IRELAND.
Mr. O'Connell has issued a long letter to the Poor-law Guardians of the County of Cork, on the subject of the Irish Poor-law • the con- tinuance of which, he says, threatens the lives as well as fortunes of the landlords of Ireland, and indescribable calamities to the country-
" Blood, alas! has been already shed ; and, taking for granted that the slayers on the recent occasion were as guiltlesss as the circumstances would admit, yet that very fact may perhaps give to every thinking mind a stronger impression of impending perils.
The present system, says Mr. O'Connell, is universally condemned in Ireland : and be goes back to the history of the measure—the report of the Commissioners of Inquiry against any general Poor-law, and Mr. Nicholl's hasty report in favour of it—to show how rashly it was en- tered upon. There is scarcely any country in the world with such a poor-law as that in Ireland, particularly in respect to three things-
" First, no pauper has in Ireland a right to relief; relief is purely discre- tionary in the Guardians to give or to withhold. Secondly, relief is strictly con- fined to the precincts of the poor-house; no relief can be given outside of its walls. The Irish Poor-law accompanies relief with imprisonment. It proclaims, 'starve or go to gaol.' And, thirdly, the assessment on property is universal and compulsory."
He further complains, that the Poor-law contemplates the relief, not of poverty, but only of actual destitution ; that the question of " resi- dence " creates endless dissension, and a disposition to clear each locality of its poor or decaying inhabitants ; that the authority of the Commis- sioners is absolute and despotic, and at the same time blundering—they had built a workhouse, for example, to hold 2,000 persons, and without a sewer! He condemns the principle of a poor-law, on the ground that it supersedes charity, and that its machinery is necessarily expensive. He makes a suggestive prophecy-
" I do prophesy that the people of Ireland will cot continue long to pay the poor-rates. Whilst the opposition is confined to particular localities, it will be put down ; the payment will be enforced, and blood will be shed, again and again.. But if the resistance extends from parish to parish, from barony to barony, from county to county, how will it be possible to overcome that resist- ance? "
Although in the course of his letter Mr. O'Connell deprecates party dissension, he devotes a good portion of it to denunciation of " the -great mass of the Irish landlords," including " not a few Catholic pro- prietors "—" all the Tory proprietors "—" the natural enemies of the Irish peasantry." He mentions two facts stated by the Reverend Mr. Nolan, at a recent meeting of the united parishes of Dunkerrin—that in his parish no less than 7201. poor.rate had been collected, although there were but four paupers from that district in the workhouse; and that notices had been issued forbidding the payment of rent. A new system of Whiteboyism thus obtruded itself on the public. Mr. O'Con- nell enumerates many of the standing causes of Irish complaints,—the smallness of the electoral body ; the opposition to the Government plan of education ; the crusade, backed by landlord influence, against the religion of the people ; the monopoly of office by Protestants, [so we translate Mr. O'Connell's supposititious case of the monopoly of office by Anti-Protestants, with the evil consequences that would result]; rackrents, and the local burdens on occupiers, " who must have land or must die"; and the Established Church. He reminds the Guardians, that the difficulty is not limited to a single collection of the impost, but that they must prepare themselves for " the perpetual recurrence of a new poor-rate after poor-rate." The law creates a pauper and helpless populatiop And what, he asks, is to become of the accumulated num- bers. )1.7.1f-kft# been contemplated for the suppression of menitisr. _ could not of course be done, without giv- every ' n bsolute right to cLim and obtain relief in the yorlthqu ".—entflf 1 poor-law continues, 'to that complexion we nstas.,-.404 at lase" O'Connell proposes two remedies, with
anAerssitivi-;—.
1 " My first is, the total repeal of the present Poor-law. Ireland was not worse before the Poor-law was enacted than she is at present. " My second is, to follow up that repeal by augmenting the present medical charities, and extending the same principle to the multiplication said manage- ment of other charities.
" Or, in lieu of both—and if we are to have a Poor-law- " To make the poor-rate an income-tax ; all persons to be exempt who have not an income of 5001. per annum. The poor-rate to be, say one per cent upon 5001. a year; and to augment in proportion as the income augments, until, if necessary, it should be 50 per cent upon the enormous incomes of ab- sentee proprietors. " An experiment of this description, but not carried out to the extent which I propose, has mitigated the horrors of the Tithe system. • Let it be distinctly understood, that I propose that no man should pay poor-rate who has not 5001. a year ; but that the owner of 5001. a year should pay one per cent, and that such p.rcentage should increase in the ratio of one for every additional hundred per annum. The actual percentage, however, could not be an essential part of my plan. The principle of that plan is, to exempt all persons under 5001. a year; • and to levy. the poor-rate by a gra. dusted income-tax upon every person having that income, with an accumu- lating ratio for greater incomes.
" It is quite clear that no violent resistance, no insurrectionary movement, would be created by the plan which I propose. It is the wealthy alone who would, on my plan, be compelled to support the paupers."
The rate-payers of Innishannon electoral division of the Brandon Union met last week to petition against the Poor-law.
The Coroner's Jury who sat on the body of Lynch, which was found in a lime-kiln at Miltown on the 18th, closed their investigation on Saturday, after five days' sitting; and they returned a verdict-
" That Alfred Lynch was found dead on the lime-kiln near Classon's Bridge, in the parish of Taney, county Dublin, on Sunday morning the 18th of De- cember 1842' with a wound inflicted on the right side of his throat by a sharp instrument ; but how he came to same place, or whether the wound was in- flicted there, or by whom, said Jury cannot say; and also say, said wound was inflicted on Sunday morning the 18th of said December."
Thirty-five persona were killed in the parish, chapel of Galway on Christmas-day. There was a large congregation to hear mass ; a part of the gallery-railing gave way under the pressure of the crowd, and some one cried out that the gal!ery was falling ; a rush was made to the stair- case ; and thirty-five persons were crushed under foot, while others were killed or seriously hurt by jumping from the gallery into the body of the church, or out of window.
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