Letter to T. S. Rice, Esq., on the Establishment of a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor.' (Ridgeway, 1830.) My quotations marked by figures, are taken from the Evidence and from Dr. Doyle's pamphlet. The numbers under 200 refer to the pamphlet, the others to the Evidence. It certainly appears from the evidence taken in 1825, and in 1830, that a large proportion of the inhabitants of Ireland are in a state of habitual privation, and subject occasionally to severe distress. Whether this privation and this 6 distress are not somewhat overrated In popular estimation, is perhaps a question. Increase of population, accompanied by a merely propor- tionate increase of their means of subsistence, may generally be considered a proof that the bulk of the inhabitants of a country are not in ex- treme poverty that they possess some surplus beyond the mere necessaries of life. We know that the population of Ireland is rapidly in- creasing, and it certainly does not appear that there is any relative diminution of their means of subsistence ; on the contrary, there is great reason to believe that those means are relatively improving. It is difficult, therefore, to believe that the great majority of the inhabitants of Ireland are in the state of destitution which is popularly ascribed to them. But after making liberal allowance for all the exaggeration which national or party feeling, the natural obtrusiveness of individual distress, and the contrast between England and Ireland may be supposed to have occasioned, it still must be admitted that the state of the lower classes in Ireland is inferior, not merely to the situation which appears within the power of the labouring population of a country to attain, but even to the situation which, in some countries countries less favoured by nature than Ireland has actually been attained by that class. And if this be admitted, it becomes our duty most anxiously to inquire how far the remedy for this evil lies within the province of Government. This inquiry may, perhaps, be facilitated by laying down an outline of some of the principal causes on which the prosperity of the labouring classes depends. Such an outline may appear abstract and scholastic, but it is better to incur the imputation of pedantry for propounding ab- stract principles, than the more serious charge of agitating a great practical question, without reference to any fixed principle at all. I believe that it is generally admitted that the prosperity of the labouring classes depends principally on the extent of the fund for the maintenance of labourers, compared with the number of labourers to be maintained. And I believe that it is also admitted that the extent of that fund depends principally on the effi- ciency of labour in producing the commodities which the labourers consume. On what then does that efficiency depend? Partly on physical, and partly on moral causes. The physical causes comprise the assistance afforded to man by brute or inanimate nature, and vary with all the varieties of soil, situation, climate, and extent in proportion to population. To some countries Nature has refused the means of supporting human life ; to others she has refused the means of wealth. No exertions would enable a community to exist long in 8 Melville Island, or in the deserts of Africa ; or to exist comfortably in Greenland, or Nova Zembla. But though Nature can deny riches, she can- not give them. The finest districts in the world are among the poorest. The labouring popu- lation of Sicily is among the most miserable in Europe, that of Norway among the most pros- perous. But what comparison is there between their natural advantages ? With all the brute and inanimate sources of wealth profusely scattered before them, the inhabitants of the greater part of Africa, America, and Asia, want the moral and intellectual means by which the raw materials of wealth must be worked up. The first of these means is industry. An indolent population might starve in the midst of all the sources of abundance. The second is forethought, or providence, the habit of deferring enjoyment, either by abstaining from the immediate use of the means of enjoyment when they are before us, or by directing labour to the production of remote, instead of immediate, results. It is on this habit that the existence of capital depends. Capital being the general name for all those articles of wealth which are not immediately and unproductively consumed by their pro- ducers, but are produced or preserved as the means of subsequent production or enjoyment. 9 It is to capital that we owe the use of imple- ments and the division of labour of all the aids to industry the most efficient. Without their assistance, man would be an animal less capa- ble of obtaining enjoyment, or even subsistence, than the brutes of the field. But there are other purposes, besides the creation and the preservation of capital, to which providence or forethought must be ap- plied. The most industrious and frugal people, confined within a given district, and allowing their numbers to increase according to the uncontrolled impulses of nature, must, within a limited period, find them increase to an extent at first inconsistent with the existence of pri- vate property, and very soon afterwards incon- sistent with comfortable, or even secure sub- sistence. How soon that period would arrive, must depend on the fertility and the extent of that district, compared with the number of its original inhabitants ; but that sooner or later it must arrive, will be conceded by all who do not believe, with Mr. Sadler, in a constant intervention of the Deity, diminishing procrea- tion in an inverse ratio to the numbers assem- bled within a given area. We have been told, indeed, that no people need be confined within a given district ; and that forethought, as a means of limiting popu- lation to the means of subsistence, is unne- 10 cessary, as that purpose might always be attained by well-regulated emigration. I am far from thinking that we have made a suffi- cient use of emigration. I believe that well- regulated emigration may be made a mosi useful drain in ordinary times, and that as a mode of relief in times of extraordinary pressure it is invaluable ; but I cannot believe that in s European country, separated by thousands oJ miles from any unoccupied territory, it woulc be possible to provide, by voluntary emigration for all the redundant members of a population in which the principle of increase was totally unchecked by prudence. I must still, there fore, believe, that in Europe one of the mos important offices of forethought is to limit the population to the means of comfortable sub- sistence. It appears from this short outline, that in dustry and forethought are the two great cause; of human welfare, and that where these habits are strong, and in proportion to their strength a people is prosperous ; and that where thes< habits are weak, and in proportion to thei weakness, it is miserable. And it must follo\ that human institutions are beneficial or in jurious, mainly so far as they are favourable o unfavourable to the creation and the preserva tion of these habits. But no causes, physical or moral, can d< 11 more than distribute over a people a certain average amount of comfort. In every com- munity there must be individuals who, from accident or error, do not share in the general prosperity. Among brutes, such individuals are left to perish, or more frequently are de- stroyed by their more fortunate companions. Man is endowed with charity a principle de- nied to the lower animals of which it is the office to correct these inequalities ; but, like all our other natural principles, it is not afforded to us in exact proportion to the demand for it : it is sometimes excessive, as it is seen in the indiscriminate and gratuitous supplies of food afforded at the doors of some Catholic monas- teries : it is much more frequently deficient, and still more frequently ill-directed. The intended purpose of all laws for the relief of the poor is to correct these errors : as far as the poor are concerned, to make the supply of relief ade- quate to the demand for it ; and, as far as the rich are concerned, to apportion equally the burthen of affording that relief, and by economising and directing its distribution, to make that burthen as light as possible. These are noble purposes, and as far as they can be effected without materially diminish- ing industry, forethought, and charity, it is the imperious duty of Government to effect them. We must remember, however, that 12 the power of human laws directly to punish the want of these qualities is very slight ; their power directly to create them, still slighter; their power to destroy them, almost irresisti- ble. Industry cannot be created, or indolence effectually checked, even by the whip of the slave-driver. We have seen industry, fore- thought, and charity, all crushed at once by the publication of a scale of allowance. I shall now proceed to the direct considera- tion of the question, how far it is practicable to extend the public and compulsory provision now existing in Ireland for the relief of the dis- tressed, without materially affecting the three great supports of human existence industry, forethought, and charity. It should be observed, that the word distress has in general been used very vaguely. Most writers and most speakers on this subject seem to have considered it as a general term for evils all equally fitted, or all equally unfit, for legal relief. Much confusion of thought and incor- rect reasoning may be avoided, if, still consi- dering that term as a general name for all the evils supposed to be capable of legal or com- pulsory relief, we divide those evils into distinct classes, and inquire separately how far each class ought to be left to voluntary charity, or to be relieved by legal intervention. I should say, then, that the evils supposed to 13 be relievable by public or compulsory charity, may be conveniently divided into three great classes : 1. Bodily infirmity 2. Failure of crops 3. Want of employment. And that the first class, bodily infirmity, may be subdivided into four species. 1 . Acute and temporary disease 2. Chronic infirmity in the young and middle aged 3. The natural decrepitude of old age and, 4. The natural weakness of infancy and childhood making, together with the failure of crops and want of employment, six distinct heads. I will take them separately. First, as to acute and temporary sickness : it may be supposed that this calamity might be left as an evil that must be foreseen, to be pro- vided against by industry and frugality in health, and to be assisted by voluntary charity. But this conduct cannot safely be applied to infectious disorders. In their treatment the public must interfere, and, therefore, must bear the expense. Nor is illness a contingency so present to the mind when in health as to war- rant our depending on the providence of the un- educated to lay up a store against it. Without wishing to give to the poor, when in sickness, a right to assistance, I am anxious that public provision should be made for such assistance, as far at least as medical treatment is concerned, and that the measures, suggested in the Report of 14 1030, for the erection, regulation, and support of fever hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries, should be fully and immediately attended to. The second head comprises those infirmities which permanently deprive a man in youth or middle age of the physical means of supporting himself. Such are blindness, loss of limbs, and, what is equivalent to loss of limbs, chronic infir- mity, idiotcy, and madness in any of its forms. No public fund for the relief of these calamities has any tendency to diminish industry or provi- dence. They are evils too great to allow indivi- duals to make any sufficient provision against them, and too rare to be, in fact, provided against by them at all. Their permanency, too, is likely to weary out private sympathy. And the worst of them, madness, is perhaps the cala- mity with which we least adequately sympa- thise. Even to educated persons, the insane are too frequently objects almost of aversion. I wish, therefore, to see these evils met by an ample compulsory provision. And in this case, as well as in the former, I am supported by the Report of 1830. The third class of the evils supposed to admit of legal relief, is the natural decrepitude of old age. The great distinction between this class and the two former is, that it must be foreseen. Every man knows that in old age his personal wants will be greater than they are in youth and middle age, and his earnings less. Assure him that the difference will be made up by the pub- lic, and you diminish in him the motives both of providence and of industry. You weaken still more the benevolent feelings of those around him. The impotence of old age excites the sympathy of all persons, and peculiarly that of their own descendants. The evidence taken before the Committee of 1830, is unanimous as to the strength among the Irish of filial affection and mutual benevolence. ' I do not think,' says Dr. Doyle (4494), ' that anything can be greater than the attention shown by the children to their parents. I could not, if I were to speak till the sun went down, convey a just picture of the be- nevolence prevailing' (4491.) Even if we had no experience on the subject, could it be ex- pected that this universal sympathy would sur- vive unimpaired a public provision for the aged ? That neighbours and children would exert them- selves as much if their exertions went merely to aid the parish ? But, in fact, we have the experience of Eng- land. I am not inclined to believe that there is any thing in our religion, or in our government, to make an Englishman more deficient in bene- volence or in natural affection than an Irishman. No such difference is perceptible among the higher classes. But among the lower orders, and in those districts in which the Poor Laws 10 are in full operation, filial affection and charity, at least that filial affection which urges the ex- ertions of industry, and sweetens the sacrifices of frugality in behalf of aged parents, that cha- rity which gives a charm to abstinence by the prospect of helping a distressed neighbour, seem almost extinguished. Every one who has lived in a country parish in the south and south- eastern counties knows that the support of the old by the young and strong is not the rule, but the exception. And to what is this lamentable difference to be attributed, but to the existence of a compulsory provision ? I object, therefore, to making in Ireland any further compulsory provision for the aged than that afforded by dispensaries, hospitals, and similar institutions for the supply of medical treatment and assist- ance. The fourth class of evils, against which a compulsory provision is proposed, consists of those arising from the natural weakness of in- fancy and childhood. Under this head, I propose to consider only the case of children when or- phans, or when deserted by their father, lawful or putative. Children, while forming a part of their father's family, are in fact identified with him, and relief must be considered as given or refused to them, when we give or refuse it to him. A provision for orphans has no tendency to 17 diminish industry or forethought. It may pre- vent great suffering. On the other hand, it has a tendency to substitute a very imperfect edu- cation for that which might be supplied by the charity of neighbours and friends. An orphan adopted into a private family enters life with the ordinary chances of success. Those brought up in public institutions seldom become useful members of society. Dr. Doyle states (4582) that the females become corrupt, with scarcely any exception, and that the boys are unnatural and vicious. On the whole, the evils of a public provision for orphans have, I believe, as yet, generally exceeded the benefits ; but, I am not confident that means might not be adopted to turn the balance the other way. The case of children deserted by their father is very different. I say children, not families, because the mother, whether married or not, is an object of relief only in respect of the chil- dren. By herself she is as able to earn a main- tenance as any other single woman. It is pecu- liar to the class of evils now under consideration, that not only are they capable of being foreseen, but that they must be foreseen. The man who abandons his children not merely expects, but actually wills their destitution. If the evils of that destitution are to fall not on them, but on the parish, is he less likely to abandon them ? Is a woman more or less likely to be seduced, if c 18 she knows that the child is to be provided for ? Here again we have the evidence of expe- rience. In Scotland, where no legal provi- sion exists, desertion of children and bastardy are rare. In England, desertion of children is one of the commonest causes of pauperism, and female profligacy is so usual, that in many parishes few marriages take place until the wo- man is pregnant. I should grieve to see the existing legal provision for deserted children extended in Ireland. It would relieve but little suffering, since, in the existing state of morals, the number of cases requiring its appli- cation is small. But I fear that, like much other ill-advised charity, the supply of relief might produce the demand, and diminish some of the most admirable of the national virtues, parental affection and female chastity. Dr. Doyle's opinions on this subject, as on many others, seem so tinctured by the peculi- arities of his religious tenets they seem so much assumed for effect, that I agree with him in thinking that they cannot be confided in. He admits that a provision for deserted children would be an encouragement to vice and immorality ; but he still recommends one, as a check to infanticide, a crime of which he has so great a horror, as tending to harden the heart of the mother, as well as to destroy an infant, and send its soul away from the sight of the 19 Redeemer, that he would leave society open to many evils to prevent the commission of such a crime, though it were to be committed in only a few cases, 4581. Now infanticide, even to avoid shame, is a crime almost unheard of in Ireland ; but when was a mother known, in that country, or in any other country, to destroy her infant because it was unprovided for ? to kill it, in short, to save the expense of feeding it ? 