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Remarks on Emigration from the United Kingdom (1827)
Remarks on Emigration from the United Kingdom - 1827 Author:John Strachan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of his land, which increases the population to such an extent, that the farm is barely sufficient to support its cultivators, without leaving anything to the lan... more »dlord: when, therefore, part of the produce is sold to raise the rent, there is a Want of subsistence. Indeed, to such extent has the power of labour exceeded the demand, that Mr. Gabbett tells the Committee (p. 131) that there are two persons who can find no labour, for one that is employed in the country. Dreadful as the situation of this population must be, since there are no poor-rates to relieve them, it is greatly aggravated by the growing practice (in itself most beneficial to the ultimate interests of Ireland) among the landholders of preventing in future all sub-letting, and of consolidating their lands into large farms as leases fall in. Thousands are thus thrown upon the community without a home, or any means of subsistence ; and this (in the opinion of the witnesses,) with the general increase of population, is the principal cause of the distressed state of Ireland. " The existing state of things is truly frightful: " when tenantry (the under-tenants of under-" " tenants) are dispossessed after a season of pa- " tient suffering, they go into some other district, The Lord Bishop of Limerick.—Report, p. H4. " perhaps a peaceable one; there they fail not to " find friends, clansmen, and fellow-factionaries, " whom they bring back with them by night to " avenge their cause; it is avenged in blood, and " when occasion offers, the service is repaid in " kind. Thus the whole country is set in flames. " This will be quite intelligible to those who know " the system of mutual understanding that per- " vades the districts—I may say, of each pro- " vince. I will mention one instance that came " within my own ...« less