had gradually grown up in England during the Tudor reigns. The first attempt was made in the reign of Henry VII., but the matured system was based upon an Act passed towards the close of that of Queen Elizabeth.*

In 1834 a commission of inquiry was appointed in relation to the Irish poor, with the preconceived intention of introducing the poor laws into Ireland. Its inquiries lasted until 1836. With reference to the labouring population the report says

"A great portion of them are insufficiently provided with the commonest necessaries of life. Their habitations are wretched hovels; several of a family sleep together upon straw, or upon the bare ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes even without so much to cover them. Their food commonly consists of dry potatoes, and with these they are at times so scantily supplied as to be obliged to stint themselves to one spare meal in the day. There are even instances of persons being driven by hunger to seek sustenance in wild herbs. They sometimes get a herring or a little milk, but they never get meat except at Christmas, Easter, and Shrovetide. Some go to Great Britain in search of employment; others wander through Ireland with the same view. The wives and children of many have occasionally to beg. They do so reluctantly and with shame, and in general go to a distance from home, that they may not be known."

This commission recommended the formation of a board with comprehensive powers for national improvement. It was to undertake the improvement of waste lands, draining and fencing when necessary, the granting power to all tenantsfor-life, to give leases for thirty-one years, the removal of cabins which are nuisances, the landlord contributing to the cost of removing the occupants to the improved land, and providing for them, and the construction of roads, bridges, and other means of internal communication. This report was thrown aside, and under the advice of Mr. Nicholls, an English gentleman, the system of poor laws was introduced. The building of the workhouses was not generally completed until 1842, when it may be said this measure was put upon trial. The cost in 1842 was £281,233, in 1845 it was £316,123. The potato famine greatly increased the claims upon it, and the maximum was reached in 1859, when the charge was * See History of Landholding in England, p. 67 et seq.

£1,674,793. In 1859 it had fallen to £413,712; it has since nearly doubled, and the amount raised in 1874 was £817,281. The Irish Poor Law differs in two essentials from that of England. First, there is no law of settlement, and next a moiety of the amount paid falls on the occupier, and the other moiety upon the rent. As to its effects, the Poor Law in Ireland in the reign of Victoria was but a rehearsal of that which took place in England in that of Elizabeth. It led to the "clearing of the land"-i. e., the removal of the tenantry from their holdings. We have the testimony of Sir Matthew Barrington, in a letter written in 1844 to Sir Robert Peel, in which he remarks that "the landlords are rapidly clearing their estates, in apprehension of the effects of the Poor Law." A measure humane in its intention became the means of creating the pauperism for which it was intended to provide.

The landlords who passed the measure, fearful that the tax would diminish their incomes, expelled the labourers from their estates, and pulled down their houses. The homeless population was forced into the towns, and thus, there being no law of settlement, a burthen was transferred from the land, which ought to have borne it, to the industrial trading classes in the towns, and it required more than thirty years' agitation even to repair in degree the injury thus done. The population of Ireland may be thus divided :

The increase in the urban population is mainly due to the operation of the Poor Laws, the decrease in the rural portion to other causes in connection with them.

In 1839 the House of Lords appointed a committee, which examined many witnesses upon the state of Ireland, but it could not agree to a report, and merely published four massive volumes of evidence, which it recommended to the serious. attention of the House.

The taking the census in 1841 was availed of to ascertain the number of occupiers of land in Ireland and the quantity of live stock. The farms were classified, and it was found that there were 523,153 holdings under 15 acres each, and 127,961 over fifteen acres. About one-half of the live stock was owned by the smaller class of holders. The particulars, as stated by the Census Commissioners, are given in a foot note.*

The number of cattle in Ireland in 1841 was not quite as much as that at which was estimated in 1172, when Henry II. landed in that country. Cattle and sheep were less than the estimate made by Sir William Petty in 1670. The exports of cattle in 1841 may be estimated at 150,000, of sheep at 400,000, of live pigs at 1,000,000, of pigs in bacon and pork at 400,000 ̧ The imports of Irish butter into the ports of London and Liverpool were 624,301 firkins. The average exports of grain from Ireland in the five years from 1840 to 1845 were 2,622,825 quarters, and the total value of the exports of farm produce is stated to have been £12,000,000; of this about * The number of holdings and the value of stock in 1841 was as under :

Class of Holdings.

