only his fair rent, but also the profit, capital, and bread of his tenants and their labourers.

It is pleaded in defence of the landowners, that they cannot live on their estates from the turbulence of the people; and that much of the penury and misery of the latter is produced by their own misconduct. If they place so many landlords between themselves and the inhabitants of their estates, that these inhabitants are wholly above their control, the fault belongs not to England. What prevents her from forming an efficient magistracy? Their absenteeism. What prohibits her from creating a substantial yeomanry and duly restricted peasantry? Their mismanagement. Why cannot she enforce the laws? Because they deprive her of means, and make the population lawless.

If the Irish farmers and husbandry labourers war at elections against their landlords, and thereby bring on themselves ruin and starvation, England is not the cause. What prevents her from putting down the demagogue and Papist priest-from terminating the despotism and crimes of the leader, and the fanaticism, slavery, and stupidity of the follower? Solely the Irish people.

Let us now enquire how far the decline of Irish manufactures has been produced by English misgo

vernment.

Ireland, a few years ago, had a manufacture, the linen one, in which she stood far above England and Scotland; has she lost her superiority in it through exclusive advantages granted to British consumers and manufacturers ? No. When the wretched free-trade system was introduced, this manufacture was specially exempted from its operation; while the English silk and other trades were to be plunged into ruin, the Irish linen trade, on the avowal of Lord Goderich and Mr Huskisson, was to be protected by prohibitory duties. It is solely for the benefit of this trade, that the duties on foreign linens are at this moment almost double those on foreign silks; it forms the only interest of any consequence which really enjoys a legal prohibition against the foreigner. Here, according to the doctrines of

the Irish traitors, the British consumers of linens have been sacrificed to the Irish producers. Farther, the Scotch kelp manufacturers have been sacrificed to the Irish bleachers. If the bounties have been withdrawn, be it remembered, that this was applauded by the Irish Liberals, who asserted they only benefited the British manufacturers, to the prejudice of the Irish ones. As far as possible, exclusive advantages have been given to the Irish linen trade, at the cost of England and Scotland.

Have British manufacturers enjoyed natural advantages over Irish ones? The contrary has been the case. The Irish manufacturers have had advantages in respect of flax, bleaching, cheap labour, and exemption from taxes, which have much outweighed their disadvantages in regard to fuel, &c.; they have had the same means as their rivals for procuring machinery.

The Irish linen trade cannot have declined from the want of capital, because it long flourished, and it then ought to have not only filled itself with capital, but supplied much to other trades. An extensive manufacture can never fall from the want of capital; because, so long as it can be carried on by means of the latter, it will produce as much as it can employ. The trade cannot have declined from incapacity in the workmen; for Irish workmen to a large extent fabricate the successful British li

nens.

England is not the cause, if Irish linen manufacturers be improvident, extravagant, or incapable as men of business. It is demonstrable that she has done every thing in her power to support the Irish linen trade; and that the reason why it is distressed, and has not been made an abundant source of capital and subsistence, is to be found amidst the Irish people.

Turning to other manufactures, it is asserted that they have been ruined by those of Britain through the abolition of the Irish protecting duties. Let it be remembered, that this abolition was part of that change which exalted Ireland from a colony into an integral part of the United Kingdom. Not only the Irish traitors, but also the manufacturers, have been zealous champions of free trade

with foreign nations; therefore on their doctrines the abolition must have been highly beneficial, by enabling Ireland to buy cheap, instead of producing dear, manufactures.

If the change injured the manufactures of Ireland, it benefited in a far greater degree her agriculture; it gave her, as it was intended to do, infinitely more than it took from her.

Why cannot Irish manufactures compete with British ones in cottons, woollens, &c.? They can have the same machinery and skill; they have advantages in cheapness of labour, &c., sufficient to outweigh disadvantages in other things; they are excellently situated in regard both to raw produce and foreign markets. It cannot be from the want of capital, because Ireland had different manufactures fully established, and yet they could not sustain the competition; of course, if she cannot compete with British manufacturers, British capital can only be sent her to be lost. The cause evidently is, not English misgovernment, but Irish misconduct.

If English and Scotch manufacturers establish themselves and their capital in Ireland, they are perhaps ruined by the ferocious combinations of their workmen, or the turbulent proceedings of the people. Their brethren remain at home, because they see there is no regular security of person and property in Ireland. Here, also, the Irish people are the sole parents of their own injury.

Butter and hams may be called manufactured articles, and they are important ones to Ireland. Irish butter ranks much below, not only English, but Dutch, and this must arise solely from mismanagement in the making of it. Irish hams are retailed for a third less than Yorkshire ones; and this must flow from similar mismanagement. There is neither art nor mystery in the excellence of Yorkshire hams. The things requisite for producing them are swine of good breed, fattening with barleymeal, or pease, and by curing with the best fine salt, and salt-petre, without the villainous use, so dear to Cockneys, of smoke. The inferiority of Irish hams seems to proceed, in a large degree, from bad, proba

bly potatoe, feeding. Ireland, with abundance of cheap milk and corn, might have bacon fully equal to that of Yorkshire. In the price of these two articles, she loses a very large sum annually, solely from ignorance and negligence.

