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this vegetable, and the consequent facility with which a family may have an ample supply of provisions, Ireland in the course of a century,

upon the character of the governments in which the present convulsions may terminate. The establishment of an universal despotism, and the exclusion of the lower and middle classes of society from all share in the government, by annihilating in a great degree individual importance and dignity, would have a strong tendency to make the poor submit to the lowest and cheapest sort of sustenance; and it is quite certain that if they once consent to produce an adequate supply of labour on the cheapest sort of food, they never will be able to obtain any thing better. On the other hand, if the present convulsions of the civilized world should leave behind them improved forms of government, it is probable, that the decent pride occasioned by a superior political condition, will make the lower classes of society look forward to something. besides mere support, and not only prevent them from falling to potatoes, but raise the quality of their food above what it is at present. The causes which, independently of soil and climate, have actually determined the chief food of the common people in the different kingdoms of Europe, seem to have been their political state, and the periods of prosperity or adversity, with regard to the funds for the maintenance of labour, which they may have gone through. And when the character of the food has been determined in any particular country by these causes, though it continues always susceptible of change, yet it changes slowly and with difficulty, and a union of favourable circumstances is necessary to produce the effect. A country which, from a previous state of general depression, had been long in the habit of living upon the lowest kind of food, might pass through a period of considerable agricultural prosperity, and feel it chicfly in the rapid increase of population, and not in the improvement of the diet and comfort of the lower classes. On the other hand,

has more than quadrupled its inhabitants. This multiplication of the species, however, so far from contributing to the increase of national virtue and happiness, only tended to share penury and wretchedness among a greater number of individuals,―to spread more thickly a poor, and ignorant, and comfortless population over the face of the country; possessing neither the desire nor the means of bettering their condition.

For the sake of placing this idea in a clearer and more striking point of view, let us suppose that in an English country, where the lowest class of the people have recourse to poor laws, houses are provided for the poor, and that they experience no difficulty whatever in entering into workhouses or cottages whenever they choose; that they are contented with the cheap soups of Count Rumford, and never require a more nourishing or more expensive food; that every possible facility is afforded them, independent of any exertions of their own, to

a people which from a course of favourable circumstances, had been in the habit of living on the best wheaten bread, might from checks to their agriculture or commerce, suffer long and severe want, before they would consent to change their diet; and the effects of such checks would be felt rather in the retardation of the population, than in the adoption of an inferior kind of food, or a dif ferent standard of comfort."

Edin. Rev. July, 1808. p. 352.

rear a numerous progeny, while no excitement to industry is presented to them, but are, on the other hand, nearly prohibited from raising themselves in society; it is evident that in such circumstances, population would increase with a prodigious acceleration, so as ultimately to involve the country in all the miseries of universal poverty, of famine, and pestilence. Population in this case, in place of being a blessing to a nation, would prove the greatest of all calamities. Now, population has advanced in Ireland during the last century in somewhat similar circumstances. The potatoe has answered the purpose of cheap soups: the cabin, which may be procured by a day's labour, is still more inviting than a workhouse: and the penal code has operated as a check to industry, to agricultural improvement, and to all those efforts which a people perfectly free, will make to better their condition. Hence the depressed state of the crowded population of Ireland before any of these laws were abolished; and hence also their extreme ignorance, and vice, and insubordination. It is this code which has chiefly contributed to render permanent that melancholy state of things to which Mr. Malthus alludes, when he says; "if, as in Ireland and in Spain, and many of the southern countries, the people be in so degraded a

state, as to propagate their species like brutes, totally regardless of consequences, it matters little whether they have poor laws or not. Misery in all its various forms must be the predominant check to their increase. Poor laws, indeed, will always tend to aggravate the evil, by diminishing the general resources of the country, and in such a state of things could exist only for a short time; but with or without them, no stretch of human ingenuity and exertion could rescue the people from the most extreme poverty and wretchedness."*

In what manner and to what extent, it may be asked, could the penal laws produce that debasement of character, and that degraded state in which the people of Ireland propaga.e their species totally regardless of consequences, and in which, while it continues, no stretch of ingenuity and exertion can rescue them from the most extreme poverty and wretchedness? In answering this question it is only necessary to advert to the nature and manifest tendency of the penal laws, and to the state in which this country was placed when these were enacted.

On the last of these particulars, it is unnecessary to add another word to what has been

Malthus on Population, v. ii. p. 336.

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so often repeated. Ireland even at the revolution was in as barbarous and wretched a condition as any nation in Europe. The whole country at this period exhibited a scene of poverty and degradation, which could scarcely he surpassed even in the wilds of the Russian empire. And what are the means which were necessary to raise the people to comfort and civilization? Those only which would tend to eradicate all religious animosity, which would afford perfect freedom and security to every subject, which would encourage agriculture and commerce, and which by their benign and beneficent effect, would infuse joy and gladness into every heart. Every one capable of forming an opinion on the subject, must allow that such measures only ought to have been pursued towards Ireland. The reverse of all this, however, was the plan adopted. In place of eradicating all religious animosity, the penal laws had a direct tendency to confirm and make it lasting: in place of affording perfect freedom to every subject, and leaving the path of honour and of opulence open to merit, almost the whole native, and a very considerable part of the Anglo-Hibernian, population was proscribed: in place of encouraging agriculture and commerce by a free trade, both were depressed

Every one knows that

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