dundant, as it is an improvident and a degraded population. But while their destitute condition has compelled the Irish poor to emigrate, their proximity to this country, our comparatively high wages, and the facility with which they get across the channel, have tempted them, especially since the introduction of steam navigation, to come and settle in vast numbers in England and Scotland. At present, from a fourth to a third part of the population of Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Paisley, and other great towns on the west side of Great Britain, consists of native Irish, and their descendants. Even at Edinburgh, where there are no manufactures, the Irish constitute at this moment five-tenths of the lowest class, and nine-tenths of the paupers.1 Few things, indeed, could have exercised so fatal an influence over the condition and prospects of the English and Scotch labourers as this immigration. Their forethought and industry have, in fact, tended rather to facilitate the invasion of this pauper horde, than to improve their own condition. Their wages have been reduced by the competition of the famished serfs that have been cast upon our shores; and, which is still worse, their tastes and opinions in regard to what is necessary for their subsistence, have been lowered by the contaminating influence of example, and by familiar intercourse with those who are content to live in destitution and misery. If the character and condition of the Irish immigrants had been materially improved, it would have been some, though a most inadequate, compensation for the injury their invasion has done to the native population of Great Britain. Hitherto, however, this does not appear to be the case. The Irish immigrants, and their descendants, continue to occupy the lowest place in society, and deteriorate the British without advancing themselves. Had they belonged to a foreign country, their influx would long since have been either checked or prohibited. And it is not easy to see why a system, productive of little or no good to Ireland, and of much

1 Geographical Dictionary, voce Edinburgh.

evil to Britain, should be permitted to continue. The late extraordinary emigration from Ireland to the United States has, however, given a decided check to the emigration to this country, and it may, perhaps, not be so great in future. But if it should again attain to anything like its extent in some late years, justice to our own people would seem to require that measures should be adopted to hinder England and Scotland from being overrun with the out-pourings of this officina pauperum-to hinder Ireland dragging us down to the same hopeless abyss of poverty and wretchedness in which she is sunk.

2. We have already endeavoured to exhibit the disastrous consequences resulting in Ireland from the general dependence of the population on the potato. Happily, the dependence on it has not been carried to anything like the same extent in any part of Great Britain; yet it has here been productive of similar though less calamitous results. Wherever it has become a principal part of the food of the workingclasses, their wages are low, and their situation precarious. When the labourers principally subsist on wheat, or any other variety of corn, they may, by economising in their consumption of bread, acquire a considerable additional supply of other things. But potatoes are so very cheap, that no economy in their use can enable those using them materially to increase their command over other articles. And when they fail, those depending on them are here, as in Ireland, reduced to the extremity of want.

The reader will not, therefore, be surprised to learn that we are not of the number of those who regret the check given to the potato culture by the late failures of the crop. On the contrary, we incline to think that their influence should have been strengthened by legislative measures; and that it would be sound policy to discourage the growth of a root which is otherwise almost sure to become a staple article of food, and which never fails to exercise a most pernicious influence over those dependent upon it. Were it used, along

with bread, as a subsidiary article, it would be different. But it can hardly continue for any very considerable length of time to be so used; its greater cheapness, and the facility with which it is made ready for use, tempting the poor to resort to it in preference to any other article. But this is a fatal proceeding on their part. After they have been accustomed to subsist on it, they become its slaves; for their wages being determined by its price, they cannot, how anxious soever, leave it for a better or more costly article It is not easy to exaggerate the evils inseparable from such a state of things. We are persuaded, indeed, that the growing dependence on the potato has, not in Ireland only, but also in Britain and elsewhere, had a most injurious tendency, and that but for it the labouring classes would have profited to a much greater extent than they have done by the wonderful progress of industry and invention since 1815.

