CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 82, 6 April 1880, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE IRISH FAMINE. To the Editor op the ' Evening Mail/ Sir— lt produces feelings of profound emotion in the breast of every human beiDg to find that the unavoidable distress in Irelaud has brought out the great redeeming feature of universal brotherhood. At the same time it must be admitted that if every like evil produced by defective laws is to be met by private charity, Government is not likely to set to in earnest to examine into the causes of starvation in so wealthy a country as Great Britain- -so lavish of her blood and treasure in unjust and impolitic wars. This morning, in the course of reading, the following remarks struck me as worth reproducing. They occur in Professor F. Newman?s lectures on Political Economy: — "In widespread famine, as in pestilence and in war at the doors, it needs a high moral enthusiasm in a nation to save it from • being depraved. Severe affliction may make the good better, but it generally makes the bad worse. Through such times, therefore, every nation scrambles as it best may; and wisdom has very little scope. "But if famine be an habitual danger, in a climate and soil not unfertile, and with a people not disposed to manage the crops, it is manifest that there i 3 some great political injustice in the fundamental institutions, which will either ruin all orders or at length precipitate revolution. " Such was the state of France in the 18 th century — such has been the state of Ireland in the lgth and first half of the 19th. Had not the might of England crushed the Irish poor they would twice and three times have imitated the French: the oppressive claims to the soil would have been swept away, and the present genCr°'i? 11 nf their peasants would bo freeholders, rich and happy in comparison. ••If England, for her own reasons of policy, chooses to put down these agrarian rtvoltsj she is bound in conscience, in honor, and in prudence, to extirpate their causes. "It was not a Poor Law that Ireland needed in 1830-40 (the Poor Law perhaps has impoverished the landlords without good to the peasants), but it was — a secure possession of the soil. s' Probably no English Htatesman coull have carried such a measure; with that I have nothing to do; but the Prussian Government did, and saved their country. This is what would have been done had we been more enlightened. " That a cottier nation, to whom land is needful to life, should be liable to rent rising with their own exertions, and be ejected at the landlord's pleasure — should also be prohibited from tlie waste lands, or be forced to pay by their own improvements, is a state of law so immoral that I fear to utter the epi.hets.which rise to my lips. 11 Since the great famine Ireland lies suffered large — large emigration has taken place, and much change from the sale of encumbered estates. These great calamities would never have occurred i£ justice had been done to the peasants in 1829 as to the Roman Catholic gentry. "On both sides the Channel the rich need exceedingly to learn some truths obvious to \ common men; our Judges also, and our Parliaments need to enforce them: such' as — That God made the solid land for something else than to pay rent ; and that the leuaut who improves the soil, aud not the landlord, has a right to every tittle of the increased value." There is a careless ana flippant way of disposing of Irish affairs; , every unprejudiced man who has visited that bcautif al country, and spent his time with the people, will acknowledge the truth k>£ Professor Newmans observations. No Vie eva accuse tlje

Prof essor of an undue share of enthusiasm or political bias.— l am, &c , E. Tuckbb. ,March 18, 1800.