more satisfactory. These we shall lay before our readers; and we recommend them to the attention of the Committee.

"I shall advert next to the plan of a limitation upon the amount of rates to be assessed in future. This limitation, as it is a pledge of some protection to the property now subjected to the maintenance of the poor against the indefinite encroachment which otherwise threatens it, is, in that light, certainly a benefit; and supposing it were rigorously adhered to, the very knowledge, among the parish expectants, that there was some limit to their range of expectation, some barrier which they could not pass, might incline them to turn their thoughts homeward again to the care of themselves. But it is an expedient, at the best, far from being satisfactory. In the first place, there is much reason to fear that such a limitation would not eventually be maintained, after the example of a similar one having failed before, and considering that the urgency of the applicants, as long as they retain the principle of dependence upon the parish unqualified in any one of its main articles, would probably overbear a mere barrier of figures in the parish account. Then there would be much real difficulty in the proceedings, to be governed by such a limiting rule. For the use of the limitation would be chiefly, or solely, in cases where there is some struggle between the ordinary supplies of the parish rates and the exigencies of the poor, or a kind of run and pressure upon the parish by a mass of indigence: and in circumstances of this kind it would be hard to know how to distribute the supplies under a fair proportion to the applicants, known or expected; hard to know how much might be granted for the present, and how much should be kept in reserve for the remainder of the year's service. The real intricacy in such a distribution of account would show itself in disproportions and inequalities of allowance, impossible to be avoided; and the applicants would have one pretext more for discontent.

"The limitation itself in many places would be only in words and figures. It would be set, I presume, by an average of certain preceding years. But the average taken upon the preceding years might be a sum exceeding in its real value the highest amount of the assessments of any of the averaged years, under the great change which has taken place in the value of money itself. A given rate, or assessment nominally the same, or lower, might in this way be a greater real money value than it

was some time before. In many of the most distressed districts, where the parochial rates have nearly equalled the rents, a nominal average would therefore be no effectual benefit; and yet it is in those districts that the alleviation of the burthen is the most wanted.

"It is manifest, also, that a peremptory restriction of the whole amount of money applicable to the parochial service, though abundantly justified in many districts by their particular condition being so impoverished as to make the measure, for them, almost a measure of necessity, if nothing can be substituted for it; and where the same extreme necessity does not exist, still justified by the prudence of preventing in some way the interminable increase of the parochial burthens; still, that such a restriction is an ill-adjusted measure in itself, and would in many instances operate very inequitably. It would fall unfairly in some parishes, where the relative state of the poor and the parish might render an increase of the relief as just and reasonable as it is possible for any thing to be under the Poor-Laws at all. It would deny to many possible fair claimants the whole, or a part, of that degree of relief commonly granted elsewhere to persons in their condition, on this or that account of claim. Leaving the reason of the present demands wholly unimpeached, and unexplained; directing no distinct warning or remonstrance to the parties in the line of their affairs, by putting a check to their expectations upon positive matters implicated in their conduct; which would be speaking to them in a definite sense, and a sense applicable to all: this plan of limitation would nurture the whole mass of the claim in its origin, and deny the allowance of it to thousands, on account of reasons properly affecting a distant quarter, of which they know nothing. The want of a clear method, and of a good principle at the bottom of it, in this direct compulsory restriction, renders it, I think, wholly unacceptable, unless it be the only possible plan that can be devised for accomplishing the same end. If a parish had to keep its account with a single dependant, the plan would be much more useful in that case. For the ascertained fact of the total amount of his expectations might set his mind at rest, and put him on a decided course of providing for himself. But, in the limitation proposed to be made, the ascertained fact is of a general amount only, not of each man's share in it. Consequently, each man has his indefinite expectations left to him, and every separate specific ground of expectation remaining as before."

