Chapter 21: , forbidding the importation of foreign coals, was designed (3)

"It does not affect the doctrine of our religion; it does not alter
the church establishment; it does not affect the constitution of
episcopacy. The modus does not even alter the mode of their
provision, it only limits the quantum, and limits it on principles
much less severe than that charity which they preach, or that
abstinence which they inculcate. Is this innovation?--as if the
Protestant religion was to be propagated in Ireland, like the
influence of a minister, by bribery; or like the influence of a
county candidate, by money; or like the cause of a potwalloping
canvasser, by the weight of the purse; as if Christ could not
prevail over the earth unless Mammon took him by the hand. Am I to
understand that if you give the parson 12s. in the acre for
potatoes and 10s. for wheat, the Protestant religion is safe on its
rock? But if you reduce him to 6s. the acre for potatoes and wheat,
then Jupiter shakes the heavens with his thunder, Neptune rakes up
the deep with his trident, and Pluto leaps from his throne! See the
curate--he rises at six to morning prayers; he leaves company at
six for evening prayer; he baptises, he marries, he churches, he
buries, he follows with pious offices his fellow creature from the
cradle to the grave; for what immense income! what riches to reward
these inestimable services? (Do not depend on the penury of the
laity, let his own order value his deserts.) L50 a year! L50! for
praying, for christening, for marrying, for churching, for burying,
for following with Christian offices his fellow-creature from
cradle to grave; so frugal a thing is devotion, so cheap religion,
so easy the terms on which man may worship his Maker, and so small
the income, in the opinion of ecclesiastics, sufficient for the
duties of a clergyman, as far as he is connected at all with the
Christian religion.

* * * * *

"By this trade of parliament the King is absolute; his will is
signified by both houses of parliament, who are now as much an
instrument in his hand as a bayonet in the hands of a regiment.
Like a regiment we have our adjutant, who sends to the infirmary
for the old and to the brothel for the young, and men thus carted,
as it were, into this house, to vote for the minister, are called
the representatives of the people! Suppose General Washington to
ring his bell, and order his servants out of livery to take their
seats in Congress--you can apply this instance.

"It is not life but the condition of living--the slave is not so
likely to complain of the want of property as the proprietor of the
want of privilege. The human mind is progressive--the child does
not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the proprietor
to the people that gave him the power of acquisition, but both look
forward--the one to provide for the comforts of life, and the other
to obtain all the privileges of property."

But we have fallen on one of his most marvellous passages, and we give it entire:--

"I will put this question to my country; I will suppose her at the
bar, and I will ask her, Will you fight for a Union as you would
for a constitution? Will you fight for that Lords and that Commons
who, in the last century, took away your trade, and, in the
present, your constitution, as for that King, Lords, and Commons
who have restored both? Well, the minister has destroyed this
constitution; to destroy is easy. The edifices of the mind, like
the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only
minutes to precipitate; and as the fall of both is an effort of no
time, so neither is it a business of any strength--a pick-axe and a
common labourer will do the one--a little lawyer, a little pimp, a
wicked minister the other.

"The Constitution, which, with more or less violence, has been the
inheritance of this country for six hundred years--that _modus
tenendi parliamentum_, which lasted and outlasted of Plantagenet
the wars, of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the systematic
falsehood--the condition of our connection--yes, the constitution
he destroys is one of the pillars of the British Empire. He may
walk round it and round it, and the more he contemplates the more
must he admire it--such a one as had cost England of money millions
and of blood a deluge, cheaply and nobly expended--whose
restoration had cost Ireland her noblest efforts, and was the
habitation of her loyalty--we are accustomed to behold the kings of
these countries in the keeping of parliament--I say of her loyalty
as well as of her liberty, where she had hung up the sword of the
Volunteer--her temple of fame as well as of freedom--where she had
seated herself, as she vainly thought, in modest security and in a
long repose.

"I have done with the pile which the minister batters, I come to
the Babel which he builds; and as he throws down without a
principle, so does he construct without a foundation. This fabric
he calls a Union, and to this, his fabric, there are two striking
objections--first it is no Union; it is not an identification of
people, for it excludes the Catholics; secondly, it is a
consolidation of the Irish legislatures--that is to say, a merger
of the Irish parliament, and incurs every objection to a Union,
without obtaining the only object which a Union professes; it is an
extinction of the constitution, and an exclusion of the people.
Well! he has overlooked the people as he has overlooked the sea. I
say he excludes the Catholics, and he destroys their best chance of
admission--the relative consequence. Thus he reasons, that
hereafter, in course of time (he does not say when), if they behave
themselves (he does not say how), they may see their subjects
submitted to a course of discussion (he does not say with what
result or determination); and as the ground for this inane period,
in which he promises nothing, and in which, if he did promise much,
at so remote a period he could perform nothing, unless he, like the
evil he has accomplished, be immortal. For this inane sentence, in
which he can scarcely be said to deceive the Catholic, or suffer
the Catholic to deceive himself, he exhibits no other ground than
the physical inanity of the Catholic body accomplished by a Union,
which, as it destroys the relative importance of Ireland, so it
destroys the relative proportion of the Catholic inhabitants, and
thus they become admissible, because they cease to be anything.
Hence, according to him, their brilliant expectation: 'You were,'
say his advocates, and so imports his argument, 'before the Union
as three to one, you will be by the Union as one to four.' Thus he
founds their hopes of political power on the extinction of physical
consequence, and makes the inanity of their body and the nonentity
of their country the pillars of their future ambition."

