The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-03 00:00:00

talked of the general registry on the continent,
the effect of which, it had been stated, had added
several years' purchase to the value of the lands. The
Right Hon. Gentleman proposed to take the lands of
Connaught and sell them under a Parliamentary title,
which he (Mr. Disraeli) maintained would have the same
effect as a system of general registry. The Right Hon.
Gentleman would sell them first of all to pay the state
fir the sums advanced, or to defray the rates for which
they were indebted, and, after paying those charges, he
would hand over the proceeds to the proprietor. That
property would be sold under great advantages, but
what would he do to the property in Munster or Ulster?
Did he mean to say that the solvent and provident pro-
prietor should bring his property into the market at a
disadvantage compared with the insolvent and im-
provident proprietor, who had not discharged his
duty either to himself, to society, or to his
country.—(Elear, hear.) Was an estate in Con-
naught, on account of the !aches of the proprietor, to
be sold under these advantages, and was the
Ulster proprietor to be told—" Your title is reasonably
good, but there is a ruined and dissolute fellow in Con-
naught, a he has a Parliamentary title, and your marl, t
is destroyed?"—(Hear, hear.) He opposed the planta-
tion scheme of the Right Hon. Gentleman, as he had
stated, because it was impossible; his interference with
the local funds, because it would he nugatory; and his
Parliamentary title, because he held it to he unjust.—
(Hear, hear.) He agreed with the Right Hoe. Gentle.
men in thinking it expedient to reduce the area of tax-
ation, which his (Mr. ,Disraeli's) friends hod f;ir seine
time been urging upon the attention of the Reuse. The
Right Hon. Baronet had alluded to the influence which
the repeal of the cern-laws had exercised on the cireutu-
stiences of Ireland. He was not anxious to intrAuce
this subject, and thus to revive those perhaps too bitter
disputes which he feared would again too quickly and
too fiercely come under their consideration.—(Elear,
hear.) But he felt bound to notice the observations
of the Right Honourable Gentleman if he intro-
duced the subject. He bad asked, what would be the
state of Ireland if, with the potato famine in that
country, Indian meal were still subject to a duty of
10s? The Right lion. Gentleman always assumed that
Indian meal could never have been introduced into Ire-
land except at a duty of 10s., in which he differed from
the Right Hon. Gentleman. If he were forced by these
allusions to refer to the repeal of the corn-laws with re-
ference to the condition of Ireland, he felt persuaded that
when the future historian of our time—one, perhaps, as
well acquainted with the circumstances, and as highly
accomplished, as that brilliant writer whose absence he
as deeply deplored as any man in that House—if he had
to recount the past, and to tell the world that almost at
the same time a statesman of this country introduced the
vast experiment of a pcor-law in Ireland, arid, at the
same time, not only disturbed, but destroyed, the assured
and only markets which that country had, whatever
might have been that historian's economic theory, how-
ever completely he might be bound to those dogmas
which he (Mr. Disraeli) believed might be so generally
true and so partially false, of this he felt pursuaded, that
such an historian would say that the statesman who
at the same time introduced that vast experiment
upon a country which he also deprived of
her markets, was embarking, not only in the most dan-
gerous, but also the most ruinous experiment, which any
Minister had ever dared to venture upon.—(Cheers )
The question which had thus been brought under the
notice of the House was one quite independent of any
abstract truth, and completely apart from any of the
theories of which they had heard so much. To enforce
the joint operations of two such measures as a poor-law
in Ireland and the repeal of the corn-laws was a political
blunder as great as any that had ever been committed.
It was quite true that the Right Hon. Gentleman the
Member for Tamworth might say that he was in no
respect answerable for the poor-law, that it had not
been inflicted upon Ireland by him. But whether or
not he was responsible for the poor-law in Ireland,
he should have remembered that that: poor-law had
been passed before he proposed to Parliament a re-
peal of the corn-laws; and the House should remember
that there proceeded from that succession of mea-
sures a combination such as the human intellect had
never previously encountered, and many years might
not pass away before it produced a state of society
in Ireland calculated to shake the institutions of the
empire to their foundations.—(Hear.) The Right Hon.
Gentleman had with considerable effect shown how the
imperial duties of this country had been fulfilled, and
upon that occasion he read to the House a certain letter
written by a Lancashire man, warning the House at the
same time not to laugh. In his opinion that caution
was perfectly necessary, for there was nothing whatever
in the letter to provoke laughter. It was a plain,
straightforward statement of details given with unaffected
simplicity. It was calculated to produce great effect,
but there was not one line of it that did not admit of
being dwelt upon. There certainly was no reason why
such letters should not be read, nor any reason why
Lancashire might not prosper in the west of Ireland.
But letters from Lancashire might also be brought for-
ward
to show thee recent measures of legislation had
steppe d the progress of improvement and checked the
growing prosperity which Lancashire men might confer.
lie also held in his hand a letter from a Lancashire
man, part of which he intended to read to the House.
It was a letter addressed to the Editor of the Times,
awl bore date the let of December, 184 S, with the
signature " Francis Graham." As it had so recently ap-
peared in the Times newspaper, it doubtless was well
known to the Members of that II nise, but there was one
short extract of a few lines a hich he could not deny him-
self the pl- asure of reading, for Mr. Grchem took ex-
ceedingly just views of the present state of Ireland, and
of the consequences which the present poor-law was
likely to produce in that part of the United kingdom.
