Relief of Distress (Ireland)

      RELIEF OF DISTRESS (IRELAND).

      Resolution reported: -

      "That the Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland be authorised to direct the issue, out
of the Consolidated Fund of the said United
Kingdom, of any sum, not exceeding 50,000l., for
affording relief to certain distressed Poor Law
Unions in Ireland."

      Resolution read 2.

      Amendment proposed, at the end of the
Resolution, to add the words -

      "Provided that the money be advanced only as
a loan, and repayment secured by a lien on the
lands liable to the uncollected Rates, with power
of sale for its recovery."

      MR. P. SCROPE said, he hoped the
House would not make light of the
apparent insignificance of the amount of
50,000l., it did not matter whether the
grant of such a paltry sum was made a
free gift or a loan in aid of the Irish
unions in question.  The sum, indeed,
might seem very small, but the principle
involved in such grants was very large
and very important; and as he thought it
a very unwise and very pernicious one, he
trusted he would be excused for troubling
the House with the reasons that compelled
him to make a determined stand against
it.  The House would remember that,
only a few months ago, a vote of 132,000l.,
for similar purposes, had been called for
and acceded to in that House, not to say
anything of the millions that had been
granted to Ireland a very few years ago.
But looking to the probable future state of
Ireland, could anyone possibly suppose
that this could be the last vote which they
would be called upon to make for a similar
purpose?  On the contrary, he agreed
with the estimate of the hon. Member for
Northamptonshire (Mr. Stafford), that the
probable wants for these twenty-one units
for the current year, beyond the small sum
they would be able to collect from the
rates, would be about half a million sterling;
and how this deficiency was to be
made up was the real question.  These
twenty-one unions had only paid last year
a rate of 2s. 1d. in the pound; and a
deficiency of 10s. in the pound had to be made
up by the Government and the British
Relief Association.  A similar deficit - if,
indeed, not a greater one - must be expected
this year.  How, then, was it to be met?
Intimations had been given in the public
papers the other day, that very possibly a
rate in aid would be required in Ireland to
supplement these deficiencies.  But the
number of districts that could afford to
contribute towards this fund, after maintaining
their own poor, would be very
limited, and he doubted very much whether
they would be able to collect 3d. or
6d. additional rate in may unions in Ireland.
Many of them were struggling under
extraordinary difficulties, and were
barely able to support themselves; and to
impose a rate in aid upon them would only
reduce them into the same bankrupt condition
as the twenty-one unions which they
were called upon to assist, and thereby
increase the number of unions that must be
supplied with extra aid.  This increase
would again decrease the number that
could assist the most distressed unions -
this, again, would in its turn widen the
sphere of bankruptcy; and so the evil
would go on, perpetuating and aggravating
itself in the most frightful manner.  He,
therefore, saw no other means of making
up the deficiency that must inevitably
exist for the next two or three years,
except by coming from time to time upon
the public treasury.  He believed this
House had sanctioned the principle, by
repeated and large majorities, that the Irish
poor had the same claim upon the State
to be kept from starvation as the poor
of our own country had; and this responsibility
could not by any fair means be
avoided.  The House, he was convinced,
would never suffer the people of Ireland to
be decimated by hunger, or allow their
means of relief to be cut down below the
allowance necessary for supporting life;
and where, then, were the funds to maintain
them to be procured from?  Now,
he (Mr. Scrope) contended, that all
gratuitous grants in aid were opposed to the
main principle of our poor-laws, which he
believed to be local responsibility for local
destitution.  Rates in aid were almost
unknown in England; still less any application
for national grants of this description.
The House, however, was now called upon
to establish a principle that would absolve
the districts from their local responsibility,
and thereby offer a direct premium
to the non-payment of the rates; they
would actually hold out a bonus to parties
to resist their collection.  He understood
it was intended to adopt the rule of
not pressing the collection any longer
when a difficulty was experienced in raising
the rates; but if they laid down this
limit, and excused all those who were
liable by law just whenever a difficulty
was experienced in the process of collection,
and then made levies upon other parties
who were not now liable either in this
country or in Ireland, he maintained they
would be pusuing a most dangerous course -
a course that would discourage all self-reliance
in any given locality, that would
open the door to fraud and collusion of
every kind, in order to prevent the seizure
of property for the rates.  Under such a
system it would be perfectly impossible,
let them use whatever measures of force
they chose, to collect the rates, if they
once said that parties from whom it was
difficult to get their quota must be excused.
