1829.] Proleslant Colonies of Ireland. 421 



JManchester Transactions, states, that the land owners advanced con- 

 siderable sums, and made ^reat exertions to promote and improve the 

 cotton trade, in order to relieve themselves of the pressure of the poor 

 rates. 



Have we ever asked ourselves this question ? How comes it that the 

 English absentee proprietors have comfortable English tenants, and 

 miserable Irish ones ? The reason is obvious. The landlord of the 

 English tenant is bound to support him, if by high rent he makes him a 

 pauper, or does not supply him with employment. Government know 

 that more than a million and a half is extorted from the industrious in the 

 shape of idle alms ; they know the standing arm)' of Ireland costs more 

 than a million and a half; the police 300,000/. ; the sums for the support 

 of the poor in jails and hospitals are enormous. Let the rate for the 

 employment of the people on public works be two millions annually for 

 a certain time, for which there is a most ample and beneficial field. 

 There are few or no quays to land goods upon the western coast of Ire- 

 land. The navigation of the large rivers of Ireland is impeded by bars, 

 and thus the tributary streams submerge large quantities of land. If the 

 canal at Newry were enlarged, it would open a steam navigation from 

 the sea through Ulster, through Lough Neagh, which would thus be 

 reduced to its summer level, and its waters be brought to turn flax and 

 cotton mills in the town of Newry ; in fact, every district presents sites 

 for public works, which are obvious to the most casual observer. Two 

 millions thus expended, would be economy compared to the present 

 system, and would induce the upper orders of society to exert themselves 

 in investigating the resources of Ireland. I\Ir. Griffith, the Royal 

 Mining Engineer, has declared in his public lectures, that the south-west 

 of Ireland, if properly worked, would be the greatest mining district in 

 the united kingdoms. IMr. Beeld, another civil engineer of talent, 

 from whose forthcoming Survey of the Resources of the West of 

 Ireland, the public may expect much information, has stated, that 

 last year a small company sent a few vessels, from Skerries, on the 

 east coast, to the western coast of Ireland, who returned with ten thou- 

 sand pounds worth of fish, principally cod fish. Sir J. Davis states, 

 that '•' the Irish have gi'eat ability of mind and body ;" thej' possess all 

 the elements of industry ; they are most desirous of employment, and 

 their definition of a good gentleman, is that of a person who employs a 

 great number of poor. There are in Ireland five million acres of waste 

 land whose lowest elevation is 400 feet above the level of the sea ; their 

 best manure, limestone gravel, lies in central hills, with every facility to 

 impi-ovement by water carriage, and the chemical decompositions of peat 

 soils are now well understood ; so that such soils, to use the language of 

 Mr. Aiken and Sir H. Davy, may become masses of manm-e. The peat soil 

 of the south of Holland, whicli formerly resembled the bog land of Ire- 

 land, is now the garden of Europe. 



The Report of the Bog Commissioners of Ireland, gives a long list of 

 the successful attempts to reclaim the peat soil of Ireland ; and Lord Pal- 

 merston has repaid himself in three years, and the land now lets for .30s. 

 an acre. Let us suppose tlie people of Ireland, 1st, relieved from 

 misery, or the fears of anticipated want by a public provision of employ- 

 ment, having naturally, a respect for those laws which respected their 

 condition, and all sympathy taken away from the criminal, by taking 

 away all excuse for crime. Security for life and property being thus 



