Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/18

 years ago the Political Economy Club of London came, as I was told, to a resolution that the emigration of two millions of the population of Ireland would be the best cure for her social evils. Famine and emigration have accomplished a task beyond the reach of legislation or government; and Providence has justly afflicted us by the spectacle of the results of the entire dependence on potato cultivation, and by the old fires of disaffection which had been lighted in the hearts of Irishmen, and are now burning with such fierceness on the banks of the Hudson and the Potomac.

The census of 1834 gave the population of Ireland as 7,954,760; that of 1861, as 5,798,957. Thus two millions have been removed by the great famine of 1847-8 and the drain of emigration of the last twenty years.

But, has Parliament been inactive and indifferent? Let us see what measures of legislation have preceded and followed the effects of famine and emigration. A principal subject of inquiry for the ministry of Lord Melbourne was the question whether a Poor Law should be introduced. But as a Poor Law implies a poor rate, this was not to be done without laying a deep foundation by inquiry and statistics. Mr. Nicholl, who for his ability and experience had been appointed one of the Commissioners of Poor Laws in England, was chosen for this inquiry. In 1836 Mr. Nicholl reported 'that there were 2,385,000 persons in Ireland insufficiently provided with the common necessaries of life, and requiring relief for thirty weeks