290 THE SUPREMACY OF PUBLIC OPINION. 



that the measure contains little to allay the immediate frenzy of the Irish 

 people. Subject even to the per centage reductions proposed in the bill, 

 enormous revenues will yet remain. Although in tranquil times, and in the 

 ordinary march of events, the bill would have been highly satisfactory yet 

 now we fear that it will only rank as an unwilling and half-way measure. 



The project for allowing the holders of leases of the church lands to pur- 

 chase a perpetuity of interest, though a wholesome change in the principle of 

 the inalienable tenure of the possessions of the church, is yet eminently 

 delusive in its probable operation. It is conjectured that this measure 

 will produce a sum of one or two millions, to be applied to the purposes of 

 education, charity, and public works ; but as the purchase of these leases 

 upon the very low terms of rental customary upon the lands of the church, 

 will produce a very beneficial interest to the tenant, we perceive no reason 

 why the sale of this interest should not be opened to the general mass of 

 agricultural speculators; and if one or two millions be the sum expected to 

 be raised upon these restricted terms, there is little doubt that under a system 

 of general competition more than double that amount would result from the 

 sale of the leases of the lands of the church. As this fund is to accumu- 

 late, and to be subjected to the management of a board of commissioners, 

 we greatly fear that in the venality, corruption, patronage, and waste which 

 are generally attendant upon such a piece of machinery, small indeed will be 

 the true result to the purposes of education or general charity. 



The other remedial measures of the government, consisting of the abo- 

 lition of the vestry cess, a reform of municipal corporations, and the removal 

 of the tyrannical powers of the grand juries, are all judicious : they will go 

 to the root of an immense wen of venality and corruption, and remove many 

 fruitful sources of exasperation to the smaller proprietors of the sister 

 kingdom. 



To the establishment of public works we also look for very extensive 

 changes in the condition of the sister kingdom. Amongst those pre-eminent 

 for facilitating the growth of manufactures, and for cementing the connection 

 between these nations, is the system of railways, the construction of lines of 

 which we would recommend to be commenced from the western harbours of 

 Ireland to the ports upon the Irish Channel as from Valentia to Belfast and 

 Dublin. Besides the immediate and extensive employment which these 

 works would afford to the labouring poor of Ireland, there is little doubt that 

 a large proportion of the entire commerce of England and Scotland to the 

 west of Europe, to the West Indies, to North and South America, might 

 thus be diverted from the tedious and dangerous navigation of the Irish 

 Channel. 



We regret that the long-desired system of poor laws for the sister king- 

 dom is not in the list of remedial measures of the present government. In a 

 country, the prime grievance of which is the humiliating destitution of the 

 great mass of the people, the establishment of a legal provision for the poor 

 would assuredly be the most instant means for the tranquillization of the 

 land. It is a futile argument against the system of parochial relief, that in 

 England the system is subjected to defects, mismanagement, and waste ; for 

 it is certain that no public and extensively ramified institution can ever exist 

 without its abuses ; nor are the poor-rates of England perhaps subject to a 

 greater amount of annual misappropriation than are the other departments 

 of the taxation of the country, or even the public charities, the crown lands, 

 municipal corporations, and a host of other impure and ancient institutions. 

 With all the acknowledged defects of the working of the system of our poor 

 laws, it is certain that immense benefit is yet conferred upon our pauper 

 population; and in a country where all tends to the aristocratical accumu- 

 lation in a few hands of all property and power, it is apparent that the com- 

 pulsory maintenance of the masses of our impoverished population alone 



