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Untitled Article
as themselves . As a matter of course , the Irish peasantry would be quickly taught to consider it as sound morality not to produce more mouths than there were existing means to fill . Exhortations are of little use to those who hold irresponsible power ; but they are susceptible of a lasting impression through the agency of their pockets . Is it not said that the poor laws in England make paupers who would not otherwise exist ?
The maladministration of the poor laws may cause some evil in this way , but not to any extent . England has poor laws , and her paupers are not numerous . Ireland has no poor laws , and she is overrun with paupers . But , father , suppose Ireland were overflowed with people , eyen after the rents of the landholders were absorbed by the poor ' s rates , what then must be done ?
They would continue to now over to England , boy , in increased numbers , if means were not taken to diverge the current to other countries . And were such a system to continue , when no further outlet existed , it would become a question whether England might not justly shut her ports against immigrant Irish . But all such cases must be prudentially considered . Were two men to live together on
one island , the one industrious and the other idle , it is quite clear that the industrious one might fairly refuse to feed the idle one . But if the industrious one were capable of producing with facility much more than might be necessary for his own consumption , it might perhaps be a wiser plan to feed the idle one , and endeavour to teach and reform him , than to set him at defiance , and thus take the chance of all
the evil his desperation might prompt him to commit . If indeed the industrious one , by his utmost exertions , could only procure barely sufficient for his own maintenance , it would then become imperative on him to resist the demands of the idle one by force of arms . Thus , if England were in a state of comfort owing to the prudence of the
people in adjusting the mouths to the food , and ail the rest of the world were iu a state of misery owing to a surplus of population , she might fairly refuse admittance to foreigners who could only serve to reduce her to the same condition . But this is an abstract case , not likely to happen , inasmuch as people are each day growing wiser .
But , father , I have heard it said that the Scotch are a more moral people than the Irish . They are upon the average a more prudent people , boy ; and with many persons prudence is the only virtue recognised as morality . Yet the poor Irish , who come over to England to the liar vest , are also prudent , and carry back with them in their ragged garments almost every farthing of money they earn , starving themselves to accomplish
it . The real morality of both Scotch and Irish is , I take it , like that of the English , much upon a par , and depends much upon their relative means of subsistence . No very poor people can be very moral , for poverty begets hard selfishness , and causes them to approach to the nature of the wild animals of prey . Amongst the very poor and the very ignorant , drunkenness prevails in Scotland , as it does in Ireland and England . But they say that the Scotch are all educated .
Untitled Article
Juvenile Lessons . 763
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 763, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/31/
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