Chapter XII: Part THE FIRST: “The investigations and inquiries in which I have been

engaged, have led to a conviction that Ireland has, on the whole,
during the last thirty or forty years, been progressively improving.
It is impossible to pass through the country without being struck
with the evidence of increasing wealth almost everywhere apparent,
although it is of course more visible in towns than in the open
country. Great as the improvement in England has been within the
same period, that in Ireland, I believe, has been equal. There are
towns and districts there, as there are towns and districts in
England, in which little improvement is seen, or which may even have
retrograded; but the general advance is certain, and the improvement
in the condition and increase in the capital of the country, are
still, I think, steadily progressive. If it be asked how this
accords with the misery and destitution apparent among a large
portion of the people, the answer is obvious—The capital of the
country has increased, but the increase of the population has been
still greater; and it therefore does not follow that there is an
increase of capital or comfort in the possession of each individual,
or even of the majority. The reverse is unhappily the fact—Towns,
exhibiting every sign of increased wealth, are encircled by suburbs
composed of miserable hovels, sheltering a wretched population of
mendicants. In the country, evidence of the extreme subdivision of
land everywhere appears, and as a consequence, the soil, fertile as
it naturally is, becomes exhausted by continual cropping; for the
cottier tenant, too often reduced to a level little above that of
the mendicant, is unable to provide manure for his land, and has no
other mode of restoring its vigour but by subjecting it to a long
and profitless fallow. Farmers of three hundred acres, or even of
two or one hundred, except in the grazing districts, have become
almost extinct in Ireland. A variety of circumstances seem to have
contributed to bring about this change. In some instances the
proprietor has himself subdivided his land into small holdings of
five, ten, or fifteen acres, with a view of increasing his
rent-roll, or adding to his political influence. In other cases the
land has been let on lease to a single tenant on lives, or for a
term of years, or both conjointly; and he has sublet to others, who
have again gone on dividing and subletting, until the original
proprietor is almost lost sight of, and the original holding is
parcelled out among a host of small occupiers.

“The occupation of a plot of land has now gotten to be considered, by a
great portion of the Irish people, as conferring an almost
interminable right of possession. This seems to have arisen in great
measure out of the circumstances in which they have been placed; for
there being no legal provision for the destitute, and the
subdivision of the land into small holdings having destroyed the
regular demand for labour, the only protection against actual want,
the only means by which a man could procure food for his family, was
by getting and retaining possession of a portion of land; for this
he has struggled—for this the peasantry have combined and burst
through the restraints of law and humanity. So long as this portion
of land was kept together, it was possibly sufficient to supply his
family with a tolerable degree of comfort; but after a time he would
have sons to provide for, and daughters to portion off, and this
must all be effected out of the land—until the holding of ten or
fifteen acres became divided into holdings of two, three, or five
acres. After a time, too, the same process of subdivision is again
resorted to, until the minimum of subsistence is reached; and this
is now the condition of a large portion of the Irish peasantry. Land
is to them the great necessary of life. There is no hiring of
servants. A man cannot obtain his living as a day-labourer. He must
get possession of a plot of land to raise potatoes, or starve. It
need scarcely be said that a man will not starve, so long as the
means of sustaining life can be obtained by force or fraud; and
hence the scenes of violence and murder which have so frequently
occurred in Ireland.

“One of the circumstances that first arrests attention on visiting
Ireland, is the prevalence of mendicancy. It is not perhaps the
actual amount of misery existing amongst the mendicant class, great
as that may be, which is most to be deprecated; but the falsehood
and fraud which form a part of their profession, and spread by their
example. Mendicancy appeals to our sympathies on behalf of vice, as
well as want; and encouragement is often afforded to the one, by the
relief intended for the other. To assume the semblance of misery is
the business of the mendicant, and his success depends upon the
skill with which he exercises deception. A mass of filth, nakedness,
and squalor, is thus kept moving about the country, entering every
house, addressing itself to every eye, and soliciting from every
hand; and much of the filth and indolence observable in the cabins,
clothing, and general conduct of the peasantry, may I think be
traced to this source, and I doubt even if those above the class of
labourers altogether escape the taint. Mendicancy and filth have
become too common to be disgraceful.