But look at the injustice they would inflict
upon those whom they called to supply
the deficiecy.  If some tremendous
calamity, or provdential visitation were
confined to any particular locality - say an
earthquake ravaging the entire western
coast of Ireland, Parliament might all very
well then step in to support the population;
but how stood the facts of the present
case?  Why, the same calamity that had
desolated the western coast of Ireland, had
extended itself throughout not only the
whole of Ireland, but England and Scotland
had suffered under its ravages.  The west
of Ireland was only suffering from the calamity
in a peuliar degree, because, for a
series of years, the landed property of the
country had been abominably mismanaged
and absurd; and he would ask were the
sins of these western landlords to be visited
upon the heads of those who had nothing
whatever to do with them?  If this system
were to be followed out, what would become
of the stimulus which the poor-law
was to give to individual exertion and
habits of prudence and self-reliance?
Why, they would actually offer a premium
to mismanagement and improvidence, if
they told the landowners, in this way, that
whenever a difficulty in collecting the rates
was encountered, we would take upon ourselves
the duty of supporting their poor
for them from English taxes and aids
ab extra.  How could they expect to
stimulate to improvements and the cultivation
of the land, which was all that was
necessary to restore prosperity to the most
wretched districts of Ireland, if they were
continually to give the practical lesson,
conveyed by those repeated grants, that
the landed proprietor's responsibility of
maintaining his own poor was at an end
whenever it was difficult to levy the rates.
It was notoriously undeniable and undenied,
that the worst districts were capable by
nature of maintaining the population, and
that even now there was land enough
(without reckoning the millions of waste
acres reclaimable) declared by the poor-law
inspectors to have been cultivated,
and to require all the labour of the
ablebodied population of the districts.  Why,
then, should they not have to maintain
their own poor, instead of throwing additional
burdens upon the already over-taxed
people of this country.  Last year the
poor-rates in Connaught were only 2s. in
the pound; and he (Mr. Scrope) had
known districts of England where the
hardworking ratepayers had to contribute
6s. and 8s. in the pound for the
support of those whose condition was
little worse than their own.  Why, then,
should they be called upon to pay for the
poor of Connaught?  The rates ought to
be exacted from the locality under all
circumstances, and not burden other districts
which had enough to do to support their
own poor.  It had been said, that this
advance of 50,000l. was asked for in
order to save life; and advances were,
no doubt, necessary for that purpose,
but that was no reason why they should
exonerate the parties legally liable from
the arrears due.  The only mode to recover
the arrears that were going on
accumulating upon many properties was, to
make the fee-simple of the land liable for
the rates.  This was the way in which
they might secure repayment either to the
board of guardians, or to the national
exchequer.  The stock, flocks, crops, and
everything upon the land was liable to seizure
for the rates, and he saw no reason
why the land should escape untouched.
The effect was, that in the west of Ireland
arrears were accumulating upon many
farms and estates, and no distress being
levied on the land, it was thrown entirely
out of cultivation, and no tenant could be
got to take the land and stock it, because
his property in his crops could be seized
at any moment for the arrears of rate.
The consequence of this state of things
was, more land got out of the cultivation every
day, and the burdens became heavier upon
the neighbouring properties; and thus the
area of desolation and ruin spread around
until the Government was forced to come
forward for rates in aid, or for grants.
There would be nothing unjust in taking
a portion of the fee-simple of the property
in payment of the arrears of rate.
The mortgages had no interest in securing
the land lying desolate because of
the arrears; and whilst the land continued
uncultivated no rent could be obtained.
Suppose an estate in Connaught to
be liable to a rate of 1,000l. a year, and
the arrears upon it to amount to 1,000l.,
for nobody would hire it and stock it unless
they were paid in the first instance.
Now, if they allowed 1-25th of the land -
supposing it to be worth 25 years' purchase
- to be sold to pay the arrears, the
remaining 24-25ths might be set free, and
it might be stocked, and pay a rent, as
well as the debt of the mortgagee or
creditor.  The 1-5th might be taken possession
of by the board of guardians, and
sold to satisfy the arrears; or, if the time
was unfavourable for the sale, they might
lease it to some one who would stock it,
and pay them an excellent rent.  They
could place it in the hands of an active
capitalist, who would improve and cultivate
it, and thereby employ the population and
benefit the whole community generally.
This was not an imaginary case, because
in many of the districts many estates had
been similarly circumstanced.  Mr. Burke,
late inspector of the Mayo district, stated
that the rate in the Ballina union amounted
to 5,000l., but it could not be collected.
