IRELAND FOR THE IRISH.
A RENEWED cry comes across St. George's Channel, that Ireland cannot support her poor—they are, it is said, too numerous ; and the implication is, that England must do it. Irish writers es- pecially combat the English maxim that the land should support its own poor, and endeavour to show, as a matter of right and principle, that the maxim does not apply where the landlords are needy. The practical remedies we have repeatedly discussed ; but let us glance at this new-found principle, on which the Irish writers rely.
The Fifth Report of the Relief Commissioners in Dublin shows that the number of persons receiving gratuitous relief, since the date of the previous report, was 2,920,792; the reduced number, on the 1st of August, was 2,467,989: some two millions and a half or three millions, therefore, have to be thrown for support upon purely Irish resources by the end of September. The Fermoy Board of Guardians declare that the task imposed upon them is impossible. The Commissioners had required a rate of 3s. in the pound to be struck for purposes of the Temporary Relief Act; but the Guardians reply, in substance, that they can- not do it—that they have already undertaken to pay as much in poor-rates, in instalments to Government, &c., as they can ; and that the rates already made must content the officials. The reso- lutions of the Fermoy Board amount to a declaration that the union cannot provide the current expenses of its poor. It appears that Fermoy, as compared with other unions, has not been back- ward; and therefore it may be taken as a favourable representa- tion of Ireland generally. According, then, to this declaration, Ireland cannot support the two millions and a half or three mil- lions about to be left to her. In other words, those millions must muddle on between life and death, as they have done in former years; or must die ; or must look for support to England ; or may go out of the country if they choose. This is an Irish view as to the responsibility of " Ireland for the Irish." If it were true, it would seem to imply that Ireland cannot afford to maintain a landlord class—that a landed proprietary is a luxury impossible to a country so insolvent as to be unable to feed its own people. But there is no proof of such truth. The pre- sent is a period of excessive pressure, and there is every prospect that it will be followed by a period of abundance. The support of the whole three millions, at 2d. a day, for a whole year, would only be about 9,000,000/. ; the rental of Ireland, where a landlord does so little as compared with an English landlord, is estimated at 17,000,0001. a year, under the most beggarly systems of agri- culture. The maximum of poor-rate in a year of famine would not much exceed 10s. in the pound on a rental under the most beggarly systems of agriculture. We know that in many dis- tricts the case is far worse—we know that the gross rental is liable to deductions and charges ; but we are not now considering
details in the incidence of a poor-rate or in the unequal pressure of a pauper population, for which practical measures have been repeatedly suggested, We are discussing the principle only ; which enforces the necessity of zeal and diligence in de- vising remedial measures. From the broad facts it appears, that if the landlords were to set heartily to work—were to pro- vide for the present necessities by loan, and at the same time, by the same aid, were to take measures for putting their agricul- tural affairs on a better footing—they could meet the emergency without loss, and could even make a profit on the whole transac- tion. That is precisely the kind of process which the Government is desirous of effecting. No doubt, the Government schemes are very defective; but it may justly be said that hitherto the land- lords have not lent their hearty cooperation either in devising or in executing. Their declaration that they cannot do more than they have done is either a lamentable confession of incapacity or a shameless declaration of indifference.
The English maxim is, that " the poor must be maintained by the land." The Irish economists reply, " All very well for wealthy England, but Irish landlords are too needy to undertake the burden." But this is a shifting of terms. It is not the Eng- lish maxim that the poor must be maintained by the landlords : it holds the subsistence of the inhabitants of a country to be a charge upon the soil of that country prior to the charge for rent. The state of the landlords is beside the question ; which is one that concerns the primordial rights of the human race, rather than the social rights of the citizen. The claim of the landlord for rent is posterior to that of man for subsistence out of the soil. Unless the bulk of the people are fed, society is ipso facto dissolved, and such institutions as proprietary rights in the soil are practically voided. In Ireland the poor have been so far maintained by Eng- land, on the faith that the Irish landlords will be able to make good their tenure by satisfying the prior claim. The landlords persist in the pretence that they are called upon to pay for the Irish paupers out of a limited rent ; but the pretence is either silly or dishonest. The true construction of the English maxim is, that the poor must be supported by the land itself—the poor- rates must be dug out of the land. It would be easy to do so in Ireland, if the agriculturist would leave off begging and take to digging. By referring the people to the land, and properly di- recting their labour, the landlords might not only see the hungry fed, but largely add to those incomes of which they complain as so limited and so burdened.
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