Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/53

50

on which they are at present driven to rely; but from which they suffer grievously themselves.

Were a law of this character recommended by your Lordship to the Legislature, and enacted without delay, and a large reclamation of the waste lands at the same time set on foot, by which the intense competition of struggling multitudes for the means of living might be diminished, and employment provided to the able-bodied poor; if two such measures as these be simultaneously brought in aid of the wholesome operation of the Poor-law enacted last session, and the latter firmly carried out by the central authorities, no one need despair of the future prospects of Ireland. The affections of the entire body of the peasantry, whether farmers or labourers only, would be thereby conciliated effectually to the Imperial Legislature and to British connexion. They would feel that they were no longer neglected by the law, and left at the mercy of others—that by their own industrial exertions they would be able henceforward to raise themselves from their present deplorable, or at best but precarious, condition, to one of comfort and respectability.

Security for life and property would be effectually attained, and the vast natural resources of the island speedily developed, by no other magic than simply conceding to it sinhabitants the right (hitherto denied to the vast majority) of turning those resources