A gradation of landlords on one estate has the same effect, by rendering one tenant liable to the claims of more than one landlord.
The levying of fines on a whole district for an illegal practice going on in one part of it, has the same effect, by rendering the honest man liable for the malpractices of the knave.
The imposition of a church establishment on those who already support another church, intercepts the due reward of labour, by taking from the labourer a portion of his earnings for an object from which he derives no benefit.
The practice of letting land to the highest bidder, without regard to former service or to the merits of the applicants, intercepts the due reward of the labourer, by decreeing his gains to expire with his lease.
All these practices having prevailed in Ireland, her subsistence-fund is proportionably impaired, though the reduction is somewhat more than compensated by the natural growth of capital.
While capital has been growing much more slowly than it ought, population has been increasing much more rapidly than the circumstances of the country have warranted: the consequences of which are, extensive and appalling indigence, and a wide spread of the moral evils which attend it.
An immediate palliation of this indigence would be the result of introducing a legal pauper-system into Ireland; but it would be at the expense of an incalculable permanent increase of the evil.
To levy a poor-rate on the country at large would be impolitic, since it would only increase the primary grievance of an insufficiency of capital, by causing a further unproductive consumption of it.
To throw the burden of a pauper system on absentees would be especially unjust, since they bear precisely the same relation to the wealth of their country as its resident capitalists.
In the case of Ireland, as in all analogous cases, permanent relief can be effected only by adjusting the proportions of capital and population: and this must be attempted by means suited to her peculiar circumstances.