undertaken by the State. We might object to such a
departure 4. The Commissioners recommend that the convict-colonies in England from the principle of laissez nous faire. But do the —the great jails of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land— Irish ask to be let alone ? will they, if let alone, do that which it should not be allowed to share in the benefit to be cooferred upon is now proposed should be done for them ? Surely not : Ireland, colonies by a great immigration of labourers. The object of this as the Chronicle has well observed, is "a country of exception proposal will be plain to those who are acquainted, either with the from all general rules." The principle of non-interference by moral corruption of our penal settlements, or with Dr. WHATELY'S Government does not apply there. For Ireland, until a great admirable pleadings against the system of transportation : it is to change shall have been brought about, interference by a good and forbid the conveyance of honest men and women into the midst wise government is the one thing needful. Let the writer in the of a horde of thieves and prostitutes. There are but few here Courier, who would measure this Irish Report by an English who know what nations of iniquity we are raising up in Australia, standard, tell us his plan for the regeneration of Ireland ; and let by continually pouring into our settlements there the most pol- him not suppose that mere cavilling about the infertile nature of luted of all streams ; but Dr. WHATELY knows it well. His Irish bogs, or sneers at Archbishop WHATELY'S logic, will make proposal to save Irish emigrants from the disgrace and contami- any impression against the great leading features of the Report. nation of belonging to what BACON called " an unholy thing," is The same hand which strove so vainly against Mr. SENIOR'S the offspring of conscience as yet awakened in but a few ; and reform of the English Poor-law, will prove equally powerless now. it ought to convince the Irish peasantry that the emigration Will the writer in the Courier give his opinion on the great mea- which is proposed, has their advantage for its aim. sure of Emigration proposed by the Commissioners? The grossly absurd suggestions of the Report, to which we The minor yet interesting points in the Report, which we had alluded last week, are two:—
not room to notice last week, are these— First, vagrancy being made a punishable offence, what is to be
1. Having suggested the means of raising wages to the English the punishment ?—why, that which is elsewhere offered as a great level, so that all who choose to work may obtain wherewith to live boon to the unemployed peasantry, viz. emigration. Convicted decently, the Commissioners propose that mere vagrancy should vagrants arc to be sent—not transported, but conveyed, though be made a punishable offence. Since, at present, tens of thousands perforce, still as free men—to a prosperous colony. Either there of people are kept alive by wandering in search of charity,—since, is no punishment for the vagrant, or industrious labourers are to under present circumstances, so many would die of hunger if they be punished. The lazy vagabond and the honest workmen are to were not vagabonds and beggars,—this would be a murderous pro- be treated alike. Which do the Commissioners want? to encou- posal, if it had not been preceded by others of which the objects rage vagrancy, or to discourage emigration ? One cannot tell, so are English or Colonial wages for the able-bodied, and State sup- thoroughly does this proposal confound reward and punishment. port for the impotent. The suggestion of punishment for va- Come, say they to the industrious man, come and submit to the grancy proves that the Commissioners intend their measures of punishment which we have awarded to incorrigible vagabonds:
relief to have no limit short of sufficiency. go, say they to the incorrigible vagabond, go and enjoy the 2. It is proposed that the taxes upon land for conducting emi _ blessings which we hold out to industrious emigrants. We stop, gration and works of national improvement, shall fall, in due pro-- because it is hard to pursue this subject without losing ones portion, upon the incumbrancers as well as the owners of land. temper.
Mortgages and annuitants arc to bear their proper part of the Secondly, the Commissioners recommend that emigration should taxation for rendering Ireland a peaceful country. " First catch be conducted, and on the great scale which they contemplate, by your hare," says the Courier : " if incumbrancers.are to lose part means of " arrangements between the Commissioners of. Poor- of the interest for which they have stipulated, they will demand laws and the Colonial Office ; " that is, by the Colonial Oihce,—a their principal, and escape from you." To which we answer, first, department already overloaded with business, which cannot pro- that annuitants cannot escape—that they are caught already; se- perly mind a tenth part of its present duties, which has no sort condly, that if mortgagees should insist upon either 6 per cent. or of machinery for the purpose in view, which, since the Colonies their principal, others will be happy,—Ireland having been have lost all representation in Parliament, is become almost en- TOPICS OF THE DAY. made a peaceful country,—to advance the money at 5 or even 4 per cent. Our opinion of this measure is, not that it is too" bold," as the Chronicle seems to think, nor that i REGENERATION OF IRELAND. it is impracticable, as the Courier opines, but that it is un- This is the head under which a week's reflection induces us to necessary. The ground on which it is proposed to tax incum- place our second notice of the measures recommended by the brancers is, that their security will be greatly improved by the Irish Poor-Law Commissioners. The converse of some ignotum outlay of the money raised ; but if so,the rate of interest must fall pro magnifico applies to this case; for the more closely we inspect from 6 to 4 per cent., and thus.the incumbrancer's income would the suggestions of the Report, the greater do they appear, and the be as much diminished, with the same advantage to the land- more effectual for their object. The reason for their appearing owner, as by the startling plan of a direct tax upon annuitants more important as they are more fully examined, seems to be this : and mortgagees. This proposal. therefore, appears to be a gra- in the nature of those suggestions there is nothing original— tuitous affront to those who would abide sacredly by the letter nothing to strike the imagination, so that they bear at first sight of all bargains : it goes to prove, however, that the Commissioners a character of commonplace and tameness ; but the extent to intend their plans of improvement and emigration to be on a which those trite plans of relief are intended to be carried into scale sufficient for so changing the face of Ireland as to raise effect, leas no limit ; and this, which is not readily perceived on a wages and lower interest to the rates of a peaceful country like first view, is entirely original. Public works for giving employ-
England.
