first is Emigration to the colonies, on a larger scale than has been yet undertaken, and with a more earnest desire, on the part of government, to make it a really effective means of relief than has been yet shown – the arrangements to be made, and the vessels to be contracted for and victualled, at the public expense, and the emigrants, therefore, having no further pecuniary burdens imposed on them than the means of supporting themselves from the time of their landing until they can procure employment. Even this last difficulty of emigrants may undoubtedly be much lessened by a little pains, and a little well-directed expense, on the part of the colonial governments, to ascertain during the winter season, and make known to those arriving in spring, the precise districts where there is the most demand for their labour; and it seems impossible to doubt that, if there were a regular provision made by government, for a few seasons, for receiving, from the different parts of Ireland, families recommended by the clergy of all persuasions in the different districts, as proper for emigration, and unable to afford the passage-money, and for removing these families at the public expense to Canada or Australia – directing them at once to the proper points – a very considerable relief could be afforded to the most crowded districts in Ireland, at the same time that the danger of such sufferings during the passage, and after arrival in the colonies, as befel too many of the emigrants of 1847, and deterred too many of their countrymen from following their example, may be almost certainly avoided.
Emigration, however, even on these terms, (which it is certainly within the power of government to arrange,) should only be recommended to those who can command the means of tolerably comfortable outfitting, and subsistence for a short time after their arrival in the colonies. For a much larger number of the Irish poor, the resource so perseveringly advocated by Mr P. Scrope and others, is the only one yet shown to be really available, viz., their employment on some of the waste lands, ascertained to be reclaimable, which abound in Ireland itself. The improvement of these, chiefly by spade labour, would give employment to nearly all the labourers now in Ireland; and, when reclaimed, they might be divided into allotments of from five to eight acres each, which should afterwards become the property of the men by whose labour they have chiefly been reclaimed, on the payment of a moderate quit-rent.
There may be some difference of opinion as to the details of this plan, and particularly as to the kind and extent of the direct assistance which the government should give; and we know that in all countries, and perhaps more especially in Ireland, there will be a disposition on the part of many persons to avail themselves of and to abuse this public aid, by no means confined to the poorest classes of society, and against which it behoves a beneficent government to be constantly on their guard. The simplest mode of procedure seems to be, that the waste lands destined for this purpose (and on which government officers, employed at a great expense to the public, have already reported) – should be purchased by government, by compulsion if necessary – in all the distressed parts of the country; that these should be presented to the different poor-law unions, on condition of their being reclaimed by the labours of their able-bodied paupers, and in conformity with plans to be proposed, and the execution of which shall be superintended by persons employed by government. The preliminary operations of drainage, and of making roads for the benefit of these lands only, may likewise be undertaken by government; and with this aid, and under this direction, it is reasonable to expect, that the operations by which certain of the waste lands are to be reclaimed, and the unions to be gradually provided with productive farms, let to industrious cottars, may serve as a model for similar improvements by individuals. There are difficulties of detail, which the government of the United Kingdom may be expected to foresee and to surmount. But as to the principle that it is wise and right for the legislature of Britain; – nay, that it is incumbent on that legislature, looking to its duty towards all classes of the people, to the extent of misery in Ireland, and the disgrace and injury thereby brought on itself, to the legal neglect of the poor in Ireland, so long sanctioned by the British legislature, and to the deficiency of capital actually existing in that country, – to direct and aid the operations by which its surplus population may be reduced, and its resources for the maintenance of population in future may be augmented; and that these operations, if skilfully conducted, must eventually lead to a great increase, both of wealth and of happiness, in Ireland and in the colonies, – are propositions which we hold to be fully demonstrated, and which, we think, the periodical press of this country cannot at this moment be better employed than in keeping constantly before the public, and impressing, by all possible means, on the attention of the legislature. The property of those lands remaining, in part, in the poor-law unions, the produce raised on them will contribute to the support of the poor, and the relief of the rate-payers in Ireland, in all time coming.
That the opinion we have thus given of the feasibility and of the wisdom of the plan of bringing the idle hands of Ireland to bear on the waste lands, is supported by men of thorough knowledge of the subject, of all parties of the state, may be easily shown. Preparations for such a measure were made, and plans of the drainage requisite for the purpose were laid down, at an expense of nearly £50,000 to the country, and deposited in the archives of the Irish government, so long ago as 1814, by the Bog Commission. It was part of the recommendation of the Poor-Law Inquiry Commission in 1836; it was strongly recommended in the report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Tenure of Land, presided over by Lord Devon; it has been frequently proposed, and fully and ably discussed in various publications both by speculative reasoners, and by practical men, – by Mr Mill, in his standard work on Political Economy; by Mr Thornton, in his pamphlets on Over-Population, and on Peasant Proprietorship; by Mr Fagan, member for Wexford, in his work on the Improvement of Ireland by means of her Waste Lands; by Mr Poulett Scrope, in several pamphlets as well as speeches in Parliament, to which nothing like an intelligible answer has been returned; by Mr Douglas, and several other writers in England; by Mr French, and several other Irish members; by public meetings in Ireland – one of them, of the freeholders in Waterford, presided over by Lord Stuart de Decies; – nay, it was announced in the beginning of 1847, under the name of a Waste Lands Bill, by Lord John Russell, as an accompaniment of his Poor-Law Bill, but withdrawn without any reason for the change ever having been assigned. Whether this was done, as has been stated, as a compromise with certain Irish landlords on their withdrawing their opposition to the latter bill, or not, is a matter of small importance to the country, although, certainly, of very considerable importance to the character of any such landlords for judgment or intelligence. A much stronger measure of what appears to them as justice towards the cottar population of Ireland, has been strongly recommended by several intelligent foreigners who have visited and examined the country. But, without quoting any of these authorities in favour of the proposal, let us merely ask what answer can be returned to the following simple statements in support of it by an intelligent and practical author: – "An addition of three million acres of cultivable surface would be an incalculable advantage, and contribute to the health, comfort, and happiness of millions of our fellow-subjects. We ought not to be behind the Chinese in this work of civilisation. During my recent examination of the middle and northern districts of China, I noticed every where a great extent of reclaimed land. Every inlet where the sea formerly encroached on the land was embanked, drained, and cultivated. No capital or labour was spared to augment the surface capable of yielding sustenance to man; and I feel satisfied that, if the extent of bog-land now existing in Ireland were in the central provinces of China, five years would not elapse without its being made fertile and productive. Ought the people of England or of Ireland to show inferiority to the Chinese in the most requisite of all labour? Ought the government, in deference to some abstract principle, to refuse the fulfilment of the first natural duty – the providing food for its subjects?"3
Examples are not wanting in Ireland itself to show the feasibility of this plan of relief to its poverty. "Mr Stuart French, of Monaghan, has reclaimed three hundred acres of mountain-land in four years, and raised its value from two shillings to thirty-five shillings per acre. The entire cost was repaid by the crops in three years. Mr Reade, of Wood-Park, county Galway, reclaimed five hundred acres of moorland and mountain at a cost of from £10 to £17 per acre, which was repaid by the crop of the second year, and the land, formerly worth two shillings and sixpence per acre, now pays twenty shillings per acre annually. This same Mr Reade, who has made the experiment on a large scale, and can speak from experience, says, there are 128,000 acres of such reclaimable wastes in Galway, where thousands