The want of a home market operates powerfully against Irish manufactures: it flows from the indigence of the population, which evidently is produced by rack-rents in agriculture, the languishing condition of manufactures, incapacity and misconduct in the farmers and manufacturers, bad wages, and the absence of employment. If the manufacturers could only compete with British ones, it would have great effect in making the people consumers. England here is guiltless.

We need say but little of the Irish merchants. England makes no distinction between them and her own; she opens to them her vast home, colonial, and foreign markets, she grants them every possible privilege, and the fault is not hers if they do not flourish as much as English ones. They, at any rate, cannot suffer from the want of her capital, because, from their connexion with British merchants, it must always spontaneously flow to them as rapidly as they can find proper employment for it.

Nothing is of more transcendent worth to public wealth and industry, than banks. They are the offspring of private individuals,-and if Ireland have not possessed them like England and Scotland, the fault rests with her own inhabitants. While England, in the insanity which has afflicted her for several years, has been labouring to destroy her own banks, she has given exclusive privileges to those of Ireland, as well as Scotland.

It is from all this demonstrable, that England has not produced the penury and misery of Ireland, that her capital could not remove them, and that their causes are to be found amidst the Irish people. Having traced these causes to the body, let us extend the enquiry to individual character and conduct.

The Irishman is not a man of business-he is a vehement party man, and he sacrifices the interests of his country to those of his party or him

self. If the English landowners of a parish or district, see that it will benefit them to enclose, drain, &c., they without any parade procure an Act of Parliament, and expend the requisite capital. Thus, numberless private bills continually pass the Legislature, for improving and enriching English districts at the cost of private individuals. The Irish landowners can regard nothing so minute as local advantage, or so vulgar as practical objects; they must have some magnificent, impracticable generality-some society for improving, or bill for draining, all Ireland at once on theory, which will require nothing from them beyond florid speeches and petty subscriptions. Those of a parish or district may squabble, touching the boundaries of worthless land, but as to their combining to make an outlay, in order to render such land productive, it is out of the question. Thus, in those things which are of the first importance towards improving and enriching their country, they will do nothing.

While the leading men of Ireland will neither contrive nor expend for her as private individuals, they act in a similar manner as public men. The Irish members of both Houses have always been the most imbecile, unpatriotic men in Parliament. On looking at their past history, we find that they were constantly mutes, or party gladiators that they never proposed any measure for the benefit of Ireland, which was not, in principle and object, one of factious politics. If they gave a heart-rending description of Irish wretchedness, what was their remedy? Catholic Emancipation, or some similar poisonous nostrum! Farther, they furiously opposed all English Legislators and Ministers, who recommended efficient means of relief. Introduce poor laws? No, it touched the pockets of the sham patriots; this solitary Catholic sanctioned it, therefore true Orangemen could not be other than its enemies; anti-Catholics proposed it, and, of course, Catholics could not do less than regard it with detestation. Remove the surplus population?-Monstrous idea! it could not be done without weakening the Catholics, and diminishing the want, so essential for

feeding Catholic frenzy and turbulence. Abolish the forty shilling freeholds ?--It could not be thought of, because it would affect the party strength of Protestant and Catholic. Promote the spread of Protestantism? -The enormity called forth general execration, because it was calculated to injure the factious weapons of the Catholics. These leading Irishmen, in reality, cried, "Nothing will yield any benefit, save Catholic Emancipation it is the only panacea for rackrents, bad wages, excess of population, starvation, barbarism, and fanaticism: if you will not grant it, we are determined you shall do nothing for Ireland."

While these men thus fiercely opposed all effectual measures for benefiting their country, they servilely supported all which were calculated to injure her. The commercial changes which expelled her linens and provisions from some of the colonies, and exposed her provisions to competition with those of foreign countries in the home market, did her grievous injury; but they were below the notice of Irish Members of Parliament. She had a deeper interest in the old Corn Laws than even England, but her patriots in the Legislature could make no effort to preserve them. Her Parnells now seek to deprive her of the only markets she possesses for agricultural productions. Honourable exceptions there were, but they were few and powerless. The followers naturally imitated the heads. The manufacturers lauded the principles and policy which they declare have ruined their trade. The farmers could look at nothing so free from faction and beneficial to themselves as the Corn Laws. Tenants disdained the selfishness of avoiding ruin by voting for landlords. The press would not condescend to notice Irish benefit, when it could not serve, or stood in the way of, Irish parties and factions. There was a Catholic Question, and all Irishmen, high and low, were resolved to make it, as far as possible, the means of ruining themselves and their country.

The same conduct is still pursued. The mass of the landowners will not yet supply Government with the means of forming an efficient magistracy; or assist in restraining and reforming their misguided countrymen.