“In England, under the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act, every parish or township rated for the maintenance of its poor, and included in a union, is entitled to return a guardian. In Ireland it will, I think, be essential that the central authority should be empowered to fix the limits of a union, without being restricted to parish boundaries. It should be enabled to divide parishes, either for the purpose of electing guardians, or for joining a portion of a parish to one union, and another portion to another union. It should also be empowered to consolidate parishes for the purpose of electing one or more guardians, and likewise to form election districts for this purpose, without reference to parochial boundaries. And lastly, the central authority should be empowered to add to, take from, and remodel unions, whenever such change might be found necessary. These powers would have enabled the English Poor Law Commissioners to make their unions more compact and convenient than they at present are, local prejudices and local interests having frequently compelled them to abandon the arrangement which would have been best for the general interest. In Ireland, full powers in these respects are, I think, indispensable for enabling the central authority to deal with the various circumstances under which the unions will there have to be formed. But with adequate powers, and with such modifications as are before described, the principle of union which has been established in England by the Poor Law Amendment Act, may I think be advantageously extended to Ireland; and as it has been shown that no insurmountable difficulty exists to prevent the introduction of the workhouse as a test of destitution—so neither will there be any insurmountable difficulty in establishing an adequate machinery for the government of the unions when formed. PART THE THIRD.—“Assuming that a system of Poor Laws ought to be established in Ireland; that the workhouse system may there be relied upon, as a test of destitution; and that the means of forming and governing unions exist there, as well as in England—It now remains to describe the several points which require attention in framing a measure comprising these objects; and also to offer such further observations, as did not seem to come within the scope of the preceding divisions.