and to the making of which they have, in nineteen cases out of twenty, freely consented. When these laws were made Irish landlords administered them in Ireland. They have been the parties who have forced, or attempted to force, upon the people of Ireland a religion which the people of Ireland do not wish for, as an exchange for their own. (Hear, hear, and applause.) They have had the army at their back, the police around their dwellings and domains; they have had the patronage of the Government of Ireland at their disposal; they have been exalted into a supremacy over the great mass of the population of that country; and they have had for thirty years, to an amount which even now they don't ask for, a monopoly of the market of Great Britain for the sale of the agricultural produce of Ireland. (Hear, hear.) And yet, with all this, they, omnipotent in the country, with the monopoly of this market, with the monopoly of the land, they are almost,-even without excepting the population of the west of Ireland,these very landlords are, the most beggared, and bankrupt, and untrustworthy people, perhaps, that could be found in the whole of the civilized world. (Cheers.) The whole of the liberal press of Ireland repudiates their offer of protection (hear, and cheers); and I can promise the Protectionists of this country that if they rely upon the condition of Ireland, or the facts and arguments that are to be drawn from Ireland in favour of reenacting the Corn-laws, they never were more deluded in their lives than when they believe they will receive any substantial assistance from that country.

Thus Mr. Bright pronounces for the Poor-law; indulges the hope that landlords will set themselves to a remedy; and repudiates protectionthe only one which has suggested itself to their minds. Now, what does he himself propose ?—

That the law should not permit any man to tie up any landed property beyond what are called lives in being,' that is, whosoever may be mentioned in the will; that the last person mentioned to whom the property should come should be the absolute possessor of the property, and that it should not be handed on by this will to any person not born when the will was made. (Hear, hear.) That would very much limit the number of what are called 'life interests,' that is, where a man possesses an estate for his life, and his son, or somebody, comes after him, so that he spends nothing upon it, being interested only in getting out of it what he can during his lifetime, and careless whether, after that, it goes to ruin or not.

Upon this subject we have to offer two remarks. First, if the object of such a measure be the furtherance of the sale of encumbered properties, the end has been secured already by the Encumbered Estates Bill. Secondly, a father, desiring to leave his estate to his son, would be more likely to spend money upon it than if he entertained no such praiseworthy purpose.

Mr. Bright's second proposal is 'to abrogate the law of primogeniture, and enforce the distribution of an

estate among the whole family.' With respect to which we have to remark that there might certainly be such a law framed, but it would be as unjust as impolitic; for the inevitable result would be, the distribution of capital over too wide a surface, and the prevention thereby of good farming. Let the land be divided, by all means, among men of sufficient capital; but that a poor landlord would do well to distribute his estate among six poor sons is the last proposition we should have expected from a political economist.

Mr. Bright's third proposal seeks the abolition of the 251. stamp required on the sale and purchase of property, and suggests, by way of compensation to the revenue, a large impost on the settlement of landed estates. If you bind your son to a surgeon you pay 251., he says, over and above the premium of 400l.: if you settle a landed estate upon your son you pay the same poor impost. This is not just: the greater the benefit to be secured to the individual, the heavier ought to be the stamp-duty on the deed which secures it. In other words, we may have a sliding-scale in stamps, though none of corn duties. Mr. Bright might as well complain because one letter costs a penny if it go by post from St. Paul's to Westminster, while another for the same sum can be carried from Manchester to Inver

ness.

Mr. Bright's fourth proposal is a very ill-defined and, in our opinion, dangerous system of tenant-right. Hear him :

My opinion is, that you cannot even begin to absorb the pauperism of Ireland until you give a security to the tenants now in the occupation of the soil. (Cheers.) If, at this moment, every

Irish cultivator and farmer could be told that every farthing he hereafter expended upon his land should not become the property of the landlord, but should remain his property, you would find a new spirit infused into the whole of the population; I believe it would spread a universal joy over Ireland, such as never has been known in our time. And if it only stimulates one farmer in ten to rise to-morrow morning with renewed energy and with increased hope, with a strengthened resolution to exert himself - if it stimulated only one in ten to straighten the fences upon his land, or to drain a single field, or to clear it of the weeds, or to repair his house and his barn, and whatever farm-buildings he might have,— from that moment would be commenced the absorption of the able-bodied pauperism of the country into the employment of farmers, reducing the poor-rate by the very same process that was raising more food.

