A. Power, Esq. 16th Feb. 1849.
742. In what respects does the condition of the farmer
differ from what it was two years ago; is there more or less
of unoccupied land, for instance?
There is more uncultivated land?
743. Is there more uncultivated land?
More waste land.
744. Are there more farmers quitting the country?
There are more farmers quitting the country certainly.
745. Are you aware of considerable emigration going from
the country this year, much greater than in any previous year?
I do not know as to a comparison between the two years; but
there has been a great deal in both.
746. Are you aware whether the persons going are of the
class of farmers at the present moment to a considerable
extent, as compared with the class of labourers who have gone
at previous times; has that been reported to you?
My impression is, that those who have emigrated have been of
the farming class.
E. Senior, Esq. 2d March 1849.
1838. With respect to this emigration, might there not be
a check given to guard against the serious danger, which has
been supposed in the late questions that have been given to
you, in the following manner, by requiring on behalf of such
emigrants a money contribution from the landlords from whose
estates they were removed?
I should confine the emigration, firstly, to certain
diseased districts, where, in the present hopeless state of
affairs, there seems no probability of extrication, probably
what are usually known by the term the "Distressed Unions;"
secondly, I should make the expense a charge upon the land;
thirdly, I should sell up that land, if the instalments were
not punctually paid, giving sufficient time between the
payments of those instalments to allow the land to become
valuable.
1845. Do you think it would be possible to grant public
assistance in this form for emigration, without discouraging
the remittances which are now made by friends of persons
still left in Ireland who have already gone to America?
Under the existing system of emigration left to natural
causes, precisely the people go whom you wish to keep, and
precisely the people stay whom you wish to go; in my opinion
you might take away from the diseased districts the bad blood,
without in any way affecting the natural current of emigration
of smaller capitalists.
1846. Are you aware that the reports from the different
emigration agents in our colonies are to the effect, that a
vast majority of the emigrants who arrive are labourers
totally destitute of any resources?
I must infer, from that statement, that the majority of the
destitute land in Canada; for facts have come to my knowledge,
and probably that of your Lordships, proving that very large
sums of money are practically taken away by emigrants to the
United States.
1847. Are you aware that it is well ascertained that many
parties who emigrate from this country obtain the means of
doing so by remittances from America?
I believe your Lordships will find that there is no current
of emigration whatever, of the poorest class, from what may be
termed the diseased districts; it is from the better parts
that they go, or of the better classes.
1848. Are you aware that a very large number of persons,
indeed, emigrate entirely by means of funds remitted to them
for that purpose from America?
I am speaking, of course, on a subject upon which I am
imperfectly informed; but my impression is, that persons from
the very worst parts of Ireland, and of the very poorest
class, do not go in any way; parties, in fact, who are
scarcely human, of whom there are great numbers, especially
upon the sea-coast, whom everybody would be anxious to remove.
1849. Would it alter your opinion, if you were informed
that in the emigration of last year as large a proportion of
the expense as half a million sterling had been defrayed by
remittances from those who had gone in former years as
emigrants?
I am not at all prepared to recomment that the Imperial
Treasury should contribute to emigration as a whole, but I
think you might have a partial and local emigration aid,
which would steer clear of that difficulty.
1850. If half the expense were supplied by the Governent,
upon the condition that the other half was supplied by the
emigrants themselves, would not that meet the difficulty, and
would not the money remitted from Canada and from America be
still remitted to the same amount, enabling a larger portion
of the relatives of those who are in America to go out?
Should the Government take up the subject of emigration at
all, the first step, I apprehend, would be to define the
districts from which such emigrants should proceed; and,
secondly, the classes; and, thirdly, the terms; and that
would introduce such a system as would give immediate local
relief. I would take the blood from the extremities, not
from the heart.
1851. Will you state the classes of persons that do
emigrate, within your own knowledge, from the North of
Ireland?
The class that do emigrate, within my own knowledge, are
persons with small funds, who are therefore not in a state of
destitution.
1852. What do you call "small funds"?
I call "small funds" a sufficient sum to get to a point at
which their labour is valuable; generally the emigration from
the North is exclusively to the United States.
