106 REPORT — 1851. 



nected with pauperism, to institute careful inquiries into the causes of pauperism in 

 their respective districts. By an enlightened conception of their duty in this respect, 

 and by a conscientious discharge of it, boards of guardians would do infinitely more 

 for the diminution of poor-rates, and for the effectual removal of pauperism, than they 

 would ever effect by the hopeless task of attempting to make pauper labour self- 

 supporting. 



The careful conducting of such inquiries, if undertaken from a sense of duty, and 

 if carried out with the single-minded object of arriving at truth, would have a most 

 salutary influence on the entire administration of the poor laws. It would en- 

 courage a spirit of enlightened benevolence, and put a check to the heartless selfish- 

 ness that was too often avowed and even carried out in poor-law administration ; 

 such selfishness as w.is manifest in the endless disputes about the settlement of pau- 

 pers in England ; such selfishness as led to the transmission of paupers from England 

 and Scotland to Ireland ; such selfishness as led men to advocate any scheme of 

 emigration, of law of settlement, of arranging electoral divisions, provided it ended 

 in what was called " getting rid of the paupers," or provided it forced some one else 

 by an extra stimulus on his self-interest, " to get rid of his paupers." Notliing would 

 be so well caloulated to check such selfishness and to secure the adoption of sound 

 arrangements for the future, as for those immediately connected with the adminis- 

 tration of the poor law to undertake a comprehensive and enlightened investigation 

 into the causes of pauperism. 



An Investigation into the Question — Is there really a want of Capital in 

 Ireland? By Professor W. Neilson Hancock, LL.D. 



The Professor commenced by explaining that the phrase " want of capital," as used 

 by Sir George Nichols, Mr. Campbell Foster, Mr. Montgomery Martin, and other 

 writers on Ireland, really meant a deficiency in the sujiply of capital in proportion to 

 the demand for it. He noticed the erroneous opinions that capital is synonymous with 

 money, that capital is accumulated labour, that labour is capital, and that land is 

 capital. The errors respecting the consideration of labour and land as capital were 

 not mere verbal mistakes, but involved scientific, intellectual and moral evils. It 

 was the duty of scientific writers to adhere to the established nomenclature of any 

 science, the conclusions of which were used in discussing public questions. In poli- 

 tical economy, one of the chief results that had been established beyond controversy, 

 was the analysis of the price of a commodity into wages, profit and rent, founded on 

 the distinction of the instruments of production into three — labour, the use of capital, 

 and land ; it was therefore a serious error to confound these, as no one of them could 

 supply the place of another. A labourer could not use land as a spade or a plough, 

 or as food; neither could he subsist until harvest on labour, unless some capitalist 

 had food saved to give in exchange for his labour. Any confusion as to these fun- 

 damental, intellectual conceptions, placed a writer under serious disadvantages for 

 understanding or discussing a question. The moral evils of confounding labour and 

 land with capital were equally great. This error had led to the most unjust attacks 

 on the character of the poorer classes in Ireland. Thus, when the small holders of 

 land found it difficult to get employment from the abundance of labour, when the 

 tenure of their farms was so precarious that these tenants could raise no capital on 

 the security of their farms, they had been flippantly told that they did not want capi- 

 tal, since labour was capital and land was capital, and therefore that the bad culti- 

 vation did not arise from any cause but their own indolence. 



The most conclusive proof that the poorer classes in Ireland would save if their 

 wages enabled them to do so, was afforded by the large remittances sent by Irish 

 emigrants in America to their relatives in Ireland. This subject had been first no- 

 ticed by Mr. Robert Murray, chief Manager of the Provincial Bank in Ireland. In 

 a letter to Sir Robert Peel in 1847, he showed that these remittances had been in- 

 creasing for ten years prior to 1847, and in that year amounted to 125,000/., in 24,000 

 distinct remittances. 



Having thus disposed of ambiguities and erroneous theories, he then proposed to 

 ascertain whether the supply of capital was deficient in proportion to the demand 

 for it by the following tests:— first, by observing the exports and imports of capital; 



