1829. j Protestant Colonies of Ireland. 423 



country." — Report, pp. 158, 108. " In the part of the country (Cork) 

 with which I am best acquainted," saj^s JMr. O'Driscoll, " the condition 

 of the people is the very worst that can possibly be ; nothing can be 

 worse than the condition of the lower classes of labourers, and the 

 farmers are not much better." 



The remedies best adapted to relieve the Irish from their present con- 

 dition, are, 



1st, ]\Ir. Brownlow's bill for draining, and for the better assurance 

 of title to the purchasers of waste land in Ireland. ^ 



2nd, IMr. Brownlow's intended bill for the ascertaining the boun- 

 daries, and for the enclosure of the waste lands. 



3rd, An Act to amend the Irish anonymous partnership — Act 21 

 Geo. 3 ; and to render it efficient, so as to enable the capitalist to invest 

 his money in the employment of the Irish with as little risk as possible. 



4th, An Act to employ Irish paupers on public works under govern- 

 ment district engineers, and to charge their wages on the town land or 

 parish where they were born. Thus would be obviated two great evils and 

 causes of degradation in the English system : — 1st, The employment of the 

 people for less wages than is just. 2ndly, The giving of money without 

 employment. 



3dly, An Act to facilitate and secure the sale of landed property in 

 Ireland, by application to Chancery, instead of the expence and delay of 

 private bills, which is very great since the Union. 



IMany insist upon education as a panacea for the disorders of Ireland. 

 We deem it a dangerous experiment to leave the cure of its disorders to 

 education alone; for you are only making the line of demarkation 

 between the rich and the poor still broader, by rendering the latter still 

 poorer ; adding the wants of education to those superinduced by poverty, 

 you fling a new poison into the bitter cup of indigence ; you give a new- 

 weapon to the enemies of social order. The Irish peasant then may 

 read that by latv the English peasant is supported in old age, and sickness, 

 and when out of employment ; he then will compare these advantages 

 with the want of them in Ireland, and wiU be rather disposed to consider 

 the latter as oppression than the former as folly. He will then read the 

 speech of some eloquent senator, perchance his own landlord, who will 

 deplore the lot of the V/est Indian slave, for whom food, raiment, and 

 ehelter, are provided, though a huiTicane should not leave a tithe of a 

 harvest ; he wiU read of missions sent to the East and to the West, to 

 improve the condition of strangers, who have never tilled the soil, or fought 

 the battles of their benefactors ; he will compare all this benevolence with 

 his own condition. We have ever considered a legislative provision, 

 which would insist upon employment of the people, to be a national 

 insurance against the vicissitudes of trade, commerce, and war. It is 

 paid ultimately by the operative classes, the great consumers of taxed 

 articles, to whose productive industry the nation owes its wealth ; and 

 directly serves as a check upon that class who have indirectly made a 

 monopoly of all the prime necessaries of life by Carfi Laws. Thus 

 England is formed into a joint stock company, which, by its co-operation, 

 and notwithstanding the high price of provisions, is enabled to undersell 

 every other nation in the foreign market. That there are gross abuses 

 in the English system of poor laws, none will deny ; but they originate 

 from that class who have the power to remove tliem. 



There is a chain of three lakes iii Calway very near one another-^ 



