regulation of the revenue, has been repealed; and the whole business of the excise and customs has been transferred to London. The bill introduced by Mr. Robinson, and passed into a law, for reducing the duty on spirits from 58. 6d. to 28. a gallon, and for authorising the use of comparatively small stills, is by far the greatest boon conferred on Ireland since the Union. It has gone far to put down smuggling, and its consequent train of evils; while, by increasing the consumption of legally distilled spirits, it has been productive of a considerable increase of revenue. We are truly glad to have to state these things. They are proofs of a good spirit prevailing in the Cabinet; and the ease with which they have been effected, shows what may be done for Ireland, when government determines to put down abuse. But if ministers stop here, what they have done will be really of little or no value. If they do not remove those deeper seated and more fruitful sources of contention, hatred, and crime which we have now pointed out, the reforms which they have effected will have but an inconsiderable influence in arresting the march of degradation.

But many reforms still remain to be effected, even in the financial and commercial departments. The excessive duties laid on tea, coffee, sugar, foreign wines and spirits, tobacco, and many other articles in general demand, have had the effect, by adding proportionally to the price of these articles, and placing them beyond the reach of the peasantry, to extinguish the desire to possess them in their minds, and thus to render them disposed to vegetate without repining in poverty and wretchedness. The almost universal want of all ambition to rise in the world, to acquire any share of the comforts and conveniences of life-forms one of the most powerful obstacles to the introduction of a better order of things in Ireland and there are no means so effectual for exciting such an ambition, and for rendering the peasantry anxious to improve their condition, and to mount in the scale of society, as an effectual reduction of the duties laid on all articles in general demand. Such a reduction, by lowering the price of a great variety of useful and agreeable commodities, would afford new motives to stimulate, and new comforts and conveniences to reward, the industry of the peasantry. Those who are indolent-and this is notoriously the case with the Irishwill never become industrious, unless industry brings visibly along with it a proportional increase of enjoyments. Wherever labourers find it is impossible for increased exertion to make any material addition to their comforts and conveniences, they invariably sink into a state of sluggish and stupid indifference, and content themselves with the coarsest and scantiest fare. But the desire to rise in the world, and improve our condition, is deeply seated in the human breast, and can never be wholly eradicated.— And whenever labour has been rendered more productive, and a number of new conveniences and enjoyments made attainable by the labourer, indolence has never failed to give way to exertion: a taste for these conveniences and enjoyments has gradually diffused itself; increased exertions have been made to obtain them; and ultimately it has been thought discreditable to be without them. Nor would such a reduction of duties as would be productive of these effects occasion the least diminution of revenue. On the contrary, it is certain, as well from theory as from experience, that it would, by increasing the quantities of the articles consumed in a geometrical proportion, have the effect to add very greatly to its amount.

A few additional measures are still wanting, to place the commercial in

tercourse between Great Britain and Ireland on that footing of absolute freedom on which it should stand. In consequence of the duty on foreign timber imported into the two countries being different, of the excise duties on spirits being higher in England than in Ireland, and of there being no excise duties in Ireland on glass, printed goods, soap, candles, vinegar, and wine, it is still necessary to put customhouse officers on board every vessel engaged in the trade between the two countries, when she comes into port, and to search her cargo. This is attended with very great inconvenience, hardship, and expense; and in order to obviate it, the duty on all these articles ought to be made the same in both countries.

We shall take an early opportunity to show, that the timber duties now payable in Great Britain are not only oppressively high, but that they are imposed on the most impolitic and absurd principles that can well be imagined. With respect to glass, the case is but little different. To show the mode in which the duty on it operates, it is perhaps enough to state, that the gross produce of the glass duties in 1823 was 962,7094., of which no less than 415,0787. was repaid in drawbacks! The injury done to the manufacturer by the operation of such a duty is obvious. If it were effectually reduced, the manufacturer would gain though no drawback were allowed; while the revenue would gain by the vast increase of consumption that would take place in Great Britain, and by the extension of the low duty to Ireland, and the consequent stop to the smuggling of glass from that country.

The duty on printed cottons is liable to the same objections as the duty on glass. Its gross produce, in 1823, amounted to 1,811,9197., of which 1,146,7507. was drawback on exportation. If a duty is to be laid on the cotton manufacture, the proper plan would be to lay it on the wool; and by keeping it so low as not materially to affect the price of the goods, to avoid the necessity of granting a drawback, or of first paying a million sterling into the hands of the customhouse officers, and then back again to the merchants.

The slight increase of duty that might take place in Ireland on a few articles, in consequence of the equalisation of the duties payable in the two countries, could not justly be objected to. For the benefits arising from the unrestricted freedom of intercourse between the two countries, that would take place in consequence of this equalisation, would infinitely overbalance the injury arising from the increase of duty; at the same time that almost all the arguments in favour of the reduction of duties on articles on the general demand apply with nearly equal force to Great Britain as to Ireland.