We now return to the memoir by Mr. Madden. It is not the details of a life meagre for want of space, and confused for want of principles, as most little biographies are; it is an estimate--a profound one--of Grattan's original nature, of the influences which acted on him from youth to manhood, of his purposes, his principles, and his influence on Ireland.

Henry Grattan was twenty-nine years of age when he entered on politics, and in seven years he was the triumphant leader of a people free and victorious after hereditary bondage. He entered parliament educated in the meta-physical and political philosophy of the time, injured by its cold and epigrammatic verse and its artificial tastes--familiar with every form of aristocratic life from Kilkenny to London--familiar, too, with Chatham's oratory and principles, and with Flood's views and example. He came when there were great forces rushing through the land--eloquence, love of liberty, thirst for commerce, hatred of English oppression, impatience, glory, and, above all, a military array. He combined these elements and used them to achieve the Revolution of '82. Be he for ever honoured!

Mr. Madden defends him against Flood on the question of Simple Repeal. Here is his reasoning:--

"It is an easy thing now to dispose of the idle question of simple
repeal. In truth, there was nothing whatever deserving of attention
in the point raised by Mr. Flood. The security for the continuance
of Irish freedom did not depend upon an English act of parliament.
It was by Irish _will_ and not at English pleasure that the new
constitution was to be supported. The transaction between the
countries was of a high political nature, and it was to be judged by
political reason, and by statesmanlike computation, and not by the
petty technicalities of the court of law. The revolution of 1782, as
carried by Ireland, and assented to by England (in repealing the 6th
George the First), was a political compact--proposed by one country,
and acknowledged by the other in the face of Europe; it was not (as
Mr. Flood and his partisans construed the transaction) of the nature
of municipal right, to be enforced or annulled by mere judicial
exposition."

This is unanswerable, but Grattan should have gone further. The Revolution was effected mainly by the Volunteers, whom he had inspired; arms could alone have preserved the constitution. Flood was wrong in setting value on one form--Grattan in relying on any; but both before and after '82 Flood seems to have had glimpses that the question was one of might, as well as of right, and that national laws could not last under such an alien army.

Taken as military representatives, the Convention at the Rotunda was even more valuable than as a civic display. Mr. Madden censures Grattan for having been an elaborate neutral during these Reform dissensions; but that the result of _such_ neutrality ruined the Convention proves a comparative want of power in Flood, who could have governed that Convention in spite of the rascally English and the feeble Irish Whigs. Oh, had Tone been in that council!

In describing Grattan's early and enthusiastic and ceaseless advocacy of Catholic liberty, Mr. Madden has a just subject for unmixed eulogy. Let no one imagine that the interest of these Emancipation speeches has died with the achievement of what they pleaded for; they will ever remain divinest protests against the vice and impolicy of religious ascendency, of sectarian bitterness, and of bigot separation.

For this admirable beginning of the design of giving Ireland its most glorious achievement--the speeches of its orators--to contemplate, the country should be grateful; but if there can be anything better for it to hear than can be had in Grattan's speeches, it is such language as this from his eloquent editor:--

"Reader! if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain harsh
prejudices against your Catholic countrymen, study the works and
life of Grattan--learn from him--for none can teach you better how
to purify your nature from bigotry. Learn from him to look upon all
your countrymen with a loving heart--to be tolerant of infirmities
caused by their unhappy history--and, like Grattan, earnestly
sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character.

"Reader! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the
Protestant religion with tyranny, learn from Grattan that it is
possible to be a Protestant and have a heart for Ireland and its
people. Think that the brightest age of Ireland was when Grattan--a
steady Protestant--raised it to proud eminence; think also that in
the hour of his triumph he did not forget the state of your
oppressed fathers, but laboured through his virtuous life that both
you and your children should enjoy unshackled liberty of
conscience.

"But reader! whether you be Protestant or Catholic, or whatever be
your party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the
spirit and principles which governed the public and private life of
Grattan. Learn from him how to regard your countrymen of all
denominations. Observe, as he did, how very much that is excellent
belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is divided. If
(as some do) you entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect
that any country containing such elements as those which roused the
genius of Grattan never need despair. _Sursum corda_. Be not
disheartened.

"Go--go--my countrymen--and, within your social sphere, carry into
practice those moral principles which Grattan so eloquently taught,
and which he so remarkably enforced by his well-spent life. He will
teach you to avoid hating men on account of their religious
professions or hereditary descent. From him you will learn
principles which, if carried out, would generate a new state of
society in Ireland."

---------------------------------------------------------------
[41] "The Select Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. To which
is added his Letter on the Union, with a Commentary on his Career
and Character." By Daniel Owen Madden, Esq., of the Inner Temple.
Dublin: James Duffy, 1845. 8vo, pp. 534.

MEMORIALS OF WEXFORD.

'Twixt Croghan-Kinshela and Hook Head, 'twixt Carnsore and Mount Leinster, there is as good a mass of men as ever sustained a state by honest franchises, by peace, virtue, and intelligent industry; and as stout a mass as ever tramped through a stubborn battle. There is a county where we might seek more of stormy romance, and there is a county where prospers a shrewder economy, but no county in Ireland is fitter for freedom than Wexford.