Mr. Davison talks of the propriety | &c. &c. This is viewing human life of refusing to find labour for able through a Claude Lorraine glass, and labourers after the lapse of ten years; decorating it with colours which do not as if it was some ordinary bill he belong to it. A ploughman marries a was proposing, unaccompanied by the ploughwoman because she is plump; slightest risk. It is very easy to make generally uses her ill; thinks his chilsuch laws, and to propose them; but dren an incumbrance; very often flogs it would be of immense difficulty to them; and, for sentiment, has nothing carry them into execution. Done it more nearly approaching to it than the must be, every body knows that; but ideas of broiled bacon and mashed the real merit will consist in discover-potatoes. This is the state of the lower ing the gradual and gentle means by orders of mankind - deplorable, but which the difficulties of getting parish true- and yet rendered much worse labour may be increased, and the life by the Poor-Laws. of a parish pauper be rendered a life of salutary and deterring hardship. A law that rendered such request for labour perfectly lawful for ten years longer, and then suddenly abolished it, would merely bespeak a certain, general, and violent insurrection for the year 1830. The legislator, thank God, is in his nature a more cunning and gradual animal.

Before we drop Mr. Davison, who writes like a very sensible man, we wish to say a few words about his style. If he would think less about it, he would write much better. It is always as plethoric and full-dressed as if he were writing a treatise de finibus bonorum et malorum. He is sometimes obscure; and is occasionally apt to dress up common-sized thoughts in big clothes, and to dwell a little too long in proving what every man of sense knows and admits. We hope we shall not offend Mr. Davison by these remarks; and we have really no intention of doing so. His views upon the Poor-Laws are, generally speaking, very correct and philosophical; he writes like a gentleman, a scholar, and a man capable of eloquence; and we hope he will be a bishop. If his mitred productions are as enlightened and liberal as this, we are sure he will confer as much honour on the Bench as he receives from it. There is a good deal, however, in Mr. Davison's book about the "virtuous marriages of the poor." To have really the charge of a family as a husband and a father, we are told, - -to have the privilege of laying out his life in their service, is the poor man's boast,-"his home is the school of his sentiments,"

The system of roundsmen is much complained of; as well as that by which the labour of paupers is paid, partly by the rate, partly by the master

and a long string of Sussex Justices send up a petition on the subject. But the evil we are suffering under is an excess of population. There are ten men applying for work, when five only are wanted; of course, such a redundance of labouring persons must depress the rate of their labour far beyond what is sufficient for the support of their families. And how is that deficiency to be made up but from the parish rates, unless it is meant suddenly and immediately to abolish the whole system of the Poor-Laws? To state that the rate of labour is lower than a man can live by, is merely to state that we have had, and have Poor-Laws of which this practice is at length the inevitable consequence; and nothing could be more absurd than to attempt to prevent, by Acts of Parliament, the natural depreciation of an article which exists in much greater abundance than it is wanted. Nor can any thing be more unjust than the complaint, that roundsmen are paid by their employers at an inferior rate, and that the difference is made up by the parish funds. A roundsman is commonly an inferior description of labourer who cannot get regularly hired; he comes upon his parish for labour commonly at those seasons when there is the least to do ;he is not a servant of the farmer's choice, and probably does not suit him; —he goes off to any other labour at a moment's warning, when he finds it more profitable ;-and the farmer is forced

to keep nearly the same number of more any where else? If not, this is labourers as if there were no rounds-the market price of his labour; and men at all. Is it just, then, that a what right has he to complain? or how labourer, combining every species of can he say he is defrauded? A comimperfection, should receive the same bination among farmers to lower the wages as a chosen, regular, stationary price of labour would be impossible, if person, who is always ready at hand, labour did not exist in much greater and whom the farmer has selected for quantities than was wanted. All such his dexterity and character? things, whether labour, or worsted Those persons who do not, and can-stockings, or broad cloth, are, of course, not employ labourers, have no kind of right to complain of the third or fourth part of the wages being paid by the rates; for if the farmers did not agree among themselves to take such occasional labourers, the whole of their support must be paid by the rates, instead of one-third. The order is, that the pauper shall be paid such a sum as will support himself and family; and if this agreement to take rounds men was not entered into by the farmers, they must be paid, by the rates, the whole of the amount of the order, for doing nothing. If a circulating labourer, therefore, with three children, to whom the Justices would order 12s. per week, receives 8s. from his employer, and 4s. from the rates, the parish is not burthened by this system to the amount of 4s., but relieved to the amount of 8s. A parish manufacture, conducted by overseers, is infinitely more burthensome to the rates than any system of roundsmen. There are undoubtedly a few instances to the contrary. Zeal and talents will cure the original defects of any system; but to suppose that average men can do what extraordinary men have done, is the cause of many silly projects and extravagant blunders. Mr. Owen may give his whole heart and soul to the improvement of one of his parochial parallelograms; but who is to succeed to Mr. Owen's enthusiasm ? Before we have quite done with the subject of roundsmen, we cannot help noticing a strange assertion of Mr. Nicol, that the low rate of wages paid by the master is an injustice to the pauper- that he is cheated, forsooth, out of 8s. or 10s. per week by this arrangement. Nothing, however, can possibly be more absurd than such an allegation. The whole country is open to him. Can he gain

