guardians, under certain equitable conditions, intended to prevent abuse. In Ireland, outdoor relief to the able-bodied is absolutely prohibited by law.
In England, able-bodied women may obtain outdoor relief at the discretion of the Central Board and the guardians. In Ireland it is forbidden by law to extend such relief to any except widows; and even in their case there is an arbitrary restriction to those having two or more children.
In England, children and young persons can be relieved out of the workhouse without distinction of age. In Ireland, by an act of the session of 1862, children under five years of age, if orphan or destitute, can be put to nurse out of the workhouse at the discretion of the guardians, but after that age they must be brought into the workhouse, or the relief is discontinued.
Now, in the face of these facts, there is an end to the pretence that the Irish and English poor live under the same laws; and it is the height of absurdity to expect from the one the same loyal attachment to the government, which may reasonably be expected from the other.
The difference between the two systems will, perhaps, be most distinctly conceived when we consider the the following numerical comparisons.
On the first of January, 1863, there were relieved in England 1,142,000 persons, or 5·7 per cent. of the population. In Ireland on the same day, there were relieved 66,000 persons, or 1·1 per cent. of the population. The amount of relief given in England was therefore relatively more than 5 times greater than that given in Ireland. Next, as to the mode of its administration—of the 1,142,000 persons relieved in England on the day above-mentioned, 88 per cent. received that relief out of the workhouse, and 12 per cent. within it. Of the 66,000 persons relieved in Ireland, 9 per cent. were relieved out of the workhouse, and 91 per cent. within. It is surely no wonder that M. de Beaumont is amazed at the contrast between the two countries represented by such numbers.
Let it not be supposed that the Irish peasant is ignorant of the facts to which I have been calling your attention. There is, as I showed you before, a great and growing intercourse between the several parts of the United Kingdom. Few poor Irish families are without relatives and friends settled in England. Many of our people spend part of their lives in one country, and part in the other. An army of Irish labourers goes over annually to assist in the work of the harvest. They cannot be unaware of circumstances open to obsrvation, and deeply affecting the condition of the poor; and they must be struck by the inferiority of their own position at home to that of the English labourer. They naturally ascribe this difference to the government; they are confirmed in the belief that the law is their enemy, and they are thus made an easier prey to unprincipled agitators.
I say, then, that the Irish and English Poor-law ought to be perfectly assimilated. Some years ago this proposition could scarcely have been made with any prospect of success. There was then a