5. A fifth class of the evils supposed to be capable of remedy or alleviation by compulsory charity is the accidental failure of crops. These are evils to which nations are less and less exposed as they advance in civilization. In barbarous countries famines occur almost peri- odically. In the best parts of Europe they have almost ceased. They are occasioned partly by a population so excessive, when compared with the capital and land which supports it, as to force the lower classes to subsist on the cheapest food, partly by want of the means of transport, by which the abundance of one district might supply the deficiency in another, and partly by an agricultural system, under which the peasant is the occupier of the land, instead of being a hired labourer ; the farmer of four or five acres, instead of being the servant of the farmer occupying four or five hundred, and bear- ing therefore in his own person the risks of the c 2 20 seasons, instead of feeling them at second-hand after they have been spread over the whole sur- face of society, and their force has been broken on the higher classes. In Ireland all these sources of famine exist in their greatest force, and they are aggravated by the liability of the potatoe to failure, and its unfitness for keeping. The extension of farms, and the consequent conversion of cottiers into hired labourers ; the opening of roads and canals, and, in time it may be hoped, of rail-roads, events which, from the testimony of almost all the witnesses, are rapidly taking place, and which may be assisted by Government, if money is advanced for public works and to facilitate by emigration the con- solidation of farms, will prevent the evils which arise from a bad agricultural system, and im- perfect means of communication. These mea- sures, assisted by others to which I shall advert hereafter, may diminish the redundancy of population, and the consequent dependence on the potatoe. But they are measures of slow operation. The question which I am now dis- cussing is, whether any compulsory provision should be made to alleviate the distress that must be expected from the failure of crops during the next ten or twenty years, before the general ameliorating causes now in operation, or which may be expected to be in operation, shall have produced their effects. 21 Such a provision, if confined to extreme cases, can scarcely be said to have any tendency to diminish industry or providence. The failure of a crop is not a contingency against which a labouring man can be expected to make a provision. When such a failure is general throughout a district, it is not in the power of neighbours or friends to give adequate assist- ance : public relief, therefore, could not be said to come in lieu of ordinary charity, and the prin- cipal objections to it seem at an end. If the attempt to afford it were decided on, the next questions would be, what degree of deficiency, diffused over what extent of country, should be considered to warrant public inter- ference ? and on what fund should the burthen fall? A crop can scarcely be considered to have failed unless it be deficient by at least one-third of its average amount ; nor could a case for public interference be said to arise upon proof of such a deficiency having occurred on a single holding, or even on a single farm. There would be great difficulty in ascertaining whether so partial a failure was in fact the result of the seasons. The crop of a single occupier may have suffered from negligence or indolence ; and, what is more to the purpose, such a failure might be supplied by the unforced charity of neighbours. Public charity could not be needed unless the deficiency were general over 600 or 22 700 acres in a single parish, or in two or more adjoining parishes. The expense of affording it certainly should not be allowed to fall on the whole empire. When the revenue of the state is expended in charity, neither those who decide on the emer- gency, nor those who fix the amount, nor those who distribute the relief, sensibly feel the bur- then. The strongest checks to profusion and jobbing are therefore withdrawn. On the other hand, if the particular parish or district were to bear the whole expense, the burthen might be intolerable, and yet the relief insufficient. Perhaps a county rate, sanctioned, superin- tended, and distributed by the Irish Government paid not by the tenant, but by the landlord, and towards which the parish or district to be relieved should be subject to a double assess- ment would be the least objectionable mode. I have no doubt that, in some extreme cases, such as the failures which took place in 1822, and during the present summer on the Con- naught coast, such a plan would have many advantages over the practice of obtaining assist- ance from the charity of England. The relief would come earlier, and be better proportioned to the demand for it ; we should hear fewer complaints of the hard-heartedness of Irish landlords in the midst of absolute famine : com- plaints often exaggerated, but sometimes, it is 23 to be feared, too well founded. And if we ultimately decide that a public provision for the able-bodied poor is inexpedient, the unpopu- larity of that decision would be mitigated if provision were made for the most glaring suf- ferings. And yet, though I see many legitimate grounds in favour of making a public provision for the evils arising from the failure of crops, and though I fear that I am not insensible to the popularity attending such a proposal, I do not dare to recommend one. Unless confined to extreme cases, and who will venture to say that it would be so confined ? it would in time become a resource to be drawn upon in all unfavourable seasons. We know how difficult it is in Ireland to ascertain facts, or to make an economical, or even an impartial distribution of public money. If the sufferers were allowed a claim to relief, what litigation, and perhaps violence, might follow. If the distribution were discretionary, is there not reason to fear that it would be thought discreet to give an extra allowance to tenants in arrear to their landlords ? Private benevolence would, of course, cease to interfere : it always disappears before the approach of assessment. The fru- gality and contrivance by which a* deficient crop is now eked out would be unnecessary ; the public would become an insurer, with this 24 difference from ordinary assurers, that the assurance would be gratuitous. And lastly, the investment of capital in the purchase, the im- provement, or the security of land, would be checked by the danger of so indefinite an out- going. It may be said that this is arguing against the use from the abuse ; it certainly is so ; but I cannot doubt that, in this case, as in many other cases of compulsory charity, the abuse would follow close upon the use. Consi- dering, therefore, that the cases of failure of crops so extensive as to be beyond the ordinary resources of private charity are rare that, in the progress of improvement, they are becoming still more rare that, when they do occur, they are relieved, not so soon, nor always so effi- ciently as must be wished, but still that they are relieved, by voluntary contributions and that the attempt to relieve them by assessment would open a door to abuses, the extent of which it is difficult to appreciate I feel rather inclined to combat the evil with our present means, than to invoke against it the assistance of so dangerous an ally. The 6th and last class of the evils proposed to be remedied by a compulsory provision are those suffered by the able-bodied poor. The specific effect of a provision by law for the able-bodied poor when out of employment, or when employed at wages insufficient for 25 their own maintenance, and that of their fami- lies, is to destroy the three principles which I laid down at the outset as the great sources of human welfare, the great bonds of civilized so- ciety industry, providence, and mutual bene- volence. It says to the idle and the heedless, Your subsistence shall not depend on your ex- ertions or your contrivance ; to the young, Marry as soon as you like, your families shall be pro- vided for ; to the well employed, Spend all your earnings, the parish will support you when they fail ; if you do save, the pauper will claim a share of what you lay by ; and to the benevo- lent, What you give is only so much saved to the parish ; if you wish to indulge your sympathy, do it cheaply, by assessing your neighbours. And yet I doubt whether, if the experi- ment had never been tried, mere theory would have enabled us to anticipate its results. There appear to be some errors so naturally plausible, that nothing but experience can detect them. Such is the plan for enriching a nation by protections afforded to domestic industry, re- strictions in importation, and bounties on pro- duction. Such is the attempt to restrain the publication of dangerous opinions, to legislate pro salute animce, and for the prohibition of in- fidelity, heresy, and schism ; to convert all men by law to the true faith, and to prevent their deviating from its doctrines. Such is the still 26 more comprehensive scheme of supplying, by Act of Parliament, the absence of charity on the part of the rich, and of industry and fore- thought on the part of the poor. Indolence, and, still more, the want of self-denial, are so much more faults than crimes ; the destitution by which they are followed seems so dispro- portioned to the offence, it falls on so many innocent persons who are dependent on the offender ; the insensibility of the absentee land- lord, wringing his rents from misery, is so revolt- ing ; the hardship seems so manifest, of letting the whole burden of relieving distress fall, like a penalty, on the charitable, while selfish avarice affords an exemption, that every man, when the subject is first presented to his mind, feels an almost irresistible impulse to interpose the strong arm of the law, and correct the blunders of nature, by making benevolence compulsory, and repealing her sentence on idleness and im- providence. It is this plausibility that enables Dr. Doyle to fill his evidence and his pamphlet with clap-traps on the rights of the poor, and the duties of the state ; the law of nature and the law of the gospel ; and to maintain that, sup- posing it could be shown that an immense mass of pauperism, and great and manifold evils of the most appalling description, arose from put- ting in force the law [for the maintenance of the poor], yet that he should be of opinion, that it -27 is a law of God, and ought to be put in force, (4844) that he could not doubt either the meaning of the natural law, or the correctness of his interpretation of the revealed law on account of such supposed evils (4845) to deny that the case of extensive pauperism, produced by a system of poor laws, does exist, or that it is compatible with the attributes of the Deity, that any case of the kind could possibly exist : and, at last, to affirm, like a Turkish fatalist, who sees no connexion between military indis- cipline and defeat, or between filthiness and plague, that if, under a system of poor laws, a state were overrun with pauperism, it ought reasonably to be considered not the result of those laws, but a particular infliction of Pro- vidence, a special visitation of Divine wrath, a special punishment from God, for having neglected the poor. (4846.) Unhappily, we have subjected all these schemes to ample and persevering experiments. We have found that domestic industry is dis- couraged by prohibitions and bounties ; that disbelief and error are fostered by intolerance ; that disaffection is spread by restrictions on the press ; and pauperism by legal charity. The three first experiments have been tried through- out the British Islands. The last has been confined to Great Britain. The experiment in England has produced a 28 state of things which, if not immediately re- medied, threatens the destruction of society, and of which the remedy becomes every day more dangerous, as the disease becomes every day more intolerable. Every Parliamentary Report on the poor is more painful than the previous one. The Commons Report and Evi- dence of 1817, present a picture which it seems scarcely possible to make darker ; and yet in the Lords' Evidence of 1831, a period of fifteen years ago is looked back to by some of the witnesses, as one of comparative good ma- nagement. And the last Abstract of Poor-rate Returns, presented in March, 1831, shows a general increase of assessment in the previous year of eight per cent., and in two counties, Leicester and Warwick, of twenty-two and twenty per cent.* With respect to the effects in Scotland of this system there is very valuable information in the Third Report of the Commons' Poor Law Committee of 1818 (No. 358); the evidence of Mr. Duncan in the Commons' Report of 1819 (No. 529) ; the paper on the Management of the Poor in Scotland, printed by the Commons in 1820 (No. 195); and the evidence of Dr. Chalmers before the Irish Poor Committee in 1830 f. The Scotch system of assessment appears to * See Appendix, No. I. t See Appendix, No. III. 29 be nearly perfect. The sum is assessed by the heritors (or landlords), borne half by them- selves and half by the tenants, and distributed by the session, consisting of the minister and elders, assisted by such of the heritors as choose to attend. The only material differences be- tween this system and that proposed by Dr. Doyle for Ireland are, that a right in the able- bodied poor to relief appears to be admitted in Scotland by the legal authorities, but, with a very few exceptions, principally in the synod of Merse and Teviotdale, to be never practically enforced by the poor ; whereas in Ireland, it is not proposed to acknowledge such a right, and that the Irish plan proposes to throw three- fourths, instead of half, on the landlords, and to vest the power of assessing in a committee of six persons, annually elected by the house- holders, and assisted by the clergy and senior magistrate of the parish. The latter points of difference (tending, as they obviously do, to in- crease of assessment) much more than counter- balance the check of the non-recognition of the legal right to relief, especially when we con- sider that that right is not practically acknow- ledged except within a small part of Scotland. Yet, under this system, with all its checks, it appears from the Report of the General Assembly of Scotland*, that in the assessed * Third Report on Poor Laws, 1818, (No. 358). 30 parishes, the amount of assessments is pro- gressively increasing, that voluntary charity is diminishing, and that the reluctance to depend on charity is always abated sometimes extin- guished. Such, indeed, is the impression pro- duced on the General Assembly, that they express their decided conviction, ' That the ' practice is radically unwise and dangerous ; ' that the crisis has arrived when Scotland ' should, in every quarter, take the alarm, and ' form precautions against the further spread of ' so baneful a national calamity ; that if assess- ' ments are introduced, the moral character and ' industrious habits of the lower classes will, by ' the operation of principles, natural and un- ' eradicable, be gradually weakened, and at last ' destroyed ; that the necessity for personal in- * dustrious exertion will be felt as superseded ; * that idleness, improvidence, and dissipation, * will follow, and consequently poverty and ' misery be produced, which will leave no option ' but at any expense to administer relief.' Among the principal witnesses in favour of legal relief to the able-bodied poor in Ire- land, before the Committee of 1830, were Mr. M'Culloch and Dr. Doyle. I seldom differ from Mr. M'Culloch without diffidence : he has great knowledge and great candour ; but in this instance his opinions seem to me rather formed from what he has read than from what he has 31 seen. He proposes (6476) that the landlords and farmers of Ireland should be obliged to support all the poor upon their estates and farms ; that every man should have a settle- ment somewhere (6540) ; that the poor should have a claim, a right to support wherever settled, whether able-bodied or not leaving to the parish authorities the option of giving them money without work, or requiring their services (6479, 6483, 6643, 6644) ; and that the law of settlement should resemble the English law before 1795, when the justices were authorised to remove any non-parishioner, though asking no relief, if the overseers professed to believe him likely to become chargeable (6489, 6491). He proposes, therefore, to prevent the circula- tion of labour ; to prohibit, not paupers merely, but the whole labouring population, from en- joying the general freedom possessed by all other classes, of choosing their residence ; to enable the overseer to say to any labourer not legally settled, ' It is true that you have long ' resided here, and asked nothing, and now ask ' nothing, from the public ; but I suspect that ' you will in time become chargeable go, there- ' fore, to England or to your parish. It is no ' matter that here you earn your maintenance, ' and in your parish you are not wanted : I sus- ' pect that you will become chargeable, so be ' off. In your parish you have a right to be 32 ' maintained, you and all your family, and all ' their families for ever, whether diligent or idle, ' honest or roguish. If your work is not worth ' having, they must pay you for being idle.' The first impression on the mind, of this plan, is, that it must put a stop to the clearance of estates ; that the poor would be irremoveable if entitled to support from the parish ; and such is the opinion of Dr. Doyle (4594) an opinion the more valuable as it comes from an intelli- gent, an experienced, and, in this instance, probably an unwilling witness. Mr. M'Culloch, however, thinks it most certain