COUNTY RATES. 141 



tenant's capital and skill, are paid. That surplus 

 must ultimately bear the burden of all taxation on the 

 produce of land, for, without profit to the cultivator, 

 there can be no permanent cultivation. If the taxation 

 is laid directly on the landlord, the cultivation of the 

 land will still go on, however burdensome that taxation 

 may be. 



It can scarcely be believed that, notwithstanding 

 these obvious truths, the tenant's capital in Ireland has, 

 by repeated acts of the Legislature, been made respon- 

 sible for all the expenses of the county, and primarily 

 for the entire support of the poor. The fearful ratio 

 in which these expenses have increased during the 

 famine has been already shown in the case of the 

 county of Limerick, where, in the present year, a sum of 

 £181,638, in addition to what the same rates amounted 

 to in 1845, is made a first charge on the capital of the 

 tenant ! And yet the rate-payers have but a semblance 

 of control on the amount of county cess, as it is in the 

 power of the gentry, who, as magistrates, are ex officio 

 members of the sessions at which such control is exer- 

 cised, to step in and outnumber the representative rate- 

 payers. 



No one, therefore, can wonder at the entire prostra- 

 tion of the occupying farmers in the West of Ireland. To 

 relieve them from this unjust burden, and to encourage 

 tenants of capital, either from other parts of Ireland, or 

 from this country, to embark it with safety there, it 

 will be necessary to transfer the grand-jury taxa- 

 tion, INCLUSIVE OF THE LABOUR-RATE, FROM THE 