He said it was chiefly due from landowners;
and from the list given in the
papers which he (Mr. Scrope) now held
in his hand, he found there were eighteen
landowners in that district alone whose
estates were under receivers.  Three were
in goal, and one, who had never paid
a farthing yet, had his lands uncultivated
and waste, and his house was shut up, to
avoid an execution.  What hope, then,
was there, if they were to excuse these
parties the rates?  When they made these
grants from the Consolidated Fund, or
other sources, under these circumstances,
it was not the poor they were giving the
money of the people to.  It was to
the bankrupt landowners and their creditors.
And why should the ratepayers of
Ireland, or tha taxpayer of England, be
called upon to pay the debts of the bankrupt
landowners of Connaught?  But independently
of this objection, he (Mr. Scrope)
asked whether they would have
made any real advance towards improving
the state of things in Connaught? -
whether they would not only be bolstering
by their grants the mere nominal
proprietors of vast tracts, which, like the dog
in the manger, they would not or could
not cultivate themselves, nor allow others
to do so.  Capt. Hamilton, in this statement
of the 2nd of January, which had
been quoted by the right hon. the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, said, that no
other remedy for the evil in his district
remained but to get a change of proprietors,
and the substitution of men of energy
and capital.  Now, the duty of supporting
the poor was the first claim upon the land,
and the most effective and simple mode of
getting rid of a useless proprietary, and
thereby of benefiting the community at
large, was to oust the present owners to
satisfy the arrears of poor-rates. Last
Session an Act had been passed to give
the creditor who had the first charge the
power of selling the property; and now he
(Mr. Scrope) only asked them to apply the
same principle in the case of arrears of
poor-rates, so as to confer upon the British
taxpayers advancing these grants as loans
in aid of the Irish unions, the same right
of sale, seeing the public became creditors
in the first charge, by maintaining the
poor, who ought to be supported from the
land in their own districts.  And this was
in fact what the more deserving Irish
landowners were beginning to ask for their
own protection.  Very recently the board
of guardians of Ballinasloe held a meeting,
and petitioned Parliament to allow defaulting
lands to be sold to satisfy the arrears
of rate.  To this system he believed Parliament
would be obliged to come at last,
for no other remedy for the evil could be
found.  He (Mr. Scrope) should next
proceed to say a few words on another subject.
He proposed that the money should be expended,
as far as was possible, in the productive
employment of the ablebodied poor.  If
they adopted the productive system, they
would get back the money they lent, and
therefore he proposed to lend it; but whether
they gave it or lent it, he asked them
to look this question in the face, and see
if it were not absolutely necessary they
should employ the people whom they must
feed in productive labour.  There were
twenty-one unions in a state of bakruptcy,
one of which he would take as a specimen,
namely, the Ballina union.  It was anticipated
that in the course of this summer
there would be 4,300 ablebodied men in
a state of destitution in that union.  Their
families, it was calculated, would amount
to 14,000 more, making altogether 18,300
persons in that union, either ablebodied or
depending upon ablebodied men for their
support.  The whole number of paupers,
it was expected, would be 27,000, and,
therefore, two-thirds of the paupers of
Ballina union would be composed of
the ablebodied class.  He (Mr. Scrope)
asked whether this ablebodied population
should be maintained by them in
such a way as would enable them to
produce sufficient to pay them what they had
advanced for their maintenance, or were
they to be locked up in workhouses, employed
only in breaking stones, and of no
use to any person?  He (Mr. Scrope) knew
that the proceedings in Ireland in the year
1847 would be thrown in his face, and
he would be asked if he proposed to repeat
that system, and he would be also
reminded of the national workshops in Paris;
but he begged to call the recollection of
hon, Members to this fact, that while the
labourers on the useless relief works in
Ireland were idling away their time and
imposing upon the public - while jobbing
in every possible way was carried on, and
their money was misapplied - the productive
works carried on in the same districts,
under Mr. Labouchere's letter, were attended
to, and the men employed upon
them worked most willingly from morning
till night.  Amongst the men employed on
the productive works there was no want of
industry, and their conduct was most
admirable, while on the unproductive works
there was idleness and imposition.  They
should treat men as human beings, having a
moral sense about them; and if the Irish
had a moral sense about them - (Cries
of "Hear!")  He did not mean to cast
any reflection on the Irish, but what he
meant to do was, to allude to the reflections
which were thrown upon them.  It
was stated that they were Celts, that they
were an idle race, and that nothing could
induce them to be industrious.  He had
refuted that assertion over and over again.
And with regard to those very Mayo men,
it was notorious throughout England that
they were the persons who cut their harvest,
and were most laborious.  But there
was another quality the Irishman had, and
that was acuteness; and if they set an
Irishman to a task of labour, and he knew
that it was useless, and only imposed
as a test, he would endevour to evade
it.  On the other hand, if he had a piece
of land to work on that would bring food
to himself and his family, he would labour
upon it from morning to night, because
there was that moral sense about him that
would induce him to do so.  Therefore, the
distinction between the relief works in
1847 and the works undertaken under Mr.