always regulated by the proportion between the supply and demand. Mr. Nicol cites an instance of a parish in Suffolk, where the labourer receives sixpence from the farmers, and the rest is made up by the rates; and for this he reprobates the conduct of the farmers. But why are they not to take labour as cheap as they can get it? Why are they not to avail themselves of the market price of this, as of any other commodity? The rates are a separate consideration : let them supply what is wanting; but the farmer is right to get his iron, his wood, and his labour, as cheap as he can. It would, we admit, come nearly to the same thing, if 100l. were paid in wages rather than 25l. in wages, and 751. by rate; but then, if the farmers were to agree to give wages above the market price, and sufficient for the support of the labourers without any rate, such an agreement could never be adhered to. The base and the crafty would make their labourers take less, and fling heavier rates upon those who adhered to the contract; whereas the agreement, founded upon giving as little as can be given, is pretty sure of being adhered to; and he who breaks it, lessens the rate to his neighbour, and does not increase it. The problem to be solved is this: If you have ten or twenty labourers who say they can get no work, and you cannot dispute this, and the Poor-Laws remain, what better scheme can be devised, than that the farmers of the parish should employ them in their turns?-and what more absurd than to suppose that farmers so employing them should give one farthing more than the market price for their labour?

It is contended, that the statute of Elizabeth, rightly interpreted, only

compels the overseer to assist the sick | importance. Mr. Gamble's Travels in and old, and not to find labour for Ireland are of a very ordinary descripstrong and healthy men. This is true tion - low scenes and low humour enough; and it would have been emi-making up the principal part of the nently useful to have attended to it a narrative. There are readers, howcentury past but to find employment ever, whom it will amuse; and the for all who apply, is now, by long use, reading market becomes more and become a practical part of the Poor- more extensive, and embraces a greater Laws, and will require the same care variety of persons every day. Mr. and dexterity for its abolition as any Whitelaw's History of Dublin is a book other part of that pernicious system. of great accuracy and research, highly It would not be altogether prudent creditable to the industry, good sense, suddenly to tell a million of stout men, and benevolence of its author. Of the with spades and hoes in their hands, Travels of Mr. Christian Curwen, we that the 43rd of Elizabeth had been hardly know what to say. He is bold miscontrued, and that no more employ- and honest in his politics — a great ment would be found for them. It re-enemy to abuses-vapid in his levity quires twenty or thirty years to state such truths to such numbers.

and pleasantry, and infinitely too much inclined to declaim upon commonplace topics of morality and benevolence. But, with these drawbacks, the book is not ill written; and may be advantageously read by those who are desirous of information upon the present

We think, then, that the diminution of the claims of settlement, and of the authority of Justices, coupled with the other subordinate improvements we have stated, will be the best steps for beginning the abolition of the Poor-state of Ireland. Laws. When these have been taken, the description of persons entitled to relief may be narrowed by degrees. But let no man hope to get rid of these laws, even in the gentlest and wisest method, without a great deal of misery, and some risk of tumult. If Mr. Bourne thinks only of avoiding risk, he will do nothing. Some risk must be incurred; but the secret is gradation; and the true reason for abolishing these laws is, not that they make the rich poor, but that they make the poor poorer.*

IRELAND. (E. REVIEW, 1820.) 1. Whitelaw's History of the City of Dub

lin. 4to. Cadell and Davies.

2. Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to its Agriculture and Rural Population; in a series of Letters written on a Tour through that Country. In 2 vols. By J. C. Curwen, Esq. M.P, London. 1818.

3. Gamble's Views of Society in Ireland. THESE are all the late publications that treat of Irish interests in general -and none of them are of first-rate *The boldness of modern legislation has thrown all my caution into the background.

