banishment the need for troops is greatly enlarged-the sinking-fund is likely to be replaced by a great deficiency of revenue-the existence of the Church is endangered-the separation of Ireland from Britain is made a matter of open attempt and probability-and the sufferings of the former are increased. The Irish blacks and greys still pull in opposite directions, or only draw together on the road of civil war and ruin.

In all this these sages really say"People of England, we insulted, deceived, and betrayed you-the mighty change of law and institution which we forced on you by tyranny and fraud is operating in a ruinous manner-our liberal opinions are alike false and destructive-and we are the knaves, boobies, bigots, and intolerants, we asserted our opponents to be. We are utterly unworthy of belief and trust!"

Thus Catholic Emancipation is confessed by those who advocated it to be a total failure-a failure as complete and destructive as FreeTrade, and the other nostrums which have filled the empire with calamity and convulsion. Liberal opinions modern Whiggism and Liberalismhave now been in essentials brought to the decisive test of experiment, and the result is, overwhelming refutation throughout. In all material points of creed and measure, the Greys, Broughams, and Plunkettsthe Goderichs, Grants, and Thompsons-the Edinburgh and Westminster Reviews-and the liberal newspapers, stand covered with such blasting demonstrations of false principle, incorrect view, and imbecile understanding, as never before fell on men and publications in any age or nation.

Why are they still followed? Because not only public spirit, but honourable party spirit is no more. From the sordid, blind, unprincipled, mountebankism which seems to have taken possession of Whig, Liberal, Old Tory, and Peelite alike, the object of creed and measure now is personal and factious profits. What matters it, if a change involve the empire in calamity and peril? this faction has gained, or that has preserved, power; one part of the community has beaten and ruined another-the Aristocracy has been

smote, the Church has been mutilated, the Landed Interest has been plundered, therefore the change is a most proper and beneficial one, even if it have ensured public destruction. If these men and publications were known to be lunatic and treasonable in the last degree, they would be followed with the same servility, provided they should war against the laws and institutions of the realm, and assist one part of the population in robbing and starving the other.

The confession is, that Catholic Emancipation has not left things as it found them, but has made their state infinitely worse. The old Catholic Question, not only made the Irish Protestants determined adherents of the constitution, government, and England, but restricted the Catholics from revolutionary instruction and objects. Granting that it produced party strife and convulsion, these very evils formed a source of inflexible loyalty amidst one part of the inhabitants, and a bulwark against disloyalty amidst the other; they disarmed the rebel, and compelled the traitor to wear the mask of fidelity, and caution his deluded followers against disaffection and treason. The party contention would not have been in any material degree injurious, had it not been for the Whig and Liberal Tory factions in England. When these profligate bodies were silent, and government did its duty, the party war caused by the Catholic Question in Ireland was not more violent and injurious than that between English Whigs and Tories. The Broughams and Plunketts were the leading agitators who enabled the O'Connells and Shiels to labour in security and with effect; it was solely owing to the criminality of men like these, and the criminality of Ministers, British and Irish, that the Catholic Question produced any evils worthy of notice. Taking into account what kind of subjects the Irish people always were, it has long been our deliberate opinion that this Question, on the fair balance between good and evil, yielded vast benefit to the empire. Present events amply prove that without it Ireland could only have been retained by the extreme of despotism; and they almost prove, that on several occasions during the

war, the sword could scarcely have retained her.

So long as the Catholic Question remained, that for repealing the Union could not be agitated; it was confessed by the demagogues, and obvious to all men, save the cloudgazers the knowledge-manufacturers-that the one kept down the other, and that the choice lay between them. Of course the death of the Catholic Question has been the birth of the Repeal one. And what are the fruits of the exchange? For a religious question of individual privilege, we have got a political one of national dismemberment; for a question which caused Protestant to balance and govern Catholic, we have got one which combines them on the side of insubordination, or neutralizes the former; for a question, which, on the balance, was greatly in favour of Protestantism, we have got one which is as much in favour of Catholicism; for a question which suppressed seditious instruction, we have got one which teaches rebellion to the whole population; for a question of party, we have got one of revolution. The bridle which kept Ireland in subjection to law, the bond of feeling which united her to England, the checks and balances in which consisted the slender portion of Irish self-government and freedom, have vanished with the Catholic Question.

