method is adopted, and abler heads employed upon them. We believe that where the duty of overseer is entrusted to a permanent salaried officer, subject only to the superintendence of the vestry, the management is far better and generally more economical than where the rate-payers take the office in turn, and every case is brought before the vestry. But a salaried overseer can have little direct interest in the economy of the funds entrusted to him.' The real security for his faithful discharge of his duty is to be found in his fear of losing his office, and his interest in satisfying his employers. From these considerations, we are led to believe that it would be by no means difficult to devise means for ensuring, throughout very extensive settlement areas, the great requisites of economy in the administration of the rate, and strict superintendence of the paupers, perhaps even more efficiently than could be done within narrower limits.

The plan then we would propose is as follows. Let every county be made liable to maintain its settled poor,-settlement being gained solely by birth or three years residence. Let the rate for the relief and employment of the poor be levied as an assessment on the rent by the collector of county cess, half from the landowner, half from the occupier-taking as a basis the valuations under the tithe composition act. Let there be established, in every county town, two separate boards, one of works, the other of relief. It is of paramount importance that the two modes of rendering assistance to the poor, by setting to work the able-bodied, and giving food, medicine, or money, to the infirm, should be kept as distinct as possible, the example of England having shewn the danger and mischief of their being mixed up together. To these boards we would give entire and uncontrolled authority, in the levy, management, and distribution of the necessary funds for the relief and employment of the poor.

The members of both boards should be nominated annually by the Grand Jury Court, and limited in number, a certain proportion going out by rotation every year. They would consist of magistrates, landowners, clergy, and persons of active mind and habits, removed above the suspicion of jobs and partialities. But the more effectually to prevent the jobbing which has, it is known, flagrantly characterised the system of Grand Jury presentments, and to ensure the expenditure of the county money, on such works only as promise most for the benefit of the public, as well as their execution in the most judicious and scientific manner, the Boards of Works should, we consider, be placed under the direction and controul of a General Board of Commissioners, appointed by and communicating directly with government, and bound to lay annual reports of their proceedings before Parliament; having competent engineers

engineers attached to it, and powers for directing the execution, by the county boards, of canals, drainages, embankments, roads, railways, and other public works; and for borrowing money for these purposes on the credit of the county assessments. The functions of grand juries of this nature should thenceforward cease, and devolve wholly on the county board of works. The wages of labourers should be paid exclusively in money, and any neglect of their work made punishable with discharge or imprisonment, on complaint of their immediate superintendent before a magistrate.

Let every parish have a Committee of Relief, composed of the parochial clergy, and two or three other persons appointed by the rate-payers. Let the business of this committee be to recommend poor persons for relief, and to distribute it, but under the complete controul and superintendence of the central board, and the officers it may appoint for the purpose. With this view, let that board divide the county into districts, each to be under the management and superintendence of a salaried overseer, whose business it would be to visit at intervals the several parishes of his district, inspect the circumstances of the poor receiving relief, attend the meetings of the parochial committees, keep a strict watch over their expenditure of the poor fund, and direct and co-operate generally with them in the management of the paupers. By a careful and uniform arrangement of the books and accounts, every parish sending in a monthly report of its proceedings to the county board, the system might be methodized so as to work, we are confident, with infinitely greater ease, precision, regularity, and economy, than the cumbrous and bungling, because unorganized, anomalous, and vaguely discretionary practices of most English parishes. Both paupers and rate-payers should be allowed to appeal from the parochial committee or district overseer, to the county board, on stated days of meeting. But the decisions of that board must be final.

It should be made imperative on the relief committee and overseers, to afford no relief except in cases of sickness, infirmity, and extreme decrepitude. Able-bodied poor, applying for aid, should on no account be relieved with money or food, (except such temporary assistance as may be necessary to enable them to reach the spot to which they may be directed for work,) but placed at the disposal of the district surveyor of the board of works, and employed by him on some of the works in process of execution by that board. The wife and infant family of such a labourer should not be considered fit subjects for relief, the man being compellable to support them out of his wages, a portion of which may be kept back and transferred to the parochial committee by

the

the district surveyor, for their use, in case they do not accompany him to the spot where he obtains work, or that he does not voluntarily allow them a maintenance. But the labourer's family would generally migrate with him to the place of his employment. An Irish hovel is easily run up anywhere, and is of almost infinite capacity; and this migration, as we have observed, is most desirable on all accounts.

Such is the brief outline of the kind of poor-law, which we think best fitted to the circumstances of Ireland. It would be imperative only so far as requiring employment to be provided for all who are willing and able to work for their maintenance, and would leave the quantity and mode of relief for the infirm and aged to the humanity and discretion of the county boards. Composed as these would be of, and elected by, the principal landowners of the county from whom the poor-rate would chiefly be raised, it is not probable that they would exceed the limits of prudence and necessity in their disbursements, or that they would omit to keep the strictest watch over the proceedings of their agents and of the local committees. At the same time they would be held responsible by public opinion for preventing any extreme sufferings in individual cases of misery, and for mitigating the pressure of general distress occasioned by epidemics or failure of crops.

