The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-04 00:00:00

1.-IRELAND.

The Committee of 1826, and your present Com-
mittee, have examined twenty-five witnesses upon
the subject of' the state of the labouring population,
in Ireland. Eight of those witnesses were examined
before the Committee of 1826, and seventeen before
the present. Committee; and two of those witnesses
were examined before Both Committees. Those
witnesses consisted of five Members of Parliament,
who were also members of your Committee; eleven
residents in Ireland, including the Bishop of Lime-
rick, three land-agents, whom the Committee had an
opportunity of examining,from their being accidentally
present at Election Committees, and Mr. Nimmo, a
civil engineer; Mr. Blake, one of the members of
the late Commission of Inquiry into the State of
Education in Ireland; and the Rev. 'l'. R. Malthus.
Your Committee, whiljtVey refer to the evidence
itself, as well for the minute details of facts, as to
prove the unanimous feeling-entertained by all these
witnesses as to the enormous evils existing, and still
greater to be anticipated from the unchecked pro-
gress of population, may be allowed to call the at-
tention of the House to a few observations practi-
cally connected with the relief to be afforded' by
emigration.

Your Committee deem it unnecessary to expatiate
upon the extreme wretchedness of a great portion of
the peasantry in many parts of Ireland. The evi-
dence which has been produced before successive
Committees of the House cannot fail to have made
a strong impression on this subject, upon those
Members who have not themselves. been eye-wit-
nesses of the circumstances; and whatever com-
plicated causes may have led to this state of things,
the fact is undeniable that, generally speaking, there
is that excess of labour, as compared with any per-
manent demand for it, which has reduced and must
keep down the labourer at the lowest possible amount
of subsistence. It even appears in evidence, that
private .individuals have frequently employed la-
bourers at this low rate, rather from motives of
charity than from any beneficial interest accruing to
the party employing them ; and upon this particular
point, your Committee beg to refer to the evidence
of Mr. Dixon, a land agent, in answer to the questions
numbered 2521, 2552, 2573, 2574,- and 2575.
The House are aware that one of the popular modes
of treating the subject of Ireland is to express a
wish for the rapid introduction of capital into that
country. Nothing is more easy than to express a
general proposition of this nature, but your Com-
mittee would particularly wish to press upon the
attention of the House, that the evils of a population
'furnishing an excess of labour above the demand for
it, contain within themselves a self-producing and
self-aggravating principle ; and that so long as no
measures are taken to restrain them, they must not
only continue to exist and increase, but by their very
eXistence must prevent the introduction of that
capital, which, if introduced, would diminish the re-
dundancy, by establishing a greater equality between
the supply of labour and the effective demand.
Under the present circumstances, the opinion en-
tertained of the insecurity of property in Ireland,
arising from the state of the population, must ope-
rate as a most effectual discouragement to the intro-
duction of capital; that is to say, no person will be
disposed to establish large manufactories, or to make
great agricultural improvements, in a country whicl;
has been, and may again be the scene of insurrec-
tionary movements, and where his returns (which
The advantages that may be expected from the exa-
mination of the evidence taken before the Emigratim:
Committee, may be estimated by the answers which Mr.
Wilson, a Roman Catholic land proprietor, in the county
of Galway, gave to two questions which were put to him
during his second examination before the present Commit-
tee. Mr. Wilson had bad an opportunity of reading, in
the short interval between his two examinations, the
Report and Evidence of the first. Committee." The
queries put to him are numbered 3,069 and 3,070. "" Art
you of opinion that the Irish gentry have had an opportu-
nity of giving their attention to the subject of the redun-
dant population of Ireland, and its removal, so as to con-
siderite effect upon their interests?" "I am clearly sa-
tisfied they have not ; and I can speak of my own case.
I had certainly given the state of the poor in Ireland a
great deal of. consideration ; but I never, until I came be-
fore this Committee, gave the subject of Emigration that
consideration which I have done since; not one, I should
think, in a hundred, have thought upon the sttbject."—
_6, Are you not satisfied, therefore, that the publication of
the evidence taken before this Committee will naturally
draw their attention to the subject, to see how their pe-
cuniary interests are affected ; and do you not think that
their answers'inust be qualified according to the considera-
tion given 'by them to the subject ?" No doubt, the
more they consider the subject, the more competent they
will be to form an opinion upon it ; for myself, I view it
in a•much more favourable light than I did the last time I
gave evidence before the Committee."