1853. What funds do they generally take?
The fund upon which they principally rely, is the sale of
their interest in the land termed tenant right,
unquestionably often aided by relatives in America; I believe
that this district (the Northern) requires no aid whatever
from the Imperial resources.
1854. With respect to the emigration which has come within
your own observation from the North, especially from the ports
of Derry and Belfast, do not the parties who emigrate
practically take with them a larger proportion of the capital
of the country, than they remove of the number of the country?
Those that go are generally, in the first place, the most
energetic, and best part of our population; and, secondly,
they are persons whose departure diminishes the remaining
capital.
1855. If any emigration consists of persons who remove a
larger proportion of the capital of the country than they
remove numbers, must not the effect of that be to diminish
consequently the demand for labour, and to make the condition
of the labouring classes in the country worse than it was?
Unquestionably.
1856. On the contrary, has not a course of proceeding which
has the effect of diminishing the numbers in a greater
proportion than it reduces the capital of the country, a
tendency of an opposite kind?
Yes, it is of a beneficial nature.
1857. With respect to the effect of emigration from
Ireland, upon the migration of Irish paupers and labourers
into England, what effect do you think that colonial
emigration produces upon that English emigration?
If you assumme the colonial emigration to be sufficiently
extensive to improve the labour-market in Ireland, you would
of course diminish such migration to England.
1858. But supposing the state of the labour-market in any
district to be such as to leave 100 labourers in excess, what
would the effect be upon the migration to England of offering
facilities for the emigration of the 100 labourers to Canada?
It would prevent those labourers from going to England.
1859. Then, according to that view of the case, Great
Britain, the more favoured part of the empire, has a direct
interest in the emigration of the surplus labour of Ireland to
the colonies, or to a foreign country?
Assuming the emigration of Irish labour to England to be an
evil, it would be beneficial; I am not prepared to grant that
assumption generally.
Col. F.A.K. Gore. 6th March 1849.
2127. What are the causes of the depreciation of property
in the county of Mayo?
The depreciation of property in the Ballina Union has been
caused, I think, by several causes; but the principal was the
failure of the potatoes; that had the effect of at once
frightening away a vast number of the best of the population,
that is, the farmers; for it is a singular fact that some that
were the best districts as regarded wealth, are now the worst,
being perfectly desolate and waste, for this reason, that the
persons who lived there had means to go away to America, and
they went; but in the worst districts, where the people had
not the means, they were obliged to stay, and if they
possessed industry and the landlord was mild in his
collection, they paid something, and the land is, to a certain
extent, cultivated.
2128. There must be a considerable diminution of the
population in that particular district?
Great.
2129. Do not you consider that an advantage in that
respect, compared with the former condition of the country?
Certainly not, as regards the class that have gone.
2130. Do you consider, on the whole, that the diminution
of the population has not been beneficial to the country?
Certainly not in its present condition. I can understand
a case that would make it beneficial; if there was capital
enough to change the system of cultivation, or if there was
security for capital, then I should say that it would be a
beneficial change for the country; but when I see lands left
perfectly waste, an incubus upon others, and that there is no
sympton of a remedy following, then I think it is a great
disadvantage to have lost persons with capital who kept the
country cultivated.
2254. You have stated that you hae sent a considerable
number of emigrants from your country; have you had any
communications from those emigrants, and are you enabled from
those communications to state whether their condition in the
colony has been satisfactory, or the reverse?
It has been most satisfactory in general; wonderfully so in
respect to those who have gone from my district.
2255. Are the caes in which it has not been so
satisfactory exceptions, and rare exceptions?
Decidedly.
2256. With reference to the present emigration which is
taking place, and which you have described to consist of
persons having a certain amount of capital, as compared to
those who emigrate with the capital of their own labour only,
are you of the opinion that the principle upon which an
emigration may be considered either useful or the reverse is
this: that if the capital removed bears a larger proportion
to the whole capital of the country than the labour removed
bears to the whole labour of the country, the condition of the
labourers in the country from which the emigration takes place
must be worse than if no such emigration occurred at all?
I think so; I think you must either employ the people, or
you must send them away; if you have not capital to employ
them, it would be better to send them away.