Labouchere's letter was this - the one was
productive, the other was notoriously useless
and unservicable - it was sham work,
a mere pretense of work - it was made a
matter of jobbing by the upper classes, and
was a school for idleness amongst the
poorer classes.  If they could obtain
productive works from their convicts, why not
obtain it from their paupers?  A noble
Lord in another place had, on the preceding
night, declared that the earnings of
the convict at Gibraltar amounted to 38l.,
while the cost of his maintenance did not
amount to more than one half that sum.
Were they, then, to put a man into a
workhouse and maintain him there, and his
family besides, in idleness; or would they
put the ablebodied pauper to productive
works - paying him by rations, if they
chose?  Let them look to what had been
done by the Quakers in the county of Mayo.
They took 500 or 600 acres of land, and
employed some of the poor upon it, who
would otherwise have gone into the
poorhouse; and he believed they had repaid
themselves their expenditure.  The waste
lands were lying idle all around, the people
were lying idle in the workhouse.  Would
they put the idle hands on the idle land,
and let each man earn his maintenance in
the way that Providence intended - by the
sweat of his brow?  Or, if they did not
employ the paupers on the waste land, could
they not employ them on arterial drainage?
The Board of Works declared that such
undertakings would be profitable; and why
not employ the ablebodied paupers upon
them if they did not approve of his other
proposition?  These works were at a
stand-still for want of funds, while they were
voting 50,000l. for the mainenance of
thousands upon thousands of idle labourers.
he had one observation to make upon
another point, the most important perhaps
of all - the moral effect of maintaining
them in idleness.  How could they expect
that men would ever be fitted for continuous
industry if they fed them in this way?
When they locked them up in workhouses,
or set them to useless stonebreaking, they
were teaching them the habits of idleness, and
inducing them to avoid labour.  He asked
the House, then, to put them to productive
works, in order to teach them industry.
It seemed to him to be essentially
important that the two principles brought
by him under the notice of the House
should be considerd by hon. Members,
and not rejected in that hasty way in which
opinions at first not palatable were
dismissed.
      SIR J. WALSH said, that the hon.
Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr.
Scrope) was gifted with an intellect totally
impervious to the lessons of experience.
For many years the hon. Member had
been the untiring and not unsuccessful
advocate of an Irish poor-law, and the result
of that measure had been, that in two
years, one-fourth of the country was
beggared, with a fair prospect that before two
more years should have elapsed, the rest of
it would be in the same pauperised condition.
But the hon. Gentleman, with that
obstinacy of delusion which characterised
enthusiastic minds, could not perceive that
the causes of those disasters were the
realisation in part of his own wild schemes.
The hon. Gentleman, with arguments of
which, in many respects, he (Sir J. Walsh)
would not question the validity, opposed
the rate in aid.  He admitted there was a
great deal of force in those arguments, but
was surprised to find how fluently these
phrases, "self-reliance," "The stimulus
of self-exertion," "self-dependence," &c.,
were uttered by him.  Although those
arguments of the hon. Gentleman had not
perhaps been introduced with any strict
regard to the subject before the House, he
thought there was great and serious objection
to the proposal of the rate in aid.
[Mr. P. Scrope: The noble Lord the
Member for Marylebone (Lord Dudley
Stuart) has a Motion upon the Paper
regarding the rate in aid.]  He (Sir J.
Walsh) was aware that it was a subject
which had attracted a great deal of attention,
and it was the right hon. Baronet,
who held a sort of semi-official position,
who first introduced it to the attention of
the House.  It was reported that lately
the door of the Cabinet was a little ajar,
and when, in the terms of the American
song, it was asked, "Who's that knocking
at the door?" the question was answered
by the appearance of the head and shoulders
of the right hon. Baronet the Member
for Rippon (Sir J. Graham).  The right
hon. Baronet, however, either disliking the
company or the place (perhaps, if he might
offer a conjecture, having an objection to the
company rather thab to the place), like many
people who knock at the door by mistake,
begged pardon for having interrupted the
company, and withdrew.  This rate in aid,
however, was a principle which the right
hon. Baronet opposite would find most
difficult and unjust in its application to
Ireland, and doubly viscious in its present
state.  It appeared to him, that if they
taxed Belfast and the thriving parts of the
north of Ireland for the destitution of the
south, the former might justly say, "We
are part of a great united empire, the
Union has been carried, and ought to be a
reality."  If you adhere to the principle
of local funds providing for local destitution,
it is one thing; but if you abandon
and relinquish that principle, and call in
extrinsic aid, then they will say, "We are
part of a great united empire, and it
becomes an imperial question, and not one
solely affecting Ireland."  Why should
not the united kingdom bear the rate?
