to see (and it is his own neglect if he does not see or know it) one of his poor tenants feeding another with bread taken, as it were, from the mouths of his own children: whilst he who is feasting on the labours of both, attends to the miseries of neither, but throws the whole burden of relieving them on those, whom no reasonable bystander could think equal to bear the smallest part of it.".

Speaking of the inherent right of the poor to rea→ sonable sustentation, he concludes his unanswerable arguments thus: "It would be a waste of words, and a disgrace to reasoning, to labour to prove a point so clear as this; that the richer members of society, who are a minority, have no right to exclude the lower class, who are a majority, from any portion. of the public patrimony, without securing to them the resource of a subsistence; when they must otherwise be reduced to the dreadful alternative of breaking through those regulations, or perishing by a dutiful observance of them "."

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This admirable writer proceeds to particularize the descriptions of persons who ought more especially to be the objects of the national charity; which he says are, 1. The infant poor3; 2. The sick poor; and, 3. The aged poor". Alluding to the latter, he makes this striking remark; "If at the close of life they become a burden; and, having only to plead their former services, have not that plea allowed, from reasons of policy;" he says, "it would be a still higher degree of economy, and even mercy, to adopt the

refined Indian policy of putting an immediate end to them!."

Nor can I dismiss this interesting writer without inserting his answer to those who urge that the legal relief of poverty encourages idleness and dissipation. After having proved directly the contrary, by the experience of mankind in every country where such provision has been established, he adds, "But to take this argument in its strongest bearing, and confine ourselves to the case of an idle, profligate man, who in the extremity of age or sickness cries out for food or medicine; can any one avow, that we should suppress every tender feeling, stop our hand when, by the instinct of compassion, it is stretching forth relief to him, and, with a stoical indifference, suffer him to perish, from a deep and doubtful speculation whether such relief may not encourage idleness, and become, in the end, a political evil? And if we may, without injury to the state, (and must, if we expect mercy ourselves,) relieve the distress, though we blame the cause; wherein consists the inexpediency of obliging those of the rich, who are too distant or dissipated to know, or too callous to regard, the mi. sery of the poor, to contribute to its relief, and not throw the whole burden (as at present) on the resident, the considerate, and the benevolent ?—for a legai provision hath this double advantage above voluntary alms, that it is at once most equitable to those who pay, and most equal and effectual to those who receive2.

"Now if no reasoning can justify such obduracy, Dr. Woodward, Argument, &c. p. 34. Ibid. p. 39.

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as would permit a wretch to languish without help in age, or sickness, because he had not made a provident use of his health and strength; on what principle shall we conclude, from the imprudence of the parent, against all compassion to his orphan children? on what pretext shall we exclude from the public care the distresses of the laborious and frugal, which were owing neither to their own, nor their parents' political sins; but took their rise from high rents and low wages, from the scarcity of bread, or the check of a manufacture; from the sudden increase of family, or the death of cattle; from disease unassisted by medicine; and in consequence, perhaps, of that want of help, the untimely loss of an industrious father'?”

The foregoing are a few extracts from this short, but striking pamphlet; the divinity, humanity, and policy of the principle advocated, are unanswerable. To the honour of its author, he was one of the first, if not the very first to propose the extension of the system of poor-laws to Ireland: his proposition may be awhile longer resisted; but backed, as it is, by the duties and feelings of humanity, it will assuredly prevail.

(30.) But, in treating of the affairs of Ireland, it is totally impossible to lose sight of the intimate connexion which exists between the two countries; and as, in the evil of absenteeism, we have shown its bearings on the agricultural interests of England; so, in reference to a provision for the poor, the latter division of the empire has a deep interest at stake, and one which, before long, she will assuredly assert, 1 Dr. Woodward, Argument, pp. 39, 40.

equally for the protection of her own poor, and those of Ireland. It will require few words to explain what I mean, or prove what I am about to assert : THE WANT OF A PROVISION FOR THE POOR OF IRELAND (AND I WILL INCLUDE THOSE OF SCOTLAND ALSO) IS A GRIEVOUS INJURY TO THE WORKING CLASSES OF ENGLAND. They are injured by the market of labour being overstocked, and greatly depressed by the multitudes who are annually making this country. their asylum in the harvest-field, in the factory, or; in short, in every sphere of industry, the English labourer and workman finds himself interfered with, and his remuneration reduced, if not himself thrown actually out of employment, by this constant and vast emigration. The poor creatures who take refuge in this country, whom Dr. Chalmers calls " hosts of locusts," I do not blame, (absenteeism has deprived them of labour and of bread, and they are pursuing it to obtain, if possible, a little of both); on the contrary, I would receive them, and, were I to determine, extend to them, at all hazards, the benefit of our own ⚫benevolent institutions: but, in the mean time, I cannot but reprobate, in the strongest possible terms, the conduct of those who are driving and " clearing" them from their estates and the country, and, by so doing, are expelling multitudes of them to this; while they are perpetrating an irreparable wrong on the unhappy creatures they are the cause of expatriating, they are inflicting a serious and an increasing injury on the poorer classes of this country; and all, forsooth, that the Irish landlord, often an absentee, who now does not contribute a farthing to their relief, may

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have larger farms, and, as he thinks, a greater plus produce." This is not to be borne The interests of our own poor imperiously demand that those of Ireland should be legally supported..

(31.) But in proposing poor-laws for Ireland, I would not lose sight of that evil which has rendered them the more necessary, and which, when established, would still prevent them from working all the good they are naturally calculated to produce; I mean absenteeism. To discourage and suppress this, as far as possible, without having recourse to harsher or more direct means, I would propose that the property of all absentees (properly such) should contribute in at least a two-fold proportion to this national charity1; the additional rate to be levied on such by a bill drawn by the overseer directly on the party. This ld, in some slight degree, compel them to succour that poverty which they have occasioned, and which the experience of centuries shows they never will voluntarily relieve; and it would, moreover, in its operation, give some portion of employment to those whom their unnatural desertion has thrown out of bread,

(32) Furthermore: another genuine offspring of absenteeism is the system of subletting; creating a class, who, generally speaking, must be more than men, circumstanced as they are, to be less than exactors and oppressors. Utterly impossible is it for the distant landlord, on any such system, to discharge a single duty he owes to his dependents; and it amounts to a miracle, in all instances, whatever may be his

'It has been proposed, and by great authorities, that absentees should bear the entire expense.

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