Our statesman should explain himself. What does he mean by 'every farthing spent in the land being henceforth his own and not his landlord's property?' Spent in what way? Upon seed? or upon gates? or upon drains? For any farmbuilding erected with the landlord's sanction let the outgoing tenant be by all means recompensed. But if the rent of a farm be a fair one, it is no part of a landlord's duty to pay his tenant for draining and manuring. Without the land the latter could not speculate to his own advantage; all, therefore, that seems necessary is, that on the proposal of a tenant to invest so much capital in his farm, such an agreement as to term of lease and rate of rent should be come to as will leave the farmer a fair profit. There can be no difficulty with regard to the legalizing a contract like this. And in consideration that the landlord runs a risk of dealing with a wild speculator who may eventually become insolvent, yet go into court and subject his landlord to heavy expenses, in whatever state as respects draining and subsoiling a farm, on the outgoing of the tenant, may be, no recompense whatever should be legally claimable from the landlord of whom the farm was rented.

If the aristocracy of the United Kingdom has heaped evils unnumbered upon Ireland, why, I ask, should not the intelligent and virtuous people of the United Kingdom make them an ample restitution? (Cheers.) And when I speak to that great party throughout this country, I would say that in all their struggles, whatsoever they may undertake, whatsoever they may accomplish, they cannot do a nobler or a better thing than to consecrate the cause of their advancing liberties by glorious and fruitful labour for the regeneration of Ireland. (The hon. gentleman resumed his seat amidst deafening cheers.)

The preceding extracts seem to us to settle the point, that Mr. Bright has made no very startling discovery during his sojourn in Ireland. Nor can it be said that he has proposed a great measure for the remedy of the evils of which he complains. What is the sum of his speech? He confesses that neither their race nor their religion stand between the Irish people and social and political regeneration. He acknowledges that there is no encouragement to Irish industry. He would fain see the encumbered properties in the hands of English capitalists.

He

Accordingly he condemns the Irish Church Establishment. He approves of the Poor-law in its present shape, because he believes that under it the Irish landlords will set themselves to a remedy. He would revert to the very ancient and very objectionable law of gavelkind. would establish a sliding-scale of stamp duties. He would enlarge the Irish franchise, and increase the number of Irish representatives. He would by all means urge upon his party to consecrate its growing (!) liberties to the regeneration of

Ireland.

Α

There are certain peculiarities in the physical geography of Ireland which seem to fix her destiny as a land exclusively of foreign trade and exuberant domestic agriculture. For while we concede to her all the advantages of soil, climate, harbours, and rivers, elsewhere alluded to, we are constrained to acknowledge that in minerals her wealth is insignificant. She produces neither coal nor iron in such abundance as to stamp her with the mark of a nation where the mechanical arts may be expected ever to attain to perfection. Had she stood alone, and a wise Government ruled her, she would have become long ago England's best customer; exchanging her agricultural produce for our manufactures, and contributing thereby to the substantial wealth of both nations. harder destiny has been hers. Tied to the chariot-wheel of a country greater than herself, and treated as a conquered province rather than as an integral portion of the empire, her agriculture has been neglected, and profitless attempts from time to time been made to supply its place by the establishment of factories. These, except in one or two favoured places of the extreme north, never flourished; and it is idle to talk of repeating the experiment. Ireland, as a portion of the British empire, can never be inoculated with the manufacturing spirit of Lancashire and Yorkshire. But she has a right to demand that her real resources should be developed, and England, even if she make some sacrifices in the meanwhile, is both morally and politically bound to yield to that demand.

