296 Notes for the Month. [Sepr. 
mistaken.—For example. The wages of labour in Ireland are at present 
very low—incomparably lower than either in Scotland or England. 
Some of the best-informed witnesses who gave evidence before Mr. 
Wilmot ‘Horton’s Emigration Committee, state that an able-bodied Irish 
labourer may be considered fortunate who earns, through the year, 
seven-pence a day ; and that the common diet of the agricultural classes, 
(who expect little better), is “potatoes and water.” Now, if this be the 
condition of labourers in employ, it becomes necessary, of course, that 
the relief afforded by a poor rate in Ireland should be fixed at a very 
low rate indeed; or else men would have no inducement to prefer 
obtaining work, to throwing themselves upon the parish. And then, if 
the relief given, is to be of this very narrow character, can it be expected 
that an Irish reaper will remain at home—say on a parish allowance 
equal to three-pence per day, when he can get a shilling, or even eight- 
pence, by coming over to work in England? This position of affairs 
alone, we suspect, will be quite sufficient to answer those who believe 
that the establishment of poor laws in Ireland will at once produce an 
important relief to this country. But the argument, if we are not mis- 
taken, might be carried even farther than this ; and, instead of materially 
preventing the influx of Irish pauperism into England, it is by no means 
clear that the establishment of an Irish poor law would not tend rather 
to increase it. The emigration of Irish labourers to England, even though 
only for a season, is already encouraged by all those who possess pro- 
perty in Ireland ; and it is even in proof that societies have been regu- 
larly formed for the purpose of assisting and promoting it. There is 
nothing in this surprising. It is natural that the Irish landowners should 
desire to clear a surplus and starving population as much as possible 
off their estates. But if they are thus anxious, as the matter stands 
already, to send their poor to England—when, in fact, they are no way 
bound, even indirectly, to contribute to their support—how much more 
interested they would become in the accomplishment of the same object, 
if a law existed by which they were compelled to maintain them! It 
may be urged, that the enactment of a poor law in Ireland would have 
other effects beyond those which we have stated; that it would render 
parishes in that country liable for the charge attendant on their poor 
in this ; and that the expense of their removal, &c. from time to time, 
would diminish the gain accruing to the proprietors by getting them 
over. But, practically, this would not be the case; for it is not the 
Trish labourer who, in the surplus supply of labour beyond the demand, 
will become chargeable in this country. The Irishman will get the work 
that there is ; for he will be content to take it at ten-pence the day : 
the man who becomes chargeable will be the Englishman, whom the 
stranger displaces, and who cannot afford to perform the same work under 
two shillings, or, taking the lowest rate, under eighteen-pence. The 
fact, we are afraid, is, that there are no means of maintaining a different 
rate of wages long in two countries which have the means of ready com- 
munication’ with each other, unless by some arbitrary enactment which 
should prevent men from travelling from their homes. A good deal of 
misery will be saved, and a good deal of common begging and pilfering 
checked in Ireland, by the establishment of poor laws ; but the labourer 
will still continue to take advantage, where he sees a possibility of doing 
it, of the inereased gain to be acquired by coming to offer his services in 
this country. 