The demagogues, or, to speak more correctly, the traitors, intimate very intelligibly that the struggle for the Repeal is to be really for national separation-that the Irish Parliament is to be only the mask and steppingstone for grasping Irish independence. They thus, in regard to both duration and consequences, provide as terrible a contest as could well be conceived for England and Ireland; and of course both have the deepest interest in examining well the grievances on which they found their treason. What are these Irish grievances? Penury and misery. To what are they owing? The misdeeds of England! respond the traitors-the Subletting Act, Jury Assessments, and similar things! reply the scribes of the Treasury;-but none will reveal the great causes. The burden is thus cast wholly on England; and she is to go on, as she has done, throw

ing away her wealth and strength merely to injure Ireland as much as herself.

The time has come when the truth, and the whole truth, must be spoken to the Irish people. For several years they have been treated like petted children; boasting of themselves as perfection, the boast has been fashionable in England; and all sides, Whig and Tory, Anti-Catholic, and the reverse, have joined in lauding them as the "faultless monsters" of the human race. Have they scrambled and blubbered for the most precious of England's possessions-it has been pronounced hugely praiseworthy; have they wallowed in the darkest crimes-it has been tortured into excessive merit; every thing amiss in their condition and conduct has been fathered on English guilt. Even at this moment we are oracularly cautioned against saying any thing which may offend them; they are like the French-they are deaf to English admonition-they are thisthey are that; and the obstreperous babies are to hear nothing from this side the Channel, save bland panegyrics on their beauties and good behaviour. For their own sake, this must be endured no longer; they must be told strongly and unsparingly of their defects and infirmities, not to insult and upbraid, but to reform and instruct them.

What, then, are the great causes of Irish penury and misery? Without hesitation, we reply-The individual deficiencies and misconduct of the Irish people.

It is self-evident that the very best laws and institutions cannot preserve the individual from want and barbarism, who is improvident, incapable, vicious and turbulent-that he is the cause of his own sufferings: it is of necessity equally' so, that the case is precisely the same with a nation. Before, therefore, Ireland can prove any thing against English rule, it is incumbent on her to prove that her inhabitants differ not in character from those nations which are rich and happy.

In the more shewy kinds of natural ability, the Irishman has no superior; in the more solid kinds, and the qualities of disposition essential for producing national prosperity, he stands the lowest of civilized men.

Irish improvidence and prodigality are matters of general notoriety; one of the Irish liberals-we think Mr Spring Rice said in Parliament two or three years ago, it would be of small use sending British capital to Ireland, if it were not placed under British frugality and foresight: another Irishman, in writing of his countrymen, pleasantly remarks, that each ought to possess ten thousand a-year. Looking at this alone, it renders it impossible for the people of Ireland to be other than poor and miserable; it not only keeps the better classes in debt and poverty, but prohibits them from providing the lower ones with food and employment.

This inordinate capacity for enjoy ment is combined with the utmost incapacity for creating the means of enjoyment. Pugnacious in the last degree, the Irishman's pugnacity is eternally levelled against the sources of property and subsistence: the people of Ireland are engaged in an incessant struggle to banish and repel from them every thing which can raise them above the condition of the destitute savage.

Were the old penal laws, which are so much railed against, wantonly imposed without provocation, on a peaceable, unoffending people? No, they were provoked by the worst misconduct; they were resorted to as the only means by which Irish turbulence and crime could be repressed. Indefensible as they were, they were not more so than the Irish guilt which gave birth to them; and England's great object in them was to strike the criminal leader for the good of the follower, and to extinguish that which was more destructive to Ireland, than to herself. We do not stoop to seek shelter for her under Irish Parliaments.