If we can invite into Irish harbours a considerable amount of foreign trade, we shall give such a stimulus to Irish industry as must in a very short time make itself felt throughout the length and breadth of the land. Of course such trade, at least in the outset, can be a trade of import only. And such is Ireland's poverty-her absolute inability, to invite and secure a steady import trade by her own resources, that if it is to be established for her at all, it must be done by the strong

hand of imperial legislation. What if the Imperial Legislature should undertake to accomplish this task? Would Great Britain suffer much, or for any length of time, by the proceeding? Surely not, if the Legislature set judiciously about the work, and the people of England and Scotland be content to work with it. For, after all, the task is neither so Herculean nor so adverse to the established principles of political economy as may at first sight appear.

This is not the place, nor are we now in the humour, to discuss the comparative merits of commercial systems protective or otherwise. We accept the laws as they are made for us, and without putting our seal to their wisdom or their folly, are content to live under them. But we see nothing opposed to the spirit of the freest trade in asking, for Ireland's sake, just so much of the modification of the existing tariff as shall force certain articles to make a transit through Ireland into England, and give on their passage exclusive employment to the Irish people. Take, for example, the article of corn. Our English and Scotch agriculturists assure us that they can make no head in their own markets against the corn-growers of America and the North of Europe. Our manufacturers, on the other hand, threaten to raise a rebellion if any attempt be made to impose a corn-law; while Ireland, by nature the best corn-growing country in the world, lies waste, and her population starves. It is clear that if Lord John proposes any change which shall affect directly the United Kingdoms, he offends the manufacturers at home. If he determine to abide where he is, he breaks the backs of the agriculturists. But I would not the manufacturers be content, would the English and Scotch agriculturists have just cause of complaint if his lordship were to propose, that while no foreign-grown corn shall be suffered to come into the English market except through Ireland; Ireland shall be allowed to import ad libitum, while all corn coming from Ireland, whether it be of home or of foreign growth, shall come into the English market duty free?

Again, in the articles of sugar, coffee, and timber, the Imperial Legislature lies under the opprobrium of having broken faith with the colonists of the West Indies and North America. Should we suffer at all in proportion to the gain secured to Ireland, if by law slave-grown sugar and coffee, with Baltic and other timber, not colonial, were suffered to come, at the present scale of duties, only into Irish ports; while the sugar and coffee of the West Indies, and the timber of British North America, made their way, as they do now, into the markets of England and Scotland? Our belief is, that neither in corn nor in colonial produce would the prices be enhanced in London and Manchester to any serious amount; whereas in Ireland the advantages of such a course of legislation are so many and so obvious, that we need scarcely pause to recapitulate even a few of them.

The first and most immediate gain to the sister country would show itself in the increased employment given to boatmen, porters, cabmen, warehouse owners, and warehousemen, at all the great harbours liable to be visited by ships from America and the Baltic. Masons and carpenters likewise would be required to exert themselves in the erection of new storehouses for the imported wealth of these countries; and for clerks and accountants,—a race sorely in need of occupation everywhere, numerous openings

would be made.

Next, it would become necessary to open lines of railroad from all the ports of import to those of export,Limerick connecting itself with Dublin and Belfast, and Valentia harbour falling in upon both lines at convenient stations. Indeed the necessity of making roads of all sorts would become so great and so urgent, that we doubt whether there would be found in desolate Ireland hands enough to complete them.

Thirdly, Dublin would rise at once into the condition of a great shipping and trading town. Its communication with Liverpool would be multiplied beyond calculation; and to Bristol, as well as to the nearer port of Holyhead, the transit would be perpetual.

Fourthly, having been placed to

wards Great Britain in a position analogous to that in which under the old protective system the Channel Islands stood, Ireland in the course of a year or two would become, what they have long been, one huge garden. We should see bogs drained, mosses cleared away, corn reared on slopes and plains that now lie barren; and in the room of the mud-hovels which disfigure the entire face of the country, would spring up hamlets and villages rivalling those of England in picturesque beauty.

Nor must it be supposed that all these changes in Ireland could take place without more than compensating Great Britain for the sacrifices to which she might submit in order to produce them. There is no iron in Ireland wherewith to construct even her lines of rail. She cannot produce her own machinery even on a moderate scale. She would not think of forcing manufactures any more were the Imperial Legislature so unwise as to sanction the attempt. But taking her place as a rich agricultural and pastoral province, she would send to Manchester and Glasgow for the cotton portion of her apparel, and supply herself from Leeds and the North Riding with such woollen articles as she might require.

