The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-02-22 00:00:00

MR. O'CONNELL AND THE POOR LAWS.

Mr. O'Connell's opposition to the adoption of poor
laws for Ireland is clearly founded upon selfish feelings,
which he entertains in common with the despotic land-
lords of the soil. It has long been a truism, become
painful by incessant repetition, that the landlords of Ire-
land are the legal enemies of social improvement—that
they subsist by iniquitous exactions, wrung from the toil
of the peasantry—and that their irresponsibility for the
evils they create, places them in a position of which they
greedily take advantage, that enables them literally to
trade on the miseries of the poor. It is scarcely credible,
that there exists in this age, and in these countries, a
class of proprietors who follow so desperate a calling.
The marauders of the Alps, or the banditti of Spain, are
not more iniquitous in their way, while they have a more
reasonable justification for their outrages. In the one
case, society is at war with the offenders ; in the other,
the offenders are admitted to all the rights of society, and
are protected by the insufficiency of the laws. That the
landlords of Ireland should.oppose the introduction of a
measure which would render them liable for the conse-
, quences of their own wickedness is natural. Such a mea-
sure would deprive them of the profits of their delin-
quency, and, for the future, paralyse their power of op-
pression. When Mr. O'Connell falls into the ranks of
these jobbers in public wrongs, he must be content to
share the obloquy attached to them.
In the late debate on the amendment on the address,
Mr. O'Connell ventured, for the first time, upon an ex-
planation of the grounds of his resistance to the poor laws.
His objections distinctly prove, either that he does not
understand the question, or that he is insincere in the
course he has chosen. The honesty of the member for
Dublin, however, is of no moment—if, indeed, it be
worth any consideration—in comparison with the validity
of the reasons by which he attempts to perpetuate the
wretchedness of his countrymen. Those reasons, such
as they are, help to show the motives out of which the
whole opposition to
,a poor law 'springs.
Mr. O'Connell affects to believe that poor laws, by
preying on the property of the rich, would ultimately
destroy the poor. This is a very subtle absurdity. The
only way in which poor laws, by preying upon property,
could destroy those who have no property, would be by
consuming the property and leaving nothing behind
either for rich or poor. But poor laws would not destroy
property, they would distribute it. The ruin, sepposing
such an extravagance possible, of the rich class through
the operation of the poor laws, would, of necessity, im-
prove the condition of the poor, who must exactly ad-
vance in proiperity in proportion. as the antagonist
power retrogrades. At present the rich have all, the
podr have nothing ; poor laWs would abstract from the
overfed a portion for the use of those who now are not fed
at all. How the poor could be rendered more poor by
being made participators in the produce of the soil, or
how, indeed, the poor of Ireland, under any circum-
stances, could be made poorer than they are, is marvel-
lous.

There are a thousand petty wheels in the machinery
of. injustioe in, Ireland; which are now worked by the
landlord, and which would be instantly stopped by a poor
law. The rich man can now get a wood cut through his
estate, or a bridge built, or an avenue laid down, by a
grandjury presentment, which throws the expense on
the county at large. By their, and a multitude of simi-
lar frauds, paiiperism is generated, and upon that pau-
perism the landlord thrives. If a poor law were esta-
blished, the landlord should either support the labourer
or employ him. Having no choice left, between com-
pulsory contributions, or an equitable division of work,
he would soon discover his interest to lie in finding em-
ployment for the .poor, in order that his contributions to
poverty might be made at the least posSible expense to
himself. His property, at first depreciated by an extra-
ordinary drain upon its resources, would gradually
ini-
prove in value : he would find that be had been all along