that it would make clearance much more rapid and more universal (6509). I certainly dissent from this opinion ; but if it were well founded it would be a strong argument against the plan, as almost all the evidence shows that the progress of clearing errs in being too rapid and too general. Another remark is, that, admitting that such a plan would prevent the further increase of population, the ground on which it is first pro- posed by Mr. M'Culloch, yet it is no remedy for the present excess of population. Mr. M'Culloch thinks otherwise (6508), on what ground it is not easy to comprehend, except that suggested (6511), that it would increase the importation of Irish poor into England a ground on which we are not likely to be favour- able to it. But I cannot believe that it would 33 check the future increase of population, and of pauperism. Its probable effect appears to me to be to divide Ireland into as many distinct countries as there are parishes, each peopled by a population ascripta glebce ; multiplying without forethought ; impelled to labour princi- pally by the fear of punishment ; drawing allow- ance for their children, and throwing their parents on the parish ; considering wages not a matter of contract but of right ; attributing every evil to the inj ustice of their superiors ; and, when their own idleness or improvidence has occasioned a fall of wages, avenging it by firing the dwellings, maiming the cattle, or murdering the persons of the landlords and overseers ; combining, in short, the insubordina- tion of the freeman with the sloth and reckless- ness of the slave. Dr. Doyle's views are, in several respects, opposed to Mr. M'Culloch's. He admits (4594) that a system of poor laws would check the clearing of estates he admits (4509) that it might not tend to lessen the number of people. He does not propose anything so repugnant to the natural liberty of man, or to the habits of the Irish, as a law of settlement under which a man, though not chargeable, could be removed. What he does propose, often as he repeats it, it is not, perhaps, quite easy to understand. He affirms (Pamphlet, 46) that no friend to D 34 the Irish poor contemplates the introduction into Ireland of the English poor laws, or of a system which would vest in the idler, in the drunkard, or the improvident, a right to sub- sistence at the public cost (25). He states (Evidence, 4537) that the system of relief which he proposes, is one that, in country parts, and even in towns, would be, in ordinary years, ex- tremely light that it would be given, in ordi- nary cases, to those only who are not capable of exercising any industry (4539) . An ordinary provision for the impotent, and extraordinary and temporary assistance to the able-bodied in cases of peculiar emergency, ap- pear from these statements to be all that he proposes. But on turning to the Pamphlet, I find him asserting (p. 62) the total inability of the poor of Ireland to subsist by their own labour unassisted by the state ; that the num- ber of destitute is exceedingly great (7) ; that one half of the population have no interest in the preservation of order (11) ; that the poor law which he proposes is to shelter the house- less, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted, relieve the distressed, put an end to vagrancy, separate the impostor from the virtuous, compel the idler to do his work, and remove from the turbulent the food of sedition. And he directs us to organize the population, place them in their proper classes, assign to 35 them their respective duties, and ensure to all of them subsistence (55). Ireland, in short, is to be one vast house of industry, divided into as many wards as there are parishes, in each of which a committee of six, elected by the householders, is to take care that no person wants house-room, fuel, food, or clothing; taking care also that no person be idle, drunken, improvident, or an impostor, but not being ' guilty of the unspeakable wicked- * ness of throwing obstacles in the way of * marriage, or of warring with heaven by ' checking the multiplication of the human * kind' (27). And all this is to be done by a system that, in ordinary years, would be ex- tremely light ! If any moral fact can be ascertained by experience, if the testimonies of all ages and all countries have any weight, it is established that idleness and improvidence can be prevented only by leaving them to the punishment in- flicted by nature want, and degradation. What are the securities against them if we obey Dr. Doyle? First, that the committee selected to administer relief are not to be obliged to give relief but as they think proper (4551) ; that they would be careful to limit the assessment as much as would be necessary, and at the same time not to, stint the poor beyond what was just (4456) ; and, secondly, that there always has D 2 36 been, and always will be, an aversion in the minds of the poorer classes to seek relief (4551). On the first point I cannot but agree in Mr. Wyse's anticipation (6949), that but a short interval can elapse between the establishment of the assessment, and relief being claimed under it as a right. Dr. Doyle's pamphlet is the best commentary on his evidence. ' If a man want bread to sustain his life, he ' is bound to give in exchange for it any other ' property he may possess, or hire out for that ' purpose his labour, or whatever he can sell, * except his liberty or virtue ; but should he ' have nothing to dispose of, or find no person ' to give him food in exchange for his goods or ' labour, he is to apply for subsistence to the ' head of the state, to whom the care of the * whole community is confided, or to the magis- ' trate or other person to whom is intrusted ' the administration of the laws. Should his ' application be unsuccessful, and his life be ' about to perish of hunger but we can ' pursue this subject no further. If then the ' right of every individual to preserve life be ' incontestable ; if no man can deny this right, ' neither can any man deny that the govern- ' ing power in a state is entitled and obliged * to provide, in one shape or other, for the 'preservation of the lives of its subjects; ' whereas, if it neglect to do so, it must 37 c either punish as crimes what in reality are not ' offences against the laws of nature, or it must per- * mit what are called theft, robbery, violence, and ' even bloodshed, when these happen to be committed ' by its subjects driven to the committal of them by * extreme want.' (p. 72 74.) The only difference in this respect between the plans of Mr. M'Culloch and Dr. Doyle is, that, according to Mr. M'Culloch's plan, the right is to be a legal right, enforced by the magistrate ; according to Dr. Doyle, it is to be a natural and indefeasible right, to be enforced by what are called theft, robbery, violence, and bloodshed. But it will not be necessary to enforce it, for the Committee, says Dr. Doyle, ' would not stint the poor beyond what was just.' I fully believe that they would not. I fully believe that with * what are called theft, robbery, violence, and bloodshed ' before their eyes, they would respect the natural and indefeasible right to relief, as long as a particle of property remained to appease it. But this, we are told, would not encourage idleness, and provide for the disso- lute at the expense of the industrious and good, because it is the duty of the state to have such a code of municipal law, and such a preventive and correctional police, as will punish idleness and correct vice (73). A police to punish idleness ! How constant is the tendency of 38 extremes to meet of systems which begin by promising benefits inconsistent with freedom, to end by inflicting evils peculiar to slavery *. But we are told that ' there always has been, and ' always will be, an aversion in the minds of the * poorer classes to seek relief.' Admitting the existence of this aversion, when the relief is to come from the pocket of the person to whom the application is made, what reason is there for expecting it when the relief is to come from a third person, and the application is made to a public officer, specially appointed to receive it ? Every one must feel the difference between re- questing A. to supply your wants from his own resources, and requesting him to supply them from the resources of B. In the latter case I utterly disbelieve that any such reluctance can continue, and scarcely ex- pect it even when the system is in its first new- ness of operation ; when, if ever, we might hope for attention and economy on the part of the assessors, and for gratitude and forbearance from the applicants. And unhappily this view is borne out by experience. Gen. Bourke, the chairman of the Limerick Relief Committee, in 1822, states that there appeared no indispo- sition to receive gratuitous relief, but the reverse * Dr. Doyle is almost a St. Simonist. His beau ideal of civil society is Paraguay under the Jesuits, where the law pu- nished idleness and sinfulness, and the priest divided among the people the whole produce of the soil. 39 (5482) ; and that in some parishes it was a cause of complaint that the Committee required labour as the price of assistance (5480). Mr. Barring- ton, the Crown solicitor for the Munster circuit, states that in almost every serious case provision must be made for the Crown witnesses, and ' that ' the moment a man has five shillings a week as a ' witness, he will not seek for employment. Men ' who might be employed on the public works ' live upon their allowance, however small, and ' will remain idle, though they might increase ' their income by labour, (6727). He is asked ' Are cases of that kind numerous ?' ' Almost as ' numerous as the payment of witnesses. The * moment they have anything as a support, they ' will not seek for employment. I have known ' some in Dublin, and some in Limerick, who ' have remained idle until they were sent out of ' the country (6728).' We know that in England, in every class of society, from the pensioner of the crown to the pensioner of the vestry, public money is a general subject of spoil, not accepted with reluctance, but insolently demanded. We know that in Scotland, where assessment pre- vails, the reluctance to apply for charity is totally destroyed (Commons Third Report on Poor Laws, 1818). The General Assembly states that, in one case, the mere proposal to establish an assessment, a proposal afterwards abandoned, diminished by one half the voluntary 40 contributions, and doubled the applicants for relief. Report, p. 30. When Dr. Doyle is pressed by reference to Scotland, he answers, that Scotland is a pecu- liar country, and the habits of its people very different from those of the people of Ireland (4558). We know that they are different, but the difference certainly is not to be found in any superior industry, or providence, or aversion to charity in Ireland, Ireland, the very head- quarters of mendicity. On what ground then are we to believe that in Ireland there always has been and always will be an aversion in the minds of the poorer classes to seek relief? I cannot quit Dr. Doyle without remarking that his statements, both of facts and of opi- nions, though fortified to a very unusual degree by asseverations of sincerity, scarcely produce on the mind the impression of perfect frank- ness *. He begins as the diffident advocate of a mitigated Poor Law, to produce, in ordinary seasons, a very trifling effect, he ends by de- manding, in lieu of it, the confiscation of all the Protestant Church property. Throughout his evidence there runs a reservation that Poor Laws are necessary only where the Catholic is * 1 must except from this remark Dr. Doyle's opinions on education, of which I see no reason to doubt the sincerity, and which are benevolent, enlightened and liberal : much more so, as far as can be collected from the questions put to him, than those of some of his examiners. 41 not the established religion ; but in his pam- phlet the mask is thrown off. ' In this country there is a crying sin there ' is a loud complaint going up daily to Heaven, ' that the property of the poor is held captive ' in injustice ; that their rights are withheld ; ' that their title is known and recognised by all, 1 save those who could enforce it for them ; that * they daily die of want, whilst their expiring ' glance rests on the gorgeous, the ungodly dis- * play of ecclesiastical pride and pomp ; whilst ' their last sigh can scarcely fail to bring down ' a heavy curse on that wealth which was left for ' their support, but which so cruelly and so long ' has been wrested and withheld from them. I ' have often pleaded for the indigent ; I have ' sometimes wept over their distress ; I never ' hesitated on my own account to share with 1 them my scanty pittance ; but I confess that I * have not, to my recollection, solicited in their * behalf the goods or money of the industrious ' classes, without feelings of indignation, mingled * with remorse. Were all men in Ireland in my ' way of thinking, they would, in ordinary times, ' have no charity sermons, no houses or institu- ' tions supported by the voluntary gifts of the 4 industrious ; but, in place of these, in lieu of * extorting, by sermons and collections and ' never-ending appeals to the precepts of the * Gospel, money from those who cannot afford 42 ' to bestow it, and from whom it is little short of ' injustice to receive it, they would assail the ' Legislature by constant petitions, and the Go- ' vernment by strong remonstrances on behalf ' of the poor. They would insist with the Apostle, * lt that some should not be eased and others bur- ' thened, but that there might be an equality " They ' would teach the poor themselves to abstain ' from violence, and be submissive to the law ; ' but also tell them that they had higher claims ' to relief than those arising from the exhibition ' of their distress. But, above all, they would f proclaim from the housetop, in the hearing of ' the rich and of the poor, of the princes and of ' the people, that Church property was held in ' trust ; that it was bequeathed by our ancestors ' in part and principally for the education and ' maintenance of the poor ; and that so long as ' the state withheld it from them, the people ' should not seek for rest, nor the Government ' enjoy repose (78-81).' Who can read this passage, and doubt the motive with which Ireland is represented in the teeth of almost all the evidence that we possess, as ' passing rapidly from wretchedness to ruin ' (61), the whole character of the people becom- * ing worse and worse, diminishing in stature, ' enervated in mind, till at length you have the ' inhabitants of one of the finest countries in the * world reduced to a state of effeminacy which 43 ' makes them little better than the lazzaroni of ' Naples, or the Hindoos on the coast of Mala- * bar (4529) ?' When we find Dr. Doyle indulging in such as- sertions in a mere matter of perception, we shall pause before we believe him to be well founded, or even sincere in the opinion, equally opposed (as most of his other opinions are) to almost all the evidence given before the committee, that proper persons could be found in every parish of Ireland to administer his system of Poor Laws. It may be said, that I assume that it is in- tended to introduce into Ireland the abuses of the English Poor Laws, but that no such absurd and mischievous intention exists that every witness and every writer on the subject care- fully and repeatedly insists on the necessity of avoiding these abuses. Why, the very system which I am now discussing, the relief of the able- bodied, is itself the grand abuse of the English Poor Laws the source from which all their other abuses have flowed. Its legality is still a question but who ventures to doubt its mis- chief? Where once it has been established, the payment of wages out of rates ; the inequality of the wages of the married and the single ; the equality of the wages of the industrious and the idle, of the ill-conducted and the well-disposed; the conversion of wages from a matter of con- tract into a matter of right ; the conversion of 44 charity itself into a debt fiercely extorted and grudgingly paid only where it cannot be re- sisted, a source of discord and hatred instead of a bond of union; the destruction of industry, providence, and natural affection ; the indefinite multiplication of a servile population ; fires, riots, and noon-day robbery ; the dissolution, in short, of the bonds of civilized society, are the natural, and, if it be not abandoned in time, the inevita- ble consequences. With the existing predisposition in Ireland to many of these evils, who can doubt what would be the effect of an additional stimulus ? It is to avoid these evils that I anxiously wish to pre- vent the existence in Ireland, not of a legal pro- vision for charitable purposes, but of a legal provision for the able-bodied poor. A legal pro- vision for charitable purposes she possesses already. It appears, indeed, that the public provision for lunacy and sickness is greater than in England. Dr. Doyle even considers the relief provided in the way of medicine and medical attendance for the poor fully adequate to the necessity of the case. He thinks it pos- sible that, in some places, there may not be a sufficient supply of means of relief for persons afflicted with fever ; but making that exception, he is confident that the dispensaries throughout all the country are well managed ; that they are more than sufficient in number ; and that there 45 is no person, having a just claim to relief, who is not attended to (4375). I am anxious that these provisions should be made as ample as possible ; that public money should be advanced to facilitate emigration, and for the formation of roads, canals, and harbours ; that the Irish should be relieved from one of the worst relics of feudal barbarism, the local taxa- tion imposed on fairs and markets; that they should also be relieved from the absurd duties on timber, which are mischievous even in Eng- land, but, in a naked country such as Ireland, are powerful impediments to civilization ; and above all, I am anxious that they should be re- lieved from the expense of supporting the Ca- tholic Church. I am anxious, in short, that every experiment should be tried for the relief of Ireland, except the adoption of that one mea- sure which we are now discussing ; a measure which, often as it has been attempted, has never been tried without producing and aggravating, among many others, the very evils which it was intended to remedy, and to retire from which, when once it has been adopted, seems almost as dangerous as to persist. It will be observed, that I have treated the question as a purely Irish question. I have thought it my duty to do so. I fully agree with Sir John Walsh*, that, legislating for Ireland, * See his excellent Pamphlet on Poor Laws in Ireland. 