So great, and so long has been the misgovernment of that country, that we verily believe the empire would be much stronger, if every thing was open sea between England and the Atlantic, and if skates and codfish swam over the fair land of Ulster. Such jobbing, such profligacy—so much direct tyranny and oppression-such an abuse of God's gifts—such a profanation of God's name for the purposes of bigotry and party spirit, cannot be exceeded in the history of civilised Europe, and will long remain a monument of infamy and shame to England. But it will be more useful to suppress the indignation which the very name of Ireland inspires, and to consider impartially those causes which have marred this fair portion of the creation, and kept it wild and savage in the midst of improving Europe.

The great misfortune of Ireland is, that the mass of the people have been given up for a century to a handful of Protestants, by whom they have been treated as Helots, and subjected to every species of persecution and disWas it wise to encounter such a risk? Is the danger over? Can the vital parts of the Bill be maintained?

The greater part of these incapacities are removed, though many of a very serious and oppressive nature still remain. But the grand misfortune is, that the spirit which these oppressive

grace. The sufferings of the Catholics | brating marriages contrary to 12 Geo. have been so loudly chanted in the I. cap. 3., were to be hanged! very streets, that it is almost needless to remind our readers that, during the reigns of George I. and George II. the Irish Roman Catholics were disabled from holding any civil or military office, from voting at elections, from admis-Laws engendered remains. The Prosion into corporations, from practising testant still looks upon the Catholic as law or physic. A younger brother, by a degraded being. The Catholic does turning Protestant, might deprive his not yet consider himself upon an elder brother of his birth-right: by the equality with his former tyrant and same process, he might force his father, taskmaster. That religious hatred under the name of a liberal provision, which required all the prohibiting vito yield up to him a part of his landed gilance of the law for its restraint, has property; and, if an eldest son, he found in the law its strongest support; might, in the same way, reduce his and the spirit which the law first exasfather's fee-simple to a life estate. A perated and embittered, continues to Papist was disabled from purchasing act long after the original stimulus is freehold lands-and even from holding withdrawn. The law which prevented long leases and any person might Catholics from serving on Grand Juries take his Catholic neighbour's house by is repealed; but Catholics are not called paying 51. for it. If the child of a Ca- upon Grand Juries in the proportion tholic father turned Protestant, he was in which they are entitled, by their taken away from his father and put into rank and fortune. The Duke of Bedthe hands of a Protestant relation. No ford did all he could to give them the Papist could purchase a freehold, or benefit of those laws which are already lease for more than thirty years. - or passed in their favour. But power is inherit from an intestate Protestant seldom entrusted in this country to one nor from an intestate Catholic- nor of the Duke of Bedford's liberality; dwell in Limerick or Galway -nor and everything has fallen back in the hold an advowson, nor buy an annuity hands of his successors into the ancient for life. 50l. was given for discovering division of the privileged and degraded a popish Archbishop-30l. for a popish castes. We do not mean to cast any Clergyman- and 10s. for a School-reflection upon the present Secretary master. No one was allowed to be for Ireland, whom we believe to be trustee for Catholics; no Catholic was upon this subject a very liberal poliallowed to take more than two appren- tician, and on all subjects an honourtices; no Papist to be solicitor, sheriff, able and excellent man. The Governor to serve on Grand Juries. Horses ment under which he serves allows him of Papists might be seized for the to indulge in a little harmless liberality; militia; for which militia Papists were to but it is perfectly understood that nopay double, and to find Protestant sub- thing is intended to be done for the stitutes. Papists were prohibited from Catholics; that no loaves and fishes being present at vestries, or from being will be lost by indulgence in Protestant high or petty constables; and, when insolence and tyranny; and, therefore, resident in towns, they were compelled among the generality of Irish Proto find Protestant watchmen. Bar-testants, insolence, tyranny, and excluristers and solicitors, marrying Ca- sion continue to operate. However tholics, were exposed to the penalties eligible the Catholic may be, he is not of Catholics. Persons plundered by elected; whatever barriers may be privateers during a war with any thrown down, he does not advance a Popish prince, were reimbursed by a step. He was first kept out by law; levy on the Catholic inhabitants where he is now kept out by opinion and they lived. All popish priests cele- habit. They have been so long in X

VOL. I.