previously heard, and have fully known to be the case in these deportations thither, or to the southern part of the opposite continent. With the knowledge of these things, however, calculations are entered into as to the hundreds of thousands of tons of British shipping, and the hundreds of thousands of British subjects that they might transport; and, to render the scheme rather more palatable at home, a table, I see, is given, where the personal expenses of each are estimated, and a loan proposed for the general purposes of the plan, repayable by the transports after a certain term. Compared with stock so created, the South American bubbles are solidity itself. (35.) But I repeat, again and again, and, were it in my power, I would speak it with a voice of thunder in the ear of those who, in conformity with the modern dogmas, are mainly instrumental in these deportations, that our fellow-subjects, at all events, cannot be superfluous till our lands are cultivated; and that the best colonies we can plant, whether in reference to encouraging agriculture or manufactures, are those which might be planted on the deserts of our European empire. It may be answered, that, to enclose and cultivate these on a large plan, would not be profitable as a speculation. It is admitted. Providence is too wise and too kind to offer any such inducements to the monopolists. But afford facilities to lesser cultivators, by whose efforts all classes would be benefited, and they will effectuate, on a small scale, what has rarely been performed on a large one. This plan is in the order of nature; is that by which every great object is accomplished; and is best conducive to the real interests of society. We have seen the wonders which in dustry has effected in the Netherlands, and we are assured, that they have all been wrought by those divided and individual exertions, without which none of them would have been successful'. (36.) The following table will speak to the heart, it is hoped, as well as to the eye, and exhibit, not a field of labour merely to the unemployed population of Ireland, but a mine of wealth to the empire, compared with which the gems of India, or the metals of Ame rica sink into utter worthlessness: to which may be added the circling "wastes of the sea," an expression I shall still continue to repeat; the due improvement of which would enlarge the limits of industry, and the means of subsistence, to an extent literally incalculable. And yet we fancy ourselves as in a state of siege, and are actually conveying our forces out of the citadel of the empire, in apprehension of a scarcity of provisions! General Statement of the Cultivated, Uncultivated, and Unprofitable The second column in this table is what claims our primary attention, and fully shows where ten times the number of our idle and starving poor might be profitably employed. Even the third, which gives the extent of the unprofitable land of the kingdom, might be safely resorted to if it should ever become necessary to do so. No land, under a certain elevation, is unprofitable. (Linnæus, p. 29, Inaug. Harte's Essays, p. 88. Remarks on Landed and Commercial Policy, p. 194, &c.) By far the most productive soils of England, and even the Netherlands, were formerly deemed "unprofitable." 1 See Abbé Mann, Communications to Board of Agric. vol.i. § XIV. (1.) Such are some of the propositions which I have to make in behalf of Ireland; others, highly important in themselves, but of a less momentous and general character, I shall waive at present, in favour of one, which, while on this subject, can neither be overlooked nor hastily dismissed; involving, as it does, without a figure of speech, the remaining vital interest of a country thus deserted and degraded ; that interest which gives the limited measure of em ployment and food which is still afforded to the mass of the community, and in the due support of which the best hopes of their future improvement are founded. But this proposition is, strictly speaking, of a negative character, and goes to the continuation of an advantage, which has now been for many years enjoyed, rather than the bestowment of any new or additional benefit': it implores, that if no new policy shall be pursued to serve and assist Ireland, none shall be adopted that shall injure her interests or complete her ruin. It is almost needless to explain, that I refer to a continuation of a free and exclusive access to the markets of Great Britain for her agricultural products; or, in other words, that the legislature shall still continue to protect her almost only branch of national 'Ireland has long had access to the British market for many of the products of her soil, to which privilege was added, early in this century, an unrestrained trade for her corn: to extend this to foreigners would destroy its value. In much of the last century, the direct encouragement of English tillage, by bounties, operated as a bonus upon Irish pasturage; and, now that an increased population there, in spite of the dogmas of our antipopulationists, has greatly augmented her disposable produce, I contend that she is, at this moment, in the enjoyment of a less effectual protection than she was during many periods of the last century. industry by efficient corn-laws. If we, in England, want additional supplies, let us seek them in the half cultivated fields of Ireland; where, were additional labour, now worse than wasted in wandering and peggary, applied and well directed (I appeal to every practical agriculturist who has witnessed them), the product would be at once doubled; or in those fertile wastes of so vast an extent, which have, as yet, never been cultivated at all. Let us obtain them, I say, thence, rather than from the plains of Poland or of Prussia; let us employ and feed our fellow-subjects, rather than the serfs and slaves of foreign countries. That this is the proposal of policy, as well as of justice, humanity, and patriotism, however unpopular for the moment, I shall proceed to show; nor is there any other that can even contemplate to preserve to Ireland her daily bread; for the scheme of depopulation propounded by the Emigration Committee is, thank God, as impracticable as it is revolting. Withdraw this last protection, therefore, and the wish, expressed, I think, by one of the interlocutors in Edmund Spenser's View of Ireland, that we could set our foot upon it, and sink it to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, would, if accomplished, be an act of kindness. (2.) But this proposition of giving an efficient, not a nominal protection to the agriculture of Ireland, I am anxious to state, in limine, is not for the purpose of securing a large national rental. I shall not, however, concede to any modern theorist that this is not an essential advantage; and has always been regarded ás such by all our best writers, even when the reasons for supporting it were not an hundredth part as strong as they are at present'. It is not, I repeat, for the purpose of securing the present rental of a Duke of Devonshire, or an Earl Fitzwilliam (though no one can be indifferent upon this point, and its necessary consequences, who is at all concerned that the nation should preserve its honour, and the national creditors their property), nor yet to serve the interests of the great cultivators, but it is in behalf of an infinitely more numerous class, whom the arguers on this question generally find it convenient to lose sight of, that the proposition of a continued and efficient protection of Irish agriculture is now urged. It is for the purpose of continuing in work the cottiers; and of preserving the property of the innumerable little freeholders of Ireland; who have, most of them, if not all, obtained and purchased their interest in the soil under the operation and guarantee of laws which determined in great measure its value; laws which, however modified (and they have occasionally been unfortunatly so 2), have for the last century and a half professedly protected agriculture, and which protection, according to Dalton (no mean authority), is even part of "the common law3." To abrogate these, then, or render them inefficient, would commit as direct a robbery upon such, as though the legislature were to confiscate their possessions, and "All things must be done that may effectually increase the value of rent, and the price of land, which will add true strength to the nation."-(Davenant, Ways and Means, p. 140.) Of this opinion were Sir Joshua Child, Gee, Sir W. Petty, John Locke, &c., to whose works I refer the reader on this subject. See the Right Honourable Wm. Huskisson's Letter to a Constituent on the Corn Laws, p. 10. 3 Michael Dalton, Justice, ch. lvi. |