Why should it not come out of the
Imperial Exchequer? - for it is an imperial
question.  In fact, the schemes of the hon.
Member for Stroud (Mr. P. Scrope) were
nothing more or less, if developed, than
those of M. Proudhon - the abrogation of
the right of private property.  He would
sell out the property of the landowner, in
order to provide for the wants of the poor.
And after the scheme of the hon. Gentleman
was carried out, in what better position
would the country be?  How could the
new landowner stand in a better position
than the old one?  There was still the
same amount of destitution to be relieved
- still the same liabilities on the soil.  Hon.
Gentlemen always talked of the interests
of the public, and contended that individual
interests should succumb to them, and
they carried it almost as far as M. Proudhon
or M. Louis Blanc.  He would say
with them, Propriete c'est le vol.  This
was the language of the clubs of France,
but surely not of the English House of
Commons.  The hon. member for Stroud
resembled those legislators in another
respect.  He would have the Government
employ the whole population.  He would
turn the Government into a great farming
establishment, as if the British Government
could engage with success in those
multifarious operations, when the French
Government had failed with reference to
one tailor's shop.  If the hon. Gentleman
had looked at the papers which had lately
been laid before Parliament, he would have
perceived that his favourite theory had
signally failed in two experiments lately made
by the Government, one at King William's
Town, the other at Bally Kilcline.
He would not further notice the arguments
of the hon. Gentleman the Member for
Stroud, but would pass on to the
proposition before the House.  He could
not help regretting that an accident had
prevented the discussion of the proposition
of his hon. Friend the Member for
Longford (Major Blackall), on the previous
evening.  That Motion was -

      "That the peculiar circumstances of Ireland
consequent upon four successive years of distress,
require the immediate adoption of such measures
as may assist and encourage the individual exertion
of the owners and occupiers of Irish property,
and promote industry, by giving remunerative
employment; and that all grants or loans of
money to particular districts should be applied, as
far as possible, to such purposes as many conduce
to the eventual improvement of those districts,
and enable them to support themselves from their
ordinary resources."
His (Sir J. Walsh's) great objection to
the Government proposition of a grant of
50,000l. was, that it intended to continue the
system indefinitely, and to widen the circle
of destitution, and that there was no prospect,
arising out of any Government proposal,
by which, either collaterally or
directly, the amount of pauperism would be
gradually diminished.  One argument there
certainly was - an argument, too, which
had been urged with irresistible force from
the Treasury benches in favour of the
present grant, and that was, that the refusal
of it would cause the death of thousands;
and that there was no alternative but
actual starvation in the refusal of it.  He
knew that many hon. Friends near him,
who felt that the Government proposition
was, in the abstract, unwise, injudicious,
mischievous, and fallacious, yet shrunk
from the conclusion which must involve
their fellow-creatures in destitution.
      MR. MACGREGOR here rose and addressed
the Speaker, evidently under the
impression that Sir John Walsh had
concluded his speech, but seeing that the hon.
Baronet remained standing, resumed his seat.
      SIR J. WALSH said, he would not long
detain the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr.
Macgregor); but he was anxious, before he
concluded, in an humble, though sincere
manner, to suggest to the Government
some other remedies, which he apprehended
would be of a more beneficial nature
than the proposal before them.  For his
own part, he preferred to see some scheme
proposed by the Government which would
be attended with lasting benefit, than those
mere make-shift propositions.  He trusted
the House would excuse him for trespassing
upon their time while he mentioned
some of the conclusions practical experience
had enabled him to arrive at; and he
would premise the remarks he had to make
by saying that the question of emigration
had not, in his opinion, ever been fairly
entertained by the House of Commons.
Out of doors the opinion was fast gaining
ground that emigration was, if not the sole,
at least a most important remedy for the
present calamitous condition in Ireland.
That subject had never been introduced,
except incidentally, and yet would it not
strike the most superficial observer that
50,000l. would go very far towards relieving
those miserable unions of a redundant
population, whilst, if administered in the
ordinary mode of relief, it would not last
more than a few weeks?  In the one case
it would permanently relieve those unions
of an amount of pauperism which they could
not of themselves endure - it would dispense
so far with the necessity of doling out those
alms; whilst, upon the other hand, it would
send that population to a country where its labour
would be needful, and at once
productive.  The hon. Member for Stroud
(Mr. Scrope) had said it was quite ridiculous
to talk of emigration, because Ireland,
was capable of maintaining its present
population, or double that amount.  His
answer to that was, that Ireland could be
only capable of doing under very different
circumstances.  The proposition of the
hon. Gentleman might be true, if there
were manufacturies established in Ireland,
as there were in Manchester and Glasgow.
