Many of those objects which all persons who have long looked for as the real improvements in Ireland are obtained.

The race of middle-men is diminishing*.

The consolidation of farms is rapidly taking placet.

There has been a considerable diminution of rents, approximating more to the proportion between the English landlord and tenant.

The probable consequence of that reduction will be, to induce the owners of land to residence; and ideas acquired in England or abroad, will be more liberal as to the treatment of their inferiors, than those of the home-bred Irishman.

The increase of Irish capital is proved by the establishment of rival Banks, which offer discounts at as low a rate as those in England; by the transfer of a large amount of Stock to the Dividend-office in the Bank of Ireland for capitalists resident there; and the success of Savings Banks, implying an accumulation in the hands of the industrious poor §.

The effects of this increasing capital are visible even to a stranger who sees Ireland for the first time. He can compare the numerous new decent stone and slated houses in the country, and the recent handsome houses built or building in the cities and towns, with the decaying mud-built and

sod-roofed cabins, and tottering fabrics of more ancient date.

Mines, in the hands of private adventurers, and many of those Irishmen, are becoming profitable speculations.

Previous to the Union, Ireland had received various parliamentary grants, which had enabled her to improve her harbours and rivers, and dig canals. The peculiar form of the kingdom, indented with bays and inlets of the sea, with navigable rivers, penetrating from their outfalls into the heart of the island, will perhaps prevent the latter from becoming directly profitable speculations; because coal, although it abounds, can never form the great article of commerce on them, as the larger cities and towns will always be supplied more cheaply from England. But, as means of facilitating internal communication, and equalizing the price of the most important articles of life, especially grain and fuel, they cannot be too much encouraged even by parliamentary grants and expenditure of the public money. Much in this way has been done for Scotland, and something remains to be done for Ireland. Such grants are in the nature of relief from the rich to the poor, from the capital of England to excite and assist the physical capabilities of her less opulent neighbours; and to such grants reasonably expended there will never be objections.

But there are more important benefits of a moral nature which, since the Union, Ireland has received from the Imperial Legislature :

The Tithe Commutation Act*; the Petty Sessions Acts ; the Constabulary Force Act; -the legal confirmation, extension, and in some cases the perfection of the various systematic establishments for relieving the necessities and ameliorating the condition of the poor and the sick, which have been detailed in the course of these observations; the Acts which made so important a change in the Distillery Laws §, and those which abolished the protecting duties and made the intercourse between the two islands a mere coasting trade ||.

The inventive powers of man have done more than any efforts of legislation. Steam-boats seem to have been projected for the mutual intercourse and reciprocal advantage of the two countries. Their physical effects are obvious to the slightest observer. It is to be hoped that their moral effects will not be less gratifying. But, above all improvements, that the character of the Irish population is raised, it is impossible to doubt.The proof is found in their sense of the political degradation under which they laboured, their anxiety to remove it, and their systematic co-operation towards the attainment of that removal.

* 3 Geo. IV. cap. 125.

+ 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 67; 10 Geo. IV. c. 33.

± 3 Geo. IV. c. 103; 9 Geo. IV. c. 63.

§ 4 Geo. IV. cap. 94. || 4 Geo. IV. cap. 72.

If, before that great and healing measure was carried, one of their political opponents, but a native of, and well-wisher to Ireland, could describe the Catholic population as "attached to the English laws, and desirous to maintain the political connection of the British empire *," we cannot doubt that, in the words of one of the most strenuous supporters of it, "the granting that measure will prepare the minds of the Irish people to become more tranquil; will have a tendency to produce a moral reformation in the country, from their confidence that it is to England that they are to look for relief; and that every reflecting man in that country considers its destinies bound up with those of England †."

Vertuntur species animorum et pectora motus
Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat,
Concipiunt‡.

Men's minds are changed, and better thoughts arise
Than those which filled the breast, when clouds obscured the
skies.

May these anticipations be prophetic, and the hopes and expectations of wise and good men prove realities !

* Speech of Mr. Leslie Foster, 1817.

† Dr. Doyle's Evidence.

‡ Virgil, Georg. I.

F

APPENDIX.

A.

A COMPARATIVE STATEMENT

Of the Sums raised by Poor Rates in the Parish of Speen, Berks, for ten years previous, and ten years subsequent, to the establishment of the Select Vestry, under the provisions of the 59 Geo. III. c. 12, for the years ending 25th March respectively.

Average annual difference £808 3s. in favour of last ten

years, with an increased population of nearly one thousand souls, and increased County Rates.