328 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. 



who refuse to read the Bible, there must be very few 

 indeed who would be disposed to make such a test a 

 condition of receiving pecuniary aid. 



XIV. Because that, although the system of providing 

 for the poor by means of voluntary associations, aided from 

 the public purse, and constructed on well-digested princi- 

 ples, may not succeed at once in every part of the country, 

 yet that, so far as it does succeed, it will tend to bring the 

 population into a sound state with respect to the poor; 

 and that it will, we trust, gradually work its way over the 

 face of the island, and probably supersede in many places, 

 as the Scottish system does so extensively, the necessity of 

 a compulsory rate. Whereas we are convinced, that al- 

 though a compulsory rate might be rendered general more 

 rapidly, and be administered by artificial means, it would 

 every day become more difficult to manage, and tend to 

 bring the country into a worse state than our Inquiry has 

 found it. 



XV. Because, although it has been pleaded that, if the 

 foundation of a provision for the destitute were made to 

 rest upon voluntary contributions, many of those who 

 ought to contribute would not do so, and especially that 

 those landed proprietors who are not resident, or who do 

 not contribute, would be altogether exempted from the 

 expense of such provision for the destitute; yet as the 

 Commissioners recommend that the whole of the extensive 

 remedial measures proposed by them for providing labour 

 for the able-bodied poor, and generally improving their 

 condition, together with the whole relief and support of 

 the sick, the lame, the blind, and the deaf and dumb poor, 

 are to be provided for by compulsory assessment upon 

 the holders of interests in land, that besides this, the aid, 