It might be true, if the ports of Ireland
were as crowded with ships as those of
Liverpool or London.  It might be true,
if they could bestow upon Irish farmers
the capital, intelligence, and industry of
the Lothian farmers.  With all these
circumstances, with all these conditions,
Ireland would no doubt be able to support a
much larger population than at present.
But the great fallacy of that line of argument
was, that not only those indispensable
conditions did not exist, but they could
not be made to exist in Ireland - there was
no probability of their existence in that
country for a century at least.  Emigration
would be found an immediate as well
as a permanent remedy pro tanto.  It
would prove a topical remedy for a topical
inflammation.  Perhaps he (Sir J. Walsh)
might be permitted to trouble the House
with a few practical details which came
under his own personal observation.  He
could assure them that it was from no
unworthy motives of personal vanity or
ostentatious philanthropy that he addressed
them.  When he came of age, he became
possessed of a considerable property in
Ireland, which had ever since engaged his
most serious attention.  There was not a
tenant upon his estates who was not
personally known to him, and with whose
circumstances he was not familiar.  When
first he became the owner, there was an
immense number of middlemen upon this
land, and they held upon leases for lives.
By the gradual lapse of leases, three fourths
of this property was now in his own hands,
and he managed them himself.  A great
portion of his landed property was in the
barony of Listowel; and he might with
confidence venture to say that there were
not above five persons on his property who
were at present in the receipt of parochial
relief, and yet he was rated at 9s. 6d. in
the pound.  He did not deny that he was
personally interested in this question; but
still he thought the House must see that
there was some allowance to be made for
the feelings of mortification which a landed
proprietor must feel at seeing his property
swept away from him by most pernicious
legislation.  The hon. Member for Stroud
was not aware, nor were, perhaps, many
other hon. Gentlemen, how difficult it was,
and how long a time it required, to raise a
prosperous, independent, and improving
tenantry.  It could not be done except by
much attention, and by assisting those
tenantry for years - by encouraging the
deserving and industrious well-intentioned
tenant, and by removing those who were
lazy, unprincipled, and worthless.  To
raise such a class was the work of many
years; but the landlord who found himself
at their head might congratulate himself
upon having fulfilled his duty, and conferred
a lasting advantage on the country.
To a considerable extent he had realised
the object of his ambition; and it had,
therefore, been to him a great disappointment
to find the tenantry ground down,
and the stimulus taken away which was
essential to the continuance of the
improvement which had begun to manifest
itself.  He (Sir J. Walsh) wished now to
refer to the subject of emigration, which
was one of the deepest concern to Ireland
at the present moment.  His estates had
never been so much oppressed with an
overcrowded population, as was unfortunately
the case in many parts of Ireland;
he had always attempted to prevent, and
it was no easy matter to do so, the subdivision
of properties, and the creation
of a numerous body of cotters; at
the same time, when the failure of the
potato crop came, there were many persons
on his estates in extreme distress, and
with very great difficulty he had succeeded
in inducing the poorest to emigrate.  In
the years 1847 and 1848, he had induced
between 100 and 200 individuals to emigrate
from his estates; and he begged the
House to recollect that that was at a time
when the Colonial Office was assuring them
that Canada was so crowded that it was
impossible to introduce any more Irish
there; that Canada was rising in revolt
against any further emigration of Irishmen
to her shores; and that Irishmen were
dying of want in the streets of Montreal.  At
that time, when Government was throwing
every discouragement in the way of emigration,
he had sent out those individuals
to Canada; and in every instance in which
he had been able to trace their subsequent
career, he had found them prosperous, contented,
and happy.  It was a striking fact,
that out of a very considerable number of
individuals whom he had sent to Canada,
and who had no provision made for them
there, except a little money to start with,
every one had been successful; and, with
the permission of the House, he would
read one or two extracts from a great variety
of letters which had been written by
the emigrants, either to himself or his
agent, or to their own relations in Ireland.
[The hon. Member then read extracts from
two letters, written from Canada, by a
mother and son, who went out in 1847 and
1848, which stated that they were doing
very prosperously, and that the son was in
a good situation, getting ten dollars
a month, with board, washing, and lodging.]