3. We are also disposed to think that the increased demand for juvenile labour, growing out of the rapid extension of the manufacturing system, has not a little injured the condition of the labouring classes. It made the manufacturing towns in so far resemble new colonies, that for a while a family became (and to some extent continues to be) a source of wealth to their parents rather than a burden; and those who could with difficulty have subsisted themselves and their families on their own earnings, were rendered comparatively comfortable through the earnings of their children. But this resource, though advantageous in the meantime, has proved in the long run to be injurious. For, by encouraging improvident unions, and weakening the principle of moral restraint, it contributed to increase population, and has probably taken from the wages of the adults as much as it has given to the children, or more. And in addition to this, it made young people be employed in factory labour at a premature age, before their physical powers were sufficiently developed, and before they had time to acquire any consider

able amount of school education. Its effects upon the parents were still more unfavourable; for, by teaching them to depend to a considerable extent on the gains of their children, it made them less industrious, and generally also less frugal and parsimonious than they would otherwise have been. We are, therefore, inclined to approve of the policy of the Act which limits and restricts the labour of young people in factories. It is right that the state should interfere to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. And in emancipating them from the slavery in which they were frequently involved through the selfish and vicious conduct of their parents, we are really contributing to improve the habits and condition of the latter.

It may probably be thought that, in referring to the causes which have impeded, and which continue to impede, the improvement of the labouring classes, the pressure of taxation is entitled to a prominent place. And if any considerable stress could be safely laid on the harangues of honourable gentlemen at public meetings, and even in the House of Commons, such would appear to be the case. Probably, however, these harangues are made rather in the view of conciliating popular favour than from a conviction of their truth. But whatever may be their motive and object, they tend to perpetuate a mischievous delusion, and are in great measure, if not wholly, unfounded. It is more than doubtful whether the condition of the labouring class would be sensibly improved, supposing it were possible, without upsetting good order and security, to sweep off every tax now existing in the United Kingdom. It might be somewhat improved by the repeal of the duty on tea—though, if it were placed on a proper footing, its pressure would hardly be perceptible, which is the case with the duties on sugar and soap. But the repeal, or even reduction, of the duties on spirits, tobacco, and malt, would be decidedly injurious. The duties on these articles should in truth, be regarded as sumptuary penalties intended to check the indulgence in pernicious

G

habits and wasteful expenditure. It is contradictory to imagine that it is possible to improve the condition of the labouring classes, by giving them increased facilities and greater temptations to plunge still deeper into that intemperance and dissipation which is their scourge and ruin. We are not aware that it has occurred to the financial reformers of China to attempt to elevate the character and condition of their countrymen by cheapening opium and facilitating its introduction into the Celestial Empire. But we take leave to doubt whether such a policy would be more absurd than to attempt to improve the condition of our labourers by cheapening gin and tobacco.

It is needless, we presume, to dwell on the destructive influence of an intemperate indulgence in intoxicating drinks— on the poverty, the vice, and the wretchedness, of which it is the fruitful source. The taste for tobacco, though in some respects less injurious than the taste for spirits, makes a much more serious inroad than is commonly supposed on the means of the poor. The duty on tobacco produced in 1850 a nett revenue of L.4,410,323. And it is generally supposed that the tobacco, after it has been partially manufactured into snuff and cigars, distributed over the country, and sold by retail, costs at least double the duty, or L.8,820,646. So that, allowing for smuggling and adulteration, the expenditure on this filthy and offensive stimulant cannot be taken at less than from L.9,000,000 to L.10,000,000 a-year, being about equal to the receipts of all the railways in the kingdom. And of this immense sum, more than three-fourths is contributed by the working-classes. So deeply-rooted is the taste for tobacco, that in some country parishes in the south of Scotland the expenditure upon it equals or exceeds the expenditure upon tea. Under such circumstances, it would be the climax of folly to do anything to increase the demand for tobacco. A duty on it is quite unexceptionable; and should be fixed at the point, whatever it may be, that will produce the greatest amount of revenue.

The repeal or reduction of the taxes on the middle and