The Sun.
London, England, 1831-08-29 00:00:00

industrious and good, because it is the duty of the State to
have such a code of municipal law, and such a preventive
and correctional police, as will punish idleness and correct
vice (73). A police to punish idleness ! How constant
is the tendency of extremes to meet—of systems which
begin by promising besefits inconsistent with freedom, to
end by inflicting evils peculiar to slavery.* But we are
tut! that there always has been, and always will be, an
aversion in the minds of the poorer classes to seek relief.'
Admitting the existence of this aversion, when the relief
is to come from the pocket of the persons to whom the ap-
plication is made, what reason is there for expecting it
when the relief is to come from a third person, and the ap-
plication is made to a public officer, specially appointed
to receive it ? Every one must feel the difference between
requesting A to supply your wants from his own resources,
and requesting him to supply them from the resources of B.
" In the latter case I utterly disbelieve that any such
reluctance can continue, and scarcely expect it even when
the system is in its first newness of operation, when, if
ever, we might hope for attention and economy on the
part of the assessors, and for gratitude and forbearance
from the applicants. And unhappily this view is borne
out by experience. General Bourke, the Chairman of the
Limerick Relief Committee, in 1322, states that there ap-
peared no indisposition to receive gratuitous relief, but the
reverse (5482) ; and that in some parishes it was a cause
of complaint that the Committee required labour at the
price of a,sistance (5480). Mr. Barrington, the Crown
Solicitor for the Alunster circuit, states that in almost

every serious case provision must be made for the Crown
witnesses, and ' that the moment a man has five shillings
a week as a witness, he will not seek for employment.
Alen who might be employed on the public works live upon
their allowance, however small, and will remain idle, though
they might increase their income by labour (6727). He
is asked ' Are cases of this kind numerous ?" Almost

as numerous as payment of witnesses. The moment they
have any thing as a support, they will not seek for em-
ployment. I have known some in Dublin, and some in
Limerick, who have remained idle until they were sent out
of the country (6729)'. We know that in England, in
every class of society, from the pensioner of the Crown to
the pensioner of the vestry, public money is a general sub-
ject of spoil, not accepted with reluctance, but insolently
demanded. We know that in Scotland, where assessment

prevails, the reluctance to apply for charity is totally des-
troyed (Commons third Report of Poor Laws, ISIS).
The General Assembly states, that in one case, the mere
proposal to establish any assessment, a proposal afterwards
abandoned, diminished by one-half the voluntary con-
tributions, and doubled the applicants for relief. Report
p. 30.
" When Dr. Doyle is pressed by reference to Scotland,
he answers, that Scotland is a peculiar country, and the
habits of its people very different from those of the people
of Ireland (4558). We know that they are different, but
the difference certainly is not to be found in any superior
industry, or providence, or aversion to charity in Ireland,
—lreland, the very head-quarters of mendicity. On
what ground, then, are we to believe that in Ireland there
always has been and always will be an aversion in the
minds of the poorer classes to seek relief?
" I cannot quit Dr. Doyle without remarking that his
statements, both of facts and of opinions, though fortified
to a very unusual degree by asseverations of sincerity,
scarcely produce on the mind the impression of perfect
frankness.t He begins, as the diffident advocate of a
mitigated poor law, to produce, in ordinary seasons, a
very trifling effect,—he ends by demanding, in lieu of it, the
confiscation of all the Protestant Church property.

