we were spending nine millions a year in the fruitless support of our paupers, and as a premium on the production of yet more and more labour. The best plea for us in that day will be that we did not understand our own case. By the time we have spent nine millions, or the half of nine millions, in relieving our labour market, we may have discovered how inferior is that superstitious, spurious charity which doles out bread at its own door to an unlawful petitioner because to give bread was once charity, and that enlightened, genuine benevolence which causes plenty to spring in the far corners of the world, nourishing at home the ancient household virtues which have been well nigh starved among us, but which are not dead. -------------- What decision does our test give out in regard to Ireland? That, as a redundancy of population is her universally acknowledged curse, it is unreasonable to expect relief from the introduction of a legal charity,—the most efficacious of all premiums on population. The conclusion is so obvious, that it can be got rid of only by proving either that a redundant population is not the great grievance of Ireland, or that there may be a legal charity which does not act as a premium on population. Where are the materials for either the one proof or the other? Whatever affects the security of property, or intercepts the due reward of labour, impairs the subsistence-fund by discouraging industry and forethought. Partnership tenantcies affect the security of property by rendering one tenant answerable for the obligations of all his partners, while he has no control over the management of their portions. A gradation of landlords on one estate has the same effect, by rendering one tenant liable to the claims of more than one landlord. The levying of fines on a whole district for an illegal practice going on in one part of it has the same effect, by rendering the honest man liable for the malpractices of the knave. The imposition of a church establishment on those who already support another church, intercepts the due reward of labour, by taking from the labourer a portion of his earnings for an object from which he derives no benefit. The practice of letting land to the highest bidder, without regard to former service, or to the merits of the applicants, intercepts the due reward of the labourer, by decreeing his gains to expire with his lease. All these practices having prevailed in IRELAND, her subsistence-fund is proportionably impaired, though the reduction is somewhat more than compensated by the natural growth of capital. While capital has been growing much more slowly than it ought, population has been increasing much more rapidly than the circumstances of the country have warranted; the consequences of which are, extensive and appalling indigence, and a wide spread of the moral evils which attend it.