In the very long interval which has elapsed since they ceased to have material operation, why has not Ireland advanced in prosperity? The Catholic Question has stood in the way, reply her traitors, and the Treasury scribes. Did it cripple her agriculture, manufactures, or trade? It did not affect them. Did it prevent her from being properly represented in Parliament? In this matter, the Catholics had a greater extent of privilege than they have at

present; they were allowed to choose their representatives, and although they were compelled to elect Protestants, the compulsion, so far as concerned the law, was little more than a nominal one, for it only prohibited them from electing men who in fact had no existence. They still are, from inability to find Catholics, bound in a great measure to Protestants as representatives; and they are worse represented than they were before the Question was carried. The Catholic disabilities did not press on the means of wealth and happiness; in essential matters they were only a name, and their removal has injured more than benefited the general interests of Ireland. But it is alleged, and allegation can invent nothing better, that they caused strife and convulsion. Was this the fault of England? Her wish was peace; in so far as she took a side, it was matter of compulsion; and when she was neutral, the Irish people tore each other to pieces. It is amply proved by the present conduct of the Catholics, that the nominal grievance formed by the disabilities was but a pretext, and that their own bad feelings were the real cause of the strife and convulsion.

Thus for a very long term of years before the Catholic Question was carried, Ireland, in so far as accounta bility rests on England, enjoyed the freedom, security of property, and general advantages, which were enjoyed by England and Scotland. She was in an incalculably better situation for the acquisition of wealth than any continental nation. If, previously to late years, she were treated as a colony, this had little practical effect on the side of injury, while it had much on that of benefit. During the war, she had the immense market of Britain and her colonies for her agricultural produce and linens; she obtained those prices for corn and cattle which filled the agriculture of England and Scotland with riches, and her general manufactures were protected. Since the war ceased, she has stood on an equality with England and Scotland; in regard of taxes, she has enjoyed a great advantage over them. On the whole of the term she has had an excellent market for her agricultural productions. She has possessed a superi

Who is to blame here? Why did not the things fill Irish agriculture with capital, skill, and improvement, which filled English and Scotch agriculture with them? The traitors and gentlemen of the press vociferously respond-England!-All the blame belongs to English misgovernment! The fine and perfect people of Ireland are guiltless. The ludicrous falsehood is devoutly swallowed, and England cannot sufficiently wonder at her own enormities!

Why, in despite of all this, is Ireland in penury, want, and barbarism? Why, amidst this outcry for British capital, is there no Irish capital? How happens it that her agriculture is distressed, her manufactures are vanishing, and her population is suffering the extreme of wretchedness? During the war, the Irish landowners and farmers-taking into account the advantages they possessed in cheapness of labour and fertility of soil-got about as good prices as the English and Scotch ones. The latter converted their profits into capital; the landowners built, enclosed, and drained-the farmers manured and carried the science of agriculture to perfection. In England and Scotland, the high prices made the soil fertile as a garden, and covered it with quick fences, substantial farm-steads, comfortable cottages, rich landowners, wealthy farmers, and happy husbandry labourers. The Irish landowners and farmers spent their profits in extravagance speaking comparatively, they neither improved their land, nor gained agricultural knowledge. The naturally rich land of Ireland, saving in the North, is still a comparative wilderness, destitute of proper buildings, fences, and culture the occupier is still without capital, implements, and skill-the blaze of agricultural improvement, which has shone so long in England and Scotland, has not been able to enter Ireland-the land of the latter is yet so cultivated as to make the smallest possible return, and it probably does

Ireland is an agricultural country, and here is demonstration that the sole reason why her agriculture has not been long about as full of capital as that of England and Scotland, is to be found in the misconduct of her landowners and farmers. As the cry is kept up for British capital, let us enquire how it is likely to fare, if it chance to get into the hands of Irish agriculture.

Do the Irish landowners crave it for the purpose of building, draining, enclosing, and improving? No; they wish to use it for the payment of debts, or as revenue. They expend little on, and to a great extent they never see, their estates. We will not repeat what we have so often said on the baleful system of Irish landletting; but we will observe, that it incapacitates the cultivator from both accumulating and retaining capital. If he have a sufficiency when he takes his land, a rack-rent and an unbending landlord, soon get it from him. Thus the landowner, no matter how high his rents may be, expends them as income, and, in a great measure, out of Ireland; and the tenant, no matter how high corn and cattle may be, is prevented by exorbitant rent from making profit, and rising above penury.