They are a peculiar people--these Wexford men. Their blood is for the most part English and Welsh, though mixed with the Danish and Gaelic, yet they are Irish in thought and feeling. They are a Catholic people, yet on excellent terms with their Protestant landlords. Outrages are unknown, for though the rents are high enough, they are not unbearable by a people so industrious and skilled in farming.

Go to the fair and you will meet honest dealing, and a look that heeds no lordling's frown--for the Wexford men have neither the base bend nor the baser craft of slaves. Go to the hustings, and you will see open and honest voting; no man shrinking or crying for concealment, or extorting a bribe under the name of "his expenses." Go to their farms and you will see a snug homestead, kept clean, prettily sheltered (much what you'd see in Down); more green crops than even in Ulster; the National School and the Repeal Reading-room well filled, and every religious duty regarded.

Wexford is not all it might be, or all that, with more education and the life-hope of nationality, it will be--there is something to blame and something to lament, here a vice sustained, and there a misfortune lazily borne; yet, take it for all in all, it is the most prosperous, it is the pattern county of the South; and when we see it coming forward in a mass to renew its demand for native government, it is an omen that the spirit of the people outlives quarrels and jealousies, and that it has a rude vitality which will wear out its oppressors.

Nor are we indifferent to the memories of Wexford. It owes much of its peace and prosperity to the war it sustained. It rose in '98 with little organisation against intolerable wrong; and though it was finally beaten by superior forces, it taught its aristocracy and the government a lesson not easily forgotten--a lesson that popular anger could strike hard as well as sigh deeply; and that it was better to conciliate than provoke those who even for an hour had felt their strength. The red rain made Wexford's harvest grow. Theirs was no treacherous assassination--theirs no stupid riot--theirs no pale mutiny. They rose in mass and swept the country by sheer force.

Nor in their sinking fortunes is there anything to blush at. Scullabogue was not burned by the fighting men.

Yet nowhere did the copper sun of that July burn upon a more heart-piercing sight than a rebel camp. Scattered on a hill-top, or screened in a gap, were the grey-coated thousands, their memories mad at burned cabins, and military whips, and hanged friends; their hopes dimmed by partial defeat; their eyes lurid with care; their brows full of gloomy resignation. Some have short guns which the stern of a boat might bear, but which press through the shoulder of a marching man; and others have light fowling-pieces, with dandy locks--troublesome and dangerous toys. Most have pikes, stout weapons, too; and though some swell to hand-spikes, and others thin to knives, yet, for all that, fatal are they to dragoon or musketeer if they can meet him in a rush; but how shall they do so? The gunsmen have only a little powder in scraps of paper or bags, and their balls are few and rarely fit. They have no potatoes ripe, and they have no bread--their food is the worn cattle they have crowded there, and which the first skirmish may rend from them. There are women and children seeking shelter, seeking those they love; and there are leaders busier, feebler, less knowing, less resolved than the women and the children.

Great hearts! how faithful ye are! How ye bristled up when the foe came on, how ye set your teeth to die as his shells and round-shot fell steadily; and with how firm a cheer ye dashed at him, if he gave you any chance at all of a grapple! From the wild burst with which ye triumphed at Oulart Hill, down to the faint gasp wherewith the last of your last column died in the corn-fields of Meath, there is nothing to shame your valour, your faith, or your patriotism. You wanted arms, and you wanted leaders. Had you had them, you would have guarded a green flag in Dublin Castle a week after you beat Walpole. Isolated, unorganised, unofficered, half-armed, girt by a swarm of foes, you ceased to fight, but you neither betrayed nor repented. Your sons need not fear to speak of Ninety-eight.

You, people of Wexford, almost all Repealers, are the sons of the men of '98; prosperous and many, will you only shout for Repeal, and line roads and tie boughs for a holiday? Or will you press your organisation, work at your education, and increase your political power, so that your leaders may know and act on the knowledge that, come what may, there is trust in Wexford?

THE HISTORY OF TO-DAY.

From 1793 to 1829--for thirty-six years--the Irish Catholics struggled for Emancipation. _That_ Emancipation was but admission to the Bench, the Inner Bar, and Parliament. It was won by self-denial, genius, vast and sustained labours, and, lastly, by the sacrifice of the forty-shilling freeholders--the poor veterans of the war--and by submission to insulting oaths; yet it was cheaply bought. Not so cheaply, perchance, as if won by the sword; for on it were expended more treasures, more griefs, more intellect, more passion, more of all which makes life welcome, than had been needed for war; still it was cheaply bought, and Ireland has glorified herself, and will through ages triumph in the victory of '29.

Yet what was Emancipation compared to Repeal?

The one put a silken badge on a few members of one profession; the other would give to all professions and all trades the rank and riches which resident proprietors, domestic legislation, and flourishing commerce infallibly create.

Emancipation made it possible for Catholics to sit on the judgment seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them, save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion; and it left the local Judges--those with whom the people have to deal--as partial, ignorant, bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and Irish-hearted Judges in every Court, from the Chancery to the Petty Sessions.

Emancipation dignified a dozen Catholics with a senatorial name in a foreign and hostile Legislature. Repeal would give us a Senate, a Militia, an Administration, all our own.