46 we are bound to look exclusively to the interests of Ireland ; and that to impose on Ireland any internal regulations, with a view to produce good or to prevent evil to England, would be a base abuse of the preponderance in the United Parliament, which the Union gave to the Eng- lish members. It may be replied, that the effects on England of the proposed measures ought still to be con- sidered, because the advantage or disadvantage to ourselves should turn the balance, supposing our minds to be in perfect equilibrio as to the results in Ireland. This is a dangerous argu- ment. No man is really an impartial judge, however he may think himself so, in his neigh- bour's affairs, if he allows his own interest to be one of the elements in the question. Lord Bacon affirmed, that when he accepted a bribe, it did not influence his decision. He, perhaps, believed this ; but nobody else did. The public thought, with Moses, that a gift blinds the wise. As a matter of curiosity, however, the English side of the question may safely be con- sidered, after we have made up our minds, and laid down our line of conduct on motives purely Irish. It has been supposed : 1. That the immigration of Irish labourers is, on the whole, mischievous to England ; and 2. That this immigration would be checked, if a provision were made in Ireland for the able- bodied poor. I doubt the truth of the first proposition. I am convinced of the falsehood of the second. I will take them separately. 1. A great part of this immigration consists of harvest labourers, who come when their ser- vices are wanted, and depart as soon as that want is at an end. Now it must be admitted that, in many cases, the agriculture of this coun- try must be materially benefited by the ex- istence of a deposit of labour, supplying hands to meet its transitory demands, and withdrawing them when the emergency has ceased. But we are told that this is injurious to our own labourers, who are deprived of a part of the extra remuneration for harvest- work. We must remember, however, that it may be laid down as a general rule, that cultivation cannot extend farther than is profitable, and will extend as far as it is profitable ; and that the opportunity of obtaining Irish labour must enable much cul- tivation that otherwise could not take place. If the Irish agricultural labourer adds more than he takes away, he must increase instead of diminishing the general fund for the payment of wages. The common error on this subject seems to arise from our assuming, that the whole sum that is now divided by the farmer between his English and Irish agricultural labourers, would, 48 if there were no Irish in the market, be paid to the English. But in many instances, if Irish labour could not be obtained, the whole produce of the farm, the whole price of that produce, and the whole sum applicable to the payment of wages, would be diminished, and diminished in a greater proportion than the amount of the Irishmen's wages. When the English labourers look at the harvest, and compute what would be their gains if they had no Irish competitors, they forget that it is to the reliance of the farmer on Irish labourers, that a portion of that harvest owes its existence. In those cases, and they are many, where, for every bushel that the Irish labourer consumes, he enables more than a bushel to be gathered, the complaint of the Englishman is not merely unreasonable but unfounded. It is to parish pay, and to the servile labour, the slovenly cultivation, and the irregular pres- sure of population, which are its necessary consequences, that we owe the distress of our agricultural population, not to Irish competition. The counties most exposed to that competition, Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, are among those in which wages are highest, and the proportion of poor-rates to the whole population is lowest. It will be said, that this reasoning does not apply with equal force to the Irish who frequent 49 our commercial and manufacturing towns. It is true that it does not, for many of them do not come to supply a sudden demand, and depart when it is over, but remain permanent settlers. Two classes of persons may be supposed to be sufferers from their presence the one com- prising the labouring population in the towns in which they settle, the other the labourers in the adjacent country. Of these two classes, much the loudest complaints come from the latter. It is not the inhabitants of London, but those of Kent, who complain of the Irish set- tlers in the metropolis. The Kentish people complain that the hodmen, scavengers, paviors, and other labourers, who perform the most laborious and most disagreeable services re- quired in London, are all Irish, and that Kent has lost a drain for her surplus population. They would have the same right to complain, if, by some invention, our houses could be built, or our streets paved or cleaned, without human labour ; but would their complaints be listened to ? Is it our business to keep open a drain for their surplus population, or theirs to keep their population on a level with the demand for labour ? To throw restrictions on the importa- tion of Irishmen into London, in order to favour the importation of Kentish men, would be to add one more to the monopolies which always have been, and continue to be, among the curses E 50 of England. The only persons with whose complaint I could sympathize, would be the Londoners, if they could state that, after having by forethought and prudence kept down their population so as to equalize it to the demand for labour, the labour market had been deranged and their wages depressed by an Irish immi- gration. But they make no such complaint; nor could any town fairly make such a com- plaint, unless the proportion of its labourers to the demand for them were such as to require no supplies from the country. Now I know of no considerable towns (and it is only in the con- siderable towns that the Irish settle) in this situation. They all receive supplies from the country ; and, in that case, what can it signify to them whether those supplies come from Kent or from Gal way ? I have argued the question as an Englishman ; but as an inhabitant of the British empire, bound to look impartially on the interests of its different members, I am inexpressibly disgusted at the wish to deprive the Irish labourer of his resort to England. No one can doubt the be- nefits derived by Ireland from that intercourse ; not merely among that portion of the Irish who come here, but even among those who remain at home. The Evidence is full of the improve- ment in habits, tastes, and feelings, introduced into Ireland by those who have visited England. 51 And is it politic, is it just, to wish to deprive Ireland, as much a part of the empire as Eng- land, of these advantages, merely on the ground of some supposed inconvenience to ourselves ? Can the Union have more effective enemies than those who would consider Great Britain and Ireland as one country when we are to gain by it, and two when we fancy that we are to lose ? Admitting, however, the policy and the jus- tice of checking the immigration of Irish labour- ers, the second question remains, would this effect be produced if a provision were made in Ireland for the able-bodied poor? The ordinary wages of unskilled labour are nearly three times as high in England as in Ireland. They are from three to six shillings a week in Ireland, and from eight to fifteen shillings a week in England. It seems obvious, that while this disproportion, or a disproportion at all resembling it, continues, labourers must flock from Ireland to England. It is contended that a provision for the able- bodied poor would raise wages in Ireland. If we had no experience on the subject, such an opinion would be very strange. Such a pro- vision must increase population by diminishing the responsibilities of marriage ; it must dimi- nish industry by making subsistence indepen- dent of exertion ; and as the fund for the main- tenance of labourers is the result of their E 2 52 industry, and in a great measure proportioned to it, the amount of that fund must be dimi- nished while the number to be maintained by it is increased ; and that fund must be still further diminished by the natural unwillingness to apply capital to land subject to so indefinite a charge. But we are told that the high wages in Eng- land are the result of this system. So false, so thoroughly the reverse of the truth, is this assertion, that in England the mere rate of wages tells where this system is to be found. Where it exists, and in proportion as it exists, as in the south and south-eastern districts, wages are low : where it is not heard of, as in the north, they are high. Where it prevails most extensively, as in Sussex, we have the strange combination of redundancy of labourers and deficiency of cultivation. There is work undone and there are hands to do it, but it will not pay if done by the reluctant and slovenly labour of slaves, and the allowance system has left no others. Theory and experience unite in proving that the ultimate results of such a sys- tem are as destructive to the labourer as to his employer. It appears, therefore, that the pro- vision made for the able-bodied poor by our poor laws has not occasioned the difference between English and Irish wages, but has tended to diminish it. Where relief is not ex- tended to the able-bodied, the difference is 53 enormous. In proportion as that relief is af- forded, the difference decreases. Where the pauper system is in its full force, and the whole labouring population is on the parish, the wages of single men have sometimes been reduced to the Irish standard of sevenpence, eightpence, or even sixpence a day. What possible ground, then, can there be for expecting that wages will be raised in Ireland by a conduct which has so lamentably sunk them in England ? and if they are not raised, how is the immigration to be permanently checked ? I say permanently, because I believe that it might be checked for a time if the scheme of compulsory relief were immediately carried to its utmost extent. Taking the labourers in Ireland at one million, and the rental of Ireland at thirteen millions sterling, the former of which estimates is probably under, and the latter above, the truth*, if the whole rental of Ireland were vested in the priests, to be by them distri- buted among the labourers, it would give to each labourer an additional income of five shillings a week, and their wages, (if wages they could be called,) instead of being, as at present, from three to six shillings a week, would rise to be between eight and eleven shillings a week ; and if they could continue at this rate, there might * See Mr. Bryan's evidence (514). 54 perhaps be but little immigration. It is scarcely necessary to remark how temporary would be the effect even of this sweeping confiscation how rapidly the fund would decrease or how rapidly the claimants would multiply*. Something like this, however, is really Dr. Doyle's plan as to church property ; and he professes to think that all good divines agree with him. ' Nor is it asserted,' he gravely states, 'by any good divine, that a churchman can ' expend, without a violation of charity or * The whole argument is admirably summed up by Dr. Chalmers. ' It strikes me, that if it be proposed to establish * the compulsory system in a contiguous country, it may be done * in different ways. If it be meant that it shall be divested of ' what has often been called the worst feature of English pau- ' perism, the allowance system, then I do not see how the inimi- ' gration can be at all lessened, because, if the poor fund is only ' to be applied to the impotent and the aged, they are not the ' people to whom we are exposed. We have still as large a body * as ever of able and healthy men coming over, who are, in fact, 4 discharged from the necessity of remaining at home, and who ' will therefore come over in greater numbers. If, on the other * hand, it be proposed to establish the English system in all its ' entireness, granting an allowance to able-bodied labourers as ' well as others, then, if this extends to only a part of the able- 4 bodied labourers, the sure effect will be the reduction of wages 4 throughout the whole body, so that the part not having the ' benefit of those allowances will be under a much stronger 4 necessity than before to come to this country. Or, lastly, if, 4 in order to meet this, it be proposed to extend allowances to 4 able-bodied labourers to the population en masse, this, without, 4 after all, accomplishing the object of lessening immigration, ' would lead the country to such expense as would be tantamount ' to a sentence of extinction upon its landed property.' (3507) ' justice, even of the portion allotted to him, ' more than is necessary for his decent support, ' and the defraying the unavoidable expenses ' attendant on his state. The residue of his ' income, whatever it may be, should, it is * asserted,' [by all good divines] ' be employed ' for the same charitable or religious purposes * as those to which the whole fund, of which * his portion is a part, had been originally * destined.' (97.) He goes on to propose, that the tithing sys- tem should be utterly and for ever abolished, and that a land-tax, not exceeding one-tenth of the value of the land, should be substituted for it. The produce of which tax, as well as the church lands, placed at the disposal of parlia- mentary or royal commissioners, would enable them to provide amply for the support of the poor to assist, when necessary, the ministers of religion to educate all the people and to promote, to the greatest possible extent, works of public necessity or national improvement (125). It is not easy to discover why assistance to the ministers of religion is included, since it is a part of his scheme that they should receive their hire from those for whom they labour (87). In one respect I perfectly agree with Dr. Doyle : I believe that the tithing system not only ought to be, but will be utterly and for ever abolished, and that not only in Ireland, 56 but in England. It is true that tithes are not a burthen on the wages of the labourer or the profits of the farmer, but are a deduction, or rather an exception, from the landlord's rent ; and that, except so far as inconvenience arises from the mode in which they are collected, or from their interference with the employment of capital (the latter of which inconveniences affects consumers in general, the citizen as well as the rustic), neither the labourer, the farmer, nor even the landlord, can justly complain of them : neither the labourer nor the farmer, because he does not really pay them, nor the landlord, because they are an interest in the soil which never was his which he may wish for, as he may wish for his neighbour's field, but with no more right to appropriate. But though this is demonstrable, and demonstrable by a very simple reasoning process, it does not seem possible to make it plain to the uneducated classes : they cannot perceive that in their con- tests with the parson, they are fighting only the landlord's battle that what is taken by the one is only so much withdrawn from the other and that if they were to succeed in the contest, and add, as must be the ultimate result, tithe to rent, they would be only changing a landlord bound to residence and to the performance of specific duties, for a landlord often an absentee, and bound by law to the performance of no duties whatever, and must themselves bear the cost of those religious duties which an endowed church performs without any expense to indi- viduals or to the state. But this, as I said before, they cannot be made to understand. Ignorance and selfish- ness in this country, and in Ireland either those qualities, or, according to Dr. Doyle, ' an innate ' love of justice, and an indomitable hatred of ' oppression, like a gem upon the front of the ' nation that no darkness can obscure' (121), have produced an abhorrence of tithes un- assailable by argument or explanation, which has contributed as much as any other single cause to check Protestantism and civilization in Ireland, and in England is rapidly alienating the people from their natural instructors, the parochial clergy, and, by making a part of our institutions odious, has tended to destroy their confidence in all the others. If we wish to preserve, not merely the use- fulness, but even the existence of the Church of England as an establishment, this system must be abandoned during the interval in which com- mutation remains practicable. The only question for a practical statesman is, for what provision ought tithes to be com- muted ? It appears to me that there are only three provisions which could be substituted for tithes : 58 1. Payment by the state out of the public revenue. 