PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 231 



The Irish unreclaimed soil has three material advantages over 

 that of other countries ; first, it is productive ; secondly, it requires 

 little skill in the mode of reclaiming, and thirdly, natural manure is 

 abundant. Can the British legislature grudge to advance a few 

 millions to bring this soil into cultivation, and to rescue more than 

 a million Irish peasants from starvation, v^hen she has contributed 

 twenty millions to wipe away the disgrace of slavery? Are the 

 voices of eight hundred thousand slaves louder than those of millions 

 of Irishmen ? Is a whisper borne over the Atlantic more potent 

 than the cries of our own children ? Or may it not be suspected 

 that 2i fashion, a vanity, an affectation directs the actions of men in 

 such proceedings. If the exports of Ireland are looked at, it will be 

 perceived that starvation and abundance are near neighbours. In 

 1822, an appeal was made to England to rescue from starvation the 

 inhabitants of two of the most fertile provinces of Ireland, and in 

 that very year she exported articles of food to the amount of 

 £4,518,832, and in the three years, 1821, 1822, and 1823, her edihle 

 exports alone were worth £16,000,000. These facts prove that the 

 misery of Ireland does not arise from an excess of population be- 

 yond the country's supply of subsistence. 



The lecturer proved, from historical records, that, since the com- 

 mencement of the seventeenth century, the population of Ireland 

 and its produce in corn and cattle have increased in such ratios that 

 the latter greatly exceeded the former, reversing the Malthusian 

 theory, and giving reason to suspect that food might be made to in- 

 crease in a geometrical proportion, while the population was aug- 

 mented in an arithmetical proportion ; seeing this, agriculture ought 

 to have the first place in any state protection, being, by nature, the 

 root of every national good, and Irish agricultural produce ought to 

 be protected from competition with that of Poland, Prussia, &c. ; 

 instead of this, the farmer appears to be the least encouraged and 

 the worst paid, and corn is not raised in price in proportion to the 

 other products of human labour, and he cannot avail himself of ma- 

 chinery to diminish his labour to the same extent as a manufacturer. 



The lecturer here showed, by a computation of the relative value 

 of money at different times, that wheat is now sold considerably 

 lower than in 1633, taking all things into consideration. 



After proceeding, at considerable length, to enumerate the press- 

 ures on Agriculture, such as the poor rates which have increased 

 from £600,000 to between 8 and £9,000,000, the highway rates, the 

 county rates, and the rates for the administration of justice ; all these 

 are increasing, and fall more especially on the farmer, who also has 



