Poor Laws extended to Ireland. 207 



or agitation must be an elevation to them ; no 

 permanent tranquillity can therefore be reckon- 

 ed on for the country, because no change for 

 the worse can happen to the people : whose 

 apprehension of failing is at this moment, it 

 may be feared, the only cause of their qui- 

 escence. 



-^q 



This state of things is not new, or to be re- 

 ferred to recent causes; for it is capable of 

 being traced to the first invasion of the English, 

 and has attained its present formidable mag- 

 nitude out of circumstances which by impo- 

 litic and improvident arrangements have proved 

 a material source of weakness to the empire, 

 and an accumulation of distress to these miser- 

 able inhabitants. 



; . *1; ^.'4i*K; '..".'-' W 4. 'UJ-i. i flfti* H<) 



It has been a question with some, whether 

 an extension of the English poor laws to Ire- 

 land might not greatly relieve and highly be- 

 nefit the lower classes God forbid the attempt 

 should be made ! Any one whose attention has 

 been duly called to the operation of the poor 

 laws in England, cannot but be assured that 

 the individual miseries of human existence have 

 increased there in the precise ratio to the 

 burdens imposed on the community by those 

 enactments. 

 1 