2289. Do you think that any relief in the way of emigration
can be really and permanently useful, unless there is care
taken that the evil will not be allowed to reproduce itself by
the subdivision of lands and splitting of tenements?
I certainly think that no permanent benefit will accrue
from it otherwise; and that is one of the reasons why the
system of rating which I recommend would be so beneficial.
2290. Do you conceive that if it is carried on through the
assistance and instrumentality of the landlord, if the
landlords become contributing parties, you obtain a practical
security from themselves that they will not allow the evil to
be reproduced, which it has cost them an effort to remove?
I think for that reason the landlord is the proper person to
do it, because people would wait for Government assistance if
the Government did it, and in the next place the landlords
would select the proper persons.
2291. Would any emigration conducted merely through the
Poor Law Guardians have those effects and consequences,
independently of the interposition of the landlord?
I think not; it would be looked upon as a Government matter,
and persons would expect by influence, or by some mode, to
come under the benefit of it; they would first of all
endeavour to be considered paupers, that they might be
removed free of expense to America.
2292. Independtly of the circumstance to which you have
referred, as marking the emigration of the class who have
gone, namely, its taking away some of the capital of the
country, do you think that there is any real practical
improvement in the social condition of the country,
consequent upon the mere emigration of certain units of the
family, in comparison with the effect of removing small
families themselves?
I think the advantage has been not at all equal to what it
would have been if it had been done systematically, because
here a parcel of persons who have a little capital have left
a townland, leaving a few persons behind them, and the
proprietor, even if he be possessed of capital,is in a
position that he cannot, without great difficulty, obtains
possession of the land; those people may hold out for some
large sum of money; perhaps a man with capital might be in a
position to employ the superabundant population of the
district on the land, but he cannot do it unless these
persons leave it.
J. Kincaid, Esq. 13th March 1849.
3103. In any of those cases within your own knowledge, has
there been of late years a disposition on the part of the
landlords to assist in the emigration of the tenantry?
There has.
3104. Can you state to the Committee any striking example
of this?
The case of Lord Palmerson's property in the county of Sligo
is the most striking example that I can produce.
3105. Will you describe the case of the lands of the
Cliffoney estate, being part of the property of Lord
Palmerston, and state the extent of the lands, the amount of
the previous population, and the number of persons who have
been asisted to emigrate?
The property of Lord Palmerston, called the Cliffoney
estate, is on the sea-coast in the county of Sligo; the
population is now about 6,000; I have had a census lately
taken; the number, not assisted to emigrate, but for whom his
Lordship actually paid the whole cost of emigration, was
nearly 2,000.
3106. What was the average cost per head of the emigration?
The whole of that is given in detail in my evidence before
the Colonization Committee from documents which I then had in
my possession; but my recollection is that about 4l. 10s. per
head was the cost; whole families were, in every instance,
sent out.
3107. Will you state whether any considerable proportion,
if not the whole of those parties, would have required
assistance from the poor-rate, if they had been left upon the
lands of Cliffoney?
A very large proportion of them.
3108. Can you say what the average expense in that Union
is for maintaining in-door paupers?
I think about 2s. 6s. per week, including men, women and
children; I may be mistaken, for I only speak from memory;
it is much less for out-door relief.
3109. Comparing the expense of emigration with the expense
of in-door support, the emigration of those people cost less
than one year's support of those persons would have cost in
the Workhouse?
Yes.
3110. Is the effect upon the lands in Cliffoney and upon
the power of paying rates in Cliffoney, in consequence of
having applied that sum of money for the purposes of
emigration, very different from what the effect would have
been if it had been applied for the support of pauperism
at home?
I think that the property is much better circumstanced now,
both as regards the means of the tenantry to pay rent and to
obtain support from the land, than if the 2,000 who have been
sent away had still remained upon the land.
3111. What is the name of the Electoral Division?
The Electoral Divisions in which the property is chiefly
situated are Cliffoney and Rosinver; there are portions of the
property in other Divisions; the Electoral Divisions are not
made with reference to the properties.
