POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND.

333

Let the government raise a fund by taxation of the landlords of Ireland, for the employment of her surplus of labour in opening up systematically and scientifically the vast undeveloped resources of that country, and in a very short period it is probable that the redundancy will disappear; the spell which now freezes up the productive capacities of that island being broken, the process will thenceforward carry itself on; increasing tranquillity will encourage the growth of capital, and its migration from England; all the existing labour will then be spontaneously absorbed, and the poor-rate (so much dreaded by the Irish landlords) reduced to a very trifling burden,-far more than compensated to them by the improved value and greater security of their estates. In fact, it would be easy to show that the amount of assessment on Irish property necessary for the beneficial employment of the whole surplus of labour would scarcely, if at all, exceed the sum which is now annually levied from the same fund by sturdy beggars and idle vagrants, and consumed unproductively, with a mischievous instead of a bene ficial result. If what is at present extorted by mendicancy and intimidation, and wasted in the support of filth, idleness, vice, and impudence, were both levied in a systematic manner by the machinery of a poor-law, and expended with judg ment and economy in the employment of the poor, on roads, canals, drainages, embankments, and other general improvements of the surface of the country, property to an immense amount would in a few years have been created, and a stimulus given to the spontaneous creation of a far larger

amount; and this at no sacrifice whatever, but with the gratuitous production of vast collateral advantages, which must arise to the landowners, the government, and the body of the people, from the tranquillization and improvement of the country*.

It is doubtful, we say, whether there would be any real surplus of labour in Ireland, were her capacities allowed a full and fair developement. It is still more questionable whether there would be any real surplus in Great Britain, were the provision of certain relief and employment at home to check the continual immigration of destitute Irishmen into this island, by whom our native population are undersold in their own labour-market, driven out of all the lower classes of employment in the great towns and manufacturing districts, and compelled to throw themselves for support upon their parishes. But this, at least, is certain, that if there be a redundancy-so long as there is in any parish of the kingdom a real and permanent surplus of labourers, for whom no profitable employment spontaneously offers itself, it is madness to continue to support these persons in idleness, or to employ them on useless and unprofitable work here, while there exists a vast, insatiable, and continually increasing demand for labour in our colonies-in what is merely another. part of the empire, separated from our home parishes only by a few weeks' voyage over the Atlantic, in a country peopled partly already by our own emigrants, enjoying the same climate, lanSee Plan of a Poor-law for Ireland,' with a review of the arguments for and against it.-Ridgway, 1833.

GENERAL SCHEME OF EMIGRATION.

335

guage, religion, and laws as the mother country, supplied from thence with all the comforts and luxuries of civilization, and to which our own capitalists are continually migrating, impelled by the desire to increase their profits, and improve their circumstances, and checked only by the difficulty and great cost of procuring labour. Under such circumstances, a general scheme for the encouragement, or rather the carrying on of Emigration, ought to be an essential part of the machinery of the poor-law. It is neither just nor politic to tax property in this country, to maintain in idleness within their parishes a number of hands who would be secure of full and well-paid employment in another part of his Majesty's dominions. If they choose to remove there, the means of doing so should be found them. If they do not, such refusal must prove that they are yet capable of maintaining themselves in this country, and do not need relief. It is neither just nor politic towards the persons taxed, or towards the poor men themselves, upon whom the tax is expended, at a great cost to maintain them barely alive and under a strict workhouse, not to call it prison, discipline in this country, when a small part of the same expenditure would remove them to a spot where their circumstances would be greatly improved. In the interests of both parties, it were best that emigration should be resorted to for the disposal of the surplus labour, wherever any exists. Nor do we see any valid objection to its being made optional to parishes to offer this species of relief to those who apply, on the plea of being unable to find work in this country. The expense to the parish, as well

as the loss sustained by parting with labourers really wanted, would effectually prevent this power from being abused to the extremity of injuriously depopulating any district, by overseers or vestries. The able-bodied pauper, on his side, could have no right to complain of the refusal of other relief, when he is offered a free passage for himself and his family, to another part of the empire, where industry and prudence are sure to obtain, not merely a living, but positively an independence in no long time. As to the outcry which would be raised by some ultra-sentimentalists against such a proposition, as a violent rending of ties, a sentence of banishment, a deportation, and so forth, it is enough to point out to the attention of these persons the thousands of the wealthier classes who are every year voluntarily expatriating themselves, for the same all-sufficient motive,-the desire of improving their circumstances. It can surely be no hardship on a starving pauper to require him to take that step for securing to himself a competent maintenance, which his betters are taking continually for the mere augmentation of their income.

It is more than probable, that an extensive scheme of emigration, carried on by government, for removing the surplus population of this country to the colonies as fast as such a surplus appeared in any quarter, might easily be made to pay its own expenses; either through a slight tax levied on the immigrating labourers themselves for a term of years, and readily paid by them out of the high wages they receive there;-or by the proceeds of the sales of government lands, or from

MEANS FOR EXTINGUISHING POVERTY. 337

other sources of colonial taxation. But even if this were found impracticable, it will always remain by far the cheapest mode of disposing of such supernumerary labourers, to undertake the expense of removing them at once, rather than to maintain them here in idleness, or useless employment, acquiring habits of vice, crime, and improvidence, from their exposure to the demoralizing influence of pauperism.

It is to be hoped that the government of this country will, before long, be induced to adopt some general and comprehensive scheme of this kind. Its attention has for some time been laudably turned to the subject, but it may be regretted that a rigid and, we think, short-sighted parsimony has hitherto prevented any efforts in this direction being made upon a scale at all commensurate with the importance and expediency of the measure. While twenty millions are unhesitatingly offered for the promised redemption from slavery of the West Indian negroes, it is pitiable to see the same government scruple to lay out as many thousands in promoting the liberation of the native poor of this island from a state of degradation and wretchedness, little, if at all, inferior to that of the slaves themselves.

It is the duty-we maintain, the very first duty of a government (having the power, as we have proved that the government of this country has) to secure to every able-bodied and industriously disposed labourer the means of living by his industry. If these means are not to be obtained in this island, they are certain of being secured to him by his removal to those outlying but integral por

Z