“The Irish peasantry have generally an appearance of apathy and
depression. This is seen in their mode of living, in their
habitations, in their dress, in the dress of their children, and in
their general economy and conduct. They seem to have no pride, no
emulation; to be heedless of the present, and careless of the
future. They do not strive to improve their appearance, or add to
their comforts. Their cabins are slovenly, smoky, dirty, almost
without furniture, or any article of convenience or common decency.
On entering a cottage, the woman and children are seen seated on the
floor surrounded by pigs and poultry, the man is lounging at the
door, which can only be approached through mud and filth. Yet he is
too indolent to make a dry approach to his dwelling, although there
are materials close at hand, and his wife is too slatternly to
cleanse the place in which they live, or sweep the dirt and offal
from the floor. If you point out these defects, and endeavour to
show how easily they might improve their condition and increase
their comforts, you are invariably met by excuses as to their
poverty. Are a woman, and her children, and her cabin filthy, whilst
a stream of water runs past the door—the answer invariably is,
‘Sure, how can we help it? we are so poor!’ With the man it is the
same; you find him idly basking in the sun, or seated by the fire,
whilst his cabin is scarcely approachable through the accumulation
of mud—and he too will exclaim, ‘Sure, how can we help it? we are so
poor!’ whilst at the very time he is smoking tobacco, and has
probably not denied himself the enjoyment of whisky. Now poverty is
_not_ the cause, or at least not the sole cause, of this condition
of the Irish peasantry. If they desired to live better, or to appear
better, they might do so; but they seem to have no such ambition,
and hence the depressed tone of which I have spoken. This may be
partly owing to the remains of old habits; for bad as the
circumstances of the peasantry now are, they were yet, I am
persuaded, worse fifty or thirty years ago. A part also may be
attributed to the want of education, and of a feeling of
self-respect; and a part likewise to their poverty—to which last
cause alone, everything that is wrong in Ireland is invariably
attributed.

“The desultory habits of the peasantry are likewise remarkable. However
urgent the demands for exertion—if, as in the present season, their
crops are rotting in the fields from excessive wet, and every moment
of sunshine should be taken advantage of—still, if there be a market
to attend, a fair, or a funeral, a horse-race, a fight, or a
wedding, all else is neglected or forgotten; they hurry off in
search of the excitements which abound on such occasions, and with a
recklessness hardly to be credited, at the moment that they are
complaining of poverty, they take the most certain steps to increase
it. Their fondness for ardent spirits is probably one cause of this,
and another will be found in their position as occupiers of land.
The work required upon their small holdings is easily performed, and
may, as they say, ‘be done any day.’ Working for wages is rare and
uncertain; and hence arises a disregard of the value of time, a
desultory sauntering habit, without industry or steadiness of
application. Such is too generally the character, and such the
habits, of the Irish peasantry; and it may not be uninstructive to
mark the resemblance which these bear to the character and habits of
the English peasantry in the pauperised districts, under the abuses
of the old Poor Law. Mendicancy and indiscriminate almsgiving have
produced in Ireland, results similar to what indiscriminate relief
produced in England—the like reckless disregard of the future, the
like idle and disorderly conduct, and the same proneness to outrage
having then characterised the English pauper labourer, which are now
too generally the characteristics of the Irish peasant. An abuse of
a good law caused the evil in the one case, and a removal of that
abuse is now rapidly effecting a remedy. In the other case, the evil
appears to have arisen rather from the want, than the abuse of a
law; but the corrective for both will, I believe, be found to be
essentially the same.

“The objections usually urged against the introduction of Poor Laws into
Ireland, are founded on an anticipated demoralization of the
peasantry—and on the probable amount of the charge. The first
objection derives its force from the example of England under the
old Poor Law; but the weight of this objection is destroyed by the
improved administration under the new law, which is rapidly
eradicating the effects of previous abuse; and will, there is good
reason to believe, effectually prevent their recurrence. This belief
is founded on the experience of the effects of the system in every
instance in which it has been brought into operation, and
particularly in two important parishes in Nottinghamshire, where the
workhouse principle was first established in its simplicity and
efficiency fifteen or sixteen years ago, and where it has continued
to be equally effective up to the present time. Similar results have
invariably attended its application in the unions formed under the
new law, which are conducted essentially upon the same principle,
but with a superior combination of machinery, and administrative
arrangement.

“With respect to the second objection, founded on the probable amount of
expenditure, it may be remarked that the Irish population, like
every other, must be supported in some way out of the resources of
the country; and it does not follow that the establishment of such a
system of relief will greatly increase the charge, if it increase it
at all. During the progress of my inquiries, I was often told that
the recognition of any legal claim for relief would lead to
universal pauperism, and would amount to a total confiscation of
property. Many Irish landowners appeared to participate in this
apprehension—under the influence of which it seems to have been
overlooked, that the only legal claim for relief in England is
founded on the actual destitution of the claimant, and that as the
existence of destitution is the ground of the claim, so is its
removal the measure of relief to be afforded. This, if the
destitution be rightly tested, will be a sufficient protection to
property. At present there is no test of destitution in Ireland. The
mendicant, whether his distress be real or fictitious, claims and
receives his share of the produce of the soil in the shape of
charity, before the landlord can receive his portion in the shape of
rent, and before the tenant has ascertained whether he is a gainer
or a loser by his labours and his risks. The mendicant’s claim has
now precedence over every other. If the whole property of Ireland
was rated to the relief of the poor, it would be no more; but in
such case the charge would be equally borne, whereas at present it
is unequal, and tends to evil in its application.

