That the inhabitants of distant countries should believe what they hear so constantly asserted, cannot be a matter of much surprise; nor that the enemies of England and of order should credit what it suits their inclinations to believe; but that those who live close to the scene of such grievous inflictions—that those who are the fellow-subjects of the oppressed, and who may be said to be the instruments whereby those enormities are perpetrated—should take for granted all they hear stated, without endeavouring to discover the truth of those assertions or the extent of their own culpability, does seem to us almost incredible. Yet so it is. Irish grievances are now in fashion. The most glaring fabrications are swallowed with anxiety if they only profess to be recitals of Irish sufferings; and the British people seem ready to yield to the clamours of mendacious and designing demagogues, measures not only detrimental to the interests of the country for whose welfare they profess so much anxiety, but absolutely ruinous to the glory and the power of their own.
We will not stop here to discuss the benefits which we are told would accrue to the Irish nation from the success of a measure which never can be carried while Ireland holds loyal subjects, or Britain has an arm to wield; but we shall at once proceed to ascertain if those glaring injustices, which make us the world's table-talk, really exist, and if the admitted misery of the Irish people can, with truth, be attributed to the unjust or partial legislation of the British Parliament.
We do not seek to deny, that the interests of Ireland have not been neglected or unfairly dealt by, in former times. With that we have nothing now to do; we take the existing state of things, and we maintain, and will, we trust, convince our readers, that instead of being oppressed or wronged by legislative enactments, Ireland is (as matters are at present managed) greatly favoured, and that instead of complaining of injustice, her inhabitants should be most grateful for the exemptions which are granted them, and for the fostering care which a Conservative government has extended, and is still anxious to extend to them.
In supporting our view of the case, we shall appeal to facts—facts which, if untrue, can easily be refuted; and first, we shall apply ourselves to the amount of taxation imposed on Ireland by the Imperial Parliament. The Irish people are exempt from every species of direct taxation! and their indirect taxes are not more than those to which the inhabitants of England and Scotland are subject. Thus, while the English and Scotch gentleman is taxed for his servants, his carriages, his horses, his dogs, and his armorial bearings—and, in addition, pays, in common with the trading and operative classes, his window-tax—the Irish gentleman and tradesman are totally free from all such imposts. And though, at first sight, this exemption would seem to benefit only the wealthier classes, still when we find, as is certainly the case, that it enables the Irish gentry to keep much larger establishments than men of similar fortune could attempt to do in this country; that consequently more persons are employed as servants; that it enhances the value of horses by increasing the demand for them; that it also greatly adds to the number of carriages used, and, of course, to the employment of the artisan—we must admit that it has no slight influence on the condition both of the tradesman and the agriculturist.
Ireland pays no income-tax! (at least no Irishman need pay it if he choose to reside at home;) for the Minister and the Parliament, so hostile to Irish interests, have only subjected the absentees to its operation; and we find, that in the year ending the 10th October 1844—
| England and Scotland paid by assessed taxes, | £4,204,855 | |
| By income-tax, | 5,158,470 | |
| ————— | ||
| Total, | £9,363,325 |
While under those two heads, "injured, persecuted Ireland" paid not one shilling!
Thus we see, that a sum of over nine millions is annually levied from off the inhabitants of the "favoured" portions of the British empire, towards which "oppressed Ireland" is not called upon to contribute sixpence!
It may be said, those taxes only affect the wealthy, and it is not their grievances which call so loudly for redress; it is the burdens imposed on the poor landholders which demand our attention.
We have, in a former Number of this Magazine, see Vol. lv. p. 638, shown that the rents paid for land in Ireland are at least one-third less than the rents paid in England; (but were it even otherwise, the right to dispose of property to the best advantage could not be by law interfered with.) In that article we stated, that in addition to his rent, the English occupier is subject by law to the payment of tithes, which in many instances amount to more than the entire rent imposed on the Irish tenant; and that by recent enactments, the payment of the Protestant church has been transferred from the Irish tenantry to the landlords, nine-tenths of whom are Protestants; that the English tenant pays all the poor-rates, while the Irish tenant is only called on to pay the half; and that while the former is subject to county and parochial rates, in addition to turnpikes, which are a heavy burden, the latter pays only the county cess, the amount of which depends very much on his own conduct. We cannot, then, discover that the Irish peasantry are subject to any pecuniary grievances which legislation has inflicted, or could remove; neither can we perceive any neglect of their interests evinced by the British Minister or the Saxon Parliament; but, on the contrary, we see that they have been specially protected by particular enactments against the payment of charges to which the occupiers of the other portions of the United Kingdom are still subject. If the Irish farmers set their faces against the commission of crime, instead of tacitly, if not openly, affording protection to the greatest delinquents, it is clear that the amount of the county cess, the only tax the tenant pays, might be greatly diminished; the constabulary force might be, under more favourable circumstances, reduced from nine thousand men (its present strength) to half that number; and if the people abstained from houghing the cattle or burning the houses of those who are obnoxious to them, the county rates would not amount to more than one-third of the sum at present levied. Thus, then, the amount of the only direct tax the peasantry have to pay, is mainly dependent on the peaceable condition of the country: if the people be orderly and obedient to the laws, its amount is reduced; if otherwise, and they have heavy assessments to pay, to reimburse those they have injured, no one is to blame for it but themselves. We would, then, ask any candid man, if it would be possible for any government to act more leniently towards Ireland as regards taxation? She is exempt from her proportion of the nine millions levied from the other portions of the United Kingdom; and many of the local assessments to which her inhabitants are subject, were, by special enactments, removed from the shoulders of the occupiers of the soil, and placed on those of the proprietors.