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Untitled Article
lords being bound to the soil would be , that they would give work to some few Irish domestic servants , and some few mechanics , and by just so much England would suffer . Cut off all communication be * tween England and Ireland , and the latter would be plus food , mimo& clothes , and thus be enabled to breed more beggars . Kill off the landlords , and a larger portion of beggars might be made to exist on the same soil , a , nd if the beggars procured nothing but food , and had nothing to sell to buy Clothes , they might in time be bred down into the State of entire savages . The landlords help to produce this state of things by their conduct in renting their estates to the highest bidder , taking advantage of the numbers in the market . They , or their agents ,
rent the land in small potato patches , on which it is impossible for any reputable peasant to exist in comfort , and consequently numerous families exist in misery , where a few only should be placed . Were the landlords to calculate the capabilities of a farm , and bo to adapt the size and rent , that a farmer might get a comfortable income , he would bring up his family respectably , and set an example to those around Mm , as is the case in many parts of England , and where possibly , in some few cases , the Poor Laws may act favourably , as a penalty upon the landlords who neglect the moral condition of the peasantry around them , and are punished by being obliged to maintain the paupers
resulting from over-multiplication . Only in this point of view , can it be contemplated as a desirable object to introduce Poor Laws in Ireland . Were the landlords obliged to maintain the pauper-bred peasantry , it is just possible that they would find it to their interest to discourage potato patches , and thus diminish breeding . The home colonization scheme of Mr . Sadler , would , if persevered in , produce the same effects in England as Ireland is now labouring under . The Whitefeet , and
men of a dozen other denominations , who prowl , and have prowled , by night , may all be classed as starving men , who , like the wild beasts of the forest , seek their prey in darkness . They are the pinched and unfed paupers of Ireland . Were the paupers of England in the same condition , they would do the same things . No man who has sufficient food , and a home , and b bed , is fond of midnight wandering . It has been said that the rents in Ireland are enormously high . This seems strange . If so , why do not the English landlords offer their farms to
Irish tenants , and thus raise their rents ? Because they fear that they would lose more in Poor ' Rates , than they gained in rent . But whatever be the case in Ireland , there is no doubt that the people are gradually improving , and it may be doubted , whether more murders occur in Ireland than in England , compared with the population . Had any thing like wisdom or honesty governed the councils of the Whigs , the tithes might have been commuted , and preserved as an education fund for the people , just as the American people , when laying out a new state , preserve a quantity of the land to produce a revenue for the maintenance of schools . But that which the people would
freely have given for so useful a purpose , will be unflinchingly resisted , when applied for by a coarse soldiery , for the benefit of a disgustingly rapacious clergy . * The Wbiga , with their large majority of an obsequious House of Commoni ) are doubtless triumphant for the present , and together with Mjv Stanley , gloat in y nt ^ tnly mirth over their unhallowed purpose >
Untitled Article
250 On the Conduct of Ministe r * stnce the Meeting of Parlidfnetit .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/34/
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