The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-19 00:00:00

41101TilT4 Rrult

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1847.

We are compelled by press of matter to omit our
usual Parliamentary summary.

An absentee-tax is among the most equitable in its
motive, but it is among the most unjust in its opera-
tion and among the most injurious in its consequences.
Theoretically it appears to be about the surest means
for enforcing that wholesome circulati )n of money
which can atone conduce to the national welfare.
Practically it would be destructive to all enterprise,
subversive of all mutual reliance, and an infringe-
ment upon !`all the liberties of the subject. No one
can feel more disposed than ourselves to sym-
pathise with the indignation so temperately ex-
pressed against the habitual non-residents of Ire-
land by the Honourable Gentleman the Member for
Limerick. To the systematic selfishness of that por-
tion of the Irish proprietary is attributable, we are
satisfied, the principal amount of the wretchedness
by which that unfortunate country has been in-
cessantly desolated since the Legislative Union at
the commencement of the nineteenth century.
Drawing from their Irish possessions incomes
which amount, according to the estimate
of Mr. SAM O'BaIEN, to the enormous
sum of 4,000,0001. sterling; deriving this, let
it be moreover remembered, from the toil
and sweat of their tenantry, they nevertheless
deprive that tenantry of the advantages conse-
quent upon the local expenditure of their individual
rentals, to which advantage 3 they are fully entitled
both by the principles of our Constitution and the
laws of Nature. The effects of this unnatural and
indefensible deprivation are obvious. From the
withdrawal of the landlords the fecundity of their
estates remains, of course, but partially developed ;
the energies of the agricultural population are al-

lowed to lie dormant,-or to arouse themselves to a

feeble and isolated excitement at the pleasure of the
neglected peasantry; all competition is blighted upon
_ _

its first budding into existence; the field-labourers
receive just sufficient to maintain a precarious balance
between poverty and destitution, or are auandoned to
the doles of a fluctuating benevolence. Those are
the immediate consequences of this atrocious and
ruinous system. The ulterior consequences are
more enormous. They reduce the nation to a multi-
tude of paupers, they bring upon the land a periodical
famine, they foster discontent, they hold out lures to
insubordination, they dwarf the vigour of the island,
they deteriorate the general property, they excite the
poorer classes to decrease the sureties of our national
prosperite by emigration. And let the als,.entees re-
member this significant and undeniable fact, that they
furnish by their cruel and insane conduct the most
rational argument to the irratioual,scheme of a Repeal
of the Union. It is they who have sharpened the
sword of famine ; it is they who have lit the brand of
agitation ; it is they who have imparted its most
deadly and deleterious influence to the potato mur-
rain ; it is they who have stunted the capacities of the
empire, by pampering their own indolence and consult-
ing their own convenience; it is they who have en-
dered Ireland a lazir-house and her inhabitants
beggars. Look at Ireland in its present condition ;
look at the dearth and disease by which it is ravaged ;
look at its people dying by dozens, by scores, by
hundreds; look at its fields unsown, its markets
empty, i.s fisheries almost forsaken, its pea-
santry penniless, workless, and foodless; look
at it as it now i 4, the pensioner of
the State, the receiver of the alms and the broken
bits of its neighbours—and see in all:that misery, in
all that degradation and want, the criminal effects of
absenteeism. When Queen MARY, better known by
an exquisitely brutal soubriquet, was dying, her
clamour was, " Calais ! Calais ! Calais !" When
Lord NELSON was chasing the French fleet in the
Mediterranean, before his immortal victory at
Aboukir, his cry was, "Frigates! Frigates! Frigates:!"
Could Ireland give voice to her woe, could Erin
again sing her lamentations, her cry would be,
" Absentees ! Absentees ! Absentees !"

Regarding the system of non-residence with such
unmitigated abhorrence, we are, nevertheless, opposed
to the proposition of the Honourable Member for
Limerick, first, because we regard the imposition of
an absentee-tax as contrary to the liberties of the
individual and as opposed to the interests of the com-
munity, and, secondly, because the resolution of Mr.
SMITH O'BRIAN has been entirely forestalled by the
extension of the poor-laws throughout Ireland. From
being so perfectly self-evident and from being so fre-
quently repeated, it has almost grown into a proverb,
that the establishment of an effective poor-law is
virtually the imposition of an absentee-tax. For it
must be remembered that the poor-rates
will be levied, nut upon the annual incomes
spent in certain localities, but upon the
annual incomes derived front certain localities. By
this arrangement a per-centage will be drawn from
the absentee landlords, and consequently the neces-
sity fur a separate taxation upon the rentals squan-
dered out of the island is altogether removed. Besides
this enactment, there is another measure calculated to
• :Feet the most salutary changes in Ireland—w emi in,
of course, the Bill introduced by Government for the
facilitation of t1.1,_ sale of estates. " Amongst other
benefits likely to accrue from them"—meaning the
last-mentioned measure and the Poor Relief (Ire -
laud) Bill—" I hope," says NIT. LABOUCLIERE, " that
they will have the effect of obliging proprietors of
land in Ireland to contribute their
r f.,,air
Let
r hey th nre.-
share to the
rtceo
expenses of maintaining the p
scientious advocates of an absentee-tax
tarry

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