The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-30 00:00:00

no MO* tolerate than it tolerated UMW ROLLIN or
LOUIS BLANC., Or GUIZOT ur POLIONAC.

LAST week we adverted to the growing necessity
of having recourse to measures for stimulating the
landed proprietors of Ireland in the full development of
the latent resources of their naturally productive but
poverty.stricken country. We deem this a debt the
government owes to the nation at large, and if any
dereliction of duty on the part of individuals would
warrant the executive is interfering in the manage, -
ment of private property, it certainly is that which
prevents the growth of a sufficiency of food for the
population at large. But we hold that such
intermeddllng is to be eschewed as long as
possible, and we believe that a practical
substitute for the impracticable 1 .ndlord panacea of
a towidand rating for poor-law purposes may be de-
vised, which, by empowering the provident proprie-
tor to stimulate and coerce if necessary his apathetic
neighbours into measures of employment and im-
provement, would render perfectly nugatory the pre-
sent plausible objections to the outlay of capital in
drainage and other works.
In order to make oar case perfectly intelligible,
and show the crying necessity for some such provi-
sion, we shall as briefly as possible ata'e tt.e particu-
lars of three properties, comprising an electoral divi-
sion in the county of Cork. To simplify the
statement we shall assume that the three prop'r-
iles are of an equal value, and, in fact
there is not much difference ; we shall therefore take
each at the annual value of 2,0001. They belong to
the chairman of the union and to two noble lords,
both resident in the same union. The actual cost of
the out door relief, when being administered lastepring,
on each of the three properties was correctly ascer-
tained. On the chairman's property the weekly ex-
penditure was in proportion to an annual poundage
rate of one shilling and fircpence. On that of the
two noble earls it amounted to nine shillings, equal to
9001. on each for the year, and to 1201. on the chair-
man's, making a gross total of 1,9201. But as the tax
is now levied each property would have to pay 6401.
The chairman borrowed money under Mr. LAMM-
CHUM'S letter and the Property Improvement Act,
and every man on his estate was at full work.
Neither of the peers expended a penny in employ-
ment

Mr. GRIFFITH'S valuation is not yet completed in
the district, and probably when it is, the chairman's
property will be rated at 3,0001. per annum, and the
others, which are deteriorating Every day, at 1,5001.
each. Then, suppobing the poor-rate to continue at
the same figure, the estate which afforded employment,
produced food, and contributed its quota to the na-
tional wealth in every way, through miller, merchant,
and manufacturer, should pay 9601., while the others
which continued a dead weight on the country at
large, benefiting no one save the union contractor for
coffins, would pay only 4801. each. The county
cese, iwiluding the labour rate, would be charged in
the same ratio of decrease and increase, so that the
spirited proprietor, who fulfilled all the duties of pro-
perty honestly and conscientiously, would have a
heavy penalty inflicted on him, while the men who
merely tried to exact their rights, would be virtually
rewarded for their remissness. The remedy we should
propose for this, to say the least of it, inequitable con-
dition of the law, would be the enactment of some
provisions to enable a man in the chairman's position
to compel the other owners of property in his
division to proceed peer/ panu with him in improve-
meet and employment. The machinery for such com•
pulsory clauses, cocsidering the necessarily compli-
cated nature of the interests to be dealt with, may be
reduced to a work.ng comrass.
The first step should be a clause authorising some
given number of ratepayers to call upon the board of
guardians to publi-h a certified statement of the cur-
rent expenditure for relief within any division of the
union, and whenever it exceeded for three months an
amount equal to art annual rate of 53., proceedings
should be taken to enforce employment in the following
manner.

That the owners of one-third or one-fourth in area
or value of the division may require a special meeting
of the Beard of Guardians to consider the condition of
the district in question, before whom the requisition-
ists may give evidence of the actual state of the im-
provable lands it contained.
That on satisfactory testimony being so afforded of
the capability for profitable improvement of any
townland, the guardians may be authorised to make
application under the Property Improvement Act for
an advance of money to carry out the necessary
works.

Provision should of ce.tirse be made to enable the
owners, mortgagees, or others interested, to appeal
from the order of the guardians. The appellate
jurisdiction to be vested in the assistant barrister,
whose decree should be final, empowering him, in
cue he ordered the execution of the works, to give the
appellants a certain limited time for proceeding with
and completing the improvements under their own
supervision. But in default of any person so inte-
rested in the property taking the necessary proceed-
ings for ensuring employment, the guardians should
be authorised and required to appoint a competent
person to superintend the improvements, making the
entire outlay a first charge on the property operated
on. AU the necessary checks of preliminary surveys
and inspection—to be made, however, at the expense
of the division—would be ensured, and the consent of
the cons.":-4nners of poor laws and public works may

alao be insisted on.

It is extremely improbable that the boundary coin-
mission, whose report must appear in a few days, will
recommend a tovrnland or even a property area of
rating, though the latter principle may to some ex-
tent become an element in the reconstruction of
unions and divisions, to be suggested by them. From
the minute subdivision of estates in most parts of Ire-
land, if the electoral division system be retained, a
great many of them must still consist of such a num-
ber of properties as to render community of interest
an insufficient stimulus to the owners to
is
employ-
ment. Where this may be the cue it s idle to sup-
pose that several will not be found more inclined to
shirk than to fulfil their duties. Experience has also
shown that purely permissory enactments are
not sufficient to produce the desired re-
sult of general improvement, and that a
different policy is indispensably necessary.
Then if a measure of coercive improvement be pro-
posed it is desirable that the executive should not be
immediately instrumental in enforcing its provisions.
But it strikes ns that some such measure as that above
suggested would ensure the ultimate, if not the early,
operation of an act for the better employment of the
people. There is already ample precedent for the
proposition in the clauses of the Drainage Acta,
whereby the owners of half the area of • district
improvable by arterial works, can compel the unwill-
ing proprietors of the remainder to contribute to the
expenditure requisite for the general improvement of
the whole in proportion to the certified increased
value of their several portions.
We are of opinion that the legislature ought to
take heed that the sloth of private individuals should
not prevent the public from lacing benefited by the
proper development of the many valuable but dor-
mant resources of the country. The agricultural
capabilities of Ireland are in themselves sufficient to
afford ample and profitable employment to all who
are now wiling away their time in half-starved idle-
ness. But in addition to this, which may be called
the staple of the country, it abounds with mineral
wealth and unlimited fisheries, which may yet be
brought into fall exploitation.

Wz resume the narrative of Lord Crewe's Chari-
ties, and proceed to show-1. Who and what the
Trustees are—and 2. How they exercise that large
discretion which the increased value of the Bishop's
property, rather than his intentions, has reposed
in them* _ _ _

It has been already stated that, under Lord
Caawa's will, the Muter of Lincoln College, Oxford,
for the time being, is the only ex-officio trastee; but
that, for all practical purposes,:the heads of that home
take no share in the administration of the trust. On
the election of a new master, the CREWE estates are
conveyed to him, in conjunction with hie colleagues,
on the trusts of the bishop's will. But from the execu-
tion of each succeeding indentures of lease and release
to the next vacancy in the government of the college,
all the interest taken by the Masters of Lincoln in their
trust is understood to be limited to an acknowledg-
ment of the receipt from Durham of its half-yearly
accounts. . .

This inattention of the heads of Lincoln is not a little
ungrateful to the memory of the bishop ; and is still
more prejudicial to the management of the charity.
It was to that society CREWE bequeathed the larger
part of the income at his disposal. It is to his peni-