250 ON THE STATE OP IRELAND. [BOOK III. 



REMARKS. 



The first and best employment of capital that 

 Great Britain can make for the relief of Ireland is 

 certainly that which the Commissioners have pro- 

 posed in Section V. namely, the employment of 

 the excess of population in the cultivation of the 

 waste lands and drainage of the bogs. But this 

 is only applicable in some districts which are 

 scattered and of small extent ; moreover it re- 

 quires several years to produce any fruits. 



We would remark that the second employment 

 of capital, proposed in Section VI., is premature, 

 although indispensably necessary when the country 

 shall be in a better state. But at the present mo- 

 ment, the recommendations of the House of Com- 

 mons, if followed, would have led to a general 

 system of drainage, to planting or restoring the 

 hedges as the law directs, fixing the course of the 

 rivers by dykes, and giving a free channel to the 

 waters ; all which labours would not produce a sack 

 of corn the more, nor restore that just relation 

 which should exist between the population of a 

 country and the means of subsistence which it 

 produces. This is the problem the solution of 

 which is the most urgent. Moreover in the present 

 state of things, where are the landowners capable of 

 furnishing capital, or of paying the interest for it ? 