3112. With relation to that emigration, will you have the
goodness to state whether it was by mere casual selection of
individuals, or by the selection of families?
In that case of emigration whole families were sent out on
obtaining from them possessions of the tenements which they
occupied.
3113. Did the emigration carried on upon that principle
enable you not only to grant relief to the individuals
emigrated, and to lessen the rate payable upon the property,
but also to improved the social condition of the property
itself, by enlarging the size of the farms?
It enabled me to improve the condition of the estate by
enlarging the size of the farms very considerably; but I do
not know that it provided me with any means to assist me in
sending people out. I did not obtain any fine from the
in-coming tenant.
3114. By emigrating those families, were you enabled to
improve the social condition of the population that remained?
Certainly.
3115. Comparing a possible emigration carried on under the
Poor Law administration of Board of Guardians with an
emigration connected more or less with the landlords of the
country, hve you the same security for the improvement of the
social condition of the localities from which the emigration
goes when it is carried on through the Poor Law agency that
you have when it is carried on through the landlord's agency;
or, in other words, supposing, on the one hand, emigration
was to be assisted solely by the Poor Law Guardians, or
supposing, on the other hand, it was connected with the
landlords, in which of the two ways do you think the social
improvement of the country would be most promoted?
I conceive, decidedly, by the landlords undertakig it
themselves, or exercising almost absolute control over it.
3116. Supposing a further consideration is taken into
account, namely, the prevention of the recurrence of the
evil of over-population by the sub-letting and sub-division
of lands, would the Poor Law Guardians have any means of
preventing that evil, or is that a duty which can alone be
executed by the landlord?
As the law at present stands, it can alone be executed by
the landlord.
3117. Then in both of those respects do you consider that
the assistance, agency and co-operation of the landlords is
the best mode of carrying into effect any enlarged system of
emmigration?
Yes; upon this condition, however, that the landlord has
the means to do it; because if there be any other means of
obtaining funds which the landlords have not, I could not
say that the landlord is the best party to look to
3118. Besides Lord Palmerston, have any other individuals
with whom you are connected in the administration of their
affairs, contributed to assist in emigration?
Yes, many.
3119. Do you know of any cases in the large extent of
landed property which is in your hands, in which it would be
the interest of the landlords, and in which it would be the
desire of the landlords, to assist in emigration, but in which
from the position of their fortune and capital, they are not
possessed of means to do so?
I know many such cases. I may add also, that it would be
the desire of the tenants to go, as well as the desire of the
landlords to send them.
3120. There has been another very large emigration not very
distant from Cliffoney, assisted by Sir Robert Gore Booth?
Yes.
3121. Have the same consequences of an improved social
state, better management of the estate, and more comfort for
the occupying tenantry, followed the emigration in the other
cases which have come within your knowledge, as well as that
of Lord Palmerston's?
Certainly.
3122. Supposing that the landowners were assisted from
extraneous funds, either provided locally or by the state,
in the emigration of their tenants, do you think that would
have the effect of lessening or increasing the number of
emigrants?
At present there is a very large number of emigrants
leaving the country with their own funds, and with such
assistance as they receive either from emigrants who have gone
out before them, or from their landlords; but I should think
it is not at all equal to the number that would go if the
landlords had funds placed at their disposal to enable them to
send out upon the scale upon which Lord Palmerston sent out
whole families.
3123. To bring the question to a practical test; supposing
that Lord Palmerston had been enabled to obtain, either from
local or general funds, 2l. 10s. per head to assist the
emmigration of the tenants upon his Sligo estate, would that,
in your judgement, have induced Lord Palmerston, or have
induced you to recommend to Lord Palmerston to emigrate a
greater number of persons; or would you have saved, out of the
sum which you have applied for emigration, one-half the cost
of emigration; in short, would you have doubled the number or
diminished the cost?
