The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-09 00:00:00

Ate yI wing*

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op on the 31st October.

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MOH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
Tins Dee. Morning, 24 min. pest 4; Aftensoon, 45 min. past 4.
TO4gOlUtoW.—Morning, 5 min. Pot 5; Afternoon, 27 win. PM 5.

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCT. 9.
TUE LORD LIEUTENANT of Ireland has taken the

wise and decided step of extending the provisions of
the Labour-rate Act to works, which, while they
are not strictly speaking public, are yet of a repro-
ductive character and permanent utility. They are to
include drainage, and subsoiling with a view to
drainage. In the latter case, an undertaking is to be
given in writing, and transmitted with the present-
ment, by the person or persons whose lands are pro-
poeed to be drained (being ' proprietor' in the terms
of the act 5 and 6 Victoria, chap. 89), stating that the
money so to be expended shall be a charge exclusively
on the land so to be improved, and be levied from the
same according to an award to be made by the
commissioners, as :under the above-mentioned act.
In cases where such works, other than public works,
but not of drainage, are presented, the following regu-
lations are laid down for proportioning the assess-
ments :
I. The presentment %swami will estimate the earn which it may be
neermary to raise off the barony fur the purpose of affording em-
gdoyment.
2. They will also ascertain the proportion of such assessment which,
awarding to the lest poor-law valuation, may be chargeable upon
each electoral di, iilofl of a union, or portion of an electoral divin
(if the whole shalt not be included) in the barony; and they will
obtain for this purpose, from the clerk of each poor-law union, a copy
of such valuation.
3. 1 hey will pre-zent for such useful and profitable works to be exe-
cuted in each electoral division, to the amount of Its proportion of the
aservoment ascertained as above.
Unless these conditions are complied with, the ses-
sional proceedings will be considered with strict refe-
rence to the provisions of the Labour-rate Act.
In the case of baronies which have already held
sessions and presented works under the Labour-rate
Act, the works already sanctioned, or those applied
for, which it may become necessary to sanction to
afford continued employment, are tobc proceeded with
until sessions can be held, in which the present more
liberal construction of the statute may be acted upon.
We have heard a doubt expressed as to how far the
limitation of the term " proprietor" to the meaning of
the act 5 and 6 Victoria, may have the effect of crip-
pling these proposed advantages. But in truth the
limitation could scarcely have been avoided. A consi-
derable part of the landlord's tenure in Ireland is on
leases of lives with covenants of perpetual renewal,
and various constructions of the latter have caused
the most vexatious uncertainty as to the duration of
interests under them. Hence, in the act in question,
the lowest interest constituting a " proprietor" was
fixed at forty years unexpired in a lease, or a lease for
ever. Nor can we think this, for the purposes con-
templated, an illiberal or unfair construction.
Some such step as this now taken, we have all along
contended for, and, we may add, looked forward to. The
Lord-Lieutenant in taking it, has shown the courage
and self-dependence which mark him as the fit man for
this terrible emergency of Ireland. He has taken it,
trusting to an indemnity which will no doubt
be cheerfully and gratefully awarded him by
Parliament. A less courageous administrator would
have shrunk from the responsibility of thus extending
the provisions of a statute ; a less clear-sighted one
might have remained blind to the necessities which
justify the proceeding. There was no lack of plausible
reasons for adhering to the letter of the law. The
jobbing propensities of landlords were patent, to
account for their anxiety to see the government
advances employed in developing the resources of
their estates. The recklessness of presentment ses-
sions might have furnished an excuse for not accept-
ing either their remonstrances or their representa-
tions. The Earl of BESISOROUGH, as an Irishman,
knows how to estimate both these grounds of
official resistance to all demands of change. We can-
not doubt that he has maturely weighed them ; that
be has made the deductions they render necessary,
alike from the pictures of mischief under the existing
system, and the prospects of advantage from that
which it is proposed to substitute ; and that his present
determination is as politic as it is courageous.
At the same time we cannot charge the Government
with improvidence or ignorance in the construction
of the Labour-rate Act. It was framed before the
terrible prospect had wholly revealed itself. The pre-
lude of last year was taken as the measure of misery
for the present. The act contemplated little beyond
an application of temporary remedies to a temporary
distress. It got rid of some of the objectionable pro-
visions of the measure which it copied. It removed
many facilities for jobbery. It avoided numerous eco-
nomical oversights which marred its prototype. But
it did not enforce reproductiveness ns a condition of
the public works to be commenced under its sanction.
Writing from the Treasury minute before a copy of the
act was to be procured, we have spoken as if this point
was insisted on in the measure ; and had its framers
anticipated that they were paving the way for a new
social order of things, and not staving off a partial and
temporary privation, no doubt that condition would
have been enforced. If they had felt that in the misery
of the present, were to germinate the seeds of future
prosperity and comfort, it would have been suicidal
to overlook the reproductive element. Without it,
works might produce wages : they could not do
more. If the mischief were of the day, the day's
earnings might be enough to meet it. But even in
this case, it would have been wiser to have looked
beyond what the day might bring forth. As it is,
the derisive act of the Lord-Lieutenant has corrected
the government measure in the point where correc-
tion was needed. The landlords can no longer com-
plain that they are taxed to their ruin. It rests with
them to convert the tax to their good with that
of the labourer and the country. The peasant has
no longer the depressing sense that his work is
wasted. He is no longer digging holes to fill them
up again ; turning a mill, with nothing to grind ;