The Penal Code, as it existed since 1793, insulted the faith of the Catholics, restrained their liberties, and violated the public Treaty of Limerick. The Union has destroyed our manufactures, prohibits our flag, prevents our commerce, drains our rental, crushes our genius, makes our taxation a tribute, our representation a shadow, our name a by-word. It were nobler to strive for Repeal than to get Emancipation.

Four years ago the form of Repeal agitation began--two years ago, its reality. Have we not cause to be proud of the labours of these two years? If life be counted, not by the rising of suns, or the idle turning of machinery, but by the growth of the will, and the progress of thoughts and passions in the soul, we Irishmen have spent an age since we raised our first cry for liberty. Consider what we were then, and what we have done since. We had a People unorganised--disgusted with a Whig alliance--beaten in a dishonourable struggle to sustain a faction--ignorant of each other's will--without books, without song, without leaders (save one), without purposes, without strength, without hope. The Corn Exchange was the faint copy of the Catholic Association, with a few enthusiasts, a few loungers, and a few correspondents. Opposite to us was the great Conservative party, with a majority exceeding our whole representation, united, flushed, led by the craftiest of living statesmen, and the ablest of living generals. Oh, how disheartening it was then, when, day by day, we found prophecy and exhortation, lay and labour, flung idly before a distracted People! May we never pass through that icy ordeal again!

How different now! The People are united under the greatest system of organisation ever attempted in any country. They send in, by their Collectors, Wardens, and Inspectors, to the central office of Ireland, the contributions needed to carry on the Registration of Voters, the public meetings, the publications, the law expenses, and the organisation of the Association; and that in turn carries on registries, holds meetings, opens reading-rooms, sends newspapers, and books, and political instructions, back through the same channel; so that the Central Committee knows the state of every parish, and every parish receives the teaching and obeys the will of the Central Committee.

The Whig Alliance has melted, like ice before the sun, and the strong souls of our people will never again serve the purposes of a faction.

The Conservative party, without union and without principle, is breaking up. Its English section is dividing into the tools of expediency and the pioneers of a New Generation--its Irish section into Castle Hacks and National Conservatives.

Meantime, how much have the Irish people gained and done? They have received and grown rich under torrents of thought. Song and sermon and music, speech and pamphlet, novel and history, essay and map and picture, have made the dull thoughtful and the thoughtful studious, and will make the studious wise and powerful. They have begun a system of self-teaching in their reading-rooms. If they carry it we shall, before two years, have in every parish men able to manufacture, to trade, and to farm--men acquainted with all that Ireland was, is, and should be--men able to serve The Irish Nation in peace and war.

In the teeth, too, of the Government we held our meetings. They are not for this time, but they were right well in their own time. They showed our physical force to the Continent, to ourselves, to America, to our rulers. They showed that the people would come and go rapidly, silently, and at bidding, in numbers enough to recruit a dozen armies. These are literal facts. Any one monster meeting could have offered little resistance in the open country to a regular army, but it contained the materials--the numbers, intelligence, and obedience--of a conquering host. Whenever the impression of their power grows faint we shall revive them again.

The toleration of these meetings was the result of fear; the prosecution of their chiefs sprung from greater fear. That prosecution was begun audaciously, was carried on meanly and with virulence, and ended with a charge and a verdict which disgraced the law. An illegal imprisonment afforded glorious proof that the people could refrain from violence under the worst temptation; that their leaders were firm; and, better than all, that had these leaders been shot, not prisoned, their successors were ready. Such an imprisonment served Ireland more than an acquittal, for it tried her more; and then came the day of triumph, when the reluctant constitution liberated our chiefs and branded our oppressors.

This is a history of two years never surpassed in importance and honour. This is a history which our sons shall pant over and envy. This is a history which pledges us to perseverance. This is a history which guarantees success.

Energy, patience, generosity, skill, tolerance, enthusiasm created and decked the agitation. The world attended us with its thoughts and prayers. The graceful genius of Italy and the profound intellect of Germany paused to wish us well. The fiery heart of France tolerated our unarmed effort, and proffered its aid. America sent us money, thought, love--she made herself a part of Ireland in her passions and her organisation. From London to the wildest settlement which throbs in the tropics or shivers nigh the Pole, the empire of our misruler was shaken by our effort. To all earth we proclaimed our wrongs. To man and God we made oath that we would never cease to strive till an Irish nation stood supreme on this island. The genius which roused and organised us, the energy which laboured, the wisdom that taught, the manhood which rose up, the patience which obeyed, the faith which swore, and the valour that strained for action, are here still, experienced, recruited, resolute.

The future shall realise the promise of the past.

THE RESOURCES OF IRELAND.[42]

Bishop Berkeley put, as a query, could the Irish live and prosper if a brazen wall surrounded their island? The question has been often and vaguely replied to.

Dr. Kane has at length answered it, and proved the affirmative. Confining himself strictly to the _land_ of our island (for he does not enter on the subjects of fisheries and foreign commerce), he has proved that we possess _physical_ elements for every important art. Not that he sat down to prove this. Taste, duty, industry, and genius prompted and enabled him gradually to acquire a knowledge of the physical products and powers of Ireland, and his mastery of chemical and mechanical science enabled him to see how these could be used.