Under such a system, it is absurd to call for British capital. Let England furnish millions of it annually, and what will follow? The money will only go into Ireland as capital, to come out of it immediately to be wasted as individual revenue; it will be monopolized by the extravagance of landowners, and the cupidity of middlemen. Granting that a portion of it could reach the occupiers, it would speedily be transferred, by

exorbitant rents, to the income of those above them. If England should furnish millions of capital annually, it would be transmuted into private revenue by crossing the Channel, and Irish agriculture would remain as destitute of capital as ever.

Agriculture would be stripped of capital in England, Scotland, or any other country, by such a system. It can only possess it through its own profits. The landowner must spare from his rent what is required by the improvements it is his duty to make, and the tenant be allowed by rent to receive fair profits, or it must be a stranger to capital. We have always spoken strongly against Irish absenteeism; but in its direct effects, it is only one of the minor causes of Irish agricultural penury. In England, the landowners spend the main part of their revenues in London, and many prosperous districts have no resident landowners; five-sixths, and often nine-tenths of the villages are without the latter. But the English absentee builds, encloses, &c., and he lets his land at such rent as enables his tenants to thrive. In addition, he binds the latter to the best systems of cultivation, and he is always ready to assist in promoting measures of local benefit. If the Irish one would do the same, absenteeism would not prevent Irish agriculture from possessing a sufficiency of capital and prosperity.

Even when the Irish tenant is not disabled by excessive rent, he accumulates little. It is asserted that, notwithstanding what has been done in England and Scotland, turnips, artificial grasses, improved systems of cropping, and good breeds of live stock, are in comparison almost unknown in Ireland; this contains as strong a proof of his incapacity as could be given. The British farmer adopts every improvement, makes the most of his land, saves his profits, and thereby acquires capital for both himself and his needy neighbours; the Irish one uses not the means, and therefore gains not the fruits.

The Economists, standing on the baseless dogma, that the rate of wages must be governed by the amount of capital to be divided amidst labourers, put forth the absurd assertion that the penury of Irish husbandry labourers arises from

the want of capital. In agriculture, wages are not paid with capital, but really with a part of the produce of the land. This produce may be said to be divided between the landlord, farmer, and labourer. In Ireland, the landlord and his cubs get each a lion's share, that there is scarcely any thing left for the farmer and labourer. Without adding a shilling to Irish capital, or altering the shares of the landowner and farmer, let the produce which is grasped by the middlemen be divided amidst the labourers, and it will probably double or treble the rate of wages. Add millions to each capital, and under the system of rack-rents, the additional produce will be seized by the various landlords, and the rate of wages will not be raised; labour will only reap this benefit, an additional quantity of employment will be for a short time created. With the present system of land-letting, it is impossible for British capital to raise the rate of wages, or provide permanent employment for the surplus population; nothing can do this, but the bestowing of a larger proportion of the produce on the labourers.

Is England to blame because her capital cannot benefit Irish agriculture? Does she make the Irish landowner extravagant, rapacious, and unfeeling, or restrict him from building, enclosing, and binding his tenants to good systems of husbandry? Does she create the middlemen and per centage agents-the cormorants which pick up from the occupiers and labourers what the landowners leave? Does she render the Irish farmer ignorant, unskilful, and improvident, or disable him for adopting improvements, making profit, and preserving capital? Is it through her that the labourer's food and raiment are filched from him by the landlords? No, in word, act, and example, she is guiltless; the blame rests wholly on the Irish people.

It is alleged that the Union causes the Irish landowners to be absentees. It has no more right to do this, than it has to make absentees of the English and Scotch ones. Why cannot the Irish, as well as the British landowner, visit his estate when the Session of Parliament closes? If he be an absentee, it forms no reason why he should drain from his estate, not