“The voluntary contributions of Scotland have been recommended as an
example to be followed, rather than the compulsory assessments of
England; and the Dublin Mendicity Association has been referred to,
and its working described as at once effective for the suppression
of mendicancy, and for the relief of the indigent within the sphere
of its operations, without injury to the sensibilities of individual
benevolence. But the feelings of charity and gratitude, which it is
delightful to contemplate as the motive and the fruit of benevolent
actions, can only exist between individuals. It matters not whether
the fund to be distributed has been raised by voluntary
contribution, or by legal assessment, or whether it has been devised
for purposes of general charity. The application of the fund
becomes, in each case, _a trust_; it is distributed as a trust, and
it is received as a right, not as a gift. It may moreover be
remarked, that the Dublin Mendicity Association has with difficulty
been kept in existence by great exertions on the part of the
committee, and by threats of parading the mendicants through the
streets. If difficulty is thus found in supporting such an
institution in Dublin, how impracticable must it be to provide
permanent support for similar institutions in other parts of the
country. Some persons contend that relief for the indigent classes
in Ireland should be provided in ‘houses of industry,’ similar to
those now existing in Dublin and a few other places. These
institutions are in general not badly managed, and some
classification is enforced in them, and the sexes are invariably
separated. But they are certainly not entitled to the designation of
‘houses of industry.’ They are in fact places for the maintenance of
a number of poor persons, mostly aged or infirm, and idiots, and
lunatics; but as a general means of supplying necessary relief, and
of testing the necessity, they are totally inefficient.

“Notwithstanding these objections, I found everywhere, after quitting
Dublin, a strong feeling in favour of property being assessed for
the relief of the indigent. At present, the burthen falls almost
exclusively upon the lower classes, whilst the higher classes
generally escape. A system of poor-laws, similar in principle to the
English system, would go far to remedy this inequality—the people
are aware of this—and, as the general result of my inquiries, I have
been led to the conclusion, that poor-laws may be now established in
Ireland, guarded by the correctives derived from experience in
England, with safety and success. I think also, that such a measure
would serve to connect the interest of landlords and tenants, and so
become a means of benefiting both, and promoting the general peace
and prosperity of the country. The desire now so generally expressed
for a full participation in English laws and English institutions,
will dispose the Irish people to receive with alacrity any measure
tending to put them on the same footing as their fellow-subjects of
England—a circumstance particularly favourable to the establishment
of a poor-law at this moment. At another season, or under other
circumstances, it might be difficult to surround a legal provision
for the relief of the Irish poor, with sufficient guards against
abuse; but at present, I think the legislature may venture to
entertain the subject, having the experience of England before them,
with a reasonable confidence of being able to bring the measure to a
successful issue; and if the landed proprietors and gentry of
Ireland will there perform the same part, which the proprietors and
gentry of England are now performing in the administration of the
new Poor Law, the result will be neither distant nor doubtful.

“If a poor-law were established in Ireland, it must not however be
expected to work miracles. It would not give employment or capital,
but it would, I think, help the country through what may be called
its transition period; and in time, and with the aid of other
circumstances, would effect a material improvement in the condition
of the people. The English Poor Laws, in their earlier operation,
contributed to the accomplishment of this object in England; and
there seems nothing to prevent a similar result in Ireland.
Facilities now exist in Ireland for helping forward the transition,
and for shortening its duration as well as securing its benefits,
which England did not possess in the time of Elizabeth, or for a
century and a half afterwards. By ‘transition period,’ I mean that
season of change from the system of small holdings, con-acre, and
the subdivisions of land, which now prevails in Ireland, to the
better practice of day-labour for wages, and to that dependence on
daily labour for support, which is the present condition of the
English peasantry. This transition is, I believe, generally beset
with difficulty and suffering. It was so in England; it is, and for
a time will probably continue to be so in Ireland; and every aid
should be afforded to shorten its duration, and lessen its pressure.
It has been considered that the existence of the con-acre system is
favourable to such a transition. I am disposed to concur in this
view, and think that the annual hiring of the con-acre, may help to
wean the Irish peasantry from their present desire of occupying
land, and lead them to become labourers for wages. The eager
clinging to land, and its subdivision into small holdings, is at
once a cause and a consequence of the rapid increase of the people,
and of the extreme poverty and want which prevail among them. It is
not because the potato constitutes their food, that a kind of famine
occurs annually in Ireland between the going out of the old, and the
in-coming of the new crop; but it is because the peasantry are the
sole providers for their own necessities, each out of his own small
holding; and being all alike hard pressed, and apt to
under-calculate the extent of their wants, they thus often find
themselves without food before the new crop is ripe. In this
emergency there is no store provided to which they can have
recourse, and misery and disease ensue. A poor-law would lighten the
pressure under such a visitation, and the poor-law machinery might
be useful in cases of extreme need, as well as for preventing a
recurrence of the calamity.

