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FIRST HARQUEBUSSIER (to the Sutleress.)

Here, Gossip! how much is your reckoning with me?

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What, then, you fight shy? But we shan't much fret ;

For one tainted sheep infects

a whole flock.

(The Harquebussiers withdraw.}

FIRST CUIRASSIER.

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Count Tertzky's regiments, foot and horse,
Will follow the same determined course.

SECOND CUIRASSIER (taking his place beside the First.}

Ne'er from the Walloon will the Lombard sever!

FIRST YAGER.

The whoop of the Yager is, Freedom for ever!

SECOND YAGER.

In Power and with Power doth Freedom alone lie;
For Life or for Death I am Wallenstein's only.

FIRST RIFLEMAN.

The light-hearted Lothringian* goes with the crowd,
Where the goblet foams and the laugh is loud.

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Let the regiments, then, get neatly engrossed
A respectful memorial from every host,
Stating that none will abandon the land,

That none of the troops will be forced or trepanned
Into leaving the Friedlander-him who has been
The soldier's protector in every scene;

And a deputation shall wait with this

On Piccolomini-the Younger, that is,

For he knows how to manage all things in that line;
He is hand and glove with Wallenstein;
And his influence as a discreet adviser

Is likewise great with the King and Kaiser.

SECOND YAGER.

Good! Thus it shall stand, then! Let all agree

That Piccolomini our spokesman shall be!

TRUMPETERS, DRAGOONS, FIRST YAGER, SECOND CUIRASSIER and RIFLEMAN, (una voce.)

Yes, Piccolomini our spokesman shall be!

(They are about to go away.)

Native of Lorraine.

SERJEANT-MAJOR.

First, Comrades, let's quaff one glass from this place
To Piccolomini's Noble Grace!

SUTLERESS, (bringing a flagon.)
No scores for this flagon! you have it free cost:
Drink, sirs; and success to the Friedlander's host!

CUIRASSIERS.

Killing and levelling, strong may they flourish!

BOTH YAGERS.

Swilling and revelling, long may they nourish!

DRAGOONS and RIFLEMEN.

Long may the army lend lustre to Story!

TRUMPETER and SERJEANT-MAJOR.

Long may the Friedlander lead it to glory!

SECOND CUIRASSIER, (sings.)

Up, up, gallant comrades! to horse! to horse!
It is Freedom and Glory that summon:
In battle Man feels his masculine force,
Elsewhere he is weak, he is Woman!

In battle no proxy avails him-none;

He stands for himself, and must struggle alone.

(The troopers in the back ground come to the front of the stage and join in the chorus.)

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But, waiting tomorrow, still let him to-day

may !

Drain the Brimmer of Time to the lees while he may!

(The glasses are refilled, and the troopers pledge one another and drink.)

SERJEANT-MAJOR.

In Heaven is woven his victory-wreath ;

His toil is a vaunt and a pleasure :-
The serf may dig deep in the clay beneath,
And dream of unearthing a treasure ;
In vain!-he digs on till his Autumn is past-
He digs till he digs his own grave at the last!

CHORUS.

In vain!-he digs on till his Autumn is past-
He digs till he digs his own grave at the last!

FIRST YAGER.

The guest at the feast whose shadow appals
Is the rapidly-riding Ritter:
Unbidden he enters the proud castle-halls,
Where the pied lamps cluster and glitter.
He proffers no gold-he sues not in form-
He woos and he wins his bride by storm!

CHORUS.

He proffers no gold-he sues not in form-
He woos aud he wins his bride by storm!

SECOND YAGER.

Why weeps his beloved? Why wails she her lot?
Ah! the newly-wedded must sever!
On earth is for him no abiding spot;

He leaves her,—and haply for ever!
His headlong destiny drives him afar,
For the world is again the Arena of War!

CHORUS.

His headlong destiny drives him afar,
For the world is again the Arena of War!

(The First Yager takes the two nearest troopers by the hand; the others follow his example, and all form a wide semicircle.)

FIRST YAGER.

Then up, gallant comrades!-to horse and away!

The foam of Life's fountains is flowing;

Youth burns in our veins-shall we shrink from the fray?
No! hence, while the spirit is glowing!
Remember, if Life be not hazarded, none
Can cherish that life as a prize he has won.

CHORUS.

Remember, if Life be not hazarded, none
Can cherish that life as a prize he has won.

(The curtain falls before the chorus has completely ceased.)

