A Statistical Account of the British Empire, exhibiting its Extent, Physical Capacities, Population, Industry, and Civil and Religious Institutions. By J. R. M'Culloch, Esq., assisted by numerous contributors. Second Edition, Enlarged. London: Printed for Charles Knight & Co. 1839 [pp. 416-450]

422 M' Cuiloe~'s Britisk Empire. [JULY
moted by better feeding the poor, who were all excluded
from any interest in the soil; and, with the help of the pauper
~orde from Ireland, its population was doubled in 77 years.
If; apart from the condition of the people, the increase be
matter of rejoicing, then there is more joy for Ireland than
England. This fact is a sore thorn in the side of our author,
and he struggles hard to forestall the proper conclusion. He
is obliged to bring forward, among others, what appears to
be the true reason of this great growfl~ of Irish population,
the subdivision of the large farms, to which the landlords,
many of them absentees, were tempted by the double motive of heavy rents, and increased political influence. This
splitting of farms was precisely the opposite of the process
in England, where they were consolidated, and the retiring
occupiers converted into poorly fed labourers, and confirmed
paupers. If the stern policy which prevailed for several
centuries in England in regard to the poor had been continued after their expulsion from the land, and if in consequence they had been left to the benefit of the voluntary
system, without a rood of land to raise a root, then the
check would have been complete, and their numbers must
have rapidly diminished. In Ireland the land was again restored to the possession of the people upon terms most ruinous indeed, to their independence of mind, and to their
hopes of accumulating property, but with some guarantee
against starvation. We can readily imagine how much
more marriages would increase among those who could
hope for a home, of their own, however humble and for food
the produce of their own labour, than among those who
could have no home, and were wholly dependant on charity
for food and raiment. Doubtless the potatoe has done its
part, as alleged, in feeding the growing hordes of Ireland,
and doubtless it would have done the same for England, if
the people had been in condition to plant and dig for themselves.
~Ir. M'Culloch thinks that if a compulsory provision for
the poor had existed in Ireland, the landlords so tempted by
"exorbitant rents offered for small patches of land," would
have been deterred by the liability to which they would have
exposed their estates, for the support of the infirm and destitute among these small occupiers, from this practice of spliting farms, carried to such extent, that "swarms of cotters are
hutted over the land." Let it be noted that these cotters,
ground as they are to the dust by "exorbitant rents" and