We are not so bigoted to our own scheme as to be precluded from seeing, that to a certain extent the whole of England and Scotland must at the outset make sacrifices towards its accomplishment; and that from several of the seaport towns in both countries sacrifices of a more permanent nature would be demanded. But let us not forget that we have no other choice than one of two evils. Suppose Hull and Leith, with one or two seaport towns besides, were to suffer, they would not suffer long, because the trade (though it came to them by a circuitous route) would still come-Irish or Scotch instead of foreign bottoms bringing it. But supposing them to suffer, have we not to place in the opposite scale the regeneration of 7,000,000 of Irishmen? And will Mr. Bright set up the enhanced price of his quartern loaf, by a sum so small as to defy calculation, as any reasonable bar to the completion of the work to which he has devoted himself and

his party? The truth however is, that neither in the end, nor in a perceptible degree immediately, would any body suffer. Free trade might still hold its course; and hold it, too, less offensively to the prejudices of men brought up in a different school, that something of the protective principle would be interwoven with it. For all nations of the world would still be free as they are now to send us their corn, their timber, their hemp, their tallow, their sugar, and their coffee. But sending them to an emporium chosen by ourselves, we should, by the process of passing them on to the general market, at once afford to the home and colonial grower some slight advantage such as he cannot now find, and give employment to our own shipping, by the work of transit which we should secure for it.

It may be well, however, to bring these various points into a narrower compass; and we therefore request the attention of our readers to the following aphorisms:

1. By securing to Ireland the exclusive right of importing the necessaries of life from abroad duty free, we should render the food of the Irish people at once cheaper and more abundant than it is, while we fostered the growth of industrial habits among them, by the same process which encouraged the industry of our colonies. And to provide that all such imports should arrive at English ports in British bottoms, would be to protect the shipping interest.

2. To compel the warehousing of slave-grown sugar at one Irish port, and its re-shipment for the English market at another, would be to extend protection to the West India planters.

3. To make a similar provision as regards timber and corn from the Baltic, would protect Canada as well as the home agriculturist. And such imports, in place of rounding the north of Scotland, might be carried in the Caledonian Canal. This would be a benefit to Scotland.

4. To cheapen the price of food in Ireland, yet open to her exclusively competition with England and the colonies, would be to give to the investment of capital upon Irish land the greatest possible encouragement.

5. To permit foreign produce to be landed duty free in Ireland (we do not say worked-up cotton and wool), would be to have it at our own door, and enhance its cost to the British consumer by the merest trifle; which trifle would be more than compensated to the empire at large by the increased stimulus given to the industrial habits of an important portion of it.

6. Such employment of English capital in Ireland would necessarily lead to the settlement in Ireland, for a period, or for ever, of English families. There would follow the building of villas; the increase of domestic labour; the introduction of English manners and habits, traffic, trade, amalgamation.

7. Great harbours, and the encouragement given to capitalists and foreigners to frequent them; watering places, to which wealthy families might flock at particular seasons, would stimulate (unless it be impossible to do so) the productiveness of Irish fisheries.

8. The investment of English capital in Irish land, under the safeguard of a monopoly of the English market, would afford the best outlet for those numerous millions which are now uselessly laid up in the Bank, and may ere long melt and disappear in the shape of Spanish, American, or Peruvian bonds. It Iwould even be an obstacle to the contraction of a Russian loan!

The re-embarkation of foreign goods, or if the Irish themselves consume them, the shipment to England of the entire agricultural produce of Ireland, would increase to an incalculable extent the steam navy of the empire.

9. In proportion as we accomplish all this, we shall raise, as a matter of course, the price of Irish labour, and give increased employment to the fabricators of cotton, woollen, and linen cloths in England. Nor will our command of the raw material for these things be less absolute or more costly than it now is. For if the produce of the North of Europe be somewhat enhanced in price by its freightage to Ireland first, and its subsequent removal to England, American produce will cost less at the mouth of the Shannon than it does in the Mersey.

10. The foreign customer would