THE CAPABILITIES OF IRELAND;

BEING A SEQUEL TO THE ATTRACTIONS OF IRELAND.

HAVING Concluded our rapid glance at
Irish scenery and society, we now pro-
ceed to a still more concise view of the
Capabilities of the Country.

We address ourselves to the capitalist and the man of mercantile enterprise. Such men require facts only, and we shall endeavour to state the leading facts that suggest themselves with businesslike despatch.

It is an admitted fact that property to an enormous amount lies, as far as we are concerned, almost dormant in the hands of moneyed men in Great Britain, who would willingly embark it in any safe speculation that offered a permanent remunerative interest of more than the same property could now realize if vested in the funds.

To constitute a safe speculation the requisites generally looked to are, first, a full protection of the rights of property similarly situated with the property to be risked; and secondly, a reasonable prospect that if so protected, the property risked will realize a certain profit.

On these premises, we consider our selves safe in stating our opinion that property embarked in agriculture, in manufactures, in fisheries, in mining operations, and in general mercantile trade in Ireland, has, and will continue

to have, as full protection as can be secured elsewhere in these islands: and that capital judiciously invested in any of these pursuits in Ireland may be made to render a permanent remunerative interest greater than could be realized on the same amount in the funds.

Here at the outset a few words are demanded in explanation of our views with regard to the security of property-particularly of property vested in agriculture, in this country. We are far from overlooking the danger to be apprehended from Whiteboyism and predial outrage. We acknowledge with regret and shame that such danger exists to a degree that is both formidable and disgraceful. But, reflecting that these dangers chiefly befall individuals of the lower class, and arise from an impression on the part of our rural inquisitors that these individuals have been unjustly intruded on the rights of labour (for the rights of labour are in Ireland synonymous with the rights of subsistence among all below the rank of the farmer)-of other humble persons, and that they rarely or never befall the extensive purchaser of fee-simple estates or even of large leasehold interests; and joining to this the consideration that it is palpably the interest of this body of men,

misguided though they are, not to obstruct the operation of any change by which the rights of labour will be rendered more secure; and recollecting the fact, that while haggards have been burning, and farmers, between the malice of the incendiary and the drag of the pauper, have been despairing throughout every quarter of Great Britain, almost every successive sale of landed property in Ireland has brought an additional year's purchase in the market-we cannot but consider ourselves justified in the conclusion that there is ample security for the investment of capital in any agricultural speculation that does not tend to diminish local employment in Ireland. While we remain without poor-laws more cannot be expected from us; and in the meantime we consider the danger of predial outrage resulting chiefly from the want of poor laws, as no more than a just counterbalance to the evils which attend their maladministration on the other side of the channel. So far of the security of property invested in agriculture; as to that of capital embarked in manufactures or general trade, there cannot be a doubt that security exists in Ireland to a much greater degree than in Great Britain. Malicious burnings, destruction of machinery, breaking of weirs, milldams and stake nets, dictations of operatives, strikes and combination outrages in general (matters of daily occurrence in Great Britain), are here comparatively unknown. We appeal to the press of the two countries for confirmation of the fact. With regard to mining operations, we recollect no instance on this side of the water, since the year 1641, of any malicious destruction of property whatever; and we have no doubt that the same policy which insures the fishing vessel in the inhospitable German ocean might be effected for a much lower premium on the same craft off the well-harboured west of Ireland.

Dismissing the question of security, we proceed to the more important point of remunerative return, and first, with regard to agriculture.

There are in Great Britain, according to the tables laid before the Emigration Committee of the House of Commons in 1827, by Mr. Cowling,

34,014,000 acres of cultivated land ; to which if we add, for 140 subsequent enclosure acts, at an average of about 1700 acres per act, 240,000 acres, we shall have a total of 34,254,000 acres of cultivated land in Great Britain, yielding, as appears by an estimate formed from the property tax returns of 1810, an agricultural produce of the annual value of £150,000,000.

There are in Ireland, according to the estimate of Mr. Griffith, under whom the valuation of Ireland is now taking place, 14,603,000 acres of cultivated land, yielding, on the estimate of the same high authority, an agricultural produce of the annual value of £36,000,000.

Now, assuming that the arable land of Ireland is capable, by tillage and culture, of an equal degree of productiveness with that of Great Britain,-a position which no practical man acquainted with our great limestone plain will dispute-it appears from the simple comparison of extents cultivated and produce yielded in either country, that, before the soil of Ireland attains an equality in present productiveness with that of Great Britain, the value of her produce must increase from £36,000,000 to nearly £64,000,000 per annum-or, in other words, it appears that the productive powers of the soil of Ireland, as compared with the soil of Great Britain, are as yet scarcely more than half developed, and that the profits on an increased produce of the yearly value of twenty-eight millions of money are still to be realized in this country.

