Reflections on the State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: when I have carefully examined all the indirect effects, real or even imaginary, of that grand error in our legislation, I would unhesitatingly answer, that it has practically tended, and in a degree greater than all other causes put together, to deprive the peasant of bread, ?to deprive him of the hope of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: when I have carefully examined all the indirect effects, real or even imaginary, of that grand error in our legislation, I would unhesitatingly answer, that it has practically tended, and in a degree greater than all other causes put together, to deprive the peasant of bread, ?to deprive him of the hope of equal justice, and therefore to deprive him practically of justice itself;?that it has exposed, and does at this moment practically expose him to the oppres-t sion of his superiors;?that, by practically degrading him into submissive slavery, it encourages his superiors to exercise over him despotic power, which too often draws in its train dissoluteness, dissipation, and contempt of the laws in general;?that, by depraving the morals of the peasant, and those most intimately connected with the sources of a nation's wealth, it has depressed and debased both classes, ?kept the upper orders back from affluence, and plunged the lower orders into starvation. I have endeavoured to explain the operation of causes such as these resting on admitted facts. But, in other cases, I have found it necessary to state facts not hitherto known to my British reader, in order to enable him to judge of the operation of causes. For instance: those who have treated of the agriculture of Ireland, and drawn deductions from her export of corn?deductions which, in the senate, have been made the basis of argument, and will perhaps become the basis of legislative enactments?have naturally inferred, being acquainted only with British agriculture, that, because the imports of Irish corn into Great Britain had increased prodigiously since the passing of the last Corn Bill, that law had stimulated agriculture, and brought additional land in Ireland into cultivation. Such would be the fair inference from the sam.