Thus qualified, he tried, in the lecture-room of the Dublin Society, to communicate his knowledge to the public. He was as successful as any man lecturing on subjects requiring accurate details could be; and now he has given, in the volume before us, all his lectures, and much more. He then is no party pamphleteer, pandering to the national vanity; but a philosopher, who garnered up his knowledge soberly and surely, and now gives us the result of his studies. There was undoubtedly a good deal of information on the subjects treated of by Dr. Kane scattered through our topographical works and parliamentary reports, but that information is, for the most part, vague, unapplied, and not tested by science. Dr. Kane's work is full, clear, scientific, exact in stating places, extent, prices, and every other working detail, and is a manual of the whole subject.

In such interlaced subjects as industrial resources we must be content with practical classifications.

Dr. Kane proceeds in the following order:--First, he considers the _mechanical_ powers of the country--viz., its fuel and its water powers. Secondly, its _mineral_ resources--its iron, copper, lead, sulphur, marble, slates, etc. Thirdly, the agriculture of the country in its first function--the raising of food, and the modes of cropping, manuring, draining, and stacking. Fourthly, agriculture in its secondary use, as furnishing staples for the manufacture of woollens, linens, starch, sugar, spirits, etc. Fifthly, the modes of carrying internal trade by roads, canals, and railways. Sixthly, the cost and condition of skilled and unskilled labour in Ireland. Seventhly, our state as to capital. And he closes by some earnest and profound thoughts on the need of industrial education in Ireland.

Now, let us ask the reader what he knows upon any or all of these subjects; and whether he ought, as a citizen, or a man of education, or a man of business, to be ignorant of them? Such ignorance as exists here must be got rid of, or our cry of "Ireland for the Irish" will be a whine or a brag, and will be despised as it deserves. We must know Ireland from its history to its minerals, from its tillage to its antiquities, before we shall be an Irish nation, able to rescue and keep the country. And if we are too idle, too dull, or too capricious to learn the arts of strength, wealth, and liberty, let us not murmur at being slaves.

For the present we shall confine ourselves to the subjects of the mechanical powers and minerals of Ireland, as treated by Dr. Kane.

The first difference between manufactures now and in _any_ former time is the substitution of machines for the hands of man. It may indeed be questioned whether the increased strength over matter thus given to man compensates for the ill effects of forcing people to work in crowds; of destroying small and pampering large capitalists, of lessening the distribution of wealth even by the very means which increases its production.

We sincerely lament, with Lord Wharncliffe, the loss of domestic manufactures; we would prefer one housewife skilled in the distaff and the dairy--home-bred, and home-taught, and home-faithful--to a factory full of creatures who live amid the eternal roll, and clash, and glimmer of spindles and rollers, watching with aching eyes the thousand twirls and capable of but one act--tying the broken threads. We abhor that state; we prefer the life of the old times, or of modern Norway.

But, situated as we are, so near a strong enemy, and in the new highway from Europe to America, it may be doubted whether we can retain our simple domestic life. There is but one chance for it. If the Prussian Tenure Code be introduced, and the people turned into small proprietors, there is much, perhaps every, hope of retaining our homestead habits; and such a population need fear no enemy.

If this do not come to pass, we must make the best of our state, join our chief towns with railways, put quays to our harbours, mills on our rivers, turbines on our coasts, and under restrictions and with guarantees set the steam engine to work at our flax, wool, and minerals.

The two great mechanical powers are fire and water. Ireland is nobly endowed with both.

We do not possess as ample fields of flaming coal as Britain; but even of that we have large quantities, which can be raised at about the same rate at which English coal can be landed on our coast.

The chief seats of flaming coal in Ireland are to the west of Lough Allen, in Connaught, and around Dungannon, in Tyrone. There is a small district of it in Antrim.

The stone coal, or anthracite, which, having little gas, does not blaze, and, having much sulphur, is disagreeable in a room, and has been thought unfit for smelting, is found--first, in the Kilkenny district, between the Nore and Barrow; secondly, from Freshford to Cashel; and thirdly, in the great Munster coal country, cropping up in every barony of Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. By the use of vapour with it, the anthracite appears to be freed from all its defects as a smelting and engine coal, and being a much more pure and powerful fuel than the flaming coal, there seems no reason to doubt that in it we have a manufacturing power that would supply us for generations.

Our bogs have not been done justice to. The use of turf in a damp state turns it into an inferior fuel. Dried under cover, or broken up and dried under pressure, it is more economical, because far more efficient. It is used now in the Shannon steamers, and its use is increasing in mills. For some purposes it is peculiarly good--thus, for the finer ironworks, turf and turf-charcoal are even better than wood, and Dr. Kane shows that the precious Baltic iron, for which from L15 to L35 per ton is given, could be equalled by Irish iron smelted by Irish turf for six guineas per ton.

Dr. Kane proves that the cost of fuel, even if greater in Ireland, by no means precludes us from competing with England; he does so by showing that the cost of fuel in English factories is only from 1 to 1-1/2 per cent., while in Ireland it would be only 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 per cent., a difference greatly overbalanced by our cheaper labour--labour being over 33 per cent. of the whole expense of a factory.