ment to labourers, and emigration for reducing the number of 3. With a view to the ways and means for carrying their great labourers, have been proposed and even tried before, but never plans into effect, the Commissioners suggest that a tithe corn- upon a scale sufficient fur the object. The putting together of position, estimated at 665,0001. a year—or, at ten years' purchase, bricks and mortar is a common proceeding, which passes unob- 10,6-10,0001.—should be bought by Government for the latter sum, served; but the putting of them together in sufficient quantities which might be raised bygranting a perpetual annuity of to raise another pyramid of Cheops would be thought a mighty 352,000/. " Therefore," say the Commissioners, " if the State work. There is an amount of public works and emigration purchased the tithe composition, and then vested it in the Poor- which, by giving employment on the one band, and removing law Commissioners, as a fund for the relief of the poor, charged labourers on the other, would inevitably raise Irish wages to the with an annuity equal to that which the State had to grant in English level ; and this, whatever it may be, is the measure of the order to raise the money for purchasing it, there would be a sur- Commissioners' plan. If Irish wages should be raised to the plus of 313,0001." (the difference between 665,000/., being tithe English level, the bulk of the people will be contented ; Ireland composition, and the annuity of 352,000/4, "a year, applicable to will be a peaceful country like England ; and then will English the purposes of the national rate we have recommended ; while capital flow into Ireland, causing improvements in agriculture, the 10,6-10,000/. might be invested" (for the clergy) " in the establishing manufactures and means of communication, main- purchase of rent-charges in Ireland, which would tend to reduce taimng wages, raising rents by increasing the quantity of surplus the interest of money, and enable landlords advantageously to produce, giving activity to trade, and occasioning variety of pur- pay off incumbrances on their estates. The gain, it will be ob- suit and character—in a word, civilizing; that stagnant, monoto- served, would result entirely from the difference in value between .nous, and semi-barbarous people. The end proposed, then, is the a Government annuity and tithe composition; the former being regeneration of Ireland; an end which cannot but be accomplished, worth about thirty years' purchase, and the latter sixteen."
provided always that there be, as the Commissioners obviously This plan is ingenious, and would be reasonable enough if contemplate, no limit to the quantity of public works and emigre- there were much prospect of a tithe composition and of the ton, or either of them (for either may be less, as the other is clergy's assent to an exchange of the composition for rent-
greater,) except that which shall be sufficient for the purpose. charges. But here we may say with the Courier, " first catch It is, we may suppose, the sufficient and therefore very large your hare." The Commissioners see this, and therefore make measure of the Commissioners' plans which has frightened some the suggestion hypothetically, as it were, saying, " in the event jog-trot persons Li England, and led them to abuse not only the of any permanent settlement of the tithe question being effected Report, but the Commissioners. A writer in the Courier is by Parliament." That desirable event depends on the House of quite shocked at the magnitude of the plans suggested, Lords, and is therefore, for the present, hopeless. Some day or and of the machinery by which they are to be carried into other, the 313,0001. a year which Dr. WHATELY has discovered, effect. What he most objects to is, according to our notion, a may be gathered by the State. All we can do with that sum at chief merit of the Report. Yes, Ireland is to be made for some present, is to book it against the House of Lords as a national loss time a Government estate ; and vast improvements, for which occasioned by them : if, when we shall be getting from them there is ample room, and which the unaided people have proved security for the future, we also insist on indemnity for the past, that they want either the will or the means to attempt, are to be they will have a heavy account to settle. tirely irresponsible, and which, moreover, is so conscious of its own defectiveness in this respect, that it leaves to the manage- ment of a private society, consisting chiefly of ladies and Quakers, such emigration as is now provided for by public funds. HORACE Twiss would be ashamed of. having made so nonsensical a Imo- posal. It seems to have had for object to save the Commissioners the trouble of devising proper precautions against gluts of labour in the Colonies, against the employment of unsafe emigrant-ships, against frauds upon ignorant emigrants, and, above all, against the misery which poor emigrants have occasionally suffered for want of some Colonial officer, charged with the duty of receiving them on their arrival, and of providing for them until comfortably housed with an employer. These are matters which must be carefully attended to before the British public will consent to a large measure of emigration; and they have been altogether over- looked in this Report. In conclusion, we think it right be add, that the head of the Commission, the Archbishop of DUBLIN, is not to be held respon- sible for the whole Report. He was but one of many who enter- tained very different views; and, if we are rightly informed, there would have been no Report at all without much compromise amongst the Commissioners. " Give and take" was the rule by which they arrived at some result. It was different in the case of the English Commissioners of Inquiry, who, though all of them exercised a general superintendence, had the good sense to come to an early understanding as to the object of their mission and the means of accomplishing it, and who confided the execu- tive part of their duty to that one of their body in whose judg- ment and skill they all placed the greatest confidence. Mr. SENIOR may be termed the author of the English Poor-law Re- port : this one is the work of many hands, pulling different ways and directed by very different intellects, not to say interests. Hence the contrast between the two documents in point of reasoning and consistency. Nevertheless, we do not recall any of the praises which we have humbly bestowed on this Irish performance. It is because its leading features are so admi- rable, that we regret the more those smaller blemishes by which it is disfigured.
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