2. A tax on rent. 3. Land. The first may be summarily disposed of. It would be insecure, it would make the clergy unpopular, and it would increase the public burthens. The second, a tax in money or corn on rent, would produce present relief. In time, how- ever, the landlords would feel only the burthen, and would forget that the tithes had been sur- rendered to them as an equivalent. And, even if they continued to pay the tax, they would call out for corn-laws and restrictions as an in- demnity. I believe the endowment of the Church of England to be among the most useful of our institutions ; I believe that we are indebted to it, directly and indirectly, for benefits which long familiarity with them prevents our appre- ciating. But if my opinion were the reverse, if I sympathized with the clamour against the Church which has been raised partly by igno- rance, and partly, I fear, by evil intention and wished her to perish, as an endowed church, in our own times, I should recommend tithes to be continued ; if I wished her to perish in our children's times, I should recommend them to be commuted for a tax on rent. The only permanent provision for which tithes can be commuted appears therefore to be land. Objections have been raised to this mode of commutation, of which some appear to me to be absolutely unfounded, and the others to be capable of being altogether, or to a considerable extent, removed. It has been said that it would be dangerous to expose to the public eye the whole property of the Church that so large a portion of the land enjoyed by persons whose title is not sup- ported by the general feeling in favour of inhe- ritance, would excite jealousy, and be an obvi- ous mark for spoliation. Tithes, it is said, being a mere right, do not strike the eye by their magnitude, and though they may be withheld, cannot easily be usurped. With respect to the jealousy which the property of the Church, if converted into a visible object, would produce, I cannot believe that the case of the Church of England is an exception to the general rule, that honesty is the best policy. If Church pro- perty were capable of being easily and accu- rately estimated, the Church would lose any advantage which may be supposed now to arise from its being undervalued, but would escape the danger of its being exaggerated ; and that it is now much more frequently exaggerated than undervalued, in vulgar estimation, is abundantly proved by every popular pamphlet on the sub- 60 ject. As to the chances of spoliation, an estate is not the specific object of the cupidity of any given individual. It cannot be seized without overt violence, without affecting the interests of the lessee, without arming against the intruder the reproaches of his own conscience, and the jealousy and indignation with which we are formed, both by nature and by education, to view acts of palpable rapacity and aggression. But tithes seem at first sight to be a part of the property of the occupier of the precise fields from which they issue. The tenant and the landlord have, the former an apparent or tempo- rary, and the latter a real and permanent inte- rest in their suppression : they may be silently withdrawn without exposing those who refuse them to popular jealousy or indignation, or, even, such is our blindness in matters of in- terest, to much or perhaps any self-reproach. The division of the spoil is ready made. Each conspirator in the general scheme of plunder has already his specific portion in his pocket. He has only to refuse to take it out. Tithes, rent-charges, seigniories, and the other services, which form the principal branch of what are called, in our law, incorporeal hereditaments, seem, of all forms of property, that which is most exposed to sudden confiscation. They were all swept away in France in a single night. The agistment tithe in Ireland was at once sup- 61 pressed by a vote of the Irish House of Com- mons. Again, it has been said that the Church would be a loser by such a commutation, because land has not the same tendency as tithes to increase in value. If this were true, I should consider it a powerful objection; believing, as I do, that the value of church property ought to increase at least in its present proportion to the increas- ing wealth and population of the country. But on the contrary, there is much reason to believe that in a progressive country the value of tithes does not increase in proportion to the increasing value of the lands out of which they issue. Tithe is a definite, rent an indefinite share of the produce. Tithe can never exceed a tenth, rent need not be a tenth, or even a hundredth, but may amount to a fourth, a third, a half, or even more than a half. Tithe, therefore, can be exacted where rent cannot be ; but when once any spot of land can afford to pay both rent and tithe, there is no comparison between their respective powers of increase. This will imme- diately appear on a reference to the familiar illustration of the progress of rent. If we suppose the existence of land of ten different qualities, designated by the numbers from 1 to 10, No. 1 producing, at a given ex- pense, 200 quarters of corn, and the produce at the same expense of each quality diminishing by 10 quarters, till we come to No. 10, which produces only 110 quarters, we shall find that when No. 1 only will pay for cultivation, it affords 20 quarters for tithe, and no rent. When the price of corn has risen sufficiently to enable No. 2 to be cultivated, there will be on Nos. 1 and 2, 39 quarters for tithe, and on No. 1, 10 for rent. When No. 3 has become worth cultiva- tion, there will be on Nos. 1, 2, and 3, 57 for tithe, and on Nos. 1 and 2, 30 for rent. When No. 4 has become worth cultivating, there will be on Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, 74 for tithe, and on Nos. 1, 2, and 3, 60 for rent. When No. 5 has become worth cultivating, there will be on Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 90 for tithe, and on Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, 100 for rent. Rent has now passed tithe, and its subsequent superiority is very striking. When No. 6 has become worth culti- vating, there will be 105 for tithe, and 150 for rent. When No. 7 has become worth cultivat- ing, there will be 119 for tithe, and 210 for rent. When No. 8 has become worth culti- vating, tithe will be 132, and rent 280. When No. 9 has become worth cultivating, tithe will be 144, and rent 360. And when No. 10 has become worth cultivating, tithe will be 155, and rent 450. And the same results will follow, if, instead of supposing fresh land of a regularly decreasing fertility to be taken into cultivation, we suppose further capital to be applied to 63 the same land, with a regularly decreasing pro- portionate return. Of course, I do not mean that either of these suppositions represents what actually takes place, but they each represent the course of events to which there is a natural tendency they represent the relative ratio at which rent and tithe would increase in the ab- sence of disturbing causes. It appears, therefore, that in a new or ill- peopled country, when the abundance of land and the want of agricultural capital almost pre- vent the existence of rent, in the English sense of the word, tithes are the only endowment which a clergy can receive from the soil. We see, therefore, why they were adopted for the Israelites, who in fact were colonists, and by our Danish and Saxon ancestors. We see, too, why the attempt to endow with lands the Canadian Church has so signally failed. Tithes would not perhaps have been a politic, but they would have been an actual endowment. The reserves stand so many desert spots in the midst of im- provement, retarding the settlement, interrupt- ing the communications, and injuring the wealth and civilization of all that is round them. Five centuries hence they may afford an ample pro- vision. These objections to a commutation of tithes for land appear, therefore, to be invalid. But there are others of more force. 64 In the first place, the clergyman, a bare tenant for life, seldom even aware who will be his successor, is not likely to make any per- manent improvements. Secondly, he would become in some respects a farmer, called off from his duties by the troubles of traffic and superintendence, though not so much so indeed as he now must be if he takes his tithes in kind, for that seems to be a plan invented to convert him into a sort of general dealer in all sorts of agricultural pro- duce. And, thirdly, a small estate (and the tithes of many a living are worth only a small estate) is often a damnosa heereditas, and almost always an uncertain provision ; the repair of a barn might swallow up a year's income. To which it may be added, that in many parishes it would be difficult to find an estate for the clergyman. It has been proposed to obviate these objec- tions by a measure, a sketch of which I had the honour of communicating to your Lordship a few weeks ago. You will probably recollect that the outline of that measure is, To form the different incumbents within a given district, say an archdeaconry, or probably some smaller district, into a corporation. To vest in the corporation the revenues of all the different benefices, to be by them divided C5 between the different incumbents in proportion to the value of the tithes of each respective benefice. To appoint commissioners under whose superintendence the tithes belonging to each benefice should be exchanged with the owners of the soil for a portion of the lands out of which they issue, or sold to them for money, to be laid out in the purchase of lands. To enable the corporation to let such lands for not exceeding twenty-one years in possession, without taking any fine, to exchange them for other lands, or for money to be again laid out in the purchase of lands, and to give a similar power of leasing the tithes while un- commuted ; and, lastly, to require each cor- poration to set apart every year a definite portion of its income, like the domus of a col- lege, to be employed in permanent improve- ments. The immediate effect of such a measure, even before much commutation had taken place, would be to allay much of the existing irritation. The clergyman of a parish would not be paid by his parishioners ; they would transact busi- ness with the bursar or steward of the corpora- tion. Compositions would be more permanent, and conducted according to more uniform and better-known rules. Where two or more of advowsons in the same district belong to one F 66 proprietor, the revenues of the benefices might be equalized. The tithes of ten or a dozen parishes would purchase a considerable estate, affording a regular income, and defraying the expenses of management and repairs ; and it would not be necessary that the estate should be scattered through the parishes the tithes of which had been commuted; it would not be necessary, though certainly expedient, that it should be near any one of them. There are many obvious difficulties attending this plan, and many more would probably arise on the attempt to execute it ; but it appears to me to deserve the gravest attention. Though I deny the justice of the complaint of Ireland as to the existence of the provision for the Established Church, I cannot treat in the same manner her complaints as to the non- existence of a provision for the Catholic Church. They appear to me to be perfectly well founded. The Catholic inhabitants of Ireland have to support an expense from which the members of the Establishment are totally, and the Presby- terians partially, relieved. The common state- ment that they have to support two Churches is false. The Protestant clergyman is a part owner of the land, and differs from any other landlord merely in being bound to some duties ; but the Catholics have to support one church, their own ; and who can wonder at their feeling 07 so invidious a distinction from the other inhabi- tants of that island, to be, not merely an evil, but an injury a subject not merely of regret, but of resentment. Of another consequence of this state of things, if the immigration of Irish be really an evil, Great Britain has probably a right to complain. The Catholic priests, deprived of their former legal provision, and thrown for subsistence on their congregations, derive their income from fees*, the amount of which depends chiefly on the number of their parishioners the prin- cipal fee being that on marriage. I do not accuse them of promoting early marriages, under a conscious bias of self-interest ; but that they are believed to promote them, and that it is their interest to do so, is unquestionable f ; and it certainly is probable, that this helps to create the surplus population, which is among the principal causes of the poverty of Ireland, and of the immigration into England and Scot- land. It is a trite remark but, like many other trite remarks, though familiarly acknow- ledged, practically unattended to that a priest- hood dependent on support from their flocks, * See the evidence of Dr. Doyle and Mr. Kirby before the Lords Committee on the State of Ireland, 1825, pages 233 and 369 (as printed by the Commons). t See the evidence of Mr. T. Lewis and Captain Hoare. Appendix to 3rd Report on the State of Ireland, 1830, pages 774 and 776. F 2 68 are placed in the precise situation in which their power is likely to be greatest, and to be least beneficially exerted. On their influence depends their comfort, and almost their exist- ence; and, unhappily, influence is most easily attained by flattering the prejudices and sym- pathizing with the passions of those around us. A stronger instance can scarcely be conceived than the Anti-Union clamour. If poor laws be avoided, separation from this country is the only event that could now retard the improve- ment of Ireland. Its first consequences would be a revolution and confiscation unparalleled in modern history; the next, a democracy, tem- pered only by the influence of the priests ; and the third, foreign conquest, or military des- potism. And yet any candidate for popular influence, blind enough not to see these conse- quences, or wicked enough to desire them, would find no means of acquiring it more effectual than declamation against the Union. On all these grounds, as an act of justice to the Catholic population, as a means of raising the character and better directing the influence of the priesthood, and to remove one of the stimulants to improvident marriage, I am most anxious to see a public provision made for the Catholic clergy. It has been proposed to do this out of the general income of the state the mode in which the Presbyterian clergy of the 69 north of Ireland are assisted ; but this, of course, is the last resource, if no other means more secure and less burthensome can be adopted. A part of the revenue now destined to the support of a church almost without a people, is the obvious fund. I should be sorry, however, to see any large portion of the revenue of the Protestant parochial clergy thus applied, if the object can be otherwise attained. In many districts, the families of the Protestant clergy- men are the only resident gentry, and their loss could not be supplied by an unmarried Catholic priest. Nor must we forget that there are in Ireland members of the establishment, though comparatively few in number, and that now when the state no longer gives to their rivals the powerful aid of intolerance now that it is no longer a point of honour to adhere to a per- secuted faith that number may be expected to increase. The Established Church possesses in Ireland eighteen Bishops and four Archbishops, who preside over a church consisting of fewer per- sons than are to be found in some single dio- ceses in England. Supposing the revenues of the four archbishoprics, or of four sees to be converted into archbishoprics, to continue the property of the Protestant Church, there would remain eighteen sees, affording, even in their pre- sent state of mismanagement, about 100,000 a year. 70 Mr. Leslie Foster, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee on the State of Ireland in 1825 (page 75 as printed by the Commons), estimates the bishops' estates in Ireland at considerably more than 617,000 Irish acres, or more than a million of statute acres. The tenure under which they are held is that of leases for twenty-one years, annually renewed, at reserved rents, most of which are nearly nominal. The income, of course, to the see arises from the renewal fines, which are from a fifth to a seventh of the improved rent. He goes on to state, that this tenure is fatal to improvement ; that the lands of the church can be distinguished everywhere by their non-improvement ; and that it is obvious that it must be so, as every improvement immediately enhances the fine. If these large estates were managed as they would be managed if in the hands of individuals, they would in time produce more than six or seven times the rental now received by their ecclesi- astical proprietors. To this process, however, they could not be subjected without interfering with the fair expectations of the tenants. But when we consider the inconvenience and uncer- tainty of the present tenure, there can be little doubt that arrangements might easily be made with the tenants for the surrender of their terms in a certain portion of the land, on the fee- simple in the residue being released to them. 71 If the estates of the first eighteen sees that drop were assumed by the state, and vested in com- missioners in trust, to make arrangements with the tenants, and to manage the property to the best advantage, I have no doubt that, without interfering with a single vested right or even fair expectation, a revenue of 300,000 or 400,000 a year might in time be obtained. When we consider that the value of money in Ireland, estimated by its true test, the com- mand of labour, is more than twice as great as in England, and that the wants of the Catho- lic priest, necessarily an unmarried man, are much less than those of the Protestant clergy- man, it is evident that such an income would be nearly sufficient, not merely to afford the Catholic clergy a support, but to leave them something to be applied to the purposes of education purposes to which an endowed clergy should always be required to contribute, not merely by the performance of their official duties, but by devoting a portion of their time, and if necessary, of their income, to the founda- tion, the support, and the regulation of paro- chial schools. If it were found necessary, private payments to the priests, except perhaps from persons in easy circumstances, might then be prohibited, or strictly regulated. I am inclined, however, to think, that they would in a great measure cease, as they have done in our own 72 church, on the substitution of a public pro- vision. I have said that I should be sorry to see any