Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/10

7 The great object to be had in view is to create: employment and food for the people. Employment in the production of food, if possible. Surely, if ibis can be created at home, it is much better (for a thousand reasons, which I need not dwell on) than attempting to find it for them in America. Now the universal testimony of all who have studied the natural resources of Ireland assures us that there exist ample means within her own limits for employing and feeding her entire population—nay, several multiples of that number—of employing them in the production as well of the food they require as of other objects of home consumption or commercial demand.

Then, clearly, the first and most obvious of all measures, for the attainment of the great end I have mentioned, should be the removal of all obstructions that may exist to the development of these natural resources, and its direct encouragement by every legitimate means within the power of the Government or Legislature.

Several measures have been, suggested for this purpose. Some have been partly recommended to Parliament by yourself. Some minor measures of the kind have been, to a moderate extent, already enacted in the Drainage and Fisheries Acts.

The more important measures, however, to which I allude are,

1. A bill for facilitating the sale of. encumbered estates.