We do not think that this legalized charity would prove a heavy burden on the land of Ireland. On the contrary, we are convinced that the judicious and methodical employment on public works or private improvements of all the stock of labour, now allowed to run to waste in that country, must prove to its landlords the key to a treasure of wealth, the certain means of increasing, in an extraordinary degree, the value of their property, and instead of a ruinous burden (in which light they have unfortunately been led to view it by the blundering confusion of the original poor-law of England with its recent and local abuses) a benefit of immense and immediate value. With respect to the interests of Ireland at large, we consider such an enactment, for the employment of the idle and the relief of the diseased and famishing, to be not only called for as a measure of justice—as a legal acknowledgment of a natural right-not only expedient as a measure of policy to prevent rebellion-but as affording the only means for setting in motion the vast amount of productive power which now lies torpid and useless in the bosom of that island-for giving the starting impulse to the process by which its great natural resources will, after the machine is once fairly set a-going, spontaneously develop themselves-for opening the door to the introduction and employment of the overflowing abundance of English capital-and for giving rise to a new and reciprocal de

mand

mand in either country for the produce of the other, to an extent which it is perhaps impossible to overrate. In one word, a com mon poor-law is essential in order to complete the Union, to bring into life and action the vast natural advantages to both countries of that great measure-and by closely interweaving their interests, by making the welfare of the one essentially to depend on that of the other, to render the compact for ever indissoluble by force or faction.

ART. V.-1. A Letter to Lord Howick on Commutation of Tithes, and a Provision for the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland. By Nassau William Senior, Esq. Second Edition,

London.

1831.

Svo.

1831.

2. History of the Civil Wars of Ireland. By W. C. Taylor, Esq., A. B., of Trin. Coll., Dublin. Edinburgh. (2 vols. 12mo., published in Constable's Miscellany.) WHETHER the Union between Great Britain and Ireland

can be much longer profitably preserved, is a question which reflecting men have of late begun to propose, with some misgivings as to the answer. Projects of legislation for the sister country' have been so signally, it would seem so disgracefully, defeated, the hopes of charity have experienced so repeated and cruel blights, that, among many political speculators, apprehensions have made themselves felt, such as may have a serious and, we trust, a salutary influence on their future deliberations. All men, of all parties, are now ready to acknowledge, that hitherto our government of Ireland has been conducted on very mistaken principles; and there are some who affirm, that there is an element in the character of our Hibernian fellow-subjects or in their circumstances, a peculiarity, as yet unobserved, which, until it has been detected and neutralised, will disconcert every endeavour to effect their amalgamation with us. Thus, interest has connected itself with questions, which, until of late, had not been seriously propounded-Is Ireland to be retained in connexion with Great Britain? if she be, by what means shall the connexion be improved? if not, how shall the consequences of separation be rendered least disastrous?

That separation is an object earnestly desired by a strong and resolved party in Ireland, is a truth which cannot rationally be disputed. Neither is it now denied, that there prevails in that country an antipathy to British connexion, which has grown on the very concessions by which we had hoped to appease it. England, however, is not without many friends by whom, if need were, the efforts of a hostile faction would be strongly opposed; and

those

those among us who take a sanguine view of things, appeal to the array of wealth and consequence which appeared to champion the act of legislative union, in the early part of the past year. But even this appeal is not without its disheartening accompaniment. It reminds us of the disorder which rendered such a demonstration of strength necessary. It reminds us, also, of the portentous OMISSION which, in our judgment, left a very imposing catalogue of names destitute of force, if not authority; and, on the whole, causes us to question, whether the proceedings of last year in Ireland do not rather prove the progress which the cause of' Repeal' has made, than display adequate power to resist it.

But, it is contended, the friends of British connexion have other reliance than on their personal influence and their numbers. They may trust to the operation of a principle whose efficacy is universally acknowledged. It is for the interest of Ireland to maintain the Union. It is for the interest of every country, so circumstanced as she is, to seek and cherish connexion with a great empire, in whose wealth and improvement the inferior member of the Union may fairly participate. This proposition, it is clear, may be true, while yet the encouragement derived from it shall be wholly delusive. The interest of a country' is but a vague expression; and, in some systems, does not comprise in its definition the comforts of the great mass of the people. The estimation, too, in which connexion with a superior country is held, must be modified by any peculiarities in the character and circumstances of those who are affected by it; and thus, it is very conceivable that the wealthy, and the enterprising, and the intellectual in Ireland, may regard connexion with Great Britain as the guarantee of their possessions, and an assurance of national or individual advancement, while yet their opinions shall have no authority over the judgments and passions of a very numerous body, who look forward to separation' as affording the only prospect of relief from grievances which may painfully oppress them. Whether this body is to be engaged by some effectual conciliation-to be convinced or coerced by argument or force-whether the friends. ofconnexion' can be sustained by such support as shall enable them to disseminate more widely feelings of attachment to Great Britain-are questions on the due answering which the fate of the empire may be dependant;-and to consider them properly, it is necessary, in the first instance, to have a clear conception of the principal parties into which the population of Ireland is divided— the parties, we mean, at issue on the question respecting the Legislative Union.'

6

As a general principle, it might almost be anticipated, that the Protestants of Ireland would be found staunch friends of British