After this, urgent representations of distress were made in each year to the Irish Government and to the Poor Law Commissioners, until the summer of 1842, which was more than usually wet and unfavourable to vegetation, and it therefore again became necessary to have recourse to extensive measures of relief. On this occasion 3,448ℓ. was distributed in aid of local subscriptions, in 121 separate districts; the aggregate sums raised in each case being expended, partly in public works on Captain Chads’ plan, and partly in giving gratuitous relief[9].

Besides the grants above enumerated, made for the immediate relief of the Irish poor, when failures of the potato crop caused unusual distress, large sums of money have been advanced or granted from the Imperial Treasury from time to time since the Union, for various purposes supposed to be conducive to the tranquillity and improvement of the country, and to the removal of the causes of permanent distress, as will be seen from the following specimens taken principally from a return to an order of the House of Commons of the 12th February, 1847, made on the motion of Mr. John O’Connell[10].

Works for Special Purposes under the Act 57 Geo. III., cap. 34496,000
Do. for the Employment and Relief of the Poor, under the 1 & 2 Wm. IV., cap. 33, and previous Acts1,339,146
Grants in aid of Public Works under various Acts of Parliament125,000
Advanced by the London Loan Commissioners for sundry Works between 1826 and 1833322,500
Do. do. for Poor Law Union Workhouses1,145,800
Kingstown Harbour1,124,586
Improvement of the River Shannon533,359
Wide Street Commissioners, Dublin267,778
Improving Post Roads515,541
Gaols and Bridewells713,005
Asylums for Lunatic Poor710,850
Valuation of Lands and Tenements172,774
Royal Dublin Society285,438
Farming Society, Dublin87,132
Linen Board, Dublin537,656
Tithe (Relief of Clergy who did not receive Tithes of 1831)50,916
Tithe Relief (Million Act)918,863
Tithe Relief Commissioners (establishing Composition for Tithes)279,217
Relief of Trade178,070
Boards and Officers of Health (Cholera)196,575
Police Purposes (Proclaimed Districts)4,693,871
Police Purposes (Constabulary Police)1,748,712

Other causes concurred with the natural tendency of every people to have recourse to the cheapest description of food, in encouraging the growth of a large population depending for its subsistence on the potato. Ireland was essentially a grazing country until the artificial enhancement of prices caused by the Acts of the Irish Parliament passed in 1783 and 1784, for granting a bounty on the exportation, and restricting the importation of corn, occasioned an immediate and extraordinary increase of cultivation; and as, owing to the general want of capital, it was impossible to find tenants for large tillage farms, the stimulus intended to act exclusively on agriculture, had a still more powerful effect in causing the subdivision of farms. The new occupiers also, being, for the most part, exceedingly poor, instead of paying their labourers in money, allowed them the use of small pieces of ground whereon they might erect cabins and raise potatoes, and their labour was set off, at so much a-day, against the annual rent. The plan of dividing and subdividing for the purpose of making freeholders, was carried to a great extent after 1792, when the elective franchise was restored to the Roman Catholics; and although the practice was far from being general, yet in some parts of the country, where particular families made it their object to contest or secure the county, it was carried to a very pernicious extent. Another powerful cause is that the emoluments of the Roman Catholic priesthood, including the bishops, depend not only on the extent of the population, but also on its continual increase; and if the parish priests object to emigration and the consolidation of small holdings, and look with favour on early marriages, it is only what any other body of men, in their circumstances, would equally do. Lastly, the small holding and potato system offered the inducement of large rents, obtained at the smallest possible amount of cost and trouble. The embarrassed and improvident landlord, and the leaseholder whose only object it was to make the most of his short tenure, equally found their account in this state of things, and the result in both cases was, that the farms were covered with hovels and miserable cottiers, in order, through them, to create profit-rents. When the failure of the potato forced all the “squatters” and “mock tenants” into notice, the owner of many a neglected estate was surprised by the apparition of hundreds of miserable beings, who had grown up on his property without his knowledge, and now claimed the means of support at his hands. The subsistence of the tenant was at the minimum; the rent was at the maximum; and the interval between the ignorant excitable peasantry and the proprietor in chief, was filled only by the middleman, whose business it was to exact rents and not to employ labourers. The base and the capital of the column were there, but the shaft was almost entirely wanting.

