The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-13 00:00:00

of the culpable few. Ireland has hitherto been
abandoned to the discretion of her landowners. Par-
titioned into enormous estates by the questionable
munificence of successive monarchs, from ELI-
ZABETH downwards to WILLIAM - awarded
to adventurers and loyalists in the way of either re-
compense or bounty Ireland has, from the re-
motest periods of her history, presented us only with
one monotonous and deplorable spectacle of suffering.
A cottier population has been multiplied on her soil
to an extent that foreboded, from its com-
mencement, some great catastrophe like the one
in which she is even now involved. An
overwhelming majority of her community has existed
for many generations under the ban of this terrible
alternative—either to subsist by sufferance under the
murderous extortion of her landlords, or to infest the
island like a vast army of " gaberlunzies." By this
evil system the maladies of Ireland have been
frightfully multiplied, and under its shadow
inendicity has become the national character-
istic. So enormously had these woes accu-
mulated, and so entirely had the poison of the
scheme eaten into the very substance of the Irish
constitution, that it required nothing less than an un-
paralleled crisis to effect the renovation of her decayed
powers, and the eradication of the numerous diseases
preying upon her vitals. It required a crisis of
convulsions, for it is only by the throes of such a crisis
that abuses are destroyed en masse, and the whole phy-
sical and moral condition of a people renewed. That
crisis has arrived. Ireland has been stricken with
starvation : her potato-grounds have become pits of
vegetable corruption : her agriculture has been gene-
rally smitten by a mysterious and destructive power :
millions of her people—millions accustomed at the
best times to fare meagerly and live upon the
doles of a precarious benevolence—have been visited
with famine and disease, and the utter deprivation
of all the ordinary means of obtaining employment.
Out of those abysses of affliction, however, are
emerging not merely their present redemption, but
their ultimate and permanent prosperity.

Government has not only advanced manfully
and generously to the salvation of the starving
peasantry, but it has had the courage and
the wisdom to conceive a scheme by the
operation of which the recurrence of all• the miseries
formerly incidental to Ireland will be impossible.
By the imposition of local rates proportioned to the
local rental, the local destitution will henceforth re-
ceive a local provision. That is the secret of the
measures introduced to Parliament by the Ministry.
It is the secret of political economy and of legislative
charity. It is the secret of the poor-laws. Grievous
as has been the clamouring against the introduction
of a plan like this into Ireland, it is, nevertheless, to be
introduced at once, and to be universally applied. Is
there not in this determination of the Legislature a
forethought compatible with its reputation, a bold.
ness equivalent to its activity, a justice propor-
tioned to its extraordinary liberality ? Let any
man review the course pursued by the Government
since the commencement of the evils now rife in Ire-
land, let him consider how its generosity has vied in
its increase with the extension and development of
those evils, let him remember that whereas 30,000
only were at first employed on public works, the
number had risen, on the 27th of February
last, to no less than 708,228 ; that whereas
the amount expended upon relief works was in
September only 54,878/., it reached in February to
upwards of 944,0001. ; that arrangements were made
under its direction for the purchase of seed to the
value of 50,000/., and for the elevation of the provi-
sions in store to the extent of about 10,000 tons—let
him remember the ardour, and the energy, and the
incessant toil of the Legislature in behalf of Ireland
from the very opening of the session, and then de-
signate this Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill a rash Bill,
an onerous, or an injudicious Bill. The accusatio❑
is impossible when the measure is considered in con-
nexion with the various arrangements making apart
from this proposition itself. The drainage plan, the recla-
mation of waste land, the improvements of the fisheries,
of the ports and of the harbours, would be severally
palliative—if the matter were considered as requiring
anything like palliation—of the i troduction of the
poor-law into Ireland. But the introduction of that
system of relief to pauperism requires no extenuation,
as it is only synonymous with the rights of the Irish
peasantry.

