nner in which the expounders of the views of Government, as well as
many others, managed, when it suited them, to confound two things which
should have been kept most jealously distinct,--(1.) What was best for
the Famine crisis itself; (2.) What was best for the permanent
improvement of the country. The confounding of these two questions led
to conclusions of the most unwarrantable and deceptive kind. In the
present instance, the Prime Minister himself seems to fall into the same
mistake; or he goes into it with his eyes open, that he may be able to
draw conclusions to suit his purpose. The proposition laid down by him
is by no means unreasonable in itself; in fact it may be accepted as
true: the fallacy is, that he keeps out of sight the peculiar
circumstances of the case, and puts his proposition stripped of those
circumstances, which should greatly modify it, when applied to Ireland,
as she then was. Here is the Premier's argument: Smith O'Brien, in the
extract quoted, said it was found to be a great evil in England, before
the Poor-laws were revised, that employers, instead of choosing their
own workmen, had them sent to them by the parish authorities. This
produced two bad results: (1.) The men did not give a good day's work,
and so the employer was injured; (2.) In practice it was found most
demoralizing to the labourers themselves, destroying their independence,
and paralyzing individual enterprise. Lord John assents most approvingly
to all this, and then applying it to the existing state of Ireland,
says, that by such a system still greater dangers would have ensued, and
that one of the most pernicious acts which a Government could do would
be to adopt it, for it would deprive labourers of their independence,
and thus permanently injure the great and important class to which they
belonged. The fault in this reasoning is plain enough. If the system
recommended for ensuring reproductive employment were to be a permanent
arrangement, the evils which resulted from it in England would, in all
likelihood, result from it here--for the time being; but the
demoralization of labour would not, in the case, be greater than that
already in existence on the Public Works, from which there was no
reproduction; nor could it be near so great as what he was about to
propose that the people should be fed without any labour, or labour test
whatever. But nothing done to counteract the Famine should be regarded
as a permanent arrangeme