The extent to which the welfare of the agricultural population, and through them of the rest of the community, is affected by the conditions upon which landed property is held, has become fearfully apparent during the present social crisis. The dependence for good and evil of workman on master manufacturer, of subject on Government, of child on father, is less absolute than that of the Irish peasant upon the lord of the soil from which he derives his subsistence. This is a subject to which, if we would save ourselves and our country, it behoves us to give our most earnest and careful attention at the present time. We cannot give landed proprietors the will and disposition (where it is wanting) to fulfil the important part they have to perform in the scheme of society, but we have it in our power to strike off the fetters which at present impede every step of their progress in the performance of the duty they owe to themselves and to those dependent on them.

One half of the surface of Ireland is said to be let off in perpetuity leases, with derivative and subderivative interests in an endless chain, so as to obtain profit-rents at each stage; and these leases are often open to the additional objection that they are unnecessarily burthensome or uncertain from the particular mode in which they are made; such as “leases for lives renewable for ever by the insertion of other lives when the first-named are dead,” “for three lives or thirty-one years,” and “for three lives and thirty-one years.” Many proposals have at different times been made for the redemption of these various interests; but an arbitrary interference with the rights of property is to be avoided, and our object should rather be to give every prudent facility for the voluntary transfer of land and of the various interests connected with it, which must lead, by a safe but certain gradation, to that degree of improvement of the existing tenures which is necessary for the encouragement of agriculture. In the flourishing islands of Guernsey and Jersey, corn-rents of fixed amount are charged upon the same farm one after another, like the coats of an onion; but the lowest holder, who is the party really interested in the improvement of the property, has every requisite security that he will enjoy the whole profit of any outlay he may make, and the most essential part of the benefit of ownership is thus obtained. In Mayo and other western counties the old barbarous Irish tenure called Rundale (Scotch runrigg), still prevails, which stops short of the institution of individual property, and by making the industrious and thriving responsible for the short-comings of the idle and improvident, effectually destroys the spring of all improvement. The cessation of this antiquated system is an indispensable preliminary to any progress being made in the localities where it exists; but this improvement may be effected by the landlords without any change in the law.

The master evil of the agricultural system of Ireland, however, is the law of Entail, and the Incumbrances which seldom fail to accumulate upon entailed estates. “Proprietors of estates,” observes the author of an excellent pamphlet which has recently appeared on this subject[11], “are too often but mere nominal owners, without influence or power over the persons holding under them. Their real condition is often pitiable, nor is it possible, in the great majority of cases, to retrieve the estates. The burthen of debt, or the evils of improvident leases, are fastened upon the land in such a manner as to convert the owner into a mere annuitant, often glad to obtain from a good estate a scanty annuity (after payment of the incumbrances thereon and the public burthens) for his own subsistence. Proprietor and tenant are equally powerless for good; and the whole kingdom suffers from the disorders which have resulted from this state of real property in Ireland.” And the author of another valuable publication on the same subject[12] observes as follows: “The evils resulting from settlements and entails may be regarded as arising from insecurity or uncertainty of tenure; because the possessor of the property is not in reality the owner; he cannot deal with it as an owner; he is merely a trustee for others; he has no interest in its future thorough permanent improvement, except so far as he may wish to benefit his successors; he can never reap the benefit himself; he cannot sell; he cannot dispose of a part, even though the alienation of a part might greatly enhance the value of the remainder; he holds it during his lifetime, as his predecessor held it, unaltered, unimproved, to transmit it to his heir clogged with the same restrictions alike injurious to him and to his country. This is the case of an unembarrassed landlord[13]. But let us suppose, as is unfortunately too often the case, that he has received the estate incumbered under a settlement, with a jointure to the widow of the late possessor, and a provision for daughters and younger sons. In what difficulties is he at once involved! this owner for life of a large tract of country with a long rent-roll, but in fact a small property! He cannot maintain his position in society without spending more than his income; debts accumulate; he mortgages his estate, and insures his life for the security of the mortgagee. Of course he cannot afford to lay out anything on improvements; on the contrary, though perhaps naturally kind-hearted and just, his necessities force him to resort to every means of increasing his present rental. He looks for the utmost amount; he lets to the highest bidder, without regard to character or means of payment. If his tenants are without leases, he raises their rents. If leases fall in, he cannot afford to give the preference to the last occupier. Perhaps, with all his exertions, he is unable to pay the interest or put off his creditors. Proceedings are commenced against him, and the estate passes during his lifetime under the care of the worst possible landlord, a Receiver under the Court of Chancery[14].”