Much might be written upon the philosophy of
the arguments in favour of the Government measure
which were advanced candidly and simply, and yet
most earnestly and most impressively, by Lord JOHN
RUSSELL. Such an extension of our remarks, how-
ever, is altogether superfluous. IVe shall turn from the
consideration of that speech to one of the numberless
schemes which have latterly presented themselves as cal-
culated to assist the Irish multitude in redeeming their
own condition. 'While the zeal of the agriculturists
is directed to the irrigation, and manuring, and
drainage of the soil for the purposes of growing
crops of a nutritious and profitable character, it is
most desirable that one branch of agricultural enter-
prise shall not be overlooked. The branch to which we
allude is of a peculiarly national description, and its
prosperity would in a great measure ensure the
prosperity of the agriculturists and the manu-
facturers of Ireland. We mean, of course,
the systematic cultivation of flax. At pre-
sent we have not an oppportunity of entering
more into the enumeration of the advantages certain
to accrue from the culture of flax than by extracting
a brief, but significant, calculation from Mr. Dicz.
SON'S work upon this important commodity, page
167. That gentleman there mentions the circum-
stance of a tenant of the Dean of Dromore
growing on three statute acres flax to the
amount of nearly 120 stones, which, sold at the mode-
rate price of 15s. per stone, would give a return of
901. Under all circumstances, however, says the
writer quoted, this farmer " has a certainty of 100
stones, which will realise him 751." Here are
inferences from that calculation which cannot be
treated lightly, and the more especially at this
juncture :

" This flax is now in process of conversion into cambric
pocket-handkerchiefs, is capable of being spun to 30 hanks
to the pound, and is to be spun by hand. Mark, now the
employment this will give.
"It will give constant employment for twelve months to
132 women to spin it ; 18 weavers will be occupied a like
period in weaving it; and it will employ 40 women a year to
hem-stitch (or vein) the handkerchiefs; thus giving constant
employment for twelve months to 190 persons.
" It is curious to trace the result of the process which this
flax is now undergoing. It will produce 210 webs of cam-
bric, each web containing five dozen handkerchiefs; each
dozen will be worth 405., and the entire, when finished, will
be worth 2,1001.

While the Government is taking a comprehensive
survey of the capacities of the Irish soil and of Irish
industry, the cultivation of flax should by no means
be disregarded ; it should form one of the accom-
paniments of the Poor-law introduction.

By later • intelligence received from America, it
would appear that the dissensions excited in the
Senate. by the 3,000,000 Bill give little promise of
immediate termination. One proposition for the
amicable settlement of the Mexican warfare is suc.
ceeded by another in quick succession, and all of
them equally calculated to effect their avowed
object. Mr. CALHOUN, at one moment, proposes
a most extravagant scheme for bringing the adja-
cent republic to its senses, namely, the establish-
ment of a continuous line from the mouth of the Rio
Grande, by the river, to El Passo, and so westwards
towards the northern extremities'of California. By this
plan it is presumed by Mr. CALHOUN that the coun.
trymen of SANTA ANNA will be very solicitous to
enter into a cordial alliance with their invaders. Most
probable inference ! The filching from them of their
most valuable boundaries would render a people ex-
ceedingly solicitous for a-friendly alliance with their
robbers ! Mr. Cass, on the contrary, is ambitious of be-
holding the valorous SCOTT and the indomitable ZA-
CHARY TAYLOR marching triumphantly into the centre
of the Mexican federation. The wrangling of the
Senate is answered in a somewhat contemptible man-
ner by the soldiers of the United States. General
TAYLOR still continues comfortably located at Mon-
terey, while his successor tarries at Brazos Santiago,
waiting the arrival of transports, troops, and ammu-
nition. Among the defenders one fresh movement is
alone reported, namely, that SANTA ANNA,
at the head of 15,000 men, had withdrawn from
San Luis Potosi, and proceeded inwards towards the
capital. From such unaccountable fluctuations as
these, the war between Mexico and the United States
gives every indication of being protracted and blood-