Here is the analysis of the cost of producing cotton in England in 1830:--

Cotton wool L8,244,693 or per cent. 26.27
Wages 10,419,000 " 33.16
Interest on capital 3,400,000 " 10.84
Coals 339,680 " 1.08
Rent, taxes, insurance,
other charges, and profit 8,935,320 " 28.65
---------- ------
L31,338,693 100.00

In water-power we are still better off. Dr. Kane calculates the rain which falls on Ireland in a year at over 100 billion cubic yards; and of this he supposes two-thirds to pass off in evaporation, leaving one-third, equal to nearly a million and a half of horse-power, to reach the sea. His calculations of the water-power of the Shannon and other rivers are most interesting. The elements, of course, are the observed fall of rain by the gauge in the district, and the area of the catchment (or drainage) basins of each river and its tributaries. The chief objection to water-power is its irregularity. To remedy this he proposes to do what has increased the water-power on the Bann five-fold, and has made the wealth of Greenock--namely, to make mill-lakes by damming up valleys, and thus controlling and equalising the supply of water, and letting none go waste. His calculations of the relative merits of undershot, overshot, breast, and turbine wheels are most valuable, especially of the last, which is a late and successful French contrivance, acting by pressure. He proposes to use the turbine in coast mills, the tide being the motive-power; and, strange as it sounds, the experiments seem to decide in favour of this plan.

"The turbine was invented by M. Fourneyron. Coals being abundant,
the steam engine is invented in England; coals being scarce, the
water-pressure engine and the turbine are invented in France. It is
thus the physical condition of each country directs its mechanical
genius. The turbine is a horizontal wheel furnished with curved
float-boards, on which the water presses from a cylinder which is
suspended over the wheel, and the base of which is divided by
curved partitions, that the water may be directed in issuing, so as
to produce upon the curved float-boards of the wheel its greatest
effect. The best curvature to be given to the fixed partitions and
to the float-boards is a delicate problem, but practically it has
been completely solved. The construction of the machine is simple,
its parts not liable to go out of order; and as the action of the
water is by pressure, the force is under the most favourable
circumstances for being utilised.

"The effective economy of the turbine appears to equal that of the
overshot wheel. But the economy in the turbine is accompanied by
some conditions which render it peculiarly valuable. In a
water-wheel you cannot have great economy of power without very
slow motion, and hence where high velocity is required at the
working point, a train of mechanism is necessary, which causes a
material loss of force. Now, in the turbine the greatest economy is
accompanied by rapid motion, and hence the connected machinery may
be rendered much less complex. In the turbine also a change in the
height of the head of water alters only the power of the machine in
that proportion, but the whole quantity of water is economised to
the same degree. Thus if a turbine be working with a force of ten
horses, and that its supply of water be suddenly doubled, it
becomes of twenty horse-power; if the supply be reduced to
one-half, it still works five horse-power; whilst such sudden and
extreme change would altogether disarrange water-wheels, which can
only be constructed for the minimum, and allow the overplus to go
to waste."

Our own predilection being in favour of water-power--as cheaper, healthier, and more fit for Ireland than steam--gave the following peculiar interest in our eyes:--

"I have noticed at such length the question of the cost of fuel and
of steam power, not from my own opinion of its ultimate importance,
but that we might at once break down that barrier to all active
exertion which indolent ignorance constantly retreats behind. The
cry of 'What can we do? consider England's coal-mines,' is answered
by showing that we have available fuel enough. The lament that
coals are so dear with us and so cheap in England, is, I trust, set
at rest by the evidence of how little influential the price of fuel
is. However, there are other sources of power besides coals; there
are other motive-powers than steam. Of the 83,000 horse-power
employed to give motion to mills in England, 21,000, even in the
coal districts, are not moved by fire, but by water. The force of
gravity in falling water can spin and weave as well as the
elasticity of steam; and in this power we are not deficient. It is
necessary to study its circumstances in detail, and I shall
therefore next proceed to discuss the condition of Ireland with
regard to water-power."

Dr. Kane proves that we have at Arigna an _inexhaustible_ supply of the richest iron ore, with coals to smelt it, lime to flux it, and infusible sand-stone and fire-clay to make furnaces of on the spot. Yet not a pig or bar is made there now. He also gives in great detail the extent, analysis, costs of working, and every other leading fact as to the copper mines of Wicklow, Knockmahon, and Allihies; the lead, gold, and sulphur mines of Wicklow; the silver mines of Ballylichey, and details of the building materials and marbles.

He is everywhere precise in his industrial and scientific statements, and beautifully clear in his style and arrangement.

Why, then, are we a poor province? Dr. Kane quotes Forbes, Quetelet, etc., to prove the physical strength of our people. He might have quoted every officer who commanded them to prove their courage and endurance; nor is there much doubt expressed even by their enemies of their being quick and inventive. Their soil is productive--the rivers and harbours good--their fishing _opportunities_ great--so is their means of making internal communications across their great central plains. We have immense water and considerable fire power; and, besides the minerals necessary for the arts of peace, we are better supplied than almost any country with the finer sorts of iron, charcoal, and sulphur, wherewith war is now carried on. Why is it, with these means of amassing and guarding wealth, that we are so poor and paltry? Dr. Kane thinks we are so from want of industrial education. He is partly right. The remote causes were repeated foreign invasion, forfeiture, and tyrannous laws. Ignorance, disunion, self-distrust, quick credulity, and caprice were the weaknesses engendered in us by misfortune and misgovernment; and they were then the allies of oppression; for, had we been willing, we had long ago been rich and free. Knowledge is now within our reach if we work steadily; and strength of character will grow upon us by every month of perseverance and steadiness in politics, trade, and literature.

