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the non-repeal of the Catholic disabilities prevented the beneficial effects of the most salutary laws made for Ireland, the visit he made to that country in the last summer convinced him: there is the strongest evidence that the repeal has removed one great impediment to the discussion of the subject of the Poor Laws, because the con.inuance or removal of those disabilities had always to be argued before it could be fairly entered into; and during the continuance of it, any measures which might be adopted would not have fair play, because their success or failure would be attributed by the contending parties respectively to the continuance of those disabilities. That question is now at rest; and that, to the discussion of the one now pending, the English and Irish of all persuasions may come with mutual feelings of interest in their common and united country, is the sincere wish of the writer of this Essay.

But intimately mixed with the discussion of it, are two other important questions. First. Whether the poor have a right to relief.

Secondly. Whether the Poor Laws of England do not tend to encourage an excessive population.

To the solution of the first of these questions the present Essay is principally devoted. The attention of the writer of it was called to the general subject in early life, by circumstances certainly not of a nature to induce him to think favourably of a system, which, in its consequences, materially affected his interests and property*.

Previous to the examination of the question, the bias of his mind was unfavourable to the principle which he has undertaken to defend. The conclusions therefore, which he has drawn from the facts collected, and the observations made, if wrong, are the result of error and not of prejudice. Those facts were collected, and those observations made, in frequent journeys in England, and repeated tours to the Continent. Personal interest might perhaps have first influenced him; but that cause having ceased, he hopes the hours he devotes now to the Poor Laws theoretically and practically, are employed from a better motive.

* See Durnford and East's Term Reports, vol. iv. p. 543.

As the second previous question has been very generally assumed as a fact, and particularly by some landholders in Ireland, with whom the writer has conversed, from the high opinion entertained of the deserved merit of Mr. Malthus's book, in which it was first strongly asserted that the Poor Laws tended to encourage an excessive population; in addition to the observations in p. 60 of the present Essay, which comprehend the remarks of Mr. Rickman on the last population returns, the writer calls attention to the following extracts from Mr. Malthus's own works.

After proposing the abolition of the Poor Laws, he adds:

"The abolition of them is not of itself sufficient; and the obvious answer to those who lay so much stress upon this system, is to desire them to look at the state of the poor in some other countries where such laws do not prevail, and to compare it with their condition in England." But after having made this challenge as to the comparative state (p. 190) of the poor in England and in other countries, he immediately retracts it: "But this comparison, it must be acknowledged, is in

many respects unfair, and would by no means decide the question of the utility or inutility of such a system."

The writer of the present Essay, who has tried to bring the question exactly to this issue, by making this comparison, is of opinion that all facts are decidedly against this theory. Mr. Malthus is of the same opinion; for he gives as a reason, why the facts differ from his theory, Because they "are generated by the constitution of the English government, and the excellence of its laws, which secure to every individual the produce of his industry."

In what respect have the constitution of the Irish Government and the excellence of its laws differed, ever since the abolition of Poyning's Law, from that of England, as to the security of every individual with respect to the produce of his industry, except in having no Poor Laws? And will not the Irish consider the manner in which Mr. Malthus gets rid of these stubborn facts as something worse than illogical and unphilosophical? "If, as in Ireland," says he, "the people are in so degraded a state as to propagate their species

without regard to consequences, it matters little whether they have Poor Laws or not*."

But Ireland, with every advantage of the English constitution and laws, is exactly in that beau-ideal state which Mr. Malthus contemplates in England, if his system of abolishing the Poor Laws should be adopted: "A system which, if pursued, we need be under no apprehension that the number of persons in extreme want would be beyond the power and will of the benevolent to sup-. ply." Is this the state of Ireland now? Was it the state of Ireland in 1822-23?

"In France," says he, "the Committee de Mendicité, at the beginning of the Revolution, very properly and judiciously rejected the establishment of a system of Poor Laws." The judgement and propriety, and the consequences of them, have been very fully entered into in pages 84, 85, of this Essay, from the facts stated by the most recent French writers: and the latest accounts from thence inform us, that there are five millions of paupers out of a population of thirtytwo millions; 130,000 thieves or depredators; * Page 196. + Page 182. ↑ Page 194.

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