3.56 



POOR LAWS FOR IRELAND. 



The friends of justice, humanity, and sound policy, will rejoice 

 to hear that Government have intimated their determination to bring 

 in a Bill, soon after the Easter recess, for the introduction of Poor 

 Laws into Ireland. 



This is not only an act of justice to that unhappy and so long mis- 

 governed country, but it is an act of homage to the great cause of hu- 

 manity, which it is most gratifying to witness on the part of our rulers. 

 We understand, however, that the intended measure will meet with 

 most strenuous opposition in both Houses. Nor is this to be wondered 

 at, when it is known there are so many extensive proprietors of land 

 in Ireland, both in the Upper and Lower House, whose pockets must 

 of necessity be touched by it. But their opposition must be over- 

 come : private interests must not be suffered to defeat a measure of 

 justice, humanity, and enlightened policy. LTntil Poor Laws are in- 

 troduced into Ireland, that country never can be peaceable or happy. 



So long as there is no legal provision for the poor of Ireland, so 

 long will the aristocracy and middle classes allow them to perish of 

 want. Nor is this the whole of the evil : the higher and middle 

 classes will even deliberately assist in bringing those beneath them 

 to utter beggary. One of the evils which at present afflict Ireland, 

 and which has already been the source of so much of its wretch- 

 edness, is exorbitantly high rents. The landed proprietor lets 

 his farms to persons whom he knows to be possessed of capital ; and 

 these last take long leases, not for the purpose of cultivating the 

 ground themselves, but of profitably investing their money, by sub- 

 letting such land to poorer tenants at much higher rentals — rentals so 

 high that the parties obliging themselves to pay them iind themselves 

 in two or three years engulfed in bankruptcy. These unfortunate 

 subtenants, with, in the majority of cases, wives and children, are 

 consequently thrown on the world, and become paupers till the end 

 of the chapter. 



Introduce Poor Laws into Ireland and you at once lay the axe to 

 the root of this evil. Landlords, and others possessed of property, will 

 then learn that it is not their interest to ruin the peasantry ; and, in- 

 stead of exacting rents which they know to be impossible to be paid, 

 they will ask only those which are fair, and which the land can enable 

 well sub-tenants to pay. The landlords and others will then have a 

 motive for wishing to preserve as many as possible of those below 

 them from pauperism. 



Distinctions in society obtain to an extent in Ireland of which we 

 of Great Britain have little conception. The lower and middle 

 classes keep themselves distinct from each other in all the relations of 

 life. The latter look down on the former "as if they were different 

 orders of beings. " Keep those down that are down'' is the maxim 