I should certainly have doubled the number; but the best
answer to that question would be to state what I am doing at
present in practice. I am not on Lord Palmerston's property,
or any other property for which I am agent, as a general rule,
sending out whole families at the expense of the landlord,
finding that the expense is very large, and rather more than
can be judiciously expended upon that particular branch of
expenditure, with the landlord's funds; and therefore I have
adopted two modes of acting with respect to emigration; one
is, that if the tenant is unable to hold his land, and
proposes to surrender it, I am willing to send out one, two,
or three, or four members of his family to America, on
condition of his surrendering hes tenement, according to the
size of it, and perhaps according also to the circumstances
of the landlord. Another is, that if the tenant can from any
other means obtain one-half of the cost of taking out his
family to America, I pay the other half; in short, I am acting
upon the principle of assisted emigration, in the place of
free emigration.
3124. You think that principle would apply if it were
considered expedient and politic that aid should be given
by the state for that purpose?
I feel no doubt at all about it.
3125. Will you have the goodness to state to the committee
whether, within your experience, this emigration is altogether
free and voluntary on the part of the peasantry themselves, or
whether it is made a matter of compulsion, or even of
inducement, on the part of the landlords?
It is not only voluntary on the part of the tenants, but
there is a great pressure on their part to get means to enable
them to emigrate, or even to send out part of the family.
3126. Has not that very much increased during the last
year?
Certainly, very much.
3127. Have you been able to observe any alteration in the
character of the emigration which is now taking place in any
parts of Ireland, as compared with the emigration of last
year?
3128. Are they a class of small farmers who are realizing
their property and quitting the country?
I should say they are a class better than the class
generally; farmers holding 50 acres and upwards.
3129. Are they of a class that you think it would be
better for the interest of the country rather to retain in
the country, than that they should quit the country?
Many of them; at the same time I must say that I am a great
advocate for emigration in most parts of the country; and I
do not object to the tenants giving up the land, and going to
America; I think that a change of occupation is essential to
the improvement of the land, even in the more improved
districts.
3130. If that better class of emigrants take away with them
from the country a larger proportion of the capital of the
country than they take of the numbers of the population, must
not the condition of the labouring classes, and the relation
between the labour fund and the rate of wages, be deteriorated
by such an emigration?
Necessarily, I think.
3131. Is not the emigration now going on to a much larger
extent than previously?
Certainly.
3132. With reference to the estates under your management,
have you any doubt whether it is for the interest of the
proprietors and of the community that farmers with 50l. in
their pockets should remain, or paupers who have nothing
but a claim upon the parish?
I think it is the interest of estates and the proprietors
that the paupers should go, and the men of capital remain.
3133. You have stated that there is a desire on the part
of the population to emigrate; to what do you trace that
desire; have they any knowledge of the condition of those
who have previously emigrated?
I trace it chiefly to the good accounts that have arrived
in the country from persons who have emigrated before, and
also the uncertain prospects of farmers in Ireland.
3134. Taking first the accounts they have received from
abroad, have you been enabled to trace the Cliffoney
emigrants, who were assisted by Lord Palmerston in the course
of last year, and can inform the Committee whether they have
been successful, or the reverse?
Generally the emigrants sent out from Lord Palmerston's
estate have been very successful, and they have sent home
very considerable sums to their friends to assist either in
supporting them at home, or taking other members of their
families and relations out to America.
3135. Did they report that they found any great difficulty
in obtaining employment in America?
The reports generally are that they got immediate employment
and good wages.
3136. Did they go to Canada or to the States?
Those reports were generally after they got into the States;
our emigration from Lord Palmerston's estate was entirely to
the Canadas and New Brunswick; but I wish my obsertations to
be understood as applying chiefly to their condition after
they got into the States. I think that very many of them sent
very good accounts indeed from Canada; but the great majority
of them pressed towards the States.
3137. Are you aware whether the emigration this year has
been principally directed towards the States, as distinguished
from the former emigration to British North America?
Decidedly to the States.
3138. You have read the accounts that have appeared in
the American papers, and the Resolutions that have been
entered into with respect to that special emigration from Lord
Palmerston's estate; are you enabled to tell the Committee
whether those accounts, which imply a great measure of
destitution on the part of the emigrants, and want of care on
the part of the landlord, are true or false?
They are entirely false; at the same time I should say that
I do not know that I have seen all accounts that have come
from the Canadas on the subject. I understand that very
recently the Governor-General of Canada has sent home an
account to Lord Grey, stating that the emigrants that went
from Lord Palmerston's estate to Canada presented the most
favourable appearance of any of the emigrants who have gone
out from Ireland.