He wished now to give to the House a
short account of one farm of his, which
was, he thought. illustrative of the
condition of Ireland.  The farm consisted of
twenty-five Irish, or forty English acres;
half of it was let to a man named McCarthy
for 10l. a year, and the other half to
two brothers, named Shane, at 5l. a year.
One of the brothers died, and the rest of
the family then wished to divide the 5l.
amongst them; he (Sir J. Walsh) resisted that,
and proposed to them emigration;
they were reluctant to adopt that suggestion,
but at last consented, and fifteen persons
emigrated from that farm. at an
expense to him (Sir J. Walsh) of 65l.  Nor
was that altogether a disinterested proceeding
on his part, for he then let the
whole farm to the remaining tenant, McCarthy,
who was a man of more substance
than the others, and who was quite willing
to give him an additional 4l. per year, so
that both landlord and tenant were benefitted;
McCarthy was now in possession of
a farm of forty English acres; he had
room enough to carry on improvements;
and was in a condition to become a comfortable
farmer; and he (Sir J. Walsh)
had got, not only interest for the 65l.
which the emigration had cost him, but
one improving tenant instead of three
miserable ones.  Now the mischief of the
purely voluntary system of emigration was
this, that in that case, under that system,
McCarthy would have gone, and the bad
tenants would have remained.  That was
his answer to the favourite argument of
some hon. Gentlemen, that they ought not
to interfere with the system that was going
on - that if they wanted emigration the
people were emigrating of their own accord.
But what was the fate of the fifteen
who had crossed the Atlantic?  He would
read the letter of John Shane to his uncle.
[The hon. Member then read a letter,
stating that all the family were employed
and doing well, describing the nature of
their occupations and the amount of their
wages, detailing the cheapness of provisions,
and expressing a hope that some of
their Irish friends would follow them to
that plentiful country where they could
obtain the fruits of labour.]  The hon.
Baronet then proceeded to say, that with
respect to the Committee appointed to
inquire into the operation of the poor-law,
their duties were of a most important nature;
they would have to trace the consequence
and effects of introducing a law for
the relief of the ablebodied poor, in
opposition to the opinions of so many hon.
Members who were locally acquainted with the
subject; those Irish Members who constituted
the minority in that Committee were
also invested with a charge of the greatest
responsibility; and he hoped that they
would not lose sight of the great points
which it was necessary to contend for in
that Committee.  He would venture, in
conclusion, to refer to only one or two of
the delusions on this subject which were
general amongst Englishmen, and which
must be removed before they could
approach the subject with any chance of
arriving at a just conclusion.  In the first
place, it was important to trace the effect
of the substitution of the system of ablebodied
relief, which in 1848 supplanted
the previous system, by which relief to the
ablebodied was not allowed; and if they
wished to know the effect of that change,
they must closely watch its progress and
development from union to union, in one
electoral district after another.  Another
point requiring the greatest attention was
the despotic and arbitrary power which
was vested in the three Poor Law Commissioners
- two of whom were Members of
the Government, and therefore not a body
standing aloof from party politics, but a
body changing with every change of
Government.  It was a power, therefore, which
enabled two Members of the Government
of the day to tax the country, and sweep
away all the landed property of Ireland.
Another point on which England ought to
have a clear opinion was, that this was not
a mere landlord's question - there was
always a cry against the Irish landlords; but
he told the House again and again that
this was not purely a landlord's question;
it involved the property and happiness of
the whole tenantry of that country; and
there was no process of political alchemy
by which they could separate the case of
the landlord from that of the tenant.  They
could not, if they wished, as the hon. Member
for Stroud (Mr. Scrope) did, ruin the
landlords without also ruining the tenants.
Another point should also be borne in
mind - namely, that, in opposition to the
opinion of the right hon. Baronet the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, it would be
proved by all the evidence before that
Committee, and observed by every acute mind,
that, under the operation of this poor-law,
as it at present existed, the present state
of that country was not a temporary or
transient state; that the evils which they
witnessed were inherent in the nature of
the system itself, and would increase and
not diminish.  It would be made very plain
to that Committee that Ireland could not
pass from present acute suffering to some
not very distant prosperity.  He had heard
it whispered by some that things were
going on very well, that the present evils
would cure themselves, and that the remedy,
though it might be severe, would be
effectual; and that, after passing through
these violent struggles, Ireland would take
a new start.  But he said that it was
altogether a mistake, and unless they
applied some remedy to the poor-law as it
existed, instead of the malady being local
and temporary, it would be general and
permanent.  He was obliged to the House
for the attention with which it had listened
to him.  He regretted that, under existing
circumstances, he was compelled to
continue his opposition to the Government on
this subject, and to record his opinion
against this vote.  However forcible the
appeals which were addressed to them by
hon. Gentlemen opposite, a strong sense of
duty compelled him (Sir J. Walsh) to say,
that he could not consent to the grant of
this money, not only because it would be
utterly ineffectual to accomplish its object,
but because it must necessarily produce
the most mischievious consequences.