considerable diminution of the revenue which now supports the Protestant parochial clergy. Something, however, that revenue might be required to contribute, at least in those bene- fices (by far the larger portion) the advowson'to which is not private property. The best mode, perhaps, by which this could be effected, would be, if, where the tithes are commuted for land, a portion of land were set apart in every parish as a glebe for the priest, and to form the site of his residence, and also of a chapel in those places where a sufficiently capacious place for Catholic worship does not at present exist. Supposing this plan to be adopted, and of the twenty-two Irish sees the first eighteen that drop were thus appropriated, about twenty years would elapse before the whole eighteen could be thus applied. In the mean time, the deficiency must probably be supplied from the public revenue. I am not disposed to underrate the evils, direct and indirect, which necessarily accom- pany taxation. Those which we can imme- diately trace to that source are enormous, and those which we cannot trace so clearly are probably still greater. Still no one can doubt that the whole amount of the benefits derived 73 from the application of the public revenue far outweighs that of the evils attending its col- lection. And I believe that there is no purpose to which public revenue can be applied that is more powerfully suggested by expediency, or demanded by justice, than that of making a provision for the Catholic Church in Ireland. I have supposed four archbishoprics to be retained by the Protestant Church. The pre- lates filling these sees would be the political organs of that Church, and represent it, to the precise extent in which it is now represented, in the House of Lords. And though the lands now belonging to the eighteen other sees were appro- priated to the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church need not be deprived of the services of a single bishop. A Protestant bishop might still be consecrated to each diocese, and the best benefice within the diocese that is public property annexed to the office. He might retain all the patronage, and would, of course, retain all the spiritual authority, of his better- endowed predecessors ; and there is no reason for sup- posing that the moderation of his circumstances would diminish his utility. We might safely have anticipated, and we know from experience, that moral influence does not depend on wealth or on temporal dignity. The reverence and affection which have been enjoyed by the unen- dowed Roman Catholic bishops at least equal 74 those which have been acquired by their Pro- testant rivals. It has been said that the establishments in England and Ireland are so bound up together that one cannot be touched without shaking the other. As a sincerely-attached member of the Church of England, I rejoice that I do not believe this calumny. I do not believe her hold on the affections of this people to be so weak as to be endangered by an act of justice. I do not believe that giving back to the religion of the majority of the people of Ireland a portion of its former endowments, would be a precedent for taking from the religion of the majority of the people of England a portion of its present endowments. Endowments, it must be remembered, are for the benefit, not of the clergy, but of the people. To maintain that they ought to be supported after they have ceased to be useful, is to maintain that our ancestors had the power to decide how the pro- perty of their remotest successors should be administered ; it is to maintain that the succes- sive generations of mankind have not a succes- sive right to the enjoyment of the soil ; it is to maintain, in short, that the land belongs not to the living, but to the dead. If, by a commuta- tion of tithes, we remove the objections to the mode in which the Church of England collects 75 her revenues, she will continue to enjoy her endowments unimpaired as long as her faith con- tinues to be that of the majority of the people; and she ought to wish not to enjoy them any longer. It may perhaps be worth remarking, that the present state of things, though it would not be more natural or more just if our ancestors had designed it, was not, in fact, designed by them. They never meant the clergy to be of one re- ligion and the people of another. The propor- tion of Protestants to Roman Catholics has much diminished since they appropriated to the Protestant Church the Catholic endowment, and there is reason to believe that it has dimi- nished principally in consequence of that appro- priation ; but they fully expected the reverse. The effects of intolerance had not then been found out. They believed, and they had what appeared to be the testimony of experience in their favour, that, by changing the religious establishments, a government could change the religion, of its people, and that the short way to convert the Irish Catholics was to appoint Pro- testant ministers and bishops, and make over to them the tithes and church lands. We cannot plead their authority for maintaining a state of things of which they never contemplated the existence. It has even been said, that we should commit 76 a sin if we were to endow a religion which we believe to be tainted with many grievous errors, both in doctrine and in practice. Little as I feel the force of this objection, I recognise the sincerity and respect the religious zeal by which it is dictated. And if I believed that any mea- sure whatever would tend to spread more widely the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, how- ever plausible that measure might be, however apparently useful in other respects, I would oppose it, just as a sincere Catholic wmdd op- pose anything calculated to diffuse Protestant opinions. Religious errors have been in all times among the principal obstacles to human welfare ; and certainly not the least so those by which, during the dark ages, Christianity was incum- bered and distorted. It appears from all that we see in Europe and in America, that a people by whom those errors are implicitly received cannot make the moral and intellectual progress which is in the power of a Protestant commu- nity. But what has that to do with the present question ? We are not now considering the propriety of introducing into Ireland the Catho- lic faith, or of creating there a Catholic priest- hood. That faith and that priesthood exist. For nearly three centuries we have been en- deavouring to discourage and starve them out. Those who are unfavourable to the influence of the Catholic priesthood can scarcely desire 77 the continuance of a system under which it has become numerous, active, united, and powerful, in a degree, perhaps, unparalleled in history a system which seems to have been invented to give to it the motives and the means of hostility. Those who are unfavourable to the dissemination of the Catholic faith cannot be favourable to a system under which that faith, languid in almost every other part of Europe, has become the ruling principle of Ireland. What can be weaker than to fix our attention on the enormity of the evil instead of the means of palliating it ; to foster it, in fact, in order to avoid the appearance of giving it continuance ? An endowment is always a relief to the people ; but who will maintain that it is essential to the existence, or even to the welfare, of a church ? It may be affirmed, as a general historical truth, admitting scarcely any exception, that the real church, as that term is defined in our articles, has flourished most where it has received least of the support of worldly wealth, and of the coun- tenance of human authority. It may be added, that if our consciences for- bid our allowing an endowment to the Catholic religion, we ought scarcely to require the Catho- lics to acquiesce in the Protestant establishment. They believe our faith to be, at least, as un- favourable to salvation as we can believe theirs to be. And the sinfulness of contributing to 78 the support of a religion must depend not on the real character of the religion, but on the opinion as to its character of him who contri- butes to it. If this argument be followed to its legitimate consequences, it may be doubted whether the Protestant establishment would gain by it. The only solution of the difficulty seems to be a mutual concession, not by a sacri- fice on either side of religious principle, but by each party admitting that the temporal support of the teachers of either faith by the state is a question in which the truth of that faith is not involved, and is a concession by which the pro- pagation of that faith is not advanced. And, lastly, I cannot but observe that the objection which I am now combating assumes that the present state of things can continue. But who will venture such an assumption ? Who believes that, in the present state of feeling in Ireland and in England, the spectacle of an endowment without a people, and a people without an endowment, will be tolerated ? The time has passed when things can be defended, not because they ought to exist, but because they do exist. Whether this state of the public feeling be a good or an evil, whether we shall, on the whole, gain or lose by putting all our ancient institutions on their trial, whether, in the course of our proceedings, we are likely to confine ourselves to the extirpation of abuses, or whether 79 * Our foes are so enrooted with our friends, That, plucking to unfix an enemy, We shall unfasten oft and shake a friend,' are interesting, but scarcely practical, questions. We have lost both the shackles and the safe- guards of prejudice. It is not by sulky, indis- criminate resistance, or stupid inactivity, that any party can now deserve the proud title of conservative. To think that great changes can be prevented is an absurdity ; to think that they can be effected without inconvenience is a still greater one ; but the greatest of all, is not to perceive that the longer they are delayed the more sweeping will be their operation, the more extensive their evil, and the less their advantage. Of course there are objections to the plan which I have suggested, as there must be to every considerable change. I should be most happy to see any different plan adopted which would equally conciliate the feelings and the interests of the Catholics, and do less vio- lence to those of the Protestants ; but of all plans the most hopeless is to fold our arms, and let the current drift us over the precipice. If the short remains of the present session are lost, I do not envy those who will have to ad- minister Irish affairs in the next. To conclude this long letter, if the measures recommended in the admirable Report of 1830 80 are carried into effect* if, in addition to them, tithes are commuted for land, and provision is made for the Catholic clergy, and no compulsory provision is made for the able-bodied poor, we shall have done almost all that I believe can be done for Ireland by legislative interference ; and, what is perhaps still more important, we shall not have tried to do what cannot really be effected, and cannot be attempted without irre- mediable mischief. I am, my Lord, Your Lordship's obedient Servant, NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR. Lincoln's Inn, August 11, 1831. * See Appendix, No. II. APPENDIX. No. I. ABSTRACT of RETURNS, showing the Amount of Monies levied in each County in England and Wales, in the Year ending 25th March, 1830 ; distinguishing the Payments made thereout for other purposes than the Relief of the Poor, and the Sums expended for the Relief of the Poor ; specifying the Rate of Increase or Diminution, as compared with the preced- ing: Year : PAYMENTS SUMS nr TOTAL SUMS thereout Expended TOTAL SUMS 3 3 C COUNTIES. 1 or other Purposes for the 5 5 LEVIED. than the Belief of the EXPENDED. M Relief of the Poor. Poor. i I ENGLAND. S. * s. s. I Bedford . . . 96,994 3 9,818 9 84,513 13 94.332 2 i Berks . . . 129,533 2 16,308 15 111,643 7 127,952 2 > Buckingham . 158,^83 18 19,757 2 135,239 5 154,996 7 9 Cambridge . 151,163 19 12.621 15 101,146 14 113.768 9 r Chester . 144,102 39,636 11 106,237 16 145,874 7 \ Cornwall . 121,202 12 15.482 7 103,369 1 118,851 8 ') Cumberland . 58,856 3 12.026 19 46,081 7 58,108 6 y Derby 108,303 8 30,092 1 80,060 6 110,152 7 7 Devon 250,713 10 25,675 3 222,381 5 248,056 8 7 Dorset 104,822 19 11,320 11 90,949 4 102.269 15 Durham . 100.646 17 16,645 13 81,209 3 97,854 16 1 Essex .... 320,541 3 40,982 8 282,132 19 323,115 7 8 Gloucester 201,402 7 20,583 15 165,192 2 194,775 17 2 Heieford . 70,000 19 10,045 7 59.711 10 69,756 17 5 Hertford . . . 115.092 11 15,193 10 99,679 14 114,873 4 9 Huntingdon . 50,092 10 6,737 7 42,1-27 16 48,865 3 1 Kent . . . 399,686 15 57,121 11 358,461 4 415,582 15 5 Lancaster . 413,529 16 113.209 19 297,674 6 410,884 5 14 Leicester . 152,594 23,845 3 130,025 15 153.870 18 22 Lincoln. . 228.952 14 49,211 8 179,204 6 228,415 14 4 Middlesex 779,125 15 161,074 12 675,285 3 836,359 15 2 Monmouth . 32,089 13 7,118 13 24,627 17 31,746 10 7 Norfolk . . 338,867 11 35,540 18 299,210 12 334,751 10 8 Northampton 173.018 8 20,180 17 153,031 7 173,212 4 9 Northumberland 88,035 13 13,345 16 74,288 87,633 16 3 Nottingham . 106,707 7 27,282 19 78.242 1 105,525 13 Oxford . . 151,235 9 17.974 13 130,597 148.571 13 6 Rutland . ;:< 12,872 19 2,948 17 9,644 5 12,593 2 6 Salop . 99,665 18 14,783 10 83,988 11 98.772 1 5 Somerset . . 209.566 6 32,533 4 174,424 10 206,957 14 12 Southampton . 239,122 12 24,992 12 212,380 9 237,373 1 10 Stafford . . 171.578 9 40,351 133,670 4 174.021 4 11 Suffolk . . 299,684 17 30.617 2 268,623 8 299.240 10 11 Surrey 321,304 18 58,580 13 265,499 1 324,079 14 9 Sussex 289.051 5 33,427 8 256,142 10 289,569 18 9 Warwick . 192,303 12 34,506 3 170,188 12 204,694 15 20 Westmoreland 32,044 5 5604 5 25.512 9 31,H6 14 3 Wilts . . . 220.931 19 21.733 11 198,007 13 219,741 4 14 Worcester 97,178 7 16,060 2 80,013 11 96,073 13 5 ^ f East Riding 124,969 6 25,525 19 99,499 17 125,025 16 2 8 < North Riding 102,696 6 18,7-15 16 82,367 5 101,113 1 3 >* [West Riding 358,461 10 79,882 10 281.158 6 361,040 16 7 Total of ENGLAN 7,781,227 11 1,278,126 14 6,553,443 4 7,831,569 18 8 WALES. Anglesey . 19,196 5 3,203 3 16,006 16 19,209 19 1 Brecon 20,928 8 3,201 8 17,450 4 20,651 12 7 Cardigan . 20.685 7 3,360 19 17,213 15 20,574 14 4 Carmarthen . 37.957 9 7,114 14 30,863 19 37,978 13 j Carnarvon 23,440 2 3,396 17 19,608 9 23,005 6 1 Denbigh . 41,139 15 7,038 10 34,272 1 41,311 6 Flint . . . 25,513 1 4,438 2 20,990 25,428 3 i Glamorgan . 42,301 5 6,969 19 36,154 2 43,124 10 Merioneth 16,760 19 1,839 14 14,543 16.383 3 t Montgomery . 38.665 3 6.899 1( 31,742 1 38,642 e Pembroke 28,308 19 3,970 10 24,064 1 28,035 t Radnor 15,298 3 2,678 14 P2.688 15,366 1 i Total of WALES 330.194 16 54,112 275,598 1 329,710 1 i Total of ENG- LAND & WALES 8,111,422 7 1,332,238 14 6,829,042 8,161,280 1 8 83 No. II. Measures recommended by the Select Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland. 1830. [Fourth Report, p. 56.] 1. A Bill to amend and consolidate the Laws relating to County Infirmaries in Ireland, and to permit the establish- ment of more than one Infirmary in certain counties. 2. A Bill to amend and consolidate the Laws respecting Fever Hospitals in Ireland, and to promote the establish- ment of such Hospitals, so that there shall be one Fever Hospital at the least in every county and county corporate in Ireland. 3. A Bill to amend and consolidate the Laws respecting Houses of Industry in Ireland, by repealing the Acts which combine in one establishment a place of punishment and an asylum for distress, and for appropriating such asylums for the future as a means of making provision for those who, from utter destitution] and incurable bodily infirmity, are unable to provide for their own support. 4. A Bill to amend the Laws respecting Dispensaries in Ireland, rendering it imperative that the Grand Juries should present a sum equal in amount to the private contributions and subscriptions. 5. A Bill to amend the Laws relating to Charitable Esta- blishments supported on the whole or in part from the County Rates, by enabling Grand Juries to appoint perma- nent Boards of Superintendence and Audit. 6. A Bill to amend the Laws respecting Lunatic Asy- lums, by making provision for Idiots and Incurable Luna- tics, being Paupers. 7. A Bill to amend the Laws respecting Grand Juries, G2 84 and to provide that the burthen of the County Rates shall no longer be borne exclusively by the occupying tenant ; and that a principle of open contract, and of a money pay- ment of wages, be, as far as practicable, enforced. 8. A Bill for the extension and promotion of Public Works, whether Roads, Bridges, Canals, Piers, Harbours, or Railways, in Ireland, placing the direction of such works under a fixed superintendence and control ; and advances being made from the Treasury upon public security of an unquestionable character. 9. A Bill to amend the Sub-letting Act, so far as the same has any retrospective operation. 10. A Bill for the Drainage of Bogs, and for the Em- bankment of Marsh Lands in Ireland, thereby promoting the Employment of the Poor, and increasing the wealth and resources of the State. 11. A Bill to provide facilities for the voluntary Emigra- tion from Ireland to His Majesty's North American Colo- nies ; the expense of such Emigration being defrayed by the Landlords of such Emigrants, or by the Emigrants them- selves. 12. A Bill to repeal the existing Laws respecting Vagrants in Ireland, and for making better provision in lieu thereof. 13. A Bill to amend the Laws respecting Vestries in Ireland, by defining with more accuracy the purposes for which Parochial Rates may be imposed and levied, and to relieve the occupying tenant from the payment of such rates in cases of future contracts. 14. A Bill for the better and more impartial Administra- tion of Justice by the correction of the Abuses alleged to prevail in the Sheriff Offices in Ireland. 15. A Bill for the ease of the Subject, by amending the Laws by which Writs of Custodium are issued in Ireland. 16. A Bill to make a provision whereby questions of Wills, 85 Legacies and Intestacies, within certain limits, may be deci- ded by the Assistant Barristers at Quarter Sessions. 