Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/38

35 And the result is, supposing each process to occupy a space of ten years, that the last would consume a capital of 84 millions, which might pay 15 per cent., but would produce little permanent relief, the labourers employed during that term being all thrown on the market again after its expiry; that the second scheme (that of colonization) would cost £20,000,000, paying only 3 per cent., to effect the same object of relieving the labour and land markets of 500,000 competitors; which might be attained by means of reclamation of the waste lands at' a cost of only ten millions^ with a certain net return of fen per cent!

So striking an exposition of the immense superiority of the measure I have long urged upon your Lordship over every other available resource, and proceeding from such high authority—being, in fact, the concentrated result of the labours of the Devon Commission for the last five years, extended through every comer of Ireland, and after an examination of hundreds of the most intelligent and experienced persons to be found in the island—must carry a weight with it which would render it the most unpardonable presumption in me to do more now than refer your Lordship to the able reasoning and details of evidence by which this important conclusion is worked out in the volume just issued. The authority from which it proceeds is such as must silence all the vulgar incredulity I have before alluded to, as to the benefits derivable