In the present state of that country, all her peculiar sufferings may be ranked under the single head of redundant population, or, what is the same thing, an overstocked labour market,--a population greater than is required for all the works, productive or unproductive, for which the possessors of capital, or the richer classes generally, are willing to pay; and, in consequence, great numbers of the lower classes whose employment is precarious, whose wages are scanty, whose mode of life is irregular and debased, who are continually liable to disease from poor living and insufficient clothing, and whose sufferings under disease and destitution are greater, and extend their effects more among the higher classes in their own country, and among neighbouring nations--England, Scotland, even America--than those of any other nation in Europe. As long as this miserable condition of the Irish poor exists, it must be regarded both as a national disgrace, indicating that, notwithstanding the boasted excellence of our constitution, the British government is really less effective as regards one-third of its subjects, in securing the main object of all governments, _ut cives feliciter vivant_, than that of any other civilised country. Now, whatever secondary causes for a redundant population may be assigned, all who attend carefully to the subject must admit that the great, primary, and fundamental cause for it in all countries is, the power of reproduction granted by nature to human beings, and which is capable of multiplying the species more rapidly than the means of their subsistence can be increased. If it be true that this is a general law of human nature, and yet that, in other countries, where ample time and opportunity have been afforded for similar indications of redundant population to show themselves, these are altogether absent, the first question for consideration is not, why are not the resources of Ireland more developed, but why has not the population accommodated itself better to the resources that exist? Comparing Ireland with other countries long inhabited, we find that in many others,--viz. in Switzerland, in many districts of England, in Sweden, Norway, &c.,--although the resources of the country and the demand for labour are small, the population has accommodated itself to them; it has remained nearly stationary for ages, or has gradually increased only as the productions of the country and the demand for labour extended; and the miseries of redundant population are comparatively unknown.