POOli LAWS FOR lUELANI*. 357 



of the middle classes as applied to the lower. Hence it is that it has 

 become all but a miracle to hear of an Irish peasant emerging from 

 the obscurity and penury of his birth. A quite different state of 

 things would be the consequence of Poor Laws. From a principle 

 of selfishnoss, if from no higher motive, industry would be encou- 

 raged, and everj' facility would be given to the peasant to better 

 his condition. 



There is another way in which Poor Laws would have a most salu- 

 tary effect in Ireland. Absenteeism is one of the principal banes of 

 the sister kingdom. And it will continue so so long as matters re- 

 main in their present posture. The very rents which the lords of the 

 soil distrain from the impoverished peasantry, instead of being re- 

 turned to them in the way of trade and commerce, are brought over 

 to England and expended here. Now it is at utter variance with the 

 first and most manifest principles of political economy that that 

 country can be wealthy or even comfortable whose capital is being 

 continually drained from it without in any shape finding its way back. 

 Let a system of Poor Laws be established in Ireland, and it will have 

 an instantaneous and magfical effect on the absentees of that kinsrdom. 

 They will return in shoals from Britain, and from every part of 

 Europe. The measure we recommend would have all the advan- 

 tages of a tax on absentees without the odium of the name. Instead 

 of rusticating elsewhere they would return as naturally and promptly 

 to their estates as the married men of old did at the close of Socrates' 

 discourse on the beatitude of matrimony. Their rents would be ex- 

 pended on their own respective neighbourhoods. With the poor- 

 rates before their eyes, they would hold out every inducement to 

 their tenants, and to all the peasants within the sphere of their in- 

 fluM ce, to habits of industry and economy. 



These are among the salutary consequences which would accrue 

 fronj the introduction of Poor Laws into Ireland. And by thus bet- 

 tering the pecuniary means of her poorer population, you at the same 

 time ameliorate their moral and social condition. The individual 

 whose belly is aching of hunger, who is destitute of fuel, or so scan- 

 tily apparelled as to be exposed to the severities of inclement weather, 

 is assuredly a very unfit subject either for intellectual or moral edu- 

 cation. Perhaps it ought not to be so ; but the question is not what 

 ought or ought not to be, but what is ? And so long as human nature 

 is constituted as it is, so long will the exigencies of the body obtain 

 a prior attention to those of the intellect and heart. But once devise 

 effective measures for bettering the pecuniary condition of the poor, 

 and education and i-eligion will infallibly, in the majority of cases, do 

 the rest ; at least, in so far as society is concerned. 



That it is criminal to suffer the poor to endure the pangs of hunger, 

 or encounter the inclemencies of the seasons without shelter and fuel 

 and clothing, is one of the clearest points in that Book which, in this 

 Christian country, we profess to make the guide of our conduct. 

 This matter is so manifest, however much our conduct has been op- 

 posed to it, as to be denied by none. 



Humanity and reason speak forcibly in the same strain. We may 

 be hard-hearted enough to refuse aid to those who are perishing or 



M.M.— No. 4. 2 C 



