Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

be obtained, the effect, so far from injuring the owners of land, would be greatly to increase the value of their property. It is the facility of sale and transfer, the certainty of a ready market, the great number of persons interested in them, which maintain the price of the public funds at so high a rate, and which enable the holder at any time to sell them for the full value. Surely the same results would also be obtained in the case of land.

To deal with so difficult and complicated a subject needs extreme caution. The consideration of the question requires, to do it full justice, the most expansive grasp of mind, joined to the most intimate knowledge of legal forms. The writer can make no pretensions to such qualifications: he has thought on it as a merchant, not as a lawyer. Believing that this most important question must shortly obtain a large portion of public attention, he has ventured thus to obtrude his thoughts on the public, indulging the hope of impressing his convictions upon others. If the endeavour be unsuccessful, let the failure be attributed not to the principles themselves, but to the incompetency of their advocate.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

The statistical tables given in the Appendix are compiled from the Report of the Commissioners for taking the Census in 1841, and from other authentic documents. They may serve to illustrate the differences in wealth and civilization between the four provinces of Ireland. Tables P. and Q. giving some statistical information respecting the several counties of Ireland and England, show the great inferiority of the former country in wealth, and consequently in its capability of supporting the destitute by means of a poor-rate. Tables R. and S. are added, in order to exhibit at one view the greater territorial extent and population of the unions and electoral divisions in Ireland, compared with the unions and parishes in England, illustrating the greater difficulty of management in the former country.

The remainder of the Appendix, excepting the three last portions, consists of extracts from the very valuable Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the state of the Law and Practice in respect to the Occupation of Land in Ireland. These extracts are strikingly illustrative of the condition of the country, and their great importance will plead the author's excuse for drawing so largely on a parliamentary document, which, although readily accessible to any one who takes the trouble to look for it, has probably not been very extensively read.

In Appendices BB and CC, the authority of M'Culloch is adduced to show that the soil of England is distributed among a much larger number of proprietors than that of Ireland. Appendix DD contains a comparative statement of the exports of horned cattle, pigs, and eggs from the ports of Dublin, Cork, and Waterford, in the first ten months of the years 1846 and 1847.

The calculation of proportions in the following tables is made not only with reference to the actual extent of arable land in the rural districts, but also on the estimate that two-thirds of the area of the civic districts is available for human support; and that the waste lands are made so far useful in the feeding of cattle, &c. that seven acres of waste may be considered as equivalent to one acre of arable land.

a

APPENDIX A.

Explanation of Classification used in Tables B. to G.

Extracted from Report of Commissioners for taking the Census of Ireland in 1841.
Parliamentary Reports, 1843, vol. xxiv.

The value or condition of a house, as to the accommodation it affords, may be considered to depend mainly on-1st, its extent, as shown by the number of the rooms-2nd, its quality, as shown by the number of its windows-and, 3rd, its solidity or durability, as shown by the materials of its walls and roof. If numbers be adopted to express the position of every house in a scale of each of these elements, and if the numbers thus obtained for every house be added together, we shall have a new series of numbers, giving the position of the house in a scale compounded of all the elements, i. e. their actual state. We adopted four classes, and the result was, that in the lowest, or fourth class, were comprised all mud cabins having only one room-in the third, a better description of cottage, still built of mud, but varying from two to four rooms and windows-in the second, a good farm-house, or in towns, a house in a small street, having from five to nine rooms and windows-and in the first, all houses of a better description than the preceding classes.-Page xiv.

The rule we adopted for classifying accommodation was but an extension of the principle which guided us in classifying the houses themselves. According to it, First class accommodation consists of first class houses, each containing one family. Second class accommodation consists of second class houses, each containing one family, and of first class houses, each containing two or three families. Third class accommodation consists of third class houses, each containing one family-of second class houses, each containing two or three families--and of first class houses, each containing four or five families. Fourth class accommodation consists of all fourth class houses--all third class houses containing more than one family--all second class houses containing more than three families--and all first class houses, containing more than five families.-Page xvi.

The next classification of families, as designated in the table "according to means," is founded upon the principle, that of man in his natural state, labour is the only capital, and that however complicated the state

« НазадПродовжити »