17. A Bill for the promotion of Religion and Morality, as well as for the more effectual Administration of Justice by the repeal of all unnecessary Oaths now required by Law ; and for the Simplification of the Forms of Oaths, and the more solemn mode of their administration. 18. A Bill for the prevention of all illegal and improper Charges at the Fairs and Markets throughout Ireland, under the claim of Tolls and Customs. 19. A Bill to provide for the Education of the Poorer Classes of all His Majesty's Subjects in Ireland, and to per- mit the erection and support of Parochial Schools. July 18, 1830. III. Extracts from the Evidence of DR. CHALMERS, given before the Select Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland. 1830. 3387. You officiated as minister in a country parish in the county of Fife ? I did ; I was twelve years a minister of Kilmany in that county. 3388. What was the state of the fund for the relief of the poor in your parish in Fife ? Our annual expenditure, speaking of the average of those twelve years, was about 24Z. and the population 787. I might also mention, that I have a recollection of about 121. being given for some years t3 one remarkable case of distress, so that we had only for some time 12/. a-year for the expenses of the general pau- perism of that parish. 3389. Was there any effort made at any time during your ministry in that parish to introduce the principle of assess- 86 ment? Not the least; the heritors sometimes offered me a supplemental voluntary sum, but I always disliked it; I said that the effect of this, if known to the parish, would be to excite a great deal more expectation than it could gratify, and I found the parish kept in a more wholesome state by the rich giving what they gave privately, and without coming ostensibly through the known and public organization of the kirk session, so that I always discountenanced the tendency on the part of the heritors, who were abundantly liberal, to augment our regular session fund by any extraordinary con- tributions. 3390. The funds for the relief of the poor in that parish were then provided exclusively by the kirk session ? They were ; we had a small capital of about 200/. which afforded us so much interest, then we had our collection. A consi- derable part of the fund is expended upon small ecclesiastical matters, such as the payment of the session clerk, and the synod and presbytery clerks. 3391. Were those charged upon the small annual fund ? They were. '.., '. 3392. Did the population of that parish augment during the time of your ministry ? It did not ; it was pretty sta- tionary during the time of my ministry, but it rather declined before that ; the practice of throwing the country into large farms had obtained previous to my entering upon the ministry of that parish. The parish was almost exclusively agricultural, consisting of husbandmen and the servants of husbandmen, with a few country artificers, and some weavers. 3393. Was the condition of the poor progressive or retro- grading during those twelve years ? I was sensible of no great difference in that respect ; the people, generally speak- ing, were in decent comfort ; but I beg to be understood, that I do not ascribe this to any positive virtue in our 87 public charity. I think the excellence of our system, when compared with that of England, is altogether of a negative kind. Our parochial charity, from the extreme moderation of its allowances, does not seduce our people from a due depend- ence on themselves, or to a neglect of their relative obliga- tions. It is not the relief then administered by our kirk sessions which keeps them comfortable. This is mainly owing to the operation of those principles which Nature hath instituted for the prevention and alleviation of poverty. I might here mention, that I had occasion to publish my Kil- many expenditure about fifteen or sixteen years ago, when Mr. Rose honoured me with a letter of inquiry, and begged to know by what excellent management it was that I con- trived to keep all the poor comfortable on so trifling a sum. I wrote back to him that I really was not conscious of putting forth any skill or any strenuousness in the matter, and that the excellence of our system did not consist in the excellent management, but wholly in the manageable nature of the subject, which was a population whose habits and whose expectations were accommodated to a state of things where a compulsory provision was altogether unknown. 3394. Then you attribute the state of this parish rather to your laying aside all interference, than to any positive and affirmative acts ? Decidedly so. I look upon a compulsory provision to be that which acts as a disturbing force upon certain principles and feelings, which, if left to their own un- disturbed exercise, would do more for the prevention and alleviation of poverty than can be done by any legal or arti- ficial system whatever. 3395. During those twelve years, were there any peculiar visitations of distress or sickness, or any commercial vicissi- tudes, which affected the population of this parish ? There was one instance of low wages, and I remember the heritors then came forth with an offer which I gave way to for once, 88 of about 502. which was distributed over and above the ses- sional income. I had a feeling that it really was not neces- sary ; I did not think the parish by any means required it ; that is to say, I would much rather have preferred that they would, without the excitement of any great expectation in the parish, have distributed the sum of 50/. in a private and unseen way. 3396. Then do you consider that the ill effect produced by any system of assessment, or even by any extent of increased charity, is to be measured rather by the expecta- tion excited on the part of the parishioners, than by the actual amount of money given ? By the expectation, de- cidedly ; and I think it is one evil of public charity, that the poor, who are not very accurate arithmeticians, are apt to overrate the power of a public chanty, so that the real relaxation of their habits not being proportional to the amount given, but being proportional to the amount ex- pected, leaves them in greater misery than if no such public charity were instituted. I would state, as a kind of charac- teristic specimen of our Scottish peasantry, that I have at times offered a poor person 5s. as from the session, and that it has been firmly yet gratefully refused ; they said they were very much obliged to me, but they had not just came to that yet, and that they could make a fend ; by which they meant they could make a shift. The feeling of reluctance to public charity is very strong, and forms one of our greatest moral defences against the extension of pauperism in Scot- land. I may mention that there is not a more familiar spectacle in our cottages, than the grandfather harboured for life by his own married children, and remaining with them for years, the honoured inmate of the family. In fact, I have no recollection of a single instance, and I am sure it would have been branded as the most monstrous and unna- tural of all things, of the desertion of relatives by relatives. 3397. During j'our experience in that parish, have you 89 the means of knowing whether there was a good deal of private charity, independently of the mere charity and per- formance of duty by kindred, which relieved distress where such distress existed ? Generally speaking, the people, save in a few instances, were in a remarkably good economical condition, arising, in the first place, from their own industry and economy ; in the second place, from the affection of relatives, which went very far to supersede any ulterior resource ; but in the third place, there was never wanting to the full amount of the existing necessity a third resource in the mutual kindness of neighbours ; insomuch, that I hold the fourth and last resource, or the kindness of rich to poor, to be the least important of them all. It should be recol- lected, in estimating the product of the kindness which obtains between neighbours, that they make up by the number of their contributions for the smallness of each indi- vidual offering. Still there were occasional calls upon the rich ; and on the whole, I found that on the strength of these four principles, matters went on quite rightly and prosperously in the parish. 3398. Were there in the parish any persons blind, or lame, or insane, and by reason of that misfortune incapable of contributing to their own support ? I have a recollection of one insane person, who perhaps for a year or a year and a half was placed in the Dundee Asylum. 3399. What provision were the poor of the parish ena- bled to apply to in cases of sickness, for relief, for medicine or advice ? There was no regular institution for the supply of medicines ; there is an infirmary in the immediate neigh- bourhood, and an asylum for lunatics. 3400. Was there any deficiency felt in that parish, in cases of sickness, in the want of medical aid or medicine ? I am not sensible of there having been any deficiency at all. 3401. How did the poor, if they required any medical assistance, obtain it? They find, in the first place, a ready 90 and great resource in the aid of their neighbours and friends ; then the country surgeons are, in general, very moderate in their charges upon the poor. There is a strong habit of mutual kindness in cases of sickness, perhaps too much so ; for, on these occasions, they are apt to overcharge each other with attentions. 3402. Was there any increase of population in the parish while you were there ? I think while I was there it was almost stationary. 3403. Do you know anything of it since ? Very gene- rally : I do pay the parish a few occasional visits ; but the pauperism is so insignificant a part of its concerns, that it has never once been a topic of conversation between me and its present minister. 3404. Do you know whether there has been, in that parish, such an increase of population, as to diminish the wages of labour ? The truth is, my acquaintance with Fife has ceased for fifteen years, and I am scarcely able to reply to that question ; but it is material to remark, that in Scot- land the law of settlement does not so accumulate the people in any one parish as to make the wages of labour in it sen- sibly differ from those in the country at large. 3551. You have stated that you conceive the tendency of the principle of assessment would be to increase population, and to create or to increase habits of improvidence, and in- considerate marriages ; now, if it is shown that in Ireland the population has increased more rapidly, and that greater im- providence exists than in Britain, how would you reconcile those two statements, your statement of principle and this statement of fact ? I am quite sensible of the effect which this complication of the problem has had in casting what may be called a general obscuration over it. If the only 91 element upon which the standard of enjoyment depended was a poor rate, and if, in point of fact, we saw in a country where a poor rate was established a much higher standard of enjoyment than in a country where there was no poor rate, the inference would be a very fair one ; establish the poor rate there, and we shall bring the people up to a higher standard. But the whole matter is mixed and com- plicated with other influences ; there are other elements than the poor rate which enter into the question of a nation's prosperity, and have a deciding influence on the taste and condition of the people. The low standard of enjoyment in Ireland is attributable not to the want of a poor rate, but to other causes to misgovernment and to imperfect education. On the other hand, there has been a gradual elevation of the people of England, keeping pace with its commerce, its growth in general opulence, its pure administration of justice. The better condition of its people, is no more due to its poor rate than it is to its national debt. Its high standard of enjoyment is not in consequence of its poor rate, but in spite of its poor rate. I believe that had there been no poor rate in England there would have been a higher standard of enjoyment than there is now, and, on the other hand, that if there had been a poor rate in Ireland there would have been a lower standard of enjoyment there than there is at present. In a word, had the condition of the two countries with reference to the single circumstance of a poor rate been reversed, there would have been a still wider dif- ference between them in favour of England, and against Ireland, than there is at this moment. 3552. You conceive that if you were to add to the causes which have tended to increase rapidly the population of Ireland, and to produce improvidence and recklessness on the part of the people, an additional cause tending in the same 92 direction, namely, the establishment of a poor rate, you conceive the evils already existing would be very much aug- mented ? They would. If it is intended to introduce the system of poor rate into Ireland with a view of elevating the standard of enjoyment, or elevating the general condition of the families of Ireland, this is an aim far different from the ordinary purpose of a poor rate. The aim of the present system of poor rate is to rescue a fraction of the people from extreme wretchedness; but should it aim at the still more magnificent object of raising the general population above the level and the rate of its present enjoyments, the very ex- pense of such an achievement extending to a million families in Ireland, would seem to fasten upon the scheme the charge of being utterly impracticable, besides utterly failing in its object, for that is really not the way of raising a people to higher tastes and habits of enjoyment. 3569. Laying out of sight the objections you have stated to any general principle of compulsory assessment, do you not conceive that there are certain classes of misery and distress for which relief may be safely afforded, and which, if safely to be afforded, ought to be afforded ? I think there is a very great distinction between cases of general indi- gence and certain other cases of distress, which may be relieved with all safety. 3570. What would be the distinction in general principle that you would lay down between the two classes of cases ? I would say that all those cases of hopeless and irrecover- able disease, or even those cases of disease which are better managed in public institutions than in private families, ought to be provided for with the utmost liberality. 3571. Do you not conceive that all cases of misery, the 93 relief of which has no tendency to increase the number of cases requiring relief, may be safely provided for? I think they may be provided for with all safety. 3572. Would not cases of insanity, and cases of loss of sight and loss of limb, come under the latter description ? Decidedly. Deaf and dumb asylums, lunatic asylums, insti- tutions for the blind, infirmaries, and even fever hospitals might be supported to the uttermost on public funds. It is the more desirable a right direction should be given to public charity, and in particular to the charities of the rich, that, generally speaking, the upper classes have a great desire to do good if they knew but how to do it. There is one way in which ostensible relief, whether through the medium of an assessment or from the hands of the wealthy, might scatter on every side the elements of moral deteriora- tion, and that is when the object is general indigence. There is another way in which public and visible charity might prove of permanent benefit to society, both for the relief of suffering and the increase of virtue among men ; such as the support of institutions for the cure or alleviation of disease, and for education. 3573. Do you not conceive that provision might be made at the public expense for all those cases of calamity which are so entirely contingent that no foresight or previous cal- culation could be made to prevent their occurrence, or to provide for them when they do occur ? I think that in- stitutions ought to be provided for all those cases. 3574. Do you see any objection to an enlarged liberal provision for the relief of the sick poor, in the way of distri- bution of medicines and dispensaries ? I would object to any legal relief of the poor in their own houses. I would not object to dispensaries, the object of which is medicine ; but all that kind of household distress which falls in the way of the ordinary experience of families, I think should be left 94 toMbe provided for by the families themselves, or by private charity. 3575. Would you include, under that class of human misery which may be safely provided for, those cases of extreme weakness and destitution of old age which may be equally afflicting with bodily disease? I think that old age is so much the general lot of human nature that it would strike too much into the providential habits of the poor to make anything like a regular and systematic provision for it. 3576. If any such provision were made, might it not also operate injuriously upon the filial habits and duties of the young ? Yes : I think it would tend to undermine the virtue of filial piety. 3577. Amongst the establishments for which a safe pro- vision might be made, would you include foundling hos- pitals, or any asylums for deserted children ? I consider that that would be just a direct encouragement to immora- lity ; I know not a single instance of a deserted family in an unassessed parish in Scotland. There were three or four such instances occurred in my own parish in Glasgow, when I was there ; whereas I have oflen seen whole columns in the English newspapers, for example, at Manchester, filled up with advertisements of runaway husbands. 3578. Have you known any instances of it in assessed parishes in Scotland ? Yes, in towns. 