---------------------------------------------------------------
[42] _The Industrial Resources of Ireland_, by Robert Kane, M.D.,
Secretary to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor of
Natural Philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society, and of Chemistry to
the Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 21
College Green.

THE VALUATION OF IRELAND.

The Committee of 1824 was but meagrely supplied with evidence as to foreign surveys. They begin that subject with a notice of the Survey of England, made by order of William the Conqueror, and called the Doomsday Book. That book took six years to execute, and is most admirably analysed by Thierry.

The following is their summary account of some modern surveys:--

"In France the great territorial survey or _cadastre_ has been in
progress for many years. It was first suggested in 1763, and after
an interval of thirty years, during which no progress was made, it
was renewed by the government of that day, and individuals of the
highest scientific reputation, MM. Lagrange, Laplace, and Delambre,
were consulted with respect to the best mode of carrying into
effect the intention of government. Subsequent events suspended any
effectual operations in the French _cadastre_ till the year 1802,
when a school of topographical engineering was organised. The
operations now in progress were fully commenced in 1808. The
principle adopted is the formation of a central commission acting
in conjunction with the local authorities; the classification of
lands, according to an ascertained value, is made by three resident
proprietors of land in each district, selected by the municipal
council, and by the chief officer of revenue. 'In the course of
thirteen years, one-third only of each department had been
surveyed, having cost the state L120,000 per annum. At the rate at
which it is carried on, it may be computed as likely to require for
its completion a total sum of L4,680,000, or an acreable charge of
8-3/4d.' The delay of the work, as well as the increase of expense,
seem to have been the result of the minuteness of the survey, which
extends to every district field--a minuteness which, for many
reasons, your committee consider both unnecessary and inexpedient
to be sought for in the proposed Survey of Ireland.

"The survey of Bavaria is of modern date, but of equal minuteness.
It is commenced by a primary triangulation, and principal and
verification bases; it is carried on to a second triangulation,
with very accurate instruments, so as to determine 'all the
principal points; the filling up the interior is completed by a
peculiar species of plane table; and in order to do away with the
inaccuracies of the common chain, the triangulation is carried down
on paper to the most minute corners of fields.' _The map is laid
down on a scale of twelve inches to the mile, or
one-five-thousandth part of the real size; and as it contains all
that is required in the most precise survey of property, it is used
in the purchase and sale of real estates._

"The cadastre of Savoy and Piedmont began in 1729, and is stated to
have at once afforded the government the means of apportioning
justly all the territorial contributions, and to have put an end to
litigations between individuals, by ascertaining, satisfactorily,
the bounds of properties.

"The Neapolitan survey under Visconti, and that of the United
States under Heslar, are both stated to be in progress; but your
committee have not had the means of ascertaining on what principles
they are conducted."

The committee adopted a scale for the maps of six inches to a statute mile, believing, apparently with justice, that a six-inch scale map, if perfectly well executed, would be minute enough for buyers and sellers of land, especially as the larger holdings are generally townlands, the bounds of which they meant to include. And, wherever a greater scale was needed, the pentagraph afforded a sufficiently accurate plan of forming maps to it. They, in another point, _proposed_ to differ from the Bavarian Survey, in omitting field boundaries, as requiring too much time and expense; but they stated that barony, parish, and townland boundaries were essential to the utility of the maps. They also seemed to think that for private purposes their utility would much depend on their being accompanied, as the Bavarian maps were, by a memoir of the number of families, houses, size, and description of farms, and a valuation. And for this purpose they printed all the forms. The valuation still goes on of the townlands, and classes of soil in each. The Statistical Memoir has, unfortunately, been stopped, and no survey or valuation of farms, or holdings as such, has been attempted. We would _now_ only recall attention to the design of the Committee of 1824 on the subject.

They proposed to leave the whole Survey to the Board of Ordnance, and the Valuation to Civil Engineers.

The Valuation has been regulated by a series of Acts of Parliament, and we shall speak of it presently.

The Survey commenced in 1826, and has gone on under the superintendence of Colonel Colby, and the local control of Captain Larcom.

The following has been its progress:--First, a base line of about five miles was measured on the flat shore of Lough Foyle, and from thence triangular measurements were made by the theodolite and over the whole country, and all the chief points of mountain, coast, etc., ascertained. How accurately this was done has been proved by an astronomical measurement of the distance from Dublin to Armagh (about seventy miles), which only differed four feet from the distance calculated by the Ordnance triangles.

Having completed these large triangles, a detailed survey of the baronies, parishes, and townlands of each county followed. The field books were sent to the central station at Mountjoy, and sketched, engraved on copper, and printed there. The first county published was Derry, in 1833, and now the townland survey is finished, and all the counties have now been engraved and issued, except Limerick, Kerry, and Cork.

The Survey has also engraved a map of Dublin City on the enormous scale of five feet to a statute mile. This map represents the shape and space occupied by every house, garden, yard, and pump in Dublin. It contains antiquarian lettering. Every house, too, is numbered on the map. One of its sheets, representing the space from Trinity College to the Castle, is on sale, as we trust the rest of it will be.

Two other sets of maps remain to be executed. First--maps of the towns of Ireland, on a scale of five feet to a mile. Whatever may be said in reply to Sir Denham Norrey's demand for a survey of holdings in rural districts does not apply to the case of towns, and we, therefore, trust that the holdings will be marked and separately valued in towns.

