None will deny the truth of these propositions, which doubtless ought to be kept in view in legislating for the relief of the poor, or for any other matter of general interest or importance. Their enunciation does not however materially assist in discovering a remedy for the fearful amount of destitution and suffering shown to prevail in Ireland, the descriptions of which as given in the Report, are here brought together in one point of view, in order that the reader may have the extent of the evil laid open before him. It has, the commissioners say, “been suggested to us to recommend a Poor Law for Ireland similar to that of England, but we are of opinion that the provision to be made for the poor in Ireland must vary essentially from that made in England.” The English law, it is said, requires that work and support should be found for all able-bodied persons who may be out of employment, and such work and support will now be provided for them only in a workhouse; so that if workhouses were to be established in Ireland as a means of relief, they must be sufficiently capacious for setting vast numbers of unemployed persons to work within them. The commissioners state that they “cannot estimate the number of persons in Ireland out of work and in distress during thirty weeks of the year, at less than 585,000, nor the number of persons dependent upon them at less than 1,800,000, making in the whole 2,385,000—This therefore (it is added) is about the number for which it would be necessary to provide accommodation in workhouses, if all who require relief were there to be relieved;” and they consider it impossible to provide for such a multitude, or even to attempt it with safety. The expense of erecting and fitting up the necessary buildings would, they say, “come to about 4,000,000_l._, and allowing for the maintenance of each person 2½_d._ only a day (that being the expense at the mendicity establishment of Dublin) the cost of supporting the whole 2,385,000 for thirty weeks would be something more than 5,000,000_l._ a year; whereas the gross rental of Ireland (exclusive of towns) is estimated at less than 10,000,000_l._ a year, the net income of the landlords at less than 6,000,000_l._, and the public revenue is only about 4,000,000_l._”