urable circumstances, reduced from nine thousand men (its present
strength) to half that number; and if the people abstained from
houghing the cattle or burning the houses of those who are obnoxious
to them, the county rates would not amount to more than one-third of
the sum at present levied. Thus, then, the amount of the only direct
tax the peasantry have to pay, is mainly dependent on the peaceable
condition of the country: if the people be orderly and obedient to the
laws, its amount is reduced; if otherwise, and they have heavy
assessments to pay, to reimburse those they have injured, no one is to
blame for it but themselves. We would, then, ask any candid man, if it
would be possible for any government to act more leniently towards
Ireland as regards taxation? She is exempt from her proportion of the
nine millions levied from the other portions of the United Kingdom;
and many of the local assessments to which her inhabitants are
subject, were, by special enactments, removed from the shoulders of
the occupiers of the soil, and placed on those of the proprietors.

Thus, then, under the head of taxation, no injustice can be said to be
committed.

The extent of the Irish representation, and the laws regulating the
elective franchise, both in the cities and counties, form a prominent
portion of Irish grievances; yet if the efficiency of the
representation is to be judged by the influence which it exercises on
the councils of the empire, or the registration laws be tested by the
results which they have produced, the Irish have little reason to
complain of either. The very exemption from taxation to the amount we
have already stated, proves one of two things--either that the British
minister and British representation are peculiarly partial to the
interests of Ireland, (which would destroy the favourite doctrine of
"English hatred and Saxon oppression;") or that the Irish
representation is powerful enough not only to protect their
constituents from injustice, but to secure them peculiar advantages.
That the amount of representation already enjoyed by Ireland is _at
least_ sufficient for all constitutional purposes, cannot be doubted;
for every one knows that by the Radical portion of it alone, an
administration odious to the people of Great Britain, and rejected by
their representatives, was for years kept in office, and that through
its instrumentality both Whig and Tory ministers have been compelled
to abandon measur