At all events, the proprietary classes of Ireland have furnished, and do still continue to furnish, proofs innumerable and irrefragable that they consider their white slaves as not only valueless, but to be worth considerably less than nothing, seeing that they will give something very considerable to get quit of them. There’s the marketable value of an Irish white slave! And how stands the case in England? Not very dissimilar from Ireland. Are not the ominous words, “surplus population,” as familiar to us upon this side of St. George’s Channel as they are to our Irish brethren upon the other side? Have we not all manner of emigration schemes afloat here, as well as there, to get rid of the surplus? How often has it been proposed to raise a gigantic loan of millions wherewith to promote British emigration upon a gigantic scale, and to mortgage the poor-rates as security for the repayment of the loan! We remember how, some twenty and odd years ago, great numbers of the agricultural parishes in England had it gravely in contemplation to get rid of their surplus in that way. We remember some of the calculations made on that occasion. We remember how certain wise men in certain places laid it down that whole parishes might be cleared at the rate of £30 per family, on the average, and how much better it was to sacrifice the interest of this sum (£1 10s. for each) than to saddle a parish with the maintenance of a whole family of paupers. According to this estimate, a whole family of English white slaves was worth just £30 less than nothing! In other words, their marketable value might be expressed algebraically thus:-- An English white slave and family = minus £30.