      VISCOUNT DRUMLANRIG said, that he
had attended all the debates which had
taken place on this proposed grant,
although he had not yet voted on the question;
and he could truly say that it was not
without mature consideration of this most
painful and difficult question that he had
come to the conclusion that he could not
give his support to Her Majesty's Government
in granting the proposed 50,000l.
Having come to such a determination he
should be sorry to give his vote in silence.
If the House would grant him its attention
for only a few minutes, he would
condense his observations, and would not
trespass on the time that other Members,
Irish Members especially, had so much
greater a right to monopolise than he had.
Of all the speeches he had heard, the
speech of his right hon. Friend the Member
for Ripon (Sir J. Graham) contained
the most true, just, and statesmanlike
exposition of those principles by which
Ireland should be dealt with for the future,
no matter of what party the Government
might consist.  He reiterated the declaration
of his right hon. Friend, that the time
was come when the Government must
review the whole taxation of Ireland, and
introduce large and comprehensive measures
for its relief and amelioration.  He
did not underrate the difficulties Ministers
had to contend with - they were enormous;
but men who professed themselves competent
to and confident in governing the
country must not expect any quarter to be
given them, or any excuse to be taken,
who were not prepared with measures of
an extraordinary nature in extraordinary
times.  Speaking as a more humble and
less responsible Member, he would, at any
rate, never grudge the time and the energy
devoted by this House to Ireland; on the
contrary, so intense did her present suffering
appear to him - so appalling did the
future threaten to be - that he could
conceive no object more worthy of the
united talent and energy of England than
to devote every energy to that unhappy
country.  But how could his right hon.
Friend the Member for Ripon say that this
would be the least part of a series?  Why,
both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and
the Prime Minister had spoken on the
question, and they had held out no
guarantee, hardly any hope even, that it would
be the last even during the present season.
There was but one way to show England
that this pernicious system would be abandoned,
and that was by negativing this
proposal at once.  If they were determined
that other means should be devised - he
used no harsh terms; he did not say devised
to make, but devised to enable.  Ireland
to support Irish distress - the course
he advised was, if a severe one, at any
rate the most merciful one in the end.  He
(Viscount Drumlanrig) had not said, and
did not feel, anything like bitterness
towards Ireland as a country, suffering as
she was from an amount of woe and misery
unknown before in any Christian country.
Ireland, which had been cursed and tried
in a way no country ever was cursed or
tried before - cursed she had been often in
her own representatives - men who, while
they had bullied and blustered, or while
they had swaggered and vituperated every
measure proposed, no matter by what Government
- men who, while they had
begged from and fleeced the most credulous
peasantry in the world - who, while
they had traded in the misery and had
trafficked in the credulity of their
unfortunate fellow-countrymen, had never once,
through a long series of years, suggested,
nor had they even thought of, one single
unselfish practical measure that could possibly
be of use to their country.  These
were some of the entailed curses Ireland
had long writhed under.  Now, one word
to the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Grattan).
What could they hope for Ireland
from within, when they saw one of her
own leaders, one bearing the name of Grattan,
coming down to this House, in the
present awful state of Ireland, and doing
what?  One night, the hon. Member, for
the sake of raising a silly titter, moved for
a return of the killed and wounded in the
rebellion of last year; the next night he
asked for a call of the House, when no
such call could be granted, and, if it could
have been, would have been of no use;
and, on the third night, he turned the
whole question of Irish distress into
ridicule, by making a speech which excited all
who heard it into laughter, not, however, on
account of its wit.  This was Irish
leadership.  He (Viscount Drumlanrig) could not
look at the hon. Gentleman, and, recollecting
his connexion with Ireland, listen to
his speech without thinking of Nero fiddling
when Rome was burning, and without
exclaiming, "Alas! poor Ireland, may
God help you in spite of yourself!"  He
would not detain the House any longer,
but would conclude, only wishing to assure
those Irish Members who really had Ireland
and her sorrows at heart, that he did
not vote against this question for the sake
of getting rid of the Irish question, but
because, so impressed was he with her
dreadful state, that he thought the offer
of 50,000l., while it was unjust to England,
was useless to Ireland, and that she
required and ought to receive, the whole
talent, energy, and intellect of this country
to save her.