Average value of Stock per Holding.

Under I acre

Above 1 to 5 acres

212,778

5,706,990

£917 6 22 II 7

The live stock was apportioned among the different classes of holdings

thus :-

£4,000,000 was retained in England as absentee rents. Ireland took British manufactures or foreign commodities for the remaining £8,000,000.

In 1842 Sir Robert Peel succeeded to office, and in the following year he appointed a commission, which, having been presided over by the Earl of Devon, was known as the Devon Commission. Its labours commenced in 1843, and the report was issued in 1845. It visited various parts of Ireland, and took evidence from witnesses in different grades of society. The report indicates the want of proper regulations between landlord and tenant. It says

"The Irish peasant is still badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour. It would be impossible to describe adequately the privations which they and their families habitually and patiently endure. It will be seen in the evidence that in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage water; that their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather, that a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury, and that in nearly all their pig and manure heap constitute their only property. When we consider this state of things, and the large proportion of the population which comes under the designation of agricultural labourers, we have to repeat that the patient endurance they exhibit is deserving of high commendation, and entitles them to the best attention of Government and of Parliament. Their condition has engaged our most anxious consideration. Up to this period any improvement which has taken place is attributable almost entirely to the habits of temperance in which they have so generally persevered, and not, we grieve to say, to any increased demand for their labour. The obvious remedy for this state of things is to provide remunerative employment, which may at once increase the productive powers of the country and improve the condition of the people."

The object for which this commission was appointed was to inquire into the state of the law and practice in respect to the occupation of lands, and to report as to the best means of encouraging a better system of agriculture, and to improve the relations between landlord and tenant. They say in their report

"We believe at no former period did so active a spirit of employment prevail, nor could well-directed measures for the attainment of that object have been proposed with a better prospect of success than at the present moment. We regret, however, to be obliged to add that in most parts of Ireland there seems to be no corresponding advance in the condition and comforts of the labouring classes. A reference to the evidence of most of the witnesses will show that the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to suffer the greatest privations and hardships. Our personal experience and observations during our inquiry have afforded us a melancholy confirmation of these statements, and we cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater we believe than the people of any country in Europe have to sustain."

Sir Matthew Barrington, addressed a letter to Sir Robert Peel in 1844, and thus described the state of this country:

"In Ireland land is concentrated in the hands of a few large proprietors, while nearly all the intermediate cultivators and occupants are either tenants at will or possessed of short leases rapidly expiring. This principle of tenure, which gives the possessor no security, and but little interest in his holding, and deprives him of the hope of any prospective amelioration of his condition,-this it is that renders the Irish peasant reckless, inconsiderate and improvident; results that are in accordance with the universally admitted principle, that the institution of property is the basis of civilization, and that a variation in the amount of security or interest therein exercises a corresponding influence upon the moral and social condition of the people. Nearly two-thirds of the whole of the lands of Ireland has lately fallen out of lease, and are now held by occupiers at will. landlords are rapidly clearing their estates in apprehension of the effect of the Poor Law, and there being but few manufactures in the country, the support and existence almost of the peasant depend on his quarter of an acre of potato ground; deprive him of this, or let his possession be uncertain, and what interest has he in preserving the peace of the country?"

The

The letter is remarkable from the fact that it was written two years before the appearance of the potato blight. The Select Committee on the Irish Poor had in the previous year reported as to the allotment system; they said "it gives the working man something which he may call his own; and as its value depends on his own exertions, it prompts him to the exercise of self-control, and leads him to look on