3139. Do you recollect that in one of the papers which you
saw, and to which great publicity was given, the emigration
of one ship-load of Lord Palmerston's tenantry was
represented as being an emigration of persons almost naked?
I do.
3140. Are you enabled to tell the Committee whether or not
provision had been made by Lord Palmerston to provide
comfortable bedding and clothing and a sufficient supply of
food for those emigrants who are represented as having arrived
naked?
I am aware that in those cases sent out from Lord
Palmerston's estate clothing was provided for the emigrants,
and food for the passage, in addition to the passage-money,
and all is included in the sum which I have mentioned as the
cost per head.
3141. You have spoken of districts in Ireland which, to
your knowledge, as compared with their productive powers of
affording employment, are over-peopled; in those districts,
more especially such as present an aspect like that of
Cliffoney before the emigration, can you suggest to the
Committee any alternative, but either sending money or food
for the support of those people, or sending those people to
some place where they can procure money in the shape of wages,
and food in exchange for their wages, or the third alternative
of allowing them to die?
I am not able to suggest any other alternative; but I should
wish it to be understood that there are the means on that
estate of giving very extended employment to the population
upon it for a great number of years, if funds were provided
for the purpose.
3142. Supposing funds existed for that purpose, do you
think those funds could have been productively employed
without the previous removal of such portion of the
population as was actually in excess?
I think not; even the persons who still remain are, in my
opinion, in large excess upon the estate, and I believe that
funds could not be so productively employed, in the present
state of the population, as they could be if the population
were reduced one-third.
3143. Considering the first two of the alternatives just
mentioned, excluding the alternative of death as one that cannot
be contemplated, which of the two, the emigration of the
parties to a place where they procure food and wages, or the
sending artificial means of feeding the people within those
districts, is the most advantageous to the community and the
most economical one in the long run.
My impression is strongly in favour of emigration.
3144. You think that it would produce a sensible effect
upon the rates, upon the improved cultivation of the land,
and upon the general social condition and peaceable
demeanour of the population?
I should certainly say that it would produce a sensible
effect upon the improvement of the land, and upon the conduct
and demeanour of the population. With respect to the rates, I
am not prepared to say that on that estate it would, for every
means have been adopted by Lord Palmerson to give employment
to the surplus population hitherto, in consequence of which
the ratees have been comparatively low. There have been,
during the last 12 months, somewhat less than 100 persons on
out-door and in-door relief out of the two Electoral Division,
which, in the population I have mentioned, appears a very
small number, considering how poor they are generally.
3145. How many do you think would have been upon the rates
if there had been no emigration from that estate?
I should think above 1,000; at the same time this is partly
owing to Lord Palmerston having obtained a loan under the Land
Improvement Act, which has given employment to a large number
during the course of the last 12 months.
3146. Could you have advantageously and productively
employed the money so raise, if the former excess of population
had continued?
I could not have employed it by any means so satisfactorily
or productively.
C.G. Fairfield, Esq. 15th March 1849.
3587. Is it not a well-known fact, that one acre of oats
maintains little more than half the number of persons that an
acre of potatoes will maintain?
The fact is so, I believe.
3588. As they must be fed, if they eat up the produce of
the soil, what will remain in order to produce rent for the
landlord?
They must be provided somehow; some must emigrate, and the
land must be better cultivated.
3761. Will you mention whether there are any other measures
which, in your opinion, it would be very desirable to adopt for
the improvement of Ireland?
I think that all almost turn upon the law of compensation;
but emigration I think decidedly is a measure which should be
carried out.
3762. With the assistance of the landlords?
I would give a power to the landlord to borrow the money
under the same terms as he borrows now under the Land
Improvement Act, he should be allowed to borrow money, and
charge the estate with it, for the purpose of deporting his
over-stocked population; I think that would be a very fair
principle; at the same time I think the State ought to assist
in emigration generally. I think there is a class of persons
now in Ireland who are not wanted to amount they are there
I mean servants of both sexes, who crowd the Poor-houses;
I think they ought, particularly the women, to be sent out to
the colonies; they will never be wanted there as servants
again. One of the good effects of this law has been to make
lazy farmers, who never worked before, attend to their own
business, so that much labour is displaced thereby. I think
also in other cases, where the landlord cannot bear the
charge, assistance should be given to him.