Throushout his evidence there runs a reservation that poor
laws are necessary only where the Catholic is not the
established religion ; but in his pamphlet -the mask is
thrown off.
" ' In this country there is a crying sin—there is a
loud complaint going up daily to Heaven, that the property
of the poor is held captive in injustice ; that their rights are
withheld ; and their title is known and recognized by all,
save those who could enforce it for them ; that they daily
die of want, whilst their expiring glance rests on the gor-
geous, the ungodly display. of ecclesiastical pride and pomp ;
whilst their last sigh can scarcely fail to bring down a
heavy curse on that wealth which was left for their sup-
port, but which so cruelly and se long has been wrested
and withheld from them. I have often pleaded for the in-
digent; I have sometimes wept over their distress ; I
never hesitated on my own account to share with them
my scanty pittance; but I confess that I have not,
to my recollection, solicited in their behalf the goods
or money of the industrious classes, without feel-
ings of indignation, mingled with remorse. Were all
men in Ireland in my way of thinking, they would, in or-
dinary times, have no charity sermons, no houses or insti-
tutions supported by the voluntary gifts of the industrious ;
hut, in place of those, in lieu of extorting, by sermons and
collections and never-ending appeals to the precepts of the
Gospel, money from those who cannot afford to bestow it,
and from whom it is little short of injustice to receive it,
they would assail the legislature by constant petitions,
and the Government by strong remonstrances on behalf of
the poor. They would insist with the Apostle, ' that
some should not be eased and others burdened, but that
there might be an equality.' They won'd teach the poor
themselves to abstain from violence, and be submissive to
the law ; but also tell them that they had higher claims
to relief than those arising from the exhibition of their
distress. But, above all, they would proclaim from the
house-top, in the bearing of the rich and the poor, of the
princes and of the people, that church property was held
in trust; that it was bequeathed by our ancestors in part
and principally fur the education and maintenance of the
poor ; and that so long as the State withheld it from them
the people should not seek for rest, nor the Government
enjoy repose (78-81).'
“ Who can read this passage, and doubt the motive with
which Ireland is represented in the teeth of almost all the
evidence that we possess, as ' passing rapidly from
wretchedness to ruin (61), the whole character of the
people becoming worse and worse, diminishing in stature,
enervated in mind, till at length you have the inhabitants
of one of the finest countries in the world reduced to an
effeminacy which makes them little better than the lee-
zaroni of Naples, or the Hindoos on the coast of Mala-
bar (4529) ?'
" When we find Dr. Doyle indulging in such asser•
dons in a mere matter of perception, we shall pause before
we believe him to be well founded, or even sincere, in the
opinion equally opposed (as most of his other opinions
are) to almost all the evidence given before the Com-
mittee, that proper persons could be found in every parish
of Ireland to administer his system of poor laws."— Times.
While a certain Honourable Assembly is whiling
away its time in playing at the Reform Bill, as if it
were a game of battledore and shuttlecock, and evi-
dently taking its slow progress with as much cool-
ness us if it were a miscellaneous estimate, or a ses-
sional vote, there is a state of things and feeling
growing out of this listlessness out of doors which,
ere long, we suspect, will cull for more earnest at-
rention—we mean the state of trade, and the state
of national feeling which begins to appear, in conse-
quence of the great length of time which has been
consumed in pretending to discuss the clauses of a
Bill upon which the country has already stamped its
fiat, and which, in three weeks at most, ought to
have been amended, where slight amendments were
necessary, and have received the sanction of the
House. At the commencement of the discussion,
all was liveliness, enthusiasm—joy—hope ; now
the liveliness has disappeared—the joy is gone—the
‘, hope being deferred," has sickened the public of
public men---and the enthusiasm has settled down
into a determination to wait the issue of events, but
to have Reform at all hazard-, and at all cost and
-scarce! The Anti-Reform party thought that by
delaying the progress of the Bill they would sicken
the people of Reform, arid pave the way for their
own admission to power; but to what extent have
they succeeded ? Have they riot sickened the
people of themselves and their conduct, instead of
sickening them of Reform ? Have they not engen-
dered a feeling of contempt towards them, on the
part of those who were formerly not altogether de-
ficient in respect for the Aristocracy, whether
Whig or Tory ? Have they not created a deep
feeling of hatred towards the upper classes eif so-
ciety which bodes no good to the future tranquillity
of the country, and the maintenance of that
order and harmony which are indispensable to
the preservation of the different ranks of which
seciety in this country is made up ? Are they
not, in fact, by their present conduct, laying the
foundation of that very tendency to revolution—and
what fearful changes does not that word import !
which they falsely pretend to see in the Reform Bill,i
but against which their speedy submission to it s
their only safeguard ? Has any one of them eyer
" . 1)r. Doyle is almost a St. Simonist. His beau ideal of
civil society is Paraguay under the Jesuits, where the law
punished. idleness and sinfulness, and the priest divided among
the people the whole produce of the soil.
" t I must except from this remark Dr. Doyle's opinions on
education, of which I see no reason to doubt the sincerity, and
whi
eh arebenevolent, enlightened, and liberal : touch more so, as
far. AS can be collected from the questions Ad tohire, than those
ot some or his examiners." 1