The other work is a general _shaded_ map of Ireland, on a scale of one inch to the statute mile. At present, as we elsewhere remarked, the only tolerable shaded map of Ireland is that of the Railway Commission, which is on a scale of one inch to four statute miles. Captain Larcom proposes, and the Commission on the Ordnance Memoir recommend, that contour lines should be the skeleton of the shading. If this plan be adopted the publication cannot be for some years; but the shading will have the accuracy of machine-work instead of mere hand skill. Contours are lines representing series of levels through a country, and are inestimable for draining, road-making, and military movements. But though easily explained to the eye, we doubt our ability to teach their meaning by words only.

To return to the townland or six-inch survey. The names were corrected by Messrs. Petrie, O'Donovan, and Curry, from every source accessible in _Ireland_. Its maps contain the county, barony, parish, townland, and glebe boundaries, names and acreage; names and representations of all cities, towns, demesnes, farms, ruins, collieries, forges, limekilns, tanneries, bleach-greens, wells, etc., etc.; also of all roads, rivers, canals, bridges, locks, weirs, bogs, ruins, churches, chapels; they have also the number of feet of every little swell of land, and a mark for every cabin.

Of course these maps run to an immense number. Thus, for the county of Galway there are 137 double folio sheets, and for the small county of Dublin, 28. Where less than half the sheet is covered with engraving (as occurs towards the edges of a county) the sheet is sold, uncoloured, for 2_s._ 6_d._; where more than half is covered the price is 5_s._

In order to enable you to find any sheet so as to know the bearings of its ground on any other, there is printed for each county an index map, representing the whole county on one sheet. This sheet is on a small scale (from one to three miles to an inch), but contains in smaller type the baronies and parishes, roads, rivers, demesnes, and most of the information of general interest. This index map is divided by lines into as many oblong spaces as there are maps of the six-inch scale, and the spaces are numbered to correspond with the six-inch map. On the sides of the index maps are tables of the acreage of the baronies and parishes; and examples of the sort of marks and type used for each class of subjects in the _six-inch_ maps. Uncoloured, the index map, representing a whole county, is sold for 2_s._ 6_d._

Whenever those maps are re-engraved, the Irish words will, we trust, be spelled in an Irish and civilised orthography, and not barbarously, as at present.

It was proposed to print for each county one or more volumes, containing the history of the district and its antiquities, the numbers, and past and present state and occupations of the people, the state of its agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, and what means of extending these existed in the county, and its natural history, including geology, zoology, etc. All this was done for the town of Derry, much to the service and satisfaction of its people. All this ought to be _as fully_ done for Armagh, Dublin, Cork, and every other part of Ireland.

The commissioners recommend that the geology of Ireland (and we would add natural history generally) should be investigated and published, not by the topographical surveyors nor in counties, but by a special board, and for the whole of Ireland; and they are right, for our plants, rocks, and animals are not within civil or even obvious topographical boundaries, and we have plenty of Irishmen qualified to execute it. They also advise that the statistics should be entrusted to a statistical staff, to be permanently kept up in Ireland. This staff would take the census every ten years, and would in the intervals between the beginning and ending of each census have plenty of statistical business to do for parliament (Irish or Imperial) and for public departments. If we are ever to have a registry of births, deaths (with the circumstances of each case), and marriages, some such staff will be essential to inspect the registry, and work up information from it. But the history, antiquities, and industrial resources, the commissioners recommend to have published in county volumes. They are too solicitous about keeping such volumes to small dimensions; but the rest of their plans are admirable.

The value of this to Ireland, whether she be a nation or a province, cannot be overrated. From the farmer and mechanic to the philosopher, general, and statesman, the benefit will extend, and yet so careless or so hostile are ministers that they have not conceded it, and so feeble by dulness or disunion are Irishmen and Irish members, that they cannot extort even this.

We now come to the last branch of the subject--

THE VALUATION.

The Committee of 1824 recommended only principles of Valuation. They were three, viz.:--

"Sec. 1. A fixed and uniform principle of valuation applicable
throughout the whole work, and enabling the valuation not only of
townlands, but that of counties to be compared by one common
measure. Sec. 2. A central authority, under the appointment of
government, for direction and superintendence, and for the
generalisation of the returns made in detail. Sec. 3. Local
assistance, regularly organised, furnishing information on the
spot, and forming a check for the protection of private rights."

Accordingly, on the 5th of July, 1825, an Act was passed requiring, in the first instance, the entry in all the grand jury records of the names and contents of all parishes, manors, townlands, and other divisions, and the proportionate assessments. It then went on to authorise the Lord Lieutenant to appoint surveyors to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund. These surveyors were empowered to require the attendance of cess collectors and other inhabitants, and with their help to examine, and ascertain, and mark the "reputed boundaries of all and every or any barony, half barony, townland parish, or other division or denomination of land," howsoever called. The Act also inflicted penalties on persons removing or injuring any post, stone, or other mark made by the surveyors; but we believe there has been no occasion to enforce these clauses, the good sense and good feeling of the people being ample securities against such wanton crime. Such survey was not to affect the rights of owners; yet from it lay an appeal to the Quarter Sessions.

This, as we see, relates to _civil boundaries_, not _valuations_.