Mr. Graham, part of whose letter he had to read, ad-
dressed the editor of the Times in these words : —'`A.
Lancashire gentleman, eon to Mr. Eastwood, of Brindle-
ledge, near Preston, who has got a lease for ever from
me of a large improreable tract, and who, in the two
years he has resided here has expended between 4,0001
and 5,C00/. on it (no idle man), having employed on
the average 50 labourers daily, and in summer sum. -
times as many as 120, most of them belonging to the
properties of other proprietors, and there not being or.e
single pauper on the large townland on which ho re-
sides, containing 2,658 acres—on the valuation of the
union being revised the other day, had his
improvements valued at an increase of 1151. a-year,
though none of them are as yet in the slightest
degree reproductive. (He wanted to show how the
present poor-law was fatal to Ireland.) The result is,
Mr. Eastwood has dismissed all his labourers except
twelve, and until a change in the law takes place has
completely ceased all his improvements and employment,
by which so many families were supported, who are now
thrown upon the union as recipients of out-door relief."
—(Hear, hear.) He was glad from those indications of
sentiment to find that not only the Right Hon. Gentle
man the Member for Tamworth, but the responsible ad-
visers of the Crown, were in the same boat with him;
and he hoped that when the Noble Lord awoke from the
slumbers he was then enjoying that he would turn his
attention to the effects of the poor-law in Ireland upon
the success of Mr. Eastwood's speculation. The Noble
Lord would find that Mr. Eastwood had dismissed all
his labourers save twelve, and he had adopted the reso-
lution of not proceeding with his improvements till the
law was entirely changed. One immediate effect of this
was that a certain number of families became entitled
to outdoor relief. lie should now call the attention
o f the House to another case, Oat of Mr. Prior:-
44 Another gentleman, Mr. Prior, who has a similar lease
from me, and obtained from Government 8001. as a loan,
under the Act you refer to in your article of the 17th'
ult., the first instalment of which, 1601., he has already
laid out on his farm, having previously expended a large
amount of private capital on it, had his improvements,
effected with this Government money, valued, and his
rates increased in an equal manner ; the consequence of
which is, that he wrote last week to the Government,
saying he must decline taking the remainder of the 800/.,
as his doing so would make him liable to pay a greater
sum than he even now does, to support the paupers of
other estates." Those were the views of the state of
Ireland which the persons best qualified to bear testimony
to them furnished to the public. But the leading Mem-
bers on both sides of that House were all for remedial
measures,and earnestly professed a desire to stimulate pi-
Tate enterprise and industry under the sanction of the state.
But the proprietor of Ireland treated their laws un-
gratefully or seemed to do so, for the obvious reason
that they could not use those laws otherwise than at
enormous cost. The House could not fail to have ob•
served the circumstances which under the letter he had
quoted bad been written. It was written in the tone of
a man who desired to expostulate with The Times, alter
one of its indignant and powerful articles, exercising all
the influence which they were well known to exercise
over public opinion. The writer of the letter appeared
net only to have that object in view, but he seemed also
to conclude that in the attempt of the Government to
carry out their views, they meant at the same time to
confer a boon upon Ireland by facilitating improvement
and employment. But the Ministers of the Crown might
rest thoroughly assured of this, that until the laws were
alto: ed the hands of all men would be tied. He would
quote again from the letter of which he had already read
an extract:—

" Owing to the principles of the present poor-law, the
boon granted by the Legislature to benefit the country,
by facilitating improvement and employment, is com-
pletely nullified; and until the law with respect to im-
provements on land being subject to increased rate for a
certain extended period, is altered, and until each pro-
perty or townland is directly liable to support the desti-
tution existing on it, by employment or otherwise, the
hands of every man, whether improving landlord oiron-
dustrious farmer, are completely tied, and thepoiastiin
y_ng
of this country must go from bad to worse, the
stop
to.
out of capital on land being completely 1?u
Ireland, then, being in the condition _ous and the
depicted in that
e
document, he could not help asking Hour
Government how they could
adjourn for the holidays
the
with such a law in existence?—(bear,
as he could follow the
Right
htHonourable Gentleman
the Member for Tamworth he did not understand
him
adhesion to the present poor law; but,
as giving in his
was that Right nor- Gentleman prepared to go back to
the law of 1 •89—for lio was presumed to utidertak
81
the workhouse test, and to maintain that it must be ap-
plied. But he had heard the Right Honourable G. ntle-
man talk of employing the poor on the reads, and he
confessed himself rather at a loss to understand how
that was to be done consistently with a stringer t
maintenance of the workhouse teat. He further under-
stood the Right Honourable Gentleman to oppose a
1 ibour-rate as bad in policy, and in many respects ob-
jeetionxbie. Ho hop,•ri that ho was correctly stating
the sentiments of the Right Honourable Gentleman, for
it was most important ihat they should have his opinion
distinctly. If the labour-rate were to be denounced how
were the paupers to be employed upon the roads of a
couaty that was already over roadtd ?—(Hear, hear.)
He had thus ventured to give his reasons for opposing
the measure of the Government, and he could not help
believing that the reasons he had given were founded on
the cirownstonceo of 14 Vitici klo did ibis with the