The remedy for this state of things is simply the sale of the encumbered estate, or of a sufficient portion of it to enable the owner to discharge his encumbrances and to place him in a position to do his duty towards the remainder. This is the master-key to unlock the field of industry in Ireland. The seller, in all such cases, is incapable of making a proper use of the land. The purchaser, on the other hand, may safely be assumed to be an improver. It is a natural feeling in which almost all men indulge, and purchases of land are seldom made without a distinct view to further profitable investments in improvements. “To give every prudent facility for the transfer by sale of real property from man to man, by the adoption of a simple, cheap, and secure system of transfer, in lieu of the present barbarous, unsafe, and expensive system, so that real property could be bought and sold in Ireland with as much freedom and security as other property[15],” is, therefore, the object at which we ought to aim, and especially to encourage the investment of small capitals in the land, it being through the instrumentality of small capitalists chiefly that the country can be civilized and improved. “The purchasers would give extensive and permanent employment to numbers of people around them in carrying out that natural desire of man, the improvement of newly-acquired landed property; they would promote industry everywhere; they would greatly increase the value of land generally. By their number, all property in land would be rendered secure against revolutionary violence. The habits and example of men who had made money by industry, and who might invest their savings in land, would place the social system of Ireland on a solid basis. The best of the Protestants and Roman Catholics, those who had been careful and industrious, would be purchasers of land, and all would have a common interest in peace and order. That surplus population beyond the means of present employment, which now oppresses and embarrasses the country, might gradually be absorbed, and become a source of wealth and strength. Towns would everywhere improve, and new ones might arise by the extension of the railway system, spreading industry and civilization among men now sunk in indolence and almost barbarism[16].”

All the parties concerned in these transfers would be benefited by them. Lands are comparatively valueless to those who have no capital to improve them, and they are often justly felt to be a burthen and a disgrace, because they entail duties which the nominal owners have no means of performing. The effect on the character and prospects of the whole body of landed proprietors would be as described in the following passage from the author to whom we are already so much indebted: “When men, however young, act under responsibility, they usually proceed with caution; if others will think and act for them, and provide for their wants, and secure them from poverty and danger, their own prudential faculties may become dormant; and a man or any class of men so protected, are likely to exhibit deficiency in the qualities of prudence and good management of their affairs. But owners of land would not evince any such deficiency, if once they felt that they would be ruined, and their families also, if they were not governed by the same rules of prudence which other men must observe, and which necessarily enter into the proper management of all other descriptions of property. The present difficulties of sale of land, and the consequent protection afforded to entailed properties, are the chief reasons why so many persons of the class of proprietors are in difficulties. With more liberty, there would be more prudence and more attention to estates on the part of owners, from which they and the country would be great gainers[17].”

The manner in which the interests of the public at large are affected, is correctly described in the following passage from the other pamphlet: “If these premises be correct; if employment with regular wages must be found for the peasantry: if capital be necessary, and the parties holding the land do not possess sufficient for this purpose; it follows, either that Government must continue to supply the capital required, not merely by a loan on an emergency, but as part of its regular system of action; or else that the land must pass into the hands of those who do possess the means of employing the people—of men who will carry on agriculture as a business, and will bring to their occupation the capital, the habits of business, and the energy and intelligence which have raised the commerce and manufactures of this nation to their present pre-eminence[18].”