The bounties on the exportation of coarse linen from the United Kingdom amount to about 300,000l. a year. Mr. Robinson proposed, last session, immediately to repeal these duties; but he was induced, in consequence of the representation of the Irish members, to swerve from his own better purpose so far as to consent to their being repealed at the rate of 10 per cent. But while per annum, so that they will still cost the public 1,500,0001. the Irish members are thus taxing the public for the support of the coarse linen manufacture, they are themselves its greatest enemies; for, by enforeing the provisions of a linen board act, preventing the sale of yarn not wound on a certain description of reel, they prevent the importation of Foreign yarn into Ireland, though its price is generally from 25 to 30 per rent. less than Irish yarn, and thus lay the manufacture under a disadvan

tage which is not nearly balanced by the bounty. Government will, no doubt, interpose to remedy this abuse.

We cannot conclude this article, extended as it now is, without entreating all who take an interest in the subject, steadfastly to oppose every scheme for providing employment for the poor of Ireland, by grants of money, or by the aid of bounties on particular articles. Such palliatives and anodynes may lengthen, but they can never cure, a disease which has fastened on the vitals of the country, and vitiated its whole public economy. The case of Ireland is too desperate to be treated in this way. When the measures we have suggested for allaying the violence of religious and party contentions, for attaching the inhabitants to government, and for maintaining the peace of the country and the security of property, shall have been adopted, then, but not till then, capital will flow to Ireland as a place of advantageous investment. But until these things have been done, the forced transmission of capital to that country, by the agency of government, will merely act as a stimulus to population, and will thus really aggravate all the evils it was designed to alleviate. It is not by such puny measures— by the miserable quackery of bounties and forced loans-but by drying up the sources of disaffection, misery, and crime, that Ireland is to be improved. It is indeed the merest delusion possible, to suppose, so long as the various causes of outrage and degradation we have specified are suffered to spread their roots and scatter their seeds on all sides, that it is in the power either of individual or of national charity to arrest the tide of ruin that is now deluging the country.

We have thus, for the second time, endeavoured to show, by a minute and detailed enquiry into the state of Ireland, that the miseries and atrocities which afflict and disgrace that unhappy country are not the result of uncontrollable causes, but that they all have their origin in, and are, in fact, the natural and necessary consequences of vicious political and civil institutions and misgovernment. The question, therefore, which parliament and the country are now called upon to decide, and none more important ever engaged their consideration, is, whether they will continue, at all hazards, to support the institutions and system of government now established in Ireland, and attempt to put down disturbances by the gibbet and the sword, or set about making a thorough reform of the abuses which have filled her with misery and crime, and endeavour to bind her inhabitants to their interests by a sense of gratitude for benefits received and advantages conferred? The statements we have laid before our readers, as well as every principle of justice and expediency, and the experience of centuries, show, beyond all controversy, how this question ought to be decided. As Englishmen as lovers of equal and impartial justice-we owe reparation to Ireland for the wrongs she has suffered at our hands; and we owe it for our own sakes. It depends entirely on our future conduct, whether Ireland is to be rendered our best friend and ally, or our most dangerous and mortal foe. If we treat her with kindness and affection, if we redress her wrongs, and open a path to wealth and prosperity, the Union will cease to be nominal, and the two countries will be firmly and inseparably united; but if we obstinately persevere in our present system, if we continue to treat six-sevenths of her people as an enslaved and degraded caste, and to cherish all the gross and scandalous abuses which have cast them into the depths of poverty and vice, they will certainly endeavour (and who shall

blame them?) to wreak their vengeance on the heads of their oppressors: dissension, terror, and civil war, will rage with increased fury and violence; and our ascendency will be at an end, the instant it cannot be maintained by force of arms!

Since the commencement of the Edinburgh Review, the state of Ireland has occupied its constant and unvaried attention. The numerous articles on this important subject are valuable for the mass of information they contain respecting the moral, intellectual, and political condition of the Irish people. In addition to the Essays on the Catholic Question, to which I have elsewhere referred in a note, the reader may consult Vol. v. p. 152. Vol. x. pp. 116. 299. Vol. xii. p. 336. Vol. xiv. p. 151. Vol. xix. p. 95. Vol. xx. p. 346. Vol. xxi. p. 340. Vol. xxix. p. 114. Vol. xxxi. p. 441. Vol. xxxiv. p. 320, Vol. xxvii. p. 60. Vol. xli. p. 143. Vol. xliii. p. 461. Vol. xlvi. p. 433. Vol. xlix. p. 300.

END OF VOL. VI.