Such are the results of a simple comparison of the extents cultivated and produce yielded. But if we take into consideration the extent to which produce may still be increased by a greater degree of cultivation than Great Britain at present possesses, we shall obtain the data of still more startling conclusions. The 34,254,000 acres of cultivated land in Great Britain are tilled by 1,055,982 agricultural labourers; the 14,603,000 acres of cultivated land in Ireland are tilled by 1,131,715 agricultural labourers.*_ That is, in other words, "there are in Ireland about five agricultural labourers for every two that there are for the same quantity of land in Great Britain.”

* This total, in both cases, includes occupiers not employing labourers, as well as labourers not occupying. See Population Abstracts for Great Britain and Ireland for 1831.

(See third Report of Commissioners for inquiring into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland.)

Now, if we assume the extreme case, that every acre of arable land in Ireland could be made to yield a return for the amount of labour that could be bestowed upon it, proportionate to the present rate yielded by each acre according to its amount of cultivation in Great Britain, the question would stand thus-Every acre of arable land in Ireland ought to yield a produce greater than an acre of arable land in Great Britain, in the proportion of five to two. But 34,254,000 acres of arable land in Great Britain yield a produce of the annual value of £150,000,000, therefore, 14,603,000 acres of arable land in Ireland ought to yield a prodnce of the annual value of about £64,000,000

2

-X5 =£160,000,000,

or in other words, the agricultural produce of Ireland ought to exceed that of Great Britain by ten millions a year. But this is manifestly an overstatement first, from the omission of brute labour, which forms so material an ingredient in the culture of Great Britain, where there are perhaps three horses for every two that there are for the same extent of ground in Ireland, and oxen twenty to one; and secondly, from the unwarrantable assumption that land is capable of production to any extent in proportion to the amount of labour expended on it; whereas the fact seems to be that most of the land of Great Britain has already approached a point of productiveness beyond which no expenditure of labour is likely, in the present state of agricultural science, to carry it. Still, that unlimited culture, the means of which we may be fairly said to possess, is capable of making the soil of Ireland somewhat more productive than the average of the land in Great Britain, must be clear to any one who has travelled in both countries, and observed the still slow progress which correct principles of farming have made in many of the English counties. If all the arable land of the United Kingdom could be rendered as productive as the average of the Lothians in Scotland, our annual produce would amount in Great Britain to the value of two hundred and forty

millions, and in Ireland to the value of one hundred millions and upwards. We may, therefore, safely assume that the soil of Ireland has only developed one half of its productive power, and that the profits on an increased agricultural produce of the annual value of thirty-six millions of money are still to be realized in the country.

It now remains to inquire what net profit this increased produce ought to yield. The 1,170,000* Irish labourers who now receive on an average 83d. per day, for 166 days out of the year, each, which is at the miserable rate of 2s. 3d. per week during the whole year, must, in the first place have their wages raised to 1s. per day each, or 6s. per week all the year round, so that to the £6,844,500 now received as agricultural wages by the labourers of Ireland, we must add £11,407,500 for the difference of increased wages and full employment. Next we will allow an increase in the rental equal to the proportion of rent now reserved in Great Britain, which is estimated at somewhat less than two ninths of the produce, and amounts on our supposed increase to a sum of nearly £8,000,000; and deducting these two items of increased wages and increased rent from the gross increase of produce, we will have a remainder of, say in round numbers, £16,600,000 per annum to meet the interest on capital invested in buildings, stock, and implements. The value of the farming stock of Ireland at present is, we will sup pose, equal to two years' produce, a large estimate; we will allow the same value for the additional stock required, and the interest at 6 per cent. will amount to £3,600,000 per annum ; and leave a net balance of thirteen millions a year clear profit on the increased produce which Ireland may be made to yield. Here then, we trust we have shown that an ample field for the profitable employment of capital lies open to the moneyed man. It is true there are difficulties in the way : many of these difficulties will soon be correctly estimated by the newly incorporated company for the improvement of waste lands in Ireland'; and from their experience, future speculators will better know what to avoid, and what to seek in the investment of their capital. That the company will be successful we entertain no doubt.

* Calculating on the increase of population since 1831.

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