3763. With respect to the class of servants you have
mentioned, would you recommend that the State should assist
a Union or a Parish in taking means for their emigration?
I think the State ought to assist the Union or Electoral
Division. Unless emigration is resorted to in some cases,
it is impossible to expect the country to improve as it
should do.
3764. Do you mean that the State should assist by loan or
grant?
I would have the State assist both ways. There are a great
many families in every Poor-house now who have a life-interest
in the poor-rates; those are the families of young men who
have died; a great many of them would be glad to go away, and
I do not see how they are otherwise to get off the rates ever.
3765. Are the education and nurture which they receive in
those Union Workhouses such as would induce you to think them
quialified for the roughness and exertion and high industry
requisite for colonial life?
I would prepare them for it.
3766. Are they in the least prepared for it at present?
Only as far as being taught to read and write; but I hope
to see a better system in this respect.
3767. I need not ask you whether those are the only
qualifications which are requisite for the wife of a man in
the bush in Canada, or in the remote districts of Sydney?
No; in our house the girls are taught habits of industry;
I think the boys ought to receive agricultural instruction,
and I hope to see the Commissioners adopt that view some day.
3768. Is not it a matter of great importance in all
emigration that it should be of that character which contains
within itself a security that the evil which it is to remedy
is not likely to be reproduced?
Yes.
3769. If the landlord be a contributing party, as you have
suggested, would not he have a direct interest in preventing
a reproduction of that mischief by a subdivision of the land,
or by a deterioration in the position of the tenantry?
He would have that power.
3770. In relation to any emigration which goes on through
a Union, would there be any such corresponding power on the
part of the Board of Guardians?
No; but I think they have to deal now with a class that
will otherwise remain as a lasting burden upon the rates;
thee are families in the Poor-house who have been there four
or five years, and I see no chance of their getting out.
3771. Supposing them all removed, and the same causes to
continue in operation which produced their reception there,
would not there be an equal number of persons of the same
class in all probability admitted to the Workhouses?
Yes; but we are not, I trust, to be for ever subjected to
dire calamities such as we have gone through.
3772. At the present moment is not emigration an object of
the deepest possible anxiety and desire on the part of the
Irish peasantry, or a considerable portion of them?
I believe everybody who can get out of the country is
trying to do so.
3773. If you were to connect emigration with the Poor Law
and admission to the Workhouse, would not it have a tendency
not only to prevent the Workhouse operating as a test, but
to make it an object of great anxiety to procure admission
into the Workhouse?
It would not follow that when the Guardians saw that effect,
that they would be obliged to emigrate such persons; I
recommend it principally as a mode of dealing with the want
and destitution which is now visibly in existence, and
which any one can judge of; I do not think the Guardians
should always be doing it, but I think it would be a very
good thing to have the power to do so now.
3774. Confining your answer to the two modes of emigration
to which your attention has been directed, one through the
medium of the Union and the Union officers, the other
through the medium of the landlords, which of the two do you
conceive would be likely to produce the most permanent effects
upon the well-being of the people and the improvement of their
social condition?
The deportation of the over-crowded population in a
particular district by the landlord. I think, however, that
no amelioration of the law can be carried out in the South of
Ireland without the assistance of the paid Guardian. If your
Lordship will allow me to make the suggestion, I think it
would be the most agreeable way that it should be left
optional with the Board of Guardians to apply for such an
officer. I have found my own experience teach me that, where
a good and effiecient officer has been appointed in a Union
which has been previously in a bad state, and where he agreed
well with the Guardians, which I think he would always do if
care was taken to select competent persons, those Unions have
recovered from their difficulties; he has taught them their
duties; and, I think, without the assistance of such a person
you will hardly get the 36 new Boards, which will have to be
re-elected shortly, to understand their duties for a long
time.
