422 Protestajit Colonies of Ireland. [[Oct. 



obtained, and the land owners stimulated rather to employ the people in 

 improving their waste lands, &c. than disposed to pay their wages for the 

 public works, the produce of three million acres of waste land, at three 

 pounds per acre per annum, would be nine millions' worth annually of 

 agricultural produce, equal to tlie annual foreign agricultural import of 

 England, which would be thus rendered independent of foreign supply ; 

 and instead of paying that sum in specie, as she does at present, the Irish 

 would be rendered consumers of English manufacture, and thus increase 

 her home market, which should be the first object of a wise legislature. 

 If the proprietors of waste lands in Ireland will come fairly forward — 

 give the people long leases, and let them at a rent proportionate to one 

 half their yearly produce, so that each l)arty would have a mutual 

 interest in their improvement, as is the case in Italy, Sicily, and the 

 South of France — vide Sismondi's Travels in Italy — and if they would 

 also allow a primary expenditure of two pounds an acre, the people will 

 willingly give their waste labour without any charge, in expectation of 

 future independence ; thus, waste labour, when applied to waste land, 

 would become productive without any great outlay of capital. We may 

 be asked, wliat is to support the peasants while thus employed ? The 

 same means that support them now, through nearly five months of idle- 

 ness in the year. Any measure that would at the same time give 

 employment to the Irish, check the rapacity of the land owners, and 

 induce them to find private employment for the people, would equally 

 benefit them, the Irish landlord and the people of England ; for we are 

 informed by the Third Emigration Report, tliat " the inevitable conse- 

 quence of the spontaneous emigration of the Irish is to deluge Great 

 Britain with poverty, and gradually, but certainly, to equalize the state 

 of the English and Irish peasantry." Hitherto public works have been 

 carried on by government, by advances from the treasury ; this has fre- 

 quently induced landlords to increase the rent on the workmen, and to 

 turn many adrift. In the same manner emigration would be an addi- 

 tional reason to pauperize the people, and then deport them at the public 

 expence. No measure of this nature can benefit Ireland, unless it makes 

 the results springing from the rapacity and indolence of the land owners 

 immediately re-act upon their interest, and thus create a sympathy for 

 the wants and condition of the people. 



At the dawn of the Reformation, when those institutions arising from 

 retributory superstitions, by which the foundation of charity partially 

 compensated through ages to the poor for the rapine and injustice 

 of the higher orders, were destroyed ; we find the condition of the people 

 of England, arising from those sources, to be a state of famine and insur- 

 rection, in the reign of Edward VI. — vide Hume, vol. 6, 136 ; and 

 similar in every respect to the present condition of the people of Ireland, 

 which is thus described by intelligent witnesses before Parliament : — 



Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald informed the Committee on the Employment 

 of the Irish Poor, " that he had known the peasantry of Kerry quit 

 their houses in search of employment, offering to work for the merest 

 subsistence that could be obtained — for two-pence a day ; in short, for 

 any thing that woidd purchase food enough to keep them alive for the 

 next twentj'-four hours." JMr. Tighe mentions, that " the number of 

 persons in Ireland supported by charity, is quite inconceivable; they 

 must be supported either by charity or by pillage and plunder. To the 

 •want of emplojanent I attribute every thin^ that afflicts and disgraces the 



