PAUPERISM AND EMIGRATION:-
A Cork newspaper mentions the departure from that city for
Liverpool of a large number of emigrants. "These" adds our
contemporary "are independent of those who leave direct for
America. The emigrants this year, unlike those of the last,
are of the more substantial class of peasantry." Almost
every journal in the kingdom tells a similar tale.
When we consider the rapid increase of pauperism in
Ireland, especially during the last two or three years, the
above announcement becomes a matter of serious import to this
country. The loss to any country of the more independent and
industrious class of its people is great in proportion to
their usefulness; but to Ireland, in her present
circumstances, it's an evil of the highest magnitude. As the
poor rates increase, the people from whom the largest
dividends are derived leave our shores, and thus an increased
pressure falls on the industry remaining with us. And such
is the encouragement held out to idleness and vagabondism by
the present crude law, that a pauper and a poor man cannot be
classed to-gether, for while the workhouses generally are
thronged with paupers, we find no diminution in the poor
still struggling in their little habitations, and battling
with all their remaining spirit of honest independence
against the encroachment of destitution. By the way a system
is being acted on by the Poor Law Commissioners which
threatens to add seriously to the already enormous taxation.
We allude to the appointment of vice-guardians in several
unions - those appointments having been required by the
jobbing and carelessness of the locally elected body.
Now, we should like to know what these leviathan inspectors
have been doing while such disgraceful proceedings were
suffered to be carried on, even for the shortest periods.
These same officials are paid £800 a year, besides
travelling expenses amounting to an equally handsome amount,
for watching the Boards of Guardians. It is their duty to
see that the strictest economy be observed in the whole
machinery of each workhouse, and yet the jobbing of several
boards has rendered vice-guardians necessary.
In the meantime the gross amount of paupers who are in
receipt of relief has nearly doubled itself since Mr.
Nicholl's made his first tour through Ireland a dozen years
ago; and year after year, the feeling of living without
labour seems gaining ground, until it has become next to
impossible to procure men to "earn their bread by the sweat
of their brow". A striking instance of this kind occurred in
1846, when an officer of the Board of Works called at a
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workhouse in Tipperary, and offered employment to one hundred
of its inmates, at a fair remuneration, but failed in the
object of his visit, the paupers choosing to live in
idleness. Still we hear of an overglutted labour market, and
of untilled wastes, and undeveloped resources, and the natural
consequences - a miserable and poverty-stricken population.
The wealth of a people does not consist in the abundance of
the precious metals they possess, nor in a monetary system
however nicely arranged. If money were aught else than the
mere representation of property, the inhabitants of Peru
should long since have been the wealthiest in the world, yet
we know they are not only not rich, but absolutely wretched,
the sterility of their soil being no less remarkable on the
one hand than the mineral wealth on the other. The soil of
Ireland offers inducements to the agricultural capitalist
equal to any country in the world. It is capable of
supporting a still larger population than that now depending
on it, were its powers tested, and proper inducements
afforded enterprising farmers. But this latter is wanting in
many districts, and hence the little remaining capital,-
money, intelligence, and industry,- is forced from amongst us
by a variety of circumstances, a careless landlord in one
place, an ignorant agent in another, and a poor law taxing
industry everywhere. These things might, and must be
obviated, else the very men whom we require, will make their
way to other lands and leave us as a legacy, the paupers.
Nor is it the farmers only who suffer.- Within the past
four weeks one of the candidates for the mastership of a
workhouse in the South was a gentleman of ancient family, a
magistrate, and nominal proprietor of an estate worth (£ 2,000
a year). Part of the property is in the courts, and
from the state of the country, no rent was paid him for the
remainder these last couple years. He and his family were
recently obliged to live on Indian meal and vegetables, and
as a last resort he presented himself as we have already
stated.
Such, indeed is the state to which this unfortunate country
has been reduced by the political quackery of her rulers,
that if a change be not soon experienced, if our trade, our
peace, our industry, be not better protected than they have
been, ten times the £ 15,000 now paid weekly by the
Imperial treasury for the support of bankrupt unions in the
South, will not suffice to ward off the destitution which
threatens to overwhelm and actually confiscate the entire
property of the kingdom.