3579. Do you not consider that to be very much peculiar to the manufacturing districts? I think it is altogether owing to the feeling that the family will be provided for. 3603. Assuming that the wages of labour in Britain are considerably higher than the rate of wages in Ireland, and that the difference of the rate measures the inducement 95 which brings the Irish labourer into Britain, were emigration applied upon a large scale to this part of the empire, would it not have a tendency, in raising wages here, to increase the inducement to Irish paupers to flock over? It certainly would have that tendency ; that is to say, were it applied to England, and not applied in the same proportion to Ireland. 3604. If it were applied to Ireland, would it not have a tendency to raise the rate of wages in Ireland, and to diminish the inducement to Irish emigration to this country ? As far as it went, it would certainly have that tendency. I do not think it would be at all unsafe to propose it, on pretty liberal terms, even to the Irish population. I would not anticipate a very great amount of applications for emi- gration from the Irish people ; but as far as it went, it would certainly have the effect stated in the question. I may here be permitted to state what I have often considered as a very important principle in this matter : a very small vari- ation in the numbers of the people is followed up by a much larger than a proportional variation in their wages, just as a very small change in the supply of necessaries is followed up by much larger than a proportional variation in their price. The fluctuation in the price of necessaries oscillates more widely in proportion to the variation in their supply than the fluctuation in the price of luxuries. Now the same thing, I apprehend, applies by a kind of reverse process to the price of labour. Employment being the medium through which people find their way to the necessaries of life, it observes the same law in the tendency of its price to vary with the supply of labour, that the necessaries of life them- selves do ; or, in other words, a very small excess in the population is enough to account for a very great and general depression in the economic condition of the people ; and, on the other hand, a very small abstraction of that excess has a great power in the way of raising the people to a fair and right level. This, among other things, is an argument upon the side of emigration, because, though I do not believe it would be availed of to any great extent, yet if we can get quit, in the mean time, of a small fractional proportion of the popu- lation, this would tell very much beyond the proportion of that fraction on the wages of labour in the country ; I must at the same time say, however, that I have an utter want of faith in the efficacy of emigration as a permanent scheme. As a tem- porary expedient for meeting that kind of temporary pressure to which a country is exposed when describing certain transi- tions, it might with all safety and advantage be resorted to, and that without an oppressive expense to the public, because, though set up on a large and national scale, much fewer would avail themselves of it than we are disposed to anticipate. 3605. It is in evidence before this Committee, that at the present moment a very considerable change is in progress in the management of land in Ireland, leading to the disposses- sion of many tenants, and to a difficulty on their part of finding places of settlement elsewhere ; does not that con- stitute one of those transition cases to which emigration might be made safely applicable ? I think it might help very essentially to smooth and facilitate that transition. 3606. Where hand labour is superseded by machinery, or one description of machinery, imperfect in itself, is super- seded by a more perfect principle, would not that also consti- tute one of the states of transition for the evils of which emigration would be a remedy ? I certainly think so. 3611. Are you of opinion that a measure of colonization upon an extended scale, applied as a national effort to the pauperism of the United Kingdom, especially of Ireland, would be a beneficial measure, facilitating the introduction of 97 amended laws, and of a more judicious management of the poor, and if blended with a judicious education, would pro- duce improved habits of thinking on the part of the lower classes, especially the younger portion of them ? I think it would be beneficial ; but I do not think that the application of the general cure should wait for the scheme of colonization, though I think that such a scheme might operate as an auxi- liary to the cure. In this view, a scheme of colonization might be very useful. 3612. Do you not think that in England the knowledge which an able-bodied pauper has of his right to claim relief under the poor laws necessarily indisposes him to take any efficient measures for sustaining an independent existence ? Most certainly ; and on that very ground I could have no faith in the efficacy of emigration, as a scheme of relief for England, so long as the present system of its pauperism re- mains. I think that it is a very profitless kind of legislation first to do, and then to undo, or first to stimulate population by a compulsory provision on the one hand, and to then draw them offby an artificial mechanism on the other. It is playing fast and loose in the business of managing a people, and can be productive of no good effect whatever. But if tacked to a scheme for bringing England under a retracing process, by which to conduct the country back again from a compulsory to a gratuitous system of relief, then this were a transition process which might be very much facilitated by emigration, and particularly by empowering parochial vestries to offer to able-bodied labourers emigration as an alternative an alter- native which I think would not be accepted in one instance out of ten. The people would go back upon their own resources, and find a sufficiency in these resources far beyond what even themselves had calculated upon. 3613. Do you consider that the reliance upon the general charity of the poor, one to another, which is known to exist H 98 in Ireland, produces in a certain degree, though not to the same extent, the consequences you have described as attend- ing the recognised right to relief in England ? I think there is a very great difference between the two cases ; the depend- ence upon a legal charity does a great deal more mischief than that dependence on the voluntary aid of one's fellows : there is, beside this, a further difference between the depend- ence that mendicants have on the general charity of the country at large, and the dependence which neighbours have upon the kindness of the families in their immediate vicinity. In as far as the latter kind of dependence is concerned, it is limited by the operation of delicacies which operate with great force in every plebeian neighbourhood, and prevent the mutual dependence from being carried too far. I besides think there is much less of misdirected charity under the voluntary than under the compulsory system. The poor know more of each other's merits and necessities than either the wealthy or the members of any kind of public adminis- tration. I should hold that charity which passes and repasses among the contiguous families of a population, to be charity under the benefit of far more vigilant and salu- tary guardianship than can be secured by any artificial means whatever; so that the dependence on that charity meets with its check in the sharp-sighted and vigilant guar- dianship of immediate neighbours. 3614. Is not the tendency of the system of the poor laws to produce pauperism, and the tendency of a system o' extended charitable relief to produce mendicancy ? I think that it depends altogether upon the state of the population* as to character and morals. It is a most important question for Ireland, whether you will submit for a time to its mendi- city, or exchange that mendicity for a regular and compul- sory pauperism. Now, on many accounts, I would prefer the former to the latter alternative ; and one of my reasons 99 is, that education will at length quell the one but not the other. It may be difficult to furnish the Committee with a satisfactory analysis of this matter : I feel assured that so it is, however much I may fail in expounding how it is. One thing is abundantly obvious, that the act of becoming a men- dicant is one of unmixed degradation, and the self-respect inspired by education stands directly and diametrically opposed to it. It is not so with the act of becoming a pau- per ; a state sanctioned by law, and in entering upon which, the consciousness of right and the resolute assertion of it awaken feelings that serve to temper the humiliation of charity. I think that this admits of historical illustration. The mendicity of Scotland gave way in a few years to its education. The pauperism and education of England have for many years advanced contemporaneously. I do not believe that the most efficient system of education which can be possibly devised will ever make head against the pauperism of England ; at the very most it would but give rise to two populations, distinguished from each other by opposite extremes of character. I should therefore be exceedingly sorry if Irish mendicity were exchanged for English pauperism. 1 think that the floating mendicity of Ireland will fall under the operation of those moral causes which might be brought to bear upon it ; but if, in order to escape from this, you establish a law of pauperism, you will in fact establish so many parochial fixtures, a nucleus in every parish, around which your worst population will gather, and from which you will find it impossible to dis- lodge them. I should exceedingly regret, that under the influence of an impatience to be delivered from this evil of mendicity, you should, in getting quit of that which is con- querable by education, precipitate yourselves into that which is unconquerable by education. 3615. You said, in a former part of your examination, that H2 100 you had no doubt that the compulsory system might be got rid of in England, and that the population of this country might be eventually brought to the operation of the system that prevails in Scotland ; how do you reconcile that opi- nion with that which you have just now stated, that you con- sider the people of this country, having a right to the relief which they receive by law, are so fixed in the assertion and the claim of that right, that you do not think they could be induced to relinquish it ? Not unless the right be abolished. The retracing process supposes that all the new applicants shall be treated on the system of voluntary charity, and not on the compulsory system. 3616. Do you contemplate, in the present artificial state of England, that there would be any hope, within any rea- sonable time, of accomplishing that ? I think, that with the disappearance of the existing generation of paupers, it might be accomplished. I should like to make one obser- vation here, on the great incredulity which prevails with regard to the possibility of the retracing process taking effect in England. People reason on the want of natural affection and the want of mutual kindness between poor and poor : now 1 think that these affections exist in as great strength in England as they do in any other country, and that the rea- son why they are not exercised is, because they are accom- panied with a persuasion, in the minds of the people, that the objects of those affections are otherwise provided for, and that when so there is no call for their exercise. The poor look towards something ab extra. It is not that they want mutual sympathy, nor is it that the system of compul- sory assessment has extinguished this principle, but it has lulled it as it were asleep, by taking away the occasion for its exercise. Therefore instead of saying that the system of pauperism has extinguished those good feelings in the breasts of Englishmen, I should rather say it has operated as a check upon the exercise of their feelings ; but the moment 10J the check is removed, they will, by instant elasticity, break forth again, and be as vigorously exercised on their appro- priate objects in England as in any other country of the world. There is one striking anecdote on this subject, pregnant, I think, with instruction, and for which I would refer to the very interesting work of Mr. Buxton on prisons : he states, that in Bristol, the constitution of the prison is differ- ent from the constitution of most of the prisons in England. The criminals have a very scanty allowance, rather inferior to the average of human subsistence, for their food. The debtors have no allowance at all, so that they are wholly dependent either upon their own relations or upon the ran- dom charity of the public. It has so happened, that both those resources have failed them ; but the knowledge of a human creature in the agonies of hunger and in the imme- diate neighbourhood, was so intolerable to the other inmates, that no instance of starvation has ever occurred in that prison, because the criminals were drawn forth to the exer- cise of compassion, and shared their own scanty pittance along with the debtors. Now, carry back this from prisons to parishes ; carry it back to a population who have not undergone the depraving process that conducts them to a prison, and d fortiori we may be perfectly confident that there will be no such thing as starvation permitted in any neighbourhood, provided that the circumstances of the suf- fering individuals are known. Insomuch, that if any case of distress ever broke out in the parish over which 1 presided in Glasgow, it was enough to quiet all my apprehensions, that I knew it to be surrounded with human eyes and human ears. I never distrusted the promptitude of human feelings, and I always felt that every such case was followed up by the most timely forthgoings of aid and of sympathy from all the neighbours. 102 3710. I doubt whether schools should be supported from Parliamentary aid. I would certainly prefer an establish- ment for the support of schools in the way in which they are provided for in Scotland, by parochial assessment ; and if I may be allowed to state, in connexion with this, a way in which you might meet, and satisfactorily meet, a very general feeling in the public mind, on account of which feel- ing I am a little apprehensive that government may precipi- tate itself into a scheme of poor laws ; I am inclined to think that there is something radically wrong in the attempt to force beneficence by law, and that it should never be made, save for such objects as might publicly and fully be provided for without detriment to society. General indigence I hold not to be an object of that kind, though 1 should have no objection to a compulsory tax both for the relief of what may be called institutional disease, and for the establish- ment of a religious education. Now- 1 would not object to absentees being taxed in a certain proportion above the resident gentry for the objects now specified, for hospitals, churches, and schools ; I should be happy if such a tax would satiate the public indignation against them, for I feel strongly apprehensive lest that indignation should prompt a tax upon them for the expense of general pauperism ; I feel no tenderness for them, but if such shall be the application of a tax on absenteeism, I should dread a very sore mischief to the population at large ; whereas it strikes me that there would be a peculiar propriety that as they withdraw from the population of Ireland the moral influence of a residing gentry, they should pay it back in kind by contributing more largely than the other landholders of Ireland to the moral influence of a vigorous and good scholastic system. I hold that the essential principles of such a question may be as effectually studied on a small scale as on a large, just as we can study mechanics better by the inspection of 103 a small model than by the survey of a large machine, or as the results of an experimental farm might be turned into universal principles in the science of agriculture. Now I have noticed so often in the separate parishes in Scotland, that it was the desire to punish absentees which has been the moving force that led to the establishment of compulsory assessment, that I should be apprehensive for Ireland of the same consequences in the country at large. 3711. Then the objection you have taken is rather to the evil consequences of the expenditure of the tax when raised, than any objection to the imposition of a peculiar tax upon the absentees ? I have no objection to a peculiar tax upon the absentees ; any objection I have against a compulsory provision for pauperism is not to save the pockets of the wealthy, but to save the principles and the character of the poor. May I be permitted to say upon this subject, with reference to the difficulties between Catholics and Protestants, I have felt those difficulties so very conquerable by friendship and kindness, that I feel more and more impressed with the importance of a good Protestant clergy in Ireland. I think that, with good sense and correct principle on the part of the established ministers, a right accommodation on this subject would not be difficult in any parish. I hold the established church of Ireland, in spite of all that has been alleged against it, to be our very best machinery for the moral and political regeneration of that country. Were it to be overthrown, I should hold it a death-blow to the best hopes of Ireland. Only it must be well manned ; the machine must be rightly wrought, ere it can answer its purpose ; and the more I reflect on the subjecf, the more I feel that the highest and dearest interests of the land are linked with the support of the established church, always provided that church is well pa- tronized. I know not what the amount of the government 10-1 ( tar as, in the ^xt i o patronage, they, instead of consulting for the moral and religLas goja . do, in the low game of party and commonplace ambition/ turn the church livings into the bribes of political subserviency, they, in fact, are the deadliest enemies of the Irish people, and the most deeply responsible for Ireland's miseries and Ireland's crimes. THE KND. London : Printed by W. CLOWES, Stamford Strci-t THE LIBRARY XT OF CAU LOS AKGfi!J UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000801 095 1 HV 78 1831