“It is impossible to mix with the Irish people without noticing the
great influence of the clergy, and it seemed important therefore to
ascertain their views in regard to a poor-law. I discussed the
subject with many of them, as well Roman catholic as protestant, in
all parts of the country; and I found them, with few exceptions,
decidedly favourably to such a law. In the cases where they were not
so, it appeared to be owing to an apprehension that their influence
might be lessened, by taking from them the distribution of the alms
which now pass through their hands; but this feeling was of rare
occurrence, and I am warranted in saying, that the clergy of every
denomination are almost unanimously favourable to a system of Poor
Laws for Ireland. This was perhaps to be expected, the duties of the
clergy leading them to mix more with the people, and to see more of
their actual wants, than any other class of persons. The shopkeepers
too, and manufacturers and dealers generally, I found favourable to
a poor-law. They declared that they should be gainers at the end of
the year, whatever might be the amount legally assessed upon them;
for that they could neither close their doors, nor turn their backs
upon the wretched objects who were constantly applying to them;
whilst the gentry, if resident, were in a great measure protected
from such applications, and if non-resident, escaped them
altogether.

“A legal provision for the destitute, is moreover an indispensable
preliminary to the suppression of mendicancy. If the state offers an
alternative, it may prohibit begging—it would be in vain to do so
otherwise, for the law would be opposed to our natural sympathies,
and would remain inoperative. This was the course adopted in
England, where it was long endeavoured to repress vagrancy by severe
enactments, but apparently with little advantage. At last the offer
of relief was coupled with the prohibition of mendicancy, and until
our Poor Law administration became corrupt, with perfect success. To
establish a poor-law, then, is I believe a necessary preliminary to
the suppression of mendicancy. That it will be, on the whole,
economical to do this in Ireland, it is I think scarcely possible to
doubt; but whether it be so or not, the advantage both morally and
socially of removing such an evil, is beyond question important.

“It may be regarded as a circumstance favourable to the introduction of
a poor-law, that so much land is lying waste and uncultivated in
Ireland. Much of this land is susceptible of cultivation, and the
order and security which a poor-law would tend to establish, will
encourage the application of capital to such objects. If capital
were to be so applied, considerable tracts would be brought under
culture, and thus afford occupation to the now unemployed labourers.
Most of the reclaimed bog which I saw in the western counties, was
effected by the small occupiers, who partially drained and enclosed
an acre or two at a time; but such operations were without system or
combination, and for the most part indifferently performed. In this
way, however, the reclamation of these wastes will of necessity
proceed—constantly adding to the number of small cottier tenants,
and swelling the amount of poverty and wretchedness in the
country—unless proprietors and capitalists shall be induced to take
the matter in hand, and by enclosing and effectually draining whole
tracts, secure the means of applying economical management on a
large scale. The enclosing and draining, and the whole process of
reclamation, would afford employment to labourers who are now, for a
great portion of the year, idling about without occupation; and when
the land so reclaimed becomes subjected to a regular process of
cultivation, it will continue to afford them regular employment at
daily wages, instead of the often miserably insufficient produce of
their own small holdings, to which they now are compelled to cling
as their sole means of support.

“It appears then, I think, that a poor-law is necessary for relieving
the destitution to which a large portion of the population in
Ireland is now exposed. It appears too, that circumstances are at
present favourable for the introduction of such a measure. A
poor-law seems also to be necessary, as a first step towards
bringing about improvement in the habits and social condition of
the people. Without such improvement, peace, good order, and
security cannot exist in Ireland; and without these, it is in vain
to look for that accumulation of wealth, and influx of capital,
which are necessary for developing its resources, agricultural and
commercial, and for providing profitable employment for the
population. Ireland is now suffering under a circle of evils,
producing and reproducing one another. Want of capital produces
want of employment—want of employment, turbulence and
misery—turbulence and misery, insecurity—insecurity prevents the
introduction or accumulation of capital—and so on. Until this
circle is broken, the evils must continue, and probably increase.
The first thing to be done is to give security—that will produce
or invite capital—and capital will give employment. But security
of person and property cannot co-exist with extensive destitution.
So that, in truth, the reclamation of bogs and wastes—the
establishment of fisheries and manufactures—improvements in
agriculture, and in the general condition of the country—and
lastly, the elevation of the great mass of the Irish people in the
social scale, appear to be _all_ more or less contingent upon
establishing a law providing for the relief of the destitute.—How
such a law may be best formed, so as to secure